Ambient Mage

"This is not where I expected to be outed of all places, but well met regardless."

I was stunned.

He was surprised, but showed none of it on his face or in his voice.

I couldn't tell if this was some advanced technique of intimidation.

"Please, raise your head and self, I am no one so important, you should bow to me."

As I did so, the twins came up to me.

"Lucas, how did you know this?"

"He never told us this."

They glared at their mother, and their father.

"I'm sorry for disturbing you, I wasn't aware you had your identity hidden."

"It's quite alright, I was planning to tell them anyway, since they had turned 18."

"Then, how should I address your highness?"

"I took on a new name, call me Kieru Karodan."

"That is not the last name of the kingdom, your highness, may I assume that you took your wife's last name?"

"Yes that's correct, and please just call me Kieru, I am no royal."

That last name.

It also had implications.

My heart raced to understand I had found something I had never uncovered in my thousands of hours of gameplay.

I turned to their mother.

""

I spoke in near native Karikan.

" Farah."

""

Kieru barged into our conversation.

"That is a question reserved for certain people."

I bowed my head, once again, realizing it was a personal question.

"Is your bestowed name, ?"

She looked serious now.

Well that's a confession if I've seen one.

Kieru's face darkened, different to his reaction to me knowing his identity.

"Who are you really?"

He put his arm out.

A symbol for any swordsman.

He was calling for his sword.

I immediately stretched my right arm forwards putting my left knee down onto the ground.

Following that I put my left hand down onto the ground as well.

"I mean no harm."

I had a means to escape via , but that would be rude.

So instead I used to cut off any emotions flowing out of me into the mana environment.

Kieru clasped the sword now in his hand and brought it to my neck.

"What did you just do?"

I know I needed to respond, but to be completely honest, I really didn't feel like doing so.

"I'm here to show I'm not a threat, so you can either stop threatening a non-hazard or we can fight endangering your whole family."

I turned off .

Yraham began to get ready for a fight as well.

"I decide when you're not a threat. Mia, Ria, get behind me."

"Lucas, Dad, what is going on?"

I was still kneeling, but unlike before, where my head was bowed, my emotions blocked, I was now glaring at the third prince, with none of my emotions hiding.

""

I sat there in the kneeled position glaring at the man who held his sword by my throat.

He stared back at me.

"Answer me now, who are you really?"

"Lucas, personal knight of the Ducal lady, Aurelia von Svarmet."

His eyes widened.

He looked at Yraham, and her at him.

"You do realize what you did can spark a war right?"

He said to me.

But I wasn't going to just lie down and take this, I came to know these people not get interrogated.

"Your actions are far more aggressive, so I return your words."

The three of us sat deadlocked for 30 minutes, the kids and the twins stood horrified.

""

Yraham's blade behind me sliced my neck, before obliterating my body.

Wow, forcibly putting me into a dematerialized state, without mental damage was crazy work.

"Mother!"

Armoria looked horrified.

"Father!"

Kimoria was disbelieving.

"He was threatening us, it was either we moved away from here, or he died."

"I would have rather moved."

"Who knows if anyone saw him come here."

"We'd be pursued by the entire country."

"No, he is merely the personal knight to the duchy's daughter, not even the duchy could move the entire country."

"No, Armoria's right dad."

"The Svarmet's treat him like a son, we've seen the second eldest, even defer to him."

"So the duchy is on his side, it doesn't matter the imperial family won't fight for the duchy, they would lose power."

"He's also close with 4 of the imperial siblings."

""

The two kids began to stare at where my body used to belong to.

"So you're saying we had no choice but to leave regardless?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry girls, if I take back my crown I'll be separated from the 5 of you, but if I don't, no country would ever take me if I had a criminal status, and Yara would never be able to gain an ID due to her giant's markings."

"We'll leave for the Principality tomorrow."

"I'm sorry, Aurelia."

Armoria began to cry, and so did the kids.

Kimoria turned away from her parents.

I guess it's time to rematerialize.

I forced myself together.

Armoria and the two kids were huddled together crying.

Kimoria and her mother sat together at the table.

Kieru left the room.

I patted Armoria's head.

"You don't have to cry I'm okay."

She wiped her face as she turned.

"Lucas?"

Kimoria turned to Armoria and me.

"Lucas."

She stood up from her chair.

". How did you?!"

Yraham did too.

Kieru ran back into the room, and we were once again back in the same positions.

"Calm down, you can't kill me if you tried."

"Better people have tried and failed."

Kieru raised his sword again in my direction.

"And that would be?"

"Stephen."

"Who?"

"Stephen von Svarmet."

The parents' eyes shook.

"You never had a chance, but honestly the magic you used was pretty cool."

I looked at Yraham.

Her sword had no aura, yet she wielded it like she did.

Then a magic swordsman like me?

"Can I learn from you?"

I needed to disarm them mentally.

However the question only put their guards up further.

