Book 1 Epilogue
During the night of the award ceremony, King Remonas sat in this dimly-lit bedroom, up on the highest floor of the royal palace. As the king he was, him being alone was a rare instance, but after everything that happened as of late, he needed more time alone. As a matter of fact, King Remonas was utterly bewildered, trying to drink his worries away. This obviously—wasn’t because his own son was imprisoned.
“For crying out loud, both Carenas and Zentos are absolutely useless!”
This time, he was filled with rage towards the failure of Princess Milena’s attempted assassination. The other countries’ evaluation of King Remonas wasn’t necessarily bad at all. He didn’t stick out, but the army, politics, and foreign diplomacy treaties haven’t deteriorated either, and the citizens of the Kingdom weren’t dissatisfied during his reign. As a result of this, King Remonas was known as a commonplace king.
Exactly because he was like that, he understood how much more talented his daughter Princess Milena was. Ever since she was young, she possessed wisdom greatly surpassing the King, and she had already learned everything there was in kingcraft. Since she understood that popularity was most crucial, she used her position as the princess, with not too many responsibilities, and visited the citizens as much as possible, gathering popularity in that way.
As a matter of fact, her popularity was overwhelming. She greatly crossed the level King Remonas was at. Recently, she even started to participate in political debates. She might be the next in line of the hegemony, and not hold much power right now, but she was slowly forming her own position. In a few more years, five the latest, King Remonas would be forced to abdicate, and Milena would move on to become the Queen. Worst of all, everyone in the kingdom was hoping for this to happen.
Following that, the country would bloom and progress under the reign of the beautiful queen. No mistaking it, she would become a queen that would leave her name in the history of humanity. And, King Remonas would become a forgotten memory, unneeded. He was merely 38 years old, maybe 43 in another five years, so he could still keep acting as the king. Everything he had built up for the past 10 to 20 years, his own daughter would overwrite and improve upon that soon.
Soon enough, Remonas would merely be known as the father of Milena, someone who had raised her. Even though he had dreamed of leaving behind his name in history, he would be buried by the achievements of his own daughter. This anxiety continued day after day, stronger as he watched Princess Milena’s growth, biting away at him. One day, he made up his mind.
“Milena’s actions are too forceful. She will become a danger for the future of Zilgus.”
Under this pretense, Remonas deceived himself, and decided on disinheriting the princess. However, publicially removing her was not an option. And, with any half-baked plot, she would most certainly fight back. That is why Remonas decided on an assassination. However, the risks of this were way too big. If this attempt were to fail, and this information leaked, the country would most likely fall to chaos, and the chances of King Remonas standing on top at the end was dubious.
Because of this, King Remonas set his eyes on Prince Carenas. From the King’s point of view, his own son was foolish, and easy to control, which is why he decided to use him. He lead the prince to order Zentos, and aim for the assassination of his little sister. The prince was always ambitious, aiming to reach higher than he was right now, so he perfectly danced along the king’s will.
Naturally, even if it succeeded, King Remonas had no intention of having Carenas inherit his little sister’s position. A lot of members of the royal family didn’t hold a direct blood-relation, so he could just choose someone else. However, he underestimated the uselessness of the prince. Not only did he fail in killing his little sister, he even lost Zentos, and the majority of his corps.
“Damn you, Zentos…I wanted you to die at least after you killed the princess…”
Zentos said he would take care of the aftermath, yet he was unable to achieve anything, and died before accomplishing anything. King Remonas realized too late that he should have given out orders directly.
“For now, she’s not doubting me, but I need to think of something else soon…Damn those travellers, getting in my way…” He reminisced about the ceremony.
Now that this group had known of the circumstances behind this incident, they had to be taken care of eventually. Most preferably, together with the princess…with these thoughts, Remonas gulped down his cup with wine, as his bangs swayed a bit.
“Hm? …Wind?” He looked around the room in confusion, since all of the windows should have been closed, only to find a shadow standing in front of the fireplace.
This person was clothed in pitch black, covering their face, only showing their eyes. They were the impersonation of suspicion. However, this being the highest floor of the royal castle, the sleeping room of the most important individual in Zilgus, there was no location more secure than here. Someone invading this location was unthinkable, and impossible—However, these thoughts were killed because of the alcohol in Remonas blood.
This shadow swiftly moved next to King Remonas, raising both his arms, and covering his mouth, which left him silenced, unable to scream for help. These actions seemed confident, and skilled, leaving King Remonas no chance of escaping.
“Are you wondering how I made it here without anybody seeing me? It’s simple, there’s a secret passageway behind that fireplace, which leads outside the capital. I just used that to come back here.” A faint voice whispered at Remonas’ ear.
It was a familiar voice, but Remonas couldn’t figure out who it belonged to. Just as the person stated, there was a hidden passageway leading outside the capital behind the fireplace. However, the only person alive who should know of this was Remonas himself.
