In a village on the outskirts of the Kingdom of the Elves.
"Olfax, how have you been?"
When the middle-aged man with a sharply trimmed beard who was sitting in the room heard this, he stood up with a start before immediately kneeling on one knee and bowing low.
"My King! It is an honor to meet you after so long!"
"So long? To me, it just feels like yesterday that we put Eldra on the throne. I trust that everything has been well with you?"
Saying so, the King of Lanthanor waved his hand which made a force raise Olfax from the ground.
Taking a seat, the king gestured at the one in front of him, on which the loyal spy sat before smiling and saying, "Of course, Sir. The Voice of Eldinor is now the leading news organization in the Kingdom. Investing in it in an early stage has reaped me a lot of profits, making me one of the most respected humans in the capital. Of course, this was all just to keep a close eye on the Queen, as instructed, My Lord."
Nodding, Daneel smiled before gazing into the distance, lost in his thoughts.
Now that he was back in the Kingdom of Eldinor, he couldn't help but think back to everything that had happened the last time he was here.
As those memories flashed through his mind, he tried to think about what motive Eldra might have had for doing something to escape the oath.
He had suspected that something was off from the reports, but he couldn't have guessed that it would be this. After all, it was definitely suspicious for the Queen to be spending such long amounts of time in some area of the Palace, after closing herself off from everyone.
Daneel had trusted the Oath and the Oath Stone, as until now, except his Master, he had never seen anyone successful in breaking or bending one.
Now that the truth about her actions had been revealed, Daneel had to admit that he was quite unhappy.
He had given this woman a fair deal: she had had nothing going for her, and he had worked so hard to help her rise to the throne.
Yet, this was how she chose to repay him?
He hadn't even asked anything of her Kingdom or her except a few inconsequential little things. This had simply been because he didn't want to draw any more attention than necessary, so was it that even those little things had been too much for her to do?
Now that Daneel thought about it, he realized that ungrateful people were some of the most irritating beings in the world.
Shaking his head, he said, "Give me another full report of everything the Queen's been doing recently. I trust that your spies inside the Palace are discrete?"
Nodding vigorously, Olfax said, "Of course, my King! I took great care to pick them out from those who were close to dying from starvation due to having no money for food. I raised them, and made them believe in me, before sending them on their missions. There is no possibility at all that they would betray me. For the most part, the activities of the Queen have remained the same, but something that has changed is that she had started confiding in a specific maid for the past month or so. I sent a report about this to the Kingdom, too. However, what I've just found out today is that that elf maid was seen leaving the Palace with tears in her eyes. The others heard that she had handed in her resignation, and after a lot of digging, what I found out was that the last thing she did before leaving was to meet the Queen. I don't know yet what to make of this, My Lord."
Hearing this, Daneel frowned deeply.
He had talked to the system after the notification, and he had found out that such minuscule changes in the Oath- link was something that couldn't even be detected by a Champion. It was only because the system was constantly monitoring each and every oath link, had it been able to analyze the change in real time in order to notice it.
As for what could have caused it, the system had no idea, but it did say that there were obscure sayings about how such changes would be the premise to the breaking of an Oath link, if it were even possible.
This research had apparently been done by a sect member of the Big Four who had been charged with finding out whether Oaths were truly as dependable as all those in the continent considered them to be. His results were mostly theoretical, but according to the system, his methods of research were quite thorough.
All in all, this meant that Eldra might have somehow found a way to break the oath, and that she was well on the way to doing so.
Daneel had been meaning to make a trip to Eldinor for two reasons anyway.
One, he wanted to make sure that there was no Empire Spirit here even though he had found nothing on his last trip, and also to once again look for the parts of the Grand Inheritance that he hadn't found here.
Two, for his plan to make the television come to Angaria, Daneel needed a lot of Enchanters as the assembly line he had in Lanthanor would simply not be enough.
Display trinkets were a luxury in Angaria for a reason: only highly talented Enchanters could create them, which resulted in a huge supply and demand problem.
