What?!

The Queen is getting dethroned?!!

But that is impossible?!!!

Such questions kept repeating themselves in Aldrich's mind. The one "What" he had shouted from the shock he had received made him remember why he hadn't spoken out loud so far.

A terrifying bolt of lightning coursed through his entire body, but this lightning was the pain caused by the sudden motion of Aldrich's muscles. Even after he became motionless to bear the pain, and almost seemed petrified, Aldrich didn't stop thinking of those questions.

To someone else, it would have made no sense why Aldrich had asked nothing related to the Queen from Meuric. Instead of letting Meuric go to fetch dinner, Aldrich should have asked about the matters related to Queen first. But in these trains of thoughts, one must not forget that it wasn't Barren Earth anymore, and Queen wasn't a symbolic word and title.

Consider if a person from pre-Dream Initiation Barren Earth was to ask something like this.

- So… The sun rose from the east today. But… would it rise from the east tomorrow, too?

Aldrich's asking or even thinking that there was something wrong with Queen Eluned was equivalent to this question.

It was absurd, idiotic, and thoughtless.

If the beings of their Rank refused something, who could stand up to them?

No one.

If the beings of their Rank desired something, who could deprive them of it?

No one.

If the beings of their Rank left their thrones, who could take their place?

No one.

In the entire galaxy, who was above them?

No one.

And in the entire galaxy, who was below them?

EVERYONE!!!This idea of someone making Queen Eluned leave her throne was so ridiculous that even Aldrich doubted its veracity and gave it a double-take. But he could also feel the emotions in Meuric's heart. He could feel the weight of this news was pounding at Meuric's feelings from within, but it wasn't false.

And if even a mere Common Ranked Dreamer knew of this news, then it was most likely true.

Meuric gave little thought to Aldrich's petrified state and blurted out.

"Huh? Master, you didn't know?!!! But how could this be? Even unborn babies in their mothers' wombs know of this news. Tch! Tch! I knew it, I knew it. Master, were you meditating in some cave while standing for the last month or so? Is that how you can go without eating and shitting for days? Is…"

Meuric just kept blabbering out and out. He was like a children's toy which operated on a rotating key, but his key just never seemed to run out of rotations.magic

No matter how ridiculous it sounded, Aldrich didn't take more than a few moments to accept it. He took a deep breath and his mind raced, doing calculations after calculations for the cause behind this news. But even after going through all the data he had, he couldn't find anything that could explain such drastic action.

Aldrich knew for this news to come out in public; it meant that things were already out of Queen Eluned's hands. He also knew that there wasn't any being, at least not openly, in the entire Kingdom of Life-Authority who could make her give up her authority. And it all came down to one theory that made sense to Aldrich.

'Other Kings are involved… Fuck!'

Aldrich looked at Meuric, who had taken a turn to involve the magnificent quality of the chicken-like beasts reared on his home planet.

-"Just tell me all the details you know"-

Aldrich didn't know if Meuric would have the crucial facts with him. He had yet to ask him about the strangeness of the Boid family. Aldrich had found out that Meuric was innately sensitive to anything that involved the name Boid or his immediate family. And these heavy topics needed time to be discussed, at least not unless he didn't want Meuric to share his Pain.

Meuric was already looking at Aldrich in sheer awe. As he heard the words rang in his ears, the towering boy leaned towards Aldrich a little and spoke out.

"Master, you must have heard the rumors related to Duchess Boudicca, right?"

Aldrich's eyes almost narrowed as Meuric whispered, mentioning the rumors. Aldrich already knew of these rumors, according to which, Boudicca wasn't a pure-blood Rhiannon but an illegitimate child. It was based on another rumor that she had used an Ancestral Divine Spirit Summoning, which shouldn't exist anymore.

But that was it.

Aldrich didn't know what family the rumors were talking about, nor did he care. It wasn't like he wasn't curious, but he already had a set path in front of him. And the things he needed to do were humongous and disastrous enough for him to go off course and verify this rumor. And thus, he didn't even put this rumor as one of the things on his priority list.

'Is this something related to that?!'

Aldrich was just guessing when Meuric continued without waiting for an answer.

"The Dukes of the Kingdom of Swordless have confirmed that Duchess Boudicca can summon the Golden Luan Divine Spirit. And she has done so not once but twice."

-"So what of it?"-

As soon as Aldrich asked why this Summon was such a big deal, Meuric almost stumbled back. For the first time, the boy who hadn't gone quiet even while facing death lost his voice. His mouth kept parting and closing as he looked at Aldrich with a stupefied gaze.From the scrolls available to him on Rosalia, Aldrich could only find that this Summon belonged to a family which had already vanished. But even if it had, so what of it? Aldrich's thoughts rarely changed when it came to such things.

A family that had vanished for decades. What does it have to do with Lt. General Boudicca, even if she was an illegitimate child of someone from this family?

Such were Aldrich's thoughts. But not "all" were aloof about these social taboos, like Aldrich. And here this "all" encompassed almost all beings of the Galaxy outside Barren Earths.

Aldrich's discarding this verification of rumor was so shocking to Meuric that the young boy had almost succumbed to it. But soon his innate personality took control over him and made him deny the sheer reality of the words uttered by Aldrich.

Clap! Clap!!

Meuric clapped his hands, roared out with a laugh, and the look of disbelief again turned to pure awe.

"Haha!!! Master, Oh, Master! I thought you were serious. Haha! But even you can make a joke, and that, too, on this kind of topic. Yes, you are worthy of being my Master. Who else can make a joke of something related to the Galactic Traitors? Haha!"

'Galactic Traitors?! Is this the name of the family…'

Aldrich felt out of his element, hearing things that he should have known by now, given that he was already knee-deep in the hidden undercurrents. But…

'… But better late than never…'

-"Haha! Yes, yes. I also make jokes now and then. Keep going and tell me all in one go"-

Grrr-Grrrr!!!

A grunting noise again came out from Shu, hearing Aldrich's shameless words. Shu was still on Meuric's shoulders, and Aldrich hadn't prevented Shu from listening, either. But Meuric was enjoying Aldrich's ability to make jokes he had just found out and ignored these acrostic Shu's growls.

Meuric became quiet and the seriousness of the topic returned to them. But there was a hint of a smile on Meuric's innocent face that just couldn't go away. He again leaned down and whispered.

"I know little. Father didn't tell me… Ahem! I know the Royal Ancestors are planning to publicly execute Duchess Boudicca in two months. And they are also dethroning Queen Eluned because of it. I… I don't know the specifics. Oh, Big Brother told me it was something related to N.I.K.E. Hmm, I don't remember. But…"

Public Execution…

Dethrone…

N.I.K.E…

Kings…

Royal Ancestors…

Aldrich had stopped listening to Meuric just as the young boy had drifted off the topic. Aldrich's mind had already turned the keywords mentioned by Meuric to numbers. Within a moment, Aldrich combined them, distorted them, crushed and remade them thousands of times. No wonder he took only a few moments to come up with a plausible explanation that could explain most things to him.

'The Galactic Traitors… Everything is about this vanished family. Let's see, the other kingdoms must have asked for an answer from the Fourth Kingdom. Galactic… with this word involved, they must have even asked to hand over Boudicca, too. But that would be equivalent to submitting to those requests. So the Royal Family is instead publicly executing her to maintain loyalty towards the Royals. And the 2 months… It must be Queen Eluned's doing. She must have found a loophole to extend the time of execution. And then there is N.I.K.E. …'

Aldrich looked around and then his gaze landed at the triangle insignia over his left chest pocket. The corner of his lips slightly lifted in a smirk as he thought.

'… So that's why I am here. Haha!'