Fairy Tale: Little Red Riding Hood's Wolf Mentor

"You two can sit down too. Don't be restrained."

The Leper King's words seemed a little dull because of the obstruction of the metal mask, but one could still hear the kindness and closeness in his words.

In his study, many heavy books are placed on the bookshelf.

Many maps and scrolls with numbers on them were still spread out on the table, and not far behind him was a painting covered with dark blue cloth.

After waiting for Poro and Lake to sit in their chairs, the king quickly tidied up his desk and opened the door.

She was a woman dressed simply but with elegant manners. She placed a teacup in front of each of the four people and poured light blue tea from the pot into them, which smelled fragrant.

Then she looked at the Leper King, smiled, and walked out of the house.

"This is tea produced in our kingdom, Qingxing Tea. It's considered one of our specialties. In peacetime, many nobles and merchants from foreign countries like to come to our country to purchase it."

At the leper king's suggestion, everyone sipped the tea, which was pure and refreshing, with a faint and vigorous sweetness.

"But it will probably be hard to get it in the near future."

"why?"

"Because just last week, I received news that the last tea field was burned down by the Sri Kingdom."

The Leper King spoke fluently, but several people still heard the undisguised anger and sorrow in his words.

"Would you like to hear the story of my child, the Star Child?"

The eyes behind the Leper King's mask looked at the few people with a bright look.

This was one of the reasons why they came here, so they did not refuse and nodded.

"You can probably tell I'm a leper. At that time, my condition had already made it impossible for me to have offspring."

The Leper King looked at the tea in front of him as he spoke. Although he was wearing a mask, he seemed to be in good mental state.

"And my queen is a witch."

"Witch?"

"Yes, she is called the Astrology Witch. You saw her just now. Didn't you see it?"

The Leper King chuckled. As he spoke, Lake and Poro remembered the woman who had just poured the tea. Although she was dressed simply, her temperament and etiquette were not that of an ordinary person.

"She used an ancient magic, using her blood and mine, to guide the starlight on a starry night. Thus, the Star Child was born. He is our child, but also the child of the stars. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with his name."

"Magic, can it be done to this extent?"

Poro was stunned for a moment. Although he had learned a lot of magic, as it was synonymous with miracles, he knew that what he had learned was only a small part of what magic could do.

For example, creating a child as strong as the Son of the Stars is indeed incredible.

"So, magic and stars can create new children?"

Lake also opened her eyes wide in surprise.

"But it's not that simple. All magic has some limitations. After all, we are not God. The birth of our child is already a rare miracle."

The Leper King smiled and continued, "According to the prophecy, I still need to train our child so that he can become an excellent king, but...

The stars have changed since a long time ago, and the invasion of the Sri Kingdom has left us no time to train our children."

At this point, the Leper King sighed and continued, "My army is completely powerless to resist the Kingdom of Sri, and my queen's magic is of no help in the battle.

Therefore, I had no choice but to remove the seal on the Son of the Stars and make him king."

"Tempering? The tempering in the prophecy? What does that mean?"

"If you haven't delved into the lives of ordinary people, you will never care about them. If you haven't experienced suffering, you won't have an unyielding will. If you only know how to solve everything with magic and force, you will no longer be able to improve your wisdom and become stupid and foolish..."

The Leper King sighed and looked at the starry sky outside the window. "Possessing power and authority that surpasses mortals will make him arrogant, but he is not a god after all. In the long run, his power will not be able to influence the entire country, and he will only become a cold, arrogant tyrant."

But the soul and mind are still as fragile as those of ordinary people."

"So, what you mean by sharpening is..."

"My queen and I originally wanted to seal his abilities and send him to the poorest village in the kingdom to grow up as a farmer's child, so that he could experience the sufferings of the world.

Arrange difficulties again and again to let him know how to use wisdom, and let him know kindness, responsibility and gratitude.

Only when he learned these did he possess the qualities necessary to ascend the throne.

As for those more statecraft strategies, the wisdom brought to him by the stars will make him feel at home."

The Leper King's voice became lower, but still calm:

"But in the end, due to the invasion of the Sri Kingdom and the changes in the stars, we didn't do that. He is our child after all. If we continue to do that, he will die in the war."

"But you just said that these trials and tribulations and arrangements were all conclusions drawn from the prophecy... Didn't you predict the impact of the Sri Kingdom?"

"No, the changes in the world have far exceeded my queen's horizons. The stars are collapsing. To this day, my queen can no longer make even a single complete prophecy."

The Leper King gave a bitter smile, turned around, turned the flower stand behind him towards the few people, lifted the cloth covering it, revealing the contents of the oil painting.

The oil painting is not finished, but you can still see that it is a picture of the starry sky.

But both the lines and the style above have a dizzying and chaotic feel.

"It seems that from one day on, the world has become different. Sometimes, I even suspect that I have come to another time and space. Everything should not be the way it is now. Fate has become strange and unpredictable. We can no longer predict the occurrence of anything.

It should be...more ordinary, simpler, and more beautiful."

Having said that, the Leper King paused, covered the painting again, and smiled at the few people, "Just treat these as my nonsense, don't take it to heart.

After all, humans are not gods, and it is impossible for them to try to see everything in the world clearly. It was because my vision was too narrow before.

"So, the character of the Star Child was also developed due to a lack of training?"

After hearing this, Lake and Poro did not discuss those mysterious things about the world, destiny, etc., but shifted the topic back to the Son of the Stars.

After all, the reason for coming here was to win this war. And in this war, the main force against King Sri was only this Son of the Stars.

