Chapter 209 The End Of That

My finger was pointed at the perpetrator of this entire event. There was a smirk on his face.

“Hahaha… Muhaha… MUHAHAHAHA!”

His smirk broke off into giggles, then slowly transformed into a full-on evil laughter. He put hand to his face and stood up from his seat.

“How did you come to such a conclusion? Accusing the king of an entire nation is the same as declaring war, you know? I hope you’re ready for the consequences.”

He let forth his aura, but such a thing wouldn’t even make me flinch.

Yes, the only person who could have done this was the king. However, the more I thought about, the less reason the king had to do this. And even now, his status proved to me that he didn’t do this intentionally.

Somewhere in the background, I heard Osveta’s growl which I felt was suspicious given how quiet everyone else was, but it was probably him just doing his job as a guard, whereas everyone else was more interested in where this was going.

It was probably best to simply ignore him.

‘Obviously I’m not saying this without any reason.’

“And what is your reasoning?”

The king asked me and I shrugged.

‘That’s easy enough. You’re the only one who could have made the pillar men plant bombs on the pillars.’

“Hmm? My son, Rondel, held the [Royal Trident], so he should have been the one to do that.”

His son was holding the trident? That still made no difference since a [Soul Weapon] wouldn’t follow the orders of anyone other than its chosen master if it had one at the moment.

‘That doesn’t add up. For instance, what time would the pillar men have had to get the mana bombs.’

“Someone could have delivered it to them just as my son got the trident.”

‘No, no. I was watching the pillar men constantly for the past day. No one came to give them anything, even food. It looks like they can go for long periods without meals, is that right?’

“The pillar men are an elite guard in Atlantis’ history. Going a month or two without meals is nothing for them.”

‘You know, it’s strange how you haven’t even asked what I mean by pillar men and mana bombs.’

I just caught him lacking.

“When you say pillar men and bombs and I see all that just happened, it’s obvious that the pillar men were coerced into bombing the pillars and you had to deal with that. Thank you for protecting the domes, but even an idiot could piece all of that together with that amount of information.”

‘Ah…’

‘This guy… he’s lucky he isn’t the perpetrator.’

‘A-And he i-is the king.’

‘And he still has control over every single citizen in the kingdom.’

I grumbled at the fact that I just had to take his bullying.

‘Whatever. Basically, what I’m saying is, you, the king, who had control over the pillar men, gave them the bombs before a day ago and had been planning to do this for quite some time.’

“I ask again. With what reasoning?”

‘Simple. You’re under mind control.’

There were collective gasps of shock from those around me. Elriek though, she began thinking immediately. You could see that on her face.

“Under mind control? That’s preposterous!”

The king raged, but the woman to his side put her hand in front of him, stopping the king from attacking me.

“What makes you say this?”

She questioned me. It would have been difficult explaining that I had a screen in front of me that showed me that king was being mind controlled.

‘I have the ability to tell. Is that too much to believe?’

“No. But could you tell us who else here is being mind controlled if that’s the case? For instance, the first prince.”

‘First prince?’

At my question, she pointed at some guy who was crushed in a hole. The [Royal Trident] floated above the hole shaped like his outline. When I scanned him, his body was in the clear, meaning there was no mind control happening.

He did whatever he did of his own volition. I wasn’t sure of the details, but he was most likely manipulated into doing this with no magical means. He was just an idiot.

‘Odd question to ask.’

“Odd? Why would that be?”

‘I mean, as the one controlling the king’s mind, why would you want to know if someone else was being mind controlled? Unless you were testing to see if I was the real deal?’

A smile, similar to the princess’ disgusting smile was now plastered on the woman’s face.

“That’s truly an interesting ability you have, but that doesn’t change the fact that I still control all of Atlantis now and can squash you at any moment.”

She threatened me with the immense amount of people that were looking at me from my surroundings. About a 100,000 people all staring down at me with immense killing intent.

That was an absurd amount of people all trying to kill me at once, though I could deal with them using [Shadow Demon Summoning] and the baby kraken.

