(2) Junius Nein Solemn

When you open your eyes, the only thing you could see are silhouettes of trees hidden behind silvers mist and the starless night sky. Next, you felt a cold sensation on your foot, you found that you were barefooted, standing on the wet muddy ground.

You didn’t know where to go, so you pick any random direction, the more you walked, the heavier were your steps as if you were walking in quicksand and some forces wanted to drag you under. The ground seemed to clutch and grab at your foot as you strode forward. It took you a lot of energy just to move forward.

Your legs finally gave up and you stumbled down, but you could finally see something other than trees, a log house in the middle of nowhere. You crawled and dragged your tired body to the cabin. Once you entered the cabin, as if the cabin had mysterious power, the burden on your body lightened.

After your body was free from the invisible shackles and had a shelter to protect you from the creepy cold mist, you could focus your energy on observing your surroundings. The log house was empty, with no furniture except the lit fireplace. In the corner of the room, there was a spiraling staircase leading to the next floor. Being a curious one, you couldn’t help wanting to know what was upstairs. At the end of the stairs, there was a door. When you opened the door, darkness invaded in all directions, quickly blanketing all that you could see with pitch-black darkness.

“Come here, Son! Mommy's here,” You heard a familiar voice, a voice from a woman you longed for, the 24th princess of the Empire, Linda Verre Solemn, your mother. Your mother's voice was coming from within the black depths. It might be just your imagination, but you seemed to be able to see a path in this pitch-black darkness leading to the source of the voice.

But similar to what you experienced outside before reaching the log house, every move you take down the path, the heavier and harder it was for you to take a step, as if there was an invisible wall that obstruct you from advancing the more you were closer to the source of the voice. But you kept on persevering in hope that you could meet with the woman the voice belonged to.

"Just a little more, son, Mommy's waiting for you," you felt yourself being energized again, and pushing yourself onward despite the invisible obstruction. "Further. Son, Mommy knows you can do it!"

You walked further and further into the black depths. It is dark but you are not afraid of it, you knew that you weren’t alone here. You didn’t know how far you were in the darkness, but you could finally see it; the light at the end of the tunnel.

"Come toward the light, sweetie." Your mother's voice was guiding you onward toward the little pinprick of light in the void.

"Wait for me, Mom!" But after you struggled for god knows how long pushing against the invisible wall, you didn’t feel to grow any closer to the light. “I can’t mom, something is wrong here!” You shouted

“Please don’t give up, son…Mommy is waiting for you here,” Your mother’s voice was encouraging you once again.

“—Don’t make your Mommy wait too long, Sonny, you will miss the good thing!" Suddenly another voice chimed in, cutting through your mother cheering for you, it was a mysterious yet familiar voice, almost similar to your mother's voice but with a very different tone. This one was devoid of the warmth of the encouraging voice.

The two voices then disappeared, leaving your surroundings so silent you thought you could hear your tired heartbeat. No matter how you called and shouted, they were not replying to you anymore.

You looked back to the light at the end of the pitch-black void. With the remainder of your strength, you continue to push against the invisible wall that obstructed you from advancing toward the light. This time somehow your effort was having a good result as you could see that you were closer to the light.

"Yes! Baby, yes!" you could hear the cold ‘mother’ voice who had previously gone silent once again, it was strangely encouraging you. "Keep going!"

"Keep pushing, baby!" Another voice, this time, it was your caring mother’s voice that encouraged you. "You're almost there." Weird, why did it sound like she was moaning.

"Just a little more, darling, just a little further, a little deeper, yes, there!" The cold voice said as you struggled onward. It sounded wrong but you didn’t bother to keep it in your mind, all your strength was used to push against the invisible wall. You were just a few steps before reaching the light.

"Push harder baby. You can do it!" You were so damn tired, your body felt very heavy, and you didn't have any strength left, but the light was finally within your hand's reach.

You stood before the door of light. The light that shined through was blinding you as you opened the door.

Your eyes adjusted to the light after a few seconds, and you were finally able to see your surrounding. The room was gigantic, but you felt familiar with this room as you had been in this room numerous times when you were a child. From the decoration, you were pretty sure that this is your mother's room.

And then you saw your mother, riding some unknown man, and getting fucked in a reverse cowgirl position “I’m cumming!” Instead of the soothing voice of your mother congratulating you after all the hardship, what greeted you was the screams and passionate wails of ecstasy of your mother when she cumming in a feverish peak.

“Mom…” You were speechless and flabbergasted by what you spectated.

