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The king had other appointments so Riou left him to his thoughts.

Stepping out of the room the boy went on his way back to the guest wing. The corridor leading to the main part of the castle was long and wide with very few windows to keep it fully bright.

Riou noticed that the far end of the corridor had been opened. A figure stepped through it. Clean shaved and very short black hair, wearing a long yellow cape and the official knight uniform. Riou recognized him from the feast, it was the third knight general.

The yellow caped man was strutting through the corridor, which gave him an arrogant and conceited posture in the eyes of the boy. Riou just forced a smile as they approached and continued walking forward.

-----------------------Yellow Knight point of View

As he entered the corridor leading to the Royal wing, he noticed the infamous boy coming through it.

‘Fools, all of them…’ he thought to himself as he saw the boy, ‘This boy is clearly a pawn for that half elf… It’s so obvious that their story is a ruse. Found near the forest? What a joke. But I must admit that they are moving fast” thought the man seeing that the boy was coming from the Royal wing, which could only mean he was speaking with the king.

“But they are far too late” He thought as he passed by the boy. The knight had a haughty smirk, a reflection of his thoughts, he looked to the boy from above. With the certainty in mind that he would crush the Magus endeavors before they could even take form.

They passed each other and walked a few more steps, as the knight was about to open the door he turned to have one last look at the boy.

To his surprise, the boy was standing in place, just a few steps away from where they crossed paths. He looked at him with a serious face and piercing eyes.

‘He knows…’ instinctively thought the knight. A sense of fear filled his mind for a moment, before he could subdue it.

‘Impossible, he can’t possibly know anything…’ he smiled and quickly turned away ‘Better take care of this boy first... just in case” and continued on his way.

----------------------- Back to Riou

‘Interesting…’ He noticed the knight was a bit too interested in him since the feast, and his expression just now was far more sinister than it should be, it was not disdain, it was something else. Since the thoughts of betrayal were still fresh in his mind, Riou decided to take a different approach and test something.

‘It’s normal for them to look down on me, but that was not your ordinary disdain… And that second look and reaction to my stare… I don’t like it, that guy is definitely up to something, I have to tell Max about him’

Riou continued on his way as the knight was gone, proceeding back and descending the stairs to the ground level of the castle.

With his appointment done, he went back to his room. Inside the room, there was now a small wooden tub and 2 large water buckets ‘Finally! That maid is a saint!’ he thought while approaching the wooden tub, it clearly couldn’t fit a grown person, even him in his current size could only barely sit inside while leaving his legs out.

He took off his clothes and promptly sat down on the tub to be sure he really could fit on it.

He then began to pour the water from one of the buckets, but he miscalculated it, the water was cold and the thermal shock went all over his body before he could jump out of the tub in disarray.

‘The water is way colder than I thought! Let’s try to do something about it’

Riou put his hand inside the water in the bucket and used magic to heat it, very slowly.

He was still not as good as he wanted to be, but that month training with Max sure helped him understand how to better control and limit his power. He was more than capable of doing some simple stuff like heating water.

Next to one of the buckets he saw an old soap with some dark round dots all over it.

After pouring the water into the tub from one of the buckets, he got inside.

The water quickly got brownish due to the dirt of his body. Feeling immersed in filth he had to change that water so he could relax a bit..

So he got an idea. Using magic, he tried to transfer the water from the tub, back to the bucket.

But still that was nowhere near what he wanted to do. So he went by the window and looked down. Seeing no one he poured the dirty water on the earth below.

He then approached the tub and put his right hand above it. ‘In theory this should work’ he then commanded the mana to condensate the humidity in the air, adding his own mana to the equation to intensify the outcome and even heat it up in the process.

From his hand water streamed down to the tub, like an open tap, quickly filling it over with warm clear water. He could finally immerse himself in it.

Riou got back inside, ‘this is more like it’ he intended to relax while cleaning himself properly.