Behind me, Daxia, Yokino and surprisingly Nori stood, facing down the queen. With Daxia alone, Atlantis’ army wasn’t even worth an afterthought.

‘But you won’t.’

I warned her and her smile returned a normal humane one.

“Indeed.”

She folded her arms and the mind-control status on the king disappeared. He collapsed in that very moment, and all those under his control were freed. From the looks of things, they got mild headaches.

“It would seem this year’s banquet ends with no heir being chosen, but I now do see what the goddess meant by “Greatest to ever exist”.”

She clapped her hands and all the weirdly clothed mermen swam towards the massive ship that was just hovering above the city. The four merfolk behind her escorted her to the ship, but no one dared to even stop her.

Personally, it wasn’t my place, so I didn’t even bother with it. If the actual people who were attacked did not object to it, then why should I?

“Oi, Hinotori. My fight!”

Daxia grabbed me again and started yelling in my ears.

‘Sorry, sorry, but I don’t know what happened!’

“Eh? But, but, gaah! Where’s the princess!?”

She dropped me and turned around to go argue with Elriek. Osveta and Sunalla stepped in between them, but she pushed them aside easily.

“Oh, Daxia. I see you’re doing well today.”

“Don’t give me that crap. I’m only listening to you cause it was part of the deal!”

“Deal? You refused to be a part of it though.”

“Shut up. I just refused to be a part of that whole other plan! I was always a part of this one! Gah!”

‘Wait…’

‘There was another plan at play?’

‘One we don’t know about?’

‘B-But… f-for what?’

Yokino snuck to my side amidst the present chaos.

“I see your mission was a success.”

‘If you call getting beat up a success, then sure.’

I also saw Nanek return to his group. His sister, Randy and a few others surrounded him, attending to all the wounds Daxia had created on his body.

‘How’d it go on your end?’

“A bit hectic, but nothing important happened.”

‘That so? Lame.’

“Shut it. At least I wasn’t getting my butt handed to me at every turn.”

She brought back painful memories. I looked up at the top of the dome where a bunch of whales were swimming together and crying out in a beautiful song. The whales had coating like stars, so beautiful and possibly better than the actual stars in the sky.

I looked at Yokino and she was also just staring at the stars, her eyes dazzled with the reflection. I was simply captivated by the breath-taking view of her stunning face.

This was my best friend? We basically travelled through worlds just to meet each other again. Then there was that thing we did.

Maybe, my mistake was just thinking of her as a best friend. Maybe, we could be more than just that. Maybe, I was just unlucky the first time when I asked her out.

“C-Chicken?”

Crap. I had been staring so long, she was now looking at me. I couldn’t stop myself however.

‘Akane… I… I think I li-’

[Kawaii: Master! The old man says he has something that you would like to see. So, hurry up.]

Just as I was about to confess for the second time, a message from Kawaii popped up.

‘Something I would like to see? News on Minerva?’

‘Sounds like it.’

Without a moment of hesitation, I left towards Kawaii’s position. As soon as I got there, Kawaii jumped on me and hugged me tightly.

‘Kawaii? Where’s the old man?’

“In his room. He changed his mind and said not to disturb him in the coming week.”

‘Seriously? Just like that?’

That old man was too random, making me waste my time for his nonsense.

“Kawaii likes mawstewr.”

She said something completely random. I felt like in terms of randomness, she outdid the old man.

‘I like Kawaii too. Now where was I?’

[The skill [Soul Armour] has gone up 1 level]

‘Huh? Why would it go up a level? [Evolver] acting up?'

Outside, a massive portal popped up. I steeled myself, thinking that the Exsuole army was finally starting its invasion, but then the whales swam through it, leaving us with only an odd silence. The dome lit up once again as if it were day time. I sat down on the ledge of a window in the mage quarters and just looked at the kingdom with Kawaii at my side. She took her slime form and rested on my laps.

'Whatever. I guess that's the end of that.’

<A/N: Sheeeesh. Please give me your power stones, reviews, comments and golden tickets! 50 reviews this month!

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