Strongest Kingdom: My Op Kingdom Got Transported Along With Me-Chapter 365 - 364: City Lord Hecrad (part 1)
Inside Gilded Haven, panic spreads like spilled oil.
Voices overlap. Shoes scrape against marble. Someone retches near the curtains.
Tsia doesn't understand any of it.
She is still inside the cage, still holding her sister so tightly her arms ache. Her ears ring. Her heart pounds so hard she thinks it might tear free of her chest.
The viscount is on the floor.
He isn't moving.
Blood, so much blood, reflects the warm glow of the mana lamps.
"I… I didn't—" Tsia whispers, but the words die in her throat.
Her little sister peeks out despite Tsia's grip, sees the body, and lets out a small, broken sound.
"Sis… why there's dead people on the floor…?"
Tsia squeezes her eyes shut.
"Don't look," she says again, more desperately than before. "Please. Don't look."
She doesn't know what happened.
One moment, the men are reaching for them.
The next, everything is screaming.
The shop owner finds his voice at last.
"Separate the witnesses!" he barks, face slick with sweat. "Someone, check the guards! Check them now!"
A guard rushes to the fallen guards, pressing two fingers to a neck, then another. His face tightens.
"They're dead."
A murmur ripples through the room, sharp and frightened.
"This is just crazy!"
"Why did they killed their own lord…?"
"That's treason—!"
Another guard kneels beside the viscount, hesitates, then shakes his head once.
"No pulse."
The word hits the room like a hammer.
Dead.
A viscount.
----
The word dead doesn't stay inside Gilded Haven for long.
It leaks.
It seeps through cracks in stone and gold, carried by panicked whispers and running feet.
Within minutes, a guard bursts out the side entrance of the city lord's mansion, breath ragged, sprinting uphill toward the administrative quarter.
"A viscount is dead," he gasps to the first patrol he meets. "Killed inside Gilded Haven."
The guard freezes.
"…Say that again."
—
By the time the sun shifts a finger's width in the sky, the upper district is no longer calm.
Horses thunder down polished streets. City guards in blue-and-silver armor block intersections, forcing nobles' carriages to halt. Mana beacons ignite atop watchtowers, their light pulsing in warning patterns meant only for emergencies.
Servants whisper behind hands.
Merchants shut shutters.
Inside a nearby wine house, two aristocrats argue in hushed voices.
"A viscount really died inside the city," one mutters.
"I heard his own men killed him," another replies shakily. "Went mad. Slaughtered him like an animal."
"That's impossible."
"Then why are city guards sealing the district?"
—
Inside Gilded Haven, the air grows heavy.
The incense no longer masks the stench of blood.
The shop owner, Reldan, paces in tight circles near the viscount's body, wringing his hands.
"I'm dead," he mutters. "Utter ruin… Do you know what this means? Do you?"
A senior guard stands stiffly nearby, helmet tucked under his arm.
"It means the City Lord will arrive," he says flatly. "And when he does, everyone inside this building will be questioned."
Reldan's face turns gray.
"E-Everyone?"
The guard's eyes flick briefly toward the cages.
"…Everyone."
—
Tsia feels the change before she understands it.
The air presses down harder.
The faint humming inside her skull, something she didn't even realize was there, slowly fades, leaving behind a hollow ache.
Her sister trembles in her arms.
"Sis… there are more people coming," the little one whispers.
Tsia opens her eyes.
Through the bars, she sees guards lining the walls now, weapons lowered but ready. Runes glow faintly beneath their boots. No one is shouting anymore.
That frightens her more.
—
The massive doors of Gilded Haven swing open again.
This time, no chime sounds.
Boots strike marble in perfect rhythm.
A man enters wearing a long coat of dark crimson trimmed with silver thread, the sigil of Bakwell City stitched over his heart. His hair is streaked with gray, his expression carved from stone.
Behind him walk mages, and armed escorts.
The City Lord of Bakwell.
Conversations die instantly.
The City Lord stops three steps inside the doorway and surveys the scene, the blood, the bodies, the cages, the shattered calm.
His gaze settles on the corpse.
"…Viscount, Luzem" he says quietly.
No one answers.
