Gerath POV

The light came through the cracks in the ceiling. I decided to get ready to travel to where the forest is. However, If I wanted to travel I need funds and I could only hope the King was feeling more generous after the scare he was given yesterday. 

Walking down the hallway I realized something was wrong. There are way too many guards there. Nearly triple. Out in the distance I spotted the King but this time he had six guards with him rather than the usual two.

Walking up to him, I prepared to be greeted by the overly protective guards once more.

"Halt"

"I need to talk to the King about something important." I asked as politely as I could. 

"Spea..k" The King commanded though he seemed much more timid than usual. Wonder why.

"I need funds to travel to the [Elsewood] Forest"

"[Elsewood] Forest? Why?" The King asked.

"I suspect the first wave of calamity is going to appear there" I responded though I see the flash of fear in the King's eyes as he heard the world 'calamity'.

"What makes you say that? Even ours seers do not suspect such a thing." The King glare piercing me as if I was telling a lie.

"The Gods themselves messaged me" I quickly answered. 

He was taken back for a second before him and the guards fell into laughter.

"Hahaha. There are no Gods kid. Even if they were they have long forsaken us" He responded wiping the bit of tear in his eyes.

He was not technically wrong in that aspect but the only reason the Gods 'forsake' this world is because this world gave up on them first. 

"Forget it. You must have hit your head and began seeing hallucinations. I need you to go to meet up with the general" He commanded me.

"Why so?" I asked. 

"Those bastards at Rhieg actually dared to refuse the peace treaty I proposed..You just need to cast a few fire spells along with the mage battalion outside their castle walls to make them reconsider"

No shit. You tried to attack them just yesterday. Even an idiot would not sign a peace treaty with an idiot like you. I kept the thoughts to myself however.

"So another war?" I asked with a confused look on my face. Did he not learn anything from yesterday? 

"No. Nothing more than a skirmish. The only ones fighting will be you along with the mage battalion and hired mercenaries. Now go report to the general."

After stating his command the King just walked away with his entourage.

Didn't know what I was expecting out of him. Guess I have to use another plan.

Walking across the hallways once more I passed by a highly guarded door with four guards. The door itself had more jewelry stuck to it than the throne room. What I needed is right across that room but it would be near impossible to get in without alerting the guards. Didn't think the King would be that scared of the shadow fiend to up the amount of guards by that much.

Wait. Shadow fiend. Coming up an idea I ran outside. Look around for the perfect spot as far as I could from the castle I created a [Sustained Formation] and imbued it with [Mid Light]. Backing off and letting the formation activate the figure similar to the shadow fiend sprouted out of the ground. No wonder the King was terrified it looked rather horrifying from someone else's perspective. 

Willing my mana near my mouth I casted [Mid Sound] and bellowed out "SHADOW FIEND!". The scream was loud enough to be heard by every single person in the castle. I could hear the clanking of armor and guards withdrawing their swords rushing to where I was. 

"Over there!"

"I see it!"

"Overwhelm it!

"Don't let it harm the King!"

Quickly taking advantage of the commotion I ran back inside avoiding the guards. Running across the hallway I saw four guards running towards me. 

Just before they saw me I quickly turned around and stumbled backwards. While pointing towards the outside of the castle I screamed "It's over there! Its coming to get me!" with tears in my eyes.

The guards looked at me with pure disdain in the eyes. One of them muttered under his breath "Dam coward.." and they choose to ignore and walk to where the commotion was happening.

As soon as I saw that they left, a smile left from my face. "Way too easy" I laughed while running back towards the treasury. As I was walking to the treasury I spotted a figure in front of the door.

Dammit. There is actually a guy stationed right in front of it. Clicking my tongue I decided to go with a risky idea. I casted [Mid Light] on my entire arm making it covered similar to the shadow fiend and used [Low Water] spell near by eyes. With the best impression I could I stumbled and fell right in front of him.

He glared and me and his expression turned into a shocked one once he saw my arm.

 "Dammit it kid what the hell is wrong with your arm?" He asked with concern written on his face.

