He's in Love with the Devil.

Chapter 34: The Academy of Madmen

"Please come this way, Your Majesty."

Warden Metzl led the way for the king with great respect. He was a young man, and his voice trembled with excitement at meeting the most honorable man in Rogaland for the first time.

Metzel Prison was in the capital, a much better place than the Tower of Mourne, where the Duke of Buckingham had been held. Although the air was a little bit turbid, at least the hygiene was clean - of course, there must be some temporary overtime work here.

The King's "talents" were found by the Gru family and transported to the Capital Prison at Metzel Castle.

Yes, the capital prison.

Because these guys are all guilty of a few crimes. They're the ones who, in the eyes of the general public, have dealt with the devil, the witch, and other evil characters. Some were accused of "desecration of corpses", some were accused of witch worship, and some were accused of preparing poisonous potions. ......

In short, they were people who deserved to be burned at the stake.

"Get up! Slackers and assholes!"

The warden led the king all the way to the innermost cell, and as soon as the lad, who had hated to make his back into a ruler all the way there, saw what was going on in the cell, his face instantly grimaced.

He stepped forward quickly, yelling, trying to clean up the situation before the king saw it.

But the king had already gotten a good look at the cell.

There were seven men in all, grouped together in one large cell, some lounging against the wall, some curled up in a ball on the cold floor, some facing the wall in a pensive ...... manner, all of them looking as if they had some nerve problem.

"Your Majesty."

The chief housekeeper whispered a reminder.

"The crimes they are accused of include insanity, and it is likely that they made an exchange with the forces of evil."

The king himself, who'd sold his soul to the devil, made a monotone, and didn't take a stand.

"Open the door."

The chief chamberlain could not help but carry out the king's capricious order.

After General Sheen had chosen to be loyal to the king a few days before, the negotiating mission returned to Metzel Castle without incident.

At the first sight of the king, the chamberlain was almost speechless. He was on his knees and his lips were trembling so much that no one could understand what he was saying. In the end, the king told him to get lost and dispose of the affairs that had accumulated in the palace during this period of time without any expression.

--My dear steward, Mr. Duke has been doing your chores for too long, so you know what you have to do.

--Yes, Your Majesty.

The chief chamberlain's relief lasted only a few days before he was defeated by the king's odd demands.

Holy Lord! His Majesty himself has to come to such a filthy place.

The Chief of Internal Affairs felt a familiar, faint sense of powerlessness.

The cell door opened, and the shackled talents stood up under the prison warden's whip. The king surveyed them as they likewise surveyed the notorious tyrant. They curbed a little of the arrogance in them; geniuses - or rather madmen - always have a certain intuition about their kind.

They could vaguely sense that the young king who had stepped into the prison carried a certain air of equal danger.

The king extended his hand to the chief of internal affairs, who handed over several files to him.

"I'm glad to see you here and not at the stake." The King smiled, flipping through the dossier, "I suppose you must feel certain of your deaths?"

"Would you be willing to let us live?"

A tall and thin middle-aged man in a sack coat spoke.

The king noticed that his fingers were thin and long.

"It takes someone who feels certain of death to be so calm and collected? Perhaps future poets will write more hymns to you for your talent and willingness to dedicate your lives to science, gentlemen?" The king matched the file to the man, "Oh, Mr. Jacob, you dissected your recently buried neighbors on three separate occasions ...... Gee, why are you obsessed with your neighbors? Wouldn't it be nice to replace some bodies in the middle of nowhere?"

"Because they've just been buried and their bodies are still uncorrupted so that the vascular structures can be seen more clearly."

Speaking of this, the middle-aged man known as "Jacob" had a wild color on his face.

"Oh, so you were last accused of killing your landlady."

"I didn't kill her!" The mad anatomist raged, "She was dead by then! But I think blood is still able to circulate in the veins when a person is freshly dead ...... Darn it, just a little bit! Just a little bit closer and I would have been able to map the blood circulation of the heart in its entirety."

"So when the landlady's son arrived, he was seeing you bent over his mother, poor man, he fainted straight away at the sight of his mother being disemboweled."

The king said faintly.

"His mother is dead, and the science of life will continue to evolve." The Mad Anatomist replied full of concern.

The warden blanched and almost threw up at that. The chief chamberlain glanced at the king, speculated on what His Majesty meant, and let him go out first.

"Well, it is only right that you should be thrown in jail." The king flipped through the file, "Next ...... you are accused of the death of the carpenter's daughter. Mr. Apothecary."

"I was saving her then. I think there are things that can affect human life where we can't see them with our naked eyes ...... The ointment that that damned stupid doctor used to treat her was dirtier than a stinking gutter! Look at what he used to make the salve - newborn puppies, lily oil, turpentine and earthworms [1] ...... Geez! Does that fool think he's cooking a Recovery Day dinner?" The pharmacist ranted and raved.

