God of Systems: Maker of Heroes and Villains

A few hours later, Hamstero found himself sitting face to face with Keith and to his surprise, the inquisitor had decided to come alone.

Multiple dishes were placed on the table, but none of them ate.

Unable to bear the awkwardness, Hamstero spoke first, "I hope you're having a good day."

"Is that really what you wanted to say?" Keith asked as a slight smirk popped up on his face, "There's some things that only me, and you, can talk about. That's one of the reasons why I came alone."

"I... I see..." Hamstero said and once he saw that Keith was smiling, he relaxed slightly, "... Well yes, I did want to ask you for the reason why you came here when we clearly don't have a history like Viscount Barbarosa. My wife has been helping the citizens a lot and she I've never seen her-"

"The problem isn't your wife, nor you." Keith interrupted before stabbing a small piece of meat on the table.

He put it into his mouth chewed slowly, "You see, let me just get to the point directly."

"Before going to the main subject, you'll need to learn some information that's only supposed to be known by those extremely closed to the second prince, which you clearly don't know about." he said and swallowed the food that was in his mouth.

Hamstero frowned, "What do you mean?"

"Your sister doesn't have much importance in the royal family and nor does she hold much power in Zander's eyes. Which means, that you hold no importance in his eyes either." Keith said as he put some more food in his mouth without any care in the world about manners.

"I'll let you in on a secret that most of the dukes, grand dukes and some of the members of the royal family know." he added and looked at Hamstero's frowning face before he continued.

"Kazak Empire will start a war against Baroma Kingdom and the winner of the succession war will be decided through their performance during this war."

Hearing this piece of information, Hamstero stayed calm and shrugged, "And how does that effect me?"

"As the supporter of the second prince, or should I say... as the supporter of the second prince who holds no value in his eyes," Keith paused as he kept an eye on Hamstero's enraged expression.

"You'll be sent to the battlefield. In an offensive against Baroma."

"What?!" Hamstero asked, speechless with the sudden conclusion that he did not understand. "How did you even assume something like that?"

Keith shrugged nonchalantly, "You're a Marquess, a man from a family that has mostly focused on defending their own territory for centuries. You didn't make much effort in events when it comes to socializing, which led to people underestimating you and talking behind your back.

Anyways, I don't care if you believe me or not. Once the war begins next year, you'll be one of the first few who would receive the orders to mobilize your army. As someone with low importance, your men will be sent out as cannon fodder.

You mostly focus on defense, so you don't have many war horses for your soldiers to go on an offensive. You mostly give your soldiers chain mail or leather armor while the other nobles go with plate armor and chain mail.

Your soldiers don't know how to use swords and are mostly adept at pouring hot oil, shooting arrows with cross bows and stuff like that. Stuff that's mostly used in defense. Imagine how your soldiers will manage themselves in close quarters combat?

Don't even try to tell me that they can train. You barely have one year and on top of that, this is simply information I wanted to give you. Whether you believe me or not is not my problem."

Hamstero heard Keith's words and sighed. A part of him wanted to believe Keith, but a part of him didn't since he wasn't given any proof.

"Is that the reason you came here?" he asked, going back to the main topic and Keith smirked once again.

"Oh that. There's a person in this very mansion who has been maintaining contact with Morose Kingdom and this person is someone who shares your blood. You know what that means right?"

The Marquess frowned, ".... what do you mean? I only have three kids and I've taught them all to take care of the people well. I'm not going to believe you if you don't give me proof."

"With all due respect, an inquisitor doesn't have to provide proof." Keith said, his expression turning serious.

"But since you're a good man, I will help you get the answers and then, you can decide on your own. What do you say?"

Hamstero thought about the offer a little and nodded, "Okay..."

"Good, but I want you to keep this in mind. I'm giving you two options alright? The first one is to leave the second prince's side and join the third prince. This way, we'll let you stay in your territory and focus on defending.

Second option is that you can continue staying with the second prince, but you'll have to give me half of your soldiers. As for how they'll be used, their mastery over defense will be valued greatly." Keith said and cleared his plate before adding one roasted potato onto it.

"Only if you prove that one of my kids are traitors of the empire."

Keith nodded, "Easy stuff, summon your second son."

Once the order was given Hamstero immediately looked at his friend, who nodded and left to bring the second son.

Keith didn't have to wait for long as a young, twenty year old guy walked into the room an stood there silently.

"What next?" Hamstero asked as he glanced at Keith, but Keith simply chucked before nodding, "Just watch, but I hope that you don't act ignorant once everything is done, because that will make me really angry."

Seeing that the Marquess had no objections, Keith turned to look at the man's second son, "So, I found some very interesting thing... care to explain these?"

Before the young man could ask what he was talking about, Keith snapped his fingers and a thick stack of papers appeared on the floor between him and the young man.

"Your name is Mikey right?" Keith asked right after he got the stack of letters to appear out of nowhere. Discover hidden stories at My Virtual Library Empire

Mikey was too stunned to speak as he could immediately tell what these letters were about. Not because they had some sort of special design or something like that, but because of the thickness of the stack of letters.

Especially the size of the papers, ranging between three different sizes which was specifically used by him and another guy who was from Morose Kingdom.

"I... I... those letters are not mine." he said as he kept glancing between Keith and the stack of papers.

Keith smirked and turned to look at Hamstero, "I never mentioned that they were letters though, heh."

Mikey panicked and raised his voice slightly, "Whatever they are, they're not mine!"

"Yeah, sure. They're not yours." Keith nodded as be took a few of them and gave them to Hamstero as he kept an eye on Mikey, intimidating the young man with just his gaze and a knowing smile.

Keith then watched Hamstero read the letters and spoke, "They have a secret code, so you probably won't understand everything with just a glance. Though, you should still be able to spot a few sentences that don't fit the context properly or don't make any sense at all."

"Yeah, I did find a few...." the marquess said with a serious look on his face as he continued to read.

Once he was done, Keith snapped his fingers again and another stack of papers appeared. This time, they were the ones that were written by Mikey himself.

Keith grabbed a few sheets and handed them over to Hamstero, "Recognize the handwriting? What about the way of writing? I'm pretty sure that your son wrote to you a lot when he was at the prestigious royal academy for scholars."

The marquess silently read the letters one by one. His hands shook slightly when he started and recognized the familiar handwriting but the more and more he dead, the more he felt like his life itself was getting sucked out of his body.

Five minutes later, he placed the papers on the table and leaned back on his chair, "Roberto, come and read these... I don't think I can read anymore."

The man's eyes were slightly red. Whether it was from anger or sadness, that was for the others to guess.

Roberto didn't look at his son and simply stared at the food in front of him as he spoke, "What did I do wrong, Mikey? I gave you everything I could ever since you were a child... every single thing you asked for, was given to you. Just why would you want to poison me, your mom and your brothers?

All of us treated you so well and yet... I, I just don't understand..."

Keith silently sat on his chair and didn't say a word to interfere. This was something that was between a father and his son, but he knew that if he had to interfere, then he totally would.

Mikey didn't say anything for a few seconds but then, it looked like he had decided to let everything go as he grit his teeth and glared at his father angrily.

"Why you ask? It's because you picked that idiot for an older brother as your successor! What am I lacking, father?"