The Wolf King, Kaiden Ram
Catherine looked visibly disappointed when I showed no interest whatsoever.
“Why aren’t you asking who it is?”
“I’m not particularly curious.”
“Ugh! Get curious right now!”
Catherine threw a full-blown tantrum, acting as if she would fling herself onto the floor if I didn’t ask immediately.
Really, this imperial palace is nothing but a den of annoying people.
I should have just left her locked up in the storage room.
I let out a short sigh, thinking of something that would make Catherine faint if she ever found out.
“Who did you see, then?”
“The Wolf King!”
The Wolf King?
I don’t know who that is, but that title is painfully cringeworthy.
“You really don’t know? He’s the most famous person on the continent right now!”
Catherine grew dramatically agitated at my indifferent reaction.
“He’s the young king of the newly established Adamanth Kingdom! The King of Knights! The Conqueror of the West!”
The newly established Adamanth Kingdom?
I never heard of a place with that name before I died.
A kingdom that even I, who knew every corner of the continent, had never heard of.
“When was this country founded?”
“About a year ago, I think?”
It really was a brand-new nation whose ink on the map hadn’t even dried yet.
“Is he really that famous?”
“Of course he is! He’s the man who destroyed the Lionel Kingdom and practically unified the entire western region!”
This time, I couldn’t help but be genuinely shocked.
The western continent was a land of endless conflict, riddled with monster strongholds and bordering the territories of savage tribes.
Countless kingdoms had sprung up like mushrooms only to vanish again and again.
In the last hundred years, only one had managed to survive that long.
The Ruler of the West, the Lionel Kingdom.
And now someone had destroyed that very kingdom and founded a new one in its place.
My gaze drifted to the distant figures of Edwin and Emilia playing in the garden.
The Lionel Kingdom had been the homeland of the Third Consort and the maternal family of those children.
The fact that it had been wiped from the map meant those young ones truly had nowhere left to turn.
“They say he can take down a hundred monsters all by himself! I heard the reason he came to the empire this time was to exterminate monsters!”
Take on a hundred monsters alone? That’s stretching it a bit too far.
Monsters were wicked and immensely powerful creatures born from demonic energy.
Even the most skilled knight had to risk his life to face even a single one.
The idea that one human could handle a hundred was pure nonsense.
Wait a second.
A memory suddenly flashed through my mind.
That king is staying at the imperial palace?
The unidentified man I had encountered not long ago came to mind.
The man standing beside the emperor, clad head to toe in pitch-black armor.
“By any chance, does this Wolf King have golden eyes?”
“Oh my, how did you know?”
Catherine’s eyes widened into perfect circles.
“People are saying those eyes make him even more terrifying. They say it feels like he’s looking at a monster.”
For a moment, my brow furrowed deeply.
When I turned my head, I saw Edwin and Emilia in the distance, happily playing in the dirt.
“Brother, what is this red one?”
“It’s a ladybug. Have you never seen one before, Ria?”
“Nope! It’s so pretty! It looks like a ruby!”
The children were still laughing with pure, innocent joy.
For some reason, a heavy feeling settled in a corner of my heart.
I couldn’t quite explain why.
Splat.
Monster blood sprayed everywhere as its hide split open and its guts spilled out.
The imperial soldiers stood with their mouths agape, staring at the gruesome sight.
Impressive indeed.
Even Emperor Cabelius III, observing from the very rear of the subjugation force, had a glint of interest in his eyes.
They said he started as a wandering mercenary. I see why.
It was the third day since Kaiden had led his knight order to begin eradicating the monsters that plagued the borders of the Ventrum Empire.
The number of monsters that hadn’t decreased even when half the imperial knight order was deployed had been cut in half in just two days.
The one responsible for making the impossible possible was none other than the Knight Commander of Adamanth and its king, Kaiden.
Slice. Stab. Slice.
The sounds that sent chills down the spine rang out loudly across the battlefield.
While the spectators frowned in discomfort, the performer himself, Kaiden, remained utterly expressionless.
“Your Majesty! I told you to leave the dismantling to us!”
Oliver, Kaiden’s adjutant, came running in a hurry after witnessing the scene.
He too was covered head to toe in monster blood, looking every bit the ferocious warrior.
“I only pre-cut the tough tendon sections. The rest is up to you lot.”
Kaiden gave a light laugh as he looked at his flustered subordinate’s face.
Then he leaped lightly down from the monster’s corpse.
“Yes, sir! What are you all standing around for? Get to work!”
Under Oliver’s sharp command, the knights of Adamanth moved busily among the dead monsters’ remains.
The imperial knights and soldiers joined in belatedly, but unlike the skilled Adamanth knights, their movements were somewhat clumsy.
“At this rate after just two days of subjugation, we should be able to return to our kingdom a little earlier.”
“Are you that eager to go back, Sir Oliver?”
“Of course. Who in the world hates going home? Unlike you, Your Majesty, I have a rabbit-like wife and three fox-like children waiting for me.”
