"You speak as if it was so simple. Do you see us as professionals? I suggest we should not even try, maybe the current King should be left untouched, don't you think?" The quieter elder Nighthowler opened his mouth to shoot question bullets, and the usual-speaking Nighthowler tried to stop the rising commotion, but Seunghyuk merely shook his head lightly and continued, "What if I told you it actually is easy to pull off? Would you be satisfied with it? Our dear...dear...spy."
When the last word "spy" escaped from Seunghyuk's mouth, the silent room seemed more likely again, but it was certainly lively, going in the wrong direction.
A few minutes ago, Seunghyuk had looked around the kingdom of Arkawarenia so much, analysing unknown and known materials on Earth that Seunghyuk had to rely on the Eye of Detection to scan his surroundings and give him the respective information. Hence, that meant Seunghyuk had used the Eye of Detection skill unknowingly for more than a hundred times just to get a better feel of how the kingdom of Arkawarenia was built, so it was nothing strange when he got himself a System message.
"Eye of Detection was used numerous times and its mastery level was raised from one out of five stars to two out of five stars."
"Yeah, finally, it's been like forever since you even levelled up Mr Eye of Detection," Seunghyuk complained under his breath but with a slight smile on his face.
At that time, the elder Nighthowler had hurried Seunghyuk and made him drag Jisung in along to enter the extravagant castle, so it was at that exact moment when the door opened that Seunghyuk used the Eye of Detection out of pure curiosity so as to find out what changes were made after the skill mastery levelled up, but he noticed a red text floating beside one of the elder Nighthowler's name.
It read: The current King's spy.
Hence, Seunghyuk had arrived to that specific statement and confidently accused the quiet elder Nighthowler to be a spy. The thought certainly did not appear out of nowhere from inside his brain.
"What do you mean by 'spy' you ingenuine Nighthowler! You come into our land and we are nice enough to not harm you, but you accuse us of being spies? What insolence!" The once taciturn elder Nighthowler started exploding with rage as he broke his originally built character, now screaming at Seunghyuk like an uncontrolled stray dog barking at random strangers in the middle of the street.
Seunghyuk did not walk along the fiery path of anger set up by the suspicious elder Nighthowler, as Seunghyuk knew that he would only get himself more infuriated, which might coincidentally be what that elder Nighthowler wants, so as to be able to get Seunghyuk to make mistakes out of anger. Barely a minute has passed and Seunghyuk was still staring wordlessly into the elder Nighthowler's eyes, which would be continued for longer until the accused elder Nighthowler finally lost it and jumped the gun, unleashing a claw attack at Seunghyuk, but was immediately blocked by the other four elder Nighthowlers.
"What are all of you doing? This man accused me of being a spy! This is his plan of splitting our trust! We have to get rid of him!" The once reserved elder Nighthowler was now heating up like a kettle of boiling hot water, which Seunghyuk had foreseen that particular outcome, and immediately went into an act by raising his voice and fanning the flames, "You! What in the world are you trying to say? Are you that much of a lowly being? Please, for goodness sake, you're an elder Nighthowler, why would you do or say such things? It's almost like you're following and taking the current King's orders like a fool!"
The room's rowdiness immediately kicked up a notch, where the four elder Nighthowlers tried to hold back the current maddened one, while Jisung tried to calm the Seunghyuk that was filled with feigned anger down, but Seunghyuk stepped forward aggressively and asked interrogatively, "You're a fool, aren't you? A big fool! Why did you follow his orders? I didn't know there would be fools amongst us when I followed all of you here to Arkawarenia! You're a fool, aren't you? You just wanted to mess me up, don't you?"
Under Seunghyuk's many rounds of bullets fired right at his face, the interrogated elder Nighthowler seemed to reach his anger and frustration's climax point where he shapeshifted instantaneously into a full Nighthowler while pointing a threatening paw at Seunghyuk's neck, implying that if Seunghyuk spoke another word, his neck would end up bearing a long scar of pain.
