Chapter-19
Draconic Appearance
After Ha-Jin had walked away, the crowd of hundreds of thousands dispersed. Ha-Jin walked to the infirmary to check up on the Emperor. He couldn't help but be worried about the Emperor suddenly falling like that.
Once he reached the infirmary, he was greeted by the sight of the Emperor sitting up with 3 doctors surrounding him.
"How are you feeling?" Ha-Jin asked bluntly whilst walking closer to the infirmary bed.
"Good, good." The Emperor said, looking at Ha-Jin, studying his entire body and each movement carefully.
Why hadn't the rune from the initiation worked?
Just what was this boy truly?
"What is it?" Ha-Jin asked, tilting his head to the side while he spoke.
"It's nothing, nothing indeed!" The Emperor cried out before reaching for something in the pocket of his mantle.
Before he could show it to Ha-Jin, the doors flung open to the sides, their hinges coming loose as they crashed onto the walls. Ha-Jin looked back in surprise as the dust relented, revealing three figures.
The figures belonged to the three Crownshield siblings as they rushed to their father's side, immediately bombarding him with questions of his health.
"What the hell happened there?! Was it this asshole?! Is he just trying to consume your wealth after all?!" Arthur cried out, his face contorted into a scowl as he snarled at Ha-Jin who was standing beside the three siblings.
"Now, now." The Emperor spoke, interrupting their unrelenting wave of questions. "We do not speak to a person of high status in the Royal Army like that!" He scolded Arthur gently which made Arthur let out a "tch" as he looked away from his father.
Ha-Jin shot Arthur a mocking grin which made a vein pop up on Arthur's forehead as he balled his hands into fists by his sides.
Darius seemed like the only one genuinely concerned. "It is but a miracle that Ha-Jin was there to at least comfort our father until the medics arrived." He said, shooting Alexandra and Arthur expectant gazes as the two muttered a thank you under their breaths.
Ha-Jin paid no heed to the flattery and instead stood there silently looking at the Emperor expectantly to show him what he was going to until they were so rudely interrupted.
The Emperor let out a cough which the three recognised as the signal to disperse from the room. The Emperor then proceeded to take out the item out of his mantle. The old man then extended his fist towards the boy before him and slowly opened it. The gold crown insignia glinted in the light from the light artifact as Ha-Jin stared at it, a smirk tugging at his lips as he silently tried to take the insignia from the Emperor's hand. His smirk vanished as the Emperor tutted, retreating his hand. "You don't just get it like that!" The Emperor said with a chuckle at his ignorance. Though, he couldn't blame the boy for he was unfamiliar with such rituals of initiation. "You must swear an oath to the Royal Family to get this insignia—this insignia exists for special cases like you that reject the Rune of Royalty!"
"What's up with all these stupid and insignificant ceremonies around here? Tch." Ha-Jin scoffed before looking back up to meet the Emperor's gaze. "Alright, what is it?" He asked, a bored expression on his face.
"Repeat after me." The Emperor said in a louder tone, looking around once more to confirm whether anybody was present in the room or not. "I, Jin Silverthorn, swear my obligence to the Crownshields." The Emperor paused for a moment, waiting for Ha-Jin to repeat his words.
Ha-Jin mumbled the words out, slightly cringing at his own voice. "To the citizens of Drakrath." The Emperor continued, the corners of his lips twitching as he tried his hardest to keep a straight face.
Ha-Jin once again mumbled out the words, his voice lowered this time as his face contorted into a scowl looking at the Emperor's face.
"And to the Royal Army." The Emperor finished, his lips instantly curling into a smirk as Ha-Jin finished his oath along with him.
"I'm never doing one of these oath thingies ever again." Ha-Jin scoffed, his face a downright scowl now. Though, there was a hint of amusement in his expression, he couldn't help but be amused at the prestigious old man's tactics.
The Emperor finally handed him the glinting gold crown insignia. "Now then, today there will be a meeting this evening and you have to be present there as well." He said while handing the boy the insignia in his hands. "And there are some… most interesting matters that may pique your interest." he added, piquing Ha-Jin's interest.
***
A few hours passed as the evening sun casted a warm, reddish light over the Capital.
It was time for the meeting.
Ha-Jin walked around the palace, a map in hand as he studied it closely, navigating through the ginormous palace using the map. He was so immersed in studying the map, he didn't notice the two people—man and woman—before him. He bumped into them, bringing his stride to an abrupt halt. "Ah, sorry!" Ha-Jin cried out, putting up a kind act to pass off as the Royal Army's Commander.
A shudder ran through his entire body as the dark, hateful gazes of the man and woman landed on him. Their pressuring gazes subsided soon after they looked down at the boy in front of them. "Oh! Sorry, we mistook you for someone else!" The woman cried out, her face brightening up into a smile.
Ha-Jin didn't fall for this false act of friendship, he could see the suspicion in her expression. The man's analytical gaze landed upon the map held tightly in the boy's grasp.
"You must be looking for the meeting room." The man said, a faint smile that didn't quite reach his eyes playing on his lips as he added, "Just take a left turn and enter that room."
Ha-Jin bowed curtly to the man and woman, quick to leave. Something wasn't right with these two and he did not wish to stay and find out exactly what it really was.
