Rebirth of the Disgraced Noble-Chapter 36: Fanaticism Has Its Uses

Elara walked out of the castle donned in a purple dress studded with shining gems. Her mother walked close to her gracefully with her signature smile.

A red carpet that led to a golden chariot with no tires nor beast tied to it was rolled to their feet.

Elara’s expression remained neutral as she walked down the luxurious path hand in hand with her mother.

A large crowd had already gathered at their gate, but they didn’t dare cross the line that had been drawn before them. Elated screams broke the silence they had painstakingly maintained the moment Elara crossed the gates.

"It’s Princess Elara! We have the blessing of seeing her face!"

"To think she’s taking on the role of the purificator in these dangerous times, she’s just as brave as her father!" Another glazed.

Similar comments exalting her and the entire royal family passed through her ears, but her expression remained neutral, leaving her mother to handle the overenthusiastic citizens.

Large chariots pulled by large lion–like creatures with blue fur scattered the crowd with the small blue embers that flew out their nostrils as they huffed.

"I’ll be seeing you soon, Mother. Tell Dad not to worry about me."

Elara’s expression finally broke into a tired yet relieved smile as she sat in the carriage, speaking to her mother through it.

Castilla chuckled. "Be safe darling," she said while caressing her cheek.

Elara nodded with a wry smile. "I don’t think I could not not be safe."

Her eyes scanned the large beasts that provided a source of privacy for their little chat and the terrifying warriors that handled them.

Castilla adjusted her daughter’s crown. "Just don’t do anything too reckless, okay?"

Elara nodded and wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck with a wide smile on her face.

Satisfied, Castilla gestured for the beasts to part ways for her return.

The crowd cheered as Elara began her departure. The concrete roads were littered with colourful flowers and designs, flags with the Kingdom’s symbol were raised on the tower, but none of these seemed to interest Elara.

Her mind was solely focused on the anomaly she was leaving the comfort of her kingdom to find.

It hadn’t been up to a minute since she’d begun her departure, when her mother’s voice sounded in her mind .

<Call us the moment you need anything, do you hear?>

Elara suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. <Sure thing~>

Without warning, she cut off the telepathic connection with her mother, but she instinctively knew she was still being watched.

’How bothersome,’ she thought as smile tugged at the edges of her lips.

The chariot hummed—a low-frequency vibration of pure Resonance that allowed the golden vessel to hover inches above the floral-covered road. Outside, the world was a blur of cheering faces and colorful flags; inside, the luxury felt like a gilded tomb.

Elara leaned back against the silk cushions, her neutral mask returning the moment her mother was out of sight.

"Commander Vane," she spoke, her voice quiet but carrying clearly through the carriage’s sound-conduits.

A man clad in silver-plate armor, riding a blue-furred beast alongside her window, inclined his head. "Princess."

"The ’Anchor’ in the southern border town—the one reporting the frequency anomalies. Has he secured the perimeter?"

"He reports a brief pulse of high-density Resonance near the fighting pits last night," Vane replied, his voice a gravelly contrast to the cheering crowds. "Followed by a complete disappearance. He believes he’s hunting a high-tier Martialist or a corrupted Attuned."

Elara’s eyes drifted to the window, watching the kingdom’s tall spires shrink in the distance.

’A disappearance,’ she thought, her fingers tracing the Eye of Calyra pendant hanging from her neck. ’No one just disappears from a Wide-Area Tracker unless they don’t exist in our frequency at all.’

"Tell him to keep searching, the fighting pit being the focal point of his investigation." She commanded.

Vane hummed in response and moved ahead of the carriage at her gesture.

Elara gripped the edges of pendant with a thoughtful look, her eyes staring blankly at the constantly changing terrain.

"A fighting pit, huh?" She mumbled. "I guess my ghost isn’t the richest person in the world."

She called Vane again.

"Tell the Anchor to expand his search to the slums as well—from the inns to the sewers. He should cover every possible place someone could hide."

Vane nodded with undisguised respect in his eyes before moving forward again.

Elara rested her head against the cushion with a sigh.

"I hope you’ll be entertaining enough for me, Anomaly."

At the same time, the three boys Aden had sent on a mission stepped into the Croakers Den with a piece of wood wrapped in sack cloth. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

The ever present stench of Ale pierced through their noses, but it only made their stomachs rumble intensely.

Roars of laughter and clinking of glasses filled the air, each shout louder than the last.

The trio nodded at each other before slipping past the mountain of men to get to the counter.

"What ya need—" the bartender’s wide smile fell immediately he laid eyes on them. "Who let you fellows in here?"

Disgust was written all over his face as he filled the empty mugs with yellow contents.

