123 Triumph in Tragedy and Tragedy in Triumph (1/2)

With the threat taken care of and the mysterious voice no longer there, the world returned to normal. The people within the crowd and the city finally had a sense of calmness come over them.

King Leodoro had given the order to stand down to all soldiers, letting himself and the other three men with boosted stats work together to contain the remaining cetuses. Rather than kill them, Tridon and King Leodoro had a different idea.

While King Leodoro corraled them with strands of lightning, Tomas and the strong soldier forced any straggling cetuses into the lightning cage. Tridon went about knocking them all unconscious.

They wanted to take advantage of the situation and grow the forces of Reinolt. Also, Jack and the adventurers were only able to convince Tridon to give up a couple of his beasts by promising him all surviving cetuses. King Leodoro didn't disagree, in fact, he wanted to help and offered Tridon a new title as the Reinolt Kingdom's Beast Master.

After rendering them all unconscious, Tridon hurried to brand them all with a strange beast seal. It was one the would allow more than one person to be its master, so long as they also had the same seal and was only temporary. The few cetuses over lv. 30 received the same type of seal, yet it was different. That way he could be more careful with whoever controlled the four remaining lv. 32 and lv. 33 cetuses.

With seventeen cetuses over lv. 20, eight cetuses over lv. 25, and four cetuses over lv. 30, Tridon was over the moon.

The soldiers were dismissed after gathering all the corpses, with the beast and human corpses going to their separate piles. It was a grueling battle, but they were glad that the casualties this time were less than any of the other two cetus attacks.

King Leodoro noticed the pride in Tridon's eyes and asked, ”So, now what?”

”Why should I be so focused on the future right now? Can't I enjoy my present achievement?” laughed Tridon.

”You know what I mean. With such a strong force in the Salendar family's hands, many people will think you won't respect the Royal Court.”

”If it's the same Royal Court we just crushed, then why would I respect it?” joked Tridon.

Leodoro smiled. ”Well, Beast Master Tridon, I want to ask you a favor.”

”No, I'm not joining your court.”

”I don't want you to. Actually, I want you to form your own power, not as a noble family but as its own entity. What if you had your own beast taming academy?”

Tridon looked away from his newly acquired beasts and saw the king's genuine smile. He chuckled, ”You know, once I make something like that, I'll be just as powerful as Zariff and rival your little court with my beasts alone. If I can attract strong people too, I may overtake your court.”

”Honestly, I'd like that. So long as we're allies, I'd be happy to have such a power within the city. But help out when you can, alright? We have no clue if the syndicate will return, so we'll need you and your cetus army if that happens.” King Leodoro sighed, glad to see things start changing for the better in Reinolt.

”If you support the Salendar Beast Academy, then why not?”

Both men chuckled and embraced each other's arms like brothers of war. No more words were spoken, only looks of respect were shared as they waited for the cetuses to wake up to their new master.

*****

Those at the association building gathered the corpses of the few soldiers and adventurers that were killed, as well as the syndicate members. Nobody dared loot a single corpse. They respected those that fell amongst the soldiers and adventurers while they knew their chief would be in charge of inspecting the syndicate corpses.

Though they won the battle with very minimal losses in terms of numbers, neither Zariff, Maynard, nor Rydel was happy with the end result.

They looted the syndicate members and didn't find anything too precious or unusual beside gold and a powerful weapon or two. The hooded leader was the only one with an item they didn't recognize.

Not wasting time, they stowed everything away and would wait for a better moment to mention the item to Jack.

The three men slowly walked toward the forlorn Jack. He was speechless. Staring at the lifeless Slivia in his arms, Jack was motionless and looked to be near lifeless himself. At his side was Daliea, who seemed touched by Jack's sadness. She had finally gotten to see evidence that Jack had already given his heart to someone.