"What a truly heartfelt mont between father and daughter."
I sat comfortably on the couch, my legs crossed in a relaxed posture. A beautiful, golden-amber fla flickered to life in the palm of my raised hand, casting long, dancing shadows across the opulent furnishings of the dim living place.
Arges stood frozen at the base of the stairs, fixing with a slightly hardened, protective gaze.
"Your Majesty, if you have co for Morgana—"
"I am not here for Morgana," I cut him off smoothly.
He blinked, clearly taken aback.
"Nor have I co to offer an apology. But rest assured, I have not co here rely to rub salt into the fresh wounds I inflicted upon her today, either," I added.
"Then..."
"Take a seat, Arges," I said, gesturing toward the empty couch directly across from .
"Your Majesty." He offered a stiff nod, bowing his head respectfully before stepping forward.
"I am growing rather tired of using my own fire for illumination. Do you not possess any Essence sticks in this household?" I asked, raising a brow.
He nodded without a word, standing up to retrieve two slender, crimson sticks carved from Pyrite ore, a material naturally infused with fire essence. Channeling a fraction of his own aura into them, the sticks imdiately ignited with a warm, steady red glow. He placed them upon the small table between us, letting them burn like ordinary candles.
"Your Majesty, if I may ask... what exactly is the nature of your request?" He asked, confusion marring his face.
It was understandable. After all, I had arrived in the dead of night, sneaking into his estate like a common thief, heavily cloaked with my hood pulled low over my face.
No matter how one viewed it, my sudden appearance was highly suspicious. However, considering I was the King, and I could hardly stalk through the capital’s streets at midnight with my face exposed for all to see, the cloak was a necessary precaution. Moreover, I sincerely doubted any common cutpurse would ever be foolish enough to attempt a robbery within the private mansion of the Scarlet Commander.
"I ca here to speak with you, Arges," I said softly, finally pulling back my heavy hood.
"Concerning what, Your Majesty? Could this matter truly not have waited until morning?" He asked.
"Exactly the opposite. It is far better that I ca to speak with you in person, here, where unwanted ears cannot follow," I replied.
"You have my word. No one else is present, Your Majesty," Arges confird, his tone turning serious.
"Good. Then I have a question for you before we begin," I said, leaning forward slightly. "What exactly did my father say to you upon his deathbed?"
"His late Majesty... he simply commanded to watch over you, Your Majesty. To protect Princess Lenora, the Queen Mother, and the Kingdom as a whole," Arges answered.
"And nothing else?" I asked, raising a skeptical brow.
Arges furrowed his brow, searching his mories for a mont before shaking his head. "Aside from fondly recounting the battles and mories we shared in the past, he spoke of nothing else, Your Majesty."
"I see," I nodded shortly, leaning back against the plush cushions of the couch, lost in thought.
"Is there sothing concerning you, Your Majesty?" Arges asked, his scarlet eyes narrowing slightly.
"Well, I am certain that my father was assassinated, rather than dying of a natural sickness. I rely wondered if perhaps he had realized it himself before the end," I replied.
"W—What...?" Arges’s eyes widened in shock at my words. "Your Majesty... surely you cannot be insinuating—"
"I am not insinuating anything, Arges," I interrupted, eting his gaze with a dead, freezing stare. "My father was murdered."
"Your Majesty... that is impossible. Your father was afflicted by the Aelios Burn..." Arges stamred, entirely unable to process the claim.
The Aelios Burn was an incurable affliction. It bore the na of King Aelios, an Helios King who had inexplicably manifested the disease roughly three centuries after the birth of the very first Guardian of the Fla. It had been a shocking discovery back then, proving that such a devastating sickness could actually strike down a Guardian of the Fla.
It was an exceedingly rare disease, but it was lethal.
And until this very mont, every single soul in the Kingdom believed my father had simply succumbed to it.
He had certainly displayed all the hallmark symptoms, after all. His body heat skyrocketed to unnatural levels, his skin reddened as if scorched from within, and he beca entirely incapable of bearing the touch of sunlight. He suffered from perpetual heat flashes, struggled just to draw breath, and ultimately died from a massive cardiac arrest which, considering the agony of the symptoms, was likely a rcy in the end.
"Indeed, he died to the Aelios Burn," I confird. "But his death was an assassination."
Arges’s confusion only deepened.
"Your Majesty... the Aelios Burn is a naturally occurring affliction within the bloodline of the Guardians of the Fla. It is exceptionally rare, certainly, but not entirely impossible, and—"
"In the handful of docunted cases over the last thousand years of Helios’s history, the victims all exhibited gradual symptoms, ultimately died a year, or perhaps two after the onset. When did my father first learn of his affliction, and when did he pass?" I asked.
Arges fell into a thoughtful silence, his brow creasing slightly as he ntally traced the tiline. "I first heard of it from His Majesty three months prior to his passing..."
"Exactly. And he died a re three months later," I pointed out. "That was quite an aggressive strain of the Burn, was it not? My father appeared perfectly hale and robust beforehand, and then suddenly, the Burn struck, completely bypassing the early, gradual symptoms. The affliction materialized, accelerated at an impossible rate, and he died from it."
"Your Majesty... what could you possibly be implying?" Arges asked, seriously.
I uncrossed my legs, leaning forward slightly to fix him with a piercing, serious stare. "My father was assassinated, Arges. The Burn was not natural. They artificially triggered it within him."
Arges’s jaw dropped open at my words.