Reldan drops into a bow so deep his forehead nearly touches the floor. "M-My lord, this humble merchant—"
"Silence," the City Lord says.
Reldan freezes mid-breath.
The City Lord steps closer to the body, crouches, and examines the wounds without touching them.
"Clean strikes," he murmurs. "Delivered without hesitation."
He straightens.
"Tell me what happened here," he says, his voice calm, carrying effortlessly across the showroom. "Everything. Do not omit a single detail."
His eyes shift to Reldan.
The pressure behind that gaze makes the shop owner's knees tremble.
Reldan swallows hard and bows again, sweat dripping from his chin onto the marble. "Y-Yes, my lord. Of course."
He lifts his head just enough to speak, words spilling out in a rush.
"The viscount arrived as usual, accompanied by two personal guards. He inspected the new shipment, those two monster slaves in the cage there." Reldan points with a shaking hand toward Tsia's cage. "When the price was agreed upon, his men moved to retrieve them."
Reldan's voice cracks.
"And then… then they stopped. Completely. They froze like statues. The viscount questioned them, and the next moment—"
He gestures helplessly toward the bloodstained floor.
"They turned around and killed him. Without warning. Without provocation. They screamed afterward, attacked everyone in sight. I swear it, my lord. I swear on my life, none of my staff ordered anything of the sort!"
Silence follows his words.
The City Lord listens without interruption, his expression unchanged.
When Reldan finishes, the City Lord exhales once, slowly.
"So," he says, "the guards lose their minds at the exact moment they approach those two."
Several people shift uneasily.
The City Lord turns.
He walks toward the cages.
Each step is unhurried, yet the air seems to tighten with his movement. Mana stirs faintly around him, not flaring, not threatening, but vast. Controlled. Heavy.
Tsia feels it like a weight pressing against her chest.
Her breath catches.
He's close now.
Too close.
Tsia reacts on instinct, wrapping her arms around her sister even tighter, pulling the smaller body against her chest as if she can shield her from the world itself.
Her sister whimpers softly. "Sis… I don't like him…"
"I know," Tsia whispers, barely moving her lips. "Don't look. Stay still."
The City Lord stops in front of the cage.
Up close, he looks older than Tsia expected. Lines crease the corners of his eyes. His presence is calm, disciplined, honed by years of command.
This is Hecrad, a peak Tier 6.
A man personally granted authority and knighthood by the king himself. A figure even marquises treat with caution and courtesy.
Hecrad studies the two girls quietly.
Then he raises one hand.
Mana flows, not violently, not even visibly to most, but Tsia feels it pass over her like cold water. It brushes her skin, her ears, her mind.
Her thoughts flutter in panic.
"What is happening?"
Her heart hammers.
The battlemages behind Hecrad watch closely, eyes narrowed.
Seconds pass.
Then Hecrad lowers his hand.
"…Interesting," he murmurs.
Reldan stiffens. "M-My lord?"
Hecrad doesn't look at him yet.
"I do not sense any active enchantments," Hecrad says evenly. "No external control spells. No cursed artifacts. No implanted magic."
A murmur spreads through the battlemages.
One of them, a thin man in dark blue robes embroidered with silver sigils, steps forward and bows.
"My lord," he says carefully, "should we begin the investigation now?"
Hecrad doesn't answer immediately.
His eyes remain on the cage for a heartbeat longer, resting on Tsia's trembling form, on the way she shields her sister without even thinking about it. Then he turns away, coat whispering softly as it moves.
"Yes," Hecrad says. "You can start now."
The command is simple.
Absolute.
The atmosphere changes instantly.
"Seal the scene," the mage orders, snapping his fingers.
Mana flares as glowing runic lines spread across the floor, forming a wide circle around the viscount's corpse and the two dead guards. The light hums faintly, isolating the area from outside interference.
Two other mages step forward, staffs tapping against the marble.
"Let's begin," one says.
Another nods.
They spread out, movements practiced and efficient.
One kneels beside the viscount's body, palm hovering inches above the blood-soaked chest. His eyes glow faintly as mana threads sink into the air itself.
"…There is lingering emotional residue," he murmurs. "Shock. Confusion. Fear. No signs of long-term domination."
