Death, Devotion, Dissonance

As Evin was pondering upon his next action, Amera spoke to him from the side, finished with her snacks.

"It sounds like you have a lot of enemies…"

The girl's voice was laden with concern, but her golden pupils, curiously observing Evin's reactions, betrayed her true emotions.

'Since when are kids so tricky these days?' Evin thought amusedly as he worked on an answer.

"I guess," Evin shrugged.

"Why?"

Evin wanted to reply, but realized that the question was harder than it first sounded. "Hmm… Guess you shouldn't make enemies with influential and rich people?"

Amera made a pondering expression before saying, "Well, thankfully for you, at least you won't make enemies with my father."

"Yes. It really was very lucky of me to find you in that place," Evin agreed. "What kind of person is your father, by the way?"

"He's a bit scary around others, but he's very kind and gentle to me. I really like being around him. He's also been the Ruler of this Island for 4 years now, which is longer than any of the previous Rulers before him. Also-"

The weirdly mature princess of the Island seemed to have disappeared and was replaced by an ordinary little girl. Evin really didn't know why there were so many weird rumors about the Easterners. Stories about how they burn the scorpions of the desert to get high off the fumes, or how their favorite dishes were snake meat. Looking at Amera now, she only looked like a normal girl talking about her father, with the only exception being her dark skin.

"By the way, where is this Island, anyway?" Evin couldn't help but ask.

"Ah, what do you mean?"

"Like, where exactly is this Island located? Is it near the kingdom, or the Oases? Or somewhere else entirely?"

Amera looked flustered, not knowing how to reply. "I-I don't know. I'm sorry. I've been on this Island since I've been born."

Evin's first thought was to think that she was lying, but the girl's behavior didn't seem like an act to him. Confused and curious, Evin decided to ask further, but his thoughts were interrupted by a tall dark-gray tower appearing in front of him from beside the trees.

Evin had caught a glimpse of the Tower while he was flying, but seeing it up close had a much different effect. From afar, the tower looked slim, making Evin scoff at the idea that this was a Palace, but Evin could see now how wrong his assumptions were. The structure was definitely wide enough to be called a Palace and its height, too, was nothing to scoff at.

Not to mention the material that the whole thing was made of: huge blocks of processed ketricite lined up the tower, giving off an aura that suppressed the mana nearby. Even Evin's illusions were being affected by its pressure.

"Well, it seems we've arrived," Evin said to Amera as he had the Voice dispel his illusory barrier.

The act made the two of them visible to the naked eye and the guards around the Palace immediately took notice of them.

"Who goes there!" one of them shouted at Evin, before noticing Amera behind him and immediately changing their behavior. "The princess!"

Fifteen minutes later, Evin was put before a dark-skinned man wearing the typical western nobleman's clothing. Amera had already changed from her simple white dress into something which also resembled something a nobleman's daughter would wear. Evin didn't know how the girl was able to change clothes so quickly and appear on her father's side, as she was brought away the moment the guards recognized who she was.

And when Evin entered the Ruler's presence a minute ago, she was already sitting beside his father, whispering something to his father's ears. From the warm way the supposedly scary Ruler looked at him as he entered, Evin knew that Amera was putting in some good words for him. Maintaining a good person's façade might not always be useful, but it tended to bring benefits when one didn't expect them.

"Brave westerner, I, Albin Faizan, am grateful to you for bring my daughter back to me from the clutches of those villains."

Even if the whole thing was an act, it was inadequate to say things like 'It's nothing', or 'No sweat off my back' as the topic concerned the Ruler's daughter. So, Evin could only play humble in a neutral and harmless way.

"I was only lucky. I've been exploring the rat-infested Tunnels and was truly surprised by your daughter being there." Then, realizing that he heard something about these 'villains' before from Amera before, he asked. "Who are these villains, anyway?"

"Heretics that reside deep in the forest. Well, we call them heretics, but they're practically all sub-humans worse than animals," Albin said hatefully. "Their belief in a false deity leads them to conduct countless sacrifices and killings in the name of rituals. Lately, they've been becoming more and more unrestrained, even taking my daughter away from my side while she was walking through the forest outside."

