Chapter: 22
The Emperor of Rilberg
“Exactly!”
Ijeten tried to protest, but finding no words, he shut his mouth.
*You don’t understand, Father.*
*I have a bad feeling about this! A really bad feeling!*
*A terrible premonition that he’s going to charm our Jusie and whisk her away forever!*
But with no way to explain it, Ijeten could only walk in silence, his face contorted into a deep scowl.
“He is a mage from the Rilberg Empire’s delegation.”
“A mage.”
Ijeten nodded.
He had expected as much after pondering it all night. He had never seen or even heard of a healer with such a supernatural ability.
Did that mean his father had brought a mage from the Rilberg Empire himself?
‘To heal Jusie?’
No. His father had clearly said he was going to the Grand Temple. That meant the mage must have come on his own.
A boy that young?
Was he an adult who had changed his appearance to that of a child?
‘What a pervert.’
Ijeten’s mood soured even further.
He felt an urgent need to disinfect Jusie’s hand one more time.
Before Ijeten could ask about it, Ritain spoke first.
“Ijeten. That person is the Emperor of Rilberg.”
“…Pardon?”
“So do not act rashly. He may be young, but he is the emperor of a nation.”
Ijeten was so stunned that he stopped walking altogether.
Ritan let out a short laugh, amused by his son’s frozen expression, and left him there, heading to the State Council Chamber first.
“Crazy.”
Ijeten muttered, roughly running a hand through his hair.
“What?!”
The emperor of the Western Continent?
A real kid, and that tiny thing is that powerful?
Ijeten believed Jusie was the only small and strong being the world needed, so he took an immediate and intense dislike to the Rilberg Emperor.
Moreover, the ominous premonition left him feeling uneasy. It was absurd, but he felt as if Jusie would be stolen from him.
“Ha, it’s fine. Jusie likes me more.”
Even if he had healed her, the shy Jusie was unlikely to chase after a young emperor she had just met.
Barely suppressing the creeping anxiety, Ijeten followed Ritain into the State Council Chamber.
***
The Penterin Imperial Palace was magnificent and grand.
The sunset bled through the spires that soared as if to pierce the sky.
The sky, a mixture of violet and crimson as the sun went down, was breathtakingly beautiful, but it seemed to hold no particular fascination for the young boy watching the spectacle.
“Your Majesty.”
“Shh.”
Without even looking at the Archmage Urna calling to him from below the spire, Ekiel kept his gaze fixed on a distant point and raised a finger to his lips.
At the young emperor’s command, Urna fell silent.
He was an Archmage of the Rilberg Empire, a magical powerhouse, and one of the ten Archmages who served the emperor.
A moment later, a flicker of interest appeared in Ekiel’s previously bored, crimson eyes.
“Your Majesty?!”
Archmage Urna panicked when the little emperor, who had been sitting atop the spire, vanished in an instant.
*CRASH-! Clang!*
But soon, hearing the characteristic thunderous sound from below and to his three o’clock, Urna hastily flew there using levitation magic.
There, as expected, the young emperor was subduing his prey in a rather rough manner.
The prey, bound head to toe in chains of mana that rendered it immobile, was terrified.
‘Oh no!’
Urna looked around in alarm.
His Majesty’s magic was so powerful that it had cracked and shattered the walls of the Penterin Imperial Palace.
“Goodness… Your- Your Majesty. Could you perhaps control your mana just a little? This isn’t Rilberg, after all.”
Urna grumbled while casting a restoration spell on the wall, but Ekiel paid him no mind, levitating the prey he had caught into the air.
*Clang.*
Ekiel’s golden mana chains tightened their grip on the creature.
“Caw-! Caw-!”
The prey, struggling in agony, was a crow.
Ekiel watched the crow with a blank expression.
Many crows flew over the Penterin Imperial Palace.
And that vile creature must have intended to sneak into the palace by blending in with the flock.
Especially today, when everyone was distracted by the Emperor’s birthday banquet.
Its destination was likely…
“How dare you.”
“Pardon?”
As Ekiel muttered under his breath, Urna, having finished restoring the wall, wiped the sweat from his brow and approached.
