After about two days, we reached the fifth kingdom on a small ship by following the water. We landed a little south of the harbor and managed to enter the kingdom without attracting attention. Our first stop was the nearest town to the harbor. As a precaution, we wore black cloaks. Even though it was the fifth kingdom, the surroundings seemed quite calm.

Our goal was to gather information from the people while attracting as little attention as possible. We had almost no information about the kingdom. To reach our goal faster, we divided into groups and tried to get information from the people. Strangely, they did not answer our questions and constantly praised the king. For some reason, I felt as if our conversations with people were being repeated over and over again.

After trying to talk to the people for a while, we regrouped in the south of the town. Unfortunately, no one had been able to gather any information about the epic or anything else.

Hiroshi tried to figure out what was going on. "People here don't know anything about the epic or the elite soldier," he said.

"Then how do we find him?" Wedan asked curiously.

I had an idea and decided to share it with the others. "We don't need to find him," I said.

"What do you mean?" Babu asked.

"The king himself gave us the information. If we go to the palace, I'm sure he'll tell us where Ronk is," I explained.

Babu disagreed with me. "Forget it," he said. "The king is working with Epic. You don't think he will give us, his enemies, this information easily."

"Then we'll get it the hard way," I replied.

Lezlie knew there was more to what she had seen. "I don't think the king is working with the epic," she said. "On the contrary, the king is working for the epic. I saw a strange glint in the eyes of the people here. It's not magic, it's something strange."

Rose agreed. "There is something strange about the people here," she said. "But more than that, no one has ever seen or recognized Epic."

"It seems to be Epic's job to make such a king look powerful in the eyes of the people," I added.

"But why would he do that?" Lezlie asked.

Our questions were increasing, but I knew we could only get answers from one place. "We'll go to the palace and find out what's going on," I said. "We'll find Ronk."

Everyone knew it was dangerous, but we had no choice. We had to be as secretive as possible. According to our information, the palace was west of the town. Quite separated from the cities and towns. This increased our suspicions. Another strange thing we learned from the townspeople was that there were only four knights in this kingdom, not five.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

This cheered us up a little, but we didn't know what we were up against. After walking for quite a while, we arrived at a palace surrounded by walls. The walls of the palace seemed to be quite thick, and there was a great silence in the palace, although there were quite powerful weapons on the hills of the palace. Even if there was no one in the palace, we couldn't put ourselves in danger, so we were determined to sneak in.

We had to break through the walls and get inside the palace to find out what was going on. Whatever happened, I had to save Ronk.

Using our powers, we easily crossed the huge wall in front of us. When we entered, we finally saw a few soldiers, but the soldiers were too few to be two dozen. For some reason, there were so few soldiers in such a large palace. We managed to get inside the palace gates, by silently neutralizing the soldiers.

No formidable opponent or knight had appeared along the way. I knew something strange was going on, but it was hard to say what. When we reached the king's chamber, I wanted to warn my friends to be careful, but as we were getting quite close, they hurried and suddenly opened the door.

From here on, there was no turning back. We entered the room, ready to attack. The throne was turned away from us and before we could react, applause erupted from the person sitting on it.

"Bravo, you've finally arrived at your destination. How does it feel?" he said in a deep tone.

Thinking it was the king speaking, I replied, "King of the Fifth Kingdom, we know you're working with the saga. We want you to put an end to it and give us Ronk."

The person on the throne spoke again to correct me. "King? No, I assure you there is no king in this kingdom. This kingdom is ours."

The man sitting on the throne stood up and with a swift movement threw the throne aside, revealing his identity. I recognized him by the claws on his hands, his eyes, and his posture. It was Ronk's son, Lokash.

"Lokash, is that you?" I asked in surprise.

I expected him to recognize me as a wolf but not in a hostile way.

"So the old man told me about you. You must be his new favorite, Ryuu," he said.

"That's not true. Your father cares for you," I replied.

"That coward doesn't care about anyone. But you came to his rescue with your team," Lokash said.

"How did you know we were coming here?" I asked.

"The leader knew you'd do it," he replied.

"Are you working for the epic?" I asked.

"Not just me. The whole kingdom works for him," Lokash said.

"What about the King?" I asked.

"As I said, there is no king. He's just one of the commoners under control," Lokash replied.

"So it's true that you have the people of the whole kingdom under your control," I said.

"The leader is much more powerful and wise than you think. But yes, he controlled the common people without the power of a king," Lokash replied.

"Lokash, you don't have to do this," I said.

"No, if anyone should stop it, it's you. People are supposed to fear the wolf clan, not respect us. Because of you, our clan has been ruined," Lokash said.

"Lokash, fear will never get you anywhere. Your father still believes there's good in you and so do I," I said.

"You'll see how much good there is in me," Lokash replied.

He snapped his fingers and summoned four paladins into the room. As Lokash and the other four paladins stood before us, Ronk was brought down from above the room, wounded and unconscious with chains attached to his arms.

"You know what you have to do if you want to save my father, Ryuu," Lokash said.

There was no other way to save Ronk and as much as I didn't want to fight him, I couldn't stand by defenseless.

"So be it," I said.