Chapter 6

The Lamb Bites Back

The Delphine River curved through the very heart of the capital of the Delphiam Empire.

The lower reaches of the river, lined with famous landmarks of the capital—including the Imperial Palace and the Grand Cathedral—were often called “Delphiam’s umbilical cord.” But as one traveled downstream, the scene that greeted visitors was vastly different from the glittering capital above.

Filth gushed out of old pipes.

The stench was so foul that it was difficult even to breathe.

The underground drainage tunnel was pitch-dark. A couple of low-hanging lamps cast a dim light through the sewer.

【Boring.】

【How much longer are we supposed to wait?】

Who knows? I’m wondering the same thing.

The boy lounging comfortably in the shadows shrugged.

The darkness surrounding him rippled irritably.

So impatient.

His guardian star had always been lacking in patience.

Before long, he sensed the presence of the person they had been waiting for.

The boy slowly opened his mouth.

A monotonous voice rang out through the roar of rushing sewage.

“How long has it been?”

It was difficult to tell day from night in a sewer where sunlight never reached.

After a brief pause, someone answered coldly.

“Three in the afternoon. Exactly eighteen hours.”

“Oh dear. That’s quite a problem.”

The boy was sitting on a rocky outcropping in the underground drainage tunnel, with one leg dangling over the edge.

Despite being surrounded by filth, not a speck of dirt had touched his shining blond hair.

He deliberately muttered with concern,

“You must not have slept a wink.”

“Of course not. The Emperor of Delphiam has fainted, and the commander of the Imperial Guard has gone missing.”

His companion immediately fired back.

“With all the Transcendent Houses gathered here, they’re too embarrassed to announce it publicly. But I imagine the Imperial Palace is sweating bullets by now.”

“I’m probably going to get quite a lecture…”

“I’ve heard the rumors that the current heir of Wyneac is not at all like a typical Wyneac. But this is completely beyond what I expected. I never imagined he would be this reckless. I’m genuinely curious how you intend to get out of this situation.”

The person standing below the rock was a woman with black, curly hair tied up.

She irritably pointed toward something nearby.

“Does the fact that you reduced the commander of the Imperial Guard to this state mean we should interpret this as a declaration of war from Auvie?”

Her elegant voice was laced with unmistakable irritation.

The boy listened to her words with one ear and let them pass out the other.

Instead, he thought of someone else.

A child he himself had brought out of the slums several years ago.

A girl with striking red hair and bright green eyes.

She must be running around in a panic by now.

She was probably so worried that their precious heir had been completely devoured that she didn’t even know whom she could tell, and was simply suffering by herself.

A faint smile appeared at the corners of the boy’s lips.

Kallian glanced down at the area beneath the rock where he was sitting.

There was a narrow passage between the wall and the sewer.

More than twenty knights were piled there, one on top of another.

They were his handiwork from the previous night.

And among them, the masterpiece was undoubtedly the burly man sprawled unconscious at the very top.

He was the right-hand man of the Emperor of Delphiam—the commander of the Imperial Guard who had secretly lured Kallian out in an attempt to kidnap him.

“Lord Huzel should be on his way here by now as well. Even for Wyneac, facing two heads of Transcendent Houses at once would be nearly impossible. So it would be wise for you to come out and negotiate a reasonable compromise.”

Kallian listened to the woman’s words in silence.

Then he calmly asked,

“Is this a situation where the perpetrator is threatening the victim?”

“Who is the victim?”

“The kidnapper certainly isn’t the victim, so I suppose that would make me the victim.”

His outrageous choice of words left the woman speechless.

Meanwhile, the boy lightly jumped down from the rock.

He landed gently on the chest of the commander of the Imperial Guard.

His slender shadow stretched long beneath the human tower.

“I’m afraid I’m not stupid enough to knowingly let myself be kidnapped.”

“……I honestly don’t know what sort of misunderstanding you have, but His Majesty is not the piece of trash the rumors make him out to be.”

“Then why did he build a harem?”

Regina Kirges, the current head of House Kirges, narrowed her eyes as she stared directly at the boy.

Those eyes…

I was told the heir of Wyneac was supposed to have an extremely gentle and weak temperament.

Unlike the other houses, whose heads routinely brought their heirs to official gatherings, Oen Wyneac had conspicuously kept his son away from public view.

As a result, Kallian Wyneac had never once appeared at a Continental Conference.

Naturally, rumors had flourished.

Apparently he isn’t even Oen’s biological son.

