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Chapter 29 - Payback

Merlin found a door 20 minutes after leaving the fork, but the door had a lock. He obviously didn’t have the key for it, but the lock in itself told him something: he had picked the wrong path. It didn’t make any sense to put a lock on the door if the tunnel really was the one leading to the royal chambers, if that really was the case, the lock would be on the wrong side of the door and the secret tunnel would have been rendered useless.

With a fire ball, Merlin melted the lock and then pushed the door open, the sight that received him forced him to hold his breath. Mountains of gold coins and gems were on the floor of the room and against the walls, what looked like the contents of a whole armory were adorning the walls, but given the dimensions of the room, it still didn’t feel packed up. Finally, a path marked by the marble tiles on the floor led towards an arch with the inscription Das wahre Licht liegt in der Dunkleheit, behind it there was a smaller room which looked like a chancel and apse of a church. Inside, a pedestal presented two long swords, there was a plate on the base of the pedestal with the inscription Er, der diese Schwerter ausübt, soll den Weg der Dunkelheit beschreiten, um das Licht zu werden, das Frieden zu dieser Welt bringt.

Merlin couldn’t help but being overwhelmed by all of this, but he soon recovered, and he decided to “help” Klausna Kingdom take care of the mess in the room. *This room is really messy, and there is an awful lot of dust in it. Now that I’m here, it’s my civic duty to help “clean” this mess.* Soon after, all the contents of the room were safely stored inside Merlin’s ring. When Merlin arrived to the arch, surprise showed in his face as he read the inscription on it. *Impossible! This… this is German! How come there is an inscription written in German in a world in which this language doesn’t exist?! Could it be that I’m not the first person from Earth having been reincarnated in this world with the memories intact? How mysterious!* Merlin advanced towards the pedestal and felt a strange energy around it. Oddly enough, even though he felt wary of that strange energy, he also felt compelled to go near it.

Merlin read the inscription on the pedestal and thought back to the inscription on the arch *The inscription on the arch said "The true light lies within the darkness"and the one on the pedestal says "He who wields these swords shall tread the path of darkness to become the light who brings peace to this world", I wonder what the real meaning behind those inscriptions is… anyway, those two swords look good, so I’ll take them too!* As soon as Merlin walked past the arch with the two swords inside his storage ring, the room with the pedestal caved in and the inscriptions on the arch disappeared like they had never been there. Merlin didn’t think much of it and returned to the fork to take the right path to the royal chambers and exert his revenge.

Returning to the fork and arriving to his original destination took Merlin almost an hour. The satisfaction he felt when he arrived at the door which led to the royal chambers was indescribable. The closest thing to it would be the satisfaction someone would feel when resolving a math problem with the right answer, after a hundred tries getting it wrong. Merlin discovered there was a two-way peephole on the door, which he used to make sure of what the situation was on the other side. The Queen didn’t usually share her husband’s bed with him, on a normal day, that was the job of his concubines. That night, though, the King was on his bed alone, and that suited perfectly well Merlin’s plan.

Opening the door, Merlin threw a sleeping powder bomb in the air and closed the door again before the sleeping powder dispersed into the room. Although Merlin had gained a certain immunity against this kind of sleeping powder through his study of alchemy, in the quantity released by the sleeping powder bomb, he would still be affected to a certain extent, and he couldn’t afford that. After waiting for 5 minutes, the powder in the air had already fallen to the floor, and Merlin stepped into the room. He moved the King to the center of the bed and started to prepare the scenario. Merlin took out the mangled corpses of the assassins out of his ring and put them on both sides of the King, then, he took out his medal of the “Council of ten” and sent his will into it.

A mana ray automatically shot out of the medal and arrived to the wall, where the symbol of the “Council of ten” appeared just above the headboard. The most strange thing about the symbol, was that it was made of fire, but unlike normal fire, that one changed between golden and black, and it was Merlin’s own creation. Several days before, Merlin was experimenting with the use of runes to fuel spells for a certain amount of time, and added a new functionality to the medals of the council.

The runes would maintain the spell active for 3 years, and they could use it to mark the places where the council had taken action, for example, to mark the house of a criminal who had been dealt with by the “Council of ten”, which would serve the double purpose of making known to the people with shady businesses that there was someone watching, and warning their enemies not to oppose them. Of course, at the moment no one knew of the newly formed “Council of ten” nor feared them, but that would change from that day onward. Merlin used the same kind of rune-based spell to engrave a message for the King above the symbol of the council:

[Klaus Klausna,

Your selfish actions provoked the death of an innocent young woman related to our organization, and no content with that, you even dared to send elite assassins to kill an innocent 6-year-old boy who had done nothing to offend you! Tough luck! The boy is under our protection, your making an attempt against his life means we’ll have to punish you in a way that will set an example for others to see! What happened to your son, you brought it on yourself, besides that pedophile had it coming too! You have sinned, and today is the day that marks the start of your penitence!

