In a huge dark room filled with a dim light from a few candles, eight people were sitting at a round table. A door to the room opened with a creaking sound as a young man in golden robes entered. Eight men each had a different reaction to the youth’s appearance. One of them stood up and respectfully bowed, four others nodded their heads and the last three looked to be absolutely indifferent.

  “Greetings, honorable generals,” Dale spoke in a very calm and respectful manner. Even though he was the king, these people held a tremendous power in their hands so even he had to show some level of respect toward them.

  “Your highness, we all have important tasks at our hands, so tell us what you want without wasting time for a chit-chat,” one of indifferent generals spoke with a very haughty tone in his voice. He was two meters tall, extremely fat, bald and his whole appearance was disgusting to look at. If one would judge him just by his appearance, no one would ever think that he was a powerful rank 10 wizard with a huge battle experience behind his back.

  “Crid, I’ll rip your tongue out if you’ll keep talking to our king in such a disrespectful way!” A handsome blonde-haired middle-aged man was enraged by Crid’s behavior. It was Dale’s only trusted general at the moment. He was actually Dale’s uncle in this illusory world, so he would naturally support his nephew.

  “Uncle Sher, please calm down. General Crid didn’t mean to be rude to me, he is just a very busy man.” A refreshing and kind smile on Dale’s face calmed Sher down, but Crid felt cold shiver run down his spine when he looked in Dale’s eyes.

  “Your highness sure knows how to treat people right.” An elegant blonde-haired female in green wizard’s robe smiled at Dale with a coquettish shine in her eyes. Even though she looked like a young woman, in reality she was one of the strongest generals in Dale’s kingdom. She became a rank 10 wizard almost five hundred years ago and was one of the most respected generals in the army.

  “Thanks for your kind words, General Origa,” Dale spoke these words and looked at the female general with a hint of interest in his eyes, “I gathered you all today to discuss a few new positions in army of our kingdom.” Dale swept all generals with his gaze, spectating reaction of each of them.

  “New positions? Are you going to nominate new generals or what?” An old man with face filled with wrinkles and a wooden cane in his hands reacted first. He was the oldest general of the kingdom. Even though he wasn’t the strongest, every other general respected him because of his experience and merits he earned throughout his military career.

  “General Odun, please allow me to finish my speech,” even though Dale sounded calm and respectful, all generals felt coldness and decisiveness in his voice, “I’m not planning to create more general positions because we already have enough talented generals in our army. I decided to slightly change titles of a few generals and give them corresponding rewards.” Dale finally smiled and took out eight golden boxes from his magic ring.

  When generals saw boxes Dale took out, they had finally all became interested in this meeting. Even though none of them lacked wealth and power, these boxes were decorated with images of dragon and tiger. This kind of decorations are only used for highest rewards and decrees released by the king. Each of the boxes contained a personal letter from Dale to the corresponding general and a king’s decree.

  “General Odun, as the wisest general of all, you were chosen to become a head strategist of our army and personal military counselor of the king.” Dale handed the first wooden box to the old man right after he finished speaking.

  Odun first took the box, opened it and read both decree and personal letter. When he finished reading, his face plastered in a wide satisfied smile as he said, “I thank my king for your kindness and promise that I will not let your expectations down.” Odun’s face was shining from happiness as he unexpectedly deeply bowed to show his loyalty to Dale.

  All other present generals were shocked by Odun’s reaction. All of them knew how prideful and indifferent Odun usually was, they all now wanted to know what kind of benefits and conditions he received from Dale.

  “General Origa, your fame as the best alchemist and healer of the kingdom is known to everyone, so I decided to make you a head alchemists of the kingdom and let you govern over our royal garden.” Even though royal garden was extremely important for Dale himself, he knew that it was the only thing that would guarantee Origa’s full support and dedication. Royal garden was a place where all the rarest and most precious herbs of the kingdom were grown. It was basically a heaven for an alchemist, and Origa long wanted to have a permission to enter it. But now, Dale granted the authority over the garden to Origa and she couldn’t be happier.

  “Your highness, my gratitude can’t be expressed with words, so I will prove myself at any time you will need my help.” Origa deeply bowed and even kissed a ring on Dale’s hand.

  All other generals now understood what Dale planned to do and their eyes started burning from expectations and interest.

  “Uncle Sher, as the closest and most trusted of all generals, you will become the royal guardian. My personal army is in your hands from now on.” Everyone already expected that to happen, so no one was actually shocked. But all generals understood that from now on, the most powerful army was in Sher’s hands.