"Yes. His great power and brilliant birth made him proud and complacent. He became king and no longer listened to any of my advice. He even... no longer considered me his father."

The Leper King gave a bitter laugh. "He feels that all of this is what he deserves, whether it's the position of king or the respect of the people - but this is wrong."

Lake and Poro also understood what the Leper King said. The Happy Prince also said that only a king who protects his people and makes their lives better is worthy of respect.

"But now, he does protect the citizens of Falling Star City."

The Leper King changed his tone and continued, "If he can truly defeat the Sri Kingdom and save more people who are about to be ravaged by the war, then all this respect and the position of king are what he deserves.

After all, I really can't resist the Sri Kingdom's offensive."

Seeing that the Leper King seemed to be a little lost, Lake said:

"It sounds like you are indeed a good king. Just as Oz said, the Kingdom of Sri is indeed very strong - this is not your fault."

"But the thoughts of those Sri people are much deeper than those of my son."

The Leper King took a deep breath and continued, “My queen’s last prophecy was that King Sri would be killed by the starlight on the day my son came of age.

But now the astronomical phenomena have made us all start to question the truth of the prophecy."

As he spoke, the Leper King looked at the others and said, "I hope it's true. I also want my last city to survive the war.

Therefore, I made a lot of preparations and collected a lot of information about the origin of the Sri Kingdom.

They've done a great job of keeping it secret, and I can only guess at most of it... Do you want to take a look?"

"Of course, we don't like to just wait and see."

Lake and the others looked at each other and replied, "In fact, we are here today to learn more about the Sri Kingdom and your child."

After that, the Leper King began to pull out a number of documents and materials from the bookshelf behind him one by one, opened them, pushed them to Lake and the others, and pointed to some key points in them and began to explain.

"Earlier, you should have seen King Sri and his attack methods, right?"

The Leper King opened a page of his notes, and on the first page, there appeared the image of a sword drawn with charcoal.

The Leper King's painting skills are very good. Lake and Poro have also seen the sword from a very close distance.

There is no doubt that this is the sword that King Sri wears at his waist.

"We have seen this sword..."

"Yes, King Sri. He is very young, but he possesses the ability to destroy any army with a single blow. Before attacking Starfall City, no one could even witness how he did it."

The Leper King flipped through the notebook, and Poro noticed that there were many pages of notes before the sword, and every page that was skipped was filled with densely written words and annotations.

The content is all speculation about the ability of King Sri.

"It's difficult to speculate on the truth behind a certain kind of magic. At first, I thought it was a powerful magic that he possessed, or a powerful invisible army..."

Unlike the real world where Poro was previously, the existence of magic in this world has led to more bizarre things happening, and it has become more difficult to infer the truth of related events.

In a world without magic, a person might be killed by a knife, a bottle, a rope, a baseball tube, or poison—all of which could be determined through an autopsy.

But in this world, people might die from having their hair picked up and a curse cast on them, or from being turned into a toad and being stepped on to death, or from other ridiculous but reasonable reasons.

"But now, I am certain that his power most likely comes from that sword."

The Leper King gave his conclusion.

He found some more materials and placed them in front of Lake and the others, including a map with many broken lines and annotations, and some historical records.

"Some of the conjectures I've deduced include the 'holy water' used by the Sri Kingdom's soldiers, and the bread that appeared out of thin air, their rations."

"They all come from the same place?"

"Yes, it was brought back from a place by this king when he was still a prince."

As the Leper King spoke, he pulled out the map from below. At the location of his finger, a box was marked behind the vast territory of the Sri Kingdom.
"I don't know where exactly this is, but it must be here!"

"How did you find out?"

"Through some rumors in the Sri Kingdom, I spent a lot of time verifying their truth. This prince had been traveling for a while, and these things appeared after he returned to the Sri Palace."

The Leper King then presented a lot of information and thoughts, and finally stopped the paper on the strangely shaped sword in the notebook.

"He first demonstrated his ability when the Sri Kingdom launched a war against a smaller nation. At that time, he carried this sword on his waist when he went to war."

“There should be more than just these, right?”

"Of course, during my many battles with him, I still have a lot of information... which was bought with the lives of my soldiers."

The Leper King's account was very coherent. "Before each killing, he would place his hand on the hilt of his sword, and before destroying an army, he would make a gesture as if swinging his sword—of course, this was only the most superficial aspect."

Having said that, the Leper King unfolded more paper scrolls below and laid them flat on the table to press them down.

Lake and Poro saw that there were a lot of dense calculations and geometric drawings on it, and on the other side, there were also many marked strategic illustrations.

"To win the war, we must defeat his sword... This is difficult. This prince himself is no ordinary man. It is no secret to me that the Kingdom of Sri is controlled by the devil."

"These are...the preparations you made to break his magic?"

After the Leper King took out the scrolls, Poro did not stop thinking and reading.

Even so, with the help of [Spiral Beacon: Witch] and [Spiral Beacon: Sage], he only understood a small part of it.

But there is no doubt that these are all unreserved thoughts and strategies extended by the Leper King through little details.

"Yes, what I am going to say next will be the most important part."

The eyes behind the Leper King's mask looked at the few people, revealing a serious and profound expression. "I must be prepared for the failure of my child. When that happens, facing the sword of King Sri, I cannot let my army and my people die without any chance of fighting back.

Even if we fail, we should at least bite off a piece of flesh from those Sri people!
There shouldn't be any unsolvable magic in this world." (End of this chapter)