The Third Prince Of Darkness

After entering the Kingdom of Herumzan and embarking on another journey, we arrived at Randaban, one of the largest cities of Herumzan and a port city. After we got there, the mercenaries left since they had completed their tasks, and I had to hire another group of mercenaries. After settling Roxanne into a quality inn in the city, I went outside.

Roxanne had become quite exhausted during this long journey. After all, we had been traveling for weeks with very little rest. Although the carriage we had was extremely comfortable, the journey was still tiring to a discomforting degree.

The size of the continent we were on, known as the Human Continent or officially as the continent of Penumbralia, was much larger than it appeared. We were likely on a continent much bigger than Europe. Of course, measuring it would be very difficult with the current technology, but at least I had a rough idea of the continent's size based on the journey's duration.

But when I thought about it, why were there so few countries on this continent? Despite being larger than Europe, there were only 11 countries. Of course, the factor that used to show this number more was the southern clans, and there were probably more than twenty southern clans. But when the south united, only 11 countries remained.

In my opinion, the main reason for the few kingdoms was the continent's geography. It would be accurate to compare this continent to South America. Additionally, due to the closeness of the cultures among the peoples of the continent, there weren't many distinct kingdoms.

After all, all of humanity were descendants of a handful of people fleeing from demons, and many of these different cultures had been destroyed. Another reason was that power and hierarchy were much sharper in this world. No one could simply create a kingdom by casually waving their hands.

In this world, the reality of magic had naturally led society to develop in a way that favored the strong. Indeed, most humans, and even most other races, considered magic, or what humans called Kaizer power, to be a gift from the gods, and those who possessed it the most were the ones deemed most legitimate by the gods.

That's why all the kings and queens on the continent had powerful Kaizer powers.

Concepts like equality had not developed in this world, nor had they ever existed. Only concepts like submitting to the strong and serving of the powerful had developed in society. As a result, these were the main reasons for the fewer kingdoms in the human continent, in my opinion.

And now, we were in the Herumzan Kingdom, which was regarded as the most oppressed and weakest kingdom on the entire continent. Throughout its history, it had never achieved significant victories and had often been a vassal of the Island Federation. They had only gained their freedom a few hundred years ago, and the people of this kingdom were extremely different from the rest.

As I mentioned before, concepts like equality had never existed in the rest of the continent, but gradually such concepts were beginning to sprout in this kingdom.

Perhaps it was because they had been oppressed and despised throughout history. But if governance systems like democracy were invented in this world, it would likely be the Herumzan Kingdom that would be closest to inventing it. A society with such a structure had the option of either serving the rest of the continent or starting a revolution. And I hope the second option does not come to pass...

The next morning, I woke up before sunrise. The wind blowing into Randaban's port was filling the room through the window of the inn we were staying at. Roxanne was still asleep; I wanted to give her a little more time to rest. I went outside, and with the first light of morning, the streets were quite calm. The city had a spicy air mixed with the scent of the sea.

Near the port, a few fishermen were working on their boats, while some merchants were loading their goods onto ships.

Randaban was truly a trade hub. People of all kinds could be found here. Foreign merchants, mercenaries, craftsmen... It was possible to hear different languages from every corner. The multicultural structure of the city was immediately noticeable, and despite the overall weakness of the Herumzan Kingdom, this was what kept trade in the city alive.

Now I needed to go to the Servants' Guild to do something about expanding my operations in this kingdom. Thus, while I left the mercenaries to protect Roxanne in the inn, I went to the secret base of the Servants' Guild. I didn't change my identity because I was afraid of being followed or watched. Upon arriving at the Servants' Guild, I was welcomed very well.

I quickly took action to establish connections with the local nobles and, especially, to collaborate on expanding my banking company in the Herumzan Kingdom.

Some members of the Servants' Guild contacted local nobles on my behalf. And while things progressed faster than I expected, it still took up my entire day. Fortunately, many nobles were agreed upon without the need for blackmail or anything else. I suppose the kingdom was in a worse situation than I had thought.