"Yes! I'm the so-called spy, and what if? Do you think you can mess with the Nighthowlers and leave unharmed? Since I was supposed to stop you from winning anyway, how about I just kill you right here, right now? I'm sure the King would not fault me even a single bit for acting on my own," The spy had ratted himself out, but in a dangerous way that it seemed like it would cost Seunghyuk his life if he had gone on any further, still, Seunghyuk acted calmly by tapping the paws of the transformed elder Nighthowler and laughed while saying, "You don't have to get so mad. Even I'm not genuinely mad, why should a betraying spy that had even confessed his own identity out to everybody in the room be mad? I don't really get it..."
"I-"
"I'm pretty sure that the current King did not promise you any rewards for being a sacrificial object for him, right?" Seunghyuk questioned as he coolly walked away from the transformed elder Nighthowler's range of swinging while continuing, "Since nothing in this world could probably satisfy you any longer, and the King would never just give you his throne position, so he probably threatened you, am I right?"
The room instantly went pindrop silent again, and the transformed elder Nighthowler suddenly looked down with twisted eyebrows. No matter how infuriated he looked from the surface, everyone knew that deep down he felt ashamed for getting so worked up.
"I...I deeply apologise..." The elder Nighthowler spoke in a soft and well-mannered tone, completely opposite from the explosive and ill-tempered Nighthowler from before as he shapeshifted back into a human form while apologising numerously, but Seunghyuk just stopped the elder Nighthowler, "There's no need to apologise, many of us would be angered to the extreme when we are being threatened from one side and questioned frustratingly on another. It's completely normal, so don't feel apologetic, I was just trying to force the truth out of you so I don't have to convince the others in this room that you were indeed a spy. Also, I take it that now you will work with us?"
Seunghyuk let the question drop like a time ticking bomb that was dropped together with the defuse. It was up to the elder Nighthowler to decide, and Seunghyuk motioned for Jisung to follow him as he pushed the huge door of the room open, walking right out without even turning back.
"Come on, I still need someone to guide me through this castle...I'm sorry for walking out first, but we really need to give our spy over there some time to decide," Seunghyuk tried fairly well to hide his embarrassment but of course, Jisung who was standing right next to him saw the silly act that Seunghyuk did, "Why did you even walk out first when you didn't know where to head to, hyung? To look cool?"
"Shut up kid," Seunghyuk playfully hit Jisung on the top of his head as he waited for the four elder Nighthowlers to lead the way while following behind, not forgetting to admire the whole interior of the castle while hiding it.
"Ahem...So after all that trouble we have had to deal with in the room, we should take our first step and find some royal members in the castle to recommend you," The usual leading elder Nighthowler told Seunghyuk and Seunghyuk just nodded briefly, while being deep in thought for the umpteenth time, then he finally said something in reply, "So who do you recommend we approach first?"
At this point, the leading elder Nighthowler looked stumped as he turned his head backwards to look at the other three elder Nighthowlers while continuing to walk forward, making him look like a walking owl.
"Well, if we are willing and able to take some risks, I suggest we can visit House Trevassle," One of the other elder Nighthowlers gave a well thought-out reply to the leading elder Nighthowler's eye-staring question, but above all that, Seunghyuk was clearly confused with the new terms thrown in into the conversation, so he had to ask, "House Trevassle? Will there be any specific events held there? Something that would help us get recommendations from royal members?"
The leading elder Nighthowler nodded his head in reply, but his overall expression was painted full with worry and uneasiness. Then, Seunghyuk looked at the faces of the other three elder Nighthowlers, and was faced with the same worried expressions which seemed to tell Seunghyuk that House Trevassle was a place from hell and that they were about to walk right into hell just to get recommendations from royal members.
"What's the risk? Is it something huge?" Seunghyuk asked while pretending to not know the magnitude of the situation, and the leading Conqueror stopped in his tracks, turning behind to face Seunghyuk while he spoke in the most dangerous tone possible, almost like a threat, but shaped in the form of a warning, "You do not want to madden anybody in that room, are you clear? Not even any single bit of impropriety will be accepted there, so you are to speak proper, act proper and look proper. Again, we are heading to House Trevassle, the royal house known for hosting Royal Recommendation events so as to help those that are unknown get recommendations from royal members easier. However, as you might have already known, the whole of the castle and whatever that works inside of it is controlled by the current King, Kim Yangwon, so House Trevassle is currently receiving huge funds from the King and support in many ways. Like you guessed, the House Trevassle Royal Recommendation event is controlled by the King."
