𝑶𝚟𝓁xt.𝗇𝓔t
Daimon wrote down a brief description of his classmates and after handing it to the queen, he and the girls left the dining room guided by Mellie.
Once they left, Annete gazed at the furthest corner of the room, before she grabbed her cup of tea, after taking a sip of it, she spoke.
“So, what do you think uncle Vin?”.
The wall to which Annete was looking distorted for a couple of second, before the figure of an old man wearing blue robes became visible.
Although the man had a tall built, his presence was rather thin, one’s attention seemed to flow around him, like a stream, to the point that with a blink he will disappear from one’s vision, making you doubt of his existence.
“He wasn’t lying when he said he had no ill intentions towards us, that being said I couldn’t see through him, there was some kind of mist blocking my senses, what I could tell was that he disguised his face but just a bit, nothing too important”.
The old man then doubted for a second, before saying.
“The prophecy of the Trident only stated that a savior and a destroyer would appear at some point, and yet you didn’t try to capture him nor put a restriction on him, this isn’t the little tyrant that has mercilessly kept the power balance in the kingdom… what are you up to this time lass?”.
Annete stretched her arms and then looked at the roof of the dining room, just hummed for a couple of minutes while she played with the pendant that hanged from her pretty pale neck.
“You know how much I hate people, they aren’t trust worthy and will stab you at the sight of benefits… but I’m willing to believe in Mellie’s eyes and in the first and last gift that woman gave us~”.
The old man listened to Annete’s playful voice and he sighed.
‘If someone is to blame about you sisters suffering is me, I should have been there as that was my duty… I hope the day comes when you free yourself from that weight in your shoulders’, he thought before saying.
“I’ll return to my castle to prepare for the beast hunt, when I receive the reply from the Blackfin Duke I’ll contact you, if you need anything don’t hesitate to ask”.
“Mm”, Annete simply nodded and stayed there lost in her thoughts, the old man tapped his right foot on the floor a couple of times and a portal appeared in the air in front of him, he entered and disappeared from the room, leaving Annete alone in the dining room.
“Fate huh… it would be nice to be wrong about something for a change~”, Annete closed her eyes and leaned on the back of her chair, while some memories of her past played in her mind.
While Annete was resting in the dining room and Mellie was guiding Daimon to the library, at the northeast of the Clear Water kingdom, on a coastal city to be more accurate, the sky was pitch black and the sea was agitated, as if a hurricane was about to reach the shore.
“WHAT DID YOU SAY!!!”, a thunderous voice echoed through the entirety of the city, making the air tremble, some of the people turned to see the origin of the voice, and found it on a black mansion in the center of the city.
Even from afar, the people could see the walls of the mansion tremble from time to time, and they wondered what in the world could have made, the city lord, a respectable Stellar rank and the minister of security, lost its temper in such a way.
Inside of the black mansion, a tall middle aged man wearing a black armor with a cape, was going mad right now, what used to be a pretty tidied up office had turned into a disaster, broken furniture here and there, paintings that used to decorate the walls were now torn to shreds, even walls were now cracked ad fragile.
The man only stopped trashing the place after a whole ten minutes, he then took a deep breath and walked towards the only wall that was still intact.
He tapped a series of certain spots on the wall making some strange symbols appear on it, after a couple of seconds the wall vanished revealing a mirror.
The man made a cut in his palm and then pressed his hand against the glass, which absorbed his blood, the clear transparent mirror then turned inked black and a moment later a voice could be heard coming from it.
“Why are you calling me right now, do you know how much….”.
“SHUT UP BASTARD!”, the black armored man shouted interrupting the voice coming from the mirror.
“Your stupid plan got my son captured by that crazy bitch, and now they are demanding one of the two legacies of my family in exchange for not beheading him in a few hours!”.
“They only had one job, and they couldn’t even kill a bunch of kids, now the queen has captured a few of them along with my son, and his bodyguard, just because they couldn’t fucking kill the princess at the spot”.
Although the black armored man was calmer than before, the more he spoke, the more he got angry again.
The mirror stayed quiet for a couple of seconds before the voice answered.
“What’s the problem, you have three sons, if one dies you can just make another, aren’t you quite fond of women anyway, if not then just give them what they want, you can make them spit out all the things they get from you later”.
“Besides, don’t blame others for the stupidity of your son, didn’t I tell you to order him to stay away from the sister of the queen, he tried to play the hero and instead got busted, what a fool”.
