Founding of the Knight Kingdom (2)
Hardly had Evelyn processed the Head Moderator's comment when a sharp knock rattled against her chamber door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“Eeeek!”
Not once since the world fell to ruin had she heard a knock at her door. An icy dread gripped her heart, far sharper and colder than any terror she had felt while fleeing demonic beasts.
H-How did anyone even get here?!
The Ophelia Dukedom Estate had been overrun by monsters years ago. For all practical purposes, it was a high-threat dungeon—an overgrown labyrinth of an estate where bloodthirsty beasts could pounce from any shadow. Who on earth could be rapping on her door as casually as an afternoon caller?
Trembling, Evelyn peeked through the narrow seam of the door frame, only for her bewilderment to multiply exponentially.
“We have come to share the good word!”
First in line was a dwarf. A real, living dwarf—the legendary sort said to dwell deep within the Antares Mountain Range—standing on her doorstep, rapping his weathered knuckles against the wood.
“P-Poor human... could you please open the door?”
Beside him stood a porter, murmuring in a bizarre, singsong cadence.
“Tee-hee! If you open up right now, we promise to spare your life!”
And hovering right behind them was an utterly unhinged elf.
What in the world is this?!
How could such an impossible assortment of species have ever gathered under one banner? Shaking from head to toe, Evelyn held her breath and played dead. It proved to be an exceptionally poor choice.
CRACK!
“Hiiik!”
“Oh, you were inside after all.”
A man clad in knightly plate armor shattered the heavy latch with monstrous grip strength and strode directly into the room. If there was any mercy, it was that he looked by far the most sane of the group. Offering her a warm, courteous smile, he extended an open hand.
“Allow us to escort you.”
“Th-That's... yes...”
She could not bring herself to refuse.
Little did Evelyn know that this eccentric band was the infamous multi-species expedition party celebrated across the Gallery. Nor did she dream that the chivalrous knight taking her hand was none other than the party's lunatic leader. Regardless, cocooned under their formidable protection, Evelyn stepped beyond the borders of her ruined ducal estate for the first time since the apocalypse.
Deep within the heart of Kelton Royal Castle.
Spears and blades flashed in the torchlight as soldiers surged forward in tight formation, spearheaded by heavily armored knights.
“Kieeeeh!”
“Cut them down to the last beast!”
The splinter faction that had broken away from Adrian was methodically reclaiming the royal seat of Kelton. Though their armor was dented and their tunics ragged, their martial edge was razor-sharp, honed to lethal perfection through relentless, daily clashes with the abyss.
“Gurrrgh...”
Slash!
With the decapitation of a hulking beast that had audaciously nested atop the throne itself, the interior sweep of the castle came to an end.
“Did we get them all?”
Even after Lloyd finished chanting his detection incantation, no further abominations answered his call. The citadel was truly secure.
Swept by a potent cocktail of relief and lingering dread, the small army finally brought their grueling, three-day reclamation campaign to a close. Exhaustion struck them like a physical blow; men collapsed where they stood, so thoroughly drained that any of them could have passed out the second their eyelids shut.
Yet the reason they had pulled off this miraculous victory in the first place...
Eat while you work lol
It was entirely due to the divine patronage of the Gallery's administrator, master, and orange-tagged Head Moderator. Backed by his bottomless supply drops, they couldn't have lost even if they actively tried.
Just as the exhausted troops sprawled out across the stone floor to crack open spicy tuna cans and tear into warmed triangle kimbap, a commotion flared at the hall entrance.
“Sir Lloyd!”
A middle-aged knight came sprinting through the archway, breathless and disheveled. It was Alfred, the veteran knight who had cast his lot with Lloyd during the split from Adrian.
“What is the matter? Has another swarm of beasts breached the lower ward?” Lloyd asked, springing to his feet with his hand dropping to his pommel.
Alfred grabbed Lloyd by the pauldrons, shouting at the top of his lungs.
“She is here!”
“What? Who... wait, could it be?!”
“Lady Ophelia has just arrived at the gates!”
Evelyn Ophelia. The sole surviving scion of the Kelton Kingdom's proudest ducal lineage, and the anointed Queen of the newborn Kingdom of Kellierton.
At those words, the weary soldiers forgot their aching limbs. Scrambling to their feet, they craned their necks toward the grand double doors of the audience chamber. Almost simultaneously, a solitary figure emerged into view.
“Is that...”
Lloyd's eyes widened, though he reflexively squinted against the light. Behind the maiden framed in the doorway, a blinding cascade of warm, golden sunlight poured into the shadowy hall, haloing her in a radiance that forced everyone to shield their gaze.
“O-Ooh... At last...”
“The lady spoken of in legend...”
The dreary, leaden gloom that had suffocated the city throughout their three-day siege peeled away in an instant, bathing the throne room in pristine light. In that breathtaking moment, every knight and soldier present felt an instinctive certainty: the woman standing at the center of that radiant glow possessed every right to rule as their sovereign.
Bathed in dozens of reverent, awe-struck stares, she stood tall and immaculate, without the slightest shudder or hesitation.
Yet as the assembly looked upon her with breathless admiration, Evelyn slowly fluttered her eyes open, her internal monologue screaming in pure panic.
I-I'm so embarrassed I could die!
She had spent the last several years curled up in her bedroom doing nothing but browsing the Gallery. To be thrust before a massive, staring crowd bathed in blinding attention was utterly suffocating.
The coronation was enacted on the spot.
Knights and soldiers parted like the Red Sea, forming a pristine honor guard. Evelyn marched forward toward the dais, her movements as stiff and mechanical as a wooden marionette. The instant she reached the foot of the throne, the entire hall dropped to one knee with a synchronized clatter of steel.
