Galen - The Untold Tales of Frelanna Forest

Arc 3 - Chap 34: The griefful king

The sun began to descend to the horizon, it was the most favorite moment in day of Venon – The King of Tredia.

After finishing all the works in the palace, since the day Galen left the Palace, the king joined the dinner later than usual. Instead, he preferred to stay alone in his personal office desk. The servants thought that he was amazing to keep doing the job even the working time had ended.

But he had another reason to do that.

Venon’s office chair directed to the window being fulfilled by the light of sunset. He remained silent, led his sight to the far like a soulless person.

He then looked at the giant picture being carefully put on the wall. It was a drawing picture, but it was detailed enough to recall him the persons he used to be with in the past.

The picture drew a family with three members.

A young handsome man with shiny silver eyes showing his noble atmosphere with the golden crown on his ponytail blond hair, that amazing guy was the king himself 25 years ago.

He was standing next to a young woman who was sitting on the chair with the queen’s crown, seemed she was just at the beginning of 18 or 19 years old. She was a beautiful Asian type girl with her particular long smooth black hair. Her half-opened agate-colored eyes showed her calm personality, glittering like water. 

The third one… on the woman’s hand, there was a roll of white blanket, showed a face of a baby look a like with her father. He had the eyes of his mother and the blond hair of his father, smiling in front of the present Venon eternally.

Sadly, 20 years later, among three members of the family, he was the only one who was still standing in this world…

***

“Have you found any water resource?!”

“Your Majesty, my deeply apology! All rivers of our country have been heavily polluted. We cannot use them anymore!!”

“Let’s find more! We shall not give up! This kingdom’s life is now on our hand!!”

At that moment, Venon was still like the person in that picture. He was a loved king by the civilians by his intelligence and the kindness toward the kingdom.

Currently, Venon was wearing his casual outfit as a knight, rode his horse with the royal troop for the investigation at the nearby provinces. The sky above him had been colored by an ominous black color, bringing something not good going to happen.

20 years ago, there was a terrible crisis fell on not only Tredia Kingdom, but also every countries within Tenica Continents. The rampage of the dragons had caused the unbalance of the nature in the world. They destroyed everything on their way, no matter their victims were a plant, a species or a human. Some places in Tenica Continent had turned into the deserts from a jungle in just few years, pushed the food supply had becoming rarer and rarer.

It was the reason why the chaos between the humanity began, and the war had exploded. A kingdom had to attack another one in order to steal their most necessary life supplies to survive.

Tredia wasn’t an exception as well, being dragged into the twist of the war. Despite Venon had already successfully beaten many kingdoms in the war with his gifted intelligence, his leadership and his talented combating skill, the outlander enemies still try to target his kingdom. How could they ignore this such delicious bait – A country of prosperity with full of high-quality manpower, but being ruled by a politically unexperienced king?      

In front of this such big problem, they believed they never won Tredia if directly attacking them.

So the best way, was weakening and killing them slowly: Poison all of their water resource.

Venon had a sleepless night after being shocked as he knew it was them who trying to kill them. But sitting there without doing anything would be just wasting the time. Venon immediately stood up from the drone, covered himself the king’s coat and ordered everyone in the Palace to resolve the solution with him.

The alchemy team would take care on the task: Research how to purify the water. Meanwhile, while keeping the survivability for the kingdom until the alchemy team finished their job, Venon himself would lead the entire royal troops to distribute around Tredia’s territory, in order to find another water resource. He would also take all the responsibility to do the negotiation – ask the nearby other kingdoms for clean water.

There were countless of water element mages and novice magic casters who also sacrificed themselves to convert their aura energy into natural water to keep the kingdom survive. Each of them fallen, Venon still carefully built a proper grave and promote them into Tredian Biggest Honorable Mages.

But it was just temporary solution. They need to look for a permanent clean water from the nature.

Venon wanted to finish this as fast as possible, not only because he didn’t want to let everyone’s scarify being in vain. But also, his 5 years old son – Olen was dying at the palace due to being dehydrated. His wife – Queen Clara also passed away 1 year ago just because of the same sickness of his. He didn’t want Olen to leave him like how his wife did, since his child is now everything left from him!!

However, …

“Are you serious?! 500 COINS OF GOLD FOR ONE BIO OF WATER?!” (In this world, 1 bio is equivalent to 1.5 litter)

“Yes, that’s our cheapest offer price.” King of Balony – a fat ugly man looked at Venon while smirking “The other kingdoms would sell more expensive than it so you came to me, right? Come on, I know your kingdom is rich so this such money wouldn’t be a problem, hohoho.”

Venon clenched his fist. That bastard dared to gain benefit from the crisis of other people. One day, he swore he would give that greedy king a punch to his face.

But choosing between the money and the life of not only his child, also everyone who was waiting for him to rescue them…

He didn’t have other choice. After all, money can be gained back while human’s life cannot.

1 day later, Venon wanted to negotiate with King of Balony again. This time, he came back with the soldiers who were making a line. On their hand, they were carrying countless chests of gold that shocked the entire noble members of Balony Palace.

“HERE, TAKE THIS!!”

Venon roared in anger, right at the throne of Balony Palace. With this such of gold, he believed that he could supply 4000 bios of clean water for his kingdom. To spend this such money, Venon painfully had to open the palace’s budget to pay for that greedy king.