"So you snuck into Ms. Ilya's room, threw away her ointment, and tried to douse her with potion?"

"Yes, that was me trying to save her."

The apothecary emphasized.

"Well, you are just as deservedly convicted of murder as you are of adultery. Come on, next fine gentleman."

As the chief chamberlain's face grew harder and harder and he wanted more and more to plead with the king to hurry up and throw these fellows on the stake, the king finished questioning each of them one by one.

The seven men were:

An anatomist who was obsessed with dissecting his neighbors, an apothecary who hated all stupidity, a doctor who tried to cut open a man's brain with a knife, two chemists who collaborated in the study of gunpowder and ended up starting fires, an architect who tried to violently get the townspeople to build their houses according to the plans he had in mind - the king thought that he should collaborate with the two chemists! The king thought he should work with the two chemists, one to persuade and two to set the fires.

The last was an astrologer - a rare occurrence.

From what the king had learned from the former Templars, the astrologers should have all defected to the Holy Court.

However, when the king flipped over and realized that he had taken a cross to use as a measuring tool, he understood how this guy was afraid to cross the Abyssal Strait.

After searching the entire direct area of Rogaland, only seven people were identified, which was still too few according to the king's thoughts.

However, the original "talents" that the Gru family was looking for far exceeded this number, but after the Duke of Buckingham had sifted them out at the king's request, there were only seven people left.

The rest were guillotined.

"You are all wonderful."

The king closed the file and complimented sincerely.

"In every way, yes. Shall I say that genius and madness always go hand in hand? Gentlemen."

"Thank you, Your Majesty, for the compliment."

The apothecary accepted the king's compliment without a trace of weakness.

From the looks of the others, they seemed to feel they deserved it as well.

The king applauded them, "Bravo, gentlemen. So, one question, are you willing to prove to the world that you are geniuses and not madmen?"

"What do you mean?"

Inquired the architect who still tried to keep himself neat and tidy even in prison - his OCD and cleanliness seemed to be quite severe.

"A very simple thing." The king spoke briskly, "I'm that interested in what you all call 'truth', and you now have a chance to live by proving to me that what you insist on is right ...... How about it? Do you feel you are right or wrong?"

"Truth does not lie, and the Goddess of Knowledge and Wisdom has enlightened me."

The architect replied categorically - he was actually still a pagan.

"Soon, then, you will be taken out of here, and you will have bright, spacious rooms - that's called a laboratory according to you. There will be as many corpses to dissect as you want, and as many minerals to obtain as you wish ...... But what will it take to prove to me the truth of your ideas?"

The king tilted his head slightly, as if pondering something.

He was good looking and all dignified, like an asshole who could take a million gold pounds and throw them in the water to hear them ring.

"That's it," the king said in a consultative tone, "a really accurate map of the human anatomy, a report on what the microorganisms that cause disease really are, an adequate and workable plan for the city - I need it to be I need it to be able to change those messy sewage systems, a gunpowder that is at least powerful enough to make you run away, a map of the celestial bodies. How about it, gentlemen are you stupid or are you geniuses?"

In the king's somewhat contemptuous, mocking tone, the seven men took up the king's challenge.

The king glanced at the chief chamberlain.

The chamberlain called in the warden and told him that someone would come later to take them away.

"I hope your research went well."

The king smiled and said goodbye to the seven "geniuses".

"After all, ...... if you lose, you will really have to sacrifice your lives for science."

There was a bit of nastiness in his smile.

Then after that, the seven people who were taken out of the prison understood the meaning of the king's last words.

They arrived at a surprisingly large house, but the Royal Praetorian Guard had sealed off the house tightly around them. Most of all--

At the front entrance of the house, a row of burning racks was erected.

Seven of them, one no more and one no less.

........................

On the way to the residence of the seven "geniuses", they passed by the towers of Metzl Castle.

The Duke of Buckingham and Queen Eleanor were sitting in the tower of the palace. They look down from a high window and see this scene.

Eleanor's current status was that of the palace's hidden chief of guards - not a personal vendetta on the part of the Duke of Buckingham, but a choice she had finally made for herself. She could not walk into the light at the moment, so she was willing to stand in the shadows and guard her children.

After they passed, the two returned to sit at the table in the tower.

The Duke of Buckingham spoke with Queen Dowager Elinor about the King's trip to prison.

Queen Dowager Elinor sits across from the Duke of Buckingham, viewing a sword in her hand.

The curved knife that the king had once used to decapitate Archduke Grice.

