The messengers returned the news of the crusade tremblingly. It was always the most difficult thing to report bad news to superiors.
Sure enough, the old king was furious when he heard this.
"Impossible. My eldest son is so powerful, how could he lose to that monster?"
The old king didn't believe it.
This competition for the throne was planned by him. Originally, the best successor in his mind was the most powerful eldest prince, so the rules he formulated were more biased towards the eldest prince.
But the old king was a very face-saving person, and he was afraid that people would say he was partial - although he was indeed partial.
It wouldn't work if he didn't give his younger sons a chance at all, so the old king thought of a way.
The monster was active in the mountains and forests outside the city, so the old king asked people to set up a camp outside the city. The four princes set out from the camp in order to defeat the monster, with the eldest prince taking the lead.
If the eldest prince fails, the second prince will step in. Each of the people behind him can get more help than the previous one.
If the fourth prince had a chance to appear, he could almost bring a squad of a hundred people to conquer the monsters.
If the fourth prince also fails, it will be the turn of outside adventurers, but not everyone can go. The royal family will only issue twenty warrants on a first-come, first-served basis. Only those who have obtained the warrants are eligible.
Defeat monsters and inherit the throne.
In order to show that he did not let the eldest prince go first because he was partial to his eldest son, the old king specially asked people to spread rumors in the city, describing the monster as very scary.
But in fact, the old king did not think that the eldest prince would fail from the bottom of his heart.
Even if the eldest prince is really defeated, it only means that he is not destined to be the king, and it does not matter if the throne is given to a few younger sons.
No matter what happens, all four sons are gone, so don’t worry. It’s not up to him to decide who the warrant will be issued to. Just find twenty of your own people and pretend to be adventurers to get all twenty warrants first.
If you take it, and if all these people fail in their crusade, you can use the excuse that the competition for the throne is over.
When the time comes, he will personally take action to deal with the monster. The throne belongs to their family, and the reputation also belongs to their family.
After considering so many things, the old king still wanted to pass the throne to the eldest prince. Now that he heard that the eldest prince had a bad start, it was no wonder that he was anxious.
He glared at the messenger: "Tell me, why did the eldest prince fail?"
The messenger stammered the reason: "The eldest prince said that he saw the monster in the mountains. As your Majesty said, the monster was really terrifying. It was huge, and its head could hold a house on its head.
It can swallow three horses. It has eighteen legs on its body. It can walk on the ground in the mountains and forests, and its movements are extremely agile. The eldest prince fought with the monster for a while, but he was no match and had no choice but to escape."
Old King: "Huh?"
The old king looked shocked. He had seen that monster with his own eyes. He even made it up to eat people. How could it have a head like a house and eighteen legs?
The minister next to him then suggested: "Your Majesty, there is such a dangerous monster outside the city. It is not appropriate for the princes to take risks anymore. We should immediately cancel this competition for the throne and send troops to encircle and suppress this monster."
"No!" The old king refused without even thinking. Originally, he was talking about such a dangerous man-eating monster as a test for the competition for the throne. Now, as soon as the eldest prince fails, he will cancel it.
Then some people will definitely say that he just wants to pass the throne to the eldest prince.
He wants to save face.
He ordered the messenger: "The assessment cannot be canceled. Let the second prince prepare as soon as possible. By the way, you tell him that there may be two monsters, one male and one female. Although there is some difference in strength, they are all cannibalistic scourges. Since the rules set in advance
He didn’t say which one to kill, so killing any one will count as completing the assessment, and let him bring the monster’s ears back as proof.”
The old king suspected that there might be two monsters in the mountains, and the one the eldest prince encountered was not the one he saw.
The old king asked the second prince to bring back the monster's ears as proof. The implication was, "You don't need to prove the monster you killed. Just bring something back to prove that you killed the monster."
The second prince is smarter, and the old king thinks he should understand.
As for whether there will be any danger, since the eldest prince can run away if he can't be beaten, the second prince should be fine with five guards.
For the sake of the old king's face, the messenger took the order to inform the second prince of his departure.
Ren hung outside for a long time, picking at the cracks in the wall. He was not tired, but a little uncomfortable. After eavesdropping on the conversation in the room, he decided to go outside the city to see the situation.
He was quite curious about the monster with a head as big as a house and eighteen legs.
Ren followed the messenger to the outside of the city. After thinking about it for a while, he did not enter the camp. Instead, he took a detour and went directly into the mountains to see if he could find the monster first.
This mountain forest is as ordinary as the kingdom of Belohatan, and it doesn't even have a name. The trees are all common types, no more than ten meters high. Ren walked around for a long time, not to mention monsters, even larger beasts and animals.
I didn't see it, but I could hear a few birds chirping occasionally.
"Is there really a monster with a head as big as a house in this forest?" The more Ren looked, the more he muttered in his mind.
After searching around again, I finally found a cave on the sunny side of a hillside, and pulled out a... dog?
Maybe it's a dog, it looks a bit like a golden retriever, but it's very ferocious, and it's still barking and scratching its paws when Ren is holding it by the neck.
The strength is quite strong, far beyond that of ordinary dogs, and the bark is enough to scare people. It can barely be regarded as a monster. It is estimated that ordinary people will be frightened by the sound.
But looking at this somewhat cute "monster", compared with the description they described, the gap is too big, right?
It seems we have to keep looking.
Ren stuffed the "monster" back into the hole and stood up to go find the monster described by the prince.
However, this little thing was restless and kept barking at Ren after landing.
"Roar!!!"
Ren gradually became more playful and imitated it by barking a few times to scare it, which was probably similar to playing with his own pet dog.
I don’t know why, but when a dog or cat barks at him, Ren always likes to bark back.
When the "little monster" was defeated in the roar and was so frightened that he shrank back into the hole, Renn nodded with satisfaction.
"I'm still awesome~"
After howling a few more times at the shivering little guy in the cave, and finally making a winning expression, Ren stood up and decided to continue looking for the real monster.
But at this moment, a human voice came from behind:
"Your Highness, the monster's voice came from the front!"
When Ren turned around, he saw six people standing dozens of meters away...
The second prince was indeed very smart. After the messenger brought the old king's words, he immediately understood what his father meant.
Taking five trusted guards with him, he entered the forest.
Although the monster the boss mentioned was a bit scary, he wanted wealth and wealth in danger and the throne was right in front of him, so he naturally had to give it a try. He also analyzed it on the way. The monster the boss mentioned had a head as big as a house and would leave traces wherever it passed.
It leaves a lot of traces, so just avoid it yourself.
The second prince led his people to search the mountains and forests for a while, and soon noticed the shouts here. After confirming that there were no signs of large monster activity nearby, the group of people rushed over energetically.
Then I met Ren.
"It's the armor weirdo!" A guard recognized this iconic armor.
"He seemed to have come out of a hole just now!" Another guard exclaimed.
"And there was a roar..."
"That monster... turned into a monster in armor!"
"Run!"
In the blink of an eye, several people had disappeared.