Chapter 29

I am just an old man

‘A total of 25 cops armed with spell rifles’

Daxia quickly scans the shop with her eyes allowing her to see the cops that are still hiding in different places in the shop.

She then uses her long sleeves to obscure her hand from the sight of the cops and uses a sign language that was developed by the bounty hunters to inform Ken of their numbers and locations.

Of the twenty five cops present, seven of them revealed themselves, while the remaining eighteen remained hidden in different places inside and around the shop.

_ Grandpa you are mistaken. Why do you think we are spies? _

The sliver cat continues to plead with the old man hoping to resolve the situation peacefully.

-you were not listening properly to the king’s speech and you looked at our king with scorn –

The eyes of the silver cat grow wide from shock.

_WHAT? From that alone? What if we were not spies? What if we just disagree with the king?_

-then that would be worse. you will be traitors. The king’s speech was about restoring our stolen planet, if you disagree with that, then you are worse than spies, you are traitors to mankind and you don’t deserve to live at all –

The sliver cat looks in disbelief at the old man.

It’s one thing if the old man was purely evil but it’s clear from the way he treated them and from the way the shopkeeper treated him, that he is not.

He truly believes that he is doing the right thing.

She can not comprehend how someone can believe such an absurd thing but that doesn’t matter, what matters is that he believes it.

- it’s all right Gramps. We can handle it from here –

One of the cops, who looks to be the most senior of the group, places a hand on the old man’s shoulder to reassure him then turns to look at Saiko.

The cops wore camouflaged body armor.

It appeared to be traditional body armor, rather than the biomechanical suits worn by the police of the United world.

The extremely low crime rate inside the Kim Sungtae led to their police force being a lot more lax compared to the rest of the world.

- it’s possible there may have been a misunderstanding miss …-

_ Saiko _

- right miss Saiko –

Ken instinctively facepalms.

‘She told him her name just like that? Did she forget she is wanted?’

The officer turns to look at Ken and his now red forehead.

-should I ask? –

~no, Sir, the absurdity of the situation is just killing my brain cells~

-right. Well, as I was saying. It’s possible there may have been a misunderstanding, so if you would please come with us to the police station. We will just ask you some questions and confirm your identities then you can go on your way-

~ haaaa~

Ken lets out a short sigh.

~ Man, the people here are so nice; Insane but nice. I can’t believe your way of arresting potential spies to kindly escort them to the police station. I feel like a father telling his Kid that God doesn’t exist for the first time. ~

The invisible Naoi raises an eyebrow at Ken’s comment.

~ It’s like I am ruining your innocence. I mean you clearly never dealt with real criminals before. ~

The sliver cat blinks repeatedly while looking at Ken.

_ What are you rambling on about? _

Ken ignores her question and continues.

~ I mean it almost makes me feel bad about what I am about to do you know ~

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-what are you waiting for you idiots? These Savages are not humans don’t try to arrest them like you would arrest a human. What are you waiting for? What do you think the drills you train on are for? –

The old man shouts expecting Ken to use the naivety of the cops to attack them.

Ken smiles wickedly as his hand moves toward the demon skull hanging from his waist.

~almost ~

_NO! _

The eyes of the sliver cat grow wide as soon as she sees Ken’s hand moving toward the demon Skull.

She shouts loudly and in the next split second water erupts from the ground all around the shop and floods the shop.

Shopkeeper John blinks her eyes repeatedly.

She didn’t even realize when it happened but suddenly her shop was full of water.

Weirder still there was a bubble of air around her that took her form and extended a few inches away from her.

She extends her arm forward in an attempt to touch the water but the water moves away from her as if avoiding her.

-yep, I am definitely dreaming. I definitely passed out at some point –

John sees a vague outline of a feminine figure walking toward her in the water.

As the figure gets closer, she is able to make out its details and she realizes it’s one of the people that came into the shop with Grandpa Lee.

-oh, it’s the one who shouted before I passed out –

The girl walks out of the water and into John’s little air bubble.

_ I am sorry for what happened today. This is the money for the clothes we bought and these are for the broken windows –

The girl hands John the money before disappearing back into the water before John can say anything in response.

The last thing she saw was a beautiful full moon with crescent moons, one at each side of the full.

All three moons seemed to give off a beautiful blue ethereal glow.