"I don't.. know... the fiend just attacked me.....I am scared....I wanna go back home... I don't want .... here." I pretended to cry while holding on to my knees in the floor in front of him. 

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"Come on kid. Get up. I will get you to someone who can fix your arm" He stretched out his hand to grab mine.

However, as he reached for my arm that was not covered with the [Mid Light] spell, I withdrew my sword and swing it right at his neck.

His body slumped down and his head rolling tossed into the air Thick liquid spurting everywhere from the nape of his neck where his head used to be. You could see the shock in his eyes. He was such a nice gu thaty I almost felt bad. Almost. Though I did feel a bit of remorse for the poor maid who would have to clean this up. I put a [Sustained Formation] on his bloodied neck with the [Mid Light] spell so it looked like the he was attacked by the fiend.

Searching his body I found the key I needed to unlock the treasury with. Placing the bloodied key in the hole for the door I opened it. I was met with a room filled to the brim with gold and jewelry. There were various ornamental swords and other weaponry lying around each stuffed with various jewels at the hilt. This collection would almost rival the Cave of Wonders. (Author's Note: Aladdin)

Time to test out the new spell. Willing my mana right next to me I spoke [Space is a boundless three-dimenionsal space where objects have a relative direction and position]. The area around the mana grew white and a small hole formed. Increasing the amount of mana in the spell the space grew bigger and bigger. I stopped the mana flow when I sensed that it could not grow anymore. until I could see what was inside of it. 

Another white room. Shocker. 

However this room had a rather limited space. It seemed around 40 by 40 room. Looked rather spacious but definitely not big enough to fit all these treasures in the room. So I only took as much as I can. The amount I took should not be enough to collapse the economy of the Kingdom. Though I highly doubt he was going to spend any of it to help the common populace anyway and just keep it in storae.

Closing the space and I reopened to make sure the items were still there. With the doubt cleared I made my way out of the treasury. By this time the guards should have realized what was happening. 

Time for the final act. Using [Mid Space] I opened the plane once more and looked for something that could hold liquid. As I found one, I poured the blood from the dead guard into it till it was full. Not like he was going to use it anytime soon.

Walking to throne room, I casted [Mid Fire] so it charred nearly everything in the room and let the blood pour to where I was standing. As I deemed the blood to be enough I walked forward dropping small amount of blood on the floor as I did so. 

With that final act done and before the guards came back, I ran out the castle.

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King's POV

An illusion. The entire castle ran into an uproar due to a illusion. Anger at the incompetence of the guards I rushed back inside only to be met with a horrific site. One of my best guards, who was tasked to guard the treasury was dead. His head cut off and with dark shadowy mass coming out his neck. I could only shake my head and look at him with pity.

Looking at the door that was opened with the key still stuck in the keyhole. I realized the purpose of the illusion.

So that's where the fiend went. The entire damn thing was a set up so that monster can rob the treasury. But how much can that monster take from here? Walking into the room I was shocked. Half the treasures were missing. Completely vanished. 

Dammit! Now we can't pay for the mercenaries.

"Your Highness! You need to come see this!" One of the soldiers came into the room panting.

I gestured at him to lead while me and a group a guards followed him. 

We reached the throne room and it left me even more shocked. The entire room was charred no doubt the work of that boy. However that was not what shocked me. There was blood directly in the center of the room slowly leading to outside.

A fight. There was a bloody fight in this room and the boy lost. 

"Look around the castle perimeter. See if you can find that boy injured or worse dead" I commanded all the soliders and guards in the room.

If that boy dies we lose our most powerful weapon against the coming calamity. 

After an hour or so from all the soliders and guards I heard the same report: Nothing. They found no traces of the boy. The fiend must have taken that boy with him. The fiend's master must have saw the boy as a threat...but why not just kill him here? 

Did the fiend's master intend to use the boy against us somehow? 

"Bring the General of the Mage battalion to me and cancel the recruitment for the mercenaries." I called out once more.

We needed to prepare for the worst.