Jisung looked at the leading elder Nighthowler with a look of pure, visible confusion, then his eyes shot right back to look right at Seunghyuk while asking, "Hyung! Isn't that confirmed failure then? Why are we even going to try?"
"Not completely, there must be a way, I'm quite sure of it," Seunghyuk gave a straightforward and direct reply to Jisung, but indirectly, the question that was hidden in the statement was pointed towards all the elder Nighthowlers, but of course, the leading one answered again with the dead serious look imprinted on his face, "Yes there is, but to be completely frank with you, I would never count on it. You are supposed to complete three separate tasks inside House Trevassle given by the royal members, but since they are supported by the current King, they would look out for the smallest of errors that no one in the right mind would look out for. Yes, it is possible to complete the tasks, but you have to do it flawlessly while observing etiquette and propriety from all angles, and that is only considering the tasks from previous years. Therefore, I would not take that into account. We should not even try—"
"I think we can give it a try," Seunghyuk cut in, shocking not only the elder Nighthowlers but also Jisung which shot him a weird look of confusion, but Seunghyuk spoke rather calmly as he motioned for the leading elder Nighthowler to continue leading the way, "Even if they criticise me for whatever mistakes I made, I am confident that I can get myself out of it. If all of you elders have trust in what I will do, then I'll suggest we go on ahead and enter House Trevassle."
"Alright, there is nothing much we can do except for surfing the waves of risks now. I will put my trust in you, Mr Choi Seunghyuk," The leading elder Nighthowler said sincerely, and the rest of them nodded silently in accord, but after that the rest of the walk became silent which was clear to Seunghyuk that the leading elder Nighthowler probably had some grudge on House Trevassle because of past experiences.
The hallway felt even more endless than the pathway that Seunghyuk ran like a frantic pet dog chased by his crazy, drunk owner which was the King. Seunghyuk had already felt like that pathway was extremely long, but considering how huge and sprawling the whole castle was, Seunghyuk knew he would have to ache more of his leg muscles to cover that huge amount of distance.
"We have arrived at the doors of House Trevassle...and before we go in, I still want to warn you out of my personal worries, do not lose your cool or mess with any of the royal members inside. You might not only lose your chance of getting recommendations, but also your life," The leading elder Nighthowler warned again, this time his tone was hushed to the point that Seunghyuk had to give five seconds to process what was just said to be able to understand, then he nodded in acknowledgement as the door guards of House Trevassle let Seunghyuk and Jisung walk in behind the elder Nighthowlers.
Seunghyuk thought it was just a hill to hike over, but when the grand double doors swung open, his eyes like wires connected to another strong gaze all the way on the extreme left of the house.
"Kim Yangwon...The current King, he's here," Seunghyuk mouthed out and the leading elder Nighthowler's eyes went wide but he immediately composed himself right after and greeted the whole house as courtesy, surprisingly, following the British way of royal greetings, then Seunghyuk bowed along, while pushing Jisung's body downwards to force him to bow as well, "Good evening his Majesty, the King, and Duke Travessle, today my contestant here will kindly grace the Royal Recommendation Event."
"You're absolutely welcome. Do not be bothered by my presence, I am only here to see if everything is working well," The King spoke with a slight smirk, only Seunghyuk and Jisung, together with the other four elder Nighthowlers could see it as the royal members sat right in front the King, and so he continued, "Since a King's position is of paramount importance and holds the most responsibility, we must pick out elites from the elites by giving them tasks of suitable difficulty to test their abilities."
The whole house was quiet except for the King's loud and clear voice, and to know that the difficulty of getting recommendations from royal members have been set at a higher setting, Seunghyuk smiled on the surface, but he knew he had just landed himself in hot soup. If he does not find a way to escape, he would most definitely be scalded.