The ceiling was made of wood. There was one bright candle shining on the bedside table. King 67 sat up groggily and was instantly attacked by a headache. Waves of pain fired through his head, increasing with intensity but easing a few seconds after, over and over again. With much difficulty, King 67 sat up, his back against the pillows. His vision started to clear as his headache eased, and in front of him sat…
“I see that you are awake. You have been sleeping for two days, in case you have not noticed. You are inside a hotel within the kingd-Ah, is that headache of yours gone?”
It was Edward, the man who had knocked King 67 down in the first place.
Edward sat on a wooden chair, facing King 67 with a smile on his face.
“Don’t tell me you were staring at me while I was asleep.”
“Ha, of course not! Rest assured that I was just reading my book!” Edward assured King 67, pointing towards his book on the bedside table. “Now that you have awoken though…I am sure you have many questions! Feel free to ask me anything!”
Of course King 67 had questions.
In fact, King 67 had already organised his thoughts into four questions.
“Alright then. Who are you? You seem to be clearly a prince, yet when I get to know you, you seem less and less like one.” King 67 asked his most pressing question.
Edward’s smile faded off his face.
“I am of royal blood. I can guarantee that. However, I am an illegitimate child.”
“An illegitimate child of whom?”
“Of the king of the Osworl, of course!”
Of course?
“If so, then who do you have brown hair and black eyes? Osworls are supposed to have orange hair.”
“I used dye for my hair. They were quite difficult to get, but I had to blend in as much as I could, didn’t I?”
“I see.”
“Pardon my rudeness, but you seem a bit short for an Osworl, no?” King 67 pressed. The average height for an Osworl is 190cm, but Edward is only around 180cm.
“I was malnourished as a child.”
…
…
“Allow me to move on to my second question then. Where is my money?” King 67 broke the silence.
“In my room.”
“I suppose you will not give it back to me, then?”
“Of course not. You lost the duel remember? No one would dare disobey the rules of a duel.”
Oh yes… the duel…
“That brings me to my third question.” King 67 said seriously.
Eagerly, Edward leaned forward.
“Why can you use glitch? You are not one of the nine jokers right?”
“Well, forgive me for answering a question with a question, but how much do you know about glitch?”
King 67 shrugged.
“Not much, just that they can use magic at their own free will, but they would need to say the name for their glitch to activate it.”
“I see. Allow me to explain.” Edward leaned back in his seat.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Magic is not the right term to describe glitch, more like...a special ability. Me, the nine jokers, we have all attained the power of glitch by coming to terms with ourselves?”
“Coming to terms with…?”
“It means accepting yourself and finding out what you stand for. It is much harder than people think.” Edward explained.
“Once you have completed this criteria, a voice will explain the glitch to you and how it works. Let’s call the owner of this voice X, since I have no idea who he is. Mine is “Sword of God” which allows my skill with a sword to go up by 200 percent. You see…”
Edward leaned in close to King 67 again, pointing at his nose.
“The only reason you survived is because I let you.”
King 67 flinched instinctively and grabbed his nose. It was then that he realised Edward had inflicted a scar upon his nose. It was a straight line from his left cheek to his right, passing through his nose bridge.
“Technically there are only nine registered glitch users, called the nine jokers. I am not one of them. But I am sure you are well aware of that.” Edward continued with a smile on his face.
“Oh, and Sword of God has a weakness, it can only be activated for five minutes.”
King 67 was surprised at the amount of information Edward was providing him.
“Would it not be unfavourable to you that you showed your glitch in front of so many people in your duel against me?” King 67 refuted.
“It matters not. Should they want to add me as the tenth joker, by all means, let them.”
Silence filled the room again.
“Alright, here is my fourth question-”
“Allow me to interrupt,” Edward stopped King 67. “First…what is your name?”
Fortunately, King 67 already had an alias ready.
“My name is Tom.”
“What an ordinary name.”
An ordinary name indeed-just what King 67 needed.
“Now,” King 67 continued, “What is your goal? It must be important considering the fact that you had to steal my lifetime’s worth of money.”
“Ah, a good question indeed. My goal…”
Edward paused for dramatic effect, pointing his index finger at his face.
“Is to kill the King of the Osworl. And you…”
Edward pointed at King 67.
“Shall help me in this goal if you want your money back.”
King 67 was stunned for a moment.
“Did you perhaps give up on getting the money back?” Edward asked.
“As long as you aid me in this journey, I will return your money back to you by the end of it. I swear upon my honour as a prince.”
“Why do you even need my assistance? I would not be of much help.”
Upon hearing this, Edward chuckled, “That is because you are special.”
Special? I was careful not to let slip anything about me, and I should have just looked like a confused person. I am quite sure I copied the facial expressions and even the body language correctly. Wait…no, I am being too hung up on this. There is nothing that could have led him to realise I am a king.
“We will be travelling to each of the three Kingdoms to prepare to overthrow the Osworl.” Edward pressed.
…
“Fine, I accept.”
“That is simply wonderful!” Edward beamed. “I will explain my plan to you, but before that, there is one thing you have to do.”
“I am sure you know that we need to fix our transportation, which is quite worn out. However, only the architect can fix this as we use a very complicated system called an “engine”.”
“E…gin?”
“No, engine. E-N-G-I-N-E.”
“And you see, the architect charges quite a lot for his services. So we might have to use your money.”
King 67’s eyes widened.
“Listen. There is something you can do. There is one rule the architect will never break—his motto, and everyone in this city knows it: Defeat the architect in a duel, and he will do anything for you, for free!”
“And so… fight him with me, if you want your money back.”
This… is really bad.
After all, the architect is one of the nine jokers.
————————————————————————
“So what did you think of him?” Selene asked Edward as she handed him his coat.
“I like him! He is extremely interesting.”
“Really? I don’t see anything special in him though.”
“No, no, no, that is where you are wrong, Selene. He is quite suspicious.”
“Well of course he’s suspicious, isn’t he? We don’t even know where he came from!”
“That is not what I mean.” Edward walked towards his room. “Throughout my whole interaction with him, his voice, body language, facial expressions, they were all of a confused and worried person. However, his eyes....they were never of a confused, worried or even scared person. It seemed…blank. I have yet to meet another human being like that. Furthermore, when I mentioned that he was “special”, he tensed up. Most importantly…”
“He has the same voice as the person who explained Sword of God to me…X.”