I put my hands up exasperated.

"Can you people relax, I'm literally right next to your children, can you say that your control over mana prevents any stray or deflected mana will avoid your children?"

Kieru relaxed a little, while Yraham relaxed completely.

"What do you want?"

"I literally came here at the twins' behest. Otherwise I would never have come so far."

"So you have no ulterior motives?"

"Do you need me to swear on an orb?"

Kieru shook his head.

"I have a better idea."

"Let's let the swords talk."

I glanced over to Armoria.

"He's okay with you now, just dear with it for the time being."

She whispered to me.

I stood in front of two kids.

"This is the first time we're fighting mister. Please take it easy on us."

I nodded, they couldn't have been older than 10 or so.

With that the boy, Tosho, and the girl, Rakieru, launched at me.

Honestly they moved faster than expected.

They were likely on par with some 2 tier people.

Of course I let them get a few hits on the sword, but their attacks always missed my body.

Right before I finished the fight, however, they attacked together in a way I didn't expect.

The two both used feints that seemed to be just that, but Rakieru's attack seemed to be a second feint.

Tosho's second attack was clearly not a feint, but instead of his attack which I dodged, Rakieru's attack hit my sword.

That was odd, but in the end I shut them out.

They both ended up on the ground.

"Well it was fun mister."

Tosho who looked to be 8 sat down satisfied.

Rakieru was not.

She began to sob.

Tosho walked over to her as she did so and began to calm her down.

I picked the two up in my arms and walked over to Kieru, who seemed to be both angry and relieved.

"Dad?"

Armoria asked.

"Mia?"

"Are you or mom ever going to apologize?"

"For what? He endangered my family."

"He did not."

"Also he has yet to fight us either."

"So why let him fight Tosho and Rakieru?"

"To test him."

"And you thought that was safe?"

"You two would have gone easy on your friend."

"And him 'endangering' your family means he should fight the youngest?"

"No, Armoria, it means I need to be able to trust what you say about him, not test his strength."

"I'm glad to see you were right, but now when I see his strength I can only hope he hasn't bluffed about his fight with Stephen."

"Dad, when this is all over, you are going to explain how you're the prince okay?"

Armoria and Kimoria had icy glares.

" first I'm going to test Lucas."

I handed the twins over to Armoria who seemed to be struggling.

"Kimoria, could I get some help?"

Armoria asked now holding the two children scrambling to leave her arms.

"Not yet, sis, I need to finish setting up the arena."

"Dad, help me here."

It was a nice family picture, if I didn't take into account they were trying to murder me.

If I had to explain the feelings of the family, the parents, well, they were out for my silent and easy to cover up death.

The children were unusually okay with this, and treated it like a game.

The twins were doing their best to prevent it, but I don't think it worked.

"Step up knight representative of the kingdom."

I'm not a-

"I don't recall asking for your thoughts."

I didn't even say-

"Join me onstage, now."

Okay.

I immediately entered the arena floor and faced down the absolutely terrifying woman in front of me.

""

She muttered to me, before launching towards me.

She swung down as mine swung upwards.

Our swords collided more than 7 times in that single interaction.

""

As we created space between us, she dropped her stance.

"As my husband so easily put it, who are you?"

"Oh, and don't merely say a knight captain."

"Well, I am most like your husband I guess, a pursuer of the esoteric."

""

She blushed before sending a flurry of magic slashes at me.

I knew an attack was going to follow so I focused on deflecting the first slashes into the others.

As the magic exploded, I watched for the inevitable slash through the smoke.

Except it never came.

I felt a chill up my spine as I ducked.

I turned around to see Yraham holding her sword.

"That move won't work twice huh?"

She sheathed her sword.

I didn't get what she was misunderstanding, but I'll take it.

"Kieru, you're up."

She leaped off stage to her husband, holding both children.

I looked to the twins who were maintaining the barrier and waved.

Kimoria waved back, and Armoria smacked her on the head, and said something like 'focus'.

I turned my focus to Kieru who had finally handed over both children to Yraham.

He leaped onto the arena floor and began to speak to me.

"Alright boy, for the sake of your wellbeing, I hope you didn't lie about your skills."

"Never, I have no need to exaggerate."

Kieru is a 7th star individual, just like Yraham.

Unlike Yraham, I doubt this will be a test, and more like me being turned into a punching bag.

He launched towards me, no hesitation or indication of his incoming attack.

Our swords collided as I was playing catchup trying to divert his blade.

Kieru was a scholar first and foremost.

However, for a scholar to travel to perilous locations such as the ones he had adventured to, he needed to be strong.

Hence since he had been 25 he has been a 7th tier master.

No doubt he could have been a 8th maybe even a 9th tier being.

Unfortunately I didn't get to continue that line of thinking.

Everytime we'd break from our closed and locked position he'd make a remark.

Something like: How do you know our status.

Or: I will never give you and my daughter our blessing.