However, Daneel had already made a plan to circumvent this, but he still needed to enlist more Enchanters for the task, and there was no better place than Eldinor for this task.
So, it was quite a coincidence that he had received this notification about the Queen right at this moment, which made it so that he could look to accomplish all of his objectives at once.
Yes, in his head, Eldra had already become an objective instead of a follower.
After all, why would he still care about someone who apparently wanted to renege on such a fair deal?
Standing up, Daneel said, "Lead me to that maid."
He needed to find clues about just how Eldra had managed to change the oath link, so Daneel decided to start with that maid.
"Yes, My Lord."
A few minutes later, Daneel was in a village that was much further inside the Kingdom. Still, it was quite a distance away from the capital, which made him wonder how this elf had managed to get a job in the Palace if her home was so far away.
"My King, she was one of those who was saved from the elf slavery ring. She was given a residence here after she gave in her resignation, as the Queen has laid in place a program to help all those who are integrating back into society after being enslaved for elongated periods of time."
That was definitely quite thoughtful.
If anything, Eldra had definitely shown herself to be quite a capable leader. He had read all the reports about her governance before coming here, and he had seen that she had implemented many plans for the welfare of the people which had resulted in her being voted the most approved leader in the past few centuries.
He still hadn't decided about what he was going to do, but Daneel realized that at least one plan was going to be very difficult: if he chose to switch her with another puppet, then it would be an uphill task, as unlike her mother, it seemed that she had left no areas for him to exploit in order to make her popularity plummet.
At this moment, Daneel realized that his whole psyche was quite disturbed.
After thinking for a bit, he understood the reason.
This Kingdom had been his first conquest after becoming the King of Lanthanor, and as such, it held a special place in his heart.
To see that that achievement was sullied…was definitely very dissatisfying.
Resolving to keep a clamp on his emotions, Daneel made his way inside the maid's house directly, while Olfax tried to keep up on foot.
When Daneel arrived, he saw that the maid was simply sitting in a corner of the house and crying her heart out.
Looking around the small house, Daneel saw that it looked like she hadn't eaten in days, and her sunken eyes and pale face told him that this was definitely not the first tears she had said, nor would they be the last.
What had happened to this woman?
"Excuse me," he said, which made the elf snap her head around before her eyes lost focus.
Sitting in front of her on the small wooden table, Daneel ordered, "Tell me everything that happened that resulted in you entering this state."
As the elf started to talk, Olfax slowly opened the door and crept in before reeling from shock on seeing the way the elf was pouring out her innermost secrets without any hesitation.
He had thought that this would be the most difficult step, as elves were very proud creatures who normally wouldn't talk about their problems with anyone, least of all some humans like them whom she didn't even know.
However, he realized that he had forgotten just what kind of man the King of Lanthanor was.
He was someone capable of miracles, and this was probably just a small one that he happened to be witness to.
A few minutes later, everything became clear to both of them.
A month ago, just like Olfax had said, the Queen had taken her into her retinue and given her the task of tending to her personal needs.
Day by day, she spent a lot of time with this elf, telling her about all of her true feelings and becoming very close to her.
There was nothing of import in what she told, as it mainly consisted of her difficulties in finding the perfect plans that would allow her to help her people, and her internal turmoil due to the one being responsible for her mother's death.
However, just the act of spending so much time with someone and sharing each other's innermost secrets had apparently made them become as close as family, with one other important reason behind this being that both of them were orphans.
After that, just yesterday, the Queen had called her to her chamber and said many hurtful things which had damaged this poor elf and broken her heart into millions of pieces.
After all, having one's trust broken in such a manner was truly something that few could recover from.
Towards the end, Daneel asked one thing: he asked exactly at what time this had happened.
And to his surprise, he found out that this coincided with that exact moment when he had received the notification from the system.
Sighing, Daneel realized that he had no other option but to do something he hadn't wanted to.
"Drakos, I need you," he said, and after a few seconds, the Ancient Dragon replied.
"Young King, as I promised, I'm here. Oh? I see you're in the presence of an Oath-breaking object?"