~ Chapter 139: The Horrors of Drakaros ~ (Part 1)
[WARNING! This chapter is not for the faint of heart!]
[Heavy Psychological Impact]
[Ayuseya’s point of view]
In every self-respecting monarchy there were certain procedures and rituals that took place when a Royal left or returned to the Royal Palace. In Teslov Kingdom, however, they were a bit vague even to me. The reason for this was because there were not that many situations in the past where the women of my family parted with the safety of the capital, while those who were welcomed within it would then be unable to leave for various reasons.
As such, there was no grand reception to welcome me, no ministers or nobles to greet me, no crowd of commoners to lay down a petal flower carpet before me. As soon as I stepped foot within the Pleyades Palace, the guards dispersed and then a young maid guided me to one of the empty guest rooms. My old room had apparently been given to one of my little brother’s wives during my absence.
My orders while I remained at the Pleyades Palace were simple: Stay in your room until his Majesty calls for you.
Thus, for the duration of three whole days since I arrived in Drakaros, the Capital of the Teslov Kingdom, all I did was wait patiently within the confines of my room for the opportunity to speak with his Majesty, King Braydan.
Besides that one young maid, who didn’t even so much as sketch an emotion or dare make eye contact with me, there were no nobles or commoners who approached me. The food I was given appeared to be quite luxurious at first sight, but I did not take even a single bite from it. What I preferred was Tamara’s cooking.
The Council of Elders and most likely his Majesty as well were expecting me to act like some weak political doll which they could manipulate as they pleased. A mistake on their side of which I intended to take full advantage of at the right time.
Thus, on the fourth day, in the morning, I told the maid that I was going to take a look around the palace.
“I beg your pardon, milady, but the order was...”
Before she could finish her words, I cut her off by asking her “What is your rank, draconian woman?”
“Eh? Erm...” she looked at me with big eyes, surprised and confused by the sudden question.
“Answer me or are you deaf?” I put a bit of pressure in the tone of my voice.
“Erm... I am a... Baron’s daughter.” she replied with hesitation.
Within the Palace Grounds there were no commoners. Even the soldiers and guards walking around wearing the royal emblem on their armor carried the blood of nobles within their veins.
“What about me? What is my rank, draconian woman?” I asked then.
“P-Princess... of...”
“Then why are you, a Baron’s daughter, telling me that I can’t walk around the castle I was born in? More so, do remember that I am also a foreign political figure of great importance! A single word from me to the Emperor of Paramanium could bring the entire Teslov Kingdom to ruin! So I ask again, who are YOU to dare tell me what to do?” I raised the tone of my voice and put a bit of pressure in my presence.
The wave of intimidation that fell upon her was powerful enough to cause her to tremble and think twice before she opened her mouth again.
The maid remained silent.
“That was what I thought.” and with this I left her behind.
In general, a Princess who is trapped within her own castle will do everything she can to improve her relationship with the servants living there in the hope that one of them will be able to help her when needed be. The reason why the servant would extend a helpful hand although knowing that he could be charged with treason for doing so was because under the Princess’ protection, if she won, they would be spared and even greatly rewarded.
On the other hand, if the Princess was trapped in another castle, one would think that she was in danger. The truth, however, was that such an individual would be far too important to treat poorly. Thus, the Princess who was trapped in another castle could use her own presumed frailty and importance as a weapon against the servants living there. Trying to befriend them would do her no good as they held no allegiance to her bloodline. If they helped her, there would only be dangers awaiting them. Someone who kidnapped a Princess would not hesitate to turn the family of a traitor into an example of what could happen to those who held such thoughts. More than often, this meant a bloody, gory, humiliating, and very painful public execution for all of them.
In my case, I was a Princess trapped in another castle, but there was no need to wait for my Prince Charming to save me. He was busy taking care of the children back at home.
Thus, I made my way out of the room and began to ‘explore’ my former castle. Knowing that if I were to be met with the guards, they would try to bring me back to my room, I moved with absolute stealth.
The Pleyades Palace was an incredibly large building that could encompass around five Illsyorea Academy Main Buildings. The gardens behind the palace as well as the training fields around it were big enough to fit an entire army.
This incredible size also meant that there was a lot of unused space and empty rooms. To facilitate interactions with those living here, the entire Palace was separated within sections that were more densely populated and sections that did not hold even a single soul.
