The Princess of the Fallen Kingdom (1)

I have committed sins.

Under the banner of saving humanity, I wrought countless tragedies.

I know I must not regret them.

The moment I regret my choices, I would be denying everything I have accomplished.

Even so, I regret them. Was there not a better path? I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ask myself that every single day.

I am sorry. Even so, to save more lives, I had to cut you away.

Because I believed humanity needed to stand as one.

I will not beg for forgiveness. Instead, I will answer with results.

With the result of a humanity that stood tall and overcame the unprecedented threat of the demonkin led by the Demon King.

……I understand. This, too, is my sin.

Then I shall take my leave.

I intend to go to the battlefield—to buy time for humanity’s chaos to settle and for the Empire to take root.

So it seems we will not meet for a while.

Still, I hope that someday we will meet again and speak.

Princess of the Fallen Kingdom.

The night before I left the Holy See.

After finishing training yet again, I dragged my thoroughly wrecked body into my room and collapsed onto the floor as if melting into it.

“I’m tired. Seriously tired. Maybe I should’ve just focused on managing my condition the day before departure.”

“What are you talking about? I’ll have you know I’m an intellectual saint.”

The first saint in history to graduate from university, no less.

For the record, Grand Fantasy doesn’t even have universities. Still, a first is a first, right?

I needed to wash up, but the thought of it was pure agony. I just wanted to stay sprawled on the floor and sleep like this.

Caught between the urge to keep lying there forever and the will to get up and scrub myself clean, I kept twitching and writhing until a sudden thought struck me.

“Right. Lately the archbishops have been looking at me weird, haven’t they?”

“No, I’m serious. It’s weird. Like there’s a little pity mixed in, or like they’re observing me. Anyway, something’s definitely off.”

But why all of a sudden? I fretted over it for a moment, then decided to ignore it.

Clergy in Grand Fantasy were fundamentally good people. Why? Because becoming a priest required divine power, and as I’d told the imperial princess before, only the virtuous could receive it.

So at the very least, they weren’t plotting anything harmful against me.

“Uncorrupted clergy, huh. That’s kinda refreshing.”

“Yes, yes, I hear you, Mommy Bombardment Fairy. I’m going to wash right now, so stop nagging.”

With that, I slowly pushed myself up and started getting ready to bathe.

I had to rise early tomorrow, so I planned to turn in early tonight.

Better wash up quick, then.

Time to drag out the me who used to finish showers in five minutes back in training camp……!!!!

Of course, five minutes was impossible.

Long hair is such a pain to take care of……!!!!

And the next day.

A cool breeze. Bright sunshine.

It was a perfect day for travel.

Granted, I wasn’t going on a trip—I was heading out to brawl. But since I was going far away, I figured I could roughly count it as something trip-adjacent.

“To stop, you yank the reins hard like this. Got it.”

“That’s correct. You learn quickly.”

Along the way I was also cramming horseback riding. You never knew when I might need to be in the saddle.

I even harbored ambitions of eventually growing skilled enough to fire bombardments from horseback.

There were murals of Goguryeo hunters shooting arrows from horseback while hunting.

And was I not a son of Korea who had inherited the spirit of Goguryeo? I was certain I could do it.

This wasn’t a guess—it was conviction.

But I’d learned enough riding for now, and I started wondering whether I should climb into the carriage and kill time with the Goddess Church scripture I’d brought along.

“How many more days until we arrive?”

“It won’t take that long. At the earliest one day, at the latest two.”

Two days. That meant a round trip of up to four days, and one scripture alone probably wouldn’t cover all that time.

Might as well just quietly practice more riding.

The Empire had several regions designated as off-limits.

The most representative were the areas surrounding the Demon Realm.

After all, you never ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠knew when demonkin might come pouring out of the Demon Realm.

Beyond that, the Cursed Swamplands and the Ancient Dragon’s Tomb were also dangerous enough—if not quite on the level of the Demon Realm’s borders—to be declared forbidden zones.

And the destination we had just reached was likewise designated off-limits.

In terms of visible danger, it was actually the least hazardous of all the forbidden zones. The sole reason it had been sealed off was that the First Saint herself had declared it dangerous.

Without that declaration, the Empire or the Church would almost certainly have marched an army in to wipe the place clean by now.

And had they done so, humanity might well have been annihilated. The being inside was the sort that, if mishandled, would cause genuine catastrophe. Truly the insight of the First Saint.

