Chapter 170: Unkingly King

This "Side Mission" thing didn't have any of that. It was linked to a Main Quest I already got — ❮ "???" Main Quest — Become the King. 0/1 ❯ — but the mentioned quest didn't have any description either.

When my power, the System, summoned me somewhere, I rarely had a thing to complain about.

An hour might have passed. I didn't have any evil intentions, but hey, part of me was disappointed that the noblewoman didn't pick up my presence. If she did, I could have at least been proud to be "working" under her. If I couldn't so easily sneak on her, that meant her enemies couldn't easily harm her, too.

But no. After she took care of me, she brought her servants in, took care of her own things, papers, arrangements, and stuff, then headed out. Without noticing me.

She hung out with a handful of noble ladies, had tea with them, chatted with them, laughed with them, and parted from them. I was sure such interactions weren't the reason for which the System put me up to sneak around her. So I waited, and sure enough, after she headed back to her apartments, one of her older brother's servants came to the lady.

She was privately summoned to an audience with her father the King. Well, the servant might have used the term "audience," but that was more of a family meetup than a formal audience with the king.

Tonight, I gathered more information. I already knew that the royalty's relationship with the other royalties was the way it was, but tonight, I saw and understood more. The girl's story was the dramatic play of a girl who wanted her father to call her his daughter.

When she heard of the summons, the noblewoman was surprised, but she headed straight to her father at once. Her steps were somewhat heavy, she was on her way. Her monster was by her side, but she didn't know.

And her father was the king of his kingdom. He was the man who wore the royal crown on top of his balding, uncombed fuzzy head. The man who ordered, and was obeyed. The man who sat on the throne and led people. The king she wished would call her "my daughter," with fatherly pride and affection.

The royalty was headed to this man and her brothers, ready to serve and please her father.

But there were two different kinds of kings. The ones you obeyed, loved, and respected. And the ones you obeyed, feared, and despised. The King Folvin, first of his name, rightful King of his land, owner of the Title "Ruler," was the latter. Unfortunately or not, King Folvin didn't sit on his proud throne to dispense his wisdom and kindness to the people. No. For starters, he barely sat on the throne to receive his people. The fat middle-aged man wasted most of his life days away with the company of whores and whine. It was said of him that he never drank anything but whine and never played with anything but whores.

One day, he was presented with a choice: The king could either have perpetual peace over his land or have his favorite whore breastfeed him wine from her titties every morning and evening. The king, worthy of his nation and people, evidently wished for the whore.

...Still, he was a hearty man.

That's why the daughter of her father still looked up to him. That's why, from such a piece of filth, the daughter still looked for fatherly love, admiration, and recognition. She herself was a rather selfish, individualistic woman, but her heart still had soft spots of naivety in it: Elina's heart thought that, if children had to have parents, then, the other way around was true, if not truer. Parents had to have children, too.

The third princess set off. From her rooms, with an anxious stomach and rapid steps, she navigated to the unkingly king Folvin, to hear her father speak, and see to it that he was listened to.

The third princess wasn't the only summoned person, where the king rested. When she invited herself into the king's private apartments, wherefrom she overheard the loud, wheezy laughter of a drunk king, she found two of her brothers already settled in. The king laughed so intensely that, when the clank of the opening door announced her arrival, her father didn't take notice of her presence, and continued to laugh thus, a full glass of wine in his hand.

She excused herself to them. Obviously, she wasn't summoned alone to her father. The king didn't mind his girl much. He wouldn't value the work she did in his name so much that he felt the need to privately discuss plans and schemes with her. The royalty knew that. Still, she had hoped otherwise. All for the sake of the treasured fatherly recognition she so desired.

Her hands briefly clutched and wrinkled her dress, she bit her lip, and her anxiety burned through her stomach one last time. After that, she toughed it out.

"Your Grace," she confidently greeted, "I believe you have summoned me."

The disagreeable smell of an improper fat man's room greeted her back first.

When she walked in, her brothers already turned to her. The two siblings she found here were the same two I randomly bumped into the day I first explored the royal domain. The older guy and the younger boy.

As for the older brother, he was unchanged. When I met him, I remembered he was calm, mature, composed, and pleasant. Sitting upon a beautifully carved chair, around a small dining table, he silently greeted his sister with a business smile. The younger brother was as irritated and arrogant as ever and sat beside his brother. When his eyes met with his sister's he silently harrumphed and frowned at her.

Well, these two's opinions of their sister, whether they be positive or not, didn't matter as much as their father's opinion of the girl. The king half-lied in his bed, undressed and uncombed. He sucked at his wine, laughed his wine out on his thick beard and hairy chest, and asked for more wine. An opinion? He had none.

When Elina approached the three, her father finally got her attention. "Your Grace, I believe you have summoned me," she had said.

"I have, have I not!" the hearty king Folvin spat, drunk. "So hurry your ass along! I swear: Five more minutes!" The king gulped down his full glass of wine and missed to drown in it. "If you'd made your father wait five more minutes, only God knows how much more wine I'd have swallowed by the time you got here! Hurry along, now!"

Anxiety was mostly felt prior to a stressful event. Once the royalty was in, she managed to stay dignified in front of her father and brothers. Outwardly, she was fearless. Nobly, she sent a light smile and polite laughter her father's way.

"Father speaks the truth, Elina," the older brother pleasantly laughed.

"As he should hope to," the royalty jested. "But, oh how Father has a way with wine. Full oceans of liquor to drink couldn't make him redder. Always clear-headed."

"I speak the truth, children, don't I!" the king laughed, too. "Gwah-hah-hah! Girl, then, you wouldn't want your older brother to get mad at his poor, unkingly wretched father for not being able to hold this fancy meeting of ours, would you?!"

"Haha," the daughter politely laughed in her hand, "if Brother dares lecture Your Grace about what is right and what is not, I feel it is my duty to be reprimanded along with Father, too."

"Ha! 'Tis a fine sister you got here! Gwah-hah!"

"Eh-he-he, Elina, aren't you awfully pleasant. If that's the case, then I will have to save words for you."

And so they laughed and spoke.