“Hoho! Very nice!! I will prepare the clean water as your request properly!” The king then ordered the soldiers to get the water immediately “I’m looking forward our cooperation in the future.”

“Not only you, this world will pay for this.” Venon left the throne, he didn’t forget to throw the king a cold glance that gave everyone shiver to their spine.

***

“OLEN!!!”

Venon rushed himself to his son’s room while bringing a bottle of clean water by himself. He ran as fast as possible with the hope that everything hadn’t gone late yet.

He pushed the door violently. The next second afterward, Venon felt like his body had been frozen. His foot had grown the root and keep him staying, while his mind got blanked away.  

The servants, the maids looked at Venon, with the mixed feeling between sadness and fear. Behind them was the king-sized bed colored by an elegant red. But the one who was lying on that bed was immobilized.

His entire small body had been covered by his own blanket, even his face. Even with the voice of Venon, he didn’t have any reaction.

“Your Highness…” The leader of the servants almost wanted to cry “We… We’re so sorry…”

It can’t be! Venon’s hand trembled. He slowly came close to Olen while trembling like a broken doll. His heart kept racing faster and faster and felt like something invisible was trying to squeeze it hardly.

When he lifted up the blanket. It was Olen and he was still sleeping like an angel. His lips and his face skin were too dry, it was the consequence of being dehydrated for too long.

“Olen… it’s me your father… I brought you the water as you asked me…”

Venon opened the bottle water and fed on Olen’s mouth. But Olen never woke up anymore…

“Olen… please…”

Everyone never expected, a strong man of Tredia Kingdom who is also their pillar of hope and strength, also didn’t stop shedding his tears.

“Please, son… wake up…

Your… water… is here…”

Venon hugged his dead son. The bottle of water also dropped down and splatted on the floor…

***

Venon gave a sigh when remembering everything happened 20 years ago. Every sunsets, it was when Clara, Olen and he preferred to go the palace’s garden to play along together. Until the nighttime, they looked at the sky to watch the shining stars.

He believed one star will be a person who passed away and watch them from the sky. Oh… Venon got emotional when he could notice the stars begin shining as the sun completely went down and replace by a beautiful galaxy sky. Maybe Clara and Olen were watching him as well, so he wished him to be fine as well.

After their death, Venon met Eino (Actually, at first Eino gave him an impression of an Asian type woman like Clara as well). Miraculously, Eino helped him, guided him the way to successfully lead the kingdom and overcome the crisis. He launched back the war to destroy every kingdoms to kill his family. After killing them, the next target he would prioritize the most was Frelanna, which was the beginning of those tragedies.

How ironic it was back then… Between the destructive fire, he met the little prince who looked at him while not being aware what just happened to his family, Venon let his kindness being awaken again.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Ga… Galen.”

Olen and Galen. Coincidentally, their name sounded so alike each other.

The first thought appearing inside Venon’s head: Galen might be the reincarnation of Olen. But he looked at his eyes, which were completely different: If Olen was an energetic child, Galen brought him a peace with his calm personality.

Thought about that, suddenly, a ray of green light shined from Galen’s chest, Venon didn’t understand why, just after being impacted by that light, it gave his heart a hard and painful punch.

What tragic this little child was when he was born with a lost family, caused by Venon himself. That was why, he will adopt Galen. He will grow Galen as the replacement of Olen with his empty fatherhood, that Venon thought that he would never experience it again.

…

In Venon’s eyes, Galen had some similar yet different points than Olen. Since his childhood, like Olen, Galen was really smart and loved reading. There was just a difference, Olen back then likes fighting, while Galen was mage oriented. He could even learn magic spell by himself, Venon knew it too and he was very proud of him!

Venon loves Galen very much, as a father. But their happiness couldn’t last longer.

The more Galen grew up, the more Eino was also changing…

Venon noticed it too when he realized that Eino trying to mind-control him more and more often lately. But Tredia Kingdom would become nothing without her, so he couldn’t expel her. Even if he wanted to do that, he couldn’t as well.

There was a time where Eino and he had a hidden duel each other. But his old age had weakened his power a lot that he pathetically lost against her – a powerful WEREDRAGON. He bit his lips, he had no other choice than becoming her marionette, since she said she would not hurt Galen if the king did everything as she ordered.

Venon never trusted Eino. He had to find a way to set free Galen from that woman…

…or worse, he had to kill Galen by himself. So, if both Galen and he died, his son’s future wouldn’t suffer in the twist of the war anymore.

After many days considering, he had chosen the path to trust Galen instead.

When Eino mind-controlled him to kill Galen in the war against Balony Kingdom, he tried his best to gain his consciousness back and pushed him to the cliff. According to Eino’s strategic plan, Venon remembered very well the structure of the enemy’s kingdom: There was a huge system flow of groundwater running beneath this kingdom. If Galen fall into the c***k near the palace, he would fell into it to escape away.

“Take care, my son…” That was what he could still remember before Eino mind-controlled him again.

One year had passed, Venon wondered how Galen is doing now…

***

While losing himself in the memory, Eino knocked his office door.

“Your Majesty, I have got a piece of good news for you.”

“What is it?”

Then, Venon’s heart stopped beating when hearing Eino’s answer: “I have found the sign of Galen’s aura energy. He is still alive.”

But she promised that she would let Galen free if he did everything she said?

No! With any cost, he had to stop her finding Galen!!