I was currently using one of those empty areas in order to avoid bumping into guards and nobles. My desire was not to go exploring this place but rather to go outside the walls and visit the various parts of Drakaros. I was curious to see how the commoners lived and also what was the situation with the nobles. My next course of action would depend on what I would come to witness as well as what I was going to be told during the audience with his Majesty.
The whole reason I was here in the Teslov Kingdom was to make sure that the Council of Elders wasn’t going to try again to threaten me or send assassins after me and my family again. For the five of us, they were nothing more than pests, but neither our children nor our students could defend themselves against them yet.
While walking down the empty corridors, I used [Living Being Sonar] to see if there were any guards or servants around me. It was a bit more difficult for me to use this skill than it was for Shanteya, who became quite proficient in all the stealth spells she developed together with Illsy. The area it covered was far smaller, but regarding its use in combat, I was often told that I was the ‘Artillery’ of the group rather than the ‘main DPS’. As for Nanya, she was what he called the ‘berserker tank that always agroed all the mobs in the dungeon and often got the party killed’. Zoreya was the ‘0 DMG Full-specced Tank’, Tamara was the ‘pet mascot’, and he was the ‘DPS and Healer combo’.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t that hard to understand what all of those weird words meant once he explained them to us.
From what I could detect, the only living beings in this area, apart from a couple of birds and a bunch of insects burrowing through the ground, were four draconian guards who were patrolling in two separate teams. From the way they were moving, I deduced that I was going to encounter one of them in about 10 minutes or so.
There is no need to wait for them to pass, I’ll just hide in an empty room and change there. I thought as I calmly opened the door of the first room I encountered.
Inside, I changed out of my fancy dress and put on a leather armor reinforced with metal scales. The enchants were all made by Illsyore and allowed it to withstand my movement in combat. All that I needed now was to put on my dark-brown hooded cloak, but just as I pulled it out of my Storage Crystal, I heard the guards outside talking.
“I can’t believe that Princess Ayuseya is back.” one of them said.
“Do you think they’ll let us do her at the Ball?” the other asked.
Ball? I blinked surprised Do the members of this foolish Council of Elders have a death wish? I wondered.
“Who knows? Thing is... and don’t go telling this to anyone, but I heard that Borgis had a bit of fun with one of her maids when she was captured a few years back.”
Had a bit of fun? Is he talking about... my mind went to poor Soleya.
“Borgis? That guy steals all the fun from us! Those maids of hers were cute too. But where is Borgis stationed now anyway?” he asked curiously.
“He was transferred as a Captain of the Guards on the Second Wall.” he replied.
“That bastard! He didn’t even offer us a drink for getting such a generous promotion!” the other rebuked.
“Oh, speaking of which! I heard that Runmall was torturing a commoner again...”
They continued to talk about other colleagues of theirs who were either more or less corrupt than Borgis, but he was the only one of interest for me. In the end, the sound of their voices got weaker and weaker as they moved farther away from me.
The Second Wall, that’s the one separating the Noble Area from the Commoner Area. Maybe I’ll go pay him a visit? I thought as I remembered what Soleya told me back then, the pain and shame she went through as she suffered from being touched by a scum like him.
Instead of walking out of the room, I made my way to the window and jumped out. Taking a a stealth approach, I made my way to the Palace’s wall and jumped over it, landing in the Noble Area.
Let us see how the nobles are living their days. I thought.
The buildings on this side of the city were tall enough to make a draconian of average height feel comfortable and a human as if he was walking through the land of giants. White marble columns decorated the entrances of each and every building built in this area as if it was a testament to the purity of their noble bloodlines. The air was clean and had a scent of flowers, but to keep it that way, countless servants were employed and forced to clean after the greedy nobles.
To better listen to them, I traveled on the pointed rooftops of their prestigious buildings and watched as they went about their merry life. From an outsider’s point of view, it might have looked like paradise, but in my eyes, it was far from such a thing.
Paradise was in Illsyorea, where everyone stood a fair chance at their dreams. Paradise was in a country where everyone had a chance at smiling and being happy. There was no paradise here, where the noble’s joyous laughter was built on the agony of their servants.
As I jumped from rooftop to rooftop, listening in on their conversation, I heard something that piqued my interest.
