Chapter 502 - The Legend of the One (2/2)

“Understand,” the children timidly replied.

Link then pointed to himself. “Me, the castle’s housekeeper. I’m in charge of you, will train you to serve mistress better. Understand?”

“Understand…” replied the children. Their replies were somewhat disorganized. One of them still had his thumb in his mouth, and his voice came out muffled as a result.

Link wagged a finger at him, and said, “No sucking on thumbs, or else you’ll end up like him.”

Saying this, he snapped his fingers and magically sealed the child’s mouth shut. A look of surprise came over his face, as he tried to pull his thumb out of his mouth, but to no avail.

The other children looked in horror at him. One of them, a girl probably, started to cry, and the other three followed suit. Chaos descended on them in an instant.

Link cast a Silence spell on them, and then took out four pieces of dried fruit bits from his spatial pendant. He gave a piece to each of them. “This is good stuff.”

The four children who were not sucking on their thumbs instantly stopped crying. They looked at the fruit bits warily. Then one of the bolder children, no longer able to resist the sweet scent coming from it, took a small bite. His face split into a wide smile, and he excitedly squeaked to the others, “It’s sweet.”

All four children wiped their tears and began nibbling on the dried fruit bit. The child who had his mouth sealed shut by Link had momentarily forgotten his ordeal. He now stared hungrily at his companions who were chewing on their bits of candy in front of him.

Link removed the spell from him and then held out a piece of dried fruit bit in front of him. Just as the child reached out for it excitedly, Link pulled his hand back and stuffed the candy into his own mouth. He said to them as he chewed on his own candy, “Obey my orders, and you’ll get something good to eat. My first rule is no thumb-sucking. Got it?”

“Got it, housekeeper,” all five of them responded in unison. Four of their faces were filled with excitement, though one still remained teary-eyed. With a tasty treat as their reward, their memories had gotten a lot better.

“Alright, for my second rule, keep yourself clean at all times. Clean yourself up in the pool if you somehow get yourself dirty.”

“Okay.”

“For my third rule…”

Link began listing out the rules of his castle to the children, enforcing them with either the promise of a delicious titbit or some horrifying form of magical punishment. Ten minutes later, he had finally reformed them into clean, obedient, well-mannered servants of the castle.

As he brought all five of them into the castle, Link began assigning their rooms and duties to them. He then gave each of them a beautiful mithril bracelet, which allowed him to eavesdrop on them whenever he wanted. Link wanted to have a better understanding of the island itself by listening to the children’s conversations.

“Always keep it on your wrist. Don’t take it off, or you won’t have anything to eat.” Saying this, Link gave each of them a piece of sweet cheese.

“I understand, housekeeper.” All five children had committed his teachings to memory. Though they were famished at this point, they remained standing upright, not daring to touch the pieces of cheese given to them.

“Good. You can eat.”

When he had finished speaking, the children stuffed the bits of cheese greedily into their little mouths. As they chewed, they glanced sideways at Link, uncertain whether they had done something wrong.

Link observed them for a moment, then nodded. “Good. Now, remember this last rule. Assemble in the great hall for your meals whenever the bracelet lights up. Understand?”

“Got it, housekeeper.”

“Good, you can now go and play outside.” Link vanished in a white light, and in an instant, he reappeared beside the Red Dragon Queen.

The Red Dragon Queen was out on the balcony on the third floor of the caste. She leaned against the railing and gazed at the mixed demons’ village in the distance. Sensing the flurry of Link’s appearance beside her, she asked without turning to him, “Have you gotten the little ones prepared?”

“Of course. In fact, I’ve almost mastered their tongue by now.” Link handed a runestone to the Red Dragon Queen and said, “You can use this to hear what they’re talking about with each other.”

“Smart move.” Gretel accepted the runestone with a smile, then asked, “What do you plan on doing next?”

Link already had his next step planned out. He took out the purple meteorite. “I’ll need to study the meteorite’s special properties. In any case, we need to find a suitable dampening material for the singularity explosion as soon as possible.”

“I’ll let you handle matters on that end, while I’ll try to understand the locals here. In the meanwhile, I’ll look for the rest of the medicinal herbs that I’m still missing for the antidote. Oh, I do hope the little ones would be of some help in that area.”

Link smiled. “They are quite intelligent. I’ll forge you a couple of magical gear later on so that you can defend yourself against any threat in the forest. I remember the kids mentioning something about a one-eyed king.”

He also had an eavesdropping runestone of his own. He held it to his ear and heard the children’s voices flow out from it.

One of the speakers was a girl. “My grandma said that no one should build their houses in the forest, because it’s the one-eyed king’s domain, and he’ll punish anyone who trespasses on his forest.”

“What are you scared of? The one-eyed king won’t be able to defeat the housekeeper. Didn’t you see how powerful he was?”

“But my grandma said that the one-eyed king is as huge as a mountain. He’ll tear the castle apart with just a sneeze. He even ate a hundred llamas in one gulp. If he’s upset, he’ll start stomping about, and the ground beneath him will split open.”

The children seemed to be describing a monstrous creature living in the woods. Though it all sounded like a fairy tale, there was always some truth in legends. Also, Link had noticed that there were no buildings anywhere in the forest.

He looked at Gretel. “Do you think there’s actually a one-eyed king?”

Gretel smiled back. “Maybe. The people in the village do seem to be frightened by the castle’s appearance. You’re the duke of the dragon race, anyway; do you really have anything to fear here?”