Warhammer: Should I also sit on the Golden Throne?

0042 Cicero: He was just a child, a mortal.

"These are the ashes you requested." Cicero leaned closer to Zhou Yun and handed him the wooden box.

In this room, Cicero, Zhou Yun, and eight other teachers who had come to apply for the position of tutor were waiting.

Zhou Yun silently took the wooden box from Cicero's hand, gently opened it, and glanced at it.

The wooden box contained black and white ashes, like the traces left after a raging fire. Zhou Yun could sense the power contained within them; from the perspective of the subspace, the flames on these ashes had never truly gone out.

Zhou Yun silently put the wooden box into his arms.

Then, Zhou Yun leaned back in his wooden chair and asked Cicero, "Is Consul Garan one of you?"

".....?" Cicero looked at Zhou Yun with a surprised expression, seemingly not understanding why Zhou Yun suddenly asked such a question.

No?

Zhou Yun used his telepathic spiritual energy to sense Cicero's thoughts and discovered that Cicero was not pretending; he genuinely did not believe that Jialan was one of them.

Or perhaps Cicero wasn't of high enough rank to know whether Jalan was actually one of them.

Zhou Yun couldn't help but recall the bet he had with Governor Jia Lan two days ago. Was that luck, which rivaled his bizarre good fortune, truly innate?

It was this very same governor, Jaran, who would later murder Robert Guilliman's adoptive father, Connor Guilliman. Zhou Yun did not believe that he had not colluded with the cultists in Macurag.

But he doesn't really look like Slaanesh. Could it be Khorne?

"Dear respected teachers, thank you for attending this recruitment event."

Just then, a man with a strong voice, a robust build, and short blond hair strode out of the room and stood in front of the ten teachers.

"Lord Quintas, you flatter us too much." A teacher stood up and said to the man called Quintas in an almost obsequious voice, "It is an honor for us to participate in the recruitment of tutors for Lord Marcus's family. Even if we are not fortunate enough to take the position, we would still be honored to receive your father's guidance in the future."

Quintus Guilliman... the eldest son and heir of Marcus Guilliman, was already famous in Macragge for his martial skills when he was a teenager. In his twenties, he led an army into battle, besieging and wiping out the Illyrim barbarians who were harassing Odin City, thus establishing a fearsome reputation.

Zhou Yun found the identity of the man in front of him from the scholar's memories.

Quintus Guilliman gave a cold laugh as he listened to the teacher's obsequious words.

"Then you'll be disappointed. The person interviewing you today isn't my father, but my dear 'brother'."

Quintus's words, "Brother..." caused a stir among the teachers.

"Which of your brothers is it? Lucius, the one famous for his art? Or Tiberius, the frail but learned man whom Lord Connor praised?" one of the teachers mustered his courage to ask.

"Of course, it's the fortieth son of my father that you're going to teach," Quintus said in a mocking tone.

"...Isn't that illegitimate child only six or seven years old?" an elderly teacher blurted out. Judging from his appearance, this teacher was at least eighty years old.

"Yes, my six-year-old brother will test your knowledge."

The teachers present looked at each other blankly, seemingly unable to understand what Quintas was saying.

A six-year-old child, a child who can't even speak clearly, a foolish, ignorant, and naive child, is testing these, the best grammar teachers in Macurag..... What kind of logic is this?

Some teachers' expressions had already darkened; this was downright insulting!

"Start with the tenth-ranked teacher, go one by one." Quintas waved his hand, indicating that the tenth-ranked teacher should follow the waiter at the door.

The teacher was still reeling from Quintas's words and sat there bewildered.

"Go now!" Quintus snorted, his gaze toward the teacher turning sinister.

The teacher shuddered, clearly remembering Quintus's infamous past, and hurriedly followed the waiter away.

A few minutes later, the teacher returned, pale-faced, as if she had suffered some kind of mental shock. Her body trembled as she sat back in her chair.

Then the next one came back, his face flushed red, his fingers clenched tightly, and every vein on his body throbbing...

Next came the eighty-year-old teacher, whose steps were unsteady when he returned.

"How dare he, a six-year-old child!!" the old teacher roared angrily, slumped into his chair, his eyes glazed over, looking utterly hopeless.

The remaining teachers were in almost the same situation, their faces either pale or flushed, their emotions switching back and forth between anger, collapse and fear, as if their minds had collapsed.

"It's my turn." Even after seeing the expressions of despair on the faces of the previous eight teachers, Cicero's voice remained confident.

Although he had suffered many setbacks at Zhou Yun's hands, Cicero no longer dared to underestimate Zhou Yun. However, he was still confident that he was not on the same level as those eight ordinary scholars. He regarded their ugly behavior as nothing more than the result of foolish stupidity.

He knew the child's true identity, and as the governor's adopted son, it would have been foolish to treat him as an ordinary child.

But in the end, he was just a child, a mortal. Even if he was more advanced than other children his age, Cicero was still confident in his knowledge and wisdom and believed that he could enlighten him.

Mrs. Euton, Connor Guilliman's housekeeper, sighed softly.

She looked at the blond boy, whose expression remained unchanged. The muscles on his face had been meticulously designed, revealing not a trace of emotion, as if he were not the one who had just broken the defenses of the eight scholars and caused them to show hysteria.

Euton even began to worry whether it was the right thing for Lord Connor to ask the child to come here to choose a teacher for him.

Euton did not question the child's need for a teacher.

He... he was so engrossed in reading that he had read all the books in Connor's private library, and among them, he had a particular fondness for war-related works. He read military masterpieces with more fervor than children his age read fairy tales.

Sometimes, when Yoton watched him reading his thick military tomes, she felt as if she were watching a god of war descended to earth, a monster who thought of everything with coldness, indifference, and pure logic.

Connor believed that the child needed to leave the books and learn from real teachers, not so that he could acquire more knowledge, but so that he could understand how to be a human being.

Euton agreed with this... but Connor, who was invincible in politics, lost out in the contest between father and son.

After intense negotiations, Connor had to agree that the child had the right to choose his teacher according to his own preferences.

The child's first request was that he didn't want teachers of rhetoric, political science, and debate; he didn't need that useless knowledge.

The second requirement is that the teachers selected in the first round must accept his interview and communicate with him... and if in the end no teacher meets his requirements, Connor will have to allow him to study on his own in the Grand Library of Macurag.

Given the current situation, Mrs. Euton has serious doubts about whether the child will be chosen as a teacher.

"Next up is Cicero, who is quite famous in Macurag," Mrs. Yotton said to the child beside her.

The child nodded slightly and looked at the one-way mirror in front of him.

The man named Cicero entered the room. He was nearly two meters tall and wore red leather shoes. He looked at the mirror in front of him but did not show any strange expression. He simply bowed slightly to the mirror.

For a moment, Mrs. Euton looked at Cicero's composed and demeanor, and she began to have a glimmer of hope. Perhaps this... no, he couldn't do it.

After looking at Cicero for a moment, Eudon was convinced that this man could never be a teacher to children. She could see that beneath his polite exterior lay a decadent mind and a profound emptiness.

And that child... that child seemed to be staring at Cicero's red shoes.

"Welcome, Mr. Cicero," the child said slowly.