Ekiel didn’t answer the question. His expression returned to its usual impassiveness as if it had never been contorted, and he held out his hand.
“The potion I gave you earlier. Feed it to this thing.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Urna took a long vial from his robes and poured the green liquid within into the crow’s beak.
The struggling crow’s black feathers molted away, transforming into black scales as it morphed into a bizarre creature.
“Ugh, the smell is awful.”
Urna pinched his nose and stepped back.
Ekiel stared blankly at the creature, which could no longer be called a crow.
Notably, its pupils had become long and vertical, like a snake’s.
“Kyareuk! Kyarereureuk-!”
“You’re loud.”
Watching the creature, which now made strange noises from its throat, Ekiel lightly struck its head with a mana chain, knocking it unconscious.
He then sealed it in a large glass jar and placed it inside a pocket dimension magic circle.
Urna, who had been observing, spoke.
“We should show this to the Penterin Emperor, shouldn’t we?”
“We’ll have to.”
“The Penterin Empire is certainly different. Is it because it’s a good place for beastmen to live? To think the followers of the Dark Divine Beast are roaming so openly around the Imperial Palace…”
Listening silently to Urna’s concerns, Ekiel inwardly agreed to some extent.
It was frustrating and disheartening.
But if the Penterin Emperor had known about this situation, he surely wouldn’t have stood by idly.
Ekiel recalled Emperor Ritain from the previous night, who had been willing to use the imperial family’s only holy relic to save his daughter.
‘Therefore, the emperor will be even less forgiving of those who target the princess.’
At this very moment, when the followers of the Dark Divine Beast were just beginning to make their move on the Eastern Continent.
Unluckily for them, Ekiel and the delegation from the Rilberg Empire had appeared at the perfect time.
So.
‘The White Tiger will not die.’
Because he would protect her, no matter what.
Ekiel thought of Princess Jusie, whom he had barely saved yesterday, and turned his head toward the Imperial Palace.
Was she still there?
Ekiel had been shocked to find that Jusie was even smaller and more fragile than he had seen in his dreams.
To be honest, it made him anxious and unsettled.
She felt like a glass doll that must be cherished, one that might shatter at the slightest touch, making him all the more nervous.
‘At least, not until the White Tiger fully awakens.’
“Your Majesty.”
Urna called to Ekiel, who was lost in thought.
“You should also go and prepare for the banquet now.”
The Penterin Emperor’s birthday banquet, which had been canceled yesterday, was being held again today.
Ekiel, having made no preparations, needed to go and get ready.
“Understood.”
Just as Ekiel replied.
A carriage belonging to a beastman noble entering the main road of the palace caught his eye.
‘?!’
At that moment, the carriage’s cargo hold suddenly shook, and two black birds escaped, soaring high into the air.
It was clearly suspicious.
“Your Majesty!”
Urna had also spotted the birds and turned to his right.
“Catch that one!”
Trusting Urna, Ekiel flew to the left.
He instantly created a path of wind with his mana and dashed forward, chasing the crow while thinking to himself.
‘Persistent bastards.’
Ekiel unfurled his signature golden chains—a skill he was born with, specialized for offensive magic—like a net to surround them.
He then ensnared the followers disguised as crows and unleashed a torrent of lightning.
*CRACKLE!*
‘I’ve already secured a specimen to show the Penterin Emperor, so it should be fine to kill these.’
After confirming that the followers of the Dark Divine Beast’s eyes had turned pure white before they disintegrated into ash, Ekiel withdrew his mana chains.
*Ha.*
Would she be alright?
This land truly seemed too dangerous for the White Tiger to grow up in.
‘Perhaps if the Rilberg Empire… for a while.’
Mulling it over for a moment, Ekiel recalled the piercing gazes he had felt on his back while healing Jusie in her bedroom and shook his head.
The emperor and crown prince, who doted on Jusie so much, would never allow it.
It was then.
*Shwooo-!*
The ominous sound of something flying at high speed came from the distance.
He quickly looked up to see a pitch-black, palm-sized shard flying toward the Imperial Palace.
