Tsuyokute New Saga (LN) - Book 2: Chapter 1

The royal capital of the Kingdom of Zilgus, Malad, was filled with roughly 200.000 inhabitants, making it one of the biggest cities on the entire continent, always energetic and noisy. However, even this thriving city had shadows buried deep inside.

“I guess it must be the special effect. If he hadn’t been wearing the crown, he’d look like a normal old man.” Sitting at the window frame was Seran, his head on his palm, watching the busy streets.

After that award ceremony, namely the day King Remonas died, ten days have passed. During this time, Kyle and his group were staying at Malad’s most luxurious inn. Two days after the death of the king, an extensive state funeral was held, as the entire capital was in mourning. Unlike the worthy monarch of the Holy Kingdom Shura, nor the charismatic Emperor of the Galgan Empire, King Remonas was a king like many. However, he was still adored by the citizens.

All theatres stopped their regular programs, the street-performers were nowhere to be seen, and even the large plazas were calm, as the only thing you could hear were weeping noises.

“Since that king never messed up anything big, the citizens must have been pretty happy with that.” Kyle answered, as he read through the small booklet he created, laying on the bed like none of this was of any concern for him.

From his perspective, that king only made more trouble than he resolved, which is why he couldn’t care less. As a matter of fact however, because of the sudden passing of the king, the Kingdom of Zilgus was thrown into a great confusion. Because of the previous attempted assassination of Princess Milena and Prince Carenas, the public connected the dots and created rumours about this being the plot of another country, the work of a rebellious force inside the country, or even the work of the demons.

However, all of these stayed as mere rumours. Even this silence and mourning will only last for a moment. As a matter of fact, this self-disciplining mood will soon pass, and more expectations will fall on the royal family of Zilgus.

“Still, on the night of the award ceremony of all the days. That had them all forget about us.” Seran sounded like he was complaining.

Kyle and his group saved the princess from her predicament, and received a medal of honor on top of a regular monetary reward. This topic soon spread across the citizens, and right now, that story should have reached even areas outside the country, but because of the king’s sudden passing, that was fully drowned out. Since Kyle’s goal was to become a known hero, and spread his name across the lands, this was quite unfortunate.

“…Thinking about it, if he had died even a day earlier, the entire award ceremony wouldn’t even have happened. In that way, you should be thankful that he actually waited for that to be over.” Kyle said bluntly, while showing a wry smile inside of his heart, as he was the one who killed the king after all.

“Ahh, now that makes sense.”

“And, it’s not like our deeds suddenly vanished, we just have to wait for this mood to die down, and then we’ll have it spread.”

Heroic stories like the one Kyle’s group created were not only carried around the globe in the shape of songs or written stories, they could always pay people to share it on their travels. It wasn’t exactly hero-like to choose this method, but Kyle couldn’t choose his methods. Not to mention that they had enough money to pay adventurers or other nobles to do exactly that.

“Huh…Then, why don’t we pay the nearby theatrical troupe, and have them show a play of our deeds?” Seran meant to say it as a joke, but Kyle closed his booklet, showing a serious expression.

“That’s not half bad either…But, we’re lacking the actual stories. I’ll keep that in mind for later.”

“…Ah, give me a cool role, alright?”

“I’ll consider it.”

In Kyle’s eyes, Seran was best as the clown of the play, but he decided not to say that.

“So, what are we doing after this?”

“For now, I think that we did enough here in Zilgus.” Kyle gave an immediate answer.

“Huh, which country are we visiting then?”

“…That’s the problem, alright.” Kyle looked at the booklet next to him, and sighed.

This booklet continued all major events that will happen soon. Leaving Zilgus was something he had decided upon for quite some time now. In three years, the ‘Great Invasion’ will happen, which will bring human folk to the brink of extinction.

Gain influence in the human folk to have your voice heard by the various countries and races of the human folk, and prepare for the Great Invasion—that is Kyle’s current goal. Inside Zilgus, Kyle managed to gain himself a fairly influential position. For now, this should be enough, he figured. He thought of staying in Zilgus a bit longer, raising his fame a bit more, but now that he was already a hero here, there were other places to visit.

The problem is—where. There won’t be another convenient event like them saving Princess Milena. If possible, Kyle would have preferred to gain some connections to the influential and powerful people of other countries, but at this point in time, there was no such convenient event or saving needed. Maybe there could be some thief subjugation or extermination of demons, or so Kyle pondered, when the door opened with a cheerful voice.

“We’re back~”

Lieze, Urza, and Shildonia returned from their shopping trip.

“Welcome back, how’s the city looking?”

“Still as before…It’s slowly getting back to normal, I guess?” Lieze organized all the food and ingredients they bought, as she responded.

Since Shildonia would complain about food reserves or ready-made food, Lieze decided to focus on handmade food.