"T—Triggered the Aelios Burn?" He repeated, in disbelief.
"I am entirely serious, Arges. Do you truly believe I would jest about my own father’s demise for my own amusent?" I asked, my golden-amber eyes hardening into flint.
He quickly shook his head. "Of course not, Your Majesty... but how?"
Naturally, he was wondering exactly how I had co upon such closely guarded information.
Actually, I discovered the truth in my past life while playing the Ga. It was briefly ntioned in passing during a late-stage revelation.
Of course, I was hardly going to confess that to him.
"It does not matter how I managed to uncover the truth. The only thing that matters is the fact that my father was murdered," I said, leaning back against the plush cushions once more. "And I am quite displeased by it."
"But who could have possibly orchestrated such a thing? I an, to possess the capability to trigger a lethal, ancestral affliction against a Guardian of the Fla..." Arges frowned deeply.
He was right. This was clearly not the work of so random, opportunistic cutthroat.
"The Black Sun?" Arges suggested cautiously after a heavy mont of silence.
"Well, they are certainly my main suspects, but I do not believe it was their doing..." I replied thoughtfully.
Naturally, a malevolent organization like the Black Sun would be the most obvious culprit. Murdering the King to seize control of Helios and the sacred Fla perfectly aligned with their overarching goals. Yet, sothing about their tiline felt inherently flawed.
For one, they themselves had seed taken by surprise by my father’s sudden death, at least from my perspective. If they had truly orchestrated his murder, why were their subsequent movents so sluggish and ill-prepared?
Logically, if an organization planned to assassinate a reigning monarch three months in advance, they would have ticulously prepared their sweeping takeover of the Kingdom the very mont he drew his last breath. They had three entire months to prepare for the fallout of his death, yet they did nothing of consequence when the mont finally arrived. That lack of preparation led to believe the true culprit lay elsewhere.
The core of my problem was that, in the Ga, the truth behind my father’s death had only been revealed by Eleanor during a cutscene. She had explicitly stated that the Burn was artificially triggered, yet the narrative never fully disclosed how she had unearthed that secret, nor did it reveal the identity of the true culprit.
Obviously, the current Eleanor possessed no such knowledge. In the original tiline, she must have sohow discovered the truth during the tumultuous months following her father’s death. But now that I had survived my fated assassination, the overarching narrative had completely shifted. There would be no reason for her to embark on her dark path of vengeance, provided I stayed alive and ensured the safety of her father and her adopted sister.
Which ant, I was entirely on my own to find out the truth.
"Do you have another suspect in mind, Your Majesty?" Arges asked imdiately, his deanor shifting into sothing serious and stern.
Yep.
It was the death of his dearest friend and King. Until this very mont, he had believed Marconius had simply succumbed to an inevitable, tragic illness. Now that I had planted the seed of assassination, the true, battle-hardened Scarlet Commander had awakened.
I shook my head slowly.
"I honestly have no idea who could pull off such a feat, and believe , Uncle, I am very bothered by it. If they possess the ans to artificially trigger an incurable, ancestral disease within my father, they could very well do the exact sa to . And if they do, I might be powerless to stop it," I said, my expression darkening.
"I would never allow such a thing to co to pass, Your Majesty," Arges said.
I offered him a wry appreciative smile.
"Unfortunately, I sincerely doubt that even your peerless martial strength can shield from an invisible, incurable sickness... but I appreciate your loyalty, Arges. The reason I am sharing this with you is because I need you to fully grasp the danger my family is in. I am certain I am not teaching you anything new regarding the constant threats we face, but this transcends simple political maneuvering. Setting the Black Sun aside, there is an entity among our enemies capable of orchestrating terrifyingly subtle feats of murder. I have no idea who it is, but they are definitely far from ordinary."
He nodded, but then his expression shifted, a sudden realization dawning on him.
"Then, Your Majesty, why did you... I could have remained stationed within the castle," he stamred, awkwardly alluding to my abrupt decision to publicly strip him of his command.
"There are plenty of reasons behind that," I explained. "Your status and your title are powerful symbols. To our enemies, you are the impenetrable fortress wall that stands between them, my family, and the throne. So, I dismantled that wall. I gave them a seemingly unobstructed path straight to ."
In the Ga, Arges died. The narrative never fully explained how he fell, though I severely doubted he went down easily against those bastards from the Black Sun. He most likely died valiantly defending my mother and sister. Beyond that he was also the main reason why half of my wives also managed to escape alive from the Black Sun, from Helios, including Diana, Morgana, Eleanor, Ravenna and Dorothy.
Yeah, Arges was clearly one hell of Commander.
But the chilling fact remained: they had eventually managed to kill him. By removing him from the imdiate crossfire, I was changing a bit his fate.
"Your Majesty... I do not require protection!" Arges said, standing up abruptly as he finally understood the true motive behind his public disgrace.
"Do not leap to conclusions, Arges," I said, raising a hand to placate him while a dangerous smile crept onto my lips. "I did it to bait the trap. Because I appear completely vulnerable, they will begin actively plotting my assassination within the next few weeks."
Arges’s rugged face went deathly pale.
"Y—Your Majesty... that is madness..."
I knew perfectly well that I was playing a highly dangerous ga. But what in the blazes was the point of possessing omniscient knowledge of the future if I did not make a ruthless use of it? I was certainly not going to cower in the shadows when I literally knew the moves my enemies were fated to make.
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