“Vortigern! You—!”
“Hello, big brother. We’ve both certainly aged, haven’t we?”
Zilsonia froze before the sooty blond. His ailing old mind, battered by the previous drumming, went blank. After all, his missing brother had without warning emerged from nowhere and claimed to be at the helm of the organization of dark magi.
“Cat got your tongue?” Vortigern asked. “Unsurprising, given that the brother you thought you’d killed has suddenly appeared before you.”
“Urk!” went Zilsonia.
All at once, the atmosphere around the imperial capital began to change.
The people, confused, began to ask, “Killed?!” “Hadn’t Prince Vortigern died in an accident?”
Empress Dowager Eldia lowered her head.
And clueless country bumpkin Crow, stoic as ever, went, Huh? Wha...? as a giant imaginary question mark floated above his head.
“Sorry for the ruckus, everyone,” Vortigern announced. “Like I said, my dear brother here tried to kill me. Twenty years ago, in fact. Apparently, he didn’t like that I went around being good at things while having commoner blood in me. It was really sudden, you know. He colluded with his closest noble allies, and sent a whole lot of assassins after me, his own little brother! So, Zilsonia, what did our mother tell you about what happened next?”
“She said you’d died,” the emperor replied. “She even showed me your corpse...”
“Just a little white lie. I was only her stepson, but still she was kind to me,” Vortigern revealed with a smile. “Since you were a prince at the time, you didn’t know about the secret escape route, did you, my dear brother? Only the emperor and his spouse would’ve known. Mother showed me it and helped me flee to the outer zone.”
“What?! Then that corpse—”
“My poor body double,” Vortigern explained, his voice tinged with anger. “What a kind soul he was, willingly dying for my sake!”
At his hateful tone, the knights—having just witnessed one of their own brutally beaten to death—came to life, trying to subdue him as a group. All was in vain, however.
“A job for you, my men!” Vortigern announced.
“Yes, Lord Vortigern!” Three shadowy figures descended as one upon the guards, obliterating them in an instant. Some were crushed, some burned, and some stabbed countless times.
At the sight of the blood and chunks of flesh scattering everywhere, the civilians screamed.
“Oh, whoops!” Vortigern laughed flippantly. “Looks like I caused another ruckus. My bad, everyone. But hey, you know, I lead an evil organization now and all, so you’ll have to forgive me.”
The three shadowy figures dropped to one knee before him.
“Allow me to introduce you. These three are part of the Seven at the top of the Order of the Black Star. Here’s Girag, this one’s Karen, and there’s Nya,” he said, as if naming old friends.
One was a giant man, the next a beautiful woman covered in burn scars, and the third a small, gray-haired girl. Their murderous aura and piercing, hateful gazes were so horrific even the emperor shuddered.
“You better prepare to die, fucker!”
“Long time no see, Your Trashesty!”
“We have come to kill our enemy. And you too, Crow Titus, for getting in our way.”
The once-excited atmosphere of the imperial city had quickly become heavy with fear. (Crow still looked sharp despite nearly shitting his pants, though.)
“Uh-oh. Looks like you’re not very popular, big bro,” Vortigern mocked. “See, I wanted to make a spectacle out of your people talking shit about you. And then you’d rage, and clap back, and people would finally snap and torment you to death. That’s what I wanted to see. But sadly...”
His eyes narrowed, and he glared scornfully at the man standing next to the emperor—Crow Titus.
“This asshole right here just had to try to keep my brother in line. Wonder why that is?”
“Hmph,” Crow snorted, but his heart nearly stopped from shock. Whaaat?! Here he’d been just standing around, going all, Damn, that escalated quickly, watching the whole thing unfold. Now he was getting yelled at by some guy he’d never even met! Obviously, his flea-sized heart was on the verge of an attack. “What are you talking about, Vortigern?” No, seriously, what?!
“What am I talking about?” Vortigern echoed in disbelief. “Here was my disgusting, good-for-nothing piece of trash brother, whom I’d thought beyond salvation at his age, groveling on the damn ground! How the hell was I supposed to have predicted this?!” He raised a trembling fist, completely unaware that the man before him was secretly shaking in his boots, and roared, “You really were a threat, in the end. You know that black dragon that beat you half to death, Nidhogg? Yeah. I was the one who released it.”
“What?” Why would you do that to me?!
It made sense that Vortigern had been involved, though. The location where the dragon had been sealed was supposed to be known only to the rulers of the country. But rulers were still just human. No matter how hard they tried to hide information, a prince—as someone very close to those in charge—could inevitably uncover some of their secrets.
“I only learned of the seal’s location by sheer coincidence. But my father, the emperor, loved me. Under different circumstances he might’ve silenced me, but all he said was to keep my mouth shut,” Vortigern explained. “And then, it was thanks to my mother that we were able to secure a route to the inner zone to attack the Four Cardinal Cities. There’s a hidden evacuation route that leads to the outer zone, known only to royalty. We made a secret passage through there and snuck into the inner zone. Sorry, mom.”
“You...!” Eldia exclaimed.