The Duke of Buckingham had gotten it from the king as she had requested.

The Queen Mother tenderly stroked the hilt of the blade, looking at the Duke of Buckingham with a complicated expression - he was used to seeing the man's madness, or his former violent and bloody behavior.

"His iron horsemen will roll the winds, his sailing ships will weave nets, he will be mighty on all seas, and will be king of the world." The Queen slowly drew her long sword, she gazed at the blade, and sentence by sentence, she threw her voice, "You don't need to tell me what he has done, you only need to tell me what he needs."

She had watched her children die in front of her time and time again, and there was nothing she could do about it then.

But nothing was the same now.

She was able to fight for her child through thick and thin, and she was able to shield her child from the wind and rain, and she was finally able to stretch out her own shoulders to hold up the dark cloud-covered sky for him as he grew up completely.

What's wrong with taking in a few crazies?

Those lunatics disobeyed orders, then she would use the heads of those lunatics to test her sword.

Her child, it's only natural for him to do whatever he wants.

..................

"I don't quite understand, Your Majesty." The chief chamberlain followed the king as he walked through the prison, "What do you intend for them to do?"

"I intend for them to form an Academy of Science."

The king said.

He took a few steps forward and realized that the Chief of Internal Affairs was not following him. He turned his head and realized that the chief chamberlain was looking at himself with an extremely odd expression.

"Are you serious?"

Even though it was already considered offensive, the Chief of Internal Affairs still couldn't help but ask.

Holy Lord, ah, look at what kind of guys those are! An Academy of Science made up of a bunch of lunatics and perverts? What kind of Academy is that? The Academy of Madmen?

The Academy of Madmen hasn't even been formed yet, and the Chief of Internal Affairs feels like he's going crazy first. It was as if he and His Majesty's thinking were a whole Rogaland away.

"There's no need to be so nervous." The King acted as if he didn't see the Chief of Internal Affairs' crumbling expression, "It's just an attempt, if they can't prove that they're geniuses instead of madmen, then there's no choice but to start with the Royal Academy."

Start with what? To destroy that group of old schoolers?

It was as if the Chief of Internal Affairs saw the scene where the tragedy fell on the Royal Academy's head.

In fact, the king had wanted to start with the Royal Academy first.

With the Black Death coming in a few months, the king isn't pinning all his hopes on the devil. And even if the devil did manage to solve this disaster, what about the next one? Relying on external forces would only bring more serious consequences. What the king hoped for was to prevent and solve these at the root of the problem.

This was not an easy task, it would take time, courage and experimentation.

The king was able to know some general directions, but he was a king, not a doctor or a researcher, he naturally couldn't do everything himself, and there were more things the king needed to decide on than researching one or two human structures.

To make an analogy, Rogaland is like a huge ship, the king is the one who decides the ship's traveling, what he has to do is to make macro changes and regulation, deciding which old things on the ship should be replaced, how to adjust the ship's traveling direction. As for the more subtle screws how to replace, how to build a replacement plank of wood specifically ...... that is to need the people underneath to do.

Knowing what you should and should not do is what makes a qualified king.

Between conversations, the king and the chief housekeeper walked to another cell.

The guy imprisoned inside caught the king's attention - his room looked extraordinarily comfortable.

"That's Dunaday Gurus."

The chief chamberlain noticed the king's gaze and explained.

"Gouros ...... I remember him as the president of the Brotherhood of the Cinque Ports Confederacy, which seems to be headed by him today." The King stood in front of the cell and watched the fellow inside huffing and puffing on the comfortably laid straw, "Is this his son?"

"A bastard son. It was he who robbed the royal merchant ships the last time."

The chief chamberlain was just about to shout for the warden and berate him.

The king stopped the chief chamberlain and walked straight forward. Bribery was the norm in prisons, and the Gurose family, as the oldest member of the Cinque Ports Alliance, naturally had that ample financial power to put their hands in Metzl's prison, and reprimanding a prison warden would not help.

"Your Majesty, the Cinque Ports Confederacy has not been restive lately." The chief chamberlain followed the king, "Would you like to warn them?"

"On the contrary." The king gave a meaningful smile, "I wish they would do something."

"Are you ......" The Chief of the Interior looked at the King carefully, "Are you deliberately forcing them?"

"If there's no excuse there's no reason to clean up, is there?"

The king asked rhetorically.

The king was of course deliberately hanging the Cinque Ports Alliance out to dry.

Don't forget how poor the royal family is, if the Cinque Ports Alliance is willing to cooperate 100% with the king's next reforms, then it's not a bad idea. However, this was not possible, the Cinque Ports Alliance had existed for too long, they were blinded by the glory of the past, and even more so by the huge profits that they had lost their minds.