You didn’t know whether she was ignoring you, didn’t notice your presence, or couldn’t hear you. But it seemed that your mother didn’t intend to stop her carnal activities with the mysterious man. She began to start once more, riding the dick that was still as hard as an iron shaft even after he cumming inside her pussy.

"Oh Fuck! Yes, I need that hard-fucking cock! Fuck this little whore, I’m yours!" Your mother moaned. After your mother cumming from doing it for the third time, she finally slowed down and turned her attention to you as if she just noticed your presence.

“Ah…Son, you finally here, mommy wants you to lick the cum out of my pussy, make yourself useful for once!” she said, she then freed herself from the cock she rode and showed her cum-filled snatch to you.

“No…no way…” you stepped back a few steps in disbelief, still couldn’t accept what you just see.

It was then, suddenly someone strangled you from behind. With how powerless and tired you were, you could not offer meaningful resistance against it, you felt that you would be out of breath soon. You looked toward your mother, pleading for help, but your mother just giggled and laugh at your misery.

“Worthless sissy,” mocked your mother as the mysterious aggressor tighten his hold over your neck, cutting your air intake.

You jolted awake, your back was drenched in a cold sweat. You breathed a sigh of relief after looking around and finding out that you were in your room. And the previous spectacle was just a bad dream — a nightmare.

Although the detail of the dream had faded a lot, you could still remember one or two things about it during the first few minutes after you woke up. You instinctively touched your neck. The feeling of being strangulated until you lose consciousness was quite real.

You had this kind of dream probably because of your repressed desire for your mother. It's kind of ironic that whenever you dream of your mother, you painted her as a loving and caring mother, but on many occasions, the thing that sent you awake was your inability to accept her real-life persona, a slutty nymphomaniac of a mother that didn’t give a single fuck about you.

It might be seen that Royal Family were free to do anything inside the border of the Empire and nothing exist to check them aside from their Law of Royal Family, but the statement was quite untrue, aside from the Family Law, there was another kind of check and balance mechanism to their freedom, namely the others members of Royal family.

What Royal family members love the most was fucking each other, literally, and metaphorically. The Royal palace was full of schemes and intrigue where any reckless action could backfire and cost them a lot. It was the place where survival of the fittest was most prominent, even more than the Induction Camp, even though direct **** between each member was strictly prohibited, there were still several of them involved in mortal ‘accidents’ that cost them their life.

The others had turned blind eyes to this kind of accident, it was the loophole in their family’s law that they didn’t intend to patch, because this cut-throat competition created a suitable tyrant to rule the empire, aside from the first three generations of the emperor, from Emperor Solemn IV to the current Emperor Solemn XV, had ascended to the Empire’s golden throne from eliminating their relatives in bloody competition.

Because of this kind of stressful environment, you were used to experiencing nightmares like what you just had, you could count with your hand how many times you were able to sleep peacefully in a year.

To minimalize the chance of accidents happening to them, most members of the Royal family had a loyal entourage that belonged to and was loyal to them. And what was the most loyal kind of people in the empire? Slaves, brainwashed slaves. And Royal family had the privilege to pick the best quality of slaves; namely people from the government servant class. They used the term servant instead of slaves because the government had more capabilities and were permitted to do more things than slaves, but in front of the Royal family, they weren’t different than a ****, they had absolute loyalty to the Royal family. Once picked by a member of the Royal family as their aide, these Government Servants would undergo another brainwashing treatment to redirect their loyalty from the whole Royal family in general to a said member that picked them as an aide.

A member of the Royal family could have up to 10 personal aides on the surface, but who knew how many aides and supports a Royal family member got that wasn’t registered and hidden in the shadows. The closer they were to the thrones, the bigger hidden **** they had.

You were the 69th in the line of the succession, but now, you were probably around 42nd in the line of succession because several princes that were older than you had lost their lives, and even your father, the 6th prince had died of accidents. But while your rank had been promoted in the line of succession, there was no change in your title, you were still the 69th prince of Sod-Morrah Empire, only when an heir became a crown prince that their title would be updated. And as 42nd in the line of succession, your forces were still small, you even didn’t have 10 aides yet, you only had 3 of 10 aides slots filled.

“Eliza, are there any magic traces detected when I slept?” You asked a woman who had been standing silently at the corner of the room, her presence wasn’t noticeable unless people mentioned that she was there, she was one of your aides, Eliza Absinthe, your bodyguard. Her appearance was considered unique but not a strange one in Empire; scarlet colored hair framed her beautiful pale face, and her piercing golden eyes further the contrast against her pale skin. Eliza wore a black-colored catsuit with plates covering some parts that make it look like an iron suit. On her neck was a metal collar with a slot to inject a **** vial directly into her neck nerves. The **** was keeping her awake and reduced the need for her to take a rest, of course, it took a lot of toll on her body, with continued **** usage, she probably only lasted around 5 years before her body completely broke down. But it’s not a big deal for you, in 5 years, you could substitute her with a new bodyguard.

