The Star of Annihilation
Chapter 74 – Wall (3)
Written by : Eleven

* * *

Back to the present…

Blinking his eyes slowly, Roy didn’t want to get up.

He felt warm and comfortable inside the bedroom in the infirmary and his muscles felt so relaxed that he couldn’t bear to wake up.

‘Ah… this is bliss….’

Just as Roy was putting the covers back over his head to go back to sleep or whatever he was doing in this place, a loud noise rang out.

“He’s awake!”

“Nurse! Grab his family and the Headmaster quickly!”

“Ugh…”

Roy groaned as the loud shouts and orders from the people in the infirmary quickly shot him wide awake as they noticed Roy had finally come to.

Now that he was wide-awake, Roy started to ponder about how he got here.

‘What happened?’

The first thing he might as well do was ask the person who had taken control of his body before he last passed out.

Although the presence was faint, Roy could still feel Ifrit in his consciousness from their contract.

But…

There was no answer.

Not only that, but was it just him? Or did the connection to Ifrit feel much weaker?

Roy decided to wait patiently as he gathered from the shouts and rushing nurses, that the people he would need and want to see would be coming rather shortly.

‘But why am I the only person here?’

This was the school infirmary room, no doubt about it. But, Roy felt it was oddly empty aside from the nurses and school staff that were milling about.

After a few minutes…

“You’re finally up.”

Walking into the infirmary room, the rest of the nurses left and Roy took in the sight of the person talking to him.

“Master Lucius.”

Lucius looked haggard compared to his normal self, as his eyes were rather droopy and his hair was a bit ruffled.

Nonetheless, the dignity of a Swordmaster was still present as he had his usual overbearing pressure still lingering around him as he came close to Roy.

“I’m sorry for this, but I think it’ll be quicker to explain by asking you a few questions first actually.”

“….?”

“Do you know how long it’s been since the fight?”

Lucius knew that if Roy were coming to his senses by now, he probably would have already realized that the fight had ended.

“A few days….at the most?”

Roy sounded unsure and was getting suspicious because of the lack of response from his master.

Lucius wordlessly studied Roy and then shook his head.

“No… it’s been a bit longer than a few days.”

“How long has it been?”

“About a month.”

Roy fell silent.

It felt like it was only yesterday, but an entire month had passed.

But Roy still had this feeling of anxiety because Lucius seemed to have something urgent to talk about, seeing how he was the first person to show up when he awoke.

“Is there something I should be aware of?”

“Yea, we have to leave… immediately.”

“Leave where?”

“The Tournament of Young Lions is starting in only a few weeks. The thing is… you were unanimously chosen for the first time having consensus from both parties. And the problem is it’s not something you can back out of because of the powers of the Empire all agreeing on your participation.”

“What?!”

“It’s as I said- the conservative noble factions and the left wing factions advocated for your participation… and another power came into play as well and advocated for you.”

“Why would the conservative faction support a commoner’s participation?”

Roy clearly saw something fishy. The conservative noble faction never did something like this if they were not scheming to seek profit somehow.

‘Are they underestimating me? Or are they throwing me into a dog pit and hoping I die?’

Roy felt that it was likely that they were choosing something else entirely, but if anything, it was likely the former.

If anyone was murdered in the Tournament of Young Lions, it would erupt in all-out war because the tournament was held in purpose as a deterrent from breaking out into war where thousands of lives would be lost.

“There are seven participants, aren’t there? Who else was selected from the Empire?”

Roy was curious as to who else would be placed in this spotlight with him.

“There were different groups who voted, each of the spots belonging to those selected by the different factions supporting each prince. Your friends Nate and Elizabeth were also selected by the different factions coming to a consensus. As for the others, I think it would be best to let you meet them in person.”

“This is a mess.”

Roy smacked his forehead with his palm in annoyance.

He didn’t have much time from the looks of it, and he hadn’t even seen his mother yet after waking up.

“There’s been a lot to deal with in the Capital and the Emperor is feeling the same about all of this.”

Roy raised his eyebrows when he heard Lucius speak of the Emperor feeling the same way.

