4 Surprise, Surprise!

King Luken widened his eyes in surprise, his grip on the mirror tightened in alarm.

Rowan was a little frightened of the possibility of King Luken's powerful hand crushing the mirror which may directly lead to his death, but he couldn't just open his mouth to explain his circumstances. He understood the possible dangers he posed, Rowan could be an assassin being snuck into the country in a convoluted way or an enemy waiting to kill the King.

The young man stuck in the mirror was itching to return to Olinthus to simply beat all the nobles up to vent his anger.

Couldn't they at least give him the ability to talk when he wants to? Three seconds of free will would be nice! At least let him keep his little life when trying to survive! He had suffered enough!

While Rowan was sulking, the King of Nelumbo was turning the mirror over in an intrigued manner.

The mirror definitely was not malicious in any way, his light magic was strong enough to sense dark thoughts and his intuition tells him that the owner of the voice had no intention of harming or sabotaging him. Otherwise, he would have destroyed the mirror right away to avoid further complications.

His eyes skim over the surface of the mirror, only to see his cold, but confused visage on the reflection of the mirror.

The wooden mirror was of decent quality, but it was not made of a cheap or expensive type of wood. The material used seemed to not be that old, so it couldn't be some ancient artifact. Nor did it look precious in any way. It was actually quite plain, the mirror itself was an oval shape with an undecorated frame. If anything was worth nothing was the carved wooden snake that tightly wrapped around the handle, as if it were constraining the mirror.

There were no runes to imply full uses of the mirror. So, King Luken could only take the mirror's words for its uses, which was to answer questions. Despite Luken still believing that the mirror couldn't answer all his questions, he was interested in how someone managed to create a tool with a voice with slight emotions. Although the mirror's voice was the sound of a refreshing young man, it was monotone and a bit angry. How did a mirror even learn to be angry?

Playing with the mirror with his fingertips, he finally crooks the edge of his lips.

"Interesting." Luken mutters underneath his breath, his volume being low enough to not be heard by the spy, but Rowan snapped out of his complaints by the King's voice.

The subordinate was still tottering between persuading King Luken the possible importance of the mirror or simply staying quiet, but the moment the mirror spoke, he knew that he did not need to do any convincing.

"Go get Duke Gale, would you?" King Luken continues to admire the talking mirror and quickly dismisses the spy.

The black-clad man bows and quickly exits to retrieve the Duke. He opens the door and was about to step out until a large gust of wind blows his clothes in disarray. A man with long blond hair tied up in a low ponytail that reaches his back, wearing a deep green suit, scans the room with vigorous spring green eyes and quickly rushes over to bow towards King Luken. The wind follows his every step and rustles the surrounding foliage in the throne room. His face held a big goofy smile, showing two canine teeth which enhanced his overall wild look.

Rowan, still having his mirror body facing towards the King's cold face, was unable to see who burst into the room, but by deduction, he knew it was Duke Gale. A man quite famous for his skills in wind magic, being able to cut heads off with a few blades and someone with a close relationship with King Luken. Duke Gale had received his title, partly from his friendly relations with the ruler of Nelumbo, but also his great military merits, where he protected the country from numerous invasions with his own orders and skills. Other than that, Rowan did not know of the man's personality as people do not usually record such things to books, but from looking at King Luken's exasperated expression, it was like someone seeing their little brother doing something stupid for the nth time.

The spy, although a bit surprised, shows little to no reaction and promptly leaves for the higher-ups to discuss amongst themselves. The moment the door closes, Duke Gale immediately gets out of his bowing position and casually saunters up towards the throne.

"Oh divine and heavenly ruler of Nelumbo," Duke Gale raises his arms open to exaggerate his 'awe.' Before he could finish his monologue, King Luken cuts him off by shoving the mirror body of Rowan in front of the blond-haired Duke.

"Do what you do best to the mirror." King Luken said with half mirth and half exasperation from experiencing Duke Gale's well-known poisonous tongue and harsh questioning that leaves people silent and wanting to beat him up for asking such convoluted questions.

Duke Gale grasped his chest in an act of emotional pain and carried on with his heartbroken monologue, "But, my King! I have dropped all, and I mean all, of my important paperwork that a certain someone had forced upon me, just for you!"

