Reincarnated Hero System - Chapter 1229 - 1229: The Anomaly from Alpha [Monthly Bonus 3]

Sharon Mollysse de Aelum, the Fourth Princess of the Beta Continent’s Aelum Kingdom, was a young woman who had seen a little over 24 summers.

She inherited the royal blue hair and eyes typical of the Aelum royals, which complemented her soft features and soothing, calm voice.

Being seventh in line for the throne, the chances of her ever ascending as Queen were minimal, to say the least, and she had understood this from a young age.

Knowing this, Sharon aimed to make herself indispensable to the Royal family, so that when her cold elder brother, the current Crown Prince, inevitably ascended, she wouldn’t be cast aside as a ‘useless royal’ or used as a political pawn to be married off to another nation, like he most likely planned for her elder sister, the Third Princess, who spent more time attending parties than taking on any responsibilities that only Royals could manage.

Finding her area of expertise took some time, and after discovering she had a talent for diplomacy, she engaged the best tutors in the country to train her in the art and used her authority as a Princess to join diplomatic missions undertaken by delegations to other nations incognito, allowing her to observe the experts at work and learn from them.

She began officially accompanying delegations when she came of age, had her first official mission two years afterwards, and now, four years later, her father, the King, trusted her enough to send her as the leader of a delegation to a nation on another continent.

Following the recent incident in Tarse, where a dimensional rift led to the world of Aidos’ invaders from a thousand years ago was temporarily created, all the nations were grimly reminded of the very real threat these invaders still posed, and those who had been unaware were now informed that their former enemies hadn’t given up even after a millennium, with people from their own world forming an organisation attempting to bring them back.

For the Memorials and Decoration Celebrations that Tarse held a month after the incident, Sharon was assigned two tasks by her father when he sent her to lead the delegation.

One: To properly represent the Aelum Kingdom and strengthen their ties with Tarse, since, despite being separated by oceans, Tarse remained a strong trade ally.

Items native to the Aelum Kingdom were highly valued in Tarse’s regions, and they paid handsomely for them, while the reverse was true as well, although to a lesser extent.

Two: To investigate the greatest anomaly in everything that had happened on the Alpha Continent over the past 5 years.

Her mission was to look into the young man named ‘Evan Eris’.

Evan was considered an anomaly by every national leader.

The first accounts of him described him as a runaway son of a Duke, a situation that would have been an embarrassment to any Ducal Family.

He began gaining attention after the Geto City incident, where he fought a ‘Winged Humanoid Monster’, later revealed to the Alpha Continent’s higher authorities as a spy sent by invaders from over a thousand years ago.

Shortly afterwards, he was seen in Kasteblum with its Vice Chief Grand Magus, was confirmed to have met the Chief Grand Magus, then travelled to Dungeon City Osto in Hobha, helping save it from destruction by a monster stampede, before returning to the GWE to participate in the largest undead disaster in recent history.

It was from this point that he began to rise in prominence, attracting the attention of other nations.

Evan’s actions in the following years only intensified focus on him, and many national leaders regarded him with both caution and curiosity.

The ruler of the Aelum Kingdom was just one of them.

Having received intelligence from his allies on the Alpha Continent, he now sent his daughter to personally investigate.

After greeting the Emperor of Tarse and the other national leaders present at the memorials, Sharon found herself wondering how she would manage to meet Evan through the crowd of representatives from the other nations.

‘But I never expected that he would come to meet me first.’

That thought lingered in the princess’s mind as she sat by her room window, her gaze drifting over the terrace of buildings below and out to the deep blue waters surrounding the sailing ship she was on.

When Sharon later spoke with Evan and gently tried to probe why he had come to meet her first, his response made a cold sweat run down her back.

Evan had explained that he intended to speak to ALL the representatives from the Beta Continent, and she was simply the first.

He clarified that he was focusing solely on Beta Continental nation representatives, not those from the Alpha or Dark Continental nations…not that there were many of the latter around.

That answer confirmed the gravest fear not only for Sharon but also for her father and numerous other national leaders of the Beta Continent: that one day, Evan Eris would inevitably set his sights on their continent.

‘And it seems that time is nigh…’ she thought, dreading every possibility that lay ahead.

If there was one consistent observation in investigations into Evan’s past and the attempts of people to understand how he had acquired certain connections and information, it was that Evan had never taken any major action without first laying ‘groundwork’.

