Chapter 63: Bribery

The Royal butler escorted Edna and I through the palace. I knew where we were going long before we reached the destination because I recognised the route. When we arrived I was confirmed right.

The queen's private rose garden. A garden of unequivocal beauty, and the place where prince Alphonse seemed to enjoy spending time.

When I last saw the garden, the roses had all been pink and white, with a few combinations therein. However, today the magnificent garden was blooming exclusively deep red roses.

When I had come with the King and Geoffrey to find Prince Alphonse on my previous visit to this garden, the pink flowers had made it look like a spring fairy garden. The blood-red roses that had bloomed since made the garden look more mature. This place now had a dark beauty to it.

The butler further escorted us through a maze of perfectly manicured rose bushes, until we finally arrived at the podium I had seen last time. There sat Prince Alphonse, my fellow reincarnated person, seated at a dainty table, sipping on a cup of tea. Looking at him it was strange to think that he came from my world since he fitted so perfectly into this one. His golden hair and handsome boyish face made him the perfect fit for the youngest Ambrose prince. It was no wonder that he was able to fool people into believing he was an ordinary prince for so long.

The butler stepped out of my way and bowed. Edna and I stepped towards the arch.

Alphonse's butler alerted him of our presence with a soft whisper. The young prince immediately stood up and flashed me a brilliant smile, one worthy of his older brother prince Charming.

"Welcome, Holy Lady Delton. Please have a seat." He gestured to the cushioned chair across from him. After the tiring morning I had, I gladly took the seat.

"You may all leave." Alphonse commanded. Even though he was a young child, he had all the authority and presence of the royal lineage.

Without a word, all the servants, including Edna, walked away from us. They walked to the very edge of the garden before standing still with their backs facing us.

"You can call me Al if you want. Can I call you Riley?" I felt a sense of whiplash as his personality suddenly did a one-eighty. He had transitioned from firm authoritative prince to a sweet little kid in less than a second.

"Oh cool. Thanks, Al." I replied amused. Although he was a kid, I somehow felt like I was talking to an adult.

"Haha." A wide cheesy smile crowned his cute face. "I haven't heard anyone say 'cool' in a while."

"So you came from an English speaking country? The US?" He asked, eyeing me curiously.

"Yeah, New York." I smiled happily being able to talk about my past world with someone. "And where were you from?" I asked curiously.

"South Korea."

"Oh, no way, so cool!" I wished I had brought some Korean rice cakes from home to give to him. I'm sure he would have liked that.

He looked delighted at my reaction, but then refocused on asking me questions. "So what year did you die in?"

"Late 2019. And you?"

A small frown appeared on his forehead as if my answer was not what he was expecting.

"I died around that time as well. September 2019."

Now it was my turn to frown.

"Huh?" I titled my head feeling perplexed. "I died in October. But then how is it possible that you got reincarnated thirteen years before me when you only died a month before me?"

"Yeah, it's pretty strange when you try to think about it on a timeline. Perhaps Earth and Arteria are on different time spectrums? Perhaps a month on Earth is thirteen years on Arteria."

This conversation was blowing my mind, and so I could not wipe the puzzlement off my face.

"I know that you got reincarnated with your phone, what is the date today on earth?"

I slipped my home out of the side pocket that I had sewn into the dress and turned it on.

"It's the 27th of June, 2020."

Alphonse lay back in his chair as he brought the cup up to his lips.

"Perhaps the gods have control over time in this world, and can reincarnate someone at any point in time." I suggested. Even though the idea was hard to wrap my head around, it made some sense. It's just that I must have been reincarnated straight after I died because I could check the dates on Earth with my phone, and everything coincided for me.

"Hmm..." Alphonse concentrated as he took a sip of his tea. "That's also the possibility."

He reached forward and picked up a silver bell on the table that I had not noticed before. In a quick swish of his hand, he rang the dainty bell. Almost immediately, butlers holding silver trays entered the rose garden in a single file line. In a prompt organised manner, they laid the trays down on the table in front of us, opened the lids and left quietly.

I was excited to see that the dishes were all foods and desserts from Sophie's cafe and Sedgwick's.

It was a proper English tea with cucumber sandwiches and small sweet cakes. I was glad because I had not eaten yet today. However, my hunger diminished when another question popped up into my mind.

"Al," I looked up at him. "When I first came here the gods gave me a very clear mission, I was supposed to help the people of this world. And then out of nowhere a few weeks ago, they gave me a second mission, to save the world from whatever evil disaster was trying to destroy it. In other words, defeat the cloaked man."

I leaned back in my chair and eyed the little prince curiously. "What mission were you given?"

A cheeky smile spread across Alphonse's face as he took a bite of his sandwich.

"A most glorious mission if I do say so myself." He dramatically crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes shone with pride.

"Well, what did they give you?" I giggled at his antics.

"Well Riley," he began. "Have you ever watched anime or read manga or manhwa's?"

"Oh yes." I chuckled. "I was always up at 3 am watching or reading anime and manga on my phone."

