A while after the sun had set, the door to the prison cells finally opened.

Crowell, accompanied by two guards, had entered the room.

He moved in front of my cell and looked down on me as I sat on the hay bed.

I had half expected him to have a more serious look on his face, but his expression was that of a sad disappointment as if something he had hoped for was now gone.

Both of us seemed to be waiting for the other to start, but I didn’t know what to say to him.

“You two asses just going to keep staring at one another?” Callum called out.

Crowell ignored his remark. Then he finally asked, “So you know what’s going on, huh?”

What little doubt I had for the thief’s words finally vanished. So, it was true, then.

I nodded.

I made sure not to give away any hints that I had been unsure before.

Crowell sighed, “I’d wanted your stay here to be as normal as possible, but maybe I had intervened too much.”

One of the guards from earlier brought him a chair to sit on. He accepted the help and sat down in front of my cell.

The guard quickly left the room while the other guard stayed to keep watch.

“Do you think I’m evil?” Crowell suddenly asked.

Of course, he was evil, I thought. He was twisting the will of others with some kind of a power.

“Yeah.”

“I see.”

He seemed deep in thought for a moment until he finally clasped his hands together.

“Well, Din. Let me tell you a story. This story is about Lanport, the old Lanport.”

After taking a deep breath, he continued, “The Lanport you’ve seen so far isn’t how everything used to be. The calm and friendly citizens that you’ve met so far are just fakes.”

Fakes? I thought. Was he talking about how they are all controlled?

He seemed to notice my confusion as he answered my thoughts, “They are who they are now because of my commands. You see, Din, I have the power to give out any order I want and anyone who I’m directing my order to, will follow that order with no questions asked.”

“H-How’s that possible?” I asked.

He grabbed his left ear as he explained, “It’s ‘cus of this. This earring gives me the power of a King.”

Looking closely, I saw the earring that he had on his left ear. It was a small earring with a ruby crystal on it. His long blond hair had been covering his ears, so I hadn’t noticed it before.

“What is that?”

With a shrug, he said, “Hell if I know. There was a young boy I knew of that had this originally. He had no idea of its power and it was only after I had been given it, did we discover its true potential. But aside from its power, I can’t say I know any more about this item than you do.”

An earring with the power to control others. Who could’ve given an item this powerful to him?

“Do you think the young boy he’s talking about is the thief we’ve been chasing?” Lorelei asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. That could possibly be true, but I had no idea if that was actually right.

“But there was this strange occurrence though,” he paused. “The night of the moon shift, the earring let out a bright light before dimming down again. It was after that that I discovered its power. It was as if the earring only activated once the moon shift had happened.”

During the night of the moon shift, something strange did happen. Rather than shifting from a crystal moon to a red moon, the moon had instead turned into the blue moon, which was supposed to happen a year later.

Did this earring have something to do with it?

And then the fact that Lorelei had turned into a Spirit.

Was it all because of this earring?

“Enough about this earring,” Crowell suddenly stood up. “The city of Lanport, believe it or not, is filled with the most violent and idiotic people in this whole country. It doesn’t help with the fact that there are pirates that come about every week!”

He began pacing around the room as he described Lanport, “Day after day, I would be called out into the city to stop a fight or to put a stopper to disputes. Not only that, but the ones that didn’t end up agreeing with my decisions would always look for ways to get back at me. Even though I was the governor of this city, I had absolutely no control over this land.

“Even though I tried contacting Ravenwalt for more guards, they wouldn’t help at all. I could see that they had given up on Lanport long ago. And I don’t blame them. If this city wasn’t the place I’d grown up in, I would’ve also abandoned it without a second’s thought.”

“Whoop fucking do,” Callum interrupted. “Would you like us to give you a pat on the back? Or maybe a clap for all your fucking effort?”

“Excuse me?” Crowell slowly turned towards the man who had still been drinking beer.

“Why’re you telling him your poor sap story? Crying about how hard it was to be a governor of this shit city. Did you want him to sympathize with you?”

“Be quiet!” Crowell spoke out.

His voice echoed through the room. There was power in that voice, I could tell from just the sound of it.

“Yes, sir,” Callum replied.

“The earring works just like that?” asked Lorelei.

Crowell sighed and then sat back on the chair. He then turned towards me.

“As you can see, not even an Ace knight can go against my word.”

I looked back over at Callum, who had placed his mug by his side now. He seemed to be waiting patiently for Crowell to finish.

Even with how horrible a person he was, it was slightly sad seeing him like this, as if his humanity had been taken away from him just now.

“I know this may not sound true, but I do try to limit how often I use this power. Most of the Lanport citizens might be under my control, but there were a few who I knew wouldn’t cause any problems even without my power. I see you the same way Din. I think I can create a safer Lanport by slowly changing the violent ones into more peaceful versions of themselves.

“And as you can see, it works! The only problems I have to deal with now are people figuring out how to improve their business and how they can better help the community. To keep the peace, everyone is working together. Even with new bands of pirates coming in, we haven’t had to worry about lives being taken because I can just make them friendly. Isn’t this basically what a utopia is?”

I understood where he was getting at, but I didn’t know what he was exactly expecting of me. Why was he telling me this?

“Why are you telling me all this?” I asked.

He smiled.

“I can sense something in you, Din. I can tell you understand exactly what I’ve gone through and the struggles that comes from dealing with things that can’t be changed. I know that you realize the benefits of my ideals.”

“So are you expecting me to join you?”

He shook his head, “That’s not it. I just want you to agree with me. Tell me that I wasn’t wrong in making this decision. Tell me that you understand.”

Why was he looking for my approval? Was he that starved of human connection that he needed an outsider like me to accept his ideals?

I decided to stand up before I answered, “No. I don’t agree with you.”

His smile soon disappeared.

I continued, “What you’re doing is taking away their humanity. It may benefit your city in turn, but what they’re turning into isn’t what I’d call a human. They’ve basically been turned into mindless puppets.”

“Is that so?” He sighed. “I’m disappointed. I knew Lewis was the type of man who acted chivalrous, but I didn’t expect a wanted man to think the same as that idiot.”

I noticed the tone of his voice changing.

My heart sank as I realized that he was about to use the earring’s powers on me.

I covered both my ears and closed my eyes shut.

The last thing I heard him say before I covered my ears was: “That won’t help you.”

There was silent.

I waited and waited for what might happen to me, but nothing ever happened.

I opened my eyes to see a shocked Crowell.

What was going on?

He yelled something from the top of his longue. It came out muffled on my end, but I could make out the words: “Order you to… remove… hands…”

Was I really safe just because I had my ears covered?

Crowell turned towards the guard that had been keeping watch and gave out an order. The guard opened the cell door and then pulled my arms away from my ears.

“Now then,” Crowell began. “I order you to forget all about the earring and its power!”

I closed my eyes out of instinct, expecting something to happen.

But yet again, there was nothing.

I opened my eyes. Noticing that nothing was happening, I tried freeing my hands from the guard, but he had a strong grip of my arms.

“Did you hear that order? Respond!”

I tried kicking the guard, but it didn’t do anything against his heavy armor. At this point, I was only tiring myself out.

“Dammit… lock him up again!”

The guard threw me to the side of the room and then went back to lock up the cell.

I rubbed the part of my arm he had grabbed to ease the pain.

“You’re a dangerous man, Din. I cannot let you ever leave this place.”

What had just happened? Was I immune to the power of the earring? I felt relieved at that fact, but also uneasy as I still had no way of getting out of the prison.