Oliver grumbled as he wiped the blood from his face.
“Ah, I almost forgot. Since we’re in the empire, I should buy a ton of rose essence to take back.”
“Why rose essence? Do your daughters complain that you smell like blood?”
“No, it’s a gift for my wife. And my daughters don’t even know what blood smells like. I wash myself thoroughly at the knight order’s quarters before going home…”
Oliver trailed off from his complaints and changed the subject.
“Why don’t you buy something as a souvenir too, Your Majesty? They sell jasmine essence as well, you know?”
The young king of Adamanth had an odd habit of using soap that smelled of jasmine, a scent that didn’t suit him at all.
What’s more, jasmine was a fragrance usually favored by women, which made the mismatch even more striking.
“Don’t you get tired of using the same scent for so long?”
“Not at all.”
“Good heavens, is there a reason you like jasmine so much?”
“There is.”
Kaiden laughed as he casually shook the blood from his face and hair.
“When I smell that scent, it feels like I’ve come home.”
It didn’t make sense.
He hated the laughter and seduction of women who wore jasmine perfume.
Oliver frowned, then simply shrugged his shoulders.
He had long since given up trying to fully understand his lord.
“It seems the rumors of the world have underestimated you. You truly deserve to be called a god of war.”
Kaiden gave a slight nod as he looked at the emperor, who had approached at some point.
“You flatter me, Your Majesty.”
“The monster-slaying skills of the Adamanth knight order are truly remarkable.”
The emperor smiled kindly as he watched the Adamanth knights moving diligently.
“I can’t help but wonder if those sharp blades would produce the same results if they were pointed at people instead of monsters.”
Though his face still wore that seemingly harmless smile like a simple country farmer, the words that left his mouth carried clear thorns.
“Ah, if that’s what concerns you, there’s no need to worry.”
Unlike his sweating adjutant, Kaiden replied with a bright, refreshing smile.
“My subordinates are not wild beasts who have slipped their reins. They are knights who understand chivalry.”
“Haha, is that so? Then that is fortunate indeed.”
The emperor tilted his head slightly, hands clasped behind his back.
His piercing blue eyes flashed with a cold, murderous light for a brief moment.
“I happen to believe that a well-trained human is far more dangerous than a beast that has broken free of its leash.”
“Is that so.”
Even as he met the emperor’s icy gaze directed straight at him, Kaiden did not lose his smile.
He lightly brushed away the droplets of blood falling from the armor on his shoulder.
“But any human worth his salt knows clearly which side his power should be used for, and which side it should never touch.”
“The side it should be used for, and the side it should not?”
The emperor let out a thoughtful hum, as if intrigued by Kaiden’s words.
“Where is the side it should be used for, and where is the side it should not?”
“Power should be used to save lives, not to take them.”
Kaiden smiled gently at the emperor.
“After all, if one is born human, shouldn’t one know how to respect the lives of other humans?”
At his lord’s statement, Oliver’s pupils trembled faintly.
Everyone on the continent knew that the emperor before them, Cabelius III, had slaughtered all his half-siblings to seize the throne.
And yet here was someone telling that very emperor that a human who could not respect the lives of others was no human at all.
“Haha, the King of Adamanth is quite an amusing man.”
The emperor left only that short remark after listening to Kaiden, his expression unreadable—impossible to tell whether he was offended or not.
“Your Majesty, the Minister of State Affairs has arrived at the border outpost. We must depart now.”
“Ah, I see.”
Whether fortunate or unfortunate, the emperor used the excuse of a state meeting to mount his horse and leave the subjugation site.
He didn’t even offer a proper farewell to Kaiden, who was, after all, a king.
“You’ve clearly earned his displeasure. Why would you say something so unnecessary?”
At his adjutant’s scolding, Kaiden frowned while drying his hair with a fresh towel.
“He picked a fight first, so I simply responded in kind. Is there a problem?”
“There are plenty of problems! The other party is the Emperor of the Ventrum Empire!”
At his adjutant’s outburst, Kaiden drooped both eyebrows in an exaggeratedly pitiful expression.
“Oh dear, I suppose I’ll have to hurry up and become king of a great power just to avoid feeling so pathetic. Or perhaps I should declare myself emperor just to satisfy you, Sir Oliver?”
“Your Majesty, we are in the Ventrum Empire! What if someone hears you?!”
“My apologies for having such a loud voice.”
“And where exactly did you hear such nonsense anyway?”
“What nonsense?”
Oliver asked with a scowl.
“That bit about power being meant to save lives. You don’t actually believe that, do you, Your Majesty?”
If something bothers you, just kill it all. That was more like his lord’s true nature.
Whether it was the emperor or the lord standing before him, rulers were all cut from the same cloth at their core.
“Ah.”
Kaiden let out a short sigh, then chuckled softly.
“Actually, those words…”
The young king winked with one eye and added playfully.
“I heard them a very long time ago from an assassin who came to kill me.”