"And so, did you ever come across the isekai genre?"

"Definitely." I replied without having to think about it. I loved overpowered main characters or sweet shoujo stories in the landscape of a fantastical other world.

"Ahh. I see." Alphonse had suddenly taken on the persona of Sherlock Holmes and was squinting his eyes at me. I was trying hard to suppress a laugh.

"So then tell me, Riley, what are the types of magic that we have in this world?" I frowned a little at his question since it felt like we were going off track, but nevertheless, I answered.

"Six types of magic for the six days of the week. Water, earth, wind, fire, lightning and dark." And then, of course, they was merge magic and subcategories to all these types of magic.

"Mhm." Alphonse nodded his head as if deep in thought.

"Riley, can you tell me what is wrong with that?" His eyes gleamed with anticipation now.

I was a little thrown off by his question and didn't understand what he was asking me.

He saw that I was confused by the question and decided to give me a hint.

"With your knowledge of the isekai genre and all the usual types of magic, what is wrong with just six types of magic?"

A lightbulb went off in my head so suddenly that I could feel the beginnings of a headache.

"What's missing?" He asked excitedly. And this time I could answer right away.

"Light magic."

He sat back with a satisfied grin on his face. And I leaned forward as confusion and more questions polluted my mind.

"Yes. My mission is to bring light magic into the world by reincarnating as the first person to have light magic."

Alphonse then lifted up his hand and hovering above it was a beautiful ball of light. A pure radiant white light that I could sense was magic, the type of magic that had been missing from the world. I was in disbelief but at the same time, it made sense. How could there be dark magic without light magic? The seventh strange white holy core that was brought back from the expedition, it was probably a light magic core.

"Wow, I was not expecting that." I sighed as I relaxed back into my chair and took a bite of my sandwich.

"Well then if healing magic is dark magic, what constitutes as light magic?" I asked perplexed, realising that dark magic had kind of filled up what I thought would count as light magic. In this world healing magic was dark magic after all.

"Well you see, technically what you are doing is not healing magic. You are using your knowledge of biology to manipulate the body to heal at an accelerated rate. That isn't healing magic per se. That is just you being smart and otherworldly." He calmly replied to me.

"That is why only high-level dark mages are able to use 'healing magic' only those clever and skilful enough to have some understanding of how the body works can promote it to heal through dark magic, in other words, healing does not come naturally to dark magic. You've only been able to apply it because of your knowledge. Light magic itself doesn't require as much thought. Light magic naturally incurs healing, so in the future when there are more light mages, even lower-level light mages will be able to heal people because that magic will come naturally to them."

I had always wondered why the healing magic of this world was so poor, but now it made perfect sense. The correct type of magic had not been introduced into the world yet. As for my own healing ability, it had always felt like I was manipulating my dark magic into their bodies instead of casting a single all purposeful healing spell.

"You see dark magic is all about manipulation." Alphonse carried on sensing my further interest.

"You inject bodies with your magic and then bend them to your will. In other words, you pump people's bodies with your dark magic and then use your dark magic to force the body into healing. Whereas light magic is all about creation. Light magic does not force the injured body to heal at its will, light will instead create new matter for the injured areas that perfectly match the body and thus close up the wound."

"Like this." Before I could say anything, Alphonse had picked up a knife from the table set and sliced open his palm. Before I could even react, a sphere of light appeared around his hand and instantly healed him.

Just from one look at the light healing process, I could tell that it was very different from my dark healing. During dark healing, I had to concentrate and heal each layer at a time. However, almost no thought went into his light healing, and it was much faster.

"Wow." Was all I could say.

Dark magic is manipulation while light magic is creation... It made sense. While I was mulling over that yet another thought popped into my mind.

"Hey, so how long have you been able to use light magic?" I asked curiously.

"Oh well, ever since I got my memories back a few years ago..." he said nonchalantly as he sipped on his tea.

I felt a pang of annoyance taint my mood.

"And did your family know about your light magic?"

"No." He replied while taking a forkful off rose cake into his mouth. "I only told them when that old lady from the forest spilt the beans about me being a reincarnated person."

"Wait, so you knew you had this amazing healing ability and did nothing to help others with it?" I glared at him from across the table.

I watched as he nervously swallowed his bite of cake and then straighten up to defend himself.

"Hey... My only mission in this world is to be reincarnated as the first light magic user and help defeat the cloaked guy. I'm not on some philanthropic quest like you are." He defended himself.

"Don't take it out in me that the gods gave you the harder quest..." he retorted under his breath.

"So what, you've just been living a cushy life as the third prince while you could have been making a difference?" I was kind of upset by his detachment from the social issues going on in Girannon, how could he sit back and do nothing?

"After the life I had on earth, I deserved to sit back and do nothing. Do you know the pain of a badly paid salaryman living in Korea? You were probably some young wealthy millennial before you died..." He mumbled while twirling the teaspoon in his tea.

"I am enjoying what is owed to me by the universe, plus the gods are fine with it... So there!"