‘It’s not a bathtub but I have some modest comfort at least’

Since it took him so long to be able to take a simple bath, he intended to enjoy it thoroughly.

After a couple hours of a relaxing bath, he proceeded to wash his clothes and put them to dry on a chair near the window.

The afternoon approached and the weather was changing. Thick, dark clouds were taking over the sky.

He put on his lord’s attire, only having two sets of clothes was a problem, he realized that he should have bought some new clothes at the city while walking with Max. And thinking about the mage Riou realized it’s been awhile since he had seen him, he was supposed to come to his room, but so far he didn’t show up.

Riou thought it strange that he was not in the king's study room in the first place, ‘Could he be in another part of the castle? Or perhaps gone to the Drinking Bear? No, he wouldn’t go there without telling me’

It was lunch time when he left his room and went to the kitchen, once again wanting to avoid meeting the other guests.

Riou ate and searched for Max in the castle. In all places he could go, he even asked the guards if they had seen him. But strangely, the mage was nowhere to be found.

Thinking he might have left, Riou decided to visit the front of the gates.

“Excuse me, did you guys know if the great Magus passed by today?” asked the boy to the guards.

“I cannot say I have many people left today, nobles, knights and court mages. But the Great Magus was not amongst them!” Said the guard proudly and vigorously.

If he had a cellphone Riou could call him, but that convenient technology was far away. ‘Well, he is probably busy, I will wait until he shows up’.

Without much else to do, he went towards the backyard gardens as instructed by the princess.

The whole gardens were set upon long steps like the front, but these were all irregular width. They started wide from the castle and went all the way to the walls getting smaller as they got closer to it. They leveled the whole place to a plain terrain in each step. There were paths and connections everywhere to make the access between them easy since each step was a bit high.

As Riou walked to the backyard and looked at the sky, the clouds that approached earlier had arrived and seemed very close to the castle.

A big part of the walls in the back were closed that day, all garrisons were with windows and doorways closed, it seemed like nobody guarded the far back of the walls for some reason.

There was a well near the kitchen door at the back of the castle. It was very deep and was the main source of water, ‘they could use a pump to get the water up faster’ he thought while looking down the deep well.

The gardens were empty, ‘The guard mentioned everyone had left, but this place looks like a ghost castle now’

He followed the path in the middle of the garden that led towards the training hall.

Large, one story building with stone walls and wooden roof. It was very long and wide.

As he approached the entrance he heard chatting coming from within.

The door was wide open and Riou was able to peek inside. He sees the princess and in front of her there was a red haired girl, the same one he saw sitting with court mages. Both were wearing training attire.

The princess prepared herself as the Red Haired girl pointed her right hand to the princess and began to chant in elven language. A fire, big as her hand, formed instantly.

With a quick motion she shot a fireball in the princess's direction. Eileen didn’t even flinch and in a upward movement with her hand she created a quick barrier in front of her.

Riou was impressed.

The fire exploded at the barrier that remained intact.

The red haired girl repeated the moves and created an even bigger flame. She quickly shot it at the princess once again.

But this time the barrier could barely hold of the flame and showed fractures after the impact.

“What did I tell you? You should chant while using the protective spell Eileen. It improves and reinforces the spell. The barrier would have been much stronger” said the red haired girl approaching the princess.

“I should be able to perform a decent barrier spell without the chant” said the princess “What happens if I don’t recognize the magic being used against me? Or what if it is a silent casting of a high tier spell?” Said the resolute princess.

“You are too worried, very few mages can do that… besides, that’s another reason for you to have a quick chant barrier spell ready all the time. Or then think about getting a rune barrier so you don’t need to form a spell from scratch.”

“Maybe, but there could be a time where I don’t have the time nor the preparation for it, this is the safest approach… You know I prefer to train and improve my own capabilities and not depend on something else.” Answered an even more resolute and convinced princess.

The red haired girl then noticed someone watching at the door “Seems like we have company”

The princess promptly turned to see Riou standing by the doorway. She didn’t lose time. “Please come to Riou, we were just having some magic lessons” Said the princess in a rather pleased mood.

