Chapter 20 (2/2)
My mother and my uncle who was born one minute earlier than her were the precious and rarely-seen fraternal boy-girl twins, who possessed an extraordinary gift for fire-type magic. However, their father, my grandfather King Ansuo, was a very selfish person. Being an ambitious and paranoid person, he wanted his reign to last for eternity. He feared death and losing power. As his daughter and son grew up and expressed talent in virtually every aspect, he felt pressure rather than happiness.
King Ansuo doted on his nephew Andel instead, who was mediocre and only good at flattery. Andel concocted an evil scheme that the king could not help but accept: destroy the princess and the prince’s magic power, send his daughter to the dragon race in exchange for the protection of his country, then murder his son and trade his corpse to the Black Wizard for the secret of immortality. Because the body of one of Phoenix Twins was valuable magical research material, the Black Wizard surely would not refuse this deal.
This way, Ansuo could continue to rule the Kingdom of Bein forever without the threat of his children.
Completely caught off guard, the princess and prince lost their magic powers from consuming poison and became extremely weak and ill. It was fortunate that one of the princess’s court magicians, Anna, obtained the news beforehand and helped her escape. As for the prince who had been completely betrayed by his father, amidst grief and misery he was a.s.sa.s.sinated in the imperial palace as arranged by the king.
The Black Wizard received the gift that was the prince’s corpse, but he didn’t give the king the secret of immortality — this was because it was impossible for ordinary people to become immortal. With the king having failed to get a way out from the Black Wizard, the nephew Andel seized the opportunity, murdered the monarch, and in the end s.n.a.t.c.hed the crown.
As my uncle told this tale, he was very gentle, almost like he was just a mere spectator. He explained that though Black Wizard helped him “live”, the current him was nothing more than a living corpse.
“Everything else is fine, and there isn’t anything that inconvenient apart from my sense of taste being terrible,” he complained capriciously. “All these years, I’ve been worried about little Abeila, and Tswoyaosl only told me that she was alive but nothing else. He also didn’t allow me to go looking for her — not that I’m really capable of leaving him in my present state. If I did, I would immediately drop dead.”
My uncle and I hugged when it was time for me and Yiwei to leave. Patting my shoulder, he said: “Seeing you doing so well, it makes me feel so happy. Go child, take back what is rightfully yours, and everything that is rightfully mine and your mother’s.”
I nodded solemnly at him.
..·:*¨¨*.·:*¨♡¨*:·. 67 .·:*¨♡¨*:·.*¨¨*:·..
With the help of Yiwei and my uncle’s trusted aides from the olden days, I initiated a coup d’etat. I exposed Andel’s past crimes, and I was formally crowned as ruler of the Kingdom of Bein.
Honestly, none of that stuff was that interesting. Going solely by blood right, I was a more proper heir than Andel.
After I ascended the throne, my first action was to send an emissary to Finanse and convey my current status to my mother, brother, and my former subordinates. The rest was handling the Kingdom of Bein’s various government affairs, which was not that different from my previous experience as a lord. The only thing was that since I only recently succeeded the throne, there was a lot of things to take care of. I had no choice but work overtime to clean up the mess, and thus I frequently worked late into the night.
Tonight was the same. I was struggling to make headway through a mountain of doc.u.ments while Yiwei who was in his human form had fallen asleep on my lap. In the dead of the night, I pulled out the little cloth bag that the witch had given me a long time ago. She had told me that I could only open it when I believed that I had obtained my most important thing. Inside was a prophecy she had written about my life, she said. This prophecy would give me strength, and show me the way as I planned my future.
I glanced at Fruu who was beside me, and firmly decided to open the bag —
Written on a slip of paper were the words: “Adam Smith and his Yiweisibel Hande will inevitably leave a deep mark in the history of Icanomics.”
..·:*¨¨*.·:*¨♡¨*:·. 68. Epilogue .·:*¨♡¨*:·.*¨¨*:·..
One day a thought occurred to me, and I turned around to ask Yiwei: “Since your actual name is Yiweisibel, why did you tell me your name was Fruys?”
Yiwei froze for a second, and then soon whispered: “Fruys was the nickname that my mother called me, and I feel nostalgic being called that.”
I immediately regretted asking that question and scolded myself — while I was with the dragon race, I had long ago heard about Yiweisibel’s life story. His mother had left him when he was five years old, and for dragons who live for a thousand years or longer, this was an incredibly sad event.
Yiwei stared straight out of the window, and then suddenly added another sentence: “In the dragon language, ‘Fruys’ means ‘my precious sweetheart’.”
In a flash I recalled how every time I called him “Fruys”, all the surrounding dragons would give us a strange look. The prompt burst of embarra.s.sment made me want to break up with this stupid dragon immediately! I could only remember that he would never let anyone else in Finanse call him that name, so people called him, “Geir”, the general term humans used to refer to dragons in an esteemed manner.
I thought for a moment that it couldn’t have been that bad. After all, I didn’t call him “Fruys” that often. Rather, I was more used to calling him “Fruu”.
I blurted out: “Then, what does ‘Fruu’ mean in the dragon language?”
This time Yiwei turned his head and blinked at me, smiling. He said: “‘Fruu’ is a shortened version of ‘Fruys’, and means ‘sweetie’.”
It seems like this stupid dragon and I had completely taken each other out in mutual destruction.
Oh my G.o.d, I think I could die.
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