Irium

"Is something the matter here?" I ask the guards who are accompanying us on the way in.

While they were ignoring us before, now that I am the king of this planet, they have to answer when I ask.

"Yes, your majesty." One of the guards says and directs us to a man with in a purple robe standing right in the middle of the street. Because his face is also covered by the robe, I can"t tell how he looks like but he definitely has a short stature.

Seeing me look at him, he starts walking towards us.

"Hey!" I ask Roswaisa in the hopes she can make a good guess, "Who do you think he is?"

"I think, no … I know that he is a denizen of Frost, the planet that Dues has sent Irium to." She says with confidence.

Since she deliberately corrected herself and said that she knows this, it"s probably true.

"Your majesty?" The guards look at me with worried expressions. As I have come to know in the past month, Glice rarely gets any visitors. And when they do, 9 out of 10 times the visitor would be introduced by Kaylith or Trevor. Neither of them is around anymore so the responsibility now falls to me.

"For how long has this been guy here?" I ask the guards.

"It has been around 20 minutes since he came here." The guards answer. "He was able to break through all the defense mechanisms without killing a single one of us. When asked why he was here, he only said that he wanted to meet you."

"Did he give his name?" I question to the guard but,

"MY NAME IS RAKA." The man in question himself answered in a loud voice as he walked towards us.

"Roswaisa?" I question the obvious question and she nods to answer "yes". What that means is that all the questions I just asked were answered truthfully.

So, I face Raka and ask, "Is there anymore to your ident.i.ty than your name?"

He answers while simultaneously taking the purple robe off his face, "As your friend there has already told you, I am a Frost. And I have come here with a request from Temple of Temur."

He is a bald blue man with a head that looks to be out of proportion with his body and gives him a cartoonish vibe. Like his head, his eyes are larger than one would expect as well.

"What the h.e.l.l is Temple of Temur?" I ask, curious as to what even Temur is.

He answers with an expression that I can hardly read though, "We, the Temple of Temur, are a sect on Frost that opposes Dues ex machina and her supposed "G.o.dhood"."

I see.

"You are living the dream then." I say sarcastically before asking with a serious expression, "What request have you come here with?"

"We would like to request for you to lend us some support as we are about to go on a major attack against the followers and supporters of her." He says as he bends one of his knees to show his sincerity and respect. However, before I can respond,

"Forget it!" Roswaisa denies his request outright.

"Uh! May I ask why?" Raka shows a troubled face as he questions. Roswaisa makes an even more troubled face as she answers,

"If people on Frost were powerful enough to do something about Dues, she would have been taken care of already."

"So you think we are weak?"

"I don"t. I know you are." Roswaisa is merciless with her words but her expression tells that she is right. "Frost is a planet where mage-craft is not even common knowledge to as many people as it is on Earth. And that is because they just don"t have the knack for it. Those who do have the knack for it are still nothing more than second-rate mages. You guys, even with our help, don"t stand a chance against her."

I believe what Roswaisa is saying is correct. If it"s not, I doubt she would have any reason to say these things. She doesn"t usually try to go out of her way to mock people over a serious matter like this after all.

"Hmm, fair!" Raka says with an unchanging and still unreadable for me expression. "We are pretty weak when it comes to mage-craft. If Dues ex machina sends some powerful forces, there"s a good chance that we will all we wiped out."

He looks directly in Roswaisa"s eyes.

"That will only happen if we stay long enough to fight those monsters she sends to defeat us."

"What does that mean!?"

"We aren"t trying to stage a coup d"état or anything of the sort." He says with his lips curving in a way that I would generally call it a smile, "We are just trying to cause some chaos and then run away!"

"…"

"…"

I see. So they are planning to cause so much chaos that Dues is forced to sent someone to deal with it and then, they would be able to use something like "the G.o.ddess sent aliens to kill our people" kinda thing to persuade others to stop believing in her. Despite not being a real G.o.ddess, Dues considers herself one. So, if her believers stop believing in her, it could be a big annoyance to her. Still,

"What do you think?" I turn to Roswaisa as I ask, "Is it worth it?"

While contemplating about it, she answers, "I don"t think so. Besides, we have our hands full with Cartel already."

That"s true. But as soon as Raka heard Cartel"s name, he looks at us with a sharp gaze and says,

"We predicted that you might not be willing to help us. So, we had thought of turning this "request" into a "deal"." He says slyly.

"And what is the deal?"

"If you agree to help us, we will present to you the man you are looking for – Cartel Hopkins."

*****