After the departure of Duke Redgrave and his knights from the village, Arthur didn't hesitate any longer. He immediately went to check on the status of the village chief. He found the man already dead, having fallen in the fight against the sky pirates.
Arthur's mind worked through the scenarios coldly. If the chief hadn't died, but had instead proven to be a coward who hid during the attack, Arthur wouldn't have hesitated to strike him down himself and seize control of the village.
A leader who wouldn't defend his people was a liability that needed to be removed.
However, the chief had died bravely, so Arthur honored his memory. He decided to install Sir Bedivere as the new village chief.
He gathered all the surviving villagers and announced that Sir Bedivere was his long-lost uncle, a trustworthy knight from the kingdom who had willingly retired from his royal post to guard this small, remote island.
It was a complete fabrication, but Arthur delivered it with unwavering conviction.
The villagers, like lost lambs shell-shocked from the pirate attack, believed him without question. They had all witnessed Arthur's own heroic fight against the sky pirates and seen him granted a sword by the passing knights.
This had cemented his image as a tall, powerful figure of authority in their eyes. Furthermore, most of the survivors were weak elderly folks, young children, and women—people desperate for a strong protector.
In their traumatized state, it made a twisted kind of sense that a strong, healthy, and vigorous young man like Sir Bedivere would suddenly appear and voluntarily take on the burden of leading their shattered community.
The process for appointing a village chief in such a remote, rural area was simple and pragmatic. They had no need for a formal decree from the royal family.
The villagers could choose their leader themselves, then send the formal appointment paperwork to the capital and wait for the royal stamp of approval, which was almost always a rubber-stamp formality.
Immediately, Vince Rapha Redgrave approved the appointment. He even sent extra resources to Sir Bedivere for the village's repairs, a calculated gesture of "support."
Before he left, however, he pulled Bedivere aside and gave him a direct, quiet order: to keep a close watch on both Arthur and Olivia, and to report every one of their moves and any signs of their loyalty—or lack thereof—toward the kingdom.
Once the Duke was gone, Sir Bedivere turned to Arthur, his expression one of pure bewilderment. "My king, it seems the duke is not a trustworthy man. What is his true purpose in ordering me to watch over two children and report on their every movement? What game is he playing?"
Arthur had noted this as well. When Vince had visited the village, he hadn't even bothered to investigate Bedivere's background or question his sudden appearance.
It was clear the Duke considered a backwater village chief to be beneath his notice, a trivial matter not worth his time.
This entire situation was, in fact, Arthur's probe and test. If Vince had investigated thoroughly, it would have signaled a dangerous level of scrutiny. Arthur's decision would have been to immediately abandon this village, venture into the uncharted dungeons to gather like-minded followers, and find a more suitable and secure settlement to take over.
However, since the Duke had decided to overlook this "trivial" problem, it was the perfect signal. It meant Arthur could stay and develop his power base right here, growing his strength directly under the nose of the royal family and the most powerful duke in the kingdom.
Perhaps, in the Duke's arrogant opinion, a newly appointed village chief—a mere peasant—would be one hundred percent obedient to the noble who had "approved" his position.
In the mind of a noble like Vince Rapha Redgrave, a peasant given the honor of working for a duke directly would be eternally, slavishly grateful. He saw people as pawns, and he fatally underestimated the ambition of the pawn he had just placed on the board.
So, Arthur replied to Bedivere with a dark playfulness. "You are learning quickly, Sir Bedivere. These nobles are never benevolent, not truly. This place is utterly unlike Camelot, where the nobles were often just pretty decorations for the court. Here, they are vicious predators, constantly playing their games and weaving their schemes in the shadows."
"Well, my king, if I may speak frankly," Sir Bedivere interjected softly, "Camelot's destruction also had the nobles' hands all over it. Their treachery was the rot that weakened the foundation."
Arthur nodded, a heavy, grim agreement settling on his features. "Yes. When I left for my conquest and expedition in Rome, they grew restless in my absence. I underestimated their greed and their ambition. Modred took full advantage of this and gathered those disloyal, power-hungry nobles and stoked the flames of rebellion..."
He couldn't help but let out a long, weary sigh, the memory a sharp pang of regret. "I was too overconfident, blinded by my own past victories. At that time, I truly believed any rebellion, no matter its size, could be crushed in a moment by the strength of our knights and the unity of our cause. Unfortunately, I could never have foreseen the perfect storm of betrayal that awaited us. I could never have predicted that Merlin would be imprisoned by Vivian, our very own ally, and that we would hear no news of any of it from Camelot. We were completely cut off, trapped in a foreign land while the traitors had already taken control of our capital. By the time we realized the depth of the calamity, the defeat was already inevitable."
