Chapter 356: Nerathis is doomed.
Chapter 356: Nerathis is doomed.
“That, you leave to me.
You just act like you normally do, and I will make you the perfect King.”
“A perfect King, huh…”
Kael muttered with a dry laugh. Those words seemed too grand for someone like him. After all, just a few months ago, he was merely a student aiming for a white-collar job and to survive well.
The thought of being a King, let alone a ’Perfect King,’ had never once come to his mind.
Lavinia, who saw through his expression, just smiled.
“Don’t think too much, you have the making of a great King.”
“I do?”
“You are strong, charming, responsible, and hard-working.
Along with that, you are also humble, you care about people around you, you step forward to help others when you can, you sympathize with people and try to do whatever you can to help them.
You may hide all this behind selfish reasons, but deep down, you are a good person.
And…
Nerathis needs a good King.”
Lavinia muttered.
“Nerathis?”
Kael blinked.
Weren’t they just talking about Ashen Heights? Where did all of Nerathis come from?
“We will expand.”
Lavinia declared, the strong light in her eyes did not fade.
“What…?”
Kael’s expression changed.
“What about the Treaty then?”
He questioned.
The sole reason they came here was because of the Treaty between Velmourns and the rest of the world. The Treaty that forbade any party from attacking the other.
“Treaties are made to be broken.”
Lavinia answered, and once again, Kael could not understand.
“Won’t the Dragons and other Mythical Beasts from other Kingdoms get involved if we do that?”
But at that question, Lavinia just smiled.
“Are we truly scared of them?”
“…”
And Kael turned silent.
Dragons?
He had them as well.
And his children were better than all of them.
Once his children grew, their strength would be far above any Mythical Beasts here.
But…
“Are you planning to plunge the world into war?”
Kael narrowed his eyes.
He did not like this idea one bit. He had no intention of making his children participate in a war against fully grown Mythical Beasts and hundreds of thousands of man-strong armies.
Not to mention the last thing they wanted right now was a war.
The threat of Corruption still existed, Twilight was still a blank canvas and nothing was known about them. If they triggered a war, then with how tense the current political situation in Nerathis was, that trigger alone would plunge the entirety of Nerathis into a desperate situation, and the one who would benefit from it the most wouldn’t be them or any other Kingdom,
It would be the enemies that are still hidden behind the veils.
Enemies whose strength, numbers, abilities, and intentions are unknown.
And these enemies…
They would turn the war-ridden world into something much, much worse.
Now, Kael may not be gentle, kind, and compassionate like Lavinia believes him to be, but being a trigger to all that destruction while risking his children’s lives would be the last thing he would ever do.
But…
“The world will be plunged into war no matter what you do.”
Lavinia shook her head. At her words, Kael narrowed his eyes even further.
“Nerathis is doomed. Even if a Hero saves it from the imminent danger, the way it is now—Twilight or not—it will fall eventually.”
The Princess began.
“Every Nation, every Power, every Faction is corrupt, thinking solely about their benefits. The gap between nobles and commoners is rising at a significant rate. The common life has become insignificant in the eyes of the ones sitting at the top—something they could ’spend’ without any thought.
The people are suffering. According to some records, life of a commoner has become even worse than what it was during the tyranny of the Velmourns.
Corruption has corrupted the Beasts we once called our allies. Kings refuse to aid their people as towns are being destroyed by the Beast Waves. Some are conserving their strength for the ’future,’ some are simply trying to use their people as pieces to identify the enemy and gather more information regarding them.
Some are even using them as experiments to test these new powers and are trying to come up with a way to make it theirs.
Greed and benefits rule the world. Justice does not exist. The common man is suffering, and trust me when I say this:
The longer it continues, the worse it will get.
Sooner or later, the common man will raise his voice and react, and when he does,
Thrones will fall, cities will be plunged into chaos, battlefields will be flowing with rivers of blood, and…
Twilight will use it as the opportunity to fulfil their own goals.”
Lavinia spoke with a grim look on her face as she looked into Kael’s eyes.
“…”
Kael just stared at Lavinia in silence.
In his mind, he couldn’t believe that she was the same woman who had been trapped inside a cell with no access to outside information for the past 3 years.
Rather, she looked like an omniscient being who knew every suffering, every event, and every way to make things better.
Of course, Kael was the one who told her about everything that had happened. In their conversation, Lavinia often asked him about everything that happened ever since he came here.
Vitaria, as his Illusion instructor, even came up with a training where he showed Lavinia everything he had been through since coming here.
So whatever Lavinia knew about the current situation of Nerathis, it was known through him and the rumors she heard during the time they spent in inns while coming here.
But…
’To gather all that information and predict what was going to happen…’
Kael thought inwardly.
Honestly, in his mind, he was doubting if what she was saying would even come true. After all, he was the source of all this information, he knew everything she did, yet his mind didn’t even try to think of all this.
Somewhere in his mind, this fact weakened the strength of Lavinia’s argument…
Of course, he couldn’t outright ignore them either. After all, what the Princess said made complete logical sense.
“Even if we do presume that what you said will happen,
How are our actions going to make anything better? No, won’t our actions just hasten all this destruction?”
Kael questioned.
The higher-ups were corrupted, he knew that. Heck, the very King of the strongest Kingdom turned out to be an enemy. None of them could be trusted.
But…
Whatever they were, whatever they did, in the end, they were the ones who ran the world, they were the ones who… kept peace, however fragile that was.
And wasn’t it the same back in his own world?
Kael wasn’t very politically active, but he had heard of thousands of cases of corrupt politicians—even the ones at the very top. Most, if not all, governments were corrupted to their core. Common people were suffering, crimes went unpunished, innocents were put behind bars, rape, murder, kidnapping, drug abuse, and even human trafficking—
All of this was commonplace.
Even the economy was in shambles, markets were falling, happiness indexes were at an all-time low, every second person was depressed.
Yet…
Peace still existed.
Fragile, yes, but it was still there.
People were still living, even under these corrupt politicians.
So… was plunging the entire world into war in hopes of a better future truly the solution?
Would he, as a student and as a common man, want that to happen?
’…No.’
Kael inwardly shook his head.
After all, he already knew the end results of these revolutions. Either the ruling party wins and the revolutionaries—now the terrorists—are executed, or the revolutionaries win and the ruling party—or the tyrants—are dealt with before the revolutionaries become the next rulers, and the cycle repeats in a few decades.
This was common knowledge—not just back in his own world, but even here. After all, Drakthar and other Kingdoms were once revolutionaries who stood against the ’tyrants’ as well, weren’t they?
But now…
They have become the tyrants they once subdued, repeating the cycle.
Usually, most people do not care about a ’big cause’ or ’justice,’ they simply care about living a small, insignificant life and fading after that ends.
Being stuck in a war between different Countries or Kingdoms isn’t something they would want.
“Don’t worry.”
Suddenly, Lavinia shook her head.
“We won’t be doing anything, and we definitely won’t be hastening anything.
We will just be on the frontlines.”
“On the frontlines?”
Kael did not understand.
“I mentioned this before—people will get angry, and in their dissatisfaction, they will revolt.”
“So you want us to be at the frontlines of this revolt?”
“Somewhat, yes.”
Lavinia nodded, and Kael’s expression turned grim.
The frontlines…
It definitely wasn’t the most desired position, but Kael knew Lavinia knew that, and somewhere in his heart, he trusted she had a plan.
“Somewhat?”
He raised his eyebrow, and just as he expected, Lavinia did not disappoint.
“We won’t be fighting.”
She revealed, and—
“Hah…?”
Kael had no clue what she was thinking.