Agatha The Legendary Guild Master

"The emperor? And what is your majesty doing outside the palace of yours?" I sarcastically asked as he seemed funny at the moment.

"It's actually a castle," he replied.

"What?!" I said as I didn't understand his reply.

"My ruling place there wasn't a palace, but a castle. It's the castle that the demon stole from my father after he killed him and ran away with it," he said with some pain in his voice. I could also sense deep hatred and anger underneath his calmness and silly smiles.

"Are you saying that the castle I'm here for was actually yours?" I asked with more doubt as his story was just unbelievable.

"Yes, that castle had some miraculous effects, as it can absorb any race and turn it into the race of its rightful owner," he vaguely replied in a way that confused me more.

"Please follow me on this, your father was killed and that castle which can make any race turn into yours was stolen by that demon. You were captured in the process or what?" I asked trying to understand more about what happened.

"Well, the castle was taken and there were many of my people inside. The caste was heavily guarded and it was the place of residence for many of the highly ranked officers and imperial officials.

When the castle was taken, I was on an outside conquest. There was a connection between the castle and my blood, so when my father died and the castle was stolen I could see all that.

I led my army to intercept that demon's army. In the end everything went south and I was captured alongside my army. I was forced to choose between my personal soldiers or the families captured inside the castle, however…"

He couldn't continue as the words were choked inside his throat. He was recalling painful events for him, but I had to understand what I got myself into.

That Arbandar castle and walls had this deep history, and the most strange thing of all was the possibility the castle was still under the demon control. That meant that move at the second layer of the sacred lands weren't just directed at me from an angry master and limited minded players, it came from the demons.

And those demons had many spies inside our side, plus they were the ones who were trying to spread chaos in the universe and prevent the witch's heir, me, from taking over the rule of this universe.

Strangely everything seemed to be connected, like random dots which turned out to form a grand picture.

All I needed to know was some info about the origin of the castle, and find a way to turn the ownership to me. if the castle really began to form humans, then that meant the situation in the Frod's empire was much worse than I thought.

It was all connected, and now I had to push further over this lost emperor to give me what I needed to know.

"Your soldiers just chose to save their families, there is nothing to blame yourself for here," I said as I patted on his shoulder before adding, "however right now I need to understand more. You just said this empire all came by the rule of the demons as the strongest and the founding race, right? How come then the emperor was your father? Weren't you sent here alone in a capsule?"

Prino looked at me silently for a moment before he sighed while saying:

"Anyone born here without any relatives like me would be adopted by a family. My family was of the human race, and they were kind and merciful. My father taught me everything I knew before, before that accident."

He then stopped as he took a deep breath before continuing:

"There was someone who came from the outside like you did. this person was injured and when my father found him he was already dead. Within his belongings, my father found a small castle that he said he felt some connection with. He then bound himself to the castle by blood, and that made the castle show its true form."

"What form?" I asked.

"It's a huge castle with long and sturdy walls. The castle called itself Arbandar castle, and what it could do made things here change dramatically. We could change any race to be human, and that meant we could unify the whole world under our control.

However the demon invasion happened. the demon leading all this was attracted to here looking for the castle. He couldn't find a way to separate the castle from my father, so he decided to leave him be the emperor and he would be his great general.

He thought my father was a human and he would eventually die, but as myself my father was an immortal blessed with eternal life. After the passage of the first hundred years, things became clear to that demon.

My father wouldn't die, naturally perhaps. So he began to search for a way to obtain the ownership of the castle to himself," Prino explained slowly everything that happened.

It was a bizarre story, and painful too. It seemed that the demon was connected to the castle, perhaps he came here looking for answers like I too.

"You don���t believe me, don't you?" he asked as he noticed my silence with a frown over my face.

"No, I was just thinking about something," I said before I paused. There was that strange feeling that I knew something but couldn't really put my hand over it.

"Ah, you must be confused about how the castle ownership had changed, right?" Prino said.

"Ah, that's important for me too as I have to change the ownership again," I said while taking a deep breath.

"Change the ownership again? what do you mean?" Prino asked.

"Oh, it's a long story, never mind it," I replied.

"Please, I insist," he was so fixated on knowing the details. I just looked at him before I summed the situation up.

"The castle of yours, the Arbandar castle, appeared in the hands of my enemies, the demons. They plan to control a whole place, a crucial one. If I didn't stop them, not only I would die, but also everyone else there would die.

I need to stop that castle, and to do so I must own that castle so I could control it. to do so, I had entered a dungeon which was supposed to make me gain full control over the castle."

"However you ended up being in the demon world, and that was where we met," Prino said before he sighed, "that makes sense now."

"What makes sense here?!" I asked with doubt as everything right now was a mess.

"Because the only person who can change the ownership of that castle is the rightful owner of it," Prino replied.

"Which is that demon, isn't there another way to do it? The dungeon was supposed to help me control the castle," I said as I felt as I played. My head was beginning to feel heavy as if this was true then I came all the way to here for nothing.

"No, the dungeon was supposed to lead you to me," he said.

"What the hell does that mean? I have to listen to the whole story to know there is no hope left?" I argued with a shout of desperation and pain.

"No, there is hope. I'm not here to tell you about that history. you were sent to me because I'm still the owner of that castle," he said his bomb which made my body tremble and literally freeze.

"What do you mean? Didn't you transfer the ownership to that demon?" I asked with a trembling voice.

"No, the issue is there is no way to give the castle to someone except through a secret way the demon doesn't know yet. So the only option he had back then was to force me to appoint him as acting leader of the castle. And by sending me to his demon world, I was separated from my castle, so…"

"So he became the acting chief of the castle and began to control it," I muttered as suddenly everything lit up in my mind and the whole picture became clear to me.

"Exactly, so the dungeon inside the castle is nothing but a teleportation portal to lead whoever wants to free the castle from the demons to me," Prino said.

"Now what?" I asked as this wasn't as I expected at all. I didn't expect to find someone to solve the problem of the castle, not a thing. I imagined a key or some sort of a contract to be signed.

I even imagined facing a great boss monster at the end of the road, however I didn't imagine it to be a person, and someone I met once I entered that demon world.

It seemed we were fated to meet, as these things didn't seem to be that coincidental at all.

"There are two options ahead of us right now, the first is to return together to your world and let me undo what that demon did," Prino said before pausing.

"That would be great, after all you help me and then we can take revenge on that demon together," I said, trying to draw a picture of our future together.

"Well, considering the fact that once I appear there I would be threatened again by the soldiers he still kept inside the castle plus some of my best friends and families, well that seemed not to be the best option here," he said.

"Then, what is the best option? The second option?" I asked with some doubt.

"Yes, which is to teach you the secret way, the other way to control the castle, truly control and own it. what do you think?" he said with his silly smile over his face again.

How could I say no to his offer? But why do I feel this sad and pain when I thought about accepting his offer?