Also, I heard that the current king of Herumzan was on the verge of death, which is why some nobles were very eager to take advantage of this to gain power. Thus, I could easily expand my companies in the Herumzan Kingdom. After writing a letter to Isabella about all the dealings, I returned to the inn where I had left Roxanne late at night.

"Wtfk?!"

As I went upstairs and was about to open the door to the room, I smelled a very strange odor....When I opened the door, I noticed blood everywhere and severed body parts scattered throughout the room. My eyes widened in terror, and my heart seemed to start pounding in my ears. I was afraid something had happened to Roxanne, while at the same time, my stomach churned.

As I stepped into the room, my heart felt like it was going to stop.

Inside the room stood a woman in a long black dress over a man, who lay motionless, and despite the man being still, the woman continued to stab him repeatedly. As I approached the woman quickly, I saw that she was covered in blood. The room was dark, but I could clearly see the dismembered corpses and severed limbs scattered around the room.

"How dare you touch me?! I belong only to Ethan! I will make you pay for your filthy hands with a mouth that smells like a rat's corpse, and I will rip out your heart and feed it to the pigs... Hehehehe, creatures like you only deserve such treatment... -But how am I going to fix this now? You've stained everything!

You even stained our bed with Ethan!"

When I realized who the woman was.... who was stabbing a man like a madwoman, my hair stood on end. I hadn't seen her face because her back was turned to me and the room was dark, but now that I heard her voice, I was absolutely certain it was Roxanne.

"R-Roxy?" I called out in a hushed voice.

I saw Roxanne jump in fear, and the knife fell to the floor. Roxanne stood up and hesitated to turn towards me. She was covered in blood, but did not seem injured. She looked at me with a smile, but it was a frightening smile, or at least it seemed that way combined with the discomfort of the moment.

"What the hell happened here?" I said, looking at Roxanne. Roxanne smiled and started to move towards me to hug me, but then realized she was covered in blood and stopped.

"Help... She... The monster..." the man that Roxanne had just stabbed murmured with difficulty.

Now, looking at the man's face, I realized he was one of the mercenaries I had just hired.

"Ethan, I'm sorry for staining the room, but they... They talked badly about you and tried to kidnap and violate me! So I was just defending myself," said Roxanne.

Ah... Now I understand what happened. I hadn't told the mercenaries who I was, and they probably thought I was an ordinary merchant. They must have wanted to kidnap and rape Roxanne. I guess I underestimated how corrupt this kingdom was.

I walked over to Roxanne and hugged her tightly.

"Ethan, stop! I'm dirty!" said Roxanne, blushing. But I still hugged her tightly

"I'm sorry for leaving you alone... Did anything happen to you?" I said, checking Roxanne's body.

"No, no! This is all their blood... Nothing happened to me....A-and don't worry, I didn't let them touch me!" said Roxanne.

As I held her face, I kissed Roxanne's lips. Whatever she had done had splattered blood all over her face. I tasted a slightly disgusting blood flavor on her lips, but that sweet aroma was still there. While caressing Roxanne's face, I took a deep breath. I couldn't believe how everything had turned into such chaos in such a short time.

As I scanned the room, I saw traces of the savagery spread everywhere.

"H... help..." I looked down at the man who was clinging to my foot and gasping for breath. My face wrinkled, and my expression changed quickly. I bent down to grab the knife on the floor, and for a moment, I was about to open my mouth to ask Roxanne to get out, but then I thought about how stupid that idea was and closed my mouth again.

"I haven't painted for a long time. And now that I have such a beautiful canvas in front of me, I guess I should show off my painting skills."

So I knelt down and moved the knife on the canvas, but for some reason this canvas was extremely loud and also had a lot of red color.... So the screams would fill the whole inn during the night and I would have to make the room a bit dirtier. The room was already dirty, so a bit dirtier shouldn't be a problem.... I guess

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