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Return of the Fallen Volume 1 Chapter 53

Author: Blue_Rat

ch53

The crowd erupted in commotion. Some with joy and others with straight-up denial. The massive crowd began arguing with one another and soon insults flew back and forth freely.

*Bang*

The King stamped his scepter, silencing everyone in one move. As he gazed at his people, many could not take his cold look and either looked down or away entirely.

“Everyone may now rise. I want you all to get a good look and see the full truth for yourselves.”

Everyone slowly got up. Not knowing where any of this was going, a strange atmosphere filled the room.

“Garn, I have called you a traitor, will you not even try and deny this?”

Garn looked into his King’s eyes and searched for something. He looked for that upright and honest young man he had helped raise so many decades ago. Finding not even a trace, Garn felt a pain in his heart.

“How could I ever betray my home?”

“So you won’t admit your guilt?”

Garn felt anger rising within himself. With gritted teeth, he spoke in disgust.

“Guilt, I have no guilt, for I have done nothing wrong and you know that.”

The king seemed to be expecting that and snapped his fingers.

“I knew you wouldn’t admit it.”

After King David snapped his fingers, a side door opened and someone walked in.

“Luckily we have a witness who has seen your crimes first hand.”

The crowd soon parted and Rust’s large figure appeared before everyone. Asuna gasped in surprise.

“Rust! You were alive? How did you escape the Sky Beast and…”

*Bang *

“Silence. Who is this little girl, to dare speak without permission?”

The king snapped at Asuna, causing her to shrink back and hide behind Garn. Garn gently patted her arm.

“It’s OK, Asuna.”

King David heard Garn call the girl Asuna and his mind reeled.

(Asuna, where have I heard that name before.)

The King had yet to meet any of the heroes nor had he seen any of their faces but he knew of their names. The King calmed himself and looked over the young girl for a moment.

“This young lady is?”

Rust stepped forward.

“This is Asuna, your Majesty, she is one of the summoned heroes.”

The king curled a finger, commanding Asuna to step forward.

“Asuna was it, you had something to say.”

Asuna trembled on the spot. For some reason, she got a hateful feeling from the King. The last thing she wanted to do was be seen by him. Asuna hid further behind Garn and the king’s mood sunk.

“Fine, since you have nothing to say then no more outbursts.”

The King waved Rust forward.

“Rust, you have a testimony which you wish to provide, of your own free will and volition. No one is forcing you and everything you have to say is the absolute truth?”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

“Good, then speak. Tell us all what has transpired.”

“Yesterday, during practice, Garn saw that the young heroes were not up to par in their training and he made the suggestion that we needed to up the intensity if we were to see any real progress. He said he would take them to the Mirian Swamp and let them try combat with real opponents. I agreed to this but when I told him I would go report this to you, your Majesty, Garn said there was no need and that he would personally do it. It wasn’t until I returned today that I had found out that Garn had not reported anything to you at all and that your Majesty, had no knowledge that we had even left.”

King David nodded along.

“True, Garn had never told me that he was taking the heroes to the Mirian Swamp or that he was traveling at all. What I don’t understand is why?”

Rust shook his head.

“I don’t know, your Majesty, but Garn has been known to do similar things in the past. He would always do things his way and only consult your Majesty after the fact.”

People in the crowd nodded along as well. It was true that Garn had done things his way but because there was never an incident like now and Garn held such prestige and reputation as the nation’s hero, people would simply look past it.

Garn could feel a heat rising within his chest and began to gnash his teeth silently.

“After we arrived in the Mirian Swamp we had fought and destroyed a few goblin nests and all seemed to be going well until we ran into a young Scron wolf cub. It was a tier 1 Limit Beast and had quite decent defensive capabilities. Garn saw this as an opportunity to raise the young heroes’ strengths higher by giving them some real-world experience. I though, I saw it a different way.”

The King seemed intrigued and leaned in.

“Oh, how so?”

“Your Majesty, a Scron cub isn’t known to have the strength of a tier 1 limit beast as it is still basically a toddler. The only way for its strength to be so high while it is still so young is for it to have incredibly strong parents that birthed it. To start out at Limit Beast strength, the parent or parents need to have around tier 3 Sky Beast strength. Knowing that its parent or parents were at least at the Sky Beast strength, I immediately told Garn of this and warned him that we should let the creature go but Garn insisted that the heroes take it on. Not only did he insist but even his apprentice Alice insisted as well. In the end, it was his apprentice, with Garn’s permission, who slew the young Scron cub.”

Kazuki and the other heroes looked at one another, they all clearly knew this was a lie and wondered why Rust would do this to Garn. They were all on the verge of calling Rust out but it was Garn himself who stopped them and told them to keep quiet and to stay out of it. Asuna and everyone else found this difficult to do but Garn just kept telling them that everything would be fine and not to worry.

King David felt giddy inside and continued his act.

“Commander Rust, it’s not that no one here believes you but all of this is hard to swallow. Do you have any evidence to support any of your claims.”

Rust reached into his chest pocket and retrieved a small cracked crystal orb. Holding it up high above so everyone could see, he answered his king.

“Your Majesty, I would like to submit this as evidence. Once I knew I couldn’t convince Garn to leave the poor creature be, I knew that your Majesty would need a full report on such an incident in case things turned disastrous but who would have thought that it actually would have. Had I known then what I know now, I would have put my life on the line to protect that Scron wolf.”

