Chapter 12; Aozora

“No.” The king's response was startling to me, as I was sure he would say yes. The king continued, “It would be betraying my people to say yes so easily… I won’t let you just barge in here and become king!” The king’s forehead grew viens on it, and he said, “Your methods are so flawed it makes me cringe. The fact that you would threaten innocent people…”

“The fact that you would let people be sold as slaves, no more than objects is what makes me cringe.”

“That is-”

“That you just let Futae get away with their horrible treatment of people. Sending such young people out to war…”

“How can you blame me?! I’m still fighting this war! Many just gave up!”

“With me in charge, I could win the war in 3 days.”

“You’re just spitting that out. There’s no way you could actually lead an army like that.”

“And yet I could. I could go alone and still win, let alone with an army.” The king prepared his voice, and yelled,

“Itonao!” A name? I heard that royal first names use the convention of, using Itone, removing the e, then adding 2-4 letters at the end. I think Itonao was the name of the princess?

I was right. A girl came out.

“Get rid of him and his unrightful treatment of the king…” The king uttered.

“Understood father.” The princess responded.

The princess started using magic to try to trap me, but I was too quick. I ran up to her, tapped her on the shoulder, and she fell to the ground.

“You…” The king said, as if he was speaking for his daughter.

The princess got up, and used magic on me, although it affected me, I did not die to a fatal attack.

“Wh- Who are you?” The king asked.

“Me? Oh, I’m just a young adventurer. Just 16 years old, although I look way too young for my age.”

“I won’t… S- s- surrender the throne to you…” The king said, struggling to get his words across.

“Alright. I’ll come back in… I don’t know… Probably a week or so? That probably gives you enough time to prepare… Yeah… Alright, see you in a week, pops!”

The king growled, as Redrae and I escaped.

When we got back to the cabin, Redrae asked me,

“Would you really hurt or even kill somebody for this?”

“Of course not. This is all intimidation. I gave them a week to prepare for nothing. I’ll probably not show up for about 2 weeks, then when I do show up, I’ll just tell the king, ‘Hey, could I have that land now?’ he’ll respond with trying to blow me to smithereens, and I just say, alright, you have it your way, I’ll just take over the land the political way.”

“You seem… pretty calm about this whole thing…”

“If I showed I was worried…” I paused, “It’d just get in the way of my goal.”

A week passed by. Me, Redrae, Emi, and Uoun barely left the cabin. We all crowded around the fire, but we never quite felt warm.

At the time, we were all sitting on a couch, right next to the fire, when we heard a loud noise in the distance.

Steadily, for the next 15 minutes or so, we heard voices getting closer and closer, until they finally knocked on the door.

“Open up! These are direct orders from the king to the Border Control Unit!”

“Hide!” I sort of whisper-yelled to Redrae, Emi, and Uoun.

“I’ll give you 15 seconds!” On the 15 second mark, just before they broke down the door, I opened it.

“Hi.”

“Sir, do you happen to be the adventurer that was with the king 1 week ago?”

“Why yes I am.”

“Handcuff him.”

“Wait right there.”

“Where did he go?” The guards asked, after I disappeared for a moment.

“Oh, hi I’m back. It was cold, so I just teleported back home to grab a scarf.”

“W- What?” The guard practically tumbled back. “Men, ready your swords!”

“Do you really want to try me?” The guard was shaking, yet still ready to make a move at any point.

“If you have nothing to say or do, then why don’t you just leave me in peace?” I slowly shut the door, but just before it was fully shut, the guard shouted,

“Go!” All of the guards came rushing in with swords drawn, and I was desperately trying to use Seal on them. While this would have been a piece of cake on Akafwhuwa, it does strain me a bit on Redal.

Guards tumbled over each other, but all of them eventually fell into the black hole of Seal.

There was one last guard left, but as I Sealed him, I heard from behind me a scream.

In all of the chaos, I didn’t notice there was a guard sneaking up from behind, who had just cut off Redrae’s left arm.

I ran and kicked the guard in the head, knocking him into a wall, making it easier for me to perform Seal.

I ran to Redrae, and held her in my arms. She was bleeding a lot. If I didn’t do anything, she would probably die.

“I- Iro… I- I love you…” While Redrae stopped talking after that, she was still alive, I could hear her heart beating. So I screamed into the sky,

“God! If you can hear me, please, one last time… RECONSTRUCT!”