The King of Tricks and Magic

Chapter 136: The Reunion Of Blue And Black

[ Name: Ren Arken

Age: 14

Race: Human

Strength: 400,000 (+4,300,000 [Mana])

Agility: 500,000 (+7,300,000 [Mana])

Vitality: 1,000,000 (+10,200,000 [Mana])

Mana: ~~~

Spiritual: ~~~

Intellect: 700, 000

Unique Skills:

-Magic cards -Appraisal -Evil gaze -Strengthen -Leap -Basic magics -Magic mastery -Grimoire of death -Real Clone [Heavenly Slime] -Eye of Wisdom -Sword God -Fenrir Arken -Reo Arken -Predator of the sky -Wild Beasts Skills -Knight’s soul -Defiler of the banished, Ataraxia -Slime Soul Diversion -Slime technique: Split -Tarot Emperor -Master of The Dragon King, Atlas]

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Peter, Albus, Alfred, Edreale, and Sen conversed for a while inside the king’s chamber. They talk about the current matter of the kingdom and teases Peter for some more time before leaving the king’s chamber.

Sera is the last one who is still inside the room. When she about to leave the room, Peter who realized that this is the rare chance where they could finally converse together as siblings finally decided to take the chance and muster his courage to call out his little sister.

“S-Sera!” Peter called out the name of his little sister.

Sera stopped her tracks, but she didn’t turn her head around.

“I…I always want to tell you… But it’s too dangerous back then, and I couldn’t find any good timing to tell you either. Please forgive me…” Peter asked for forgiveness.

Peter and Sera rarely communicate with each other. Even though Peter wanted to talk with her little sister, but somehow Sera is the one who had been distancing herself from him.

After hearing Peter’s apology, the little sister finally turns her head back. With a big smile and a tear at the corner of her eyes, she soothes her brother.

“Yes, I know, brother. I kind of have a feeling since a long time ago. Thank you for protecting and keeping me safe until now. And thank you for saving our beloved kingdom,” (Sera)

The image of a small girl that smiled with a carefree smile appeared inside Peter’s head. He felt a slight pain inside his chest when he remembered that smile.

“Your welcome, li’l sis…” (Peter)

(Even though the one who keeps on protecting you from the shadows is not me…) (Peter)

(That carefree smile had long gone… You sure have grown much and experienced a lot, Sera… I’m sorry I could only be at your side after a long time and leaving you striving alone all this time… But now, I’ll definitely help you and become a worthy brother for you!) (Peter)

On the other side, inside the headquarters of the Tarot legation, Slime is drinking his coffee as he reads the reports of his underlings.

“You don’t seem to be surprised,” Alfred’s voice appears from the shadows.

“Should I?” Asked Slime without batting an eye towards him.

“Well, not really. It’s just that it’s no fun that I couldn’t surprise you as I did to the others,” said Alfred as he shrugs.

“Really? They shouldn’t be able to get surprised by you anymore, aren’t they?” Said Slime indifferently.

“H-how the hell did you know that…?” (Alfred)

“Well, that’s how great my information network is, shadow assassin,” (Slime)

“Shadow assassin, huh? That name’s quite cool,” (Alfred)

“But well. Until when will you hide your identity like this?” Alfred suddenly asked an unexpected question with an unusually serious expression.

“I wonder what you’re talking about,” Slime feign ignorance and continues to read the reports in his hands.

“Stop pretending. I remember Ren once told me that he had a kingdom that exists of people from several races. But he never told me anything about an empire like that, so maybe at the time he told me about his kingdom, the kingdom hasn’t become an empire yet,” (Alfred)

“After the sudden demon outbreak three years ago, where 10,000 demons appeared out of nowhere, he disappeared after annihilating all of them and finally the words about the Tarot empire start to appear everywhere.” (Alfred)

“What a strange coincidence,” Despite his indifferent tone, Slime’s eyes start to go distant as he reminisces the journey of Ren Arken that exist inside his head.

“Y-you…” (Alfred)

Slam!!

Alfred grabs Slime by its collar and slams him towards the room’s wall. Slime should be able to evade or blocked it, but he chose to do nothing. And despite in an unusual state of anger, Alfred didn’t use any of his mana and slam Slime with his pure strength. He didn’t use it to make sure the walls won’t break when he slammed Slime to it.

