Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Southern Capital, City Outskirts
"Wyatt, you don’t plan to leave without saying hello, do you?" Colleen asked, lounging on a sofa-shaped cloud. The cloud twisted as she reclined on it with the grace of a queen on her throne as her gaze fixed on a familiar, repulsive figure beside her future grandson-in-law.
"Your Highness, it has been a while," I returned the greetings, coming to a halt, finding the Soldier Queen blocking our path. I only had the patience to entertain her because the foreign string of rule power that mixed with my soul was a boon from the Card Celestial, actually a choice, to be exact.
"It has been a while. I see your present company has turned for the worse. It seems Ann’s guess was right. You did provide sanctuary to this deviant," Colleen remarked, glancing over the three of us.
She eyed Demigod Redfall with a hatred befitting someone meeting the murderer who killed her entire family. A story was here. At his peak, Redfall ruined the lives of many card apprentices, regardless of their gender or alliance. Some of those unfortunate card apprentices were Colleen’s own army comrades. To make it worse, he even targeted members of the Southern Royal Family and their vassal families.
Everyone knew one thing about the Soldier Queen for sure: she was fiercely loyal.
When her old regiment was trapped at the northern border by the Northern Army, Colleen learned of it and immediately headed north. Leveraging her position as the Queen of the Southern Region, she offered herself to the Northerners in exchange for her old regiment, ignoring all the warnings and threats of the Southern Royal family and court.
Unsurprisingly, the Northern Field Marshal Morrigan did not agree. Not wanting to offend the Southern Ruler, who went against his entire family to marry the Soldier Queen. Instead, he proposed a devious wager: For every card emperor she defeated from his army, he would let one of her comrades go.
Obviously, the Soldier Queen accepted the wager. However, her chilling reply still echoed in those mountains: "You don’t have enough Card Emperors in your field army."
Provoked, the Northern Field Marshal, Morrigan, modified the wager. He claimed that if the Soldier Queen could defeat every Card Emperor in his Field Army, he would let her entire regiment go. He was certain she would die of exhaustion long before she could defeat all 1,435 of them.
However, Morrigan soon learned that he had seriously underestimated the Soldier Queen and would come to see what the Southern Ruler saw in her. The Soldier Queen defeated all her opponents efficiently and swiftly. Still, 1,435 was a huge number, but she proceeded with the wager anyway because she had a plan.
She took advantage of the fact that a Northerner would choose death over surrendering to a Southerner and vice versa. She would put them in a submission hold. While the stubborn northerner struggled between surrendering or helping the enemy, she got ample time to recover her strength.
It appeared that if things continued this way, she would win the wager and prove Morrigan wrong. However, to everyone’s surprise, by the last week of the fourth month of the wager, after the Soldier Queen defeated her thousandth opponent, the Northern Field Marshal, Morrigan, offered a compromise.
Impressed by her loyalty, commitment, and sheer will, he not only released her regiment with the utmost respect but also crowned her with the title: Unparalleled Soldier, commending her unparalleled loyalty to her old regiment and her unparalleled display of willpower by defeating a thousand card emperors in a row.
So, explaining why I sheltered Demigod Redfall, who ruined the lives of Colleen’s comrades and relatives, to her wasn’t going to be easy. I was fully prepared for this to get messy. Hopefully, the Southern Royal family wouldn’t force me.
"I take it he’s one of the first members of your criminal rehabilitation and reintegration program," Colleen remarked, jumping the gun and thinking of a reason why her brilliant grandson-in-law would bother with the likes of Redfall. However, her glare at Redfall intensified with every word, and her hands balled into fists. Only she knew how much control it took on her part not to attack him.
I nodded, but felt an urgent need to explain myself. Making a mental note to get to the source of these feelings later, I began, "I have plans for him. With the second demon invasion on the brink, I need all the talent I can get to stop it from happening. Also, by then, if he fails to prove himself with his actions, I will leave it to you to decide his fate."
As Colleen listened, a subtle smile appeared on her face along with a brief twinkle in her eyes, seeing I bothered to explain without her having to press me for it. Clearly, she saw this as a sign of progress in our relationship.
Instead of feeling cringe, a sudden sense of relief washed over me. I didn’t understand why I felt this guilt or this need for her validation. If I had to guess, aside from Anna and Ann, she was the only person in the Royal Heatsend family who treated me genuinely. I found her presence was both warm and reassuring, similar to Field Marshal Lorn’s. I guess it was the soldier in them that made me feel safe around them.
"Young man, you have big ambitions," Colleen encouraged, "I hope you succeed and prolong the peace our predecessors and friends had fought and sacrificed for." She didn’t take her grandson-in-law’s words lightly. She had seen him pull off enough miracles to truly believe in him. If anyone could think of a way to stop the impending demon invasion, it would be him. Follow current novels on 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩⚫𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢⚫𝔫𝔢𝔱
As for Redfall, if Death had given him a second chance, she figured she could, too. But she would be watching him closely. One wrong move, and her generosity would end, even if it meant offending her grandson-in-law.
"Anyway, where’s my sister-in-law? I haven’t been able to reach her. You didn’t get her killed, did you?" Colleen asked making it sound like a casual enquiry but she seemed genuinely concerned about the Field Marshal’s whereabouts and wellbeing even though the latter had indeed switched her allegiance from her daughter to her grandson-in-law, but Colleen didn’t see the point in being hung up on details and dwelling on grudges. Circumstances change, and so do people. They’d all lived long enough to know that much. Not to mention, they were all one family.