Over a year before the Dullahan Attack on Cheverton, Evan Eris had been seen speaking with the Duke of Cheverton during one of the GWE’s founding balls.

At the time, no one had paid much attention, since it was just the son of a Duke conversing with another Duke. That perception changed after the disaster when Duke Cheverton revealed that Evan had warned him about Bultom City, the city targeted by the Dullahan King Vazgan.

When the attack occurred, Evan called for support from Kasteblum, and the Chief Grand Magus he had met while he was still considered a ‘runaway’ responded with a significant force.

The Holy Kingdom also offered strong support, sending Paladins and other forces, and one high-ranking Paladin turned out to be the cousin of a Bishop Evan had interacted with months earlier after leaving Geto City.

Following the Dullahan Attack, Evan was seen speaking with the Beast Kingdom’s Fourth Princess, Malaya Thancreed, who governed the region where Dungeon City Lacertilia was located.

Fast forward a year, and the Dungeon Break of Lacertilia took place.

Even before the Lizard Lord’s Outbreak, two of Evan’s controversial companions were spotted in Tarse, and after the Outbreak and his involvement in the short GEE-Wolfen War, a powerful mercenary group emerged in Tarse.

It was later revealed, following the events of September 30th, Year 1055, that this mercenary group was led by the sibling of the two companions seen in Tarse over a year earlier and had been established at Evan’s request.

Individually, these events didn’t paint a larger picture, but when put together, it became clear that groundwork was a central aspect of Evan’s approach to action.

‘Knowing that, there’s no way I wouldn’t expect something to happen on the Beta Continent once he says he plans to speak with all the representatives there.’

To her, Evan Eris didn’t just resolve disasters; his presence functioned as a geopolitical weather vane of where the next crisis would occur.

Sharon was far from pleased with this reality, since the events Evan became involved in were matters of national and even global security, and often came with casualties.

Evan always maintained that his actions aimed to minimise those casualties as much as possible, but it was difficult to reconcile that altruistic claim with the fact that he consistently had foreknowledge of every major catastrophe.

This created a loop of suspicion in the minds of some, where Evan arrives—>A disaster occurs—>Evan saves everyone—>Leaders are left wondering: Did he simply know it was coming, or did he somehow bring it with him?

‘I really want to know what he’s preparing for and which country he’s targeting, but he’s more tight-lipped than I expected.’

He had only spoken about his acquaintance with Tisha Zylwenys, the daughter of Duke Leoglor Zylwenys IV, and mentioned Duchess Johnston in passing, both of whom were friends of Sharon’s, and spoke about some property he wanted to acquire in the Aelum Kingdom’s capital.

Sharon planned to have those locations thoroughly investigated for anything suspicious when she returned.

‘Maybe that’s exactly what he wants me to do by mentioning them. He was very specific, after all.’

Beyond that, Evan had only mentioned in passing his plans to meet with the Elven Emperor Zaos and Smith King Vulwin, both of whom were Transcendents.

Not a single word he said gave her any clue as to what his true intentions might be.

One of the delegates accompanying her jokingly suggested using a ‘beauty trap’ to try to extract more information from Evan, and Sharon’s response was to send that person back to the Aelum Kingdom immediately.

She refused to have anyone entertain such foolish ideas, especially knowing that Evan’s fiancée was the daughter of one of Vathax’s councilmen.

Just as the thought of Eliza Laneford crossed Sharon’s mind while she relaxed in her suite on the Voyager, a small, two-storey cabin near the upper part of the terrace on deck, she noticed a head of bright golden blonde hair moving along the streets on the lower terrace.

“!!”

Sharon did a double-take, her eyes widening in surprise as she looked at the face framed by that hair and realised it was the young woman she had just been thinking about.

‘If she’s here, then Evan Eris is probably on this ship as well! He’s already coming?!’

Sharon knew Evan had planned to come to the Beta Continent after he’d spoken about buying property and had made so many inquiries about the continent.

But seeing Eliza here, Sharon realised that Evan was already planning to make landfall on the continent.

‘I should send this information to father now,’ she thought, about to turn toward her desk when Eliza suddenly looked up, met her eyes, and waved silently.

Sharon returned the wave of the young woman four years her junior, and after a moment, signalled that she was coming over before moving away from her window.

She quickly typed a message on her recently acquired phone and sent it to her father, then called her maids to change her dress into something more suitable for outside before heading down to meet Eliza, determined to learn even the slightest detail about Evan’s intentions in coming to the Beta Continent.