I turned my head to see the source of the voice - a lizardmen with a purple sash around himself. I recognized him from back during the dinner with the king.

What was his name again? Chestnut? Kyle?

No, those were nicknames I had given them because I couldn't remember their actual names.

I found myself somewhat tongue-tied. "Ah, yes, nice to meet you again… same here. Nice weather we're having, isn't it?" I tried introducing myself, though I must have definitely come off as being rather awkward.

"The weather…?" he said, trailing off, looking up at the sky. Yeah, it had definitely thrown him off - but before I could feel too bad about my social ineptitude, he slapped a hand to his face. "Ah of course! I apologize - I hadn't thought of that!"

"Uh…" I said, trailing off, not sure what it was that he was getting at.

"It's a clear sky today," he said. "No sign of clouds - or rain. If you were going to do that combo you're famous for, the rain would get in its way, am I not wrong?"

"Oh right - yes, yes that's true," I said.

"Of course, and here I thought you were making small talk," he said, accidentally interpreting a deeper meaning to what I had said earlier though it had none. He introduced himself again - yup, this was Kyle, or the lizardman I was calling 'Kyle' in my head. "I have been placed in charge of the city's defense and came as soon as that enemy force was spotted. Thank you for responding so quickly to my call."

"Of course," I said.

"And this is…?" he trailed off, looking at Sun Jiao, who tried looking important- and failed at that.

"My… ah, assistant of sorts," I said. I turned my head towards the threat. "What is the plan for dealing with them?"

"We cannot let them approach the gates, and we cannot stand proud behind stone walls as we would otherwise do without risking damage to the surrounding areas," Kyle said. "We have no choice but to meet them out in the open." He pointed a scaly finger to a nearby hill. "I can send out a raiding party to surround them from one end, and I was hoping that you could use your ability to pincer them in using the terrain to our advantage."

It took me a few seconds to understand what he was getting at. Right - so if the Tyrant Arachnea ran at them, it could cause them to disperse, but the issue was that the surrounding hills would make running in any direction difficult. If the raiding party could seize one of them from beforehand, they could rain down fire upon the retreating dryads, thinning their numbers out, before then descending to hunt down the remnants.

It was not a bad idea.

But there was one issue.

"Forgive me for asking this," I said. "But why doesn't His Majesty simply fly out and destroy them?" Although Kyle's plan was not bad, it would inevitably lead to some casualties off the basic fact that some people were going to be sent into combat. It might be as light as a few soldiers falling off their horses by mistake - but there would, without a doubt, be some injuries.

The king could change all of that by just doing everything himself.

Back in Arconia, Lance couldn't have because there were too many enemy soldiers, and there was the risk of the survivors of any aerial assault turning around and rampaging towards the city, in which case we would've been without the protection of one of the city's most powerful Liberomancers.

Here though, there were just a couple of thousand. Even if the king couldn't kill all of them - though I was pretty sure he should have been able to being a fire elementalist himself, it would greatly reduce casualties with minimal risk.

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"Ah… that…" Kyle began, but didn't answer immediately. Something about his facial expression seemed… off. I had spent enough time with lizardmen to realize that there was something oddly twisted about it - but not enough to realize what it was.

He seemed to be looking for a reason as to why the king couldn't do it.

Why not? Because he was the king and kings didn't fight on their own?

I mean, there was a reason why the royal family could hold such influence, and their Liberomantic prowess was one of them. The idea that rulers didn't fight on their own was not one that could be said to really apply to this world.

Shouldn't he go forth if it would save some of his subjects?

I was sure that Lance would've taken care of the problem by now, had he been here.

"I am afraid that the Rank Four spell [Magma Pillar] targets a rather narrow area," Kyle said. "And as such, it is not suitable for fighting large numbers of weak enemies."

"Right but…" I began to protest, because I was sure that even if that were the case and [Inferno] would've been better for this situation, even several uses of [Grand Fireball] from a dedicated fire elementalist would've done the job.

As a matter of fact, it wouldn't surprise me if, were Zeke here, that he could've also taken care of the problem.

If I had the ability to fly, while my mana wouldn't last long enough to get rid of all of them in normal circumstances, I could always just drop the Tyrant Arachnea down upon them from the air, light it on fire, and then watch the show safely.

But there was something about the look that Kyle was giving me right now that I could definitely decipher clearly - he was asking me to stop pursuing this line of questioning.

Why though?

Why couldn't the king come out?

One possibility did occur to me - that he had some kind of issue with his health that magic couldn't easily correct which would prevent him from doing so. An example would be if he had some kind of degenerative brain disease or a prior brain injury that resulted in him having seizures - he would not be able to use his magic if they were occurring, and I wasn't sure to what extent magic could heal brain damage. At least, I wasn't sure to what extent Rank Three magic could heal brain damage - [Panacea], for example, was quite strong, but I knew that it had its limitations. And I had not heard of anyone in this country having a Rank Four healing spell.

Were that the case, it was only natural that he would not want to head out like that, and even more so that he would want to keep it a secret for as long as possible.

If word got out that this health was declining to that extent, then I could only imagine the kind of political turmoil that would ensue.

Maybe that was another reason as to why he was so eager to try to 'recruit' me?

In a way, by not telling me what the answer was, Kyle had indirectly told me what the most likely answer was.

The issue was that because of my position as Master Liberomancer - he couldn't just ask me to shut up and do what I was told. True, he was the commander of the walls right now, but I doubted he would want to treat someone like me so harshly after being shown such favoritism by the king earlier.

"Ah, I understand then," I said, removing the need for him to do anything to stop my line of questioning. Even if it were true that the king's health was on the decline, it did me no good to point that out. Not to mention I was leaving the country soon anyway - so not my monkeys, not my circus, as they say. "I would be happy to assist you in any way possible."

Kyle was a bit relieved that I had given him a break. "Do you want me to use my summon now?"

"No," Kyle said, shaking his head. "Please let the raiding party gather up - look, they should be ready in half an hour's time, and let them set out. Then, I want you to unleash your summon from the other direction."

"I understand," I said. "Do you want me to head out with the raiding party?"

Kyle glanced over the walls, considering it, and then said, "No, Master Stefan, I think it would be better for you to stay atop the walls for now."

"Got it," I said.

Kyle left, likely to supervise something else, and I felt Sun Jiao tap me on the shoulder once he was out of earshot.

"Teacher, when you were talking about the weather, there wasn't any profound meaning to it, was there?"

"Nope, how could you tell?"

"It was written all over your face - I guess he couldn't tell because he was a lizardman. So, the two of you know each other?"

"Only briefly," I said. I explained a little about my meeting with the king.

"You actually met the king? I thought that you were bluffing…" Sun Jiao said.

"No, I really did meet him," I said. "Was that so hard to believe, that the 'Spider King of Arconia' would get an audience with the king?"

"No, I didn't mean it like that, but, in that case; Teacher," Sun Jiao said, looking over the hills. "Why do you want to leave for another country when you have all of this fame and backing here? Why not stay and become, you know, someone important?"

"My family's waiting for me somewhere else," I said to him. It was an easy enough explanation that I'd already given to over a dozen people who'd asked that question, and that usually got them to quiet down. And the best part was that it was technically not a lie - it just wasn't the whole truth.

"Oh…" Sun Jiao said. "You've never mentioned your family before, Teacher."

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