Chronicles of the Red Sovereign

In the next five years, Andrea, Bernard, Charles, Freya, Kai, Peter, Thomas and Trent juggled their lives between training in the Dark Palace, doing missions, school and their regular lives. They trained for two straight years, quite longer than the usual Dark Palace agent of one year, and started doing missions since then.

The eight became known as the Red Squad in the Dark Palace. Nobody knew who they really were apart from their mentors and Zaira, and they received direct orders from the archduchess herself.

Trent, being two years their senior, graduated before them and he was sent to train and work full-time while waiting for the others to graduate.

Throughout the years, they made drastic changes and improvements, and even revealed secrets. Kai revealed having memories from an alternate future, Freya admitted having four other personalities, Bernard told them about being a reincarnator, etc. Thus, making them closer.

Yes, even Freya.

“No wonder you’re weird.” Charles told Bernard after he revealed his secret.

“Hey! It just so happen there are two common senses inside my head! I tend to prefer the other or mash the two up together!”

“Nah, you’re just really weird Bernard.” said Thomas.

Bernard didn’t really have anything to retort.

“I hope Luna’s here to learn this as well.” Andrea voiced out, eliciting looks of sadness on her friends. “But I guess we can tell her once we see her again.”

Charles graduated soon after, and focused on creating and experimenting on new potions despite his family’s charging.

They also learned who Luna was to the archduchess.

““One of your adopted children?”” most of them exclaimed, the ones who knew; Kai, Bernard and Thomas, just tried to look away, looking guilty.

“She’s legally the fourth heir to the Celestine Family name.” Zaira said nonchalantly. “And she’s my sister in a previous life.”

Zaira did not elaborate on the last sentence but the others didn’t really push, they knew they would figure that one out sometime in the future.

On their fifth and sixth years, Andrea, Bernard, Freya, Kai, Peter and Thomas did their ‘internship’ (as Bernard had called it) in the Dark Palace. Of course the public knew of it as working for the Imperial Army in the frontlines. Despite the threat of demons, there were still countries who tried to wage war against Praiji. They did pop up there once in a while, in the western border mostly, so their attendance and performance weren’t questioned.

On the day of their graduation…

The group of friends gathered at the entrance of the Northern Forest. It was the last day of school, their graduation day, and that place was still off limits, so they had privacy. The graduation rite was already finished, the sun had set about half an hour ago and they were just meeting up.

“Congratulations for being the top student of the Magic Arts Department Freya! As well as the over-all top student across department of our batch!” Bernard exclaimed excitedly at the wind mage who had an annoyed look on her face. “I bet your family’s really happy right now!”

Freya inly huffed and rolled her eyes.

“She’s not that happy Bernard after all the one person she considers her rival is not here. She cannot prove herself as the best.” Peter said with a hint of humor on his voice.

“Shut it.” Freya hissed at her fiancé, not really caring that he was a prince.

“So I suppose we all got the Archduchess’ letter this morning?” Thomas questioned, showing them the parchment with the seal of Zaira on it.

“Yup.”

Everyone revealed their letters with only one sentence on it; Gather at the entrance of the Northern Forest.

They were already used to their temporary boss to withhold information whenever she wanted, so they weren’t really surprised with the short notice.

From the forest, a familiar golden haired young woman with regal aura emerged, followed by three familiar faces; Trent, Charles and Andrei, all of them were clad in black in different styles.

“Thank you for coming despite the short notice.” Zaira said once she reached them. “Let us head deeper to have our conversation without prying eyes.”

They walked inside the Northern Forest for quite some time until they reached the building where they first worked together, apart from Trent and Andrei though. Ever since that incident five years ago the Northern Forest had been placed inside a barrier and under surveillance by Zaira, which made it as private as she wanted, the perfect place for secret meetings.

“As I said, thank you for coming.” Zaira said as they made a stop. “You guys have finally graduated! Now all of you are twenty and older which makes you of legal age by the way. At this moment, you can make your choices and can stand by them without the interference of parents or guardians.”