Emperor Navarro Isemenian died around this time in Roy’s past life due to ‘old age’, but almost everyone knew it was likely poison from the second Imperial Prince since the First Prince had died relatively soon after as well.

“What do we need to do then?”

“First, we will need to use the warp portal in the Capital to travel to the Southern outskirts of the Empire. The Tournament of Young Lions is being held in the central plains of the continent, and there are no warp portals allowed there, so the journey will be on foot once we warp down to the border.”

“What about my mother?”

“She’s naturally already ready for you down at the Southern border, waiting for you.”

“Does she even know I’m awake?”

“She’s probably getting word from the staff of the Academy right about now.”

“Huuuu…”

Roy sighed again.

Everything was moving so fast, and he was still concerned about many things.

One of them also being the fact that Ifrit was not being responsive for some reason. But other than that, there was a great risk factor in knowing that the Dragons wanted his head and were determined in that last attack to have him dead.

If he were to expose himself in the Tournament of Young Lions to the public eye, who was to say they wouldn’t take another shot at his life?

It was also important to know that almost every public official and citizen of the continent knew that something fishy was going on in the eastern Kingdom of Palest after almost zero information was going in and out from the residents there.

If one chalked it all up, it was clear that The Kingdom of Palest had likely been taken over by the Dragons and the influence of the original kingdom was likely nowhere to be found as the Royals would likely be nothing but puppets.

“This is really not good.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

Lucius grinned.

Despite his haggard looks from being dragged around so much in the Capital, Lucius still had a face full of fighting spirit.

Looking at his master with a look full of skepticism, Roy did not hide his distrust at all.

“Oh come on, you seriously are that pessimistic?”

“I’m just looking at the facts in front of me.”

Roy responded bluntly.

Lucius’ eyebrows twitched ever so slightly as he felt like he had been too lax in disciplining his disciple lately.

“You… follow me. Now!”

Lucius pointed at the door and Roy gulped his saliva down nervously.

‘Ah shoot. Maybe that was a little much…’

It was too late to regret.

* * *

“This is a punishment? How can this even be humane?!”

Roy bickered as Lucius and he walked through up to the warp gate in the Capital.

In Lucius’ hands, were iron bracers that went around each limb.

Two for each wrist, and two for the ankles.

“As primitive as this may be, you’ll notice the differences immediately since these block off any use of mana within the body. Since I’ll be making sure to escort you, you won’t have to worry about needing to use any mana after all.”

The bracers were quickly attached on Roy’s body and Roy felt the quick absence of his mana circuit in a heartbeat.

“Ugh… this makes me feel crippled.”

“That’s just how much you’ve been relying on your mana to get you by in these fights. Your raw body mass and muscle is pretty much still nonexistent. If you want to complain, maybe you should think more about doing so before I start to increase the weights.”

Roy quickly shut up as it was already incredibly difficult to walk and move his body normally with these bracers on.

Each bracer weighed around 12 kilograms.

Essentially, Roy was walking around while carrying the equivalent of a grown man’s full weight with these bracers on.

“When can I take them off?”

“Hmmm… Once we reach Ferat, the hosting city of the tournament.”

“But we haven’t even….”

Roy once again shut his mouth up as soon as Lucius turned around and gave him a smirk.

“Can we just see my mother first?”

“Crying mommy already, are we?”

Lucius cackled as Roy felt utterly defeated under the pretext of training his master had given him.

“Well fine, we need to get going anyways.”

Lucius tied his blonde locks of hair up into a bun and nudged Roy with his shoulder as they walked through the warp gate in the back of the Imperial Palace.

Whoosh~

Chapter 74 – Fin

Hey there all, I was working on getting at least 10 chapters ahead in my drive and we can finally start back on uploading a bit more consistently.

The reason I wanted to get ten chapters ahead is because of a mass release goal to end off the first book/season of this series. If we can reach 100 dollars on kofi for star of annihilation, I will release the last ten chapters for the first season all on the same day (it’ll be around chapters 95-105 in numbering wise.

For more info please contact me via discord and the link to the kofi is as follows : www.ko-fi.com/betterdays