King Uther didn't immediately reject this unreasonable request, as he normally would. He was thinking; he was considering the consequences of agreeing to Kay's demand. Facing the son who had been away for a full ten years, Uther, emotionally, didn't want to deny his first request since returning home. But King Uther was a king, and a king often couldn't let his emotions rule his decisions.
The ban on magic was a law Uther had upheld for over a decade and was the single measure he was most committed to in his life. He couldn't, and wouldn't, break this prohibition. Agreeing to Kay's request would be simple, but what then?
Did the griffin fall under the scope of the magic ban? Without a doubt, yes! A griffin was an unnatural, magical creature! Owning and keeping a griffin was clearly a violation of the ban! If King Uther so flagrantly shielded Kay for adopting this griffin, it would be tantamount to Uther himself personally breaking his own law. If this truly happened, the authority of the law would become worthless, eventually reduced to a scrap of paper!
This was not what Uther wanted. He was keenly aware of magic's terror, and he would absolutely not allow the disaster caused by magic to descend upon his kingdom again. Therefore, even for the request of his favorite son, King Uther had to refuse.
"Absolutely not! The law, Kay!" King Uther heavily emphasized the last word. He knew his Kay was a sensible young man who would understand his responsibility as king. As he said, the law is the law. If the law could be arbitrarily trampled upon, then it shouldn't have been established in the first place. After all, if the ruler publicly violates the law they established, it undermines the very foundation of the king's rule.
Law is order, and order is the basis of rule! As a capable king, Uther understood this principle very well.
Kay looked at King Uther's determined eyes and finally had to give in. He couldn't help it; Uther was Kay's family, and Kay cherished his family dearly, both in this life and the last. He couldn't genuinely confront his family over a beast.
"Fine, but he is my quarry. I must be the one to kill him!" Kay stated solemnly. After all, this was a significant source of 'experience points,' and Kay couldn't afford to waste it.
Hearing Kay compromise, King Uther felt genuinely relieved. Kay was still Kay, always so understanding. So, Uther certainly wouldn't refuse such a reasonable request, even though he personally felt it was unnecessary. The honor of defeating the griffin already belonged to Kay; no one could deny that. As for delivering the final blow, that was insignificant and frankly, a bloody mess.
But since Kay insisted, Uther didn't stop him.
Soon, Kay used his battle-axe, like someone chopping wood, to hack away at the griffin's head, blow by blow. The griffin woke up once during the process, but Kay quickly split its forehead with the axe, causing it to pass out again. After that, it never woke up.
After about ten minutes of effort, the griffin's head was finally severed. Although the cut was very messy and affected the aesthetics, no one cared about that now. Everyone cheered for the hero who had slain the griffin.
---
That evening, a grand feast was being held in the Royal Palace's banquet hall.
However, unlike typical welcome banquets, there was no cheerful music, no knights crudely urging people to drink, and even the long tables farther away were empty. Yet, the atmosphere in the hall was fantastic, not feeling cold or empty at all. Everyone was gathered near the long table closest to the throne, and even the servants attending the hall instinctively left their posts, desperately trying to get closer to that circle.
"...That day, it was a blizzard. You couldn't see anything five yards away even in broad daylight, and it was so cold your nose would freeze off. Those evil Frost Giants took advantage of that opportunity to attack the city of the Asgardians. Those terrifying guys were all thirteen feet tall, covered in thick ice armor, and ordinary weapons couldn't even scratch them."
In the center of the crowd, Sir Kay was vividly recounting his adventures. In this era, the area of human activity was very small. Take the Celtic kingdoms on the British Isles, for example. The Celts mainly lived in the southern part of what would later become England, near Ireland. Further north was all primeval forest. These ancient forests were filled with countless ferocious beasts and some supernatural creatures that constantly threatened people's safety. Therefore, the world in the eyes of people at this time never extended beyond thirty miles, perhaps even less.
At least in this hall, only a few knights had slightly more worldly experience, but that was limited to the Celtic kingdoms; they knew nothing about places farther away. Kay, however, was different. He had spent ten years traveling east from Camelot, first reaching what would later be Norway. It wasn't yet the home of the Vikings, but a highly civilized group of people lived there, calling themselves the Asgardians.
Kay lived among the Asgardians for about a year, then crossed the European plains—which were still a primitive, uncivilized region—to reach the warm Mediterranean area. Here, Kay encountered the civilization known as Olympus and saw the civilized world under its command. There, he first learned that an actual kingdom called Atlantis had existed in the ancient Mediterranean.
Keep in mind that in Kay's memory, Atlantis had always been a legend, one that had even been proven to be entirely fictional, and in the legends, Atlantis was in the Atlantic Ocean, not the Mediterranean...
In any case, after traveling through this area, which would later be known as ancient Greece, Kay continued eastward. Then, in the region that would later be called Mesopotamia, he encountered a newly emerging civilization that called themselves the Sumerians.
Afterward, he and these Sumerians experienced an invasion. A group from a Western desert civilization, led by a superhuman who called himself 'Ra, the Sun God,' came east and launched a protracted, years-long war against the Sumerians. That single war lasted a full three years, and after heavy casualties on both sides, they eventually signed a treaty. They agreed that one would be the ruler of the West, and the other, the ruler of the East.
After experiencing this prehistoric war for supremacy, Kay had originally planned to continue heading east, back to the homeland he longed for, but reality slapped Kay hard across the face. The road east was simply too dangerous. He and his friends in Sumer survived several near-death experiences but still couldn't find their way home, even losing a dear friend in the process.
Heartbroken, Kay could only reluctantly turn back.