“Please lead us!”
“Glory to Kellierton, and glory to our Queen!!”
Surrounded by thunderous acclamations and oaths of fealty, Evelyn stared ahead with an impassive, serene expression, though her inner thoughts sang a vastly different tune.
I want to go home...
Unable to endure the crushing weight of their adoration, Evelyn squeezed her eyes shut. But shutting out the sight only amplified the eager whispers humming through the hall.
“I hear she is closer to the Head Moderator than anyone else alive...”
“Word is, Her Majesty was the very first to exchange goods directly with the Head Mod, speaking with him as an equal without formalities!”
“Even after the kingdom fell and the craven nobles abandoned their people, she steadfastly held her ground and defended her domain to the bitter end...”
Wild, baseless rumors piled upon absurd misunderstandings.
Exchanging goods? She had merely begged the Head Moderator for food right before starving to death and sold him her mattress!
Steadfastly defending her domain? She had curled up under her blankets, shivering in terror and playing dead!
Though as for being closest to the Head Mod...
Ahem. Well, that part is actually true.
Setting that minor detail aside, the rest was pure fabrication. To make matters infinitely worse, Lloyd's excessive zeal had resulted in the entire coronation being documented and uploaded directly to the Gallery. In an unprecedented display of forum spam, he had flooded an entire page of Conceptual Posts with live updates.
The Gallery was in utter chaos.
How she missed the peaceful days when she could lurk quietly in her dark bedroom! What on earth was all this madness? Her porcelain cheeks grew warmer, blushing a deep, helpless pink. She had never asked for this ridiculous mountain of attention.
It was precisely then that she spotted a blatantly provocative pair of posts.
“Y-You... Head Mod, you jerk...”
The primary culprit who had railroaded her onto the throne in the first place. Watching him sit comfortably behind his screen, treating her mortal embarrassment as pure entertainment, made her pout with acute indignation.
And ruling a kingdom was far from a restful vacation. The very second the coronation wrapped up, knights rushed forward as if they had been waiting in the wings to besiege her with crises.
“Your Majesty, my sincerest apologies for bringing this up right after your ascension, but the remnant beasts in the lower wards—”
“Your Majesty, our remaining grain reserves are dangerously—”
“Your Majesty! A massive swarm of demonic beasts in the eastern forest is reportedly mobilizing for an assault—!”
Your Majesty, Your Majesty, Your Majesty!
Her mind went completely blank. Her lips parted in a daze as she felt her very soul unspooling from her mouth.
Right then, a notification chimed from the Gallery.
He was utterly heartless, yet her greatest savior—the very textbook definition of a love-hate relationship, casually strolling into her private messages.
And after all this turmoil, his opening greeting was 'Grats on becoming queen lolol'?!
'Grats on becoming queen'?! 'Lolol'?!
╭∩╮ \ O / ╭∩╮
╭∩╮ \ > / ╭∩╮
╭∩╮ \ O / ╭∩╮
Evelyn had completely and irrevocably snapped.
Beyond the rift—in an uncharted void of incomprehensible space.
From beneath a tangled heap of desiccated, withered corpses, a pale hand shot violently toward the dim sky.
“GASP!”
Faded golden hair stripped of its once-brilliant luster. A hollow, gaunt countenance smeared in filth. Looking upon him now, no living creature could have recognized the imperious Crown Prince Frederick of the Adrian Empire.
“Judddak, you wretched dog! You cursed dogs of Adrian! I swear upon my blood! I will have my vengeance!!”
Clawing his way out from beneath the lifeless assassins he had once commissioned, Frederick's bloodshot eyes burned with pure venom. He sucked in ragged, shuddering breaths as he took in his surroundings.
A shattered expanse dyed entirely in bruised violet hues—the nightmare realm beyond the rift.
It was grotesque beyond imagining.
“Is this... The Outside...?”
Monolithic spires scraped against the void at impossible angles. Familiar castle bastions and fractured city streets lay jumbled together, as though an incomprehensible hand had seized dozens of fallen civilizations and violently crumpled them into a single mound. Looking upon the surreal aberration, Frederick felt his sanity fraying at the edges.
“I-I must survive. First, I have to stay alive.”
Confronted with an existential madness infinitely grander than his own, petty malice withered into pathetic cowardice. Frederick held his breath, desperately trying to crawl behind the shadow of a mangled ruin.
“My, a living human?”
...Except a slender silhouette stood right before him, peering down into his eyes.
“A... human...?”
Frederick turned his head with a hollow, cracked rasp.
There, standing gracefully in the epicenter of the desolate ruins, was indeed a person.
“So there are humans in this place after all! You! Help me! Pull me free!”
Frederick screamed at the figure. He never imagined it could be a beast. Its clean, refined garments and delicate posture bore not the slightest resemblance to the warped, chimeric horrors native to the rifts.
The figure stepped slowly toward Frederick, gliding across the fractured stone.
“Yes, hurry! Pull me out of here!”
At the exact instant Frederick scrambled forward, reaching out with desperate, clawing hands—
CRUNCH!
“Guh... ack...?”
Frederick was partitioned cleanly into Fred and Erick.
It was a bifurcation executed in the blink of an eye, so effortless that it seemed impossible for those dainty, slender fingers to have wrought such brutal carnage. As Frederick lay in the dirt, feebly blinking his eyes as agony surged through his severed torso, the figure curved its lips into a sweet, crinkled smile and whispered:
“Thank you for the meal.”
The ominous aura clinging to the silhouette thickened, turning suffocatingly dense.
“Judddak? I'll remember that name.”
Turning its gaze toward the distant, shimmering rift, the entity smiled with hungry, anticipatory delight.