Valerian, The Legendary

185 Madness.

Valerian shocked the old man, and Fortuna was so enraged by his question that she raised her paw to smack some wisdom in the head of this youth. However, Valerian said, “Now, I am not telling you that I need your help to steal this thing, and even more, I am not asking you about this so that I can go and steal it either.

I am asking you so that an arrangement can be made to keep the dragon treasure safe. The news is out and that is the reason the Valkyrians are hunting and scheming against Sapientia. I am asking you this so that, the Valkyrians do not gain power.”

Fallax scoffed and said, “Do you think that I do not know about the deficit of the berserks? They can never have a mage in their kin and even if they have the dragon treasure it will be useless.”

Valerian sighed and said, “Why don’t you understand? What if the kin they have is not a complete Valkyrian?”

The old man raised his brows, he could understand what was Valerian trying to say at this point and asked, “Do you really think that the Valkyrians will tolerate such a thing?”

Fortuna also nodded from the side, when she heard this, however, Valarian did not panic and said, “What if that person is half a Centaur and half a Valkyrian?”

Fallax opened his eyes wide and was shocked, he did not understand such a thing happening. He asked, “Who is the source of this news?”

Valerian sighed and said, “The source is a shadow, my combat maid, Priscilla. On the way back to the Sapientia, I asked her to infiltrate Centaur nation and during this time, she discovered that the Centaur Prince had been betrothed to a Valkyrian lady. Now, I want to ask you, if that lady gave birth to a child who could be a half Valkyrian and Half Centaur, could we probably contend against them with a dragon treasure in their possession?”

Fallax shook his head and said, “Probably, only magical might be able to stop them then.”

.....

Valerian was also aware of this and thus he came forward to discuss this with Fallax. The old man thought for a bit and said, “You can wage war against Centaurs, or much more effectively, you can assassinate the lady betrothed to the Centaur prince.”

Valerian shook his head, “Do you think the situation we can speculate, cannot be speculated by the wise men of Centaur? They are treating that lady like a crown jewel, let alone the face, even the name is not known. The palace staff has been kept in dark.”

Fallax sighed, they had no way to solve this crisis at this moment. Suddenly, the old man thought of something and said, “How about befriending the Centaur Prince?”

Valerian shook his head and said, “Impossible, that guy would rather sleep with a Valkyrian lady than help or befriend any of the other three nations.”

Fallax asked, “Why?”

Valerian sighed and said, “What do you know of thousand years old battle between the two nations?”

Fallax snorted and said, “Damn it, I knew this was a ploy.”

Valerian nodded and said, “Yes, Centaurs are not on good terms with just us, but the entire western continent. Their ancestors were the ones responsible for the last intercontinental war, and they were also responsible for the magical to take action and seize the maximum amount of dragon treasures then.”

Fallax nodded and said, “If what you said is true, then I think we shall all go and gather help from all the other nations.”

Valerian shook his head, “Not possible, the resources we have are not enough to handle this sort of task.”

Fallax nodded and said, “Now, all you can do is seek help from the Magicals around us.”

Valerian nodded and asked, “Any idea, how will I find this help?”

The old man sighed and said, “I will ask them when I meet them.”

Valerian nodded and after a brief discussion, the young and the old left the place. They were headed to the battlemage tower and Fallax was going to spar with Valerian to get him used to his strength and the old man will have him spar with a grand master as well. This was to get him an idea of what he can do and how he should use his chances to get away from the situation.

Valerian had no interest in facing a grandmaster or an archmage, he was only preparing to get away from the messenger of death. As the young boy immersed himself in training, the days flew away. On the tenth day, he received a message from Azula that the situation seemed to be much more tricky than they had imagined and the candidate they choose did not agree with them.

The boy frowned and asked the old Magnus magister for his advice, and the old man said that he can go out as he wish, after reaching a certain level of strength the academy did not bar anyone, and he has long reached that level. All he could gain by staying here was some theoretical knowledge.

Valerian was more than happy to hear this, he will leave the place and travel around the continent before he made his way further. There was so much left for him to see, like the ninety-nine cities in the Lumen Empire, and then the other three nations. Then there were wildlife hotspots and beasts for him to see.

Thinking about this Valerian could not help but get excited and he left the academy with Fortuna, who was back to talking with her but she was still somewhat hesitant in her approach. She was worried that he will fall into an unfavorable condition. This was something that she did not want to go through anything ever again.

Valerian arrived at the Imperial palace and headed straight to the court. Priscilla had told him that the court was in session and things were really tricky. As the fourth prince, he needed to be present at the scene.

The silver-haired boy made his way through the palace, and the servants greeted him with a bow, he nodded to all of them before he came to the court. The guards announced, “His royal highness, Valerian Verus is entering the court.”

The people inside the court were surprised, and they stopped their proceedings. Their eyes were captured by the tall black clothed prince, he was like an arrow of lightning in the dark night. Valerian bowed to the emperor and said, “I have returned your excellency.”

Libra said, “Take a seat beside your brother, Prince. The court is in session.”

Valerian nodded and went to sit between Vertex and Azula. Alm was talking about something, but since he did not know what was going on, he could not get a hold of it and asked Azula with sign language, ‘What is going on? Everyone seems to be at the end of their nerves.’

Azula nodded and said, “Mother went to the Stella Nation in person, she said that someone with her identity was a good choice to show their sincerity in this matter, but things played out differently, the candidate we determined, disagreed and tried to capture mother as his prisoner, but she managed to escape the clutches. However, she is not entirely out of danger. Ensis and Consano are the only ones left alive on her team. They are not hiding. We know the place, but so does the enemy and we cannot send out a big team to assault and rescue. The risk to alert the imperial family is higher that way.”

Valerian was shocked and he could not speak for a few minutes. Alm finished his speech and the courtroom was in silence. Valerian took a deep breath and stood up. His actions attracted gazes from the entire courtroom. He came to stand in the center of the room and asked, “How could all of you support her decision to leave for the front? Did you fail to understand the trickiness of the situation?”

He paused and before the people could answer he said, “I will lead a team of five people and we will rescue her, this is not a proposal but an ultimatum. The Empress is the pride of a nation and we will not have our pride run around, hiding from an insignificant piece in our hands. If there are no volunteers then I will go in their alone and lay waste to the entire place. If that triggers the Royal family of the Stella empire than they can come at me with all they have. I will see what they can do.”

That said, he stood their silently. His statement that the empress is the pride of a nation was too hot and boiled the blood of all the people inside the courtroom. Vertex stood up from his seat and said, “I support Prince Valerian, and also volunteer for his cause.”

Many other people supported him and volunteered but Valerian shook his head and said, “I appreciate and admire your bravery, but there is a team that I intend to take on as my first choice, I hope you all do not feel offended, but this team gives me the confidence in this task.”

Libra nodded and said, “Name them, and if they agree you can leave right away.”

Valerian did not take on any royal family members because if they got hurt, it will be too dangerous.