For the record, in the original Grand Fantasy, the setting was that this place had never been discovered by anyone until the hero’s party stumbled upon it by chance. Looking at that, it seemed the DLC version had at least tried hard to shore up the story’s coherence.

Unfortunately, that same First Saint declaration—added for the sake of coherence—made obtaining an entry permit extremely difficult. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I had to invoke the Goddess’s name three or four times. That was how much weight the First Saint still carried with both Empire and Church.

While I waited with those thoughts, the garrison soldier finally finished verifying the permit.

“Permit confirmed. Beyond this point you will no longer be under the Empire’s protection. Please keep that in mind.”

“Understood.”

With that, the holy knights and I passed the soldier and pressed onward. After walking for some time, a half-collapsed wall came into view. The gate stood wide open.

“Everyone, halt.”

At my word, the holy knights escorting me stopped.

“From here on, we enter the capital of the fallen kingdom. You all remember everything I told you, right?”

““Yes, ma’am!!!””

“I know it’s a difficult request. Even so, I’m counting on you.”

With those words I stepped through the wide-open gate.

And then—

“Everyone, come back safe without any serious injuries.”

The dead came out to greet us.

The stench of rotting corpses stabbed my nose. Corpses so horrific they would never make it into a zombie movie charged straight at us.

A staple of fantasy works. In Grand Fantasy, they were known as the representative byproduct of black magic.

Undead.

Just as the Bombardment Fairy said, the moment we entered the castle, nearly a hundred undead revealed themselves.

There were definitely a lot of them. Enough that a hero’s party that had never set foot in the Demon Realm would never stand a chance.

Originally, the developers of Grand Fantasy had probably intended for players not to defeat every undead, but to avoid combat as much as possible while progressing the quest.

But then again—

“Well now, it’s been a while since I’ve seen undead.”

“I do hope my skill at cracking undead skulls hasn’t grown rusty.”

“Fortunately, there don’t seem to be that many.”

When you had holy knights who had slaughtered undead by the hundreds—dozens of them, no less—the story changed completely.

Corpses were smashed to pieces. Desecrating the dead? Corpse abuse? Hesitating over such things was a luxury.

To the holy knights, the undead before them were filthy abominations whose very existence was a blasphemy against the divine. They showed not a shred of mercy.

Rotting flesh was crushed. Corpses died a second time.

What even was fantasy, really? Whatever was unfolding before my eyes right now certainly didn’t feel like it.

It looked more like an apocalypse with neither dreams nor hope.

“……Ah. Since it’s come to this, maybe I should run a little experiment.”

I’d never gotten the chance to check what happened when I bombarded a corpse. Might as well confirm it now.

This wasn’t shooting a corpse—it was shooting undead, so it wasn’t desecration of the dead.

No—raising the dead as undead in the first place was the real desecration, and I was tearfully bombarding them to grant them peaceful rest.

I was in the perfect frame of mind for the Goddess herself to give me a standing ovation of pure emotion.

Without a second’s hesitation I charged straight into the undead horde and immediately unleashed a bombardment on them.

Divine power swallowed the undead throng. And in a single stroke, it swept them away. The stench of burning corpses stabbed my nose.

It was a merciless strike that left not even the shape of a corpse behind.

The undead that had barely escaped my bombardment came charging at us again… or rather, they didn’t.

Instead, they began carefully avoiding me.

The sight left me dumbfounded.

Undead avoiding people? Was that even possible?

A phenomenon I had never once seen in the game was unfolding right before my eyes.

Wondering if maybe I was the only one who didn’t know, I snuck a glance at the holy knights’ reactions.

……Judging by their eyes going wide as saucers, I wasn’t the only one in the dark.

I needed to do something about this atmosphere first. After a quick spin of the mental gears, I opened my mouth.

And shouted at the top of my lungs.

“Holy knights! The dregs of black magic have beheld the power of our great Goddess and are stricken with terror! We must not let this chance slip away! I will take the lead! Let us sweep away every blasphemous existence that stands in our path!!!”

As I spoke, I thrust the Holy Relic high into the air, and a roar erupted.

““““Wooooaaaaah!!!! Long live the Saint!!! Long live the Goddess!!!!! Sweep them all away!!!!!!!””””

……Uh, we don’t actually need to sweep them all away? We just have to get into the palace?

The reaction was so explosive I nearly jumped out of my skin and hurriedly tried to add something, but the holy knights—already berserk with fanaticism—apparently couldn’t hear a word of it.

“……Ah, whatever.”

Plenty of sandbags this time around. Might as well fire bombardments to my heart’s content.