Before leaving, Melvin handed us a scroll and said, "You better be telling the truth, because I'll have a few people look into the matter."
He would only meet dead ends no matter who he put on the case, so I wasn't worried. Plus, to really find out my identity they would need to learn of the secret the Mer people had successfully managed to hide since more than thousands of years.
And the current Mer chief, Undine, was said to be as strong as the current king of Baldur. They were rumours about them having dueled once, the results weren't disclosed to the public though. So even the Assassins' Guild wouldn't try to set foot in her territory.
After I finished thinking about those things, I took a look at the scroll. It was embroidered in gold, and the crest of the Seiger royal family was painted onto its seal.
It was a summons. King Timaeus Seiger wanted to meet us privately in his imperial garden.
***
The garden was in full bloom with flowers of all kind. They were organised according to colours. There were rows of pink on one side and rows of white on the other side, while farther away I could spot rows of red. A few trees could be spotted here and there as well. The entire place was devoid of any servants or guards though.
Even the one who led us to the garden, stopped at its entrance and left us to go in by ourselves. It wasn't hard to find our way despite how huge the garden was. There was a small white pavilion we could see in the distance and a powerful presence we could from feel from its direction.
The royal family was a family of elves. Nowhere else in Baldur could you find their specie.
King Taemus had long emerald green hair braided with gems, red eyes, a yellow skin tone, long pointy ears and a small emerald green beard growing on his chin.
The scariest thing about the royal family according to what I heard was, that they had an affinity with every element and so were the true masters of magic.
"Your Majesty," I and Seraph said in unison and got down on one knee with our heads bowed.
"Enough with the pleasantries, get up and take a seat."
And we did. He had a surprisingly raspy voice as if the insides of his throat were once scorched with fire.
He was a humble man. He poured us some tea, and then some for himself.
"So," he smiled at us, "I heard that you two are quite skilled at taking care of Berserk Sentries. And one of you even managed to hurt a Sentry of the Mer."
How did he know about that? Were he and Undine close?
"I won't go too much into your pasts," he put his cup down and started tapping his fingers, "and given how you managed to take down your most recent Sentry, which ranks quite high in power when talking of all the Sentries under me, I believe you two to be suitable for this mission."
I held Seraph's hand under the table. I didn't feel good about this.
"Amuse me. I will soon be holding a few death matches for the Nobles and my family as entertainment. Many powerful warriors have been conscripted for that. But that," he stopped tapping, "isn't what you guys will be participating in. I need a showstopping performance. It should be beautiful, and dangerous and insane! I'll have you go against someone who's just as bored as me. Well that would be a heavy understatement. Someone who has been bored out of their mind for more than a few centuries! "
I gulped.
"An Ancient Sentry! Sadly there's only one of them in this continent. But yeah, one of them is still alive. You're free to cripple him, if you can, since he can recover from anything in a few days. The guy is too much of a battle maniac for me to entertain him by battle, so you both will do."
He then nodded contently as if everything was settled.
If I heard that right, then this new opponent was someone who even the King was a bit afraid of fighting against. Nor did it sound as if he valued us much so we could die, or end up heavily crippled and unable to recover.