Chapter 38 - Cintra 31!

[Chapter Size: 2000 Words.]

Third Person POV

Northern kingdoms.

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Madara had woken up the next day, after having rested more than he had in recent days, which was satisfying for the boy. It didn't take long for him to sense someone approaching the door, knocking. He already knew that Eist must have summoned him that morning to the castle's training yard.

"I'll be there soon," he said from his room as he changed. He opened the door and walked out with a different guard than before, as the other seemed to be not quite well after the encounter with Madara the previous day. They headed to the training yard.

"I saw what you did to Caio," the guard suddenly said.

"Who is Caio?" Madara asked calmly.

"The guard you hurt yesterday," the man continued to complain.

Despite still seeming furious, he restrained himself, since this boy had the attention of his superiors. He also saw that it wasn't very simple to mess with someone who could just knock a guard to the ground, especially being a child.

"You're some kind of freak, aren't you? It's not possible for a child to be so strong," he couldn't help but ask along the way.

"It's none of your business," Madara said, ending any further conversation.

They continued to the yard, finding Queen Calanthe in the corner talking with Eist.

"You really are going to insist on this, aren't you?" she commented, looking at her husband.

"It's always good to have a good fight," he remarked, looking pleased as Madara approached. "It's not every day we have a child like this. Plus, someone has to train the princess, right?" he said as Cirilla appeared beside them in a training outfit.

She looked at Madara with a smile on her face. "Look at this! How do I look? I'm ready to enter the battlefield," the girl exclaimed.

Calanthe raised an eyebrow at this. "If you're as good with a needle as you are, Cirilla, I fear for our armies in your hands," Calanthe joked, mocking her granddaughter. After all, she was terrible at the arts of being a lady.

Cirilla, hearing this, dropped her shoulder and stuck out her tongue at her grandmother. "I am very good at this! But it's so boring and stupid," she said.

"Watch your language, young lady!" Calanthe scolded.

Cirilla shifted her gaze from her grandmother to Madara as he approached. "Madara, today I am going to fight you," she said proudly.

As soon as Madara and the guard arrived, the man knelt down. "My queen," he said beside Madara, who bowed his head as he always did in the presence of the queen, the princess, and the regent king.

"You should show respect to our queen, brat," the guard said with some frustration seeing this. But Calanthe raised her hand, asking him to stop.

"It's alright, you may go back," she said, and the man, somewhat reluctantly, nodded as he stomped back to where he came from.

Calanthe was about to speak to the boy, but her granddaughter seemed quite energetic, interrupting her. "Look, Madara," Cirilla began to bounce. "Which weapon should I choose?" she said, and Madara looked at her at that moment.

"Choose the one that suits you best, princess," he said.

"Princess, call me Ciri!" she complained.

"That wouldn't be proper, princess," Madara replied.

"He's right, Cirilla." Calanthe interrupted. "We should maintain etiquette, although the boy should behave better towards me." She turned back to Madara. "You know, I don't care much for that sort of thing from you," Calanthe admitted. After all, Madara was a child with great potential, so she saw no good in ordering him around. She continued, "But the issue isn't with me, but with others. You saw how the guard didn't like that. It would be good for you to have a bit better manners," she said with a more severe tone.

"I will try to be more careful," Madara said, nodding. After all, he was living there, and even he recognized that he should be respectful to the host and their rules since he had decided to stay.

"Well, I know the conversation is good and all, but we have a fight, this child and I," Eist interrupted, grabbing his axe.

"Wait a minute, what about me?" Cirilla complained, feeling left out.

"Princess," a new voice emerged, and it was Lord Commander, Sir Varys, appearing in his armor, displaying the characteristics of Cintra as leader of the royal guard. "I will be your trainer for now, my princess."

"But I wanted..." she started, hoping to have a fight like Madara was having.

"You are too hasty, my granddaughter. First, you must learn the basics, and then we'll talk about fighting in the future," Calanthe made clear.

"But..." Cirilla was stubborn.

"No buts, if you don't get through the basics, there won't even be basics, do we understand?" Calanthe said.

"Yes..." Ciri had no choice but to follow the man to train in the basics. Meanwhile, Madara picked up his short sword from the place where the weapons were kept, and Cirilla had to look at that and just settle for her training sword, made of wood.

Madara trained like the day before with the man, spending half an hour to an hour fighting calmly and trying to keep the pace against each other while the place filled up once again with curious onlookers including some royal guards training, and Cirilla doing her initial training.

