As for how the people in the palace would react, Ronan did not care in the slightest.
He had never once thought about fighting for the throne.
Running a country meant having to think about too many things.
It was exhausting.
Now that he had come to this world, what Ronan really wanted was just to lie flat and take it easy.
So he had never shown the slightest intention of seizing the throne, and for that same reason, he had always tried to avoid triggering that kind of quest.
What Ronan feared most right now was accidentally triggering a compulsory quest that forced him to become king.
Compulsory quests were different from normal quests.
Just as the name implied, compulsory quests could not be refused.
From what Ronan had learned over the years, if the same quest was triggered multiple times and he refused it, then after the third refusal, it would inevitably appear as a compulsory quest.
And the penalty for failing a compulsory quest was ten times the quest points he would have earned by completing it.
If his quest points ever dropped to zero, the panel would erase him on the spot.
Ronan still very much wanted to go on living, so he did his best to stay away from the main hall of the palace and avoided seeing the king.
Quests were triggered only when he met specific people or encountered specific events, after all.
The moment Ronan stepped through the palace gates with Beth and Alicia, the familiar sound of a quest completion notification echoed in his mind.
He glanced at the panel and saw his quest points jump from 90 to 100.
Ronan nodded in satisfaction and turned toward the side hall where he lived.
On the other side of the palace—
The king was still lying unconscious on his bed.
Ministers stood around him, along with the crown prince, Seki.
The king had been hit in the chest by a stray bullet. Fortunately, it had not struck his lungs or heart, and that was the only reason he had survived.
Seki, standing to one side, felt a twinge of disappointment in his heart, though on his face he still forced out a look of grief and anger.
"Investigate. We must find out who is behind these assassins!" Seki roared at the ministers in the room.
Seeing him lose his temper, none of the ministers said a word.
The king was not dead yet. It was not Seki's turn to be giving orders.
"Cough, cough!"
A heavy cough came from the bed. The king woke up.
"I'm not dead yet. No need to shout so loud."
His voice was weak, but it still carried a faint trace of royal authority—an invisible pressure built up over decades on the throne.
Seki froze for a moment when he saw his father wake, then hurried over and dropped to one knee beside the bed.
"Father, seeing you awake puts this son at ease. I swear I will drag out the people behind those assassins!"
Looking at Seki's expression, the king could easily guess what was going through his mind.
He knew his eldest son all too well. If he had died in this assassination attempt, the one who would have been happiest was probably this very son of his.
Even so, Seki was still a child he had raised for so many years, and the king did feel a deep affection for him.
Right now, though, the king ignored his performance and instead turned his gaze to the other ministers.
"Has everything in the plaza been dealt with?"
Seeing that his father was paying him no attention, Seki could only get to his feet in embarrassment and quietly move off to the side.
At the king's question, the commander of the palace guard, Gordon, stepped forward.
"Your Majesty, all of the assassins in the plaza have been eliminated. The unrest they caused has also been completely calmed."
Gordon had escorted the king back to the palace at the first possible moment.
Afterward, the guards who returned to the palace immediately reported everything they had seen to him.
When he first heard the report, Gordon himself had been full of disbelief.
Normally, almost no one in the palace paid any attention to Ronan at all.
As for Beth and Alicia, the two who followed at Ronan's side, Gordon only had a vague impression of them. He had never even figured out when exactly the pair had appeared around Ronan.
This time, though, judging from the guards' descriptions of the assassination in the plaza, even he would not stand a chance against Alicia.
No—he would be easily cut down by her.
Gordon repeated the guards' accounts in full in front of the king and everyone present.
When he finished, the room fell silent.
Even the king frowned deeply.
Seki in particular felt a strong sense of danger.
From childhood to now, he had never once looked his "younger brother" in the eye.
And now that younger brother suddenly had such a powerful guard at his side.
This gave Seki a very real sense of crisis.
If Ronan wanted the throne, the power of the palace alone would not be a match for that guard.
At that point, his own life and death would be entirely in Ronan's hands.
"No… absolutely not."
Seki made up his mind. He could not let that happen.
While everyone else was still stunned by what they had just heard, Seki stepped out.
"Father, little brother is only eight years old. His understanding of the world is still that of a child. Someone that strong suddenly appearing by his side… their intentions are probably not so simple."
The king fell silent for a moment.
He obviously understood Seki's little schemes, but what he said was not completely unreasonable either.
"What are you trying to say? You want to investigate that guard?"
Seki shook his head immediately.
Let him investigate? That would be asking him to die. Gordon had said himself that he was no match at all for her, and the entire palace combined was no match either.
"Father, we are a World Government member nation. If an enemy appears in our country that we cannot handle, the World Government has every reason to protect us. After all, we hand over so much Heavenly Tribute every year."
"Right now, we can't even be sure that the guard at Ronan's side is an enemy. If the World Government sends people and it turns out we were mistaken, what then?" the king said calmly.
"Father, we can simply report that there is a suspected enemy lurking by our side.
Hasn't there been a force in the country lately stirring up the people, inciting them to oppose our rule and oppose the World Government?
As long as we file a vague enough report, the World Government will definitely send someone to handle it!"
As he spoke, Seki's face gradually lit up with excitement.
The king said nothing.
Seeing this, Seki understood that his father had basically tacitly agreed to the plan.
Without any hesitation, he immediately sent someone to report the matter to the World Government.
The ministers present watched all of this unfold with cold eyes.
They understood perfectly well what Seki was doing.
To them, the dirty struggles inside the royal family did not matter as long as their own interests were not affected.
They were more than happy to watch the royal family fight among themselves.
Especially when it was the always-unfavored second prince on one side and Seki on the other.
Given the choice, they would naturally stand with Seki, the one most likely to become the next king.
None of them would speak up for Ronan.
(End of Chapter)
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