His ministers led a group of children in shabby clothes into the throne room. Gallarus’s eyes narrowed as he looked from one to another. As a form of entertainment, he’d taken inspiration from the previous king and begun selecting children with aptitude to make elite soldiers out of them. And this time, one of the children drew his attention.
“What have you got there? A bird?”
The boy he’d spoken to quickly hid his hands behind his back. He was an orphan and didn’t know the reason he was brought before the king.
The little fledgling that the boy was hiding started chirping, and the ministers looked at their king with mounting fear.
“Romo, no!” the boy cried.
The small blue bird darted out the boy’s hands and would’ve flown past Gallarus if he hadn’t snatched it out of the air, his hand moving faster than eyes could follow.
Gallarus looked at the bird with interest.
“This seems to be an immature haitenio.”
“Please accept our apologies, Your Majesty. We didn’t notice the boy had an animal—”
“Oh, no matter. I am a kind king, after all.”
The bird was flapping, trying to escape, but Gallarus held it tight, inspecting it in his hand.
“If I’m not mistaken, young haitenios have soft meat with a honey-sweet flavor.”
“Sorry, Your Majesty, but Romo is my friend. He’s not food,” the boy said anxiously, ignoring the ministers who warned him to be quiet.
“…What are you called, boy?”
“I’m…Agni, Your Majesty.”
Gallarus smirked, getting off his throne.
“Well, Agni, let me borrow your birdie.”
“H-he’s my friend! Please, don’t hurt him!”
Agni ran after Gallarus, who was taking his pet birdie away somewhere, and clung to him. The ministers tried to pull the boy away, but he pushed them off with surprising strength for a child and held on tight to Gallarus again.
“Please, have mercy! Don’t take him from me!”
The boy was desperately trying to stop Gallarus, crying as he pleaded. Ignoring him, Gallarus began to pluck the bird.
“Romo! Romo! Don’t do this to Romo!”
Agni seemed like he was going to leap at Gallarus and attack him. The ministers drew their weapons, but Gallarus stopped them from taking action with one sharp look. The next moment, he put the bird into his mouth. Everyone was quiet. The only sound in the room was the crunching of the little bird’s bones as Gallarus chewed.
“Noooooo!”
Flames of fury lit up the boy’s eyes. With every ounce of strength he had, he punched Gallarus. And then he punched him again. And again. And again. Each time, he hit harder and faster than before, until eventually, his attack power surpassed Gallarus’s defense, and the boy’s punch sent him flying.
Gallarus smiled with satisfaction. His hunch was right.
“From today, we’ll be training you. Try to avenge your little birdie friend whenever you want.”
Gallarus laughed like a villain and turned to leave the throne room. Agni wiped the tears streaming from his eyes with his sleeves and watched with burning resentment as the king walked away.
And so, out of boredom, Gallarus took Agni under his wing. Not to nurture the boy as a parent would—the only thing Gallarus was interested in nurturing was Agni’s potential as a soldier. Perhaps Gallarus was hoping that, one day, the boy would surpass him.
“Take thaaat!”
Agni thrust his sword at Gallarus’s back. The king sighed, striking the sword off.
“Maybe you’re not cut out for this after all,” he said, snorting a laugh.
Agni glared back at him. “And you’re not cut out to be our king! You’re a devil! You devoured my friend, and I heard you devour children, too!”
Gallarus had ordered everyone to turn a blind eye to Agni’s rudeness. The boy was the only giant in the entire kingdom who got that special treatment.
Neither the boy’s attitude nor accusations bothered Gallarus in the least.
“Listen, boy. Strength is everything in this world. Without it, you won’t get enough to eat; you won’t survive. If you don’t agree with my methods, then kill me and take the throne yourself.”
He looked down at Agni with challenge in his eyes, radiating boundless confidence.
“You’re a dictator—that’s what you are!”
“A dictator? When do I ever meddle in politics? I don’t even make any war decisions anymore; that’s all in the hands of the army. I value diversity, didn’t you hear? Besides, if I were a dictator and got to do what I wanted, I’d have conquered the whole world a long time ago.”
Gallarus had been king from pretty much the moment he was born. He didn’t have any goals to strive for, nothing to fire up the insatiable ambition that giants were known for. He believed himself to always be in the right, and none of his ministers dared tell him otherwise. Everyone agreed with him, and Gallarus thought that being king was the sole purpose of his life…but as of late, it just seemed unbearably boring, and he was becoming increasingly reclusive.
“…”
Agni didn’t understand why Gallarus insisted on training him, but he persisted with it in the hope that one day, he’d become strong enough to vanquish the king, whom he hated from the bottom of his heart.
At age fifteen, Agni was made to join the army as a commander in charge of a hundred soldiers. This kind of high-profile posting at the start of one’s career was unprecedented for someone raised at an orphanage.
Inspecting his company of soldiers for the first time, Agni recognized a few faces—they had been among the boys presented to the king with him.
“You’re alive! I thought the king had eaten you!”
“We thought he would…”
The other boys had been convinced they’d end up as sacrifices, but after the presentation, they’d been taken to the military training grounds as future recruits. Agni was very surprised to hear about this and felt ashamed for calling Gallarus a child-eating devil.
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?!” Agni asked Gallarus angrily.
“Never crossed your mind I have better things to eat? Killing them wouldn’t benefit anyone. Letting them go and fend for themselves would’ve been similarly pointless—the hopeless brats would’ve wound up dead in some gutter. Much more logical to train them to become soldiers in my army, don’t you think?”