Chapter 97: The Arrival
The King stared at the plate in front of him as he started to pray inwardly towards the god of the sun, after his short prayer, he began to dismantle the giant lobster tail on his plate, he was alone having lunch because the queen was once again nowhere to be seen and his child is not at the right age yet to be ingesting meat and needed softer foods, so the maids are the one who is feeding the child, of course, the queen is the one who is feeding him most of the time, it just so happens that the queen is late this time, similarly this is one of the concerns that the adviser has raised, saying while the king continued to bury himself to his lunch, elegantly, of course.
"Your Majesty, your wife, Her Majesty the Queen once again escaped the palace, because of this, you do not have anyone to accompany you to lunch, this is because of your subordinates' negligenc-"
Before the adviser could even continue, the King interrupted him with a wave of his hand, Roselle then said while sighing, playing with the lobster in front of him.
"Such happenings are caused by the superiority of my wife's stealth abilities over our own spies' detection, no one of you is to be blamed."
King Roselle stopped for a while as he used his knife to cut the lobster and then forked it as he put it in his mouth, causing the suppressed gulp of the adviser to surface, the King ignored his adviser's gesture, after all, the servants in the palace are given order to have lunch an hour earlier than the Royal Family such that they will not starve while serving their monarchs, he continued.
"Besides, it is not like she will not come back and escape for good, you do know what kind of report I am waiting for you to do, right?"
Even though King Roselle is indeed worried about his wife and wants to chase her, he also knows that he is still a King before a husband, thus Roselle decides to leave the matter for now and get to the point of why is the adviser inside the dining room in the first place.
"Yes, My King. Initial reports from our spies all over the continent, especially our neighboring nations except Kamatayan, it can be concluded that the nations holding open and hidden animosity or ambitions against us are not making any moves and are in their initial level of guard against us."
"However, there is a concern regarding Valentine, the Kingdom of Devils and Vampires has increased their economic and military activities and they recently partaken in a festival that celebrates the awakening of the other leader of their race, Loki Darkbringer, and just a short time after that, the strongest soldier of Valentine and the most trusted subordinate of Loki has disappeared in all of the city, towns and other places that we are spying from... Sir, it is most likely probable if we considered the sudden warning of Queen Sophia that the Assassin of Loki is in our Kingdom."
King Roselle has long fallen silent, the last bite of lobster in his fork cannot even move away from the plate, an expression of fear that is rare to the young (relatively) yet mighty King of Gjallarhorn, he started to go back to his history lessons and have a flashback of all the things the books have told about the Kingdom of Valentine as if he is experiencing them himself.
He soon calmed down as he finally ate the last piece on his plate, he sighed and said.
"Then we have to stay on guard and wait for the arrival of the Queen of Kamatayan. Start a search operation for Hebi Tsukaiza, I believe that they were educated on what she looks like, right?"
The adviser who also started to get nervous, finally breathed a sigh of relief, as a loyal follower of the lord in front of him, he didn't want to see his King have a look of nervousness on his face, he nodded and immediately responded.
"By your will."
[Sophia's POV]
The sun started to set across the horizon, causing its once-yellow brilliance to turn into a ruby-colored light that pierced through the curtains of the carriage, Bakunawa, Eleanor, and I continued to eat the pastry that was offered to us while talking about how the flying carriage is not bouncy at all even though it doesn't have a land and all of that.
_Finally, sweets._
I said so as such, remembering all the salty things Momoiro made me eat, my Filipino palette just cannot take all of that saltiness.
Anyway, many hours have passed since we departed and at that whole time, I briefed the whole gang (Bakunawa and Eleanor) on what the presumable situation in Heimdall is, well it is not chaos yet, but I said that it is possible Hebi Tsukaiza is in the capital and she is getting one of my relics and also, I have to stop her because of my mission to collect the undead cores.
They became quite alarmed that I was almost late and almost made my mission a lot harder, given the fact that I don't have any guide and my [Guide] is not that reliable, and I admit that I kind of pushed the continuation of the tour with Momoiro even though time is not an ally as of the moment, but hey, you cannot leave promises unfulfilled, after all, I am a busy person and did not know if I can still go back to Urduja City after I finish this whole Hebi Tsukaiza affair.
[No, you are just enjoying your time.]
Pretend you never heard of that, going back, I said that it's fine, and it's not like I cannot remedy my shortcoming in a short time, I mean, I don't need to sleep so...
Anyway, after that, I asked Eleanor who had the greatest knowledge about the king if he might have hidden agendas against me, because I just erased his last bastion of influence in the Urdujan territory, and of course, as a person who thinks of bad thing against his Kingdom, I have to defend against bad things against mine too.
What do you say, Hypocrisy is a great quality for a Queen.