The red haired girl recognized him, “You are the boy from the king’s feast, the one that fought the princess in the second duel” Said the girl trying to understand why he was invited in so nicely by the princess, especially the fact that she even seemed happy to see him there.

“Riou agreed to spar with me after our magic lesson” Explained the princess, introducing them as he approached.

“Lilly, this is Riou, a friend of mine. Riou, this is Lilly Eilidh Fernis, a court mage of Longart”

Riou greeted her properly. “Please, I didn’t mean to intrude your lesson, if you don’t mind me watching, do continue” Said the boy politely.

“Are you interested in magic as well?” Said a cautious Lilly, as if investigating the boy’s reasons. Magic lessons were secretly held, and a watchful eye could prove most disastrous.

“Riou certainly knows something, I heard from Bhalrom he took lessons every night from Maximilian himself” Interjected the princess in an elated tone.

Lilly was very surprised.

“The Great Magus? He hasn't had a formal apprentice for the last fifty years or so… are you saying this boy is his apprentice?” Said very surprised looking towards Riou with a tad of envy in her tone.

Before the situation went out of control Riou explained “No! Nothing like that, it’s true that we talked and he showed me a few tricks but that was the extent of it”

Lilly's eyes widened, she couldn’t contain her surprise… “He showed you…some... tricks? The Dragon Slayer himself, showed his spells to you?” Said the Red mage clearly envious.

“You make it sound a lot more than it really was… he tested me after I was found, he said I had very standard magical capabilities, but since I was unable to use them properly, he tried to show me the basics. But to tell you the truth, it wasn’t of much use to me as I couldn’t understand his methods. So we basically just chatted about it”

“That was to be expected, very few could understand his level of spells” said the red mage.

“See Lilly” Said the princess “No need to get so worried, and it’s not like we are using high tier magic anyway. It’s just a simple battle scenario” Said the princess defending the boy.

Lilly knew the princess for a long time, they were friends even before both of them went to the Magic Academy. Lilly’s father was a noble under the king’s court so she was constantly visiting the castle to play with Eileen.

And all those years she hardly saw the princess acting this friendly towards anyone, much less a man. Which left her intrigued, the boy somehow befriended the Magus and the princess in a suspicious short amount of time.

‘I must keep an eye on him, something's not right about this’ she made a mental note to herself while nodding in agreement to the princess.

Lilly stepped back into position once more.

Riou gave them space and sat down on the floor, near one of the pillars to lean against it. There wasn’t much furniture inside the training hall, the floor and the columns supporting the ceiling were made of wood and disposed of in a way to leave the center of the training hall with plenty of space.

Looking around he could see real and wood replicas of weapons of all kinds, all displayed or hanging hanging in the walls around. Varying from big halberds, all models were very similar to the ones he saw in the weapon shop.

Riou noticed the swords variety were the most numerous amongst the weapons, but were not impressive at all, he knew thousands of weapons from his world and the ones displayed there were nothing out of the ordinary.

Most were two edged blades similar to knight’s straight swords, just with different sizes and hilts.

“Try chanting this time princess” Said the Red haired mage conjuring once more the big fireball as she did before.

The princess started to chant in elven. As she finished, Lilly threw the fireball once more in her direction, but this time the barrier was thicker and much stronger than before.

It consumed the fireball completely and held itself in place as if nothing happened.

“See? It takes too long,” complained the princess.

“But it is effective… if you want more power, learning how to tap into the spirit pool will help it” Retorted Lilly.

Riou ears got up ‘Spirit?’ He remembered Max telling him about it, but at the time he didn’t pay too much attention as it seemed more nonsense.

“If I may ask… What is this spirit thing? And what does it have to do with chanting?” asked the curious boy.

‘Everybody knows that… is he playing us for a fool?’ Thought the Red haired girl as she was getting visibly angry by his question. But before she could say anything the princess jumped in.

