Chapter 122 - The Last Contestant
To choose to trust the Prime Minister and his son is solely Albert's decision. In fact, trusting everyone who has passed is Albert's decision. If I want anything, I can just ask Albert and ignore everyone else.
Whether we picked the right person or not, I'll leave it to Albert. I'm just here to kill those with explosive devices in their mouth.
The fact that some of them has those explosive devices inside their mouth, means that no one has figure out that someone is able to recognize their identities. Which is good for me.
But sooner or later, they might figure it out and I won't be able to recognize if they are part of the cult or not.
At least that day is not today.
I can see that the next person is someone from nobility who has explosive device inside his mouth.
"Albert. The next one is their member."
"I see… don't kill him right away. We will let him go." Albert said.
"Are you sure? Having a traitor in nobility sure will give you much trouble. I think it's best if I just kill him." I suggested to just kill any member of the cult.
"No. If he's in high rank, then we can just ask someone among the agents today to investigate him at all time. Someone with high position is surely will be contacted by the higher ups of the cult. And we can't just have Ninja act for personal vendetta all the time." Albert explained.
"Well, I don't mind doing that. But know that I will go home soon so I won't be here for long."
"We have Lowe and Hector here so you can go rest. You can see the waiting room from the Library Tower, right? Then just contact Sonia to tell me if the next contestant have explosives inside their mouth or not. The rest of the contestants are people in high position so I don't plan to kill them."
"Well… the next contestant hasn't arrive yet. I guess I'll take that offer. I'll return when the last contestant arrive. Bye!"
I walked to the door as I heard Hector asked Albert something.
"Contestant?"
"Hmm? Well, while we're doing all this interview, it would be nice if we have fun doing it. So we just imagine that this is an audition with our trust as the prize. Then the loser die. And some other are just candidates that might be forgotten." Albert explained to Hector and Lowe who listened carefully.
"…you sure are having fun, my king. I never thought that you have personality like this before." Lowe said.
"Well, having to talk with Ninja often, somehow his personality affected me. Let's hope not in the bad way."
I hope so as well. After having my girlfriends scheming to make me take care of Albert's daughter, I doubt anyone who got influenced by me is going the good way.
I left the Audience Hall and enter one of the hidden passage to the city. Then I quickly jumped on top of a building and enter the Library Tower through the window I unlocked yesterday.
The sooner I finish reading, the more I can rest. I have worked too much these past few months. After Ruby's wedding, I hope there won't be any more works.
I know that Albert will take care of the cult better than I do. I just hope that he won't need me to do any more jobs.
I need to improve my use of Aura and also my magic level. That's why after few days of rest, I'll go train and cultivate more often. It's been so long since I actually trained.
I entered the tenth floor with training in mind, and continued reading books I haven't finished. Victoria who has been with me all the time also come out and read some books.
Somehow, the tenth floor is filled with children's book. Some old fairy tales.
"We should be able to find some clues here." I said to Victoria.
"Why aren't we searching the tenth floor right away?" Victoria asked.
"We also found some fairy tales in the lower floor, right? I just thought that maybe some of them are related with your past. Who would have thought that we found nothing at all? And even in history books, there's nothing about hero written there."
We have searched the whole Library other than the basement and the tenth floor, and the oldest history written is from a thousand year ago, but after Sonia and Victoria died. There's nothing about hero or evil.
Either because they don't know about it, or they erased those history on purpose. I mean with how many Aura user in the past, I bet most people in the past knows about Aura. So it's impossible for people of that time to not know about their existence, other than some people in some isolated villages.
That's why there's a high possibility that the real history was erased and now we're searching any clues we could find.
Now that I think about it, since the history was erased, how do people of the past tell the story to future generation? By telling everyone that it's fictions. That's why they wrote fairy tales.
"The fact that in the highest floor there are many children's stories, we can conclude that someone who put all these books here thought they are important." I said to Victoria.
"And the fact that they are collecting dust, means whoever has the permission to enter this floor, think that these books are worthless to read."
