Chapter 322: It’s okay to be stupid, just make sure to study afterward
"There’s another one," Tiralein added.
I straightened my back unconsciously. "Alive?"
Tiralein made a strange expression then. "We don’t know," she said. I raised my brows, and waited patiently for more explanation by putting my hand on my lap. "He’s His Majesty’s uncle; Princess Yuralein--and my--grandfather, so to speak. Never one to settle down; always went around doing his own adventure, and came back with lots of souvenirs from the demon realm, even the human realm. I still have some of the things he gave me when I was a child,"
She paused with a nostalgic smile on her face. And yet, her eyes seemed to be filled with sorrow. Even though he was presumably alive? I took an untouched glass of shirac fruit juice on the table and offered it to her.
"Thank you, my dear," she drank the juice, before continuing her story with a slow regretful exhale. "He was on one of his adventures when the war broke out. He came running back immediately when he heard the news, but by the time he was there...everything was over," she took a deep breath. "Everything had been destroyed, and the last Prince was dying. He was..."
Tiralein frowned slightly as if hesitating with her own memory, so Amarein took over. "He was very distraught, rightfully so. He was so devastated--no, I wasn’t sure what state of mind he was in. Insane..." she paused to contemplate on her choice of word, but in the end still nodded. "Yes, I think that was it. He turned insane; howling, wailing, and hurting himself. We tried to calm him, but he ran away to the Great Forest of Aphen, and we haven’t seen him since."
I blinked my eyes slowly at this tale, which suddenly filled the table with a somber mood. "Do you think he tried to go the palace?" Natha asked, but the druids shook their heads.
"No; the palace was in a different direction from where he ran toward," Tiralein said. "Also, we had never seen him personally, but there were people who did."
"Oh?"
"Mostly drows, who said they saw him in a mountain or a cave during their rounds. Some said they saw him underground, in one of the drow’s cities," replied Amarein.
Ah...so that was why they said they didn’t know.