This made them look at each other with uncertainty.

“You have two choices now, to survive or to die.”

Zaira snapped her fingers and teleportation circles suddenly lit up around them. From there monsters and humans alike started charging at them.

The first ones to react were Kai and Freya and immediately sent attacks with their own magic at the incoming enemy. With the explosion, the others immediately went to defend themselves. With their training and experience, the all of them knew how to fight with or without their preferred weapons. They were taught for the last five years to make do with what you have, even Andrea, Charles and Bernard the three non-combatants in the group. But of course, Bernard being Bernard, his storage box in the form of a stud earring glowed and all of a sudden, he was carrying a pair of weapons in the form of a strange bent metal, at least to the others. Zaira, who knew the weapons, widened her eyes.

‘Guns?’ she thought. ‘And here I thought he was only working on the ship. He really is a Boy Scout; Always be prepared.’

Bernard’s weapons, a pair of twin guns, shot magic bullets which he customized for his own use. The guns still had magazines where the bullets were loaded but if Bernard chose to it would shoot his magical reserves in the form of compressed bullet-like forms. The magic bullets in the magazine were just for emergencies and last resort. And besides, even though he’s technically a blacksmith-slash-inventor, he did have a large mana reserve (which was uncommon) thanks to his training in the Dark Palace.

The others were appalled at the new weapon Bernard was brandishing but they did have their own enemies to defeat. Kai, Freya, Trent, Thomas and Bernard focused on the monsters using their own magic (guns for Bernard), they also dealt on the humans which they found out were criminals because of their brands; criminals to be executed.

Andrea, Peter and Charles focused more on the humans using hand-to-hand combat, something they learned in their years in the Dark Palace as well. Their mentors told them to learn it for situations such as what they were facing.

Andrei focused more on using his support-type magic to help his soon-to-be comrades by enhancing their strength, speed, effectivity of spells and mana recovery. He also used his magic to slow down the incoming enemies, something he had been working on for the last five years to master.

The fight lasted for about thirty minutes before all their enemies were on the ground, dead. They were all exhausted and had cuts and bruises. The actually tried to not kill the human ones, just incapacitate them, but they would stand up again and attack again. They had no other choice but to put them down, permanently.

“Congratulations! I think it’s safe to say I’m confident to send you to my sister.”

“Are you kidding me?!” Freya exclaimed and charged at the archduchess with fury in their eyes. “You made us kill humans! People! I thought you said you will never send us to kill people!”

Despite their good performance and records, none of them had actually taken a life.

“They were criminals to be executed within three months. I just sped it up.”

“Your excellency, this is still-“

“Prime Minister, I think-“

“Shut up!” Zaira yelled, making them stop. “Do you really think you’ll go on with your lives without killing people? My gosh! I should’ve sent you on assassinations or mass genocides to make you learn!”

Her statement made them drop their jaws.

“The point is, you’re about to embark on a dangerous journey. You will not only face and deal with monsters you usually see in dungeons or in forests, you will also face the most dangerous monsters in the world; humans.”

They were immediately taken aback.

“As you are all aware, Luna is to become the Red Monarch, the Red Sovereign. To be a Colored Monarch, she’s supposed to have a faction; the Red Faction. The faction is just another name for her domain, a territory and the people in it that she will reign. Do you really think you can establish a country without the death? And believe me when I tell you humans are the craftiest, scariest and most dangerous monsters there is. Do you want to know why? Because they are among us and we do not know when they’ll suddenly strike.” Zaira released a sigh. “Grow a pair. There’s an incoming war, be used to seeing death and causing death. Only then can you be sane enough to go in your merry way.”

All of them looked away, a little shaken up at… well, just about everything.

“Those who want to continue this and be prepared to leave everything behind, meet me at the city’s north gate in a week, at midnight.”

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A/N:

Did it make sense? Hmm…