Information from Sophia

Everyone looked at Aurora, while Crushing Fang also frowned.

"Although I've never set foot into the capital, my father Radiant Light has, and from what I've been told this is quite odd."

Originally, Aurora planned to lead them straight to the castle of the king, but now she wanted to change plans.

"Follow me, there's something I wish to check out to find out about what's going on."

The warriors looked at her then at Crushing Fang who nodded as he also was curious about the current situation in the capital.

Where Aurora wanted to go was quite deep into the city, so the entire squad had to sneak from shadow to shadow, but after a few minutes in the city, they realized something.

There was an abnormal amount of soldiers in the capital. The deeper into the city they ventured, the more soldiers they would see.

Normally one wouldn't think too much about it, but with the number of soldiers the squad had encountered on the way to the capital.

There should be barely enough for a small battalion of 1000 soldiers, yet they already encountered close to 250 soldiers in just the small part of the city they walked.

The way the capital of Silce was structured was very traditional and common where the castle of the King lay in the middle with other important government buildings surrounding it.

Meanwhile, the nobles would live in the area surrounding the king's castle, then from there, the population would work with the upper class living closer to the center while the poor lived on the outskirts of the capital.

The garrison of the soldiers would be just outside the nobles section and would be where a majority of soldiers lived beside the few that lived elsewhere with their families.

Right now the squad arrived in front of a rather decent-sized house that lied near the upper-class section of citizens and Aurora whispered very quietly towards the squad.

"There's someone here that should be able to help us find out information, but she might panic once she sees everyone. So how about Leon and I go up to ask?"

Crushing Fang wasn't irrational and knew that showing up on the doorstep of someone with 50 large and powerful men and women warriors in the capital of Silce was not the smartest of moves so he nodded and had the squad hide in the shadows outside.

Aurora and Leon walked up to the house and gave it a quiet knock on the door. At first, nothing happened, so the two gave a slightly harder knock and suddenly heard the sound of hurried footsteps until they heard the lock on the door unlock and the door open slightly ajar.

A rather old voice quietly whispered.

"Hello? Who is it?"

Leon thought he heard a slight tinge of fear and weariness in the voice, but Aurora immediately whispered back.

"Sophia it's me, Ferdinand's daughter."

Suddenly the old voice sounded curious and opened the door more.

"It can't be...Aurora?"

Aurora nodded and the door swung open while Leon saw a rather old lady who looked like she was around 70 years old, assuming she didn't have a long lifespan.

The old lady gave Aurora a huge then looked around as she whispered.

"Let's go in, it's not safe to be doing this outside."

The two of them went in and Leon followed until Sophia eyed Leon weirdly and Aurora cleared everything up.

"Don't worry, that's big bro Leon. He's helping me."

Sophia raised an eyebrow and thought.

'Big bro Leon? He must be quite close and trusted, but I've never seen him around the castle?'

But Sophia couldn't dwell on it and let Leon in and looked around once more before she closed the door and bolted it again.

She led the two of them into the house which looked rather plain since houses of this size would usually be occupied by rich citizens that crammed the house full of decorations.

Eventually, they sat down at a small table and Aurora explained who Sophia was to Leon.

"Big bro Leon, this is Sophia. She was the head maid for my father for over forty years and retired a few years earlier. We gifted her a nice house for her service and that's how I knew where she lived."

Leon nodded, while Sophia sighed.

"I told your father that I didn't need such a big house, but he insisted and now look at it. Completely empty of the fancy decorations it deserves."

Then Sophia turned to Aurora and gave her a pat.

"I'm terribly sorry for what happened to your father. I didn't think that sly snake, Judas, would actually drive Grand Duke Ferdinand out of the capital and even take the crown. Conniving piece of cr-"

Aurora interrupted.

"Ahem, that's actually why I came here. Sophia, I can't tell you too much, but I'm currently here to stop Judas. I have some rather strong supporters who are helping me take him down. However, I stopped here after I saw that there were no citizens around."

Sophia looked at Aurora suspiciously and spoke cautiously.

"Aurora, how updated are you on the news within the capital?

Aurora looked at Sohpia weirdly and answered.

"I know that Judas has usurped the crown and driven my father out and that father is hiding in the mountains. Why?"

Hearing Aurora answer, Sohpia sucked air through her teeth as she realized Aurora didn't know.

"Aurora, I'm not exactly sure why you don't know but things are slightly more complicated. At first, Judas and your father were pretty much evenly matched with your father's side having a little bit of an advantage."

Sophia paused as a hint of anger started to peek its head out in her tone.

"However one day, Judas appeared at the king's castle with his forces which ordinarily wouldn't be enough to even reach the king, but suddenly a military force led from Corin by general Xenophon appeared and backed up Judas. The king didn't think such a thing could happen and was captured and thrown into the dungeon, while Judas took the throne."

Hearing the news, Aurora's jaw suddenly dropped in surprise, meanwhile, Leon also looked minutely surprised.

He didn't know enough to feel as surprised as Aurora, but he did know that Corin was another Coalition state that resided near Silce.

They had one of the strongest militaries in the Coalition, but their land was rather bad with poor conditions to grow crops and poor resources.

Since they had horrible conditions for their lands, but strong military, they had always wanted more land and always wanted to wipe out the tribes so they could take their land.

But since the Coalition had taken a more passive stance, the Corin state had become more restless as they tried to get other states to rally for war against the tribes.

Suddenly a thought dawned on Leon.

'If Judas supports war against the tribes, perhaps Corin promised Judas the crown with their help in exchange for Silce's support for a war against the tribes? Surely not…'

Sophia continued to speak after giving the two some time to digest what she said.

"Obviously your father was also taken by surprise and rallied his troops to fight against Judas. He turned some soldiers in the military to help him, but the others couldn't do much as Judas was threatening them with their families that resided within the capital."

Pausing to regain her composure, she continued.

"In the end, your father lost and fled to the mountains, but that's not the end. The citizens saw this happening and tried to rebel, but the rebellion was swiftly crushed and many of them were thrown into prison while some were executed. That's also why there is no one roaming the streets as Judas declared martial law and set a curfew so it's punishable by death to be out this late."

Aurora and Leon finally realized how dire the situation had become.