SON OF THE HERO KING

Next to her, another person sat while hiding her features with a cloak, strands of purple hair could be seen if looked closely.

"My mother was always incredible."

The brown-haired girl didn't miss the bitterness hidden in those words. She knew that the relationship between this mother-daughter pair wasn't best.

Deciding to steer the discussion away, she continued,

"Still, why didn't you show your identity? We could have entered the royal VIP room and you would have finally met your cousins after a long time."

The purple-haired girl sighed wistfully as she said, "Today is an important day for Sol. I do not wish to become a source of distraction. It would not be too late to meet him later once this ends. Also–"

'I don't really want to meet her.'

The purple-haired girl didn't continue her words but her friend understood the unsaid words.

"Well, enough of that. I said that I wished you to understand our ways better. If you really want to become Sol's advisor, you can't just use the information found in books. I am pretty sure your race has a rather bad view of us and still see us as some kind of barbarians."

The Brown-haired girl sighed a little as she nodded, "Indeed. Some of our books call you uncultured apes or hairless baboons. Then again, we even see angels as smart pigeons, beast-kin as crazy beasts, demons as parasites, and Dwarves as greedy midgets. So nothing personal."

The purple-haired girl had to stop a rather unbecoming laugh from spilling. Though she understood that this wasn't an exaggeration. After all, elves were the most stuck up and prideful race in this world.

----

Sol clapped after Lilith's discourse and waited for her to reach her place in the lounge. Once there she sat silently and Sol, understanding that she didn't want to be disturbed simply congratulated and focused once again on the events.

He had personally asked Milia to place Lilith under surveillance and never leave her sight until the end of the week. Only then will he have the time and composure to face her.

He still reeled in shock at the revelation that basically 30% of the maid in the tower were direct members of the crown's shadow. This was truly a dangerous organization with weird beliefs. He trusted Milia and trusted her loyalty to the crown, but the heart was always unpredictable. She was just one out of 5 leaders of one branch of the crown's shadow. It wouldn't be weird for there were people with different ambitions.

'Sigh, I am not even king yet and I must already worry about controlling a super organization full of spies and assassins.'

Sighing again, he began to focus.

---

What happened next was a veritable festival. Wyverns were one of the rare but powerful flying-type beast species. All wyverns knights were people specially trained since they were young and who contracted with Wyverns. The second type of war beast were nightmare horses.

One thing to note was that while wyverns were seemingly related to dragons, the difference between a wyvern and a dragon was akin to the difference between a chimpanzee and a human.

Still, as it may, even though dragons looked down on wyverns, dragons looked down on basically all beings. They were the beasts under the sin of pride after all and so it didn't mean much. Incidentally, pride and Humility were the sins and virtues of the elven kingdom, Southern Pride, truly fitting.

Sol idly thought as he watched the different demonstration of flying abilities and acrobatics actions as the spectators awed and screamed.

His mind couldn't help but wander as he wondered if he could ever fly by himself one day. As an earthling, it wouldn't be a mistake to say that flying and magic were basically the greatest dreams humans had.

As such, even though he was technically superior to those wyverns, he really envied their ability to fly as they wished.

This impressive display of skills lasted for a certain moment before finally ending with the knights scattering colored powder from the sky, forming a magnificent and glittering rainbow made out of tens of colors.

What followed was a short pause filled with music and spectacles as the gladiators were preparing themselves.

Meanwhile, in the lounge, silence was king. As they observed all of this with a bored expression. Sol couldn't help but sigh wistfully at this.

Once the music stopped, the fights finally began and attracted his attention.

The gladiators were mostly humans and beast-kin. Though he could sometimes see a dwarf or a demon.

"Why are there no elves or angels?"

He asked, feeling suspicious. It was something he had remarked when he was younger but had never really paid attention to.

"Most gladiators are either slaves fighting for their freedom or adventurers who wish for fame and wealth."

It was Lilith who answered from the side, a crystal glass filled with a scarlet wine akin to blood. Taking a sip, she continued,

"Angels hate and despite useless fighting. They preach that only fights of philosophy and science are the acceptable way. Mostly it's because they are too lazy and usually prefer speaking rather than fighting."

Sol tilted his head at her way of phrasing but nodded nonetheless for her to continue.

"As for those stuck up elves-"A sneer of derision settled on her face,"-They would never set foot here without being forced to. They call us barbarians, but they are without a doubt the most brutal of all races. After all, they follow the way of nature."

'Then shouldn't they be peace-loving like angels?'

Seemingly understanding his confusion, Milia took over, "Your highness, most of what you learn from books about elves being peace-loving who wouldn't hurt anything are simply heresy. True elves follow the ways of nature, they see death as the most natural thing and think that any fight should either be a fight to the death or never happen. To be honest they are even crazier than Berserker demons."

Feeling his views about elves shatter, Sol began to inspect the fight again.

He was rather surprised. Even though the ones fighting were generally low-level gladiators, the way they handled energy was so slow and clumsy that he felt like he was watching 2 years old children trying to draw.

His confusion was further deepened by the praise they were receiving. Admittedly, their skills as fighters were clearly showcased, but that was all.

Aside from that, they didn't even clad their weapons in mana or used intent. They simply pumped mana through their bodies and fought using the boost it gave.

'Are they holding back?'

Sol thought of a rather reasonable explanation.

There was also the fact that perhaps he had been using rather exaggerated techniques without knowing, but he didn't want to assume anything.

Overconfidence was stupidity, but looking down on oneself was equally stupid.

He hesitated a little about simply asking, before deciding otherwise. There was nothing shameful in ignorance and one simply needed to ask, but he personally thought that he should find the answer for himself through his own observations first and only ask once he was stumped.

The value of simply receiving an answer and reaching it by yourself were quite different after all.