"Are you not worried about them colluding with the other nobles and causing a new upheaval?"

The Chief of Internal Affairs ventured to speak bluntly and voiced his concerns.

After returning to the Rose Palace, he had violently realized that there were more people who were loyal to the king. This gave the Chief of Internal Affairs, who was loyal and regarded himself as the king's first subordinate, a rare sense of crisis. For this reason, he was as busy as a gyroscope during this period of time, not only filling in the gaps of his previous absence from the life of the royal palace, but also actively following all the news from the eyes of Rogaland.

The king's preparations for this period of time before the Great Purge were naturally within the scope of his attention.

The Chief of Internal Affairs was worried that if there was any movement in the Five Harbors Alliance at this joint, it would cause a chain reaction.

"No. It's not like that, my Mr. Chief Steward." The king did not move in anger as he continued on along the cold stone pathway, his tone carrying a few sneers, "The Cinque Ports Alliance has been rooted in the Southeast for too long, and they're so arrogant that they've forgotten to be careful in the first place. They even forgot to give the others a share of the soup as well."

"Watch."

The king laughed softly.

"If the Cinque Ports Alliance is in trouble, there will be more people who will fall on their swords and try to take their place than those who will in no way give them a snowball's chance in hell. There are too many people eyeing such a big piece of fat meat."

The king's words carried a creeping mockery.

He saw so many things so clearly that he always spoke with a carelessness.

"Get in touch with Angel." The king commanded calmly, "They've been poor long enough to think they'd be more than eager to get involved in this."

The Angell State had many mountains, which meant that they had abundant forest resources, if the king was willing to make an offer and relax the terms for them in certain aspects, it was thought that the Angell State would be more than happy to provide the king with the timber needed for the construction of the castle, and could even act as an escort.

"You sound prepared."

The Chief Chamberlain listened with some trepidation and couldn't help but marvel.

The king's agreement with the Angell States was before the pacification of the civil unrest, and at that time, the king had only borrowed the cavalry of the Angell States. But who could have thought that the king would most likely have set his sights on the timber resources of the Angell Group Mountains as early as then?

The king smiled.

An allegiance, a pacification of war, a cavalry, and you want to exchange from the king for the status enjoyed by free citizens? Don't get me wrong, the king wasn't that generous, before General Edmund of the Angell Group reminded the king of the contract, the king was already thinking about how to gain greater benefits from the Angell Group.

The Knight Commander's familiarity with the Angellborn Kingdom was the basis for the King's plan.

As it turns out, these early thoughts of the king were not in vain, and doesn't it come in handy now?

The king made his way up the grim stone steps of the prison, one step at a time.

He wore exquisite black boots, which were encrusted with ornate jewels, the sides of which shimmered with starbursts of light as the king walked. The king took each step with determination and strength, and his back viewed from behind looked like it was a blade that was always moving forward.

"In January, the Cinque Ports Alliance merchant ships refused to be searched by the Customs Governor."

"February, Cinque Ports Alliance sub-cities bootlegging wool."

"In March, the Gross family of the Cinque Ports Alliance directed ships to attack passing ships."

"In April, Shardshire merchant ships passing through the harbor of Cossoa without lowering their flags were detained." [2]

......

"In September, the Cinque Ports Confederacy, in conjunction with Grice, smuggled in the Gurundi Heavy Cavalry."

"In October, the Five Ports Alliance joined the Rosebud Change."

The king's voice grew colder and colder, his tone smooth, but fury simmered beneath that calm ice.

The Cinque Ports Confederacy probably had no idea what they'd accomplished - they'd gotten a king with a surprisingly good memory completely up in arms. Everything they had done, stroke by stroke, the king remembered clearly.

"The uncrowned king of the sea and commerce?"

The king gave a low chuckle.

The laugh hid something chilling.

With a clear thud, black boots stepped on the last step, and the king raised his head, his gaze skimming over the snow-covered earth as the cold wind howled.

"Where is the second emperor in my land?"

Without hesitation, the king stepped onto the last step, and he stepped out of the shadows. All at once the sunlight fell upon him, the

The cold wind whistled, and the king's brow was illuminated as if with a dazzling light.

The scarlet robes of the king signaled the resolution of the iron emperor.

The throne of the Rose Family stood on the land of Rogaland, then there could only be one will, one voice on the land of Rogaland, then there could only be one flag flown on the ships traveling to and from the Abyssal Strait.

Archduke Grice tried to step on the throne and ended up staining the king's robes red with blood.

Now the King is determined to sink the old ship of the Cinque Ports Alliance, the "Uncrowned King of the Seas", into the Abyssal Channel.

The throne is not to be challenged!