Ps: We’ll claim your life two years from now, attack the boy again and you shall receive our wrath even in your death!]

Having finished in that room, Merlin used another sleeping powder bomb on the hallway, knocking down the guards. Then, he entered the crown Prince’s room and immediately set up a soundproof barrier around the room. After blocking the door, he turned around and faced the crown Prince, who was looking at him wide-eyed. Merlin ignored him and went towards the slave girl to his side. Merlin checked the girl, and to his delight, he discovered that aside from the tore clothes, she was ok, only frightened.

Merlin expired a breath of relief, he had been able to save her before the crown Prince had his way with her. After destroying the slave collar with the same method he had previously used when Lupa and Bastet had been captured, Merlin threw sleeping powder to her face and knocked her out. She had experienced enough traumatic events for a day, and Merlin didn’t want to add to those the “treatment”he was going to give to the crown Prince! He gently moved the girl to a sofa, and confronted the crown Prince.

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Crown Prince’s POV:

Who the heck is that masked guy? Not only did he dare to interrupt my fun, he even dared to ignore me! No one has ever disrespected me to this extent! And what are those guards doing? Why did they let him pass? This must be a conspiracy to get rid of me! Well, it won’t be that easy for you, even if you bribed your way to my room, I just have to scream and the other guards of the Palace will come to my rescue!

C. Prince: “GUARDS! HELP! THERE IS AN ASSASSIN IN MY ROOM! INTRUDER! GUARDS, COME TO MY AID, NOW!”

*How come no one is coming?!* The guards as well as everyone else in this wing of the Palace should have heard me scream… Why hasn’t anyone come to help me?

Merlin: “HAHAHA! Don’t bother trying, you can scream all you want, but no one outside this room will hear a thing!”

No way! Did he cast a soundproof barrier? When did he do that? I didn’t notice a thing! Who is he? Could he be the brother of one of the girls I’ve done before? No way, those bitches were just slaves, livestock, there is no way someone would go through all this trouble to get my life just because of some slave girls… And the families of the few girls I’ve done who weren’t slaves wouldn’t dare to attack me directly nor would have the funds to hire someone at this level…

C. Prince: “Who are you?”

Merlin: “No one of consequence. Why should you care about who I am? You should care about what I am. And what am I? I’m your end! You have sinned greatly and I’m the divine punishment sent by the gods to deal with a pedophilic trash like you!”

What is that supposed to mean? Punishment sent by the gods? Like they care whether I have some fun with those slaves or not! I’ve got many enemies, I wonder which one of them would have the means to put a contract on me… *If I get out of this alive, I swear I’ll send the assassin division to eliminate all of them!*

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Merlin despised the crown Prince with all his soul, the mere thought of what would happen to Adelle, Lupa and Bastet if they ever fell into his hands was enough for Merlin to want to rip him apart. He didn’t want to get dirty with the bastard’s blood, so he changed his original plan and didn’t start by castrating him as he had previously intended.

C. Prince: “What are you going to do to me? Please don’t kill me! What are they paying you for this? I’ll double it, no, I’ll triple it! What do you say, can’t you let me off the hook?”

Merlin: “I would never let a pedophile bastard like you off the hook, but even if I did… your father messed with the wrong kind of people, and your death is part of the price he has to pay!”

After hearing Merlin’s words, the crown Prince was so scared he pissed himself. Merlin couldn’t help but chuckle when seeing that, had the crown Prince ever stopped when one of the girls he abused pissed herself due to the fear of what was expecting her? Of course not, so why should he? In addition, his death was part of Duke Risme’s agreement with Merlin, and Merlin wasn’t someone to go back on his word.

He thought for a while, and then came out with a solution. He used a modified version of his rune-based fire spell, and changing it into a cyclic loop of burning and healing. Merlin then applied it to the crown Prince’s nervous system, that way his brain registered that his whole body was on fire making him scream endlessly in pain. A short while later, the crown Prince stopped screaming, blood was running down his nose, then he fell forward, dead. The sensory overload had been too much for the crown Prince’s brain, and it had caused him a brain aneurysm which ultimately killed him.

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