Sometime later, Mousesack approached the queen in the courtyard and she nodded after he spoke with her. They left to go to the day's audience, since Madara had one day on, one day off of studies with Mousesack, but that didn't mean he wouldn't meet the mage later to pass on all the information he had gathered.

After the training, he said goodbye and returned to his room while the princess had to go to her sewing lessons without being able to escape this time.

Madara spent the rest of the day studying his book and was called by the mage for a meeting, attended only by Mousesack and the Lord Commander.

Madara picked up the papers and without saying much, handed them to the mage. He passed on the information he had and all the documents while they analyzed the map he had marked and the documents.

"This is interesting, so now we have evidence of some corrupt people in the streets? We already knew about some guards, but now we have concrete evidence to incriminate them," Sir Varys commented with some satisfaction, looking over the information, even though Madara couldn't read all of that currently.

"Now that we have only four days, can you handle the northern area? After all, this area is much more problematic due to having noble influence, since it's the richest part of the city, and closest to the castle," Mousesack asked.

"Yes," Madara nodded as he prepared to leave.

Meanwhile, there was another person in a place in the castle after the meeting between Madara, Mousesack, and Sir Varys. Taking a raven after writing a letter and sending it flying away.

Madara left the castle and quickly entered the northern region after passing the castle wall and began investigating the area, it was very different from anything he had seen so far among the gangs, there was no gang here, but people with businesses and their soldiers: owners of brothels, famous taverns, bathhouses, all these people with heavily armed guards.

Madara started searching for any clue in any places; he went to a famous house with bets on Gwent games but found nothing there after an hour on the roof of the place watching people play calmly while getting excited about the game itself.

He left there and found an interesting place, so he entered a bathhouse. No one saw him running on the roof like a spider, as he stopped behind a pillar, staying in its shadow, trying to discover anything since the map said this could be a suspect location according to Mousesack.

Everything seemed calm while the men, wrapped in towels, sat in the waters, talking, smoking, and drinking. There were some women also enjoying themselves on another side, and some men brought prostitutes, but Madara ignored all this, waiting to see anything that might help him there.

Until finally, a specific group appeared: a young noble by what he could tell, bringing some men who seemed to be gangsters with him paying for the place. They chose a sauna and stayed there drinking; Madara knew this young man was a suspect, he should be about 25 years old.

"Did you hear? It seems the guards are investigating our area," one of them commented to the other.

"Yeah, I know," another spoke nonchalantly, "but I doubt they can do much. Right, Lord Rushford?" He asked the young man who was their leader.

"Yes, but it's nothing we need to worry about," Junlian Rushford (OC) said calmly.

"Do you still have contact with that mage?" a friend of his asked.

"Yes, but now it's quite limited. He wants a specific boy, and I know where this boy is," he said.

"A boy? After everything we've captured?" The other questioned, given that they frequently captured children before the gang chaos, the mage offered something only he could provide.

"Yes, there's an important spy inside the castle," he spoke calmly and mockingly, "and the boy is there," he finished, leaving the others surprised.

'A spy... Who could it be...' Madara on the roof wondered, looking intently at the group secluded in a spot. 'Also, they don't seem to need money... why would they be working with the mage?' Madara couldn't help but wonder.

"Do you believe if I tell you this boy is special? That's why the mage is interested in him, they say he's some kind of witcher, we're preparing to capture him as soon as he comes into our territory..." He said, and Madara already ruled out Sir Varys as a spy, since these men would likely know if he were supposed to be here today.

"Could this be the monster who invaded the southern gangs and wiped them out?" one of them couldn't help but ask.

"I don't know, but I doubt he can enter any of our domains," he said with a malicious smile.

"Even Queen Calanthe can't touch me, after all, my father is a powerful man," he spoke calmly.

Madara just listened to all this. Afterward, they began talking about other things, related to prostitutes and some business. He left there and went to his belongings nearby and searched until he found a symbol with a key.

'They didn't expect me to be able to get in here...' Madara mocked internally and left the key there because he had to keep suspicion off himself for now.

He returned now to the city and went after the key symbol to investigate, finding the Rushford family's auction house, which belonged to that man's family. Although he didn't know much about the nobility of Cintra to know who he was, indeed it seemed like a powerful family.

He finally found an auction house in the richest part of the northern region. He entered secretly through one of the windows and checked the place. There was an office besides a small counter on the second floor where the auction was happening. He went to the office, which seemed more important and where there was a safe. He surveyed the area and knew that if he broke into the safe or tried to use the key he saw with the man from the bathhouse, it would alert his enemies. So, he only conducted a reconnaissance mission.

After a while, he decided to return to the castle, ending his investigation for the night.

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