Did the shade of Linaris in this girl’s features stem from the fact Linaris’s genes were used in her creation?
However, her demeanor had a lascivious and wickedness unbecoming of her outwardly young appearance.
“I’m Roto the Cross.”
This was the first construct of its kind in history—a krsnik.
“Pfft, hee-hee-hee-hee… I actually gave myself my own name.”
Anyone infected by the pathogen she carries will become unable to show any aggressive behavior. The construct that would peacefully regulate the world. Something like this? Really?
If what Viga told her was true, Nihilo could even live her life like a minian and attend school like a minian.
However, it did not seem like that future was going to come to pass.
Despite how normally they were conversing with each other, Nihilo was unable to drop her battle stance.
“Hey, Nihilo?”
Roto the Cross flashed an angelic smile.
Her small, perfectly shaped lips opened.
“Can I eat you?”
Aureatia’s Third Minister, Jelky the Swift Ink, returned to his normal duties ahead of schedule.
There were many matters that he should have taken charge of, which were both of dire importance and hadn’t been perfectly handled.
However, Jelky had come to the royal palace for a job that needed to be prioritized above all else.
Kia the World Word’s existence had now turned into national security crisis.
We needed to urgently neutralize Kia the World Word.
Luring Kia the World Word alone to the Dogae Basin, free of any possible harm in the area, to launch a concentrated attack on her that simultaneously served as a test of Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge’s utility.
—The operation itself was logical. If Jelky had the opportunity to set up such an opportunity, he would’ve done the same himself.
The fact the attempt to eliminate Kia the World Word ended in failure couldn’t have been helped, either. Given that they didn’t know the limit of her Word Arts’ power, there was no guarantees at all that they would be able to eradicate her in the initial clash. It was also true that they managed to measure the extent of Kia’s power without causing any injury or damages.
However, Kia the World Word went out of control and successfully went into hiding somewhere—most likely in Aureatia, as well.
The likeliest place of all was here in the royal palace.
She had, in fact, already attacked the royal palace grounds once before and suggested she had a request to make of the Queen.
After receiving the series of reports on Kia, Jelky immediately made for the royal palace, yet it was highly likely that he was already too late. If Jelky was able to get there in time, under these circumstances, it meant that Kia simply wasn’t interested in going there yet.
“Her Majesty…!”
He gritted his teeth in frustration.
As he schemed to dethrone Sephite, even Jelky felt impatience and a disquiet in his heart.
The kingdoms in this world, despite changing shape and form many times, were said to have existed in continuum for close to three thousand years. Despite the great many moments of danger, the royal family bloodline had continued uninterrupted up to the present day.
Queen Sephite was the very last of this lineage.
The last of the lineage who had survived the age of the True Demon King, when all the other royalty besides her had died in maddened agony.
Sephite was still only eleven years old, yet even at this young age, she had wits that dazzled, and the charm to lead people. She had certainly inherited the excellent royal family blood.
Even if she did abdicate the throne in the name of the True Hero, Sephite’s bloodline was bound to leave a great and distinguishing mark on the minian world. The Sixways Exhibition’s objective was to make her abdicate, while still ensuring she survived.
The threats to the world hereafter were not only limited to the likes of the hero candidates. They had also wiped out all those likely to turn their blades against Aureatia in Sephite’s name once the revolution was carried out. Iriolde’s camp was annihilated, and the Gray-Haired Child had been brought into the establishment.
Rosclay the Absolute had died. Jelky’s ideal might be completely devoured by the Gray-Haired Child. If on top of all that, Sephite were to die, too, then what would happen to their world…?
Shown into the audience chambers, Jelky worked to quell the unrest in his heart.
The seal of Aureatia was lined up on both sides of the golden carpet and, in the very back of the room, was the throne.
The young Sephite stood in front of Jelky with her beautiful unchanging pale face.
“…Your Majesty. Jelky the Swift Ink at your service.”
Sephite responded to Jelky’s precise, machinelike genuflection with a faint smile.
“Thank you for coming, Jelky.”
Her smile was just as well-shaped as the rest of her facial appearance, yet something about it gave the impression that it wasn’t truly a smile at all.
The lone survivor of the United Western Kingdom after it fell to the True Demon King’s terror, there always remained a vaguely dark shade of death in Sephite’s eyes.
“Come, raise your head. Did something happen?”
“First, allow me to first offer my own humble apologies for the recent attack on the royal palace. I was in charge of drafting the palace defense plan. If there were any deficiencies in Dant, Yaniegiz, and Yuca’s work guarding the grounds, I think a part of the responsibility lies in my own personal inadequacies.”
“I forgive you, Jelky. I know very well just how hard you all work. When it comes to Rosclay as well… Please pay him back for all he’s done yourself, too. Rosclay’s performance, sacrificing his life for the kingdom, though sad, was a magnificent gesture.”
Her words of solace, filled with mercy, were almost like those given by a parent to their child.
She wasn’t being insincere, either. In all likelihood, Sephite had used her people to learn for herself about just how much work the Twenty-Nine Officials put in that day.