-ah, I think I like that symbol. I think I should make more clothes with it –

After a few moments, the water disappears just as fast as it appeared.

John looks around to see that her shop is completely fine except for the windows the cops broke.

She also sees that the trio that came with Grandpa Lee is nowhere to be found and the cops all passed out on the ground.

As for Grandpa Lee, he is screaming his lungs out at the cops.

-you foolish bastards you can’t treat them like humans. Look what they did to you. These are animals you fools –

-are you sure they are spies, Grandpa? –

-huh?-

The old man turns to look at the shopkeeper.

- are you seriously asking me that after you saw how they attacked the cops and the shop? Do you think humans can be this barbaric? –

-well, that’s kind of my point Grandpa. The shop is fine, the cops also look fine just sleeping, and the girl even paid for her clothes and also paid for the broken windows even though she wasn’t the one who broke them. –

The old man looks around the shop to confirm what little John told him.

-hmmmm-

***********************************************************

Location: Royal Palace of Kim Sungtae

King Kim Haneul descends from the podium and starts walking toward the throne room using his royal scepter as a walking stick.

Clap clap clap

- amazing speech Royal Father –

Old King Haneul glances at his son who is clapping for him and looking at him with admiration.

- what are you doing here? Don’t you have duties to attend to? –

- what duty is higher than listening to the speech of the Kind of mankind? –

The old King sits on his throne.

- I am just an old man. I can think of many things that would be a better use of your time –

- you are the hope of the people Royal Father –

The old king looks at his child’s eyes and the eyes of the many attendants of the palace looking at him with passion and admiration.

-haaaaa –

He lets out a short sigh then lowers his head and says in a low voice.

A voice so low that no one would hear him so that he wouldn’t disappoint the gazes looking at him.

- I am just an old man. –

He complains to God.

For he is the King. Who else can he complain to?

-haaaa –

The king lets out another sigh then raises his head and looks at his head advisor.

-how is little Lavi doing? –

- her body is healthy my king, her personality as stubborn as ever, and her power is steadily rising –

The king’s heart aches from the advisor's words, for he knows why the advisor phrased his sentence in such a way.

- is there really no other way? –

The advisor bows apologetically to the king.

- I am afraid so my king. This is the only way we know to raise her power further. This is also the way the alien government uses my King –

The king’s expression becomes agitated and full of scorn.

-since when did those Alien savages become the standard for how we should act? Did our morality fall so low that it needs to be compared to them? -

The advisor flinches at the king’s sudden aggression.

- no, my king, that’s not what I meant. I meant that even they with their superior technology and resources couldn’t find another way, so another way likely doesn’t exist-

The king slams his hand on the armrest of his throne.

- keep looking. Just because those aliens didn’t find a way doesn’t mean a way doesn’t exist. They probably didn’t care to find that way in the first place. –

-a, as you wish my king. We will keep looking. –

A blue holographic screen appears in front of the internal affairs advisor.

-my king we may have an urgent situation on our hands.-

-what is it? -

The king looks at the screen then at the advisor and asks.

The advisor spreads his hands causing the holographic screen to become larger to look like a large television screen.

He then swipes at the screen causing it to flip to show the king.

the holographic screen shows water erupting from the ground in one of the remote villages and engulfing a clothes shop.

- the police received a report there were spies in the village. When they went to arrest the potential spies they were attacked by the suspects but there were no casualties-

-what information do we have on them? –

-unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of information, my king. All we know is the suspects are a group of three people 2 female and 1 male. one of the females had powerful water magic and said her name was Saiko-

The King strokes his long beard.

- a water mage called Saiko hmmm. That sounds familiar –

The king raises his hand and another blue screen appears in front of him.

He opens his list of previous reports and scrolls through them then picks a report from five months ago.

He then makes the screen grow bigger.

The large screen displays a massive water giant destroying the police force of Seoul.

- oh? Aren’t these the people who stole the Book of Knowledge? –

The prince says as he watches the battle on the screen then thinks to himself.

‘Ancient humans were truly fascinating I can’t believe we lost to those aliens’

The chief advisor's lips curl into a wide grin as excitement

- it seems fate hasn’t abandoned us my king if we can get our hands on the book of knowledge Lavi will be complete –

The old king looks at the fanatic eyes of his advisor then sighs and lowers his head.

-haaaa -

‘God all mighty, please show me another way. Why must that child suffer like that?’