The boys didn’t show a change in expression but merely dropped the sack cloth on the counter.

The man frowned in confusion initially, then his face twisted in anger as he alternated between the wrapping and their dirty faces.

"What is this, huh?! Do you guys think I have time for your dumb games?"

Before his voice could raise any further, the boy in the middle unfurled the sack–cloth to reveal a piece of wood with finely written words.

The man read the words with skepticism, but halfway through, his eyes widened to the limit.

"It’s the Lord!" A smile only seen on fanatics formed on his lips as he gripped the edges of the wood and lifted it above his head.

The boys stepped back with weird expressions.

They wondered if the man that he worshipped so fervently was currently living in conditions that caused a pang of pity and camaraderie to fill their hearts.

The bar became a tad silent after the man’s outburst. The customers stared at him with varying looks on their faces and those who were present when Aden came were comparably excited.

Before those in the know could take a step towards him, he raised his left hand.

"Everyone get out!" He roared. "A severe emergency has risen!"

Ignoring their protests, large men from nowhere began pushing the drunk and reluctant customers.

The boys were spared, but they couldn’t shake the look of envy the bartender shot at them.

The kid Aden talked to who also happened to be the bartender’s son, burst through the rear door where the kitchen was situated with apprehension.

"Father! What is it? I saw our customers leaving angrily, did they do anything to offend you?"

The question sounded extremely self centered to the ears of the kids, but they weren’t too shocked since they knew the kind of people they were talking to.

His father laughed loudly as he handed the piece of wood to his son carefully, almost reverently.

"Read it carefully, Vaviel." He ordered, his palms rubbing against themselves.

Vaviel looked at his father with a questioning expression before he focused on the writing. He couldn’t read properly, so he spoke aloud, each word mispronounced a few times before getting corrected by his father.

"St... Sta... Status of the Pu-ri-fi-ca-tion agent," Vaviel read, his brow furrowing as he squinted at the charred indentations. "Report on the ac-qui-si-tion of the cure. List every e-ffort made to procure it and the names of those who ob-struc-ted its path."*

The boy looked up, his face pale. "Father... this isn’t just a message. The ink... it’s not ink."

He was right. Under the flickering torchlight of the bar, the letters didn’t just sit on the wood, they seemed to have been burned into the grain by a cold, dark fire.

To the bartender, it was a holy relic, but to Vaviel, who had a slightly higher sensitivity, it felt like looking into a deep, bottomless well.

"Did you hear that, Vaviel?" The bartender’s voice was a frantic whisper. "The Silver God wants the cure. He’s testing us! He wants to know if we’ve been loyal or if we’ve been opportunistic scumbags like the rest of this lot."

The three sewer boys exchanged a glance. The irony was thick enough to choke on. Aden was starving in a basement, yet here were the town’s biggest scumbags terrified that he was a deity auditing their souls.

"Go!" the bartender barked at his son. "Get the ledgers from the safe! And the contact list for the black-market alchemists in the Inner Circle! We need to show the Lord we haven’t been idle."

He then turned to the three boys, his expression shifting from disgust to a terrifying, fawning desperation. He grabbed a tray from the counter, piled it high with roasted meat, two loaves of fresh bread, and a bottle of expensive, non-watered-down wine.

"Take this to Him," he pleaded, pushing the tray toward them. "Tell the Silver God that Bodywn is his humble servant. Tell him the decree is being processed as we speak. We will have the names of the hoarders by midnight."

The boys didn’t need to be told twice. They grabbed the food with wide eyes, the scent of the roasted meat making their heads spin.

"And remember!" the bartender shouted as they scrambled toward the door. "Tell him Bodywn is loyal! ONLY Bodywn!"

....

Aden woke up to the sound of splashing footsteps, too many of them, and too fast. He sat up, his hand automatically flying to the Hannya mask.

The door creaked open, and the three boys burst in, carrying a tray that smelled like heaven itself.

"Lord!" the deep-voiced one gasped, setting the tray on the stone table. "We gave it to him. He... he went crazy. He called you a God. He’s gathering the papers now."

Aden looked at the roasted meat, his stomach letting out a roar that echoed off the damp walls. He didn’t care about being a God right now, he cared about the protein.

’Gahh, so much protein!’ he shrieked internally.

As he tore into a loaf of bread, the skinny boy leaned in, his voice trembling.

"There’s more, Lord. On our way back... we saw it. At the main gate."

Aden stopped chewing. "What did you see?"

"A golden chariot," the boy whispered. "With blue lions and warriors in silver. The Princess is here. Elara herself."

Aden froze. The bread felt like ash in his mouth.

"What’s the Princess doing here?"