“Spirit magic is the mana that is here from the realm of the spirits. A person is able to tap into it more easily by chanting the words of power to borrow it for the spell. But chanting takes time and is not very useful in hands on combat” Said the princess politely explaining the topic.

“Why is the chanting in this other tongue?” Asked Riou right after the princess explained.

“Well, because it’s the shortest one which we can provide the words of power, it can be done in any language, as the meaning of the words is what really matters” Continued Eileen.

Riou pondered for a moment ‘I need to try this later on, if there is no language restriction it might work even for me’ he concluded.

“Thanks Eileen, I think I understand it better now” Said Riou very politely.

“E-i-leen!?” Stuttered Lilly. Clearly surprised by the casual way Riou directed at the princess, and immediately looked at her.

The princess just smiled, finding all very natural.

A bright flash suddenly filled the room, followed by a resounding thunder that made the stone walls tremble vigorously. Everyone in the training hall looked around startled, the lightning strike was way too close to them.

Lilly seemed excessively preoccupied “I will take a look outside, you two wait here” She said running towards the entrance of the hall. But as soon she stepped out and looked around, Riou could see the surprise in her face. She quickly began to speak and raise both her arms in front of her in a circular manner.

Suddenly another flash, the court mage is thrown away violently, hurled out of their sight.

Eileen's eyes widened and with a very apprehensive face, she whispered “It must be a high tiered mage that can invoke lightning” despite her anxiousness, she seemed calm and focused.

“Ok, we need to get back to the castle then. But how do we do that?” Replied Riou.

Eileen agreed and began to move slowly to the door to take a look, Riou was impressed how collected she was in that situation, she clearly had been trained for it.

Riou looked at the metal swords and quickly grabbed one from the wall. They couldn’t see anyone, so Riou stepped outside first, followed by her.

Towards the rear walls he finally saw in the garden, a dark robed man calmly walking in their direction.

To the sides, on top of the walls, 2 more black hooded figures moved faster, one on each side of the walls.

No alarms were triggered and no guards were moving. ‘Why is there no one sounding any alarms? Someone should have come to check this by now!’

Their robes were very dark and the hood covered their faces almost completely. Riou kept an eye on the one in front while continuously checking the ones farther away to his sides.

Behind him was Eileen, she was taking a fighting stance, she intended to fight the mages with her spells. And farther behind her, towards the castle. The court mage was down on the ground, she was not moving. Probably in bad shape after such a hit.

The black mage started to get closer and raised his hand.

Riou suddenly felt the hair on his body stand up on its own ‘Electricity!’ he quickly realized. Having an idea how to counter it he poured magic into his iron sword giving it a strong charge to attract the lightning to it, while charging his own body to avoid it.

He promptly planted the charged iron sword in the ground and took a step back turning towards Eileen, he touched her shoulder as well.

The sword was suddenly struck by a violent lightning, startling both of them that quickly turned to it. Luckily both were alright and the sword was still in place “It worked! We weren’t electrocuted”

He glanced at Eileen while facing the mage “Get the court mage and get in the kitchen. I will follow you shortly after,” Riou was very confident in whatever he was planning and the princess quickly agreed to it.

She could not grasp completely what was happening after the loud lighting strike. But she could see in his eyes and his tone that he had a plan, that was not the moment for discussion so she just acted.

Trusting him she quickly turned and ran towards Lilly.

Riou didn’t lose time, as soon Eileen was moving he started running at the black mage in an inhuman speed.

The dark figure was still confused as to why his lightning didn’t hit him in the first try but he quickly resumed his spell when he saw the boy coming in his direction very quickly.

Riou did not want to display his magical capabilities there, it was too volatile besides, he didn’t know who else could be watching them.

He had to resort to melee attacks.

The black mage was chanting in a strange tongue, which gave Riou enough time to cover the distance to the mage.

‘The princess was right, it takes too much time to chant’

He had the mage on his reach when the lightning spell lashed out from the dark mage’s hands.