Sir Bedivere also sighed, the shared grief of that memory a tangible weight between them. "Yes, everything began to go wrong the moment Sir Lancelot rebelled, or to be more precise, when that terrible misunderstanding arose and split us apart. It never felt like mere chance. It felt as if some unseen, malevolent forces were meticulously manipulating all of us, pulling our strings to ensure we would turn on each other and destroy everything we had built."
Arthur knew exactly who the true culprit was, the unseen force Bedivere alluded to, but he said nothing. Voicing it would not change the past.
Instead, he forcefully changed the topic, his voice shifting from melancholy to determined command. "Alright, enough dwelling on pasts, Sir Bedivere. Let's call more of our people here. I need their help. Now that we have established a new Camelot and a secure power base in this world, the connection is strong enough. I can summon more of our loyal knights."
Sir Bedivere smiled, stepping back to give his king space to perform the intricate ritual.
The air hummed with gathering power, and in a flash of brilliant light, the summoning circle flared to life.
And there, standing before them with an infuriatingly cheerful grin, was the scumbag white-haired magus himself.
"Grand Caster Merlin is here!" he announced with a theatrical flourish. "Now, are you my master?"
Arthur and Bedivere stared blankly, their hopeful expressions collapsing into pure, unamused deadpan.
"So, it turned out to be this scumbag," Arthur stated flatly.
Without another word, they turned in unison and began to walk away from the summoning circle, having seen all they needed to see.
Merlin shouted immediately, his composure breaking. "Wait a minute, my king! How could you just abandon me like this? Have you no heart? Don't you know how utterly miserable I was, imprisoned for so long by that wretched fae in her tower?"
They both stopped and looked back at him with deeply playful, knowing looks.
"Don't try to fool us, Merlin," Arthur said, a sly smirk on his lips. "Don't tell us it didn't feel good being 'played with' for millennia by a beautiful fairy in a secluded tower. We know you. Don't try to claim you didn't enjoy at least some part of that arrangement."
Of course, that was just a joke.
The three of them knew perfectly well how deeply Vivian despised Merlin, thanks to his incessant meddling in the affairs of Britannia and his direct interference in the lives of her father and brother.
There was no love lost there, no hidden romance.
Just centuries of justified hatred.
Vivian was, after all, one of the trinity forms of Morgan le Fay.
And she was, without exaggeration, one of the most prominent figures on the entire island who harbored an intensely burning hatred for the meddlesome mage.
But at the same time, none of them wanted the conversation to become stiff and awkward.
They had just been reunited after so long.
Why fill the air with old grudges and bitter history when they could joke instead, lightening the mood with familiar banter?
Merlin touched his nose awkwardly, a sheepish gesture that betrayed his embarrassment.
He couldn't help but begin to hum a nonsensical little tune under his breath, deliberately looking away from his king and conspicuously saying absolutely nothing.
His silence was louder than any denial.
"Anyway, welcome, old friend," Arthur said, his voice warm with genuine feeling as he finally broke the tension with a short, firm embrace.
"Yeah, it's good to see you again, my king. And you too, Bedivere," Merlin replied, his usual theatrical flair softened by a moment of sincerity as he returned the hug, completing their brief but heartwarming reunion.
Then Arthur got straight to the point, his expression turning serious and focused. "Anyway, let's get down to business, Merlin. I want to establish Camelot again, here in this new world, and I plan to summon the rest of our old friends. Will you help me again this time, teacher?"
Merlin immediately patted his chest in a grand, assured gesture.
"Just leave it to me, my king! Luckily, I was thoughtful enough to bring along a certain famous sword lodged in a stone. Right. Let's go scam those commoners... Ahem," he fake-coughed, correcting himself with a completely unconvincing tone, "I mean, let's go inspire them with a grand legend and encourage the worthy to pull the sword from the stone."
You definitely said "scam," right, Merlin?
Arthur and Bedivere stared at him in perfect, synchronized deadpan, their faces a flat canvas of pure, unimpressed judgment.
"Alright, you magnificent bastard," Arthur finally said, a wide, sharp-edged grin spreading across his face as he clapped his hands together.
"Let's fucking go."
From a slight distance, Bedivere simply smiled, a quiet, fond expression on his face as he watched his monarch and the eccentric teacher fall back into their familiar rhythm of joking and chatting cheerfully, their bond as strong and chaotic as ever.
Hah...
It really is just like the old times, he thought to himself, a deep sense of contentment settling in his chest.
Indeed, it is.