Chapter 218
The Hero King's Truth
As the war went on, the battle became harder. Not just on the Frontline, but also back in the Kingdom, only in a different form. Able men that had come of age were drafted into the army, leaving the farms and cattle tended only by the elderly and the women. This caused the price of food to rise.
I had seen Nobles sell their belongings to be able to afford to keep their lifestyle. The more unscrupulous ones raised taxes in their territory, squeezing the commoners for all they were worth.
But the people of the Kingdom stayed strong, for they believed in him, the Immortal King. The Hero King. That soon he would slay the Demon King and the nightmare would end.
I was a believer of that dream. And so did those who fought with him on the battlefield.
But the weight of that trust wore heavily on James, as he saw our men dying on the battlefield. The warm smiles of the people we knew, replaced by the cold indifference of death the next day.
As we made our way to the volcanic region of the Demon Continent, we met a Demon who spoke in the Common Tongue.
The revelation shocked us to our very core. Thus far the Demon that we met were single-minded, unintelligent creatures. But this creature was something new. With one word that we could not understand, it made Thousands of Demon back down.
It was cloven-hooved, with the head of a stallion with eyes that bulged from their sockets. standing four meters tall. It wore a woven robe like one of the Races, and upon its back was a sword, as tall as its body. The sword looked as if it was forged from fire itself.
The creature introduced himself as Yut-Tamur and challenged James to a one-on-one duel. But one look at that Demon, and we knew that it was the strongest Demon we had ever faced. Though we were loathe to admit it, James was the only one that stood a chance against it.
The duel was something that we, who had only recently reached Unrestrained Candidate stage could only witness. With one swing, the earth cracked and cliffs that had stood for hundreds of years were cleaved.
The battle lasted for a day and a half. However, we had fought for many days before, and James was losing. Seeing him at a dire state, I foolishly tried to protect him, but had my right leg separated from my body instead.
Yut-Tamur then roared at me; I remembered that my body froze with just a gaze from its savage eyes. Oddly enough, the Demon did not pursue my intervention and simply left, saying that it was fun, and was looking forward to a real battle with the Immortal King next time. I would not forget the humiliation I felt when that Demon took my leg and ate it as it left.
With my leg gone, and the Immortal King defeated for the first time. Morale was low. We returned to the camp and was sent back to Calendia to recuperate.
When we returned to Calendia, news appeared that a new type of Demons had appeared. Those capable of speech and bore a name. The other Heroes too had suffered losses from these new enemies. These Demons were later called Named Demons.
Due to my condition, James deemed me unfit to be a party member of the Hero King and let me go, despite my protests. But deep down, I knew, that James was just looking to take care of me.
While I was in my bed feeling worthless, James was fighting his own war. A war fought with double-speak and barbed tongue of politicians. One that he had little experience in fighting.
One day, after an especially hard row with the Queen, James came to my room through the window, grabbed me who was still in my nightgown, and took me to a secluded tavern in the Business District. It was a small tavern owned by migrants from the South. A place where the ale was cheap and the people could care less about the tall hooded stranger and the man in a nightgown.
That night James emptied flagons after flagons until he was well drunk. And in his drunkenness, he confessed to me of a truth that would have shattered the belief of the people.
He told me of how much he hated Calendia. Calendia and the Goddess Junnaveil. He hated Calendia for asking him to fight a war that was not his. That he was forced to marry someone who he did not care for, all while he was tortured by nightmares of his loved ones that he left back in his old world. But the one he hated the most was the Goddess, for taking him away from his family without his consent.
Horrified, I reminded him of how he should never speak of it again. “I had a beautiful soul,” the man laughed as he said this to me. “Just because I have…a beautiful soul, that bitch took me from my wife and child and consign me to this hell!!”
“Then why not run away?”
“Because despite how much I hate these, they are guiltless. If it wasn’t me, who else will take up the sword? Who else can fight against the Demon King? Because frankly, those other Heroes can’t cut it.”
What he said was not arrogance. For it was fact. James was the strongest Hero among the Seven by far. Such was Junnaveil’s Blessing. This was the man I believed, I thought at the time. The man who’d rise again and end this nightmare.
Then James told me a story that he had never told before, of the hard life he had led. Of how he earned his living by dancing and playing the piano. And how he missed it.
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He told me that in his prime, he could dance on the edge of a railing. I remembered that after that, he stole the hat of a nearby drunk and got on a table and started tapping his feet in rapid, rhythmical movement, clicking his feet on the air. It was unlike any dance I had seen before. Later he would tell me that it was called ‘tap dancing’.
Drunk as he was, he soon tripped and fell face first onto a table. Being the Unrestrained Candidate that he was, the wooden table broke without hurting him. But not before splashing the beer on the tavern owner’s daughter.
And that was when he met Irene. A beautiful young woman with tawny hair and eyes green as meadows.
A woman whose life would be entangled with the Kingdom’s fate.
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It was a year later when Moira, in the guise of a Knight, came to me and took me to small farm outside of Courandhel. There, I saw once again the woman named Irene. I had forgotten about her until that time. She was sitting on a chair with a baby in her arms in a room with all the windows closed and only a candle light the room.
The moment I saw the child with the unmistakable blonde hair and blue eyes, my heart jumped. And the fact that Moira would take the trouble to come to me would only mean one thing. The baby was James’ illegitimate child.
Moira gave me a letter from James, asking me to take care of his mistress and daughter, for fear of the Royal Family finding out and silence them. Moira could not stay long as she needed to return and aid the fight.
