King Kayden Ram
“Is that so.”
When I showed not an ounce of interest, Catherine’s face fell in sheer disappointment.
“Aren’t you even going to ask who it was?”
“Not particularly. I’m not all that curious.”
“Come on! Please just act curious, at least for a second!”
Catherine threw a fit right then and there, looking as though she might throw herself onto the floor and kick her feet if I didn’t ask immediately. Truly, this palace was filled with nothing but exasperating people.
Maybe I should have just left her locked up in that storage room.
Entertaining a thought that would have sent Catherine into cardiac arrest, I let out a brief, resigned sigh.
“Fine. Who did you see?”
“The Wolf King!”
The Wolf King? Whoever he was, what a thoroughly cringeworthy title.
“Don’t tell me you don’t know him? He’s the most famous man on the entire continent right now!” Catherine gasped, kicking up a tremendous fuss at my utterly deadpan reaction. “His Majesty, the young king of the newborn Adamant Kingdom! The Knight King! The Hegemon of the West!”
The newborn Adamant Kingdom?
I never heard of such a country before I died.
For there to be a kingdom unfamiliar to me—someone who once carried a mental map of every sovereign state and backwater corner across the continent—was jarring in itself.
“When was this country founded?”
“About a year ago, I think?”
So the ink on the map had scarcely dried. A fledgling nation in the truest sense.
“And this man is really that famous?”
“Of course he is! He’s the one who destroyed the Lionel Kingdom and practically unified the entire western territories!”
That, I had to admit, was genuinely astonishing. The Western Continent was a turbulent frontier where nests of magic beasts lurked in every shadow and barbarian territories bordered the land, breeding relentless warfare. Countless kingdoms sprouted like mushrooms after rain, only to be trampled out of existence just as swiftly. Throughout all of history, only a single sovereign power had managed to endure there for more than a century.
The sovereign of the west, the Lionel Kingdom.
To think someone had wiped that very Lionel off the map and erected a new kingdom atop its ruins.
My gaze instinctively drifted toward the courtyard, catching the distant silhouettes of Edwin and Emilia playing together. The Lionel Kingdom was the homeland of the late Third Imperial Consort Edith—the children’s maternal family. Its total erasure meant that these young ones had truly lost their last remaining pillar of support in this world. There was no one left for them to turn to.
“They say he can slaughter a hundred magic beasts all by his lonesome without breaking a sweat! And rumor has it that he came to the Empire this time specifically to assist with the monster subjugation!”
Facing a hundred magic beasts alone? Exaggeration needed to have its limits. A magic beast was a creature of immense malice and formidable physical power born of raw mana. Even a master knight had to risk their life just to bring down a single one. To claim that one solitary man could take on a hundred was absurd nonsense.
Wait.
A sudden memory flashed through my mind.
That king is staying at the Emperor’s Palace?
I recalled the unidentified man I had briefly crossed paths with not long ago—the towering warrior clad from head to toe in pitch-black armor, standing beside the Emperor.
“Does this so-called Wolf King happen to have golden eyes?”
“Oh my goodness, how did you know?” Catherine’s eyes went round as saucers. “Everyone’s whispering about those eyes, saying how terrifying they are! They say looking into them is like staring straight into the eyes of a monster.”
A crease formed between my brows.
Turning my head, I watched Edwin and Emilia playing happily in the garden soil.
“Oppa, what is dis red bug?”
“It’s a ladybug. Is this Lia’s first time seeing one?”
“Uh-huh! Pretty! Like a ruby!”
The children continued to laugh with boundless innocence. Yet for some inexplicable reason, a heavy, bitter ache settled quietly in a corner of my chest.
Splaash!
Thick, foul blood sprayed through the air as hide ruptured and entrails spilled across the churned earth. The imperial soldiers stood frozen, slack-jawed at the spectacle.
He truly is magnificent.
Observing from the very rear of the subjugation vanguard, an intrigued gleam flashed within the eyes of Emperor Carvelius III.
They said he began as a wandering mercenary, and it shows.
It had been three days since Kayden led his own knight order to purge the encroaching magic beasts near the borders of the Ventrum Empire. Swarms of monsters that had failed to diminish even after mobilizing half of the Imperial Knights had been cut in half within a mere forty-eight hours. The miraculous feat had been orchestrated single-handedly by none other than the founder and sovereign of Adamant—Kayden.
Slice. Squelch. Crack.
The wet, chilling sounds of butchery echoed rhythmically across the blood-soaked field. While the imperial onlookers grimaced at the grotesque sight, the conductor of this grisly orchestra wore an expression of absolute indifference.
“My lord, I told you to leave the butchering to us!”
Oliver, the king’s adjutant, came rushing over in a hurry. He too presented a frightful appearance, drenched from head to toe in beast blood.
“I merely severed the tough tendons in advance. Handle the rest yourselves.”
Kayden offered a faint, amused smile at his flustered adjutant before vaulting lithely down from the mountain of beast carcasses.
“Yes, Sire! What are you all standing around for?! Get to work and clear the field!”
Under Oliver’s brisk command, the Adamant knights moved with practiced efficiency among the slaughtered monsters. The imperial knights and soldiers belatedly stepped in to assist, though their awkward, hesitant movements contrasted sharply with the flawless coordination of the Adamant forces.
“Given our progress on just day two, we might be able to return to our kingdom earlier than planned.”
“Are you that anxious to head back, Sir Oliver?”
