Have you ever had a bad day?

Or maybe even a bad week??

Try having a bad year.

Where everything just seems to go wrong.

Every single one of your plans is ruined.

And your world seems to be crashing down.

That is Duke Lonesun's current reality.

In a day of supposed festivity, Divine King's day.

The Divine King's birthday.

The Duke instead of celebrating as he usually would with giant parties and extravagant balls.

Is instead sitting in his secret room clutching what's left of his hair.

He swigs an entire bottle of vodka.

The alcohol burns his throat but the buzz kicks instantly.

It makes his nerves go down just a little bit.

He wonders how things went so wrong.....

Maybe it was when he married that bitch of a Duchess instead of the man he loved.

Or maybe when he kept his firstborn even when he found out it was a girl.

Maybe it was because he never paid any attention to her and let her do whatever she wanted.

No, when he thought about it, the real problems started when he hired that guard for her.....

He thinks about all the things he'd do if he could get his hands on them.

The Duke sighs.....it doesn't matter anymore.

She's dead, not that he cares, he never did.

But still, the man was still human, deep down no matter how much he denies it.

His child is dead, leaving a hole that will never be filled.

The Duke looks at the phone on his desk.

He considers calling Red Mask again.

He quickly stops thinking about that....

They stopped returning his calls a long time ago.

At first, he was mad enough to declare war on Red Mask.

But now that he's calmed down he realized that was idiotic.

Not only would he be crushed but.......it wasn't Red Mask's fault.

The only thing he asked was for the item to be made not to be protected.

He can hear Red Mask chuckling in his head.

 ""should have read the fine print dumbass!!""(Red Mask)

The Duke does the only thing he can.

He prays.

He kneels in front of an altar.

The altar is covered in offerings.

 In the middle is a portrait.

It's of a silver-haired 80-year-old king.

The Duke starts to pray.

"oh, King of divine, King of mind, King of time, please light my way through the darkness, and show me the path to salvation.....amen"(Duke Lonesun)

The Duke gets up, feeling better.

He stares at the papers at his desk.

He's been putting it off for long enough......

He picks one of them up.

"That princess won't let up will she....oh Divine King when will this civil war end"(Duke Lonesun)

The Vrineral Kingdom has been without a proper ruler for almost 50 years now.

The Divine King's death was so sudden that no one knew what to do.

His rule brought the Vrineral Kingdom to heights unimaginable.

The kingdom is so large you can't cross the rest of the continent without going through it.

His rule was so great some thought it was blasphemous for anyone to even think about finding a new ruler.

The King had many children who all fought for the right to rule.

Some of them even died and entrusted their will to their children.

Now most of them are dead.

The only two left are the king's first son and the daughter of the king's second son.

The Duke is in support of the first son.

He's by far the closest to the Divine king even if he doesn't have his gift.

The second son had a gift similar to the Divine king but nowhere near as powerful.

It's not known if his daughter inherited the gift or not.

Things have gotten so bad people started to reminisce.

They started treating the Divine King as a god.

The Duke used this as political leverage at first.

But now......he can't help but believe that.....

The Divine King was the closest thing the Duke has ever seen to a god....

Memories start to flood into his mind of the king.

The Duke closes his eyes for a minute.

It's not the time for this. 

The Duke thinks about his next course of action.

His plan of making his newborn son a near-perfect clone of the Divine King and making him the true heir with the deed he stole is no longer viable.

The potion and the deed are gone.

The Duke thinks for a long time.

There are many powers in the world willing to give him help for favors.

One of them is the cult of outliers.

They contacted him and he said he'd think about it.

He can't trust them as far as he can throw them. 

With their help, he would be victorious.

Heck, he could even use their power to take the throne for himself.

But that's too risky.

The outliers tend to keep their agreements.

But after that?

They could crush him and take over the kingdom.

They've done this many times. 

Especially since the cult...........disagrees with the kingdom's ways

He could get Red Mask's help again.......but he couldn't afford it......literally. 

His great great great great grandchildren would be still in debt...

The Duke rubs his temples.

If he can't get a group to help him....

Maybe he can get a single person.......

Loam was home to some very powerful people.

Individuals who can take on armies by themselves.....

If he could hire some of them........

The Duke opens his drawer and takes out the lastest Red Mask catalog.

He immediately finds the Red Danger list.

It lists the most powerful people in the world.

It even categorizes them by strength or magic power or how many people they have under them.

The duke goes to the all-time list.

The top ten are the same as always.

With the First still being the high subjugator.

The Duke shudders when he thinks about that monster.

He quickly goes down he can't afford anyone in the top 40.

"hmmm......Rowan Tan the assassin...hmm I don't need an assassin.....Boneclaw the Killer......nah he lives to far away........Alchemist Bob.....no he's wanted in almost every country...........hm?"(Duke Lonesun)

The Duke's eyes lock on a name he's never seen before.

He doesn't even know if he can pronounce it...

"....k....kth....Kthanid the monstrous?" (Duke Lonesun)

 

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