She understood that the Twenty-Nine Officials system, set up as a wartime regime, wasn’t going to continue into the future. At just eleven years old, she was also trying to comprehensively learn how she was meant to administer Aureatia in the future and how to be in a position of responsibility.
“Your Majesty, as the person responsible for planning out the defenses, I have a proposal to offer. After being dealt a blow from the prior assault, I cannot say the protection the palace provides is fully adequate. Now that I, Jelky, have recovered, I intend to give my utmost, more than ever before. Nevertheless, when taking the precedent into account, I determined Your Majesty’s safety could very well be in jeopardy should you remain here in the royal palace. Would you agree to leave the royal palace for a short time, until we are able put a perfect defensive structure in place once more?”
“…”
Her large eyes blinked repeatedly.
Sephite brought one of her gloved fingertips up against her lips.
“Jelky, would this be your personal opinion? Your visit today was so very sudden… I wonder if there are still some who are unaware of this proposal of yours.”
“I cannot say that all those involved in state affairs have consented to this. However, the Twenty-Nine Officials are all in consensus.”
This was a lie. This decision was reached between those with knowledge of the operation to subjugate Kia—Yaniegiz, Hidow, and Kaete—and Jelky, the first person to receive a report on the situation, before Jelky immediately made his way here to the palace.
However, he would absolutely make all the Twenty-Nine Officials agree with the decision to move the Queen from the palace.
He had come with the resolve to do what was needed.
“Jelky.”
The Queen’s red irises were right in front of Jelky’s own eyes as he sat kneeling.
Her constantly blinking eyes stayed wide open and peering into Jelky’s heart.
“You’re lying, aren’t you?”
“…”
“The real reason doesn’t have to do with the palace defenses…You were in the hospital up until this morning, weren’t you? If you were in such a rush to come here yourself, that must mean that danger is closing in on me, and you wanted to make me flee the royal palace without informing me what that danger was—am I wrong?”
“…It is as Your Majesty says.”
He was daunted by the girl far younger than him. His heart was in too much disarray.
Normally, Jelky might have readied a cleverer explanation than this.
In order to inform Sephite of the danger to her person, he had needed to head to the palace straight from the hospital. There was a chance that even right now as they spoke, Kia the World Word would arrive at the royal palace.
“I will clarify. Kia the World Word…the culprit behind the attack on the palace, has gone out of control. The Word Arts she used during her palace attack were so aberrational, that there is absolutely no chance that the royal palace defense system will be able to stop her.”
“Kia the World Word.”
Repeating the name, Sephite cocked her head slightly, and looked up toward the ceiling.
With this small single mannerism, Sephite was able to draw out even the most insignificant of memories from among the tremendous amount of information she had observed throughout her life.
“I actually know that girl. At Iznock Royal High School…she gave me yellow willowseed berries and taught me they were edible. She was always in a bad mood, but she wasn’t a scary girl at all.”
“With all due respect, Your Majesty… That same Kia has now transformed into the most terrifying threat imaginable. Transferring Your Majesty away from the royal palace is the only way to stop Kia from taking Your Majesty’s life in her hands. I beseech you to please trust in your humble servant Jelky’s loyalty and judgment to make your decision.”
There was a chance that even this plan to have Sephite flee from the palace would come to nothing.
According to Mestelexil’s fragmented reports, Kia the World Word tried using Word Arts to search for someone and failed.
If he assumed that these were Word Arts that had a chance of succeeding, then—
No. She can’t possibly be able to do everything like that. Kia the World Word seems omnipotent, but she isn’t truly almighty. Since there is no way that could ever be allowed to exist.
Jelky wasn’t aware that he had lapsed into illogical thinking.
At first, everyone had concluded that Kia’s Word Arts had been some type of trickery or unseen offensive support.
The reality was that a young child, labeled a wanted criminal, continued to successfully flee from the Aureatian military all on her own and hadn’t been viewed as serious, either.
Even after the royal palace grounds were attacked and members of the Twenty-Nine Officials had witnessed her mighty Word Arts firsthand, there were still those who believed that she had to possess some other hidden means of attack elsewhere.
Finally, not even Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge had been able to kill Kia the World Word.
The tremendous absurdity of it all made him turn his eyes away from the fact that such a being did exist.
A monster that should not have existed in their world.
“…”
Sephite seemed to be deep in thought, but it only lasted for a brief moment.
She compared her own experiences to the countless amount of information surrounding the incident and made her judgment.
“Okay, then. Jelky, I will trust you, and leave the royal palace. I’ll bring only the guards here with me now, and I’ll have my necessary belongings sent along afterward. You’re going to pass on the necessary information to everyone in my stead. You can handle that, Jelky, right?”
“Even if it costs me my life.”
Jelky bowed deeply.
When standing before her, even a treacherous retainer like Jelky, plotting to dethrone her, couldn’t help but respond this way.
If such a thing as an innate monarchal grace existed in this world, there was no doubt that Sephite possessed it.