There were a few logical discrepancies in the Ruler's words. If these Heretics were so horrible, then why didn't they just sacrifice Amera to their false deity and instead locked her up in a room with a bed, a desk and even a bathroom? And if the Ruler knew that these Heretics were capable of such evils, then why didn't he mount an attack on their Temple to save his daughter as soon as possible?

'Well, this whole thing's just a huge act played out to test us, so I guess the storyline's logical fallacies aren't that important,' Evin thought inside, while nodding along to the Ruler's words.

The man was acting very amiably with Evin, offering him food and delicacies that were lined on the table. But Evin's mind was on another thing.

'What's my reward for saving Amera, anyway?'

Evin couldn't really mention rewards himself, as that would be considered rude, but there was still an expectation nagging at the back of his mind. But thankfully, Albin eventually mentioned the topic.

"As a reward for saving my daughter, I wish to grant you these three items," the Ruler began. "I understand that you're taking a test of the gods, and despite what you may think, I assure you that these items will be useful to you especially."

The rewards turned out to be a ripped-up map, a key, and a spear. Evin was more than a bit disappointed by the first two items, but the Ruler kept hinting at him that those were really great treasures, even though he refused to talk about where the map or the key would be useful.

Evin could only accept the Ruler's words and hope he would find a use for them soon enough. In the meantime, he could keep himself happy with the spear he obtained. It was a thin spear with a long and straight two-bladed edge; and was also about as tall as Evin was. But despite its length, the spear's weight was almost negligible in Evin's hands.

Albin explained that it was made with a material called 'Sorbothium', which had the ability to accept and integrate different World Energies. In this case, the spear was filled with the energy of Qanatohm, and had the ability to change its weight.

The way it worked was simple, since the spear was filled with Weight energies, Evin, or any other mage holding it, just had to order it around like they would order around the World energies inside their bodies.

It would take some time for Evin to master this spear, but otherwise, he was very glad he received this item. He wanted a weapon for himself for a long time, but could never buy one for himself. Moreover, from next year, the students were finally going to graduate from their fistfights and actually start learning a proper weapon.

Evin thanked the Ruler for his gifts and started asking some questions. Where this Island was, what would happen if Evin took hold of a Castle, about the 'unspoken' area on the map… But it became apparent that the Ruler was unwilling to talk about these topics.

"I am grateful to you for saving my daughter, but I can't just answer every question you have because of it," the man replied after a bit.

Evin then pulled out the card that allowed him two questions from the Ruler. "Will I have to use this, then?"

The Ruler checked the card out, smiled, and then nodded.

Evin thought hard about what question he could ask from the Ruler before coming here. He was basically decided on one question so he decided to ask that first. "Before I ask, do you really know everything about what's happening on this Island?"

"Well, of course, I don't know everything about the Island, but I do have access to much more information than what you can probably imagine," Albin replied confidently.

"In that case, can you tell me the location of a certain student?"

Albin sent him a knowing smile and got up from his seat. "Follow me."

The Ruler was definitely misunderstanding something, but Evin didn't wish to bother correcting him and simply followed. The two ended up inside the basement of the Palace, which wasn't made of Ketricite like the rest of the Palace. A second later, Evin understood why.

The Ruler brought Evin to a room, which was filled with thousands of Talismans all over the place. A cursory glance told him that most of them were Talismans of Transmitting, but there were a few that escaped Evin's knowledge, despite Evin's extensive knowledge of Runes. The most interesting thing that Evin could find in the room was that all of these Talismans were connected to a huge metal Talisman through thin metallic wires. A thin strand of mana could be felt from this unknown Talisman, constantly prickling at Evin's curiosity. But despite all his questions, one look at the Ruler's expression told him that his questions wouldn't be answered.

"So? Who do you want me to search for?"

Stifling a sigh, Evin replied.

"Bellaslayn Borna."

…