While the navigation is still going on, in the deeply cleaned white marbled royal castle, the king who is now turned into a demon to everyone's eyes is casually sitting at his huge royal desk. He is thinking about what just happened, about how that demon Vek could have escaped that easily.

During the execution, Vek was obviously too weak to do anything by himself, so there is no way he escaped by himself. The king is thinking hard about it.

The guard named Cleyton is in the room as well, for now he is the only guard who saw the king with his demon shape. Cleyton is standing at the opposite of his majesty, in front of the door in case someone would enter this precise room despite no one can enter without an authorisation from the king himself.

-"If he escaped he is capable of way worse than this. We need to do something." The king addresses Cleyton, waiting for no answer from the one guarding the office's door.

By the way Cleyton is still thinking that Vek turned the king into one of his kind by using some sort of demonic magic or dark magic. Magic is pretty common among the kingdom, and of course demons can use some magic as well, so he thinks pretty logically.

Cleyton is also thinking about a way to get that demon back to the castle. He doesn't emit any ideas for now, only listening to the king's monologue.

-"First, we need to know how he escaped. But I wasn't really paying attention to the crowd, my eyes were only on this bastard. But he was too weak so he couldn't escape by himself. Someone must have helped him !"

His majesty writes down a few words on a piece of paper so he can remember what steps he needs to do to take off Vek's life for good, the instructions he wrote down are pretty simple and clear, it is just "cleverly use the demonic weapons so he won't ever come back". Then he uppers his head, looking straight into the guards eyes and he asks :

-"You. Have you seen something suspicious during the execution ?"

The one standing in front of the big wooden doors takes a few seconds before answering negatively but he still gives a tip to the king :

-"No sir. But I think another guard might have seen something. Perhaps, we, or I, should ask him about it."

Not being sure at first, the king does not reply to the one who has been standing up for hours in heavy armour. His majesty wonders if it will not be suspicious to ask another guard about it, scared for his real identity to be revealed.

By the way the king has kept his demon form because he is still weakened from the punch Amber gave him earlier. The king finally talks :

-"Well, I'm not sure I want everyone to know I look like one of their enemies... I'm not sure about this supposition. I need to think a bit more about it."

Then the guard immediately says, with a more energic voice but not that loud :

-"I won't tell the guard about what the demon did to you, majesty. I will keep it a secret until you are healed."

Cleyton obviously said that without knowing if the king can "heal" from being turned into a demon, he just wants to protect his king. Another few seconds passes before the king answers him :

-"Um... alright. You can go ask him if he saw anything strange. But be careful to not say more than you need to talk. Understood ?"

The guard salutes his majesty saying that he will keep the secret for himself. Despites he doesn't want to leave the king alone with this shape, it might indeed be dangerous if any other guard crosses paths with him. Cleyton has to go away from that room to question another guard.

He is now out of the king's office, leaving the one he's supposed to protect by himself. The armoured one is currently walking through a long and vast corridor, still made of really shiny marble. His steps resonate. On his way, the guard crosses paths with a maid. He asks the small deer faun about the guard he is currently looking for by describing him as much as he can :

-"Hello Miss, I am looking for a guard who looks like an elf but he has short brown hair and some beard. Not really usual for an elf. Anyways, have you, by any chance, seen him somewhere ?" Cleyton is obviously talking about Piere, the one he betrayed the day before.

The shy maid just shakes her head to say no. So Cleyton just continues looking for this specific guard despite he is still worried about the king's demon appearance. He walks down to the main entrance of the castle. This entrance is made for the citizens of Ahulia in case they would ask something to the capital's advisers, which is pretty illogical since the citizens aren't welcomed unless they are invited or convened by the king himself.

After getting out of the main building of the royal castle, he heads to another building not that far from there, he goes through a gate first. Then heads to that building, it is in fact the guard's second home. As said before, they live in it almost all year long to make sure they are protecting the king properly.

So he enters this less rich building and sees that some of the other guards are resting in here. He takes a quick look at them, still looking for Piere but he can't find him by himself. Then he decides to discreetly ask about Piere to another guard, this one is a pretty fat guard, not an elf, but a human, sitting around a table and eating some bread alone.

-"Excuse-me." Cleyton first says, the one sitting turns his head to look at the one speaking.

When realising it is Cleyton, he exclaims but not loud enough for the other ones to hear, fortunately :

-"Oh that's you ! The one who wants to sleep with the king ! Oh that's why you're always with him, waiting for him to fall for you. Isn't it ?"

It seems like Piere is right, a lot of people guessed Cleyton has some strong emotions towards the king.

Not understanding why he would say that and not wanting to talk about what the sitting guard just said, Cleyton just apologises and gives up :

-"What ? No. I.. uh... never mind. Sorry for disturbing you." Then he quickly steps outside of the building, a bit panicked about this interaction.

This truth spreading all over the royal castle makes Cleyton really uncomfortable. Indeed it is not the first time he hears it from people working at the castle, Piere might have talked about it to everyone, or is it just that Cleyton can't hide his feelings ? Anyways, close relationships among the castle or with the ones working in here for guards is strongly prohibited and punishable by instant death. So Cleyton better be careful.

