Den of Vipers (11)
As he climbed to the upper floor and entered Kosa's room, she was still sitting there in the exact same position as before.
"Kosa. See anything?"
He asked as he sat in the chair, and Kosa quietly opened her mouth.
"If you're referring to the commander's past... I saw it."
"You know what I want to see, right?"
"I do."
"Tell me what you saw."
Kosa began recounting what she had glimpsed, lightly tapping her finger.
Several months ago.
The royal palace in Wangseong faced a new problem after the Demon King's Castle fell the previous year. It concerned the king's successor—a thorny issue that had been publicly debated a decade earlier, with no easy resolution in sight.
This didn't mean discussions over the past ten years had yielded no answers. It was just that Bertrand Balder's sudden emergence, his string of heroic feats, and his all-out war against the Demon King's forces had relatively overshadowed the matter.
Now that the kingdom's greatest crisis—the Demon King's Castle—had been resolved, those old discussions naturally resurfaced.
The current king wasn't on the verge of death tomorrow. But he was already quite advanced in age, and if he were to pass suddenly, the aftermath would be a monumental headache.
This stemmed from the king's blood kin: Princess Elua and Prince Gobert.
Elua, afflicted by the Sirdanel family's hereditary disease, and Gobert, the son of a lowly concubine. It was obvious that whoever ascended the throne after the king's death would face an extraordinarily troublesome situation.
In this tense political climate, Gobert sat in his office—better described as his "residence"—somewhere in the palace, lost in reminiscences of old times.
Though called an office, it suited the term "dwelling" far better. Even as a prince, being born of a concubine meant he had no fixed duties.
To be precise, there was no law barring a bastard son from palace affairs. He was still royal blood, undeniably a prince, and with Princess Elua as the only other direct descendant, that was that.
In a traditional, conservative kingdom, Prince Gobert would step forward as the official heir, while Princess Elua retreated to the background. But the Verabche Kingdom was a special case.
More accurately, the background and conduct of Prince Gobert's mother posed severe issues.
Gobert's birth mother had an unclear origin. "Unclear origin" here meant she wasn't royalty or nobility—she was a commoner. To delve deeper, not even a commoner, but a slave.
Through some unknown method and path, this palace slave became pregnant with Gobert and, by sheer happenstance, rose to concubine.
Her status had skyrocketed from slave to consort, and after birthing the prince, she grew arrogant beyond her station. Her attempt to poison the queen in a bid to become the official wife was exposed, leading to a gruesome execution.
By a stroke of immense luck, young Gobert survived thanks to the previous king's desperate protection. In exchange, he was utterly excluded from palace politics, living quietly like a ghost to preserve his life.
Gobert was kind-hearted by nature, showing none of the typical royal arrogance. Though completely ignored by high ministers, he was quite popular among the palace servants.
How could they not be touched? Even if half his blood came from a lowly slave, he was still a prince of heavenly royal lineage, approaching them first without hesitation and looking after them.
He doted on his half-sister Elua terribly. The palace's core factions tried to keep the legitimate heir Elua and the bastard Gobert apart, but failed.
Young Elua adored and followed her half-brother Gobert. No one in the palace had the guts to outright block the kingdom's only princess from visiting her brother.
Thus, in their childhood, Elua and Gobert often played together.
But when the Sirdanel royal family's fatal hereditary disease manifested in Elua, even that came to an abrupt end.
Elua grew increasingly strange, her personality twisting completely, driving a wedge between her and Gobert.
Gobert pitied her and tried desperately to help. Once, when Elua blocked a palace corridor, swinging a longsword she'd obtained from somewhere wildly, and no one dared approach, Gobert borrowed plate armor from the Royal Guard and subdued her himself.
He was only thirteen at the time.
Yet for Gobert, who survived only by existing as a spectral figure deep in the palace, he couldn't offer any real aid.
Elua butchered maids, staged suicide attempts... She was plunging into the depths of ruin.
Helpless, Gobert could only watch his only sister slowly descend into madness from the incurable disease, destroying herself.
Years later, the queen's sudden death sparked rumors in the palace.
They said preparations must be made for the princess's inevitable early death by reordering the line of succession.
It was odd the matter hadn't gone public yet. Especially with the Demon King and his army stirring, precisely when such discussions were needed most.
The kingdom's sole legitimate heir was mad, and the would-be second in line, the prince, cowered silently due to his mother's treason.
No matter that he was the king's son—his mother was a lowly slave who tried to murder the queen. Her karma was too heavy; Gobert was fortunate just to be alive.
And that's when Bertrand Balder "burst into" the palace.
It was literally that—a boy appearing at the drawbridge with just a sword, claiming to be the Goddess's chosen. When the guards snarled to get lost or eat dirt, he called down lightning from the sky, reducing the kingdom flag on the drawbridge tower to ash to prove his point.
How could that be a normal visit?
Bertrand Balder's arrival threw the palace into chaos.
The Goddess's chosen, revelation, Holy Sword, hero—words from epics and legends spilled from the mouths of the ultra-conservative high ministers.
The palace was in disarray, buzzing with excitement.
Gobert pieced together the situation from fragmented rumors brought by his servants.
In this era where the kingdom and continent's fate flickered like a candle in the wind, a hero chosen by the Goddess appears to save us...?
What nonsense is this? Who shows up and does what?
Gobert figured it was some elaborate political ploy by the Intelligence Bureau, the palace's most secretive group that did anything for the kingdom's gain.
Probably hyping a fake hero to counter the rapidly growing Demon King's army.
If so, the bureau had badly miscalculated this time. A hero chosen by the Goddess? Even the kingdom's founder, the Avenger King Blavan, lacked such grand titles.
No one—Demon King or foreign kingdoms—would buy that drivel...
"You the discarded prince what's-his-name, Gobert or whatever?"
Gobert, basking in the sun in a secluded corner of the inner garden, turned toward the voice.
A tall boy with deep brown hair stared at him, a ornate sword unlike any he'd seen strapped to his waist.
That was the first meeting between Prince Gobert Sirdanel and the hero Bertrand Balder.
From that encounter, Gobert spent nearly a decade close to Bertrand Balder.
In the palace with nowhere to lean, Bertrand became Gobert's one true confidant.
Each time Bertrand completed an impossible mission, he'd share the tale with Gobert, who loved hearing his adventure stories.
But late last year, after beheading the Demon King and returning, Bertrand dropped the insane bombshell that he was opening an inn and left the palace.
The palace split into two camps.
Those who saw the mythic hero as a political burden welcomed his retirement.
But those planning to use him to stabilize the chaotic kingdom and reclaim continental dominance were stunned.
Gobert strictly belonged to the latter, though not with intentions of exploiting Bertrand to reverse his bleak lot.
He simply didn't want to wander the palace's shadowy corners like a puppet or exiled prince, enduring the insults.
"I'll miss you already, big brother."
Gazing out a window at nothing but towering walls, Gobert murmured to himself.
Then a servant entered.
"Your Highness. His Majesty summons you."