Stirring (1)

Right after Lee Tae-hyun left, Lunan stood alone for a long while, watching the spot where he had disappeared.

"A king, huh…."

While the Grand Mandate of Heaven was underway, it was the unwritten rule that each prince would remain within his own residence. And she had simply assumed that Leo would be the one to receive the name from heaven.

As if heaven would ever grant a name to the First Prince.

She knew, of course, that he had personally stepped forward during the monster attack and led the battle to victory. But that alone wasn't enough to measure him as kingly material. Above all else, the man was reckless and loved battle, didn't he?

The moment someone like that became king, a river of blood would surely sweep across the continent.

Leo, on the other hand, might fall a little short of him in raw combat, but he possessed a composed temperament and ice-cold judgment. Unlike a certain someone, he never acted rashly — an intellectual blessed with the wisdom to think three times before making a single move.

The reason she had joined the Black Moon instead of the White Sun in the first place was precisely so she could serve Prince Leo.

"If the Prince becomes king, the Black Moon's standing will rise even higher, won't it?"

Then those White Sun bastards would be crushed flat. They wouldn't dare so much as lift their heads carelessly in her presence.

Just imagining Chadwick utterly deflated already had her snickering.

"Heheh… ugh!"

A bitter jolt of pain shot ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠up from her wound.

"Better head back soon. I've been out too long."

She walked slowly toward the infirmary wing. It sat deep inside the Shadow Garden, and to reach it, one had no choice but to pass by the entrance of the Dark Palace.

Lunan limped slightly as she passed in front of the Dark Palace. At its entrance, two knights still stood firm, guarding the doors.

"Those guards are impressive. Their wounds shouldn't have healed yet…."

They had both clearly taken ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠part in the battle against the monsters. If her memory served, both had suffered fairly serious injuries.

How on earth did they recover so fast?

Curiosity stirred in her all of a sudden. Even she — someone whose recovery speed was faster than most — still hadn't been cleared to return to knight duty. So how were they already back in their armor and on duty?

"Excuse me…."

"You may not enter this place."

As Lunan approached, the two knights crossed their blades to block her path.

"If you have business here, please schedule a consultation in advance."

"Ahaha, no, that's not it. Actually…."

"You may not enter this place."

In that instant, a faint sense of wrongness brushed past the back of her neck.

"If you have business here, please schedule a consultation in advance."

"Um… hello?"

"You may not enter this place."

Voiceless souls, reciting the exact same words over and over.

"You may not enter this place."

"You may not enter this place."

"You may not enter this place."

"You may not enter this place."

"If you have business here, please schedule a consultation in advance."

"If you have business here, please schedule a consultation in advance."

"If you have business here, please schedule a consultation in advance."

"If you have business here, please schedule a consultation in advance."

Something was wrong.

"What's the matter with you two?! Snap out of it!"

The moment she shouted, the two knights stopped mid-word.

And then—

Crack…!

Their bodies twisted. Their bellies split open, tentacles crawling out from within, and their eyes multiplied into dozens.

"This place… this place… this place… this place… this place…."

Humans were mutating into monsters.

"Wh-what is this…."

Fear froze her mind solid, but her body was already moving. She snatched the sword from a knight's grip and swiftly severed its neck.

Srrk!

The knight's head tumbled to the floor. But the tentacles kept growing, warping the body further.

Before long, the two monsters finished shedding their human shells completely.

"A m-monster… a person became a mon… ster…."

Lunan's soul went cold as ice.

"Tell me — are you truly a human being?"

Wengrum suddenly threw out a bizarre question.

"Then what would I be — a human, or a beast?"

"It wouldn't be strange, coming from the descendant of a Grand Archmage."

Chadwick seemed to echo the sentiment.

"To think you shattered all three souls single-handedly!"

"I didn't just shatter the souls."

The statues had been ground to fine powder without a trace left behind.

That's the statues' fault for being easier to break than I expected.

Even so, we had managed to push through the Tomb of the King faster than anticipated.

Rrrrumble!

The space shifted, and we moved from the vast stone chamber into a small room with a sacrificial altar.

"This place…!"

"The tomb of the First King — and the site where the Grand Mandate of Heaven is performed."

Wengrum prepared the rite.

"Do not expect too much. No grand ceremony is required."

He drew a dagger from his belt and pricked his thumb. Dark crimson blood dripped in fat drops onto the altar.

His mana-laden voice struck the walls of the chamber and reverberated with an eerie resonance.

The instant Wengrum finished speaking, the air convulsed. The currents surrounding us began converging toward a single point all at once.

Ssssssss!

The drops of blood spilled upon the altar turned milky white.

"The blood has been steeped in ancient mana! The path of heaven is descending!"

The blood congealed and gathered toward the center of the altar. Then, writhing its round mass, it began to draw something upon the stone.

Swipe— swipe—.

A line of script formed from gore.

"What does it say?"

Naturally, I couldn't make heads or tails of it — but it didn't matter.

"Ohh! The name of the new king is being born!"

The excited middle-aged mage interpreted everything for me of his own accord.

Grempel.

