"Mr. Blade, please follow me" James asked him to follow and then turned around. He seemed to have got over his fright.

"Stop calling me like that, 'Arima' is okay, last time someone addressed me as you do, he tried to kill me"

But one more time, his composure was destroyed "(Is he doing that on purpose or what?!)" He screamed in his mind.

Arima followed James, with Night behind, who returned to his wolf form. They soon reached a sort of treasure room with a stack of gold coins neatly arranged on a table.

"This your prize, one thousand gold, you can take it. Or if you want it in white silvers you can ask" James said.

"Eh?" But Arima just froze.

"What is it?" James was confused and Night tilted his head.

"(Right! I was so focused on the audience with the royal family that I forgot about that. There is a one thousand golds prize! Just that is enough to compensate for my partic.i.p.ation!)" Arima coughed

"Nothing, [Umbra, Manducare]" He stored all the gold coins in his shadow.

"I see, that's good. Now, I'll act as an envoy and bring you to the castle. Do you want to go now?" James proposed.

"Sure" Arima agreed.

"Then let's go" They left the coliseum together and headed to the center of the city, as they approached it, they could see the castle more and more clearly.

When they arrived, Arima looked at it for the first time and thought the castle looked like an old European one.

James approached the gate alone and talked to the guards there. One of the guards went inside and came back five minutes later, he then said they were allowed to enter.

After pa.s.sing the gate, they ended up in a big corridor filled with decorations cheap and expensive all together. There, an old steward welcomed them.

"h.e.l.lo, sirs. The queen and the princess will receive you shortly. Follow me please" The old steward led them to a luxurious room, which was apparently a waiting room and because his job was over, James left after that.

Only ten minutes after that, Arima was called, he almost fell asleep. He was taken to a huge hall in the second floor, the hall was around 2500 square meters big, and one of the walls was only in gla.s.s, letting the sunlight in, and a there was a row of pillars on the other side.

There were three seats in the back of the hall, one was the throne and the two others were most likely for to the queen and the princess. Just that right now, the throne was occupied by the queen and one of the smaller seats was empty. As expected, the king was not there.

"Are you Arimane Blade?" The queen said calmly.

"Yes, I am" Arima stood in the middle of the hall, he was not kneeling nor bowing but he still had a polite att.i.tude. Night just sat down though, he looked like he didn't care about what was happening.

Some of the court members present were a bit dissatisfied but they didn't say anything as long as the queen herself didn't mention it.

"Congratulations on winning the tournament, you seem to be very strong from what I saw. You didn't even go all out" She actually praised him.

"Thank you" Arima simply smiled and nodded "Then?" and suddenly said.

The queen trembled a bit but sighed in the end "Looks like you're also intelligent. I won't beat around the bush then. Will you help the Kingdom?" The queen bowed her head. This kind of respect was already the better she could do in public as the temporary ruler.

Arima smirked "What if I said that I could destroy the Empire for you? Would you believe me?" He said.

"What?" The other party couldn't help but be shocked by those words. Even the princess listening behind, who didn't show any expression before, was in shock. Even the other people here raised their voices.

The queen waved her hand to silence them "Why are you saying that?" She thought that was strange, why would he suddenly say that?

"Because I really can. But, sorry, I won't do it. I just wanted to have your attention. Instead of helping you in this war, let me see the king, I think I can heal him" He said

Ultimately, the queen lost her composure when she heard about her husband "...Why would I believe you?" But she still kept her guard.

"What about that? If I can't heal him, I'll help you win the war without demanding anything from you. You shouldn't be losing anything right" He smiled "There is also no risk for me trying to a.s.sa.s.sinate the king because if I'm not wrong, your husband will most likely die soon anyway" He said.

After that, she froze. If the man in front of her could really save the king, that would the happiest day of her life. She gritted her teeth "Fine, I'll let you see him. No, I want you to save him please" She pleaded.

"Your Highness!" The first minister shouted slightly hurried.

"Enough! I made my choice" She said "Come with me, Arimane" She stood up and started walking to the quarters behind the throne room, her daughter followed her and glanced at Arima. The latter also moved with them.

"What are you trying to do?" Night said on the side.

Arima grinned "Some business"

*****************************************************

The queen led them to a huge door made of fine wood. The room behind was as big as half of the hall, and even though there was a huge bed it looked like a normal furniture in this room.

"(Seriously? His room is bigger than my house)" Arima thought.

