Insect Tamer's Ascension-Chapter 380. A peaceful dinner with the royals

After having the conversation that left the parents proud and speechless at the same time, Theo finally had the long-awaited rest.

Theo woke up an hour before the dinner and, after getting ready, they all left for the dinner with a butler as a guide.

All the guards that were around the royal castle, whether inside or outside, were all somewhat old tamers. Their age was very hard to discern, as not a single individual was below level 10, making their life expectancy to be around 120, except for some natural diseases that could lessen it.

They had to travel for minutes to finally reach the destination. The big door was carved with intricate designs and jewels inside the petals of many flowery patterns.

The door was opened by two tamers who were dressed in black instead of red.

But that was not what Theo decided to give all his time to. On the bigger table, there were three individuals seated on the far end of the table.

When the emperor saw them approaching, his eyes flashed with excitement.

"Come, come, Aldric. We have been waiting," the emperor spoke.

Aldric nodded as if he was giving a bow, and the baroness did the same. Theo followed while Clara and Elias both bowed deeply.

They all got seated right away, and the two attendants, Clara and Elias, stayed behind Theo’s seat.

"You are as beautiful as usual, Your Highness," the baroness spoke with a smile, and the empress, who was seated right at the side of the emperor, smiled.

"It seems Young Theo hasn’t met my family yet, so let’s introduce ourselves," the emperor spoke.

Both the empress and the child seated beside them were shocked to see the emperor speaking like this.

The empress looked back at them again, specifically at Theo this time, who gave her a calm and respectful smile.

"Nice to meet you, my name is Lysandra Vaelorian," she spoke with her chin high. The baroness nodded while Theo looked at her normally until his gaze went to the child seated beside them.

Their eyes met, and Theo was sure of it. The kid had utter rudeness in his eyes. He was not someone he wanted to interact with at all.

"I am the Crown Prince, Kaelor Vaelorian," he spoke with a tone that was monotone and his eyes on his plate instead.

Both the baron and the baroness didn’t care, while Theo just made peace with it.

"My son here is a year older than Young Theo," the emperor chimed in as if he was dense enough to not realize that his kid wanted nothing to do with the conversation.

The whole dinner after that was just talking between the emperor and the baron like they were long-lost friends.

Their personality types were very different. While the baron stayed silent and answered a lot, he still didn’t say anything on his own. The emperor, on the other hand, kept the conversation alive.

The empress side-eyed the emperor a few times in the conversation, and Theo looked at it all with something he had felt before.

’They are forced to be together... just like mom and dad,’ he thought. He was not talking about the current ones but those who were only there just for the sake of it.

His previous parents wanted nothing to do with each other. It was a marriage done between big families just for power. And Theo, who was born between them, was kept to the side, just making him study to become the next head of the family.

But along the way, Theo felt like he did the right thing when he cut himself off from this inheritance war, still getting enough to stay in extreme luxury while his younger brothers and sisters fought for their lives.

"Young Theo."

"Young Theo."

The emperor called Theo by name two times, but Theo didn’t respond. His mind was deep in thought.

"My apologies, he sometimes goes into deep thought," the baron spoke and tapped Theo’s arm a few times to make him return. He looked around the room and saw everyone staring at him.

’Was I zoning out again?’ he thought and put on his smile again.

"Yet another quality a prodigy has," the emperor spoke, making Theo confused, but the look on his son’s face was one to look at.

If he had to guess just by the expression the kid had, Theo was sure he had made a mortal enemy today.

The conversation kept drifting away into random nothingness.

Whenever the emperor tried talking about the past, the baron stopped him midway, and this happened many times to keep a count of.

Theo couldn’t get any information out of these conversations, so he focused on the food instead.

When the dinner was finally over and a lot of Theo’s things were revealed except for some that were classified and not revealed.

By the end, the empress had a different outlook on Theo and made a lot of conversation with him.

That was the last nail in the coffin. The look of the royal heir changed and flipped completely, and before he could actually say anything horrendous and get himself in trouble, the dinner was over.

When Theo got the chance, he tried to quickly move out of the dinner when suddenly he realized he should use the ’good’ relation with the emperor already.

"Your Majesty, about the punishment for entering the gate unauthorized and not answering the academy’s call," Theo asked, making the emperor look at him with a light smile.

"Young Theo, you don’t need to worry about anything. I will try to make your punishment as lenient as possible."

"But it’s impossible to not punish you, since the status of the national asset isn’t known by the public yet," he spoke.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Theo gave a deep bow of respect this time. He was happy that things could have a better turn than what was happening.

"I look forward to meeting you again, Young Theo," Kaelor, the Crown Prince, spoke with a smirk on his face.

Theo realized what he was doing, to call him ’Young Theo’ when he was only a year younger.

"I am honoured," Theo spoke with a bow, making the Crown Prince look at Theo with a twitching face.

When they were out of the big room, Theo made eye contact with the baron, who grinned in response. Theo knew he did great asking the emperor about the punishment.

That night, they slept comfortably, and by the morning, it was time to leave again.

Their carriage left the same big gate like before, and Theo saw all those young maidens looking at him.

He gave them a slight mature smile, which made some of them look at each other and gasp.

When Clara saw that, her expression became horrified, while the baroness just shook her head.

The baron started laughing heartily in response.

Theo didn’t know what was to be done next. There was so much that needed to be done that he couldn’t help but feel a little antsy.

It took another whole day to get back to the barony, and when only a quarter of the distance was left, Theo felt like he should be taking a look inside the hive mind again.

"I will be back soon," he spoke, and his eyes turned completely golden. Everyone looked at him and his golden eyes with different emotions. For some, it was the usual; for some, it still felt like a scare; while some only felt concerned.

Theo saw so many minds in front of him that when he was getting pulled by the ant queen, he could tell something was different.

’Ant queen, did the number of worker ants increase again?’ He asked as he couldn’t see much make much out of what was happening in the horde inside the glass container. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

He got an answer right away, which was one of the highly convenient perks of having a hive link. Whatever you’re thinking, there is no delay in conveying your thoughts or emotions, making everything happen almost instantly.

’So the ants have increased in numbers, huh... and there are a hundred more brood going to be hatched tomorrow. That’s nice,’ Theo spoke with relief.

Some of the losses he got while he was in the gate were still to be recouped. The size of the colony didn’t increase yet, not until all the previous numbers were back and then more.

’Alright, I will ask you, what do you think you need to focus on now, ant queen?’ Theo asked, making him feel emotions of deep thought right away.

Within seconds, the ant queen replied.

’Survival, huh? I thought we were a little past that by now,’ Theo thought in the hive link.

’Okay, if the survival of the colony is taken care of, then what would you focus on?’

This time, there wasn’t even any thinking done. The ant queen replied right away.

’Increase strength, huh... But why would you want strength?’ Theo felt like wanting to become a little philosophical with the ant queen just for fun.

But what the ant queen answered surprised him a little too much.