"Your Majesty, we got news from the construction site in the slum area."
Asteric, who is waiting for a further message from Raihan after he dispatched the supporter group to where Michaelis is, looked at his secretary. The group was just dispatched five minutes ago, and he is sure that Raihan had met with the supporting group at the location.
News from the slum area. The reconstruction of the slum area was just implemented five months ago due to the increasing number of people in that area. The idea was proposed by a duke from the Central Region and had been approved by him.
The reconstruction would be overseen by the imperial family himself to avoid such malicious intent from the nobles to use the people from that area. Asteric trusted his nobles, but he couldn't get rid of the greed that was born inside of them.
Asteric just wants his citizens to live without worry, which is why everything, even a tiny piece of news, information, or idea, must be passed directly to him by the noble leaders themselves.
For the past five months, the reconstruction has been carried out without any problems. The people who had been living in the slum were placed elsewhere before being moved into the new town four more months later.
So, a problem that occurred in the slum area at this moment is something he did not anticipate.
"What is it?"
"The houses that were being constructed are on fire."
Asteric frowned. So suddenly? The weather is not that hot for such a fire to occur suddenly.
"I have been told the fire suddenly occurred five minutes ago in one of the houses. It was so sudden that the workers there did not manage to prevent the fire from spreading from house to house."
"Dispatch the mages to the area, make sure none are injured, and tell all of them not to go near the area, possibly to empty the area for their safety, when the mage arrives. Also, investigate how the fire started; there may be someone—"
Asteric suddenly stopped talking.
'Someone.'
He repeated what he had just said in his mind.
'At a time like this, a big fire suddenly occurred. There was a trap in those two places that Master Wentensaulin detected from the letters. An explosion occurred in one of the locations.'
When he finally pieced together the puzzles in his head, he rose from his seat.
"Prepare my horse right now! Give me the location!"
"Your Majesty?"
"I said now!"
His blue eyes locked on his secretary before he bowed down and quickly did as he had been instructed.
Asteric quickly walked out of his office to go to the location where his horse would be. Some noble leaders who were just about to walk towards his office quickly called for him, but he ignored all of that.
Not long after, his secretary came back with two additional people, who were the trusted knights under Raihan's tutelage. His secretary also told Asteric the location.
"Make sure to handle everything until I come back. If Raihan contacted me, tell him where I went and ask him to come immediately."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Keep quiet about my departure from the noble leaders. Stop any rumours from going out regarding everything that happened in the palace."
"Yes, Your Majesty. I will make sure everyone's lips are sealed."
"Also, tell Raihan and Michaelis that I have found her."
The secretary froze for a moment after he processed the order before he replied.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
They arrived at the back of the palace, where his horse was already there along with the other two horses. He quickly rode the horse before the galloping sound could be heard. The two tutelages followed behind with their horses.
He moved faster by using a shortcut to where the slum area was located, far from the citizen's view, to avoid any unnecessary attention.
'Please, please, let me be wrong.'
Everything made sense when he thought again.
The trap.
The explosion.
The fire.
Two places were traps; no, there were three places, but the first one was something they already knew to be false. Then the explosion in one of the locations—moreover, the location where Michaelis is— And lastly, a sudden fire occurred in the slums of the capital.
She was closer than they had anticipated. She was just here in the same place as him.
The goal of the kidnappers was not money, which was not hard to guess. Now, Asteric knew the real goal of the kidnappers.
They wanted to ruin the imperial family from below. They would get to him by using a method to destroy his mental state. The kidnappers—no, Asteric should call them criminals now—were succeeding.
He couldn't say that he was not affected by all of this. His weakness has been his family from the beginning, and the criminals used it to their advantage to ruin him.
'Please, Nasharis and Michaelis, be safe.'
"Hup!"
He can't lose anyone again.
×××××
He is not a fool. He knew, after witnessing the large man he had been fighting, that he was alone. There was no backup or anyone around the area when he first took a look, and more importantly, the explosion occurred after all of them were in the abandoned house.
The man whose goal was to kill him, likely to fulfil some sort of task, was alone. The man might think it was an easy task to kill him when he was injured or unmoving after the explosion, but the man was wrong.
The man who is coming here alone to fulfil the task won't be coming empty-handed. The man would go back to where his friend might be after finishing his task, which is reasonable.
So, how did the man get to his friend? From how the man suddenly appeared in the area around the abandoned house, it appears that he was watching from another location and appeared right after the explosion. Their group has been watched since the beginning, but the watcher was not physically in the same area as them. Some sort of camera or CCTV?
The man who appeared all of a sudden after the explosion was not hard to guess as to how he did it, which was by using a teleportation stone. The method of coming and leaving the abandoned house would be the same; thus, the man must keep at least one teleportation stone to go back to where he is coming from.
Michaelis knew, and he would be able to know Grole's friend's location. If he couldn't get an answer from Grole, he would force the answer out of the other person's mouth.
And here he is after using the teleportation stone.
Cold sweat trailed down his forehead and the back of his neck. His breath became shorter each second when he looked at the view in front of him. The heat made him almost collapse.
His eyes are shaking, and his mouth is drying. His face turned pale after he witnessed the view right after he teleported here.
'Nasharis.'
Memory overlapped.
'Marya.'
Two young girls at the age of ten with two different colours overlapped in his memory. One with blond hair and the other with black hair.
He almost let out an agonizing scream when he saw the view in front of him. He can't move or speak. He is afraid. Fear consumed his untreated trauma from the past, which had been neglected since that day.
He avoided anything that might make him remember his trauma. He coped by apologizing over and over again under the blanket all night. He cried until he couldn't even open his eyes again. He screamed until his voice cracked.
That is how he had been doing after the incident that brought that trauma to him.
"Your Highness!"
His shoulder was shaken by a large hand, presumably an adult. Michaelis deviated his attention, which was solely on the cause of his trauma to the man.
"It was dangerous standing here. I don't know when you came, but we just reported this to the palace. You come faster than expected."
Michaelis' breath was erratic, but he tried to understand what the man said to him. This man, who was dressed to look like a construction worker, looked at him with worried eyes, presumably just seeing the injury and blood on Michaelis' body.
"Your Highness, where did you come from? You have been injured!"
The man began to panic, and he tried to drag him away by pulling his hand away from that place. This man was alone here, but he could see, in the far distance, more people with the same outfit as this man standing there.
'No, no, no. Wake up, Michael!'
Michaelis pulled his hand away from this man, which made the man stop in his tracks. Without waiting a moment or being drowned by his memory again, he dashed towards the area where it was dangerous to be right now.
"Your Highness! Don't!"
The man managed to catch his hand at the last minute. Michaelis glared at the man before he slapped his hand away. He knew this man had good intentions, but that was not what he needed right now.
"I have no time."
He dashed again towards the row of houses, but this time the man did not manage to catch his hand. Michaelis could just hear the panicked shout from the man before he ran straight at the burning houses.
The heat on his skin was ignored. The blazing fire couldn't stop him anymore.
'Marya, I will save you this time. I will burn for you. So please, please hang in there.'