If their world hadn’t been in disarray, she had the caliber of a queen who could lead a unified nation.
Together with a guard from the Palace Guard Bureau and several of her servants, Sephite moved through the royal palace interior.
From the initial design stage, the palace had been fitted with several passageways that were secret to the outside world, in order to facilitate a stealthy escape in times of emergency to another facility.
“Jelky.”
As they walked through the corridor, Sephite whispered, stopping Jelky’s advance.
“What is it, Your Majesty?”
“Are you scared?”
“…Yes. I have never forgotten terror. The fear of losing you, Your Majesty, and the fear of order in the Kingdom collapsing away. I…have given my all to my government work to keep Your Majesty away from that terror.”
“What is ‘fear,’ I wonder? Why do people fear the way they do…?”
Everything in the world was terrified of something.
“My Queen. Is something the matter?”
Sephite responded to one of the servants.
“No. I simply remembered that there was something I wanted to ask Jelky about. Can everyone else leave us?”
Sephite gave a signal with a look, and that alone made her guard and servants scatter all at once, far enough away to be out of earshot.
Even though it was a direct order from the Queen, her influence was abnormal, if anything, to be able to dismiss her own guard in such an emergency.
…It is highly unlikely we will be attacked in this situation, but still…
Should a worst-case situation crop up, Jelky would then need to risk his life to protect her.
Jelky showed that he was holding nothing in his hand, before kneeling down right up close to the Queen and looking up at her.
“Please do not forget that this is an emergency.”
“Yes… Of course, I understand that.”
Sephite replied with a whisper.
An innocent, pale smile that seemed to cast a shadow somehow.
She had a pretty face. After about three more years, she would likely mature into a marvelously beautiful young girl.
Her long hair that seemed to flow like water was pure white, without the faintest impurity, and was filled with a mystique far beyond the common man.
“What is it that Your Majesty wished to ask me?”
Instead of replying, Sephite undid her silver hairpin.
Her willowy fingers held out the hairpin to Jelky.
Her red eyes stared hard into Jelky’s own.
Her lips opened.
“Tell me—do you want to try stabbing yourself with this?”
He regained consciousness from the darkness.
No. His vision still remained sealed in darkness. He needed to wake up fast.
His head pounded in intense pain.
“Master Jelky! Master Jelky, stop! Please stop!”
His head hurt.
The voice pleading with him, if he remembered right, belonged to one of Sephite’s attendants.
Were they the brand-new servant, just hired the other day? He could almost recall, yet for some reason, he couldn’t. He was sure Sephite would’ve been able to immediately say their name.
“Master Jelky! Hurry and throw that away!”
His head hurt.
Right. What happened to Sephite?
He needed to evacuate her from the royal palace immediately, or she’d be in danger. Jelky was supposed to have been in the middle of moving her… Why was he doing something like this?
“Hrngh!”
He let out a groan.
Jelky the Swift Ink was gripping down tightly on a silver hairpin, enough for it to dig into his fingertips.
His head hurt.
Then, he understood. His descent into darkness wasn’t because Jelky had closed his own eyes.
Jelky had twisted the silver hairpin in his right eyeball himself, scrambling his ocular muscles and nerves into a mess, of his own free will.
“A-augh… Glrnk!”
A sound echoed from Jelky’s throat that resembled bubbles gurgling.
No. Right now, Jelky was screaming.
The terror was so overwhelming, it caught in his throat, and gurgles were all that came out.
His head hurt.
Jelky’s arm, trying to jam the hairpin into his brain through his eye socket, was being held by the servant. They were trying with all their might to stop Jelky’s terrifying behavior.
Right. He was doing this all himself.
Terrifying. Terrifying. Terrifying. Terrifying. Terrifying. Terrifying—
“Master Jelky!”
“Q-Queen!”
Trembling from a chill like his very soul had turned into cold air, Jelky struggled to speak.
“I-is Her Majesty safe?”
The servant shook their head in tears.
The fact he could see the state they were in meant that his left eye was apparently still unharmed.
Even still, the terror, the trembling, and the impulse to kill himself hadn’t subsided.
Everything in the world was terrified of something.
Something that had long since perished.
“…Wh-where did she go?!”
“We don’t know!”
That moment. Those red eyes that stared at Jelky.
She was watching. She was smiling. Terrifying.
“Th-this can’t be… Qui…ck… Someone…the Queen…”
Omnipotent Word Arts—Kia the World Word was going to attack the royal capital.
A trifling threat like that fell far short of true terror.
When the United Western Kingdom fell to ruin, the True Demon King, for some reason, left only young Sephite alive.
Sephite wasn’t the Demon King. That was how it was supposed to be.
What did she have implanted into her?
“Save the Queen!”
Jelky screamed in a pool of his own blood.
The True Demon King had been slain by the True Hero.
Everyone attempted to believe in this story, yet in the end, they were unable to shake off the fear.
The terror, the world itself, would subjugate every heart-possessing life.
The Demon King would be resurrected.
They could not escape.
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