"As far as I know, he is more of the type that cherishes connections with strong individuals, like My Mom and her wives as well as my elder siblings, this gave Gjallarhorn the title of the strongest human nation, but you can't be sure because in simpler terms, what you did is like pulling a pillar out of his gigantic colosseum, so you still have to be careful. It is a given that he does not desire Urduja's help."
That is what she said, so I relaxed a little, but of course, like I said, I am on guard about the things I will probably do but don't what to happen to me, just as I was thinking of such things, we felt the carriage go lower and lower alongside it the voice of the knight that served as the coachman, saying:
"We have arrived at the Royal Capital, The City of Heimdall."
______
Setting out of the carriage, Eleanor, Bakunawa, and I looked around, I specifically wondered why does it look like the buildings were inspired by Spanish architecture even though their name was "Gjallarhorn".
_Since such a word is in Norse mythology, shouldn't they be inspired by Nordic countries?_
Such thoughts were immediately thrown out of my mind as the more important matter appeared, how to find Hebi Tsukaiza.
My first impression of her is that she is a spy/assassin that has a higher level than Kabuto, I can't even sense where she is hiding when she is observing my fight with Urduja, also if she traveled from Valentine to Heimdall, that means the spiders of Arachne somehow did not detect them.
That might be the best prologue of her strength, and according to Urduja, "Ophiuchus (Hebitsukai za in Nihongo)" has a system title of "The Serpent Bearer" but is most commonly known as "The Bearer of a Hundred Serpent" has only one unique skill known as [Creation], even though it sounds very powerful, it has a lot and very disadvantageous limitations, normally, of course. It can create weapons and the subskill: [Saint of the Martial] makes it so that if she knows the whole concept of a weapon (shape, types, basic techniques, and production) the user will be able to use the said weapon with "Saint Level Mastery" (as Urduja has named it), that is where the limit comes, after all, no human can normally learn the basics of a sword and learn the basic techniques of the certain subtypes of the types of sword they want to learn and create.
Well, that explanation might be too complicated.
In short terms, if a human wants to learn to create a broadsword using this unique skill, he has to learn what are the shape, basic techniques, and production of the 6 widely commonly used broadswords, and yes, different broadswords have different basic techniques, it is because some of them are single edged while some are double-edged, also some of them are for military and some are for individuals.
Not to mention the different footwork and strength requirements.
But Hebi's race alone bypassed such weakness, after all, Devils only die when they are killed or if they commit suicide, so as a very strong soldier, she is set for life to be able to master a lot if not all weapons in existence, also I bet she can use it to create supplementary things that make it more difficult to track her.
_The term weapon can be broad, even shit can be used to create gunpowder..._
My thoughts just lasted for a couple of seconds as I scanned my whole surroundings, seemingly admiring the architectural design of the place, in actuality, I do, even the knight who acted as the coachman, interjected to our sightseeing, the smugness in his voice is very evident.
"Our Kingdom has been around for a long time and has developed the integrity and aesthetic of our buildings as we grow from a simple settlement into a beautiful nation, and the building in our front, The Royal Palace is the guiding pillar for the beauty sense of the country."
I nodded simply and smiled, causing the knight to be more smug, even though I ignored him, however, I was thinking about how the design of the walls and the infrastructure of Kamatayan and Gjallarhorn are both born out of Hispanic inspirations, well it is not that much of a problem compared to the presence of Loki's strongest soldier here. However, because I already know the ability of Hebi Tsukaiza, I can already infer what kind of strategy will she use to get the gem and what kind of method will she use to confront or avoid my presence, so I am not really in a hurry.
_Tomorrow, I will request to have a stroll around Heimdall with the pretext of finding clues about Hebi, but I am already quite sure that she is inside the palace so I have to have Eleanor and Bakunawa accompany the King, no, actually, he has to have some big shots on him, so I think he will reject it._
With this, I will be able to look around apothecary shops to look on what is the situation of medicines in this world, and how will I be able to compete and surpass them, of course, This is built on the premise that it is not so advanced for the resources of my forest. The longer the time before I found Hebi the more exaggerated how I "save" the Kingdom from a very powerful invader, as a result, he will be more grateful to me and I will be able to ask more unreasonable demands.
[Wipe off your evil smile.]
I am now in front of a man in his thirties, he has... a somehow normal face if not for the fact that he has black long hair and blue eyes that has some blue sparks on them, also he has a robe that looks like a priest robe, my smile immediately turned pure and sincere as I looked up a little to the King of Gjallarhorn, Roselle Gjallarhorn VI.
[You smile like you did not plan to suck off his blood.]
I continued to smile as the King put his right hand on his left chest as he said.
"Greetings Queen Sophia Demiurge I, Lady Eleanor, and Lady Bakunawa, as you might already know, I am the King of one of your neighboring countries, Roselle Gjallarhorn VI. I hope that you will find your stay in my palace pleasant."
I smiled as I answered
"I am sure I will."