CH 270

The quest was quite straightforward.

[Scene of Madness]

[Look for Lucy, the second daughter of the Mayor of Aria City, Viscount Moterto, and bring her back to her sister Luna.]

[Progress: 0% (0/1)]

[Reward: Treasure of the Moterto Family]

[Note: You may obtain the reward simply by trying hard.]

‘I feel bad for accepting this…’ Siegfried found it difficult to accept the quest.

This quest was no different from a free meal, as all he had to do was pretend and show that he was trying hard to obtain the reward. However, Siegfried’s conscience could not reject the quest after seeing the desperation in the female NPC, Luna’s eyes.

“Adventurer-nim! Please! I beg you… My sister…!” Luna pleaded.

“I will try my best,” Siegfried replied and held her hands.

[Alert: You have accepted the Quest – Scene of Madness!]

The quest acceptance message popped up in front of his eyes.

“But how can I find your sister when I don’t even know what she looks like?” he asked.

“That is a portrait of her,” Luna replied and pointed at a large portrait framed on the wall.

Viscount Moterto, his wife, and two children were smiling brightly in the portrait.

However, Viscount Moterto and his wife were currently on the second floor as lifeless corpses. Their lives had been taken away by the zealots who caused this madness in the name of their Nameless God.

Knock! Knock! 

Someone knocked on the door.

Siegfried and Hamchi immediately prepared for battle.

“Pikachu. Raichu.” The person on the other side of the door started speaking nonsense. Surprisingly, Siegfried replied to that nonsense with nonsense of his own, “Charmander. Squirtle.”

Then, he got another nonsense as a response, “Butterfree. Slowbro.”

“Pidgeotto. Koffing.”

“We are all friends…”

“Enough,” Siegfried said and opened the door.

“But I’m not done yet, hyung-nim!” Seung-Gu exclaimed in response.

“Shut up,” Siegfried grumbled.

This secret code between Siegfried and Seung-Gu that started with Pikachu was actually taken from a song[1] from the hit animation series, Pokemon. The song was quite old, so not a lot of people probably remembered the lyrics, and anyone who manages to crack the nonsensical secret code should probably get themselves checked.

“What happened?” Siegfried asked.

“I informed our guild members.”

“What did they say?”

“It’s still difficult to say since those that are online didn’t get the notice.”

“Hmm…”

“But I ran into a few guild members on the way here, and they want to help.”

“Really?”

It was great news.

“Yes, it was probably difficult for sane people to stand and watch what’s going on here.”

“I’m sure most of our guild members won’t join in this madness.”

Siegfried looked quite proud of his guild members.

“You go ahead and meet our guild members. We will engage in guerilla warfare for now, and once things start heating up, we’ll make a run for it to… Hold on, where do we run?” Siegfried asked.

Luna suddenly asked, “Do you need a map?”

“Yes, we can plan our escape with that.”

“Please wait. We have a map in our house.”

“Really?”

“My father is—was the mayor…”

“Ah…”

“Please give me a second.”

Luna disappeared somewhere before coming back with a map of Aria City.

[Alert: You have obtained Strategic Map of Aria City!]

The map wasn’t an ordinary map but a strategic map created just in case war broke out, and everything about the city was drawn in detail.

‘Hmm? I might be able to cook something up with this…’ Siegfried thought while looking at the map. The cogs in his brain turned at breakneck speeds as he started coming up with all sorts of clever ideas, but there was something he needed to do before that.

“First off, I need to speak to Michele and request for reinforcements,” he said.

“I don’t think he’ll be very happy about it… Will you be alright, hyung-nim?” Seung-Gu asked with a hint of worry in his voice.

“Don’t worry,” Siegfried said while looking slightly worried. He convinced himself and said, “What is he going to do against his king’s command?! He’s definitely going to shut up and do as he’s told, right? How dare he think of talking back to his king! Should I teach him a lesson?!”

“I think quite the opposite will happen, hyung-nim…”

“Hey! You don’t trust me?!”

“N-No! That’s not it!”