  “I won’t let you down.” Sher received his box, but didn’t even open it since he already knew what was inside of it.

  After that, Dale granted all other generals their boxes and each of them received benefits they desired, so everyone was happy at the end of the meeting. For example, general Crid, who always loved to live a carefree life surrounded by beautiful women and wine, received a title “South Protector”. It meant that he was now governing southern region, which was the most secure region of the kingdom and bred a lot of so-called “sin cities”, filled with high-class brothels and best breweries.

  “Everything went smoothly as you expected, your highness.” Gregory was standing near Dale as he reported eight generals’ responses for Dale’s letters. All of them happily accepted their new titles and other rewards.

  “It was the easiest part of the plan. I now only have eight out of twenty-one generals in my hands. And to ensure my plan’s success, I need at least fifteen generals’ support.” Even though Dale made a huge progress in today’s meeting, he still had a dissatisfied expression on his face.

  “After our investigation, we found four other generals with great weaknesses which we can use.”

  “Alright, I will send personal letters to them and make them bow their heads to me.” Dale knew that while he couldn’t suppress those generals with his power, he could threaten them using information he obtained. These four generals had quite a lot of dirt on them and while that information wouldn’t take away their positions as generals, it would definitely ruin their reputation in army. With lost reputation, any general would slowly lose trust of his men and it was unacceptable. So Dale was sure that these four would surely decide to side with him.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Your highness, so what are we going to do with other nine generals, all of them are righteous and remain as generals only to protect people of our kingdom.” The remaining generals had no desires that Dale could fulfill nor weaknesses that Dale could use.

  “I already planned to create a show to impress most of the remaining generals. They’re loyal to citizens of the kingdom, so it’s going to be easy to manipulate them with a little performance I prepared. Get my armor and prepare a small squad of our elite warriors and mages. I will be leaving the royal capital to visit a few cities of my kingdom personally.”

  “Your highness, it’s too dangerous to leave the royal city, you absolutely can’t do that. While most of the nobles, generals and common citizens are happy with you, there are still some who want someone else come to power.” Gregory was sincerely worried about Dale’s safety and even his hands started shaking.

  “Danger of outside world is the main factor of my plan, Gregory,” Dale said resolutely and sent Gregory out of his office.

  On the next day, the whole kingdom knew that their king was going to travel to several cities to inspect them and show his good will. The dark side of the kingdom immediately started moving with plans of assassination. Most of the king’s enemies didn’t understand why he would leave the safe royal city, but they didn’t care. As long as they had an opportunity, they would definitely not let it slip. Only the cleverest opponents understood that it was some kind of bait, but even they decided to act while they had a chance. So while Dale was preparing to leave the royal city, all kinds of traps were getting prepared around the kingdom.

  Few days later, Dale left the royal city with a convoy of only hundred guards. He had seventy warriors and thirty wizards in this squad, but it was only the visible part of his power. His uncle, general Sher, was actually always following them in shadows.

  By the time Dale visited three cities, he was attacked five times, but all enemies were easily subdued by his guards. Those were all definitely just a small fry to test him out.

  The fourth city in Dale’s schedule was the Drango town, which was located near a border with a big rivaling empire of Dale’s kingdom. Dale’s squad was already only half a day away from the city when he received sudden news.

  “Your highness, the Drango town is being attacked by The Fang Empire and we will probably lose it. The closest general with his army is a few days away from the city, but a city’s horizon will only be able to defend for two days at best. This attack is definitely targeted at you, so we should change our course and move to the next city,” a wizard in white loose robes reported to Dale.

  “No, we will not change our course. Enemy might actually plan to ambush us somewhere on the road to the next city and won’t expect us to go to the Drango town. Men, hasten our speed, we have to reach the Drango town as fast as we can! I shall lead people of the Drango town personally to defend it!” Dale’s face was solemn as if he was actually ready to risk his life in an attempt to defend citizens of his kingdom.

  “Your will is our command!” All warriors and wizards roared at the same time. They all were inspired by their king’s attitude and their reverence toward Dale grew to another level.

  Dale chose these hundred people not just because they were elites of his men, they were all actually people related to generals in some way or another. He was planning to show off in front of them so they would tell stories of his bravery and selflessness to the generals.