“You know? I heard something interesting the other day.” said an old draconian woman who wore a ball dress filled with frills and golden embroidery.
“What did you hear, my dear?” another draconian woman replied who wore a similar outfit.
“I heard that the Princess Vellezya’s condition is getting worse and worse with each passing day.”
“Indeed. You know, my daughter is one of her personal maids. And...” she stopped and looked around.
“And?” the other woman asked filled with curiosity.
Once she was certain the coast was clear, she continued “And she saw her puking blood one day. It’s dreadful to think that we have such a weak Princess.” she shook her head.
“The shame of our Kingdom.”
“No, the shame of our Kingdom is Princess Ayuseya Pleyades. That miserable woman gave her body to some foreign madman named Illsyore instead of one of a draconian of pure blood!” she puffed.
“Oh, speaking of which, I heard she returned to the palace. She is quite long-lived.” she nodded.
“No worries, she’ll be sent to the Ball and then she too will be vomiting blood! Ohohoho!” she began to laugh.
I simply let out a sigh and shook my head.
These poor delusional women. If only they knew who my beloved husband was, then they wouldn’t be so quick to speak ill behind his back. But at the very least, I realized something from their nonsense. Vellezya is in a critical state and the nobles of Teslov don’t recognize my marriage with Illsyore. I thought as I looked down at my gloved hand which hid the golden magic ring tattoo.
After my inspection of the town, I was going to visit Vellezya. I could not help but wonder if she was still the little sister I remembered, the draconian girl who loved tea and cringed at the thought of coffee, who toddled behind me with big curious eyes wherever I went out to my debate sessions and eagerly waited for me in the library to read her a story book. We were sisters of the same mother but different fathers.
I’m not going to let you die... I thought and then made my way towards the Second Wall.
On my way there, I kept hearing all sort of casual conversations among the noble draconians. What they revealed with a joyous smile only showed me how deep corruption ran among these fools. They spoke of illegal slave trades, opiates, and all sort of illegal magical devices. These things appeared to be part of their hobbies and quite common among them.
The most disgusting thing I heard was when one of the nobles offered their young daughter in a trade of favors with another noble. The horrifying thing, however, was the fact that this trade was sexual in nature. I sincerely wanted to cast my [Wrath of the Ageless Gods] attack right there in the middle of them, but I feared that if I did so, I would have made this journey for nothing, so for the time being, I cast a small [Fireball] which slightly injured them and caused quite a bit of stir among them.
While I could not hope to stop those madmen from continuing with their depraved practices, I could at the very least delay them.
When I reached the Second Wall, I thought about heading towards the Guard’s Room to have a little chat with Borgis, but I decided against going there right now. It would have been far better if I simply dealt with him when I returned from my inspection of the city.
Right on the other side of the wall, the houses of the commoners rich enough to live within the city could be seen spreading in a big circle. The moment I landed on the rooftop of one of the buildings here, I noticed the difference in living styles.
The stench of dirt, grime, and garbage filled the air. The noise was louder too as the draconians living here went about their daily lives. Guards patrolled the streets, casting down intimidating gazes upon all those around them. The children, while few in numbers, did not dare to move to far away from their parents.
This place looks far worse even than Aunnar Kingdom from the time when Prince Reynolds was selfishly abusing his power. I thought as I looked at the patched-up clothes the commoners wore.
If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought we were in the slums. The difference between the noble area and this one was far too big.
In my current attire, there was no need for me to keep jumping over rooftops. I could walk among them, and they would simply see me as a wandering adventurer looking for a place to spend the night or going towards her next job.
Walking down the twisted streets of the city made me realize the poor conditions the draconian commoners were living in. To my own shame, this was the very first time in my life that I saw them. Before fleeing for Fellyore Academy, I had barely visited the noble area of Drakaros.
The wells here were few and spread apart with an awful dirty scent coming from them, yet children were drawing water and gulping it down when they were thirsty. The elderly were looking at the sky with an empty gaze, almost as if they were counting down the moments until they would draw their last breath. The men were either weak or strong, where the latter bullied the first. Women didn’t dare step out of their homes and the little girls were carefully protected by their parents even from their own neighbors. It made me feel sick when I saw with what sort of worries, they lived in this city.