“With fewer stalls around, the streets are so boring. I would have preferred a bigger variety.” Shildonia held various spoils of war in her hand, such as potatoes and meat skewers, at a size that could not hope to fit into her mouth.

“You sure eat a lot, huh.”

“I haven’t eaten anything for a thousand years, so I can never get hungry.”

She is a magic entity that was brought to life through the various techniques and skills that only existed back during the Ancient Magic Kingdom Zaales. Naturally, she normally wouldn’t have a problem not eating anything for a thousand years or two, but Kyle didn’t bother retorting on that.

“Oh yeah, the reception told me that the inspection and repair of our equipment will be done tomorrow, and will be delivered to the store.” The elf Urza reported.

Only she hadn’t bought anything. Then again, they had been staying here for the past 10 days, so she already purchased everything she set her eyes on. This time, she merely tagged along because she didn’t have anything better to do.

“I see, that’s faster than I expected…Guess it’s time to depart after we get our equipment back.”

The reason Kyle’s group still stayed here in Zilgus is to wait for these repairs. Leaving aside Seran’s damaged sword after fighting tens of enemies, Kyle’s dragon leather armor took a long time to repair, because of its high-grade materials. At the same time, he would have preferred to buy new magic stones and magic medicine, but since they used only the rare and expensive ones during the previous battle, it would take more time for them to restock.

Naturally, Kyle wasn’t just playing around doing nothing during that time, as he trained his sword and magic skills, gathering information on various other countries. If you wanted to acquire crucial information, a large capital like Malad was perfect after all.

“I don’t know where to head next though…so if you have any ideas, do let me know.” Right as Kyle asked Urza, an experienced traveller, for her opinion, someone knocked on the door of the room, opening before Kyle could respond.

“Excuse me.”

Together with these words, a tall woman wearing silver armor, with the dragon emblem on her chest, the proof of her being an Imperial Knight, entered. She was the captain of the Kingdom of Zilgus 5th Imperial Knight Corps, and Princess Milena’s personal guard, Kirlen.

“I’m glad to see you all gathered here, what fortunate timing. Milena-sama wishes to talk to you, so I would ask you to follow me to the palace.” Kirlen didn’t bother with Kyle and the others’ shocked reactions, and spoke in a monotone voice.

“Eh? But…isn’t she busy right now?” Kyle answered, clearly not too motivated.

Kyle personally wasn’t too keen on meeting the princess right now. Of course, the reason for this he couldn’t explain here.

“That is correct, but I’d like you to think of this as an unofficial order. And, please see the fact of me coming to pick you up as a show of Milena-sama’s high evaluation.” She spoke calmly, but Kirlen’s tone emphasized that she would not allow any objection.

She talked about fortunate timing, but she was most likely waiting for everyone to be home.

“Um, what kind of business can we expect? We had planned on leaving Malad tomorrow, see.”

“I haven’t heard of any details. It won’t take that much time…I believe, possibly. I have prepared a carriage outside at the front, so please prepare for departure.” Kirlen spoke with a certain level of pressure in her voice.

At the same time, Kyle cursed this time, and regretted not leaving a day earlier.

After the sudden passing of the king, the one taking after her father was the ‘Pride of Zilgus’, Princess Milena, after receiving overwhelming support from the citizens. However, according to her own naivety still, she decided to keep the current state of things, and will take her time until she moves up to become the queen. As a result of that, the throne room became empty.

Normally, this would bring a lot of problems with it, but because the successor is healthy, and will eventually move on as the queen, there’s not that much of a ruckus. Princess Milena probably plans to ascend to the throne at the best possible timing. And now, Kyle’s group was on their way to meet her.

Arriving at the royal palace, they split up with Kirlen, and passed through the guest room used for the royal family. They were welcomed with open arms, but after waiting for quite some time, Princess Milena showed no signs of arriving, as even the maid gave an apologetic ‘She should arrive soon, so please wait a bit longer’. A bit after that, the door opened, and Princess Milena stepped into the room, with Kirlen at her side.

“Everyone, I am terribly sorry to have called you here on such short notice, not to mention making you wait like this.” The next queen apologetically lowered her head.

She was radiant as always—but Kyle saw a dim shadow glooming over her.

“Milena-sama, please don’t lower your head towards people like us.” Kyle said with an apologetic tone as he bowed down.

“No, I think of you as my friends, so I will make up for making you wait…But, I would like to get to the point right away, my deepest apologies.” Princess Milena offered Kyle and the others their seats.

It seems like she didn’t just call them here to have a joyful talk.

“First, I’d like to say that this is like a wish…a request for you. Of course, you can listen until the very end, and then decline, I will not hold it against you.”

“Hm…I see.” Kyle commented, but deep down he knew that she wouldn’t let them say no.

“…This involves my marriage, see.”

With these words, Princess Milena began explaining.