"Is this my invitation to get in?" Varian rubbed his chin. "Not bad. Not bad at all."
The royal guard who seemed to be the head of the squad snorted and glanced at Joras.
"Unspirited? As expected from these incompetent leeches." The head guard raised his sword to kill off the security guard for 'allowing' such a thing to happen.
Joras didn't even bother to defend or cry injustice. He had those ideals when he was young and naive. That was the time he used to wonder why the adults of the world gave up on fighting for a better world.
But as he grew older and fought and fought and fought, fatigue set in. He couldn't change the deeply entrenched system.
No matter how talented he was, the spirited ones were given priorities in resources and training. Thus, the spirited ones on average always had a better rank. Using the better rank as the justification, even more resources were tilted toward them. This self-feeding cycle was unstoppable and unbreakable.
Born into a kingdom that based itself on such a system, as the light of the sword shone down on his face, Joras realized that he didn't fear dying.
No. What he feared wasn't dying, it was a life where he couldn't even live.
'You old fucker! I'm going before you! Let's see who will pay your debts!' As he said his farewells, the tip of the blade reached his throat.
"Is this the kingdom Princess Isadora talked about? Killing a helpless guard? Hahaha! Would you guys show even a quarter of this valor on the battlefield? Nah! Let me guess, you'll crawl to your stronger enemy and lick his shoes if he can let you out, am I right or am I right?"
The discordant, arrogant but strangely commanding voice rang out at the critical moment.
The blade of the sword left a purple line on Joras brown skin. It went no deeper than that.
The headguard surprisingly displayed an excellent control of the sword as he withdrew it at the last moment without harming the prey.
Not caring about the impressive feat in the slighest, the guard turned to Varian with a strong gaze.
"What did you just say? P-Princess I-Isa…"
"Did your mom not teach you pronounciation? It's Princess Isadora!" Varian crossed his arms with an arrogant gaze and snorted.
"…"
Even though he wanted to smash this arrogant bastard in the face, the head guard realized this matter was no longer something he could handle.
Turning around, he said to his squad. "Inform the Palace. We'll be taking this guest there for judgement."
The headguard then turned to the handsome young man, intending to ask him to come with him.
But Varian swaggered back to his carriage, leaving behind the words in a very patronizing tone. "Sure. Sure. I'll give you five the honor of escorting me there."
'Fuck!'
The guards looked at each other, anger and humiliation overflowing in their eyes. Unlike the lowly security guard, they were royal guards—the ones who guarded the palace. And it's not a job they did because of debts. They picked up the job because of the immense benefits.
A Spirited, rank 7 royal guard was someone who'd be respected throughout the kingdom. But this bastard had the galls to give them the 'honor' of being his escorts.
As much as they gnashed their teeth in anger, the royal guards didn't do anything more than that.
Sealing their mouth shut lest they curst this bastard, they escorted the carriage to the royal palace.
Even by mistake, they didn't want to attack someone who could be related to Princess Isadora.
Inside the carriage, Varian shrugged at Sonya, Enigma and the veiled Sarah with a look of disbelief. "I guess her plan isn't as crazy as it sounded."
*** *** ***
Not too long ago:
When Isadora and Sarah entered the training room to ask for his help, they noticed that it had changed to resemble a village side with a long river floating through it.
The man they were looking for was sitting quietly on the river bank, dipping his feet in the water.
Floating at his eye level was a piece of rock that was twisting violently, the space-time fabric around it changing at a certain frequency along with the order-chaos that govern the matter-energy in it.
The rock continued to twist before it suddenly stopped and stretched taut. The space around it became distinctly different from the space in the room.
The proof of this was that the aura in the room began to flock toward the rock.
An invisible wall of sorts was formed around the piece of rock, blocking some aura and letting some in. But in fact, it was just the solidified space of the rock which was much stronger than the normal space.
Varian halted his breath at some point and devoted himself to the work.
As the aura continued to pour into that tiny 'prime world', it entered the middle stage of creation.
With the space boundaries created and aura concentration raised, at this point, the rock itself had to strengthen.
As the aura poured into the rock, fine cracks began to appear on the rock.
Varian's expression twisted and he wanted to lower the input of the aura. But it's already very low. If it went any lower, the little aura being sent into the rock would discharge into the space around it before strengthening it, essentially halting the progress in the middle stages.
So he let the aura flow.
The cracks on the rock expanded in seconds before the rock disintegrated apart.
"You've already hit the middle stages?" Isadora's lips twitched. She expected him to progress fast but this was a bit too much, alright?
Since they didn't want to disturb Varian, they deliberately withdrew their extended senses and didn't notice everything in the room.
Moreover, the aura was dense and fluctuating around him, so other than his silhouette, the visibility around him was a problem.
But as Sarah walked up to him while the aura cleared, she noticed Enigma in Varian's arms, her head resting on his chest and his arms around her waist.
"…What are you doing?"
Enigma raised her head, the blush on her face turning even her ears pink. "He…wants us to get closer so we can play husband and wife part well."