Young ladies of marriageable age who did not get a husband already were selling their bodies for sexual pleasures at the corners of every street, while the men were more than eager to buy them. Two such creeps approached me in a similar manner, and I calmed them down with a knee where it hurt them most.
The true horrifying state of the lives of these draconians was revealed to me when a young draconian girl, no more than 14 years old walked around with her clothes ripped up and hair disheveled. Tears flowed down her cheeks and blood down her legs.
“W-Why? W-Why?” she kept crying while looking down at the newborn baby in her arms.
The tiny body showed no signs of life, but from where I stood, I could not see if it died of natural causes or something else.
Even the soldiers ignored her.
The girl stopped in front of a house with a broken rooftop. The door opened and a woman dashed out.
“My baby girl, what happened to you?” the mother of the girl asked while crying in grief.
“Mother... my baby... they kicked me and kicked me... Why? What did I do? What did my child do?” the girl cried.
“Who? Who did it?” she asked.
“T-Talavar... He and his men... Why?” she cried.
“Ta... Talavar? The Blackhound?” the mother asked.
“Yes.” the girl nodded.
Biting her lip and embracing the girl, the mother told her “Forget it... you can’t do anything against that beast. He even has the approval of Borgis. If you try to do anything, he’ll take your life.” she said.
Borgis? And here I thought you were going to die quickly. I thought.
The girl, when she heard her mother what could otherwise be interpreted as ‘your child died for nothing, and you can’t do anything about it’, she felt weak in the knees and slumped on the ground. Tears flowed down endlessly on her cheeks as her weeps and cries could be heard on the entire street.
There was nothing I could do for them as I was, so I walked away, swearing in my heart that such tragedies would never happen on Illsyorea for as long as I lived.
It was impressive how a single scene like this could make me feel so much pain and sadness, yet I feared that this wasn’t the worst that this city had to offer.
As I walked down the street, I witnessed all sort of scenes wrapped around the feeling of despair. The oppression of the upper class ran rampant at every corner and was visible through the behavior of the very draconians who were living here. The stores of commoners were forced to sell dirt-cheap to the nobles, while pumping up the prices for the others. If the guards harmed a draconian commoner in any way, they couldn’t fight back, they couldn’t even look up at them. All they could do was bow their heads and accept the abuse. As a result of this, the anger and stress the parents gained from a day of work was let out on their children. Thus, it was not so uncommon to see a poor child with a gaze of distrust in their eyes and bruises all over their bodies.
More than once I wanted to stop and lend a helping hand but doing so would have only brought more trouble their way. If the nobles saw that a commoner had too much food or too much money, then they wouldn’t hesitate to take it away under the pretext of taxes. Thus, if I gave them money, then it would be taken away. If I healed them, then they would be beaten up by those around them. I could not even wave my name around as it held no weight to the draconians living here.
In other words, whatever action I took could only be short-lived and the result might end up bringing more suffering to the ones I tried to help. Such a level of hopelessness and depression I had never seen in my entire life, and I was even more shocked to realize that all of this happened as well back when I was still living at the palace.
While these poor draconians were struggling in dirt and grime to survive in this harsh environment every hour of the day, I chose to run away from this place and seek out a way out of my marriage. I ran to Fellyore without even so much as pondering about the fate of these poor folk.
As I walked past a store that was selling used clothing, I saw a draconian hanging from the ceiling right in the middle of it. I immediately rushed inside, thinking that maybe I could save him, but as soon as I opened the door, a foul stench washed over me. If not for my Magic Armor, I would have emptied my stomach right there.
It was the smell of death.
Upon a closer inspection of the hanging body, I noticed that the man had been dead for quite a while, and his body was slowly decaying.
I walked back out and my eyes met the gaze of a young boy no more than fourteen huddling his knees on the other side. His tail was coiled around his legs and his body was so dirty, I couldn’t tell the color of his scales. He was staring right into my eyes.
“Hello.” I said and showed him a smile.
The boy didn’t reply, he continued to look at me and then moved his gaze towards the store behind me.
“Do you know who the owner of this place is?” I asked.
He nodded and then pointed at the store. Looking back, I saw the hanged draconian. I furrowed my brow in sadness.
“Are you his relative?” I asked the boy.
He shook his head.