The queen and her daughter walked to the bed with worried expressions. Arima also neared the bed. Lying there, was a burly middle-aged man with good features, his skin was pale, his forehead full of sweat and he was breathing heavily.

Arima looked at the queen, and the latter nodded. Arima placed his hand above the king.

"The best healers of the country all tried but couldn't heal him, how could you do it?" The princess talked for the first time and that was to scorn him.

Arima glanced at her "I'm not using healing magic, and as of now, don't say anything else kid" He coldly said. He disliked brats like that who couldn't even mind the situation before saying their pointless and stupid comments.

The princess was about the erupt in anger but stopped when she even received the glare of her mother.

"[Comparand indicate] (Appraisal)" Arima cast his magic, a blue light scanned the king's body. In Arima's mind, a detailed model of the king appeared, from the skin to the bones, everything was there. He looked at it for a bit.

"Oh" Arima then exclaimed.

"Did you find something?" The queen quickly asked.

"Well, yeah, I found the problem" Arima pointed and sent mana through the body of the king, as he was unconscious and weak, his mana could easily pa.s.s through. Then the next moment, a strange black smoke became visible above his abdomen.

The queen's expression darkened gravely "W-What is that?"

Arima waved his hand a bit in the smoke, he managed to capture a part of it in his hand before it disappeared "Curse. A death attribute magic." He said.

"a curse?" The princess s.h.i.+vered. Her mother's expression fell "...How did you know?" She asked.

"I tried death magic myself at one moment but the death aura coming from me is too strong that I almost lost control of it" He said while thinking "I was at that from letting out an in discriminable large-scale curse" He said casually

"What?" The mother-daughter pair were lost as to how to react at that. But the queen still got her priorities right "Can you dispel it?" And she inquired.

"Yeah, but this curse is actually a bit special, if it wasn't, the previous healers would already have detected and dispelled it" He explained "Well, anyway, what I'm going to do now is something you shouldn't see. [Tenebris](Darkness)" The whole bed and Arima were hidden by a dark box and the queen and her daughter were kept outside.

"W-What is that?" The princess looked at the dark wall in front of her.

"Let's wait" Her mother said.

Inside the black box. Arima took out a knife and made an incision on the king's abdomen, he used magic to sterilize the air, the knife and to slow down the blood flow of the King. He cut until the stomach was opened, he put his hand inside and took out something. He healed the incision, washed the blood and dispelled the darkness magic.

What the queen and her daughter saw first, was Arima holding a sort of black stone in his hand, emanating the same smoke from before, and the second thing was the king who seemed to have gained some color and his breathing became steady. It looked like he was only sleeping.

"Dear!" The queen rushed to the bed to check on him when she realized that he was cured, she already had watery eyes. Her daughter was excited too, she looked at Arima "What is that stone?"

Arima glanced at her "It's a stone enchanted with death magic. It was hidden in his stomach and no matter how many times the curse was dispelled on the outside it would come back from the inside because of that" He raised the stone to observe it "[Auferte](Expel)" The stone was enveloped in a blue light and became a normal gray stone "I expelled the magic inside, it's just a rock now" He said while playing with it.

The queen left her husband's side and deeply bowed toward Arima "Thank you very much"

"It's okay, he should be awake in no time" Arima said and turned around "Then, bye"

"Eh? Wait! Why are you leaving so fast, we have to reward you!" The Queen hurriedly said

"Don't need it. By the way, let me tell you something. A message to your king: 'Look closely to people before turning your back to them'. That's something that always kept me alive" After saying that, Arima left with Night.

*************************************

Outside of the castle. Arima was walking with Night on the streets.

"What was that business about in the end?" Night asked

"What? You don't understand? It's simple. Now that I healed the King, they owe me one. Why do you think I left so quickly? Like this, they couldn't compensate me and I got them a debt for almost no work. And now that the king is healed, this country should be able to survive. And if I ever help them, I would be able to ask two things from them"

"You did all of this just for that?"

"Of course. It's a habit of mine to make influential people owe me favors"

"A habit? What kind of habit is that?" Night wore a strange expression.

Arima ignored him "Well, what to do now? I suppose the next one will be the Alliance. I seriously don't want to go to the Empire, and on top of that, Lifa owes me a favor too" He paused and smiled at Night "See? Everything is much easier when people owe you something"

"Yeah, yeah" Night just brushed it off.

Arima raised his head to look at the sky "Let's go to the Inn, we'll leave tomorrow" He said and started walking first.

Night looked at him from behind "How did I end up with this guy?" He bitterly laughed after he remembered that he is born from him, and then he followed him.