Ryoichi was waiting in the room with Katharina's dead body. He waited and pondered, thinking that those guards were not trustworthy, so he left to find Fiona by himself after hiding Katharina's body.
The palace was not changed much after all this time. He asked the random servants where to find Fiona, but no one would raise head to answer his question.
After a while, he heard a sound of disturbance around, where a group of soldiers suddenly showed up and came to surround him with spears. The person who led them was exactly that Guard B.
'I knew I couldn't trust him.' Ryoichi thought in his head.
Guard B yelled at him strictly: "Traitor! How dare you disguise and come back?! What are you planning? You'd better give in before the spear penetrates your chest!"
"What are you talking about? I'm just a random guy who happened to save your previous queen. How come you people treat me like this?"
Guard B laughed and said: "Save it! You can fool everyone but not our wise king Jonathan! He has seen through your disguise and recognized that you are the traitor who set the whole country up. You're the notorious Ryoichi! Not only did you betray us, killing thousands of our compatriots, but you also killed our previous queen Katharina!"
"I didn't!" Ryoichi was shocked. He understood that Jonathan had framed the name 'Ryoichi' for everything. However, he actually had lost his original appearance back in the Trench so there was not likely that no one could recognize him. But how could Jonathan has guessed right even without a meeting with him?
The truth was, Jonathan didn't know that this person who brought Katharina back was Ryoichi. The battle over Mariana Trench could have easily crowned him and scapegoated an unimportant person Ryoichi. However, Katharina was so clever that he had to kill the general and gave up all the soldiers there. He even killed the soldiers who had successfully escaped from there back to the queendom but disobeyed his order, including the previous Guard A. After that, Jonathan reorganized the guard and soldier team, such as promoting the Guard B and increasing armament.
Jonathan was satisfied with the situation that Katharina was prisoned in Pulchritudinem. However, a person who came up and brought her back?! Fortunately, Katharina didn't look good according to the guard's words, but the unfortunate side was, that strange man was suspected and gave a bad feeling of death. What if that person knew something happened over the Trench? Jonathan couldn't take the risk and decided to cut the weeds and dig up the roots.
So whatever this person was, Jonathan would identify this person as the notorious traitor, Ryoichi, who did some mysterious makeup and came back to harm this place again. Therefore, he would have a perfect reason to get rid of him. As for Katharina, he asked the Guard to take her back to him and secretly killed her by himself. He knew that she didn't have any chance to get out of Pulchritudinem. If she did, she must have exhausted all of her strength, which would make it easy for him to kill her, and then blame everything to Ryoichi. Moreover, with her dead body, Fiona would also believe his words that Ryoichi was the traitor.
"Haha, no answer means you admit it!" Guard B laughed and was ready to order the soldiers to capture him.
"…" Ryoichi got no time to think over why he could be recognized. He started to think what to do. To be honest, with his current capacity, killing all of them and running away were not difficult. However, he had not seen Fiona. He had not told her the truth that her sister Katharina was dead and all of this was because of Jonathan. Moreover, all the ordinary soldiers were innocent, so he couldn't bear killing them. He had searched the palace and didn't find Fiona, so he thought Jonathan must have hidden her somewhere else. Therefore, Ryoichi decided to pretend to surrender and see what conspiracy Jonathan would have. After all, he was strong enough now and no prison could actually lock him.
Ryoichi was captured, tied up and put into the prison again. He could feel the roaring waves outside.
On the other side, Jonathan got the message from Pulchritudinem, who claimed that a spy from Jonathan Kingdom stole Katharina from Pulchritudinem during which he killed Prince Tiberius. Therefore, Pulchritudinem would arrange another state "visit" soon. At that time, they should have the right to require their revenge and demanded that murderer as their permanent prisoner.
The message also got Jonathan into consideration. That person could save Katharina from all those fierce Pulchritudinem soldiers and weapons while killing one of their princesses, so he should be very good at fighting. Moreover, instead of requiring Katharina but that person, those crafty Pulchritudinem bastards must have found something unique on that person. It would be great if that person could listen to him, Jonathan thought, then he would just get the most powerful weapon in the entire ocean world. At that time, no kingdom could ever threaten him like Pulchritudinem. Thinking of this, Jonathan summoned the Director of hospital, Aaron.
Aaron came into the palace to see Jonathan. He wore the long gown like other elites but the sleeves were changed shorter which were convenient for experiment and surgery.
"How's Fiona doing?"
"Your majesty, Queen Fiona is still addicted to her experiments and hasn't left there since."
"That's good. What about the prince?" Jonathan was referring to the child of Fiona.
"Your majesty, prince Solomon is as usual. He can't leave the oxygen bubble yet."
"Okay. Thank you for taking good care of them. There's one thing. I'm wondering if there's any medicine that um… I can use to tame a beast."
Aaron answered: "Your majesty. If you'll pardon me for asking, but what kind of beast is it? Is it already grown up? If it's a cub, we can try to tame it with treat and whip, and it will automatically surrender to your majesty when it's grown up."
Jonathan was a little bit of annoyed: "Of course I know this kind of stupid method. Any animal can be tamed if we put efforts in it especially when it's a cub. Our clan has that sort of talent to control the fish. But, you know, we just suddenly lost that capability somehow. And, I'm not talking about a cub. It's already grown up. Besides, it has more intelligence than normal beasts."
Aaron thought a little bit and suggested: "Your majesty. In that situation, I indeed don't have the medicine that you can use to directly control it. However, I do have an idea. The difference between a cub and a grown-up beast is about the experience. Taming the cub is also concerned about giving it muscle memory by whip and treat. So it's all about the memory. If, I suppose, we can erase its memory and start all over again, I believe it's worth a try."
"A medicine that causes amnesia…" Jonathan squinted his eyes, "do you have it, my dear Aaron?"
"Yes, your majesty. The herb brought back by Queen Fiona can cause illusion, and if taking much, as our experiments show, it will damage a certain part of our brain and cause memory loss in some degree."
"Très bien! Give it to me!"
"As you wish, your majesty." After finishing the meeting, Aaron got the medicine and handed in to the king. From the very beginning until now, Aaron lowered his head and eyes, and he didn't even look at Jonathan even for once.
Jonathan was very happy. He intended to feed the medicine to that prisoner immediately and tried to tame him as his assassin. So, would Jonathan be successful? Would Ryoichi be obedient and take the medicine? Or would Ryoichi immediately kill Jonathan as soon as he saw this real traitor? We'll see tomorrow.