“No Master, the magic detector didn’t detect any mana residual in the bedroom vicinity during your sleep,” the scarlet-haired woman answered.

You might be a little paranoid when you asked the question, but better safe than sorry, you knew that there was a magic spell that could make the target have a terrible nightmare when they sleep; Induce nightmares. If there was a mana residue in the air, it would mean that one of your siblings had employed a Magus to attack you. Fortunately, it seemed that the nightmare you just had occurred naturally.

As for the possibility that you were being mind-controlled, you put it behind, this world didn’t have any known mind controller that was able to mind control people’s minds from far distances so they couldn’t be detected by the guard or powerful enough to bend the fabric of realities like the ancient one. Additionally, Royal family members were equipped with a counter-brainwashing defense that they had been trained with since childhood, thus it would be challenging for mind controllers to tinker with the Royal family’s minds except if they were given enough room and time which is highly improbable except in the case of big conspiracies. Trying to mind control a Royal family constituted a serious crime in the Empire and would result in a quick capital punishment verdict.

Anyway, those mind-controllers movements were always kept in check by the propaganda department, I can check if there are some in my vicinity, It will be great if I can employ a Magus or Mind controller as my aides, but the matter of ensuring their loyalty is a problem.

There were already some example cases where a Magus or Mind controller turned their back and joined the other heirs and backstabbed the one who hired them first. After all, their relationship was a relationship of interest and not a master-servant relationship.

You went out of your room after changing your pajamas to more formal attire befitting the royal family. You currently live in the Sixth palace, the palace that belonged to your late father, the 6th prince. Most of the children he sired had lived in this place; you had around 7 half-siblings before he died that consisted of 3 princes and 4 princesses. And now, only 2 of the 3 princes and 1 out of the 4 princesses were living in this palace since your father died.

You went to the dining hall and saw that all your half-siblings were already there. Theodore Nein Solemn, the 37th prince; Marcius Nein Solemn the 60th prince, and Marcia Nein Solemn the 64th princess. As the name suggested, Marcius and Marcia were a twin. The age gap between you, Marcius, and Marcia wasn’t too huge, they were only two years older than you, but the age gap between the three of you and Theodore was quite far, Theodore was twelve years older than you, he was the eldest child of the 6th prince. Thus, after your dad died, the estate management of the 6th palace fell into Theodore’s hands. He was the man of the house now.

“Sorry, I'm not too late, am I?” You asked.

Theodore just gestured to you to quickly take a seat without uttering any word.

Your awkward meal finished quickly, now, came the most boring part after the meal; socializing with each other until Theodore decided it was enough and dismissed the gathering.

“Youngest, are you free today?” Theodore asked.

“Free for what?” You asked back and cut to the point.

“Marcius and Marcia will visit the servant pool today, considering you have not yet filled your aide spot, and I was also interested to get a few new faces for my stables, I think it’s better if we four went together.”

“Let me think about it, dear brother,” You answered.

Servant pool, a.k.a the **** market for government servants. The fresh graduate government servant from all around the Empire would enter the servant pool first before they received their new working post a month later, in this period, Royal family members would come and go to the servant pool and take a look at the pool new addition, and if they fancied them, they could recruit them as aides. Technically, recruiting these fresh graduates as aides were easier than recruiting already established government servants in prominent post. The paperwork and bureaucracy you needed to do to recruit fresh graduate government servants were far simpler than recruiting the latter.

Well, it’s a sound idea for you, but going together with Theodore also had its cons; you needed to give priority to Theodore if he had the same interest in the servant that you chose to avoid early conflict with him. You also needed to compete with Marcius and Marcia, unlike Theodore, Marcius and Marcia had put their guard against you because in terms of age you were their closest competitor. Despite the three of you being at least half-sibling, you never knew when the two of them turned their back against you, threw away all pretense of cordiality, and try to eliminate you from the throne competition.

On the other hand, you already had a safer alternative plan; you planned to visit the city propaganda center to check whether you were lucky enough to employ a mind controller for aide, you could reschedule this anytime and even if you went there, it potentially a waste journey without any result, but this was a reasonable answer to refuse Theodore’s offer.

So, which one do you choose?

A. Accepting Theodore’s offer to go to the servant pool today

B. Go to the Propaganda Center in the city just as you planned