“Just wait and see! I’ll go call him right now!” Siegfried said before heading toward the communication room in the mansion.

***

Michele was in a bad mood.

His quill pen snapping in half was just the start of it.

His cup cracked open and spilled coffee all over, he bumped into Cesc while walking and almost broke his back, and a broken piece of blade flew and scratched his cheek while he was walking past the training ground.

‘Things don’t look that good today… It feels as if the god of misfortune is hovering around me…’ he thought. People were bound to have unlucky days. A day where they would feel horrible and everything they did would somehow find a way to fail.

‘It seems the quill pen was the start. Sigh… Should I clock out early and rest for today?’ he wondered. His fortune seemed so bad today that he—who always stayed till late and worked—seriously contemplated calling it a day, even though it was still early.

Unfortunately…

“Minister!”

A servant rushed toward him and reported, “His Majesty the King has called!”

‘Don’t tell me…?’ 

An ominous feeling swept over Michele. He ran toward the communications room and looked at Siegfried smiling in the magic mirror.

— Michele~

Siegfried was displaying the complete opposite of what he told Seung-Gu he was going to do.

“Yes, Your Majesty. It is I, your servant, Michele.”

— How have you been, my Michele~?

“Pardon me…?”

Michele was slightly perplexed when Siegfried asked about his well-being out of the blue. How long had it been since he left for the Constantine Holy Empire that he was already asking such a thing?

“Why are you asking that all of a sudden, Your Majesty? I am fine but…?”

— Ah~ It’s nothing. Hehehe~

Siegfried awkwardly laughed and scratched the back of his head while sticking his tongue out and grinning like a fool.

Michele immediately understood that Siegfried was sending him a signal.

I messed up… ㅠ_ㅠ

Please clean up after me ^o^

Love you ♡

— I was just worried about my dear Minister of State~

“Please stop beating around the bush.”

— Huh?

“Please tell me frankly… Have you caused another problem?”

— Not at all! What problem? Do you really think that I’m some sort of troublemaker that stirs up trouble wherever I go?!

“I hope that you will reflect on yourself, Your Majesty.”

— What?

“Now, tell me honestly. What did you do?”

— Come on~ It’s not like that, I just…

Siegfried explained what happened to Michele, but he cut out quite a huge chunk of the story and kept making excuses along the way that it was difficult to understand what he was trying to say.

However, Michele’s genius brain fully understood what his troublemaker of a king had done even before he was finished talking.

— So… We need a mode of transport to escape, and I was wondering if you could help us out with it and—

Kwachik!

A nerve abruptly bulged on Michele’s forehead even before Siegfried could finish speaking.

“Your… MAJESTY!”

— W-What?

“You promised me you were not going to cause any problems! I am also human! HUMAN! I trusted you this time but…!” Michele screamed at the top of his lungs.

— T-That is…

Michele’s face turned bright red after seeing Siegfried try to come up with an excuse while avoiding his gaze.

“Say something! Look at my eyes and say something! Or better yet, answer me! Why did you go and stir up trouble again?! WHY?!

”You promised not to do so, but why did you GO AND DO IT? Everything would have been fine if you had stayed put!” Michele lashed out mercilessly. He dared to scream at his king simply because of the scale of trouble Siegfried had stirred up this time.

How big was it?

It was the biggest trouble he had caused so far.

Siegfried’s actions could be understood as the Proatine Kingdom launching the first strike against the papacy.

What did this mean?

The Proatine Kingdom wouldn’t be protected by the Marchioni Empire should the papacy decide to invade. To make matters worse, what if the papacy won the civil war and took full control of the Constantine Holy Empire?

The Proatine Kingdom would be…

‘Destruction! This is a highway to destruction!’ Michele clenched his fists and thought.

The papacy had a seventy percent chance of emerging victorious from this civil war, and this was all thanks to their war chest, which was five times larger than the imperial family’s war chest.

Michele couldn’t understand why Siegfried had to go and stir up trouble against the papacy at such a time.

Plop…! Plop…!

Tears fell down Michele’s cheek.