Luken's eyelids jumped a little from anger and suppressed his anger with a cold tone, "I know you're angry and maybe you should go back to doing all that work," The King sighs as if devoid of hope, "and just when I had something to help with your workload."

"Why didn't you start with that? Ask a question? I can do millions of those? Just give me a second!" Duke Gale immediately dropped his foolish act and tapped his chin with a thumb and index finger in contemplation. After a moment of 'hmms' and 'haws,' he snapped his fingers in realization.

Although he had no clue why the King wanted him to ask a question to an okay-looking mirror, he would go with it if it would reduce his workload. Maybe the mirror would magically make the king slightly more intelligent and realize that he, the Duke, should not be burdened with such large amounts of work.

"Recently, a wildfire that violently erupted had been put out, but it took around two months to extinguish it. And that was with a lot of resources and manpower to douse the fire as the fire had seemingly its own mind and engulfed trees and foliage from the bottom up. Many mages had suffocated and died within these fires, which is extremely unusual due to previous experiences and current capabilities that are significantly better than ordinary people. We had a few forest fires, but they were easy to extinguish. Due to the difficulty in dispersing this fire, many have suspected that foreign enemies have controlled the fire to destroy this country's natural resources. What was the fire caused by and how do I prevent similar occurrences?"

Duke Gale was burdened with these questions about the fire and was happy to dump it on someone else, even a mirror! On the other hand, King Luken already had a headache from listening to the question that Duke Gale presented.

The fire was most likely not caused by foreign enemies as there would have been human traces of performing such a strong fire spell. But, if it was a natural occurrence, then it would be problematic as it may take months or even years to find the root cause of this violent, unusual fire. To get a direct answer would help save all kinds of resources and time, instead of searching for clues which would have already been burned down by the wildfire.

Rowan contemplated the question for a few seconds, leaving the room with a silence that calmed his mind to think more thoroughly and quickly. Natural fires would naturally happen during dry and windy times from dry foliage, but it can be easily extinguished within hours or days, depending on the number of mages available. Even the Duke had stated that they quickly extinguished the previous fires, except for the sudden and violent wildfire.

Why would a fire suddenly become uncontrollable and hotter than normal, that even mages had a difficult time eliminating it? Within a short moment, Rowan had an epiphany and wanted to smack his head at the simplicity of this complexly-worded question. It must be because he spent time with dumber nobles for a year that his brain started to wear down.

"It is an occurrence caused by the overgrowth underneath the trees. The fires that you had previously extinguished led to the plants thriving more and more, however those fires also control the population of plants. By dousing these small fires and promoting undergrowth, when the days become dry, all that foliage would catch fire at a rapid rate and engulf the entire forest floor and even the treetops. If you were to let the occasional little forest fires to burn the undergrowth, it would prevent such an uncontrollable fire again as there would no longer be a large source of fuel." Rowan's clear and gentle voice echoed in the throne room.

However, the two men were not impressed by the sound of Rowan's voice, but rather the information he presented. It turns out that dousing small fires can simply lead to a bigger and crueler fire in the future. Duke Gale snaps out of his stupor and grabs a notepad out of his dress pants to quickly jot down what Rowan just spoke.

'That's why the King wanted me to ask.' Gale mused in his mind as he takes a second look at the plain mirror. It would be helpful if he could use it to help alleviate his work.

King Luken stares at the mirror in his hand for a while and ponders as to how Olinthus got their hands on a magic tool that was essentially a talking library full of knowledge. Although the man was still skeptical as to the full prowess of the mirror, they could just keep asking questions to test the limits.

After making the decision in his heart, he sees a large hand attempting to snatch the mirror, thus he immediately moves the mirror and smacks the hand.

Duke Gale lets out an aggrieved yelp and holds his hand that was swollen from the hit.

"You're the King! Let it help me with work!" Gale complained loudly to the platinum-haired man, only to receive a mocking smile from him.

"Well, we'll have to ask the mirror if it wants to help!" King Luken said in schadenfreude, not expecting the mirror to reply as it is widely known that magical tools have no sentience.

Thus, Duke Gale could only choke back his words and drag his feet back to his office to sulk while doing work.

The moment that the blond man left, Luken lifted the mirror up to get a better look at it.

'Interesting, very interesting.'