  Dale’s squad reached the Drango town in just three hours without a hitch, general Sher had never showed himself according to Dale’s plan. When Dale entered the town and took the rule over the army of the town in his hands, everyone’s morale was immediately raised to the highest level. Population of the city felt incredible veneration toward Dale, in their eyes he now was the most noble, courageous and compassionate king in the history of their kingdom. He risked his own life to try and save them. Each of his commands was now like a god’s decree.

  Horizon of the town didn’t have a chance against the enemy’s army even with a help from Dale and his small squad, but their morale was so high that everyone forgot the word “surrender”. Each warrior and wizard was ready to give his life for their king now as they fought unequal battle with no fear. Even when warrior was gravely injured, he would use all his remaining strength to take as many enemies with him as he could. When warrior would lose his hands, he would use his mouth to bite an enemy. When wizard would be on a brink of the death, he chose to use self-detonation technique in order to kill all surrounding enemies. Even all injured soldiers decided to leave infirmaries in order to participate in the battle with their king.

  When little children, women and old folk decided to go into the battle, Dale showed himself and stopped them by saying that he was here to save them, not to risk their lives. After people heard this piece of news, reverence toward Dale grew to an unbelievable level and even people from surrounding villages and little cities came to help defend the Drango town.

  On the second day of the battle, Dale climbed to the wall of the town and said that he would participate in the battle personally. Everyone tried to change his mind, but he said that there were not enough people now and he was a rank 8 wizard, so he could definitely achieve great results in the battle.

  When Dale entered the battle, all warriors and wizards tried to protect their king, but soon they realized that Dale was a fearless and mighty wizard himself. He fought enemies without stopping even for a second and killed many rank 8 wizards with his own hands. Respect from other soldiers, warriors and wizards he gained from his actions was so tremendous that they felt like he was a god for them now.

  On the third day, Dale entered the battle again and this time he met a rank 9 enemy wizard on the battlefield. He fought the opponent for an hour to a standstill, until the enemy used some kind of secret technique to injure Dale. When other wizards saw Dale flying through the air with blood flowing out of his wounds, the whole battlefield became filled with roars of rage, so everyone failed to notice a barely visible grin on Dale's face. Blood of all Dale’s subordinates boiled from anger as they massacred shocked enemies.

  Dale was successfully saved from the battlefield and the best healers were already working on saving his life. His injury was extremely serious, but after three hours of treatment his condition was finally stabilized and he opened his eyes.

  “Is the Drango town still safe? Heal me faster, I need to go and fight alongside my comrades.” Dale’s voice was weak and his eyes were barely opened, but his first words were about getting back to the battlefield. All healers were shocked and they quickly spread this news to everyone in the city.

  A few hours later, a huge army appeared out of nowhere and joined the Drango town’s defenses. It was general Sher’s personal army with him in the lead. He said that he heard the news about his nephew’s reckless behavior and immediately came to rescue.

  Originally, this attack on the town was planned to capture Dale by surprise and kill him, but he turned everything upside down with his own plan. He expected something like this to happen, so he asked his uncle to secretly move his army closely behind his little squad. He planned to “risk his life to save people of his kingdom” from the beginning, but he didn’t expect his spectacle to go so perfect. Even his injury was controlled by his uncle from shadows, so it would appear to be grave, but in reality there was no risk to Dale’s life at all.

  With a help from Sher and his army, the Drango town was easily defended and the enemy troops were annihilated. News of this battle spread throughout the whole kingdom like a wildfire and Dale’s authority rose to a whole new level. Remaining nine generals took the initiative to meet Dale themselves, and Dale now had all generals in a palm of his hand.

  While all participants were standing still inside of the magic array, there was a sudden commotion in the stadium.

  “What? Princess of The Shadow Kingdom came after all?”

  "Yeah, I saw her in a royal lounge."

  "I heard a rumor that she was hindered by some problems on the way here before."

  Since participants were just standing still for last two hours, people started getting bored, so Brienne’s sudden appearance created a topic for everyone to discuss. And she actually had to be here from the first day, but then she met Boe and decided to talk to her father about him. After she told everything that happened to her father, he ordered her to come here, try to befriend Boe and find something out about his mysterious protector.

  After Brienne greeted dark elves’ royal family, she immediately looked at the scene to check out if Boe was still in the competition. When she saw him on the scene, a smile appeared on her face as she focused her full attention on him.

  ‘I hope you won’t disappoint me, big brother Boe…’