The moment that familiar name rang out, my fist clenched without my willing it.

My savior….

It felt as if his voice were flickering at the edge of my ear — from back then, after I brought down the monster he had become with a thrown spear, when he passed his duty as Namekeeper on to me.

'You gave me… gave them… the gift of rest….'

'I entrust my duty to you….'

'To the King who lost his name… offer this name….'

'Braver and greater than any….'

'The King who sits upon the throne and shields all…!'

The Knight King, Grempel!

So this was what lay behind that whole affair. Just as a strange, tangled emotion welled up inside me—

"The owner of this name is…."

An answer far removed from expectation took shape upon the altar.

"The First Prince."

The First Prince, Theo.

"Wh-what did you say?"

Grempel was Theo.

"I-is it true, then? My lord is to become king?"

Chadwick asked back in a daze.

"Heaven does not speak falsehood. The new king, without question, is the First Prince."

"Ha… hahaha! Well, this is a joyous occasion indeed."

For a moment, it felt as though my brain had stopped entirely.

That 'Nameless King' I fought in the Graveyard of Knights — he was Theo?

Then… Leo?

He was the Monarch?

Why?

It made no sense. He was the one who claimed he had no right to the throne in the first place. Could even all of that have been a lie?

"Do not despair too much. I shall put in a good word with His Highness on your behalf, so…."

I shoved aside Chadwick's attempt at consolation and hurried out of the tomb. There was no time to waste standing around like this. If Leo was to become the Monarch, I had to get back and stop it, right now—

"Ahh, so it's come to this in the end."

At that moment, someone spoke from the tomb's entrance.

"So the Grand Mandate of Heaven pointed to the First Prince after all. A pity."

"Who… who are you?"

"No one may enter this place uninvited!"

Chadwick and Wengrum warily squared off against the unknown intruder.

"Everyone, relax. Today is a day of celebration, after all."

The intruder took a single step inside, revealing himself. A buzz cut and an insufferable face.

"Pone?"

The one man who should never have been here greeted us with a smirk.

"Why are you here…?"

"Because He commanded it."

He spread both arms wide and declared:

"I was told to wait for you here. And if heaven did not grant Him a name — I was told to kill every last one of you."

The meaning buried in those words was this:

"He's the Second Prince's lackey!"

"So he defied protocol after all!"

Leo had ordered us killed.

"…Why?"

The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them.

"Why would the Second Prince give such an order?"

"Is it not obvious? Because He does not wish to see the First Prince crowned."

Leo's reason for stopping Theo from becoming king was to prevent him from becoming the Monarch. Could even that have been nothing but a smokescreen?

"Kikikikik!"

Pone burst into a grotesque laugh.

"You fool. He still does not want the First Prince as Monarch. He says that if one species cannot rule over an entirely different species, then the throne is meaningless."

"Then why—!"

"So He researched."

Pone's eyes rolled upward. Those fanatical pupils, brimming with madness like some zealot's, twitched and warped in every direction.

"The means to rule over what is perfectly alien. The means to bind one species utterly beneath His heel…. And He completed it. After dismantling hundreds of demons, after cleaving apart divine beasts in His research, He seized the authority to dominate a species — He attained it, I tell you!"

"The authority to dominate a species?"

"Allow me to show you."

Pone's neck bent at an angle no neck should take.

"The perfect transmutation of desire into power."

Crack!

A hard carapace sprouted across his body. Skin like steel, reminiscent of armor.

Crunch! Cr-cr-crunch!

Plate after plate of armor multiplied over him. His head was swallowed by steel and reshaped into the form of a helm.

"……."

Something impossible — something that should never be — was unfolding before my eyes. What I was looking at right now was, without a doubt, Knightification.

And the Monarch who wielded it was none other than—

the Iron Blood Monarch.

Pone, transfigured perfectly into a knight. No—

the 'World-Ending Knight' roared:

"At long last, I am complete!"

So it was him. I never dreamed he'd been this close all along.

"What on earth is that thing?"

"A man in armor… no, is it a monster?"

I signaled to the two of them.

"You both need to get out of here. I'll deal with him."

"What? But—"

"Go. Now."

That creature's target was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Wengrum, after all. And the only one who could stop it was me.

"……."

Whether he'd caught on or not, Chadwick quietly turned away.

"Don't die."

"…I should be the one saying that to you."

BOOM!

Chadwick tore down the tomb's wall, carving out an escape route.

"You must hurry. The Namekeeper's duty still awaits its completion."

"…Ghh!"

Only after the two of them had escaped did I finally turn to face the World-Ending Knight head-on.

"So you do have some decency in you after all? Waiting until they were gone."

"Kheheheh. Decency? You think I spared them out of anything so petty?"

The World-Ending Knight's cloak billowed. A hostile aura rode the wind and spread wide.

"I let them go only because I can wring their necks and slaughter them at any moment I please."

"…Is that so?"

If that's really what you think, then I'm a little sorry for you.

Because right now, I'm angry.

"Come."

Angry enough to want to kill you — to smash you into fragments and scatter you to the winds.

"Dantalion."