Book 4: Chapter 15
<strong>The King of Glendale</strong>
<strong>The King of Glendale</strong>
I am the King of Glendale, the kingdom of humans.
I turned twenty just recently.
My Father the previous King sumbed to illness, and I was appointed as king in in his stead.
Afterward, my Father managed to recover, but he is rendered immobile without a wheelchair.
I know that Im still half the person that he is; however, I am being supported by talented ministers.
With that reason, I want him to entrust the monarchy to me so he can spend the rest of his life leisurely.
My father was a great king.
He did not war against the other countries; instead, he made the country prosper by advancing policies dedicated on hydraulic engineering projects and agriculture.
Furthermore, one of the former kings great aplishments included obtaining the blessing of Undine, the Water Spirit King.
His thoughts were always with his citizens, and he gave daily supplications to the gods and spirits without fail.
All his prayers were not in vain, for Water Spirit King Undine-<em>sama</em> manifested before him.
He beseeched Undine-<em>sama</em> for the stability of his people.
He pledged his piety in return.
He erected shrines dedicated to Undine all throughout the country, and he caused all his people to pray.
Even until the present day, the whole kingdom prays to Undine<em>-sama</em> during the agricultural festival held quarterly.
Due to Undine-<em>sam</em>as protection, flood disasters were mostly averted, and we no longer suffer from water shortages.
Because we did not encounter water-rted disasters, our beloved countrys agriculture developed steadily.
Owing to that development, the present Glendale is now an agricultural powerhouse that is unrivalled by any other kingdom.
My role is to ensure that we continue to obtain security from Undine-<em>sama</em>, the protector of our kingdoms agriculture.
And now, let me change the topic, but I have a friend close to my age, and his name is Cain.
To the public, he is the Captain of the Imperial Guards, but I think of him as my bosom friend.
And I am d that he also considers me as such.
During the period when the former king is still in good health, I spearheaded the kingdoms chivalric order in an expedition to stop a stampede that began within the country.
A stampede is a phenomenon that urs when demons form herds and collectively begins to rampage, threatening to annihte numerous cities if ignored.
It transpires once in every two to three years.
In general, adventurer guilds aremissioned by the kingdom to deal with it, but at that time, the scale of the stampede was beyond normal.
The adventurers were not able to restrain those demons and they came within the vicinity of the royal capital.
And so I led the chivalric order for the purpose of quelling it.
At that time, Cain also exhibited potential for leadership within the order of chivalry, so he was appointed and deployed as my escort.
The battle against the stampede was extremely fierce.
Several different species of demons attacked at the same time, hence it correspondingly took more time than expected.
I personally experienced how demons that were ordinarily inconsequential, when dealt individually, turned into nuisance when congregated.
Despite that situation, Cain was able to mete out the most appropriate attacks for all of the demons, and in a blink of an eye, he was able to exterminate them all.
I only came to know about itter on, but apparently, Cain used a skill called [Extreme intuition] in order to gauge the demons weaknesses and make split-second decisions while fighting.
The stampede was eradicated smoothly.
It was mostly due to Cain.
Despite that, that guy refused to take any credit for his meritorious deed; he insisted that it was because of my excellent orders as themanding officer.
Whats up with saying its my order.
I was just running behind Cain and killing the demons that he asionally left out.
To be honest, I hated the Cain of that time.
Thats because he was such a straightced, rigid guy.
But I recognize hispetency.
And since he did not want to receive merit, Imanded him to be my instructor and teach me swordsmanship.
He declined several times, but I refused to back down, so Cain taught me swordsmanship.
Under Cains swordsmanship tutge, my strength and technique improved steadily.
I was able to triumph against themanding officers of the chivalric order that I previously cannot defeat.
However, against Cain alone, no matter what I do I cannot win.
I continuously trained with Cain, and before I know it, the two of us subjugated small-scale stampede together.
I am assured that Cain has my back.
Of course, I will be the one to have Cains back.
After annihting the stampeding demons, Cain said that we should equally divide the credit between us.
Cain overwhelmingly defeated more monsters than me, but I was delighted that he did not push all the merit on to me.
It felt like he finally recognized me.
From then on, we became good friends.
The first thing that I did as king was to establish the Imperial Guards, and appoint Cain as their captain.
My bosom friend epted it with no hesitation.
And now, the brother of that friend got married.
What are you doing, hurry up and give them your congrattions.
<em>What? Youre my escort?</em>
<em>Thats not important right now.</em>
<em>No matter how you look at it, we are a peaceful country.</em>
<em>I am not so weak that Ill be assassinated easily.</em>
<em>Thats why, hurry up and go.</em>
But for some reason, Cain had no desire to leave.
<em>Alright, I understand.</em>
<em>I will congratte your brother.</em>
<em>It is not as if were strangers, so there is no issue.</em>
<em>And since youre my escort, you have toe with me, alright?</em>
<em>By the way, who is the marriage partner of your brother?</em>
<em>W, what? It is Tina?</em>
<em>Eh, hes also getting married to the princess of Alheim?</em>
I received a shock upon hearing that Heroine Tina, the girl I liked in the past, is already married.
However, it is with the younger brother of my best friend Cain.
I am sure he can grant happiness to Tina.
Oh speaking of, I heard that few days ago, Cains younger brother Halt stood as Alheims ally when the Elf Kingdom was threatened by the human kingdom of Apristos, and he drove off Apristoss army.
We did not have any diplomatic rtions with Apristos, and besides, in the past, the Hero who defeated the Demon King came from our beloved Kingdom, and made the connection with Heroine Tina.
That is why our beloved country is considering establishing friendship with Alheim.
The feeling became stronger when I received the Leaf of Yggdrasil, an extremely valuable item, from the king of Alheim.
The whole kingdom should wee the wedding of Cains younger brother with Heroine Tina and Alheims princess.
I had that thought in mind, but when I attended Halt and the others reception party, the marquis of my own kingdom is holding the hand of the princess of Alheim.
ording to the report I heard, the Marquiss son fell in love with the princess and wished to snatch her from Halt.
Preposterous!
Youre telling me that youre stealing the bride of my best friends brother?
I wont forgive you; I swear I wont forgive you!
I had the imperial guards take that marquis outside the venue.
Lets give him a heavy punishmentter on.
How about charging him with treason?
With that thought in mind, Tinas figure in her dress caught my eye.
She was as gorgeous as she was in the past.
Unwittingly, I proposed.
Ugh, what am I doing.
With this, arent I the same as that marquis?
No, no! Thats because Tina is Halts bride.
I was rebuked by a little girl.
Is she some aristocrats child?
Shes this young, but she already possesses the knowledge that other peoples loved ones should not be stolen.
I have to reflect.
So that girl is Sylph-<em>sama,</em> the Spirit King of the Wind.
Undine-<em>sama </em>was also present at the venue.
Apparently, they formed summoning contracts with Halt, therefore they came to congratte him.
What am I doing, hitting on Undine<em>-sama</em>s contractors bride right before her eyes!?
If this country betrays Halt, then you will have all the spirits of this world as your enemies.
The words uttered by Undine-<em>sama</em> weighed heavily on me.
Our protection of Halts household is corrted to the protection of this county.
With this, I vowed to protect the Halt and the Elnor House with the power of Glendale, my beloved kingdom.
T/N: I am super sorry for forgetting to post this chapter on time! I forgot I didnt scheduled any chapter, and a lot of things happened in real life yesterday so ? Again, I apologize ? Thanks for understanding! ?