"AAAH!" People cried out when they heard the gunshot and saw Ning fell to the ground.
Reeves was stunned for a few seconds, not understanding what had happened. When he realized Ning was on the ground, he immediately got down to help him.
Ning was slowly turned around to reveal that he was shot in the chest.
"Urgh!" Ning cried out in pain in front of all the people.
Fiona's eyes went wide and immediately turned around to her guards. "Go find the assassin!" she shouted.
The guards ran away to look for someone in the direction where the attack had come from.
Ning showed an incredibly pained expression, but on the inside, he simply understood that Sam couldn't get out of killing the princess, so as he had told him, he had shot him.
'Dammit, that man. He could've just shot my arm or leg. How the hell am I going to explain being fine?' Ning thought. He was getting a little annoyed, but thankfully, he had prepared the fake blood in advance all over his body just for this.
"I'm okay," he cried out and slowly stood up. He put his hands inside his shirt and pulled out a metal plate with a hole in it.
"I was wearing armor on the inside just in case today," he said. That was the best lie he could come up with at the moment.
"But you're bleeding," Fiona said.
"It's just a flesh wound. I'll go get it checked right now," he said.
"Let me help you, brother Ning," Reeves said.
"Thank you, brother Reeves." Ning grabbed his shoulder for support and walked away from the crowd.
After walking a bit far away, Ning stopped relying on Reeves and stood up straight. "Tsk! My shirt got ruined," Ning said.
"Wh-what?" Reeves was surprised to see Ning acting perfectly fine.
Ning pulled out the pack of blood that he had put on his body. "What?" he asked when he looked at Reeves' face. "Oh yeah, this was fake. Don't worry. I had to act like I got shot so the assassin would run away."
"You planned all of this?" Reeves asked.
"Yes," Ning said. "We have to keep your wife safe, so we do what we can."
Reeves felt gratitude towards Ning that reached almost sky-high. He had done so much for them, and yet he kept on doing even more.
Ning took out a bandage from his storage and put it around his chest. "Let's wait here for a moment before we return," he said.
After a while, they returned back to the feast and saw that nothing had changed except for the security being a little tighter.
"I'm so sorry. We checked everything this morning. I don't know where the assassins came from," Fiona spoke.
"It's alright," Ning said. "I'm not really hurt. How are the princes and princesses doing?"
"They're fine. Although, the 5th prince asked to return back to the palace," Fiona said.
"I see," Ning said. The 5th prince was the last prince aside from Gillian and Elizabeth to have a claim to the throne.
Ning had wondered once that he might have been responsible for the assassins, but given how introverted and anti-social he was, as well as having an extreme love for arts and crafts, Ning gave up all suspicions he had.
So it really could just be the 2nd prince that was absent today.
The feast ended about 5 hours later around noon. On the way back, Ning used his analysis to check on the smiling faces of the slum folks and saw that they had indeed become an aether user now.
'That worked quite well. Now I hope they put it to good use,' he thought.
The group returned back to the palace. Reeves was now walking next to Lisa, along with the other royal family members.
Just as they were entering the palace, they stopped when they saw someone walkout.
It was a relatively young man, about 30 years old. He was wearing a military outfit, one that belonged to someone in high rank.
"Good Afternoon, your highnesses," The man bowed towards them all.
"Mr. David, what are you doing here?" one of the princes asked.
"I just came to give the report to the emperor," David said.
"Report?" the prince's face changed a little. "No way, is the Undying fort in trouble again?"
"Haha, no, your highness. My report was that there is no trouble," David said.
He then turned to Lisa and said, "I heard that you were alive, your highness. It's good to see that the news wasn't a lie."
"Thank you, Mr. David," Lisa said.
"If you will, I need to return back to the fort by sundown, your highnesses," David bowed a little and left them.
'Undying fort… isn't that the place next to the forest where the main war with the Aether beasts took place? Do they still wait there for caution?' Ning wondered.
"Who was that?" Reeves asked Lisa softly.
"That's David. He used to be a Vice Commander of the Defense army, but now I suppose he's the Commander of the Defense Army," Lisa said.
"Oh, a commander huh? At such a young age," Reeves said.
"Oh, he's not young. He just looks like that because he's an Aether genius. He reached a very high rank at a young age, so he kept his youth."
"If I'm not wrong, he should be around 150 years old this year," Lisa said.
'That's still considered young for an Aether user right?' Ning thought from behind them.
Once the group entered the palace, Ning waited for Reeves to come out of the palace again.
Reeves told Lisa what he was doing, so she gave him her approval without a single thought.
"Alright, brother Ning. Let's go," Reeves said excitedly.
"Let's go," Ning said with a smile. They walked out of the palace, and Reeves started looking for a carriage.
"Uhh… brother Reeves, don't tell anyone about this okay?" Ning asked.
"About wha—" halfway through Reeves' words, the scenario changed from a road and wall, to a desert.