Ha-Jin let out a breath he didn't notice he was holding as he walked away from their brief interaction. He turned left as the man had described, opening the doors to the meeting room with a soft creak.
A slight sound of doom sounded in Ha-Jin's head as his pupils dilated. "What the… actual… fuck is this… pressure?!" He brooded, scanning the area as he spotted 16 people sitting next to each other in pairs of a man and woman in a circle around a large table.
With a cough of the Emperor, the 16 people redirected their gazes to the old man as he spoke. "Enough of murderous intent, we are here to discuss an important matter, not to dwell on the past actions of a once irrational boy." The Emperor reprimanded the people sitting around the table.
The Emperor nodded briefly at Ha-Jin as he sat down on the chair across the Emperor.
When Ha-Jin was seated, the secretary, wearing a black suit and pants over a white shirt and tie, his hair neatly combed back, arose from him chair in front of the chair in front of the board which was powered by a rune-powered projection artifact. That was all Ha-Jin knew of the device, he did not even know what a rune was and how it worked yet.
"We will now commence with the annual Royal Meeting." The secretary announced, directing everyone's attention to the board.
"This meeting, we have a very unusual problem." The secretary said, his eyes darkening as he maintained his stoic expression. "We have spotted a discarded body near the shores of the continent. After closely examining this discarded body, we have come to a conclusion." The secretary continued, pausing briefly as the curiosity of the people peaked from the suspense.
"The discarded body belongs to a dragon."
The room was immediately filled with thick murderous intent, leaving Ha-Jin wondering why the dragons were even detested so much. They had merely endangered the safety of the conti—he got it now.
One of the men slammed their fist on the table, splitting it unevenly from between as it crashed onto the floor.
"Stark Ironwood!" One of the other men barked out, landing a murderous gaze on said 'Stark Ironwood.'
The secretary glanced before the two men before letting out a deep tired sigh. "This is not the time to be fighting." The secretary called out. "This is an emergency for the entire continent and the ni—er Eight Great Families must cooperate for the betterment of the continent."
They were the 8 great families, just as Ha-Jin had suspected, Ha-Jin mused as he looked at the two men take their seats once again. The meeting now looked much more uncivilised due to the split table, however.
Ha-Jin once again glanced at the woman sitting directly beside him as she diverted her gaze back to the secretary.
"I wonder if she knows of my identity." Ha-Jin mused. The woman had been staring at him from the beginning of the meeting. He was jogged out of his thoughts as the secretary continued.
"We have found draconic scales broken off of the dragon's body. This will truly help in the making of stronger and more powerful relics." The secretary stated, the image of the dragon's grotesque body, the flesh torn apart and his arm mangled and twisted to an impossible degree appearing on the screen.
"Further, we have noticed claw and fang marks on the dragon's body. This could either mean it is a trap for us to believe and launch an investigation or"—The secretary briefly paused for suspense—"or an infighting amongst those wretched beasts."
"It would be truly naïve of us to believe that one of the dragons'—the same dragons that have remained hidden for over 2 centuries—to randomly wash up on one of our shores for no reason. We mustn't forget that these are the same clever beasts against which our ancestors struggled for decades." A man barked out, his arms crossed over his chest as he spoke.
"You are absolutely right Mr. Silverthorne." The secretary spoke. As soon as his words registered, Ha-Jin's head whipped towards the man who had spoken. The man simply looked at the boy and smiled briefly before looking back at the secretary.
"Well, what are your thoughts on this Royal Commander Jin? You have remained quiet the entire meeting." The secretary called out, directing Ha-Jin's gaze towards him.
"Well, why don't we check whether he was attacked by a normal dragon and it really is infighting or he was simply killed to trick us?" Ha-Jin conjectured.
The secretary blinked a few times, tilting his head to the side slightly. "And how exactly do we do that?" The secretary questioned, his expression one of pure curiosity.
"Well, do we have a way of knowing the rankings among dragons?" Ha-Jin asked the secretary.
"Well, yes. They have marks on their hearts that faintly glow when circulated with mana. It's a dragon with its maw open and claw marks depending on the rankings."
Ha-Jin blinked in surprise as his memory drifted back to Ji-Yeong and his four claw mark. "What does a four claw mark mean?" Ha-Jin asked, his tone one of emergency.
"A Supreme Dragon." The secretary muttered, clearly tired of his relentless questions.
Ha-Jin's mind went blank before he pushed the thought away for the moment, focusing on the matter at hand.
"Well, how about we check the mark of the dragon's body found at the shore and check the mana signature of his wounds." Ha-Jin said.
"Yes, and what exactly is the point of that? And we can't check the mark of a dead dragon." The secretary asked.
"Well, we could circulate mana directly in his mana vessels. And for the mana signatures, if the mana signatures are there and strong, there might really be an infighting between their forces. If there are weak or none, they were ripped apart with the bare claws of a high ranking dragon." Ha-Jin speculated.
"Well… though the dragons could have already taken care of that, I guess we could give it a try with a few additions to your strategy." The secretary sighed, he would have to give it a try even if it were the most stupid plan he had heard since the boy was the Royal Commander. Though, he had to admit the mark activation part was smart.
"Well then? What are we waiting for? Let's go!" The Emperor cried out as they all got up, heading to the examiner's lab.