(Master…) (Fenrir)

(It’s fine, Fenrir) (Slime)

Slime saw Alfred’s unusually angry face. His face reddens as his eyes stared Slime’s eyes with piercing eyes. On the other hand, Alfred looked at Slime that shows no will of resisting, and somehow the anger inside him swells even more.

“What are you thinking, Ren? You always hid things behind our backs. I know you have secrets, but even though you always helped us, you never let us helped you anything,” (Alfred)

“I wonder what you’re talking about, sir Alfred,” (Slime)

“Did you know? How Edreale and Sera cried every night because of your disappearance? How frustrated Sen, Albus, Peter, and I when we knew you disappeared without any traces? I felt very frustrated for the second time in my life! I felt so helpless, and now you came out of nowhere with a new identity?” (Alfred)

“You think that it’s cool to be a hero in the darkness and help us without showing the real you? We’ve been searching for you since you lost, and the sword saint lost his light on life because we couldn’t find anything. Edreale, Sen, the both of them are still suffering because they lost you…” The drop of tears starts to fell from Alfred’s eyes. The frank and loose mask of Alfred that was supposed to be a man that never felt anything and always smile finally disappeared in front of Slime.

“It has been so hard, losing you without being able to do anything, Ren… And yet, why are you pretending to be someone else…?” (Alfred)

Grab!

“?” Alfred felt Slime’s hand clutched his right arm that is currently grabbing Slime’s collar.

“So what should I do? I can’t show myself as ‘Ren Arken’ in this appearance. I don’t even know who I really am, all I know is I have my purpose on coming here,” (Slime)

“W-what do you mean?” (Alfred)

“I’m not even him, I’m not even his clone, I’m just a small part of his clone! How could I come out and suddenly say I’m him when I’m only a part, a personality imitation of him?” (Slime)

“Y-you’re not him?” (Alfred)

“I’m just a part of his Slime clone. The real body is resting inside the emperor’s chamber, inside a demonic sphere for three years,” (Slime)

Alfred finally loosens his grab at Slime’s collar.

“T-three years…?” (Alfred)

“Yes. It’s a kind of a curse. The real body is in a state of coma and anything that enters the demonic sphere will be annihilated into dust,” (Slime)

“I-impossible…” (Alfred)

“It’s not. Because in fact, that is the real truth. But strangely, all of us, his clones, are still alive without anything happened to us. We didn’t get unsummoned and only exist without knowing how could we save our real body,” (Slime)

Slime explained the whole situation towards Alfred just like how he explained everything to the old man Kyron. The information Alfred just heard overloaded his head as it shocked him.

“That’s plenty of reasons that enough for me to hide my identity from all of you. I don’t even know if the real body will have my memories transferred to him or not when he wakes up. So just ignore me, I’m just his moving will that had the pledge to protect all of you, I might be him, but at the same time, I’m not him,” (Slime)

“……..” Alfred got speechless as he heard from Slime.

He thought that Ren had been hiding as Slime because of some other reasons. As Ren had always been a figure full of mysteries, Alfred couldn’t figure what made him hide his identity. He thought that one of the possibilities is he hid because he is in danger but he still decides to protect them by hiding his identity and without asking them for help.

Looking at the sorrowful Edreale, Sen, Albus, Peter, and Sera pent up Alfred’s frustration for being incapable of saving and helping his first best friend. But as he interacts with Slime, he realized a nostalgic feeling that never disappears whenever he talks with him.

In the beginning, he originally planned to just dig some pieces of information that might be useful from Slime while testing whether he is indeed Ren Arken that hid his identity or not. But in the middle of doing that, when he saw Slime’s reaction when he mentioned the past they had, those eyes that are reminiscing the past made him lost his self-control and let out his pent up frustration.

The both of them released each other and finally regained their composure.

“Sit, I’ll make some drinks, I’ll answer all of your questions so wait here,” (Slime)

The reunion of the two friends that started with a slam to the wall finally ended up as a warm conversation that got accompanied by two cups of hot coffee.