No, he is his biological son, but apparently he’s only half a Transcendent because he wasn’t blessed by the star.

He has absolutely no talent with the sword.

At the previous conference, Regina had casually asked Oen about his heir.

His answer, delivered with a face like he had bitten into something rotten, had only fueled the rumors.

“The boy is rather… lacking. It’ll take a while before I can turn him into a proper human being.”

Oen had said that while tapping his temple.

Then he had irritatedly changed the subject.

So Regina had assumed that the heir was either an unusually delicate, tearful child who didn’t fit the Wyneac mold, or perhaps simply a boy whose physical development was somewhat slower than his peers.

But—

What in the world is that?

Regina swallowed a groan internally.

Oen. What kind of monster have you been raising?!

After hearing that the Emperor of Delphiam had disappeared the previous night, Regina Kirges and Louise Huzel had immediately begun moving.

Regina had discovered the distinctive crescent-shaped traces of Wyneac mana near the mouth of the lower river and had followed them underground.

But by the time she reached the sewer, everything was already over.

Ten knights who had guarded the Emperor at close range the previous night, along with twenty knights who had been lying in wait—

Every last one of them was rolling around unconscious after being struck in their vital points.

There wasn’t even a single sword wound on their bodies.

Naturally, there wasn’t a drop of blood either.

In other words—

He had beaten thirty elite soldiers with nothing but a sword.

They still haven’t regained consciousness after all these hours.

He must have infused his strikes with sword energy as well.

Of course, if he truly was the future head of Wyneac, the house said to have reached the transcendent realm of swordsmanship, accomplishing something like this wouldn’t be particularly difficult.

Even Regina herself and her heir, Alfien, could easily handle thirty grown men.

There was a reason the Transcendent Houses stayed out of the continent’s various wars.

Calling them one-man armies was hardly an exaggeration.

So if all the knights lying there had been ordinary people, this would have been understandable.

But—

Kallian gestured toward the knights beneath his feet.

“Five from Kirges. And three from Huzel.”

“……”

“Two Transcendent Houses conspired with the Emperor of Delphiam to recruit the heir of Wyneac. They intended to drag him into the harem. Why?”

If he really is a homosexual, that would be rather threatening.

Kallian chuckled foolishly.

It seemed they had underestimated the boy far too much.

Regina reluctantly opened her mouth.

“We had absolutely no intention of threatening you. If you had cooperated peacefully, nothing would have happened—”

“Why target the heir instead of the head of the house?”

Kallian tilted his head.

“Oh. Is it because my father isn’t handsome enough?”

“……”

“Come on. He’s good enough. Is the Emperor of Delphiam simply that picky?”

Regina realized that the boy wasn’t listening to her at all.

Kallian slowly lowered himself into a crouch.

Without a care in the world, he pressed the toe of his spotless shoe against the commander of the Imperial Guard’s chest, right above his heart.

“If that isn’t the reason…”

He tilted his head.

The glint in his crimson eyes shifted with the change in angle.

The refined lips that had held nothing more than a faint smile slowly spread into a delighted grin.

“Then what could they possibly be hiding inside that harem guarded by three hundred concubines?”

“Little Wyneac.”

“Why else would they have to kidnap Wyneac when they can’t lay a finger on either Kirges or Huzel?”

His expression and tone suggested he was having the time of his life.

Kallian slowly stroked his chin with his bandaged left hand.

Something hidden beneath his angelic appearance was beginning to show its teeth.

He grinned.

“Could it be that you’ve got a delicious Star Relic hidden in there?”

Regina’s expression instantly turned cold.

It had only flashed across his face for an instant, but—

That boy had just licked his lips.

A chill ran down Regina’s spine at the madness briefly revealed in the boy’s eyes.

He knows!

The legacy left behind by the stars—

The Star Relics.

And among them, the secret relic kept hidden within the Imperial Palace of Delphiam, containing the power of Wyneac’s guardian star, “The Judge of Darkness and Chaos.”

As one of the five greatest Transcendents on the continent, Regina had never before experienced such a sense of danger.

Yet now, she felt it crawl down her spine.

That boy… Little Wyneac…

He only needed confirmation.

He had deliberately subdued the commander of the Imperial Guard who had come to coax him into cooperating, made him disappear, and then waited for one of Delphiam’s Transcendents to track him down.

All while deliberately scattering his presence everywhere.

He wanted to confront one of the heads of the Transcendent Houses and confirm whether what was hidden inside the Imperial Palace of Delphiam was exactly what he suspected.