“Back when the castle fell, I escorted you through that passage…Really, I just went along with the circumstances to protect a bastard like you, but…It was helpful in the end, because I found out about this.” The invader sighed.
Remonas couldn’t understand what the person was talking about, but even as he tried to struggle to break free, it was futile.
“I’m glad to find you here, drinking alcohol on your own. I had planned to come again and again to wait for a chance…But I guess you were in a bad mood after what happened?” The invader—Kyle spoke with an ironical tone.
He expected the ceremony to not have much effect, but he turned out to be lucky for once.
“Of course, you’d like to know the reason as to why I’m doing this. There’s a lot, actually, but personally speaking, it’s a grudge I have…Maybe not too much. Putting it strongly, I’m venting out my anger on you, I guess?”
Hearing these words, King Remonas raised groans filled with rage, but Kyle didn’t bother much with that.
“Telling you right now won’t change a thing, but back during the Great Invasion, I gave you the advice to immediately send help towards your neighbours, the dwarves. But, because you wanted them to widen your hegemony, you made a political decision to save them after they were already in danger, delaying the departure of the soldiers. In the end, a demon army far stronger and greater in numbers than you anticipated attacked the dwarves, and they fell in the blink of an eye.”
Back then, Kyle had only been a rising magic swordsman, praised for his strength, so that was about the extent of what he was treated as. As a survivor during the attack on Rimarze, he knew of the dangers and terror the demon army possessed, and yet nobody bothered to listen.
“The consequences soon came. In the end, it was the reason Zilgus fell as a whole, and yet you continued to avoid any responsibility…” There, Kyle sighed in disbelief, which came all the way from the deep pit of his heart. “If you had pulled yourself together a bit more, then I wouldn’t have to work my butt off like this…Leaders like you are worthless.”
Maybe it was anger dwelling up, caused by the traumatic memories Kyle had experienced, as he put more strength in the grip holding onto King Remonas, who let out a pained groan.
“Ah, sorry about that. Telling you all of that is just a waste of time, after all…I actually hadn’t planned on doing anything until you showed those ugly colors of yours…But, now that you used the jealousy of your own son to kill your daughter, I don’t see a reason to hold back.” Kyle put more strength into the twisted arms of King Remonas, pushing him along. “More than anything, I can’t forgive you for using my trusted comrade in arms, and even making me kill him.”
Zentos final words were ‘My deepest apologies, Your Majesty’. Hearing that, Kyle understood everything. And, the final nail in the coffin were the King’s previous words, as he talked to himself.
“Thinking about it, it couldn’t have been more simple. There’s only one person who could make such a good-for-nothing plot the assassination of the beloved princess…and that is you, Your Majesty. Thinking about it, after your death, and the ruin of the Kingdom of Zilgus, Zentos seemed much more free, and relieved almost…I’m sure he would have wished for a worthy king to rule the kingdom he was born in.”
They were slowly approaching the balcony. King Remonas slowly understood Kyle’s intentions, and tried to break free, but to no avail.
“Makes sense why I could only make this incident out as an accident, you were hiding it all…”
The death of Princess Milena was masked as an accident—Kyle remembered his trusted spy speaking proudly with this information, and showed a wry smile.
“Well, she’s pretty clever. She might have her own plans to fulfill, but she’s definitely a better choice than you, so I can’t have her get killed this early. And, you were planning on removing us from the board after taking care of her, right? …Sorry, but I can’t allow that, so I’ll have you retire right now.” Kyle opened the window to the balcony, which let a cold night breeze blow inside. “And, even if I left you alone, you barely had another three years anyway. Won’t make that much of a difference. Then again, better now than never.” Kyle spoke indifferently, like King Remonas’ death was already written in stone.
Fear and terror filled Remonas body, as he tried to resist, but his feet kept walking.
“Well, this talk went on for too long. I don’t want to hold you up any longer than that.”
They arrived at the railing of the balcony. During the day, this balcony offered a great view over the garden, but now it was deep in the night, the surroundings dark. This was on the 5th floor of the royal palace, with stone paving below. If you fell here, you had no chance of surviving.
“Don’t worry, I will make this look like an accident, and I’ll keep the fact of you trying to have your children assassinated a secret, so you’ll keep your honor you desperately clung to…But, I can’t have you scream right now, so I need to help you a bit.” Kyle put more strength into his hands, emitting force on King Remonas’ throat.
This was the only attack issued by Kyle, but it was enough for Remonas to lose consciousness.
“See you, Your Majesty.”
As his consciousness faded to black, these last few words reached his ears.
That night, the patrolling guards heard a loud, splat sound, only to find the corpse of King Remonas, fallen to the ground. With no traces found that could certify the existence of an invader, and the king reeking of alcohol, they deduced that he had fallen off the balcony in his drunk state. However, that kind of death was a far too pathetic to announce, so they instead had his death be caused by a heart sickness.
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