“Of course I am! Who in their right mind dislikes going home? Unlike you, my lord, I have a gentle rabbit of a wife and three darling little fox daughters waiting for me.” Oliver grumbled under his breath as he wiped the grime from his face. “Ah, I almost forgot. While we’re here in the Empire, I need to stock up on rose fragrance oil.”
“Rose oil? Why? Do your daughters complain that you reek of blood?”
“No, it’s a gift for my wife! And for your information, my daughters don’t even know what blood smells like. Do you have any idea how thoroughly I scrub myself down at the knight barracks before I dare cross my own threshold...?”
Oliver grumbled a while longer before smoothly pivoting the subject.
“Why don’t you pick up a souvenir as well, Your Majesty? Surely they sell jasmine oil in the capital.”
For all his rugged martial ferocity, the young King of Adamant possessed the peculiar habit of using jasmine-scented soap. It was a fragrance favored almost exclusively by noblewomen, making the contrast on his towering frame all the more jarring.
“Doesn’t using the exact same scent for so long ever grow dull?”
“Not in the least.”
“Good heavens, is there some profound reason you cherish jasmine so much?”
“There is.” Kayden chuckled, casually running a hand through his raven locks to shake out the dried gore. “Whenever I catch that scent, it feels as though I’ve finally come home.”
It made no sense whatsoever—especially considering how thoroughly Kayden despised the flirtatious laughter and advances of highborn ladies drenched in jasmine perfume. Oliver furrowed his brow, then simply shrugged his shoulders. He had given up trying to understand the inner workings of his sovereign’s mind long ago.
“It seems the rumors across the realm have sold you short. You truly are worthy of being hailed a god of war.”
Kayden inclined his head slightly toward the Emperor, who had approached unnoticed.
“You flatter me, Your Imperial Majesty.”
“The Adamant Knight Order’s prowess in subjugating magic beasts is nothing short of breathtaking.” Carvelius III wore a genial, benevolent smile as he surveyed the busy knights. “It makes one wonder... would that razor-sharp blade yield the exact same results if it were turned against men instead of beasts?”
The Emperor’s face bore the harmless, easygoing grin of an ordinary country bumpkin, but the words spilling from his lips dripped with venom.
“Ah, you need not harbor such worries, Your Majesty.”
While Oliver broke into a cold sweat behind him, Kayden responded with a brilliant, untroubled smile.
“My men are not unbridled beasts, but human beings who abide by the laws of chivalry.”
“Haha, is that so? Well, that is a relief.” Carvelius III clasped his hands behind his back, tilting his head with calculated grace. For an instant, his icy blue eyes glinted with murderous frost. “Though We personally adhere to the belief that a well-trained man is far more dangerous than an unbridled beast.”
“Is that your view?”
Even when met with that chilling gaze, Kayden’s easy smile never faltered. He lightly flicked away a bead of crimson that had pooled upon his pauldron.
“Yet a true human being knows how to draw a clear line between where their strength ought to be used, and where it must never be wielded.”
“Where it ought to be used, and where it must not?” The Emperor murmured with piqued amusement, letting out a soft hum. “And where might that be?”
“Strength must be used to save lives, never to snuff them out.” Kayden met the Emperor’s gaze with an unfaltering grin. “If one is born into this world as a human being, shouldn't one naturally know how to respect the sanctity of another human life?”
Behind his king, Oliver’s eyes trembled with sheer panic.
There was not a single soul across the continent who did not know that the reigning Emperor, Carvelius III, had ascended the throne by mercilessly slaughtering every last one of his half-siblings. And yet, Kayden had just looked that blood-soaked tyrant in the eye and essentially declared that anyone who failed to respect human life was no better than an animal.
“Haha... The King of Adamant is quite an amusing fellow indeed.”
The Emperor offered a brief, airy chuckle, his expression settling into an unreadable mask that gave away neither offense nor amusement.
“Your Majesty, the Minister of State has arrived at the forward outpost. We must depart at once.”
“Ah, very well.”
Whether by fortune or misfortune, the Emperor mounted his steed under the pretext of an urgent state council and departed the subjugation grounds, offering no formal parting words to a fellow head of state.
“You have certainly made an enemy of him now! Why in the world would you say something so utterly reckless?”
Toweling off his dark hair with a fresh cloth, Kayden scowled at his adjutant’s nagging.
“He picked a fight first, so I merely returned the favor. Is there a problem?”
“There are a hundred problems! That man is the Emperor of the Ventrum Empire!”
Kayden slumped his shoulders and let his brows droop in an exaggerated display of pitiful sorrow.
“Good grief, this indignity makes me want to hurry up and conquer a grand empire of my own. Or perhaps I should proclaim myself Emperor just to satisfy your delicate nerves, Sir Oliver?”
“My lord! We are standing on imperial soil! Someone might overhear you!”
“My deepest apologies for possessing such robust vocal cords.”
“And where under the sun did you even hear such high-minded nonsense in the first place?”
“What nonsense?”
Oliver shot him a deeply exasperated glare. “That line about how strength should only be used to save people! You don’t believe that for a second, Sire!”
Kayden was the type who would rather ruthlessly eliminate anyone who got on his nerves. When it came down to it, sovereign rulers—whether the Emperor or the young king standing before him—were cut from the exact same cloth.
“Ah.”
Kayden let out a quiet sigh, followed by a faint, wistful chuckle.
“Truth be told...”
Winking one golden eye with roguish charm, the young monarch added softly,
“Those words were told to me a very long time ago, by an assassin who came to take my life.”