Side Story Chapter 279

Side Story Chapter 279

“Those... are golems, right?” Anna asked.

Golems were stone relics from ancient times, made to run on an intricately designed concentration of mana. They were over ten meters tall and were as destructive as they were large. The higher their grade, the more smoothly the golems could move.

Anna looked upon legends from the age of magic brought to life, but they were a lot smaller than Anna had learned they were. In fact, they were barely over two meters, a little taller than ordinary adult males.

“It’s known that during the age of magic, the finest golems could fight like Masters. But those exceptional golems tended to be smaller,” Arash explained.

“Does that mean that all of these golems can fight like Masters?”

Arash nodded. “Yes. I admit that there are only five of them, but they live up to their reputation of being the Swallow Empire’s last guardians.”

Anna could imagine how destructive they would be in actual battle. She had been told that golems were so sturdy that even an aura attack couldn’t leave a scratch on them, so if they were equally agile...

“...Wait a minute, this doesn’t make any sense. How does Swallow have these golems?” Anna asked.

Anna could understand if the Terra Kingdom had golems like these, given that it was called the land of magic long ago; however, Swallow was the last country anyone would associate with magic. Undeveloped plains took up eighty percent of the empire, so the empire had a lot more skilled hunters than academics.

“Hahaha. Maybe you can use a little history lesson, Your Majesty.” Arash smiled gently.

“What?” Anna scowled at her.

Arash stroked the golem in front of her, ignoring Anna’s reaction. “Swallow is known for being built by conquest. The empire indiscriminately invaded and plundered the countries nearby, including the Terra Kingdom.”

“In other words, all of these are stolen goods?”

“The empire also kidnapped people. In fact, Swallow’s history can be summarized with one word: looting. It isn’t a proud history, but without it, the empire would have fallen behind long ago.”

There was a limit to what Swallow could do with only the ability to survive in the wilderness. Yôur favorite stories at novelhall.com

“What you’re saying is that Swallow stole these golems and kidnapped their creators and five of them became secret weapons that only follow the imperial family’s orders. Did I get that right?”

“Yes, you understood me correctly.”

“Fine. Okay. But that looks like you forgot that I’m an adopted daughter. Doesn’t this kind of stuff react to blood?” Anna asked, scanning the golems.

“From what I know about your father, he would already have taken care of that.”

“Get to the point.”

“Didn’t your father do anything strange to you when you were young?”

Anna flinched but tilted her head in confusion. “Something strange...?”

“Perhaps he kept feeding you something?”

“Ah!” Anna clapped in realization. “Come to think of it, he made me drink some red potion until I was ten years old because I was very fragile due to my innate gift as an elemental spirit mage. The potion tasted disgusting, so I still remember it.”

People who were born with the talent of an elemental spirit mage or a mage were born relatively weak.

“But I guess the potion wasn’t a normal stamina elixir.”

“Of course. In fact, Duke Voltaire is the one who started everything.”

“Now I can understand why he was that arrogant.” Anna’a face darkened. “In that case, that means he tried to control the entire empire with a puppet...”

Voltaire had been deceiving the entire empire for decades. On top of that, Anna also had Duke Killian to deal with. Just thinking about them was giving her a headache.

“...But I guess Duke Voltaire trusts you a lot,” Anna mused.

“Pardon?”

“If I were him, I wouldn’t have let you and I go to this secret chamber alone.”

Arash smiled bitterly. “Not exactly. I haven’t told you this because I don’t want to seem like I’m bragging, but it was quite difficult to persuade him.”

“How did you persuade him?”

“If I may...” Arash suddenly started to take off her clothes one by one.

Anna's eyes widened. “Wh-What the hell are you doing?”

“Please look over here.” Arash took off her undergarments and showed Anna her bare chest.

After a moment, Anna’s lip trembled. “That is...”

“Yes, it’s my Forbidden Seal.”

Light shone around Arash’s heart, and Anna could also smell the distinctive scent of a Forbidden Seal’s mana.

“I’ll probably die if I don’t tell Duke Voltaire everything that happened here,” Arash added. “Which is why I need your...”

Anna raised her hand, signaling Arash to stop while Anna sorted out the thoughts jumbled up in her head. In truth, Anna had come here without much thought because Arash had told her that there was a way to help Kireua.

“...I’m going to set all that aside for now and ask you a question. I want you to answer me as honestly as possible. Do you understand me?”

“I understand.” Arash nodded.

“You’re a fake member of the imperial family who has nothing to do with the empire, so what are you trying to accomplish here?”

Before discovering Arash’s true identity, Anna had thought that she was looking to get revenge. As brilliant as Anna was, it didn’t seem like she had any reason to be someone else’s puppet.

‘It doesn’t make sense that she's forced to follow orders because of her Forbidden Seal either. I would have killed myself long ago if I had to live like that,’ Anna thought skeptically.

On top of that, from what Anna had seen so far, Arash and Voltaire looked like equals, not master and servant.

“...Do you really want me to tell you why I’m here, despite everything?” Arash quietly asked.

“Go on. I’m not laying a finger on these golems until you tell me.”

“It might shock you...”

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Anna firmly answered.

Arash was silent for a tense moment.