Sinthia and The Demon Duke of DeSidea: 28

“Alex. If I may.”

Cedric hesitantly turned to the Novan Emperor. Alex was reclining in the sitting room, sipping wine and biting into slices of cheese. “What’s on your mind?”

Cedric sat in an armchair, legs crossed and fingers knitted. He had been meaning to ask this question since he had heard from the Emperor that he would accept coming to the Ophelian Kingdom.

“What is the real reason you’re here? This festival is not enough to draw in the most powerful man in the most powerful empire.”

Alex chuckled lightly as he bit into a splendid bit of creamy Camembert. “Whose to say I didn’t miss my dear friend so much I decided I wanted to travel here and relax with you?”

“Highly unlikely for a man as busy as you are.”

”That hurts my feelings, Ced.” Alex made a faux dramatic gesture as he sorrowfully wailed. Although Alexander was a frighteningly powerful man, he enjoyed joking and playing around since his childhood days. That was how he was and always would be, even when he was busy governing the most powerful empire on the continent.

”Well, to make it very short and sweet, I’m here because the Eastern triumvirate has been moving suspiciously.”

Cedric’s brow furrowed. He had received reports of strange things happening in the Ira Empire as well as the Kritin and Bell Kingdom. The Eastern Triumvirate was an alliance that rose up due to common trade and the threat of the Central Alliance’s growing power. As such, their relationships were often only of a business nature. However, Cedric had gotten strange reports from the spies he had planted in their courts that the military commanders had been more active. It was not particularly strange. Every few years, they would puff up and try to imply that war was an effective way to get what they wanted, but war was inefficient and resulted in too many losses. Their suggestions were normally shot down immediately. “How so?”

Alex quietly chewed more cheese, rolling thoughts in his head. “To invade Ophelia probably.”

Cedric stared at Alex blankly for a while, trying to fathom why that would be so. Ophelia was a place that people liked for it’s peculiar sights. In other words, it was mostly a tourist kingdom. It did trade in rare things such as gems and metal, but the main thing that Ophelia was known for was for the fascinating and beautiful things one could find within it’s boarders. It did not have something that other kingdoms such as the ones in the Eastern Triumvirate—who were very strong in trade and commerce—were interested in. Trade and commerce...  Cedric’s sharp mind begun to think very quickly. Then it occurred to him.

He sighed. Of course it was that. Ophelia had been a poor, unprofitable kingdom for a while before the last two kings did everything in their power to strengthen their lands and make it stand out. They had identified Ophelia’s sights and attractions and focused on building connections to nobles and merchants of other kingdoms to bring in a flow of tourism from them. What no one knew was why. Why these past two kings worked so hard for this, going so far as to abandon their emotions for their duty. Cedric remembered his mother. She was from a ducal family, and had been trained from birth to be a strong and suitable queen that would support the king and work with him to bring the kingdom to new heights. She was an ice cold woman who emphasized duty over all else. He remembered a time when he was very young, and he had asked his mother why it was that his father and his grandfather and his great great grandfather had been so duty-driven. She had been quiet for a long time before she told him a story. What would be both the first and last story she would ever weave for him.

It was a story from a long time ago, when the Great Demon King and The Continent would still battle every few hundred years. In those earth-shattering battles, the ten humans gifted with magic from the Continent of Eltrea would go against the Great Demon King and his armies. Amongst the demons that he had with him were what were known as Great Demon Knights. Demons whose power was second only to their King. These were what would give the Ten Humans such difficulties in the battles. The Knights were extremely strong and possessed incredible magic. Defeating a single one was nearly impossible. Every time there was an attack, nine Demon Knights would rise with their King and besiege the Human continent. However, there were occasions throughout history when the humans had shown such immense talent and mastery of their gifts that they would manage to strike down a Great Demon Knight. It was not at all frequent, and in the thousands of years that the cycle of war between the Great Demon King and the humans, only a handful of Great Demon Knights had ever been slain.

However, what happened when a Great Demon Knight is slain on Eltrea?

Where the slain Knight lay, it is said that calamity and destruction take root. The soil around the body becomes corrupted and twisted, and is infused with the very will of the Great Demon Knight. Sometimes it happens in an instant, other times it takes hundreds of years, but eventually that area transforms into what is known as a Dungeon. In them lay vast and incredible treasures. Everything that a man could ever desire. But once you step into a Dungeon, you could not leave until you appeased the will of the Great Demon Knight that sustained it, overwhelmed it and took it as your own, or died. In all of history, only three dungeons were ever conquered, and both by humans who had been gifted with magic. Only once had a human overwhelmed the Will of a Dungeon, and that story ended tragically. But all this still begged the question: why was Ophelia being targeted?

Because at the time of Cedrick’s great great grandfather’s rule, a Dungeon emerged in the Eastern area of Ophelia.

Once the Dungeon had been discovered, the king had immediately done everything in his power to keep it hidden. He had even ordered assassinations and murders to keep it a state secret. He then begun to dedicate his all to strengthening his kingdom because he understood that one day, other kingdoms would set their eyes on the unlikely treasure that sat on Ophelian soil. When that time came, he wanted Ophelia to be strong enough to defend itself from any attacks. He was a very intelligent king that was good at reading the hearts of humans. And he was right. Because now, in his great great grandson’s rule, what he had feared all those years ago had the very real possibility of coming to pass.

“The Dungeon you have in the Oslot region is an incredibly tempting thing, Cedric.” Alex murmured, swirling the wine in his glass around lazily. Cedric shouldn’t have been surprised at all that Alex knew, but he was. Only a handful of people were ever allowed to know about the dungeon. Inside, he felt profound anger that one of the people that he had chosen to trust had leaked such important information that had not only reached the Emperor of Nova’s ears, but also what could be considered enemies. He did not show it, however. He would deal with it very swiftly when he was able to. “Tempting or not, it’s pointless to eye it at all. That Dungeon is not something that a human with no magic can use. And a man being born with magic would mean that the contract between Eltrea and the Great Demon King is broken.”

”Right? That’s what I thought too, Ced.”

An uneasiness grew in Cedric’s stomach. “But...”

”But it would be a completely different matter if they found something else that would help them conquer the dungeon.”

”What else could they possibly—“ Cedric gasped.

“Yes, Ced. I’m glad you’re smart. I know discussing this with anyone else would have been mind-numbingly frustrating.”

That was the true reason he was here. With his son no less.

“The only thing I can think of that would work...”

A satisfied smile spread across Alex’s face. He finally stopped playing with his wine.

”Are Magic Stones.”

//I wish I had magic stones lol//