Like Victoria said. Only some people has permission to enter this floor, but when we entered this floor, even the doorknob is dusty. Seems like the librarian himself found this place to be a pain to take care of.
I was hoping that we can find a clue about anything related to the mage who killed all Aura users, but after reading a lot of book, I'm thinking of giving up.
"Aah! I wanna give up! There's nothing about Aura users or similar power in any of these books!"
"It was you who said we might find a clue here." Victoria said.
"Yeah, but we found nothing! And while we're here, it's almost time for the last contestant to visit Albert. Let's return to the Audience Hall."
I stopped reading any more book and Victoria also stopped as well and prepared to return to Albert.
During the time we're in the Library Tower, I have seen just one other person who has explosive device in his mouth. I have asked Sonia to tell Albert about it. It was the third person after the Prime Minister. After that, there are no more people with explosives in their mouth.
Now we have to wait before the last contestant arrive, and I have told Albert I will return before then. That's why we stopped reading anymore and quickly go to Audience Hall.
As we entered the hall, we saw Albert and the others with serious expressions.
"How's it? You find a good contestant?" I teased Albert because I know the answer from seeing their expression.
"Does it look that way? The answer is no. Rather than having those nobles who are not part of the cult, I would rather have a private chat with the member of the cult one on one. The nobles of this kingdom are all cunning. One is a bootlicker, the other is warmonger, and someone even dare to suggest slavery. None of them are thinking about the kingdom! Only thinking about themselves! I'm disappointed to know that these people are under me."
Albert sure does have a lot of complains after sitting on that throne the whole day.
"Well, isn't that something you have to take care of?"
"It's been a while since I became the king. I thought I have seen how cunning the people from aristocracy is. Who would have thought that these people are more cunning when they are given permission to speak to me in private? The bootlickers is fine. They just want to be on my good side. But they are not good enough to be trusted. Those who want slaves and war are terrible. It has been since my grandfather's rule that this kingdom forbid slavery. And for war, we have not involved in any war since my father's rule. We are too weak to fight against those soldiers of other kingdom who has never stopped fighting for so many years. What do these people think about the citizen?" Albert said.
"They think about everything but the people. You have a lot of work to do here, Albert. Good luck!"
"Sigh… I hope the last person is better than the previous ones."
I looked at the waiting room and see that there are three people inside talking with Ian. Did Albert asked the three of them to come? I don't think so.
Only one of them seems to be a noble. The other two seems to be his bodyguard. But those two are the most important one.
Sonia then appear in front of Albert and tell us about what's happening inside the waiting room.
"The last one said that he will only enter the Audience Hall if he can bring his bodyguards with him. What should I tell Ian?" Sonia asked.
"Tell them that only he can enter."
"Wait, Albert! Let them all enter! The noble doesn't have explosive device, but the two bodyguards with him have it! He might have a clue about the cult!" I told everyone what I can see.
"Are you sure? Then should we kill the bodyguards and interrogate him? I don't think we can do that."
Albert is right. In case the cult is holding someone important to him as hostage, if they know that he left the hall alone, something tragic will happen to them. I guess it's time to use my secret weapon.
"I'll take care of the bodyguard. I can use air magic to create a type of gas that will make people fall into hallucination. But I can use it for one minutes at most since my level is low and those bodyguards' magic levels are higher than me. Use that one minute chance to interrogate that man." I told Albert my plan.
"One minute? I guess that's fine. I'll give you a signal to when you used it. Air magic is surprisingly useful, huh?"
Yes. But it was thanks to Victoria. Since Victoria came from a world more advanced than ours, and also the people over there has a lot of imagination, she taught me about this in one of our lesson back when it was just me, Kayla, and Angela.
I tried to use it, but failed too many times since no matter how much she told me, I lacked the imagination to do it. But after hearing about many kind of stories from her world, I finally managed to do it.
With Kayla's permission, I used it on her and she ended up hallucinating for ten minutes. I guess it was because she's still a beginner level mage.
Now that I have to use it against two person whom obviously higher leveled than me, one minute is more than enough to tire me out completely.
Well, if anything happened, I can have Victoria to protect me.