I could only sigh as Alphonse turned his nose up in determination. Of all the people the gods could have reincarnated... why did they reincarnate someone who does not want to help others? Well then again, I could not trust these gods to be good judges of character since they reincarnated someone that now wants to destroy the world.

"So what, are you just gonna 'sit back and do nothing' while this world burns to the ground by the  hands of the cloaked man?" I asked irritated.

"Of course not. I'm finally living a great life and I will defend my right to this life of luxury until my last breath." He clenched the teaspoon firmly in his hand. He seemed unchallengeable on this point. At least I knew that he would be willing to defend his right to a life of luxury if push came to shove.

I sighed. As adorable as this guy was he had a one-track mind focused on his own comfort, which was a pity because I could really use his help. He was smart and intuitive and I needed that with all the things that were going on in my life right now.

"You know, as part the royal family your comfort is directly affected by the happiness of the people. If the people are unhappy they will riot and cause you never-ending headaches that will disturb your comfortable lifestyle. It is within your interest to make sure the kingdom is the best that it can be so that the people will leave you alone, and let you live in peace..." I hummed while cutting my self a thin slice of rose cake.

"That's true." He nodded in agreement.

"Well then, it will be in your future interest to help me make this kingdom secure so that you can carry on living a comfortable life, right?" When I looked up at him he was narrowing his eyes suspiciously at me, he obviously was not convinced.

"I heard that before I got here and started selling the healing potion there were huge riots in the poorer districts. Although you would not have handled the situation then, I heard that you older brothers had a very hard time dealing with them... As one of the leaders of the kingdom, you will have to deal with that kind of stuff when you come of age. And don't expect me to lend you a hand if you don't help me now." I proclaimed.

"Ugh..." he groaned. "You have such a roundabout way of asking for what you want." He leaned his head on his hand and looked up at me with a bored but sharp expression. "What do you want?"

"Nothing in particular." I did have particulars but I would ask for that stuff at a later date when we were better acquainted. "Just that I will want your help on odd occasions."

I lifted my hand up, wanting him to shake it to cement our deal. I watched eagerly as he lifted his hand off the table but my smile dropped as his hand paused just in front of mine. I looked down at him with a questioning gaze.

He cleared his throat and twiddled his thumbs sheepishly.

"Well I, uh..." He nibbled on his lip a little bit. "So do you like have access to YouTube and stuff on your phone?"

I frowned and wondered where he was trying to take this deal. I nodded in reply to him as I eyed him with confusion.

"Well, you see... Before I died, the only thing that gave me any happiness was my activities in my fanboy group."

"Fanboy group?" My forehead scrunched up as I listened to him.

"You see BLACKPINK was supposed to have a comeback in early 2020? Did it get postponed again?"

My jaw dropped on its own accord. Was this guy really about to make a deal with me with the BLACKPINK music video as the condition?

"It was released, yesterday actually." I replied.

I watched in shock as a desperate almost crazed expression was slapped onto Alphonse's face.

"I'll do anything, Anything!" He cried as he jumped up from his seat and slapped his hands together, begging me. "If you let me watch their new music video."

I couldn't believe it. A BLACKPINK fanboy was practically selling his soul to watch their new music video. If only YG knew how desperate their fans were...

Looking at his cute pleading expression I could not be mean to him.

I slid the phone out of my dress pocket and searched for the music video on YouTube. I then handed the phone over to him.

"I'll let you watch as many BLACKPINK music videos, Netflix shows, anime, anything you want as long as you help me and are involved in helping this kingdom."

He nodded in agreement and shook my hand, then hastily pressed play.

"Rosé..." I heard him whisper as he was completely absorbed in the music video.

Ahh, the power of kpop. It transcends universes. I was contemplating telling him about Coronavirus when I realised that I had probably stayed for too long. I needed to go soon if I wanted to get back on schedule.

I waited for him to finish watching the video and then took my phone back.

"What I need you to do is go to the library and find me anything and everything to do with Lord Tearlach Doersa Velaris." I commanded as I got up from my seat.

"Who?" Alphonse squinted at me as I probably butchered that impossible name.

I sighed as I thought back to my first visit to the library when I was looking for information on the holy cores and I stumbled on Lord Velaris.

An ancestor of the Marcellus clan had written the only book of substance on the holy cores and dedicated it to his friend, Lord Velaris. After a talk with Umfrey Marcellus, I discovered that Lord Velaris had been a powerful dark mage, a deeply misunderstood man, and even more than that, another reincarnated person.

"If I'm right, that might be the identity of the cloaked man."

Alphonse shot me a questioning look, and I stared back down at him with conviction.

I was getting closer to the truth, I could feel it. But I could not do everything alone. I needed help and so was not above bribing people with YouTube to get what I wanted.

"I'll come by tomorrow to pick up the books. Have everything ready for me." I called back as I walked back through the garden to the palace to find Edna.

Blood red roses filled my vision as I walked through the magnificent garden. As I admired the dark red colour that reminded me of blood, I felt a sense of foreboding.