But as if the lighting moved by its own will, it danced around the boy, completely avoiding him by itself and dissipating into the ground and air.

The black mage could not understand what happened, but before he could recover from the mental shock, Riou was already attacking.

Infusing his hands and arms with mana, Riou brought his right arm low and then struck the man’s belly with a quick upward movement with a huge force.

The blow was too much, the man fell on his knees, breathing with difficulty and completely nauseated. Riou completed the combo with a hook to the man’s jaw, causing him to fall down unconscious.

The boy looked at his hand amazed by the results. Using mana to protect his hands and boost his strength did cause much more damage than he expected on the mage.

The man fell and revealed his face. Completely bald with strange markings in his forehead. Marks that resembled the runes Max used on his parchments. He had light colored skin and was very thin, almost in a sickly manner.

The boy wanted to keep him alive for questioning, but there was too much going for him to get him to the guards or even to a prison, still he didn’t want to let the man escape.

He looked around to make sure no one was paying attention to him, he thought he just needed to bind and hide him.

The wall of the training hall was nearby, he pointed his finger to the man and then to the training hall stone walls. An eruption of wind suddenly hurled the man violently in that direction, splatting him against the stone very hard.

‘Shit! Shit! Shit! Did I kill him?’ Riou ran towards the man to find him completely broken on the ground.

Riou needed to get a better control of his magical powers.

Approaching the body Riou noticed was still breathing, with certain difficulty but was still alive. Seemed like he had a broken leg and arm. ‘Shit, I hope he lives through this…’

So to be sure he would not flee with some strange magic, Riou tried to conjure a magical chain to hold him in place.

The chain was white, almost translucent with a thin blue glow. He assumed it could last for a couple of hours, giving him plenty of time to come back later and check on him. With his mind at ease he decided to join Eileen.

The two mages were gone from the walls and probably were already inside the castle.

The princess was still checking Lilly’s condition near the kitchen entrance.

Riou quickly approached her.

“How is she?”

“Unconscious, she was able to create a quick barrier that absorbed most of the damage, but I think she hit her head hard while tossed this distance” Said the princess relieved seeing that Lilly was not dead..

Riou picked up the unconscious mage in his arms. She was small and easy to carry. “Let’s get out of the open,” he said as they began to run towards the castle.

They entered the kitchen, its close access to the royal wing meant there should be guards nearby.

Riou laid down the Red haired mage on the kitchen floor, close to one of the central tables. He turned to the princess and whispered “Stay with her Eileen, I will take a look around. There are at least two more of those black hooded men to worry about”

Without waiting for the princess' response, he moved. Silently approaching the door to the castle’s interior.

He noticed a cutting knife on top of a table nearby and grabbed it, a small weapon was better than none. He then proceeded to leave the kitchen into the corridor that led towards the stairs to the royal wing.

The objective was to find a guard and inform what was going on.

Eileen was left behind. Riou was gone before she could even respond to him.

She couldn’t help but to have some sense of respect and amazement towards the boy’s actions so far. She didn’t know how he did it, but the mage that took out Lilly was nowhere to be seen after he went after him.

The confidence and focus he passed on to her was something else, he was so calm, so focused... As if he had been trained for these situations and knew exactly what he needed to do.

------------------

Riou was on the move, the enemy was probably after the king or something he possessed. So it was more likely for them to attack the Royal wing of the castle.

So he quickly and skillfully ran up through the stairs without making any noise while on the lookout for the enemy.

Arriving at the top floor and entrance to the Royal wing, he saw the usual two guards. One was down by the door, in a pool of his own blood. The other was ripped apart and spread across the corridor as if it were a horror show.

Riou swallowed hard, it was the first time seeing such a gruesome sight in real life. The smell and colors were all too vivid.

But to be honest with himself, he thought he’d be more shocked with such a scene. Strangely to his own understanding, he was able to force his mind out of that state and back to focus on the task at hand.

