Gewen furrowed his brows when he heard Kira's reply. "You... stay in the royal palace?"

Kira nodded. "Yes."

"Are you... a princess?"

The truth was, Gewen wanted to ask if Kira was a maid in the royal palace because, judging from her appearance, it was hard to associate her with an elegant royal princess.

However, he didn't want to offend a girl who could slay six scary wolves without batting an eye.. So, he smiled and asked if Kira was, in fact, a princess.

For the first time today, Kira laughed out loud. She batted her eyes at Gewen and finally replied in such a good mood. "No. I am not. But I know the king of this country, and I am his guest."

Right at that moment, something clicked in Gewen's brain.

"What?" 

Kira nodded. "Yes, that's right, I came here with my friend and she is friends with the king, which makes him my friend too by association."

Gewen halted his steps. "You're friends with King Loriel Ashborn?"

Kira replied leisurely. "You can say that."

Kira knew Maxim, or King Loriel, only treated her well because of Emmelyn, but who cares about details, right?

Gewen clicked his tongue. He felt like he just hit a jackpot! His mission was to find Emmelyn and talk to her into forgiving her husband and go back home to Draec.

After he found out that Edgar's men left Castilse, he had been trying to think of ways to get information about the royal palace and how he could enter it to find Emmelyn.

Some of the ideas that he could think of were to bribe some servants into letting him in and leading him to meet Emmelyn, or he could pretend to be a merchant trying to be a supplier of some sort for the royal palace.

He could work together with some businesses. Perhaps, find a female-owned business and seduce the lady owner to be his accomplice.

However, who would have thought that he would be so lucky and met a girl who actually stayed in the royal palace???

This must be his lucky day!

"By the way, we haven't properly introduced ourselves. May I have the honor to know your name, my lady?" Gewen used his most beautiful smile and looked at Kira with a sincere expression. "My name is Gewen Athibaud. You can call me Gewen."

Oh... how he wished he could introduce his full name and his title. Lord Gewen Frederich Athibaud, the first of his name, and the future lord of the Athibaud Estate of Brayden.

Alas! He was currently undercover. He shouldn't attract that kind of attention on himself by letting Kira know his real names.

The pirate princess looked at Gewen in surprise. She just realized that this man was actually very poised. She always looked down on him from the beginning because of how silly he looked after he let a woman rob him in the broad daylight.

That was why Kira didn't notice the way he carried himself was graceful and reminded her of those noblemen she met in the royal palace.

She thought about whether she should give him her real name or not. After contemplating it for a moment, Kira decided this man was harmless and she could just tell him her name.

"My name is Kira Grim," she said. "And some people actually call me the pirate princess."

"Ahh.. you have a sense of humor. I like it." Gewen chuckled. Only when Kira looked him dead in the eye, Gewen suddenly realized Kira was not joking. "..."

He widened his eyes and stared at the very interesting woman before him, who now crossed her arms on her chest and gave him a mocking smile.

She slowly reached out her right arm and showed her scary snake tattoo to Gewen. "You think I'm joking?"

Finally, Gewen was reminded of some famous pirate gang who wreaked havoc and pillaged coastal towns in Asguy last year. The leader was a scary burly man who called himself Grim Serpent. Their flag was a red snake wrap around a black skull.

"Kira Grim...?" He swallowed hard. "What is your relationship with Grim Serpent?"

Kira smiled sweetly when she heard Gewen mention her father's name. "Grim Serpent is my father."

Gewen had heard that Grim Serpent was almost seven feet tall, burly with big muscles, and vicious. How could a monster like him have a daughter like Kira? He wondered.

Kira looked... almost normal, if Gewen overlooked the fact that she could kill those wolves easily.

"So.. you ARE really a pirate..." Gewen muttered in disbelief. "What are you doing here inland?"

"I am taking a break," Kira replied curtly. "Why? Am I not allowed to get a vacation from work and enjoy life?"

"No... no, I don't mean that." Gewen smiled sweetly. "It must be fate. You and I meet here in Castilse, both of us are being so far away from home."

"Oh..." Kira was surprised to know Gewen didn't look down on her for being a pirate. This made his point go up a notch in her eyes. From two... now Gewen was a three in her opinion. She shrugged. "I never thought of it that way."

"Well, I do. Do you know another coincidence which I believe is something we have in common?" Gewen asked again.

Kira shook her head. "No."

"My friend is also friends with the king of this country, and that makes the king my friend by association," Gewen smiled broadly. "I'm just like you!!"

"Huh? So, you are also connected to King Loriel Ashborn?" Kira furrowed her brows. "That's a scary coincidence."

"I know, right?" Gewen nodded. "It must be fate."

Kira thought of it for a moment and realized Maxim must have so many friends out there. From what Emmelyn told her, Maxim left Castilse when he was 19 and went on adventures for so many years.

He traveled to many places and met many people on the road, including Emmelyn.  So, it shouldn't be surprising that Gewen's friend was also acquainted with Maxim in a similar way that Maxim was friends with Emmelyn.

"How did you know your friend knows the king though?" Kira asked Maxim. "I know for sure because my friend took me to meet the king."

"Well.. I know because she wrote about King Loriel in her letter, she will not lie about that kind of thing," Gewen explained. "She is here now. That's why I came here to come and talk to her. Her husband wanted my help to clear the misunderstanding between them. I just got here, so I haven't got the chance to pay the king a visit. I plan to do it as soon as possible."

"I see..." Kira nodded in understanding. "Well.. sorry to break it to you, but the king is currently not here. He left for Myreen."

Gewen's heart skipped a beat when he heard Kira's last words.

Myreen? Why did the name sound so familiar?

.

.

************

Thank you so much for all your support in September. We have reached so many milestones in September. The 500th chapter, being #3 in Golden Ranking, and finally seeing the book on the right track to end in October. Yeayy!!

I will start publishing for <The Cursed King again> on October 1 and I will give it a mass release to make up for the lack of chapters in September.

Before we close the month of September, I would like to thank all of you who have supported this book with your golden tickets. You motivate me to write more, and I am so grateful for the love and support you have shown me and this book.

Special thank you to Maude Fluckiger, Kelly Goodwin, and Rose Hollygolightly (the top 3 golden ticket supporters) who robbed Willy Wonka's stash of golden tickets and sent them this way. You are so generous and kind. I can't thank you enough!

PS: The paperback copy is being edited and hopefully I can send the script to the printing company next week, and we can have the paperback sometime in October. If you forgot, I am giving away 50 copies of the paperback version (each copy consists of 2 books of 500 pages).

If you have spent over 15000 coins on this book and you are willing to pay for the shipping, you can get the books for free. Just email me your username on Webnovel and address so we can arrange the shipping when the books are ready.

My email: [email protected]

Thank you so much!!

- Vina (Missrealitybites)

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