So, I arranged for them to be sent away to a village in my territory furthest from the Capital. Unfortunately, they were beset by bandit on the way there, along with the men guarding them. I then dispatched my men to investigate the scene. They found the baby being cared for by a pair of old farmers who found her in the bosom of her mother, who died trying to cover for her child.
My wife, who knew of this, told me to take her in as our adopted daughter.
During my distress, another upsetting news came to the Capital. One that would shook the Capital to the core
The Immortal King was dead.
It was said that he died after fighting thousands of Named Demons who ambushed him and his men in the Valley of Harut.
The whole Kingdom mourned the death of the Immortal King. Yet because his body was not found, they buried an empty coffin as a symbol. I was there, watching and empty coffin being buried in the Royal Family’s Mausoleum. All that filled my head were questions. James, dying from something so mundane? And mere bandits defeating some of my best men? I was no fool. I sensed that something was wrong.
And my senses were proven right, when Moira and Relena came to me in disguises after the funeral. They told me that James’s death was no accident. He had been poisoned by a powerful venom which rendered him incapable of absorbing Mana normally. One that only exist outside of the Demon Continent. By the time they knew of this, it was too late.
Even knowing this, he fought on for weeks after. Until he was ambushed by the Demons. However, the Royal Family hid another truth.
Due to the assault of the Named Demons, the Hero King's party's members had to lead their own armies to different areas to ensure that the path to the center of the Demon Continent was secure.
However, the Demons seemed to know this plan and managed to ambush the Hero King. The few Commanders who were tasked with the King’s reinforcement was late in their arrival. They took a longer path than the one that they were supposed to take. Military investigation said that it was a mistake, and the men who did that had been stripped off their position. But we knew better. There was no way that veterans like them would make such a fatal mistake. And upon knowing that they were connected to Ordsburg, I knew that it was not so simple.
The next few lines were blurry, as if the writer had put down his thoughts to the paper, put a harsh line across it to cover them, wrote it down, and this time, the words were rough and uneven. The writer was suppressing his rage.
He was abandoned.
I was so enraged by this that I was ready to abandon my life and made sure justice was served. However, before I managed to grab my sword Moira handed me a will. James’s will.
In it he entrusted me with the location of Grunford and the method to obtain it. He also hoped that I would take care of his wife and daughter. To let them live a peaceful life and for me not to endanger my life by seeking justice. Other than that, he also wrote at the end of the will.
"My death is my revenge."
To this day, I could not understand what he meant.
But I am old now. And I could feel the gaze of Anukara upon me.
Once my life ended, it would be the duty of the next Head of the Steelheart Family to keep this truth in their hearts.
Until the time when the truth could be revealed.
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“Wait. Now wait a minute,” Martell let out an incredulous gasp, interrupting Connie’s flow. “As far as I’ve read in the History books, The First King only had one child with Queen Johanna. There was no record of any mistresses or lovers!”
“That means the child was safe, then,” Connie mused. “Somewhere out there, a legitimate bloodline of the King capable of challenging the Calendian throne exists.”
“This…this…”
“Akula?” Illumca asked, concerned when she saw the Centaur’s lips bleeding from biting too heart.
“They betrayed their Hero, a just King who was one step away from saving Grea from the scourge of the Demons…because of greed?!” Akula growled angrily. She swung her fist to the wall, causing ancient dust to cascade down upon them, shaking the whole room. “ARE THEY MAD?!!”
“Careful! We are in a basement!!”
Akula’s shoulders were trembling from the rage she was feeling. A Hero like him should have been adored. But his reward was betrayal.
“Ah, the cup of poison that not even the First King was not immune to,” Connie closed the book with a shake of her head.
“Sorry, Connie. I…I need to go out,” Akula said as she turned her back and ascended the stairs, without waiting for an answer.
Once outside, Akula walked to the water fountain and plunged her head inside, trying to quell the anger in her head. She stayed under the water for another minute before pulling her head away, breathing haggardly.
“You okay, Akula?” Nick asked. “Some fucking shock…eh?”
“How…how can he live like that?” Her hands still gripping the sides of the stone bowl. “To hate the very people that he’s trying to save? And to be rewarded by betrayal after everything he did?”
“…” Nick lit a pipe and started puffing. “I think…once you got to a certain point, as a hero…you don’t get to choose who you save,” Nick grimaced. “Saving people, regardless of how he felt about them…I think that’s what makes him a great hero. And a damn respectable one too.”
“That’s…awful,” Akula laughed weakly. “And bleak.”
“Bleak, but true,” Nick sucked on the pipe and blew out a ring of smoke. “Question is, Akula. If you want to be a Hero, are you fine if the ones you saved do not have goodwill to you? Or are you going to save them nonetheless?”
“I…think…I…” Akula trailed off as she looked into herself. “I cannot say…I wanted to be a Hero because I wanted to be liked. But every step I take, the doubts kept getting bigger and bigger.”
“Then ask,” Nick said. “You’re still young. Asking questions to those who are more experienced is better than you just mulling things on your own. We’ve got two people who’d lived hundreds of years, right? One of them even wrote a book.”
“That’s…yeah. You’re right. I’m not smart. I should ask smarter people.”
“Wait, I don’t mean right now…aaand, she’s gone.”
The gruff Paladin tapped his pipe with a sigh. “The Royal Family…” He narrowed his gaze. “What else are they hiding…?”