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THE Guild in Alhyura was a sort of headquarters that brought together all the branch Guilds in Setrayu and the adventurers that worked with them. It may be a small country, but the Guild still had many employees carrying out their duties in a large building, really about the size of a castle or fortress on its own.
The Guild had a general policy of noninterference in political matters.
But this really just meant that the Guild shouldn’t involve themselves with political conflicts as a general rule. Royals, nobles, and government organizations often submitted requests to the Guild. In fact, the Guild worked closely with such organizations in order to deal with monsters, often coordinating together (though this did often create a relationship that undermined the noninterference policy).
All of that was why Setrayu’s head Guild was located close to the king’s castle in the center of the capital.
Both people with requests and adventurers walked into its vast lobby, with adventurers of every size, shape, and color waiting inside. There were even some adventurers aiming to snatch up those people coming in with requests where they would give them a sales pitch and try to get them to ask for their party by name when they put in their request.
Timm, Lushera, and Kaphal entered. One large, armored man saw them, his expression immediately changing as he rushed over.
“Timm! You son of a scoundrel, did you go and get married and have a kid?”
“You moron! When could I’ve had a girl that grew this big?” retorted Timm. The man, with hair swept up in a style reminiscent of a cock’s comb, must have known him. “Sorry, Lushera. This idiot’s Martin of the Howling Dusk Storms. He’s an adventurer working out of Alhyura. He’s not the brightest, but he’s good at what he does.”
“Oh, shut it, Timm. I’m smarter than you at least! You even know what a flame test is?!”
“Martin, this is Lushera. She’s our newest member,” said Timm, ignoring Martin’s strange counterargument like he was used to that sort of thing.
“It’s nice to meet you,” said Lushera. “I’ve joined the Golden Helm as their manager.” That was largely an oversimplification of the situation, but she shook his hand as she introduced herself.
He looked at her with confusion. “Manager? What’s that?”
“Oh, uh, I support the party doing paperwork and things like that…”
“…And anyway, this is Kaphal. She’s Lushera’s mum. She came along with us since she’s got some business in the capital,” continued Timm.
Martin looked at Kaphal and must have noticed something odd because he stared at her for a moment with a look of suspicion. He didn’t poke into the situation any further though, he just greeted her as well.
“So, Martin, apparently, Lushera saw something a bit weird…” started Timm as he went on to tell Martin about what happened to Lushera on her way to Alhyura. While listening, Martin nodded with an all-knowing look.
“Mm, yeah, there’s been rumors about that. Heard some nasty monster attacked Princess Monica while she was out on a little pleasure jaunt.”
Timm’s face instantly soured. “Ah… So, it was Princess Monica that Lushera met…”
“Um, who is that? Is she well known? I’ve never heard of her…” said Lushera.
Both Martin and Timm seemed to understand everything simply by the mention of this girl’s name, leaving Lushera in the dark.
Timm hesitated for just a moment, wondering if he should tell Lushera. “You wouldn’t since you only came to Setrayu, what, two, three years ago? It’s pretty well-known inside the country though. It was like twelve or thirteen years ago that the king’s wife, you know, the Queen Consort, had an affair, and she holed herself up after that.”
“The royals and nobles marry for political reasons,” added Martin. “It’s not uncommon for them to get so bored they just surround themselves with lovers.”
“So, the affair itself wasn’t the problem. The problem was that the Queen Consort’s also got royal blood in her, and she’s got a high compatibility with the dracovitae.”
“Urk… That’s bad,” said Lushera, her face clouding over.
The humanoid races maintained the lands of their kingdom with a dracovitae staff, which they also used as an ultimate weapon in war if something were to happen, but they couldn’t very well let anyone have that control over their dracovitae. In most countries, only the royal families inherited the ability to wield the dracovitae.
This wasn’t because there was something special in the blood of the royal families of every kingdom. It was simply that, for some reason, there was a need to tie the ability to use the dracovitae to a bloodline when the staffs were created. In most cases, the bloodline chosen was that of the ruler.
There was almost no way to change this. The various royal families worked hard to ensure the bloodline capable of using the dracovitae never died out, but also tried not to scatter it aimlessly about.
It wasn’t uncommon for the king’s official wife to be chosen for whatever political goal needed to be achieved at the moment, but he would also take mistresses chosen for their high compatibility with the dracovitae, and it would be the children of the mistresses who would stand in line for the throne. Though, it was obviously better if the Queen Consort herself had a high compatibility.
Many of the higher-ranking nobles also had royal blood, so they were often chosen to marry the ruler in order to maintain the bloodline of dracovitae users, meaning it wasn’t that odd for someone who was selected purely for political reasons to also have the ability to wield the dracovitae.
“All royal families are real strict ’bout controlling the bloodlines of people who can use the dracovitae,” said Timm. “And the Queen Consort was part of that, but…she ended up getting pregnant from the guy she had an affair with and the whole thing got messy.”
“The man didn’t have any royal blood in him, but the baby had the same high compatibility her mom did. It was a huge scandal. It’s a bad thing for the royal family if there aren’t enough people who can use the dracovitae, but having lots of people outside the family that can use it undermines the legitimacy of their rule,” added Martin, nodding with a grim, knowing expression.
“Then the Queen Consort shut herself away. Her daughter’s been kept on a short leash her whole life. And there’s a legitimate older daughter born to the King and Queen Consort, but she ended up leaving the court ’cause she got hit with all sorts of restrictions with people questioning the legitimacy of her blood too.”
“That’s just terrible…” said Lushera.
“You want some more details that’ll depress you even more? The guy the Queen Consort had an affair with was someone she’s loved since they were both kids, but she had to marry the King for political reasons.”
“That’s just terrible!”
Humans had a tendency to complicate their personal relationships when they were bored, and all their primary needs were met. Even more so when they were placed on a stage with a premise as twisted as that.
Normally, having an affair was bad. Lushera thought so as well. But, so what if it was? Wouldn’t that make basically everyone in that situation a victim?
“After that, a mistress bore a prince for the King, everyone tossed aside the Queen Consort, and lived happily ever after. You probably figured it out by this point. The child born between the Queen Consort and the man she cheated with is Princess Monica,” said Martin, tying the story up neatly with a tone that showed little respect to the royals.
It wasn’t even that much of an exaggeration to say this girl, Monica, was born with a curse on her. Even when Martin called her “Princess,” the title seemed used sarcastically. It probably wasn’t an official title anyway, likely just sarcasm.
“They never acknowledged her existence publicly,” said Timm. “Wherever she goes, she’s treated like she doesn’t exist. But everyone knows. They know about her. They know how she was born. It’s gotta hurt. Pretty sure I’d go crazy if it were me.” He sounded bitter.
Lushera felt a little sorry for Monica. They say if you feed a starving person all of a sudden, they might die. Lushera had encouraged Monica without knowing her situation, and those words might even turn into poison for Monica.
But there was still something Lushera wondered. If Monica’s existence was such a horrible thing, then who would target her? And why?
Lushera could think of a few possible explanations, but the biggest question was, why now?