***

Silence ensued between the king and the servant.

“…”

— …

The first to break the silence was Michele.

“Does your head between your shoulders have a brain in it or not, Your Majesty? You are the king, yet—”

— I know.

Siegfried cut him off.

— I know that I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m a king, and stirring up trouble like this is no different from putting the entire kingdom and everyone else in danger.

“Then why…?”

— I’ll do my best not to put the kingdom in danger, so don’t worry so much.

Siegfried suddenly looked confident.

— Do you know what master taught me? He told me everything is permissible. Chasing after glory, money, my own desires, and everything. He taught me to live as freely as possible.

“Hmm…”

— I’m a king, but I don’t wish to be tied down by my position. I can’t turn a blind eye to things I don’t agree with just to be safe.

“I apologize for saying this, but… That is not how a ruler should act, Your Majesty. It will be better for Your Majesty to relinquish the throne if you wish to—”

— I can just do both, no?

“What?!”

— I can do what I want while keeping the kingdom safe, no? I mean, that’s why I’m trying to become stronger in the first place… although I’m a bit lacking right now…

“…!”

— I can’t stand those papal bastards and the Genesis Guild. I will only be satisfied once I totally destroy them.

“Hmm…”

Search tinyurl.com/2p9emv8w for the original.

— So help me.

Siegfried looked quite serious in the magic mirror.

— I will become stronger so that the kingdom will not be harmed. I promise.

“It is not as simple as that, Your Majesty. Being the strongest on the continent is not enough. You will need to be invincible to achieve that—”

— Watch me. I will become invincible one day.

“Huh?!” Michele tried to come up with something, but he could no longer in the face of Siegfried’s determined look. He felt like he was being sweet-talked by Siegfried’s sugar-coated words right now, but something felt strange and different at the same time.

Siegfried was talking about obtaining power that would make him invincible one day, and Michele knew very well that such a thing was very unlikely to happen. Besides, it would take a few decades at the very least before he could obtain such power or perhaps never in this lifetime.

But…

“Haha…” Michele chuckled helplessly.

‘Did you know, Your Majesty? You’re claiming to do something that even the great Emperor Stuttgart has failed to do…’ he thought.

A ruler actually wanted to live freely and do whatever he wanted while staying as a king? It was a dream that had only been achieved by protagonists in tales or fables by supposedly becoming invincible.

But why?

Why did it feel like he was looking forward to it? Michele couldn’t understand, but a big part of him wanted to see his liege obtain such power.

“All right, I will send in the reinforcements at once,” Michele said as he closed his eyes.

— Thanks.

“In return, you have to guarantee that you will destroy the papacy and the Genesis Guild in this civil war. It is the end for our kingdom if the papacy emerges victorious. Please remember that.”

— Alright.

Siegfried nodded and looked resolute.

Michele couldn’t help but suppress the urge to give Siegfried a good whack.

‘He’s so quick to answer that I doubt he understands the consequences… ugh…’

***

“How was it, hyung-nim?” Seung-Gu asked.

“What else? I went and told him—Hey! Send the reinforcements! He saluted me and replied—Yes, Your Majesty!’ Keke!”

“Oh! As expected of hyung-nim!”

The innocent—no, gullible Seung-Gu totally believed Siegfried’s fantasy.

“What did I tell you? I told you he’s going to tuck his tail between his legs if I said something, right?!”

“Yes! You are the best, hyung-nim! Hahaha!”

“I am, right?”

“Yes, hyung-nim! I heard that Michele would go berserk whenever you caused a problem, so…”

“R-Really…?”

“Yes, hyung-nim! I heard that he has some life-sized doll in his office he uses to vent his anger!”

“He’s probably using that to relieve stress… Hahaha…” Siegfried said while sweating profusely and letting out an awkward laugh. He changed the subject and said, “Hahaha! Let’s hurry up and get moving. Michele listens very well to me, so the reinforcements will be here in no time! Haha… Ha…”

Actually, Siegfried was afraid of Michele.

1. For those of you that want to hear it ☜