Chapter 89: The Secret Basement

The bashful prince rubbed the back of his neck as he awkwardly laughed, "Hehehe… you are the first person that I will show my secret base to, Sir."

'Huh? Is this something like 'That'?' Mikael squinted at the sight of the blushing prince, 'That moment when an introvert invites his first friend to his house to play?' Somehow, Mikael thought Deon was really a lonely kid.

Deon and Mikael descended to the dark underground.

The prince put low-grade mana crystals into the illuminating artifacts fixed on both sides of the walls, lighting up the basement like streetlamps.

"Whoaa! This is so cool!" Mikael expressed his awe as he drifted from cabinet to cabinet jampacked with unique items and treasures.

The basement was even bigger than Deon's room, but because of all the clutter, it actually appeared smaller in comparison. On each wall was a ceiling-high wooden cabinet filled with an assortment of items with vastly different values. From an oddly shaped rock to a box of precious jewels; from large, leather-bound books to wooden practice swords; from feathered quills to iron-tipped arrows.

On one side were broken practice dummies, while on the other were velvet couches littered with half-finished food.

Overall, the place looked like a fusion of a secret training area and a nightclub lounge.

"Umm… this is where I spent most of my time before I met you, sir. Though not even servants know about this so, it might be a little—No—VERY messy as I haven't had time to clean up yet." Deon carefully explained the dreadful state of his secret basement.

"Naah… my apartment was also this messy when I was alive. It was actually worse, to be honest." Mikael reminisced the strong smell of instant noodles and beer; old socks and laundry strewed across the dirty floor for he was too busy trying to juggle between part-time jobs to even have time to clean his house.

"What are these things anyway?" Mikael waved his hand and the oddly shaped stone levitated off the rack.

"SIR! Please be careful! Those are my treasures!" Deon rushed to snatch the stone off the air, then he re-placed it gently on the cabinet.

"That stone?" Mikael asked, making sure he heard Deon right. No matter how he looked at it, it was just an ordinary stone.

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"Yes. this was the first weapon I ever used." Deon started, "But it's a long story though."

"I don't mind listening to your story, kid" Mikael assured. He figured that maybe knowing Deon's past would help him understand the boy better and thus increase their chances of achieving perfect assimilation.

The young prince sat on a couch situated beside a stack of books, his right hand fiddling the stone. His momentary silence was like a prelude to a tragedy,

"Actually, there IS a reason why my eldest brother is overprotective of me and why my father became angry when I went to George's town…"

Deon felt weird talking about his childhood to a ghost, but he continued,

"When I was eight, I was kidnapped by hoodlums as I was enjoying a festival with brother Avery. At that time, the two of us snuck out of the castle, wearing commoner's clothes as a disguise, to play outside, but as it was a festival, many people crowded the streets, and I was separated from my brother.

I wandered around and eventually found myself in a dark alley. Then, ten drunken men emerged from the shadows and took me away, thinking to sell me as a slave. I was locked up in a cottage for three days with five other children. I told them I was a prince and they readily followed me like a leader. As the kidnappers only checked on us during mealtimes, I planned our escape, but it was…"

The young prince, brown eyes slightly trembling at the traumatic memory, found it hard to recount the next events but he forced the words out,

"It was hell… the kidnappers caught us one by one. They were laughing, probably too intoxicated by alcohol. When the kids yelled for help, the men silenced them by kicking and cursing and punching them… But when the noise didn't stop, the men took out their knives and… cut the kids' tongues.

I was too stunned that I couldn't even move when one of the men made his way to me. I vividly remember wetting my pants in fear and as a last-ditch effort, I threw this stone on the man's head. His nose bled so much as he chased me through the forest. Then I saw a middle-aged man with a sword passing by and begged him for help. I didn't even know that he was a traveling sword master but I thought his technique was mesmerizing. It was full of power! With a flick of his sword, a crimson aura blade shot out and cut the kidnapper's arm along with the surrounding trees. The swordmaster covered my eyes as he killed the man in an instant. But when we went back to rescue the other kids, it was too late. The kidnappers fled with the children when they heard the master's explosive attack."

Deon's eyes gleamed like a fan boy's as he described the sword master's skills. Now Mikael knew why the boy was so fixated on the sword despite being a spearman from a kingdom of spears and also, why he was afraid of leading others as a prince since his first attempt was a failure.

"In the end, only I managed to escape." There was melancholy in the young prince's eyes as he whispered the words, "My brother and father came to get me with a legion of knights at their back. my father offered the swordmaster a noble title and position in the military as a reward for saving me. But to this day, I still wonder 'If I was a little smarter like Avery or stronger like Cail, could I have saved them? or 'If we just quietly waited for my father, could things have gone differently?' Since then, I grew scared of changing situations. I grew scared of my responsibility as royalty. That's when I became a coward."

--Chapter end--

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