Chapter Forty-Nine: The Stakes Are Too High (Please Support and Recommend)

"I am the king! You don't need to tell me what to do!"

King Uther was never a man who enjoyed listening to others' opinions; to put it bluntly, he was stubborn and self-willed. This personality flaw was hardly desirable, yet common enough among most rulers in a feudal society, making it hardly unusual. More importantly, since he was the sovereign, his obstinacy went unchallenged, and no one dared to utter a word of dissent.

At least Gaius dared not.

"Your Majesty, of course it is for you to decide what must be done."

King Uther stared fixedly at Gaius.

"You swore an oath never to reveal the secret of Arthur's birth. I warn you not to break that oath."

"Very well, Sire."

Gaius said with a disappointed tone.

"Alright, Gaius. Say no more. You should return for now. I will speak properly with Uther, so go and rest. Things have not yet reached such a pass." Though King Uther always maintained a stern and expressionless demeanor, he was actually a deeply emotional man. Once angered, he invariably did things he would later regret. Kay did not want a rift to form in the decades-long friendship between the two men, so he quickly intervened, urging Gaius to leave first.

Gaius looked at King Uther, who was still glaring at him with lingering anger, and nodded helplessly.

"Very well, I shall take my leave. Remember, keep the wound dry for the next two days, and it will heal shortly." With that, Gaius packed his medicine chest and turned to leave the king's bedchamber.

Once Gaius had gone, King Uther dropped his furious expression, sinking heavily and exhaustedly into a chair, his features etched with fatigue.

Kay did not speak to King Uther immediately. Instead, he picked up the flagon on the table, poured himself a cup of wine, and moistened his throat.

King Uther remained silent as well, massaging his temples repeatedly in an effort to calm himself down.

After about ten minutes, Kay finally broke the silence.

"I believe Gaius was right, Uther. Arthur ought to know some of the truth; you cannot always treat him like a child." Kay actually sided with Gaius, but King Uther had been far too agitated moments before. Had Kay added fuel to the fire, given Uther's wretched temper, they truly might have parted on bad terms. That was entirely unnecessary, which was why Kay had waited for King Uther to gradually calm down before voicing his own thoughts.

King Uther raised his head in surprise and looked at Kay, never expecting that even the child he trusted most would oppose him.

"Why are you saying this too, Kay? If others do not understand the truth, can you possibly be unaware of the impact its disclosure would create? If anyone else discovers the secret of Arthur's birth, everything I have done over all these years becomes a farce! The entirety of Camelot will totter on the brink!"

Do not assume this was merely a trivial matter; on the contrary, it was monumental—so vast that King Uther would rather die than let the secret slip. Over the past twenty years, the task King Uther had devoted himself to above all else was the eradication of magic. To that end, he had not hesitated to execute countless innocent people.

For instance, if a sorcerer was discovered residing in an inn, then so be it: every single person in the establishment, from the innkeeper and the servants down to the patrons, would be rounded up and put to death! Or suppose a household was found to harbor practitioners of magic; their immediate neighbors were very likely to be arrested as well, on the grounds that living alongside sorcerers for so long without reporting them constituted abetment.

In short, under King Uther's iron fist, miscarriages of justice were truly legion. Yet, given that magic had indeed inflicted considerable disasters upon the realm, the populace had no choice but to endure. On this issue, King Uther held the moral high ground.

However, if the secret of Arthur's birth were to spread, everything would change.

People would not care about King Uther's original intentions; they would simply and practically reason that while the king was always mercilessly thorough when slaughtering commoners connected in any way to magic, why did he show leniency toward his own son? Your son was created by magic as well! He is equally damned!

In that event, the high moral ground King Uther previously claimed would be utterly shattered!

And that was only one aspect. In this era, the common people did not possess the formidable power of later generations; if King Uther truly abandoned his scruples and suppressed them with a massive army, the peasantry could do little about it—after all, tyrants were tyrants.

Yet there was one group that could not be dismissed so easily: the entire aristocratic class.

The nobility of Camelot had originally joined forces with Uther, risking their very necks to wage war against magic, because they believed King Uther's assertion that magic was already threatening their rule over Camelot!

Yet now, they would suddenly discover that Arthur himself had been brought into existence through magic! How were they to feel about this? The mildest among them would merely consider Uther hypocritical, while the truly sinister ones would begin pondering what would happen once Arthur ascended the throne.

Strictly speaking, Arthur ought to be counted among those freaks and sorcerers. When Arthur came to power, what if he sought vengeance for his monstrous friends?

Furthermore, there was another crucial reason: power.

Once the legitimacy of Arthur's succession was compromised, he would lose his birthright to the crown, presenting a magnificent opportunity for ambitious schemers. More gravely, this would destabilize many nobles who had never harbored such intentions in the first place.

In short, the fallout from this matter would be immense—so great that it could cost the Pendragon family its dominion over Camelot!

Under such circumstances, it would be a miracle if King Uther agreed to it!

Of course, this was still not the most critical issue. King Uther had lived a life of unwavering toughness; these were merely minor trials. At worst, he would simply wage another war, which to him was no great hardship. Back then, countless individuals had been reluctant to fight the bizarre and unpredictable magical beings, yet Uther had forced the issue all the same. Such audacity meant nothing to him.

What truly filled him with apprehension was Arthur.

If Arthur learned the truth of those past events, what would he think? How would he view the father who raised him?

Moreover, certain matters simply could not bear scrutiny; the deeper one probed, the more tangled horrors surfaced!

Once Arthur's secret was exposed, a cascade of related events would inevitably be unearthed, dragging yet another person into the light—Morgana.

Morgana was an infinitely more difficult problem to handle.

No matter what, King Uther still possessed pretexts and explanations to offer Arthur regarding the past.

But what about Morgana?

Here, a spoiler concerning Morgana's lineage was unavoidable.

As previously mentioned, Morgana was King Uther's biological daughter, but very few people knew the identity of her mother. Simply put, Morgana's mother had been King Uther's mistress. Long before Uther married Queen Igraine, the two had conceived Morgana out of wedlock. Meanwhile, the man Morgana had always believed to be her birth father was merely a scapegoat taking the blame...

That was not even the crux of the matter; the crux was that Morgana's mother was a witch...

And moreover, she was a witch whom King Uther had slain with his own hands...

This made the situation profoundly delicate. If Morgana were to discover that Uther had killed her magical mother and spent her entire life concealing the fact that he was her true father—forcing her to grow up feeling like a dependent charity case under someone else's roof, all so Uther could vent his malice and protect his royal reputation—her actions would be entirely justified.

With all these grievances compounded, it would be completely reasonable for Morgana to hack King Uther into a thousand pieces.

And the genesis of all this was Arthur's birth. Therefore, King Uther could not, and dared not, allow this truth to be exposed; otherwise, the utter destruction of his family and household lay immediately ahead.