‘They were attacked quickly, one even died where he stood. It must have been some powerful magic to do all that. And I don’t see any aftermath of the magic in the surroundings either… Did they use wind? Telekinesis or just some brute force?’

Thought Riou while passing through the two bodies while trying to avoid all the blood.

The boy knew the enemy should be close now and decided to step up his infiltration skills. He tried to use his mana to create some sort of spell to buff his movements while increasing his stealth ability.

He started by moving faster and silently, adjusting the spell as he went on, didn’t take long for him to be moving almost like a shadow between the dark spots of the rooms, he was very hard to spot and moved swiftly and inconspicuously as if he wasn’t even there.

He finally reached the open door of the studies room, there were no guards and no signs of the enemy so far.

Hearing noises from within, he positioned himself and peeked inside still covered by the shadows.

Inside, he could see a dark one talking to the king.

“Drop the sword, or the queen dies” Said the man in a dark robe and with a hoarse voice. He was holding the queen in one of his arms.

An eerie silence followed.

“You too knight… don’t think I forgot about you there”

Riou heard the sound of metal hitting the ground followed by another one in the sequence.

“Very good… There is no one to save you now. You dismissed your best troops from duty, the knights and court mages are far away and your queen is in my hands now.”

“What do you want?” asked the king.

“I wonder how Torwald will react when he finds out that you let his precious daughter and granddaughter be kidnapped… right under your nose and from inside your big and well guarded castle” said the dark one in a mocking tone, clearly taking his time to infuriate the king.

The king was about to blow in anger.

“You think that we weren’t prepared to deal with that kid you call a court mage? We knew she would be with the princess. By now your daughter is already gone… and the queen here will follow her soon enough. But don’t worry, we will not kill them immediately. We intend to have lots of fun first and let Thorwald hear all about it” He was enjoying tormenting the king.

“You bastard! I will kill you and all your kind before that happens!” The king was enraged.

“Where is this hope of yours coming from? Hmm, could it be you are expecting someone to come save you? Someone powerful? Maybe the Great Magus perhaps? Barging through the castle with his powerful spells, saving the day as in one of his tales” Said ironically to the king’s surprise.

Elrik realized by that man’s tone that they were completely prepared for everything.

“You shouldn’t put so much faith in that fake Magus of yours. He is not coming, he was the first we took care of” He said in a low and grimly tone “Like I said, there is no one left to help you now, all you can do is watch while I take your queen away”

Riou was taken by surprise when he mentioned Max. But the sense of urgency brought him back to focus, he knew he had to do something before the robed man acted.

He could see that the black mage was holding the unconscious queen with one arm while the other arm was holding a dagger to the King and Bhalrom. He was slowly moving towards the door with his back, facing the king and the knight inside at all times.

Riou couldn’t allow him to cast any spell or harm the queen, it was time to act, so he mustered courage and waited for the right moment. He had to kill that man before he could do anything, for that there was only one attack that came to his mind.

“I might kill the knight, but you... king. I will let you live to face the despair that will follow” He spoke in almost ecstasy, followed by a really disturbing laughter “Hahahaha-ha….”

His laughter abruptly ended.

The man falls down as if the strings that held him standing were suddenly cut off. Bhalron and the king quickly rushed towards the queen.

As the man hit the ground, both noticed the knife stuck to the back of his head, in an angle from the base of the skull and upwards.

Behind the man’s body that fell down, appeared the boy that was already holding the queen in place.

The king and the knight continued towards her, very surprised by the sudden events.

As they got her, Riou could notice that the king was still very worried. “The princess is fine, she is downstairs with Lilly” The boy said, bringing great relief to the king.

Riou then glanced at the man on the floor. Blood started to flow from the wound.

The man was deserving but nonetheless a kill like that weighed on his mind. But that was not the time to dwell in such thoughts. It was a life or death situation and they said they had gotten Max, there was no time to rest.

‘Did they really get him? But how...’