Chapter 3
'So this is what broke royalty looks like,' he thought as he looked around.
The place wasn't anything special, some cracks here and there, flickering torches.
'Like damn l thought I had it bad back in my apartment, but these guys are on another level, it's like when you think you've experienced toxicity until you play LoL.'
A breeze blew across the hall, and he sneezed, breaking the silence in the room.
'How is there a breeze indoors?' Max thought
He was still naked.
He'd been naked in the dungeon. He'd been naked walking through the courtyard. He was naked now
The guards hadn't given him clothes.
He hadn't asked, mostly because he thought someone would hand him something and the situation would resolve itself. But no, it seems his handsomeness couldn't be hidden.
'This is clear sexual harassment.'Max wanted to cry. Who would enjoy being stared at by strangers, butt-naked? He had forgotten he was naked because of how nervous he was, but now it all came crashing down.
As Max looked in front, he saw them.
At the far end of the room, on a throne that was clearly asking for retirement, sat the king.
The man looked to be in his late forties. Lean with sharp eyes and a smile that sent a shiver down Max's spine.
Beside the throne stood a woman with a gentle motherly smile, which should have been sweet and relaxing, but Max only felt dread. How could he forget that smile? The one his mother gave him when he got home with mud-covered clothes after she told him not to go outside.
To the king's right, a girl around Max's age sat rigidly in a chair, her right arm bound in a splint. She had her father's eyes and was currently using them to bore a hole directly through Max's skull.
'The princess. The one whose arm I allegedly broke on arrival.' He paused.
'Also, I'm still naked. Doesn't this girl have any conscience? I feel violated.'
He looked at her, then slowly shook his head.
He then put his hand over his manhood, trying to save the last dignity he had left.
The king looked at him.
Max looked at the king.
'Should I bow? I think I should, but I'm still naked, and there are those guards behind me, and I refuse to go around advertising my butthole to every guy.'
[Gay]
'Hold up, that came out wrong. I meant it like in general.'
As Max was having an internal debate with the system, the king was looking at the person in front of him, who seemed to treat him like air.
The king's eyes dropped. Then back up. A single line formed between his brows.
"...Why," the king said slowly, "is he still unclothed?"
Nobody answered immediately. The two guards who had escorted Max in were suddenly fascinated by the ground.
"We were not informed of a wardrobe requirement, Your Majesty," one of them offered.
"He is standing in my throne room."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"In front of my daughter."
"...Yes, Your Majesty."
The woman beside the throne pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose.
"Dear l told you hiring barbarians from the south wasn't a good idea."
The princess, to her credit, had not looked away once. She seemed less bothered and more deeply, personally offended, which Max felt was unfair when he was the one naked and not her.
"Someone," the king said, seemingly defeated, "get this man something to wear before I have to look at him any longer."
There was a brief scramble. One of the guards disappeared out a side door. The remaining guard stared straight ahead with religious commitment. Max stood very still and contemplated his life choices, across two lifetimes, that had brought him here.
A servant reappeared after two minutes that felt significantly longer and shoved a bundle of rough cloth at Max. He shook it out. It was a tunic and trousers, plain brown, slightly too long in the leg.
He put them on slowly, I mean, what's the point of hurrying up when everything was already seen, might as well just annoy them.
The king watched this with a complicated expression.
He had been watching his daughter, and she hadn't looked away once, which made him worried that the event might have traumatized her. He could only shake his head in sadness.
As for the princess, well, she was fuming, at least that's what Max thought from the way she looked at him.
"Right," the king said finally. "Now." He settled back in his throne. "You appeared in the middle of my daughter's wedding. From the sky. There was a flash of light." He said this like he was reading from a report he did not enjoy.
"That's correct, Your Majesty, I think," Max said.
"And you have no idea how you got here."
"...Correct."
"And you broke my daughter's arm."
"I believe that was accidental."
"You believe."
"I'm fairly confident. I don't have a good reason to break anyone's arm intentionally. I don't even know anyone here."
