I slayed an Ice dragon and now I'm King of the dragon slayers
Chapter 44: The map

Chapter 44: The map

Ash nodded in the affirmative, staring at the deleterious gaze in Rhett’s eyes.

"M’lord", Ash said. "Of course that’ll be after we find the other dragon slayers, right?".

Rhett nodded. "Of course, we’ll need all the help we can get".

Ash looked at Haicor, noticing the fear in her eyes. She felt that Rhett was going nuts, his ruthlessness was on another level and she thought that he was just unpredictable.

Rhett turned to the crowd: "Everyone go get your things, we’ll be leaving here in the next one hour".

The crowd disbanded and went to their now dilapidated houses, trying to see if they could get anything.

Rhett took his time to look at the kingdom. It was a symbol of dilapidation. The bricks on the building he had changed in preparation to battle the Ember dragon had fallen and so was the palace not too far from it. Almost all the buildings had fallen and the ones which weren’t were just like soap bubbles, meaning the wind would definitely huff and puff it away.

Soon, footfalls hurried to their direction and when they turned to look, they saw the knight who had said he had the map of the slayers domain.

The knight bowed and handed a folded thick paper to Rhett, it was clearly the map of the kingdom. Holding it in his hands and unfolding it, raising it up to the sky.

It was a sketch of the slayer’s domain actually and Rhett squinted his eyes as he stared at it. Ash came behind him.

It wasn’t too detailed. Perhaps the person that sketched it didn’t want it to be so. First on the map, they could see a rough, tiny sketch of a tower, a line marking it towards a place, on the map it looked like a land of some sorts. On the marked land were drawings of monster-like figures which Ash and Rhett decided with a quick glance that it was monsters.

Rhett suddenly bent down and put the map on the floor, taking stones from his sides and using it to hold on the edges of the map.

Ash crouched and looked at the map, Haicor scurrying from where she was and also bending down beside the map.

The knight who had brought the map turned to leave but Rhett stopped him.

"Please explain the map", he pleaded with the knight who was kind of embarrassed that he was pleading with him. A man that had just slayed his former king, many knights, an archer and the almighty Ember dragon. He felt honoured.

"It’s my pleasure m’lord", the knight said as he bent down and put the index finger of his left hand on the tower on the map.

"So this is the shadow mare tower. It’s very isolated and lonely and that’s because no one would dare to go there ever again", said the knight and moving his hand from the tower, dragging them towards the monster lands, he pointed them at the monster lands.

"So", he began. "This is the monster land, a really scary place. Passing here, you’ve got to slay the monsters to come out alive", the knight now moved his hands from the sword lands and pointed it to a symbol indicating the kingdom.

"This is shaiiyeru, where we are now. So getting towards your kingdom region, we need to pass this places. This is not the full map, instead you would have seen where your kingdom is".

Rhett squinted his eyes and twisted his face into a brooding one. He exchanged glances with Ash who exclaimed:

"That’s a hell of a scary place to go. I’ve once passed the shadow mare tower, but it was on a dragon and even as the dragon drove through. I saw many large shadow monsters. I mean, if we had a shadow slayer, it would be good, he’d help us slay it, or ’she’ would by the way because the gender may vary".

Rhett stood up, his face a stern radiating expression of bravery.

"Needless to fear citizens, I will slay the damn shadow monsters!", he said.

The knight’s face was in bewilderment.

"But m’lord, even some shadow slayers can’t slay them. They are actually tier two shadow monsters. Their names are actually soul eaters. Once they beat you to a state of stupor, they then eat your soul and gain shards from it, which they use to level up".

Haicor was terrified by the words, she looked at Rhett, expecting he would be too, but his action made her panic the more. The words unruffled him, though it might have, but he didn’t let it show, instead he looked at terrace of the tower on which King vongarth had stood and watched him battle the dragon and said:

"I don’t want to be a dragon slayer only. Of course I might be the king but that doesn’t restrict my flexibility. I plan on slaying all types of creatures other slayers slay. Demons , ghosts, gargoyles, shadow monsters and even the tier two shadow eaters!", he paused and looked into the eyes of Haicor. "Even if there is the strongest dragon alive, I will slay it!".

Ash raised up his hand. "There is one, but it’s hidden and some even say it doesn’t exist".

Rhett looked at Ash. "What’s its name", he asked.

"Ruieen", came the reply.

"Well, now we have to focus on the thing on hand and that is a passing through the tower and monster lands, finding the surviving dragon slayers and ripping the damn dragon slayers apart!".

The knight shrugged. "You seem all powerful and mighty to me, I even regard you as a god m’lord. I’m sure you’d slay the soul eaters and accomplish your plan easily".

Rhett smiled and shook hands with the guard.

"What’s your name?", he asked.

"Morcel m’lord", came the reply.

"From this day onward. You are now head of the knights".

Morcel almost leaped in joy as he prostrated on the floor.

"Thank you my king".

"No need", said Rhett. "You deserve it, now it’s time to go get prepared, we’re heading to the shadow mare tower in thirty minutes".

The knight bowed and left, his happiness evident.

Ash looked pathetically at Rhett now.

"You are not powerful as you think m’lord, you’ll get us in trouble", he said.

Rhett smiled. "I know, I just want to make them think that. And by the way, would it hurt if one took a daring risk?".

Ash shrugged. "It depends on how cautiously you take it".