“Thank you...” I told him in a gentle tone of voice and then left the scene.
As soon as I moved out of the way, he rushed inside to steal whatever little of value was inside. The smell of death did not bother him at all and soon enough there were others who joined him on the scavenger hunt.
The guards who passed by them merely looked at them in disgust and ignored them. They did not even bother to ask what happened to the draconian hanging from the ceiling, or maybe they already knew about it but did not bother to do anything.
I watched the scavengers for a few minutes until the boy from earlier walked out with a scratch on his left cheek and a bite mark on his right arm. He was holding a bunch of dirty clothes in his arms, and his eyes held a strange determination to keep on living, to survive.
Without saying a word, he fled into a dark alley. Soon afterwards, the other scavengers left the shop with anything of value they could take. In the end, the very shop was claimed but a group of homeless draconians. They cut down the body of the previous owner and then tossed it out into the nearby alley.
I kept watching this entire scene and could not help but wonder if that poor draconian’s soul had any chance of resting in peace in the afterlife. Without a proper burial, without anyone acknowledging his existence or even knowing his name, he found his end in his own shop. A life spent on building up something that vanished right from under his grasp.
What drove you to suicide? I wondered as I offered him a silent prayer and then walked away as well.
If this was Illsyorea, something like this would not have been possible, but in the event that we, the Deus family were gone, could I still stubbornly claim the same thing? What had led all of these draconians to suffer like this? Through what sort of a unfortunate events did they have to pass to reach this point?
Such were the questions that were spinning around in my mind, whispering me that such tragedies were inevitable no matter what I tried to do to prevent them. Those whispers were telling me that Illsyore’s dream was going to end up the same way, and truth be told, I felt like it would.
If the Deus family is gone... Illsyorea cannot exist. I thought as I simulated in my mind time and time again this sort of scenario.
No matter how I tried to pull the strings, it was clear that Illsyorea could not become an independent structure capable of surviving on its own without Illsy’s protection. He severely underestimated the dependence of those people living there on his own existence.
We can’t let something like this go on... I thought and as I did so, I found myself entering the slum area of Drakaros.
The stench of the poor, dirty, and diseased was far stronger here than within the commoner area. I felt like I had taken a step into the forgotten land of the dead, and I could not help but wonder why I haven’t noticed this frightening difference between the areas before.
The pulled drapes over my windows blinded me of the truth outside. I thought as I remembered the time when I fled Drakaros as well as the time of my return.
Not even once did I travel with the drapes open inside my carriage. The fear of being recognized by others kept me from seeing them as well.
A part of me was unwilling to move deeper into the slums, it wanted me to ignore the darkness that laid before me. I knew that if I dared to run away now, I would end up feeling as though I had failed everyone back on Illsyorea.
Thus, I steeled my resolve and stepped forward. I walked among those living here and barely hanging to their lives.
I will think of this as a test. Instead of having Illsy step into the darkness of this world, I will do so in his stead so that I will know what I am fighting to prevent. So that I might know what sort of world I do not wish my beloved children to see... I thought as I looked at the scene around me and allowed every detail to be ingrained in my memory.
To my left was an old draconian wearing nothing but a dirty loincloth to cover his shame. He was dirty, weak, and skinny enough to see his bones poking through his flesh. The injuries on his body caused by beating or accidental injure could barely heal themselves and were covered in puss. The light in his eyes felt as though it would fade any time now.
“A coin... a coin...” his hoarse voice called out, weak and fading like a whisper.
I looked into his eyes, and I could tell that he was wondering why was I given the luck to stand on my own two feet like so, while he was forced to crawl on the ground like that? Why was I the privileged and he was the unlucky one?
With my hands trembling and my chest tightened from the pressure of that gaze, I stepped forward, walking away from him.
There were a lot of draconians like him, begging on the streets and calling out for a help that would never come.
“How much?” a draconian asked two houses away from me.
Judging from his armor, he appeared to be an adventurer. The one he was asking was a weak woman wearing patched up clothes. Behind her was a young boy with trembling eyes.
“One silver...” she replied.
“Good. Get yourself ready.” he said and then entered the house.
The mother pushed her son outside and then told him with a gentle smile “Mommy has to work now. Be a good boy and stay here...” and with her gaze, she was telling him to survive, to live on no matter what happened to her.