King David waved his scepter and the small orb floated out of Rust hand and a small hole opened up in the barrier just big enough for the orb. Once it passed through, the hole in the barrier quickly resealed itself, allowing not even a speck past it.

King David examined the cracked crystal orb intently and his brows scrunched. Pointing out the flaws on the crystal orb to the people, King David said.

“Rust, this crystal orb is damaged, will this affect the quality in any way.”

“Sorry about that your Majesty. Yes, the crystal’s quality may be influenced slightly. You may see tearing, drops in sound and images may skip but everything recorded in there is the truth.”

Garn watched this little show of there’s with disgust.

(So this is how they plan to frame me. They’ll show what they want and frame me to be what, a monster, a failure, hmph, how did I ever trust them?)

King David sent a bit of power into the crystal orb, causing it to float into the air before it began to playback a holographic video. In the video, it showed the heroes attacking the Scron wolf cub then the video skipped to Alice striking it down with lightning, killing it with electricity through the sword in its back. The Scron cub collapsed to the ground dead. The holographic video then went fuzzy and cut out.

Everyone in the room though clearly saw Garn’s apprentice Alice kill the beast. There was no question in their minds. The heroes attacked the Scron cub and Alice finished it off. The evidence was damning.

King David let out a long sigh as he shook his head in disappointment.

*Haaaa*

“So this is what started it all. Rust what happened next.”

“After the cub died, one of its parents immediately knew and made its way towards us. I and Garn could both feel it headed in our direction. So we both made the decision to face it head-on. We figured if we showed it that my and Garn’s strength was beyond it then it would have no choice but to turn back. So the two of us intercepted it and things seemed to calm down a bit.”

“Little did we know, that a second Sky Beast had come from behind and had begun attacking Alice and the others. When we found that we could no longer sense the guards that had come with us to help protect the young heroes, I made the decision to return while Garn was to keep the first Sky Beast at bay. When I returned to where the young heroes were, the ground was littered with bodies and I feared them to be dead.”

“The Sky Beast bared its fangs at me but I knew that I had done nothing wrong. I needed some way to convince it and that’s when I remembered the recording device. Once I showed the Sky Beast that I had nothing to do with the Scron wolf cub’s death, it decided to let me go. With this horrible disaster, I knew I needed to get back and report everything to your Majesty as soon as possible so you could handle the upcoming situation. Garn again had other ideas.”

“The Sky Beast was still angry with the loss of the Scron cub but knowing it had avenged him by killing Alice, it was somewhat satiated but when Garn returned and he saw that Alice was dead, he attacked the Sky Beast for his own revenge. The three then fought with one another tearing up and devastating the terrain. With their terrifying strength, all I could do was be a pebble on the side of the road so I stayed out of the way and made sure to see what happened so I could inform you.”

Rust then pointed at the cracked crystal orb and said.

“Your Majesty, the rest is on there if you will.”

King David passed a bit more power into the damaged crystal orb and the holographic video played a bit more.

It showed Garn and the Sky Beasts deadly battle but there were plenty of skips and distortions in the video. Eventually though, it came upon a certain part. One of the Sky Beast had plummeted to the ground and was beginning to burn. It looked up to the sky and roared.

“Stop, please stop, I surrender.”

Garn said nothing and continued to focus on his injuries.

“Damn you, I said I surrender!”

Still nothing.

As the Sky Beast body was slowly burning away it howled in agony saying it surrenders but Garn just watched it on in cold silence as it died a terrible death.

The other Sky Beast appeared and roared out.

“BROTHERRRR!”

The holographic video seemed to skip slightly as Garn’s next words taunted the other Sky Beast.

“look at what’s become of your brother. He died painfully, he died stupidly, and above all, he died for nothing. Just as he died for nothing, so too will you.”

Garn struck out with his staff and a streak of lightning hit the Sky Beast dead on, causing it to explode. The beast though still wasn’t dead and asked a question as it continuously coughed up blood.

“Why should humans exist and not my kind? Why must we be forced into these terrible lands and be caged as though we are lesser? What gives humans the right to rule the lands, the skies, and the seas?”

Garn answered back with no hesitation.

“Because we humans are the superior species.”

The video skipped again and Garn with a smug look on his face gave one final strike to the beast’s head, killing it.

The video skipped once more and showed Garn’s lightning chain inscription unraveling from a Beast Core. The video skipped again and showed Garn flying off and a large explosion ringing out behind him indicating the Beast Core went off. Finally, the video cut off.

(They actually showed me wrapping the Beast Core but played it in reverse to make it look like I purposefully allowed it to go off, despicable.)

The room was one of complete silence, so silent in fact that you could hear a pin drop. King David stood up and pointed his scepter at Garn.

“The evidence is undeniable. What have you got to say for yourself, traitor?”

Garn looked at all of the doubtful eyes around him and wondered if they were really that easily fooled or if they two were playing along. Shaking these thoughts away, Garn’s anger had reached its limit. No longer did he have respect for his King, no longer did he feel love and looked at him as a younger brother or a son and no longer did he care. Looking at the King dead in the eye Garn’s words were filled with hatred.

“I have evidence of my own that I wish to submit. King David, do you dare?”