Chương 122: Chapter : 122

Ryu and Leviathan bowed deeply one final time in perfect unison.

"Your will is absolute," Ryu declared fiercely.

"We will return with the answers you seek, darling," Leviathan promised softly. Without another sound, the two mythic spirits stepped backward into the shadows of the bedroom. The darkness swirled around them for a fraction of a second, and then they simply melted away into thin air. The heavy, magical pressure in the room vanished completely with them. The tiny bedroom was totally quiet again. The normal, peaceful atmosphere of the night returned.

Ken Eliot sat in his desk chair for a moment, letting out a long, highly exaggerated breath. He slumped his shoulders forward, instantly dropping the terrifying, commanding presence of the Sovereign. He reached over to his desk, picked up the foil-wrapped sandwich Naomi had brought him, and took a huge, happy bite.

"Man, being the boss is exhausting," Ken mumbled to himself, chewing on the warm cheese.

"I have to use my scary voice, I have to give dramatic orders, and I have to stop my servants from destroying my furniture. This is exactly why I prefer being a background character." He finished the sandwich quickly, tossed the foil into the small trash can by his door, and stood up to stretch his arms. He walked over to his lumpy mattress and fell face-first onto the pillows. He didn't worry about the masked thieves anymore.

With Ryu and Leviathan on the hunt, the mystery of the fourth party would be solved in no time. Those two spirits were relentless. Whoever the thieves were, and whoever was paying them, they were about to have the absolute worst week of their entire lives.

"Hopefully," Ken thought lazily, pulling his thin blanket over his shoulders, "the spirits find the answers quickly, so we can wrap this up and I can finally get a day off. Just one day without a giant monster or an angry Royal would be fantastic." He closed his eyes, letting the quiet peace of the crumbling estate lull him to sleep.

He was completely unaware that his simple request for information was about to uncover a massive, deeply rooted conspiracy that stretched all the way to the very top of the Belmontia Empire. But for tonight, the lazy farm boy was completely content to just close his eyes, ignore the politics, and get some sleep.

— It was the middle of the night, long past the time when anyone in the 13th Unit should have been awake. The wooden floorboards creaked softly under Naomi's boots as she paced back and forth in the dark. She could not sleep. No matter how hard she tried to close her eyes, her brain simply refused to shut down. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. The crushing guilt of the day's failure was sitting on her chest like a heavy boulder.

A mandatory five-point penalty. It was a massive disaster for Princess Iris and their entire team. And in Naomi's strict, highly competitive mind, the blame rested entirely on her own shoulders. She was the vanguard leader. She was supposed to be the fastest fighter in the entire unit. But when those masked thieves dropped from the ceiling of the cavern, she had been too slow to react.

"I should have moved faster," Naomi whispered to herself, rubbing her tired eyes.

"I should have dashed forward the absolute second that smoke bomb hit the floor. I let them steal the Core of Luminus right out from under us." She kept pacing the hallway, trying to walk off her frustration. She passed by Laxmi's bedroom door and heard the very loud, rhythmic sound of the fire user snoring.

She passed Sayma's room, which was completely quiet, though a tiny sliver of light under the door meant the Vice-Captain was probably still awake, stressing over her textbooks and trying to calculate a new strategy. Naomi let out a long, miserable sigh. She turned around to walk back to her own room, but as she passed the end of the corridor, she noticed something strange. A faint, flickering light was spilling out from the crack of Ken's half-open bedroom door.

Along with the shifting light, Naomi heard a very weird, highly annoying series of sounds. There were loud, exaggerated swoosh noises, followed by the sound of someone yelling "Hi-yah!" in a terrible, fake-sounding voice. Mixed in with the fighting noises was a very loud, very wet slurping sound. Naomi stopped in her tracks. Her usual strict, bossy instincts flared up. It was easily two o'clock in the morning.

Everyone was supposed to be resting so they could train hard the next day to make up for their lost points. She reached out and pushed the heavy wooden door wide open, fully prepared to yell at him to go to sleep. But when she stepped into the room, all the anger just completely drained out of her. She was honestly too exhausted to even raise her voice. Ken Eliot was sitting completely cross-legged right in the middle of the dusty wooden floor.

He was wearing an incredibly baggy, ridiculous pair of gray sweatpants and a totally oversized white t-shirt. Resting in his lap was an absolutely massive, steaming bowl of instant noodles. He had a pair of wooden chopsticks in one hand, and he was currently slurping up a huge pile of noodles with total concentration. Sitting on the floor right in front of him was a small, portable magical screen. It was playing a very old, incredibly cheesy martial arts movie.

The special effects were terrible, the acting was overly dramatic, and the main character was currently doing a ridiculous backflip away from a group of bad guys. Naomi just stood in the doorway, staring at him. Ken didn't even look away from the screen. He slurped another massive mouthful of noodles, chewed happily, and pointed his chopsticks at the little magical screen.

"See, that is exactly why this guy keeps losing," Ken mumbled with his mouth full, completely ignoring the fact that Naomi had just walked in.

"Why is he doing backflips? Backflips take so much energy. He should just pick up that wooden chair and throw it at them. Or better yet, he should just run away and call the police. Heroes always make things so complicated for absolutely no reason." Naomi leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms tightly over her chest.

"Ken. Do you ever actually sleep, or do you just stay up all night ruining your eyesight with cheap movies?" Ken finally paused his chewing. He looked over his shoulder, blinking his sleepy eyes at her. He gave her a lazy, totally relaxed smile.

"Hey, Naomi. Welcome to the midnight screening," Ken greeted her casually, waving his chopsticks in the air.

"I tried to sleep, I really did. But my stomach woke me up. I realized I haven't had a proper, highly unhealthy meal all day. You can't sleep on an empty stomach, it is a scientific fact. Do you want some noodles? I have an extra cup in my bag. It's spicy beef flavor."