The black armored man gritted his teeth, the ground below him cracked due to the mana that was leaking from his body.
“Regardless of that, it was those idiots the ones that extorted my son, threatening to kill him”.
“Whatever, those pirates were disposable, so is your son in my eyes, the only one that needed to survive that was the little princess, there is a new event soon and accidents are bound to happen, I will take care of her… you find a way to keep that bastard son of yours alive on your own, I will deal with the lose ends on my side, unless there is something that will affect the plan don’t contact me”.
The black armored man was about to shout back at the mirror, when a strange red mark appeared on his face, smoke came from the red burning mark which made the man scream in pain and roll on the floor.
“Don’t forget your part of the contract, give them what they want it’s not like they can use it, only we have the method needed”, with those words, the mirror changed back to its clear transparent appearance, but it still took a moment for the mark in the face of the man to disappear.
“Booom!”, the man hit the ground with his hand, shattering a large part of it as he got up with a hatred filled expression.
“Just wait you fucking bastard, I’ll cut your head and hang it on my door… Timor!”, the black armored man shouted and then a dark mist materialized in front of him, from which a man wearing black clothes and bandages covering all his head appeared.
“Timor listens to the master”, said the bandaged man as he kneeled down.
“I will send a certain item to the mansion of the Trident Marshal, I want you to spy on their movements, if you get the chance then retrieve it, you have my permission to kill whoever stands in the way as long as you don’t leave witnesses… also find out where is my son, I don’t care about the methods just bring me results”.
“Understood”, for a split of a second, the teeth of the bandaged man showed, forming a sinister smile before he became a black mist that dispersed in the room.
‘You think you can use me, we’ll see who laughs last humph’.
The man then looked into his ring and took out a small hand sized black crystal box, with his heart bleeding, he walked towards his desk which was the sole piece of furniture that was still in one piece, and after injecting mana on it, a small transportation formation came to life.
The man then threw the box along with a note attached to it, and then he left his office and walked towards his bedroom, he opened the door just to find a middle-aged woman wearing a black dress, playing with a naked girl in her middle twenties, the latter was tied to the bed with her eyes closed, asleep, while the middle-aged woman touched and licked her private to the content of her heart.
“My lord husband, what happened, you look worried?”, the middle-aged woman stood from the bed and then walked towards the man, she started walking around him, undressing him and herself, until they were both naked.
“What happened to me… that boy got himself into trouble and with the queen to top it off!”, the man’s voice still contained some anger, which was calmed as the woman talked to him.
“Husband you must stand out for our son, I bet it’s that bitchy princess the one at fault, remember our other son is the most talented out of the three and he loves his little brother, you can use the other bastard’s life in exchange if needed too”, said the woman as her hand reached downwards to the crotch of the man.
“Don’t think about that now, look this little “toy” I bought in secret; she is all ready for you”, the woman pointed at the passed-out girl tied on the bed, and the man smiled as he walked towards the bed.
…
Back at the mansion of the queen, Mellie took Daimon and the girls to the library, and after they each took some books to read, they sat down on a table and chatted about random subjects from time to time.
“Oh, so in your native place the Mortal realm is divided and classified in such a detailed way?”, asked Mellie with a curious expression in her face.
“Yeah, Star ranks, Lord ranks, Arch ranks and Emperor realm, the first one having nine stages called “stars”, the others only have three stages, early, middle and peak”.
“Wow, I think it’s more organized than what we have, you have knights too right?”, asked Mellie.
“Yes”, answered Daimon.
Needless to say, but Mellie was pretty interested in learning about the culture of the Wonder Myriad Stellar chart, just like Annete mentioned, her race was curious by nature and they who had the “Analyzing Resonance” ability went a tier beyond that, its just that they had to be really enthusiastic about something for it to show.
Oblivious to the undercurrents that were running below the surface in the Clear Water kingdom, Daimon, the girls and Mellie kept talking about the culture of the two galaxies, while they also read about the history of this planet, who turned out to be called Neptune… of course Daimon immediately investigated to see if it was Neptune as in the Milky Way, but found that it wasn’t.
Still, a curious fact, was that the planet was named precisely by the hero that vanished out of nowhere, in other words the one who manifested the lineage of the Black Armored Shark, back when the Clear Water kingdom was founded.