Oh My, I Messed Up the Story

Chapter 100: I Shall Take Care Of This

Impossible to kill? That made absolutely no sense. Every man was mortal.

"What do you mean, Mother?" Sigmund asked.

She sighed heavily and told him the truth. Alpheus was actually the son of the leader of the extinct Kanta clan. The king tried to kill him as a baby and it did not work. Multiple times he tried to slash him with a sword and the blows always glanced right off of him.

Perplexed, he ended up taking the infant back to the palace with him to look into why this had happened further. A book about the foundation of the Kanta clan mentioned a legend that was so old it had been forgotten even by the Kanta themselves. The clan leader had the protection of the mountain spirits; until a successor was born, he could not die.

The king felt there was no other choice than to raise the boy to be utterly useless, never knowing of his heritage. The clan would not be able to revitalize and he would go through life without being any the wiser about his power.

The child she had given birth to was stillborn so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to keep him under their noses and prevent him from amounting to anything. The queen finished her explanation with a weary sigh but Sigmund was stunned.

Stunned and skeptical. His mother had always been a no-nonsense kind of woman so he didn't believe she would believe something like that without proof.

There was no magic in this world; it was merely legend. Stories told to children. Besides, if the Kanta had some sort of divine protection how could they have been wiped out so easily?

"Motherdid you see this for yourself?" he asked.

"Of course I did! I would not take such a ridiculous story at face value," she said vehemently. "I tried a variety of tests. Not feeding him for days at a time as an infant. Poisoning him as a toddler. I never wanted that abomination in my house and I was forced to pretend he was a replacement for the precious son I lost!"

"When he was four years old he fell twenty feet out of a tree and landed on his neck. He was covered in scratches but otherwise perfectly fine. It was then that I was sure I was dealing with a monster. Did you truly never wonder why we treated him the way that we did?"

No, he had not. He hadn't cared. All of his siblings were threats to his glorious future as king so he didn't like a single one of them as a child.

But in hindsight it did make sense. The queen was a fairly loving mother considering she was royalty and had little time to spare for her children. She had always doted on Sigmund.

Alpheus had been an outcast since he was old enough to walk and attempt to play with his siblings. After being rejected a certain number of times he gave up and retreated into his own little world that no one else could enter. Until Katie came along.

Sigmund frowned. His mother appeared to be perfectly serious. If he couldn't execute Alpheus for treason what was he supposed to do? He couldn't exactly wait around for Katie to give birth; that could take years.

He was about to ask why they couldn't simply kill the few remaining Kanta that Alpheus seemed to be meeting with when his mother sighed.

"Your father did not want any of you to know about this because there is nothing else he can do. The few refugees that remained intermarried with our people and we cannot kill them without reason. They are a very spiritual, traditional people; without their leader they are nothing.

"Do you understand the problem we face? We broke their leader's spirit and hid the truth of his birthright from him but it seems he may have found out despite our best efforts. We cannot kill any of them but I do not see any other way to prevent them from rising again."

Sigmund thought about it. They couldn't kill anyone yet but once there was proof of treason they could lock Alpheus in the dungeon. Katie and the rest could be executed; that would certainly push him past his breaking point.

All he needed was proof! He would need to keep an extra close eye on those two troublemakers and send one of his agents to gather more information on the remaining Kanta clansmen.

If Alpheus truly was trying to revitalize his clan, he probably was working with Franz. He must have promised him the rights to his lands back to gain his cooperation. Sigmund would bet anything that Katie had been the mastermind behind that plan.

Katie, Katie, Katie. It all boiled down to her, didn't it? That no account daughter of an earl.

Franz was more desperate for the throne than he realized. In order to get Katie on his side, he promised away all of Annalaias's mines. The very reason their father eliminated the Kanta in the first place.

They needed those mines to access countless important resources used to keep the nobility's way of life consistent. Metal. Chalk. Salt. Precious stones. All of those things deserved to belong to the larger nation rather than a small group of backward mountain bumpkins!

The Kanta clan was named after a mountain range spanning about 100 miles. Before the raids, around a dozen villages had been scattered throughout those mountains.

Sigmund had learned about them in his history lessons as a child. There had been less than five thousand clansmen total. They were a self-reliant bunch whose only contact with the outside world was selling resources from their mines to the nations of Annalaias and Rowenhilde, with which they shared borders.

Before the raids neither country had laid claim to the mountains because of how treacherous they were. Living there was thought to be impossible but somehow the Kanta survived generation after generation.

Those mines were important; his father had made the right decision getting rid of such insignificant people to get them. They could not be allowed to make a comeback.

"Forgive me for disturbing your rest, Mother. I shall take care of this," Sigmund promised as he headed out the door.

Yes, he would take care of this. Nailing Franz for helping them would get rid of all of his enemies in one fell swoop. Then nothing would be able to stand in his way to the throne. This day hadn't been a complete waste after all.