The princess made a sharp sound through her nose. "He landed on me and broke my arm. He should be executed."
Max winced slightly. "For what it's worth, it probably hurt me too."
"It didn't," she said flatly. "You walked away."
The king drummed two fingers on the armrest of his throne.
If it were any other person, they would have been executed, but what he wanted to know was how this seemingly weak person could bypass the magic barrier around the castle, however weak it was.
"Aldren," the king said, not raising his voice.
From the shadows near the left wall — Max genuinely had not noticed him — a man stepped forward. He was old, or at least looked it, with a long grey coat covered in small words that shifted faintly like they were breathing. He had the detached, mildly disappointed expression of someone who had been studying mysteries for forty years and found most of them underwhelming.
He looked Max up and down.
Then he did it again.
"Fascinating," he said, "There's no residual runic signature on him. No binding marks. No anchor points. No channeling nodes." He tilted his head. "He has no magical output whatsoever, and yet something brought him here using a method I cannot currently classify."
'Oh great, the wise old man of this kingdom is looking at me like I'm a lab rat.'
The king just listened as if expecting that answer.
The king looked at Max. "Are you a mage?"
'I thought I was when I was ten, but life wasn't fair.'
Max opened his mouth. Closed it. "No," he said, which was technically true.
"Have you trained in rune-craft?"
"rune-what"
"..."
"Combat?"
"No."
There was a pause.
"What exactly," the king said, with careful patience, "can you do?"
Max looked at the king and, with full confidence, said, "I know how to cook and clean clothes l'm also cheap to maintain."
Aldren stared at him.
The woman beside the throne stared at him.
The princess stared at him with an expression that said she had broken her arm for this!
The king closed his eyes for a brief moment. "Guards, if this man attempts to escape, you have permission to be creative."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Good." The king opened his eyes. "You will remain in this castle. You will not leave the grounds." He glanced at his daughter briefly before returning to Max.
"You will speak with Magister Aldren daily and answer him honestly. If I find you've been lying, the dungeon you woke up in will seem like pleasant accommodation by comparison." He paused. "Do you understand?"
Max nodded. "Yes, Your Majesty."
The king looked at him and then sighed.
"Guards, take him to his quarters."
Max followed the guards out without another word.
Behind him, once the throne room doors had closed, the king let out a long, slow breath. He looked at his wife.
She looked back at him with the expression she reserved for problems that were going to take a while.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"I think," she said carefully, "he isn't telling the whole truth, though he isn't lying, or else I would have known."She said with a slight smile.
The king grunted. He looked at his daughter.
Celera was still staring at the door.
"He's weak and shouldn't have been able to hurt me at all," she said, finally her earlier angry expression replaced with a cold one.
The king looked at the door for a moment and sighed.
"And father, do I still need to wear this thing?"She said, looking at the splint.
"You can take it off, "The king said, looking at his daughter. "I've already managed to postpone the marriage with the duchy."
"How long do I have?"Celera asked as she looked at her father.
"five years."The king said his voice a little hoarse.
Celera's eyes widened.
"That's longer than expected," she said, surprised.
"Well, what can I say? My daughter was harassed and is suffering from mental trauma. And with the ongoing assassination attempt, it's only fair we investigate."He said with a smug face.
Celera looked at her dad and couldn't help but smile.
"Thank you, father l will have enough time to prepare."
The king could only smile, looking at her daughter. But Celera missed the sadness that flashed through his eyes for a moment.
And as for the queen, she just watched the two silently, her expression unreadable.
***
Outside, somewhere on the grounds, Max had just discovered that the servant quarters were directly beside the stables.
He stood in the doorway of a small, straw-scented room, looked at the single cot, the single candle, and the distinct sound of a horse aggressively chewing something on the other side of the wall.
Max sat down on the cot. It creaked ominously.
"System," he said quietly.
[Yeah]
"What exactly is the plan here?"
[...]
[How should I know -_-]
Max just lay back down and stared at the ceiling.