***

After many more minutes looking for Piere, Cleyton gives up for the day. So he is on his way to head back to the king's main office. In order to tell him that he still hasn't found the guard he was looking for and hoping he'll let him more time to find him.

Arriving in the main office he quickly notices that the room is completely empty. The guard widens his eyes and immediately thinks that the king could have been captured by the other guards because of his actual demonic appearance. So he runs back to the big corridor, panicked and wondering where the king might be.

Then he simply thinks about the king's main bedroom, the newly turned into a demon might be sleeping or at least resting now, so the guard decides to go and check by himself despite not being authorised to go into this room.

The way to the king's room is almost as long as the way to the guard's building, so it shows that the royal castle is very huge.

Now that he is in front of the room's door, panting, he catches his breath before silently entering the room, in case the king would be sleeping. But he sees absolutely no one on the really big bed which looks extremely comfortable.

So Cleyton simply looks around but right before getting out of the bedroom, he hears from another part of the room, from the private personal bathroom in fact, some noises. He decides to approach discreetly, knowing he shouldn't even be inside this room but he wants to make sure no one is planning to hurt his majesty.

As he enters the bathroom he sees a red skinned person in the king's bathtub. In fact he completely forgot because of the panic, that the king is now turned into a demon. So he softly approaches this person, who is the king, holding tightly his sword. Cleyton is now really close to what looks like another demon to him, still not remembering that this evil creature is the king.

He slowly slides his sword close to the other one's throat and grips the demon's black hair before saying :

-"I knew it ! You came back to kill the king. You'll die for this ! Traitor !"

But the king immediately pushes the cutting sword with his bare hands and scolds the guard, turning around :

-"What are you doing ? Are you stupid ! It's me, I am the king."

Realising his huge mistake, the guard immediately throws his sword on the floor and kneels down in front of the king, whose hands are actually bleeding and slowly making him even weaker. Cleyton says, not daring to look at his majesty :

-"I'm sorry. I totally forgot, I'm really sorry, majesty. I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm begging your pardon. My intention wasn't to hurt you." He says, tearing up but not showing it because he is really scared for his life right now, he can die at any moment by the king's hands.

While staying kneeled down, staring at the floor and begging for his life, the king is getting out of his bath and putting on a bathrobe. His majesty stands in front of this guard, thinking about what he can do about him, hesitating between killing him or keeping him alive. So he starts questioning him :

-"First, what are you doing here ? It is my private room, nobody is allowed to go in unless I give them permission. And I did NOT give you any permissions."

Still looking at the floor and kneeling down, the guard answers :

-"Well when I came back to your office you weren't in it. So I wondered where you were, I was scared that someone would have hurt you. So I came here thinking you would take a rest after what that demon did to you. Sir."

The king sighs before walking to the guard's sword, which is still on the floor. He takes it and says, still not having the guard in sight and kind of playing with the sharp weapon :

-"Um... I see that you care about me. But you know that coming into those rooms is really prohibited, so let me just think how I can kill you painlessly. By the way, give me your name. After all those years I still don't know it. I will need it to tell the coffin maker after I kill you." The king in fact knows almost none of his employees names, he indeed doesn't really care about them.

The guard is in total shock, he doesn't want to die but he still answers his majesty's question while looking up to the king's now red eyes.

-"My.. My name is Cleyton, sir. But please don't kill me. I'll keep on helping you looking for the demon who turned you into that monster !" He begs for his life but the king still approaches the sword to the guard's throat.

The king is now about to execute his guard. When the blade finally touches Cleyton's throat, his majesty suddenly stops his action and thinks for a minute. Then he says, taking the sword off of Cleyton's throat :

-"Well, you may be right. You are going to help me find that demon bastard. But if you do any more things like that in the future I'll kill you for sure. Now get out of this room."

The king pushes the guard with one of his feet and throws the sword next to Cleyton. The guard still tries to say to his majesty that he didn't find that brown haired elf guard. But he can't for now, so he just leaves the room as the king ordered.

A few minutes after getting out of the room, the king gets out of his room as well, Cleyton is surprised to see a normal-looking elf, indeed the king's perception filter is working again. Cleyton says :

-"You are finally back to normal !"

The guard is about to take the king in his arms as a sign of great happiness but he just remembers his majesty's social position and remembers what happened a few minutes ago.

-"Oh, uh... Yes. But we still need to find that demon. By the way, have you found the guard you were looking for ?"

-"No sir. I'm afraid he is not in the castle right now. Maybe we can wait a bit longer ?"

The king frowns his eyebrows, which frightens Cleyton even more. Then the king says :

-"No ! We don't have any more time to waste. Don't you have an idea of how dangerous a demon can be ?"

The guard shakes his head to answer negatively, indeed he never met a demon in his entire life, plus there's not that much official information about them in books and even art pieces. The lack of official documents about demons is because of the king himself, he ordered the burning of all books about demons that the authorities can find. Most of the citizens know demons through a war which occurred between the elves and the demons.

The king continues talking but this time it is in an angrier way :

-"We quickly need to find the one who helped that demon bastard to escape. Gather EVERY guard who was here while the execution was supposed to happen. Now that I am back as a human, I can do things properly because you are capable of absolutely NOTHING !"