“I need to go to Giselle.”

Ragniel rose from his seat.

'It’s all right. You’re not pathetic.'

It was as if a whispering voice were buzzing in his ears. Pressing a hand hard against the side of his head, Ragniel headed for where Giselle was.

At this hour, he liked to look down over the kingdom from the castle wall.

Sure enough, Giselle was standing atop the watchtower, looking down into the dizzying drop below.

“My king.”

Even before Ragniel called his name, Giselle had already sensed his presence. He bent one knee in respect.

“Giselle, get up.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“Leave us.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

The attendants and guards withdrew to a distance.

There was no one on these walls, with a Hero beside him, who could possibly harm the king.

“Giselle...”

As soon as the others were gone, Ragniel’s face twisted. Grabbing hold of Giselle’s chest, he bit his lip.

“Giselle, there can’t be any king as pathetic as I am. Why am I such a fool? Why do I know nothing?”

“Did something happen in the court council?”

“...They spoke about the prophecy that was allowed to leak to the public.”

“Is that what this is about?”

Giselle placed a hand on Ragniel’s shoulder.

Maybe it had been foolish to try to hide it, Ragniel muttered quietly.

“The Marquis of Kinea... said it would be right to discuss the prophecy in the court council too.”

“That would be true.”

“...Giselle. Did you think so too? That everything discussed in Sors should also be discussed in the court council?”

“That is not for me to think or decide, my king. The Seven Stars merely follow the king. As we always have.”

“How can you be so blind about it?”

Ragniel, who had been clinging to Giselle almost like he was leaning his whole weight on him, pulled back and stared at him as if he were something strange.

“...What do you think of what the Marquis of Kinea said?”

Giselle stopped looking at Ragniel and turned his gaze back below the wall.

“I think... what he said is right. But they were the ones who first tried to erase the traces of the Heroes.”

It had been a prophecy that descended like a miracle when the grim shadow of war hung over the Kingdom of Setoran.

To neighboring nations greedy for its abundant resources, Setoran’s land had looked far too delicious a prize. Because it had taken root in peaceful land, building military strength had always been pushed aside, and the royal treasury had been spent on other affairs of state.

So it was only a little over ten years ago that, with no one fit to properly wage a war, they had no choice but to begin recruiting child soldiers on a massive scale. Then Sors—an institution many had considered little more than defunct—received its first prophecy in centuries, interpreted it, and matched it to reality. It had been tremendously encouraging. At first, even the court ministers heard the prophecy from Sors and discussed it in the court council.

They welcomed the Heroes.

The Seven Heroes had brought hope of victory to a land that had otherwise been doomed to become a battlefield and be trampled underfoot. The court ministers cheered. With one overwhelming victory after another in battle, and the banner of triumph rising without end, hopes bloomed that the kingdom would gain another name.

The first empire of the eastern continent.

They had begun to expect that the Kingdom of Setoran might claim that title.

But one of those named as Heroes died pointlessly before the fighting had truly begun... and the war turned difficult again.

Those who had come to fear a Setoran armed with invincible Heroes formed an allied force. Even the Heroes were helpless against sheer numbers. Magic and weapons designed to kill Heroes were developed without ceasing, and what grew out of that was modern magitech. Even so, though such weapons could wound the Heroes, not one of them had died after him. Even when their lives hung in danger, the Hero’s miracle would appear and stubbornly keep them alive.

Unyielding Heroes.

Invincible Heroes.

There was no shortage of titles for them.

Their legends spread all across the kingdom, until children made up songs and sang of them. But as the Heroes’ stature rose higher... the court ministers began voicing dissatisfaction and unease.

It was a war that ended in victory, but the Kingdom of Setoran, the victor, gained very little from it. They had taken a few border territories, and the defeated countries had agreed to pay tribute, but aside from Setoran—which possessed the richest land on the continent—the kingdoms that had invaded it had mostly been wretches with nothing to eat, people who lived by plunder. So the best tribute they could offer was no more than well-trained wild horses.

Even the conquered land was useless. To develop it would require enormous labor and cost, but they could hardly mobilize the people of Setoran all the way out to those distant territories, and Setoran itself did not have such a large population. They were already too busy tending the kingdom’s own land.

If anything, because Setoran had gained the prestige of a victorious nation, other lands begged it to become their parent country and look after them, and just keeping up appearances drained enough from the treasury to fund four or five state projects without difficulty. It felt like foolish political administration to win a war and yet gain no real profit from it, but Ragniel could not step in. He was simply grateful the war had ended at all.

A man like Ragniel, who had spent his whole life under the control of others, could not suddenly become a brilliant ruler just because the regent had died. The regent had taken great care to raise Ragniel to be upright and kind, but that was all. Ragniel was dependent, weak, and peace-loving—a foolish king.

He had not changed in a single way from when the regent was still alive. Instead of depending on the regent who had controlled him, he now depended on the court ministers. And after the prophecy descended, he had come to depend on the Heroes, Giselle most of all.

So when the court ministers proposed slowly erasing the traces of the Heroes, foolish King Ragniel could not oppose them. But part of him had also thought it was for their sake. When the war had first begun and the Heroes rampaged across the battlefield, they had been treated like terrifying demons. And yet they were also heroes of war. The people’s morale and pride soared into the sky, and statues of the Heroes—figures worthy of worship—were erected across the kingdom in pure gold.

But by the middle of the war, unlike the slaughter-soaked battlefield, court politics remained perfectly peaceful. The ministers could not let go of their greed for territory, and ordered that a war which should have ended sooner be dragged out a little longer. In the end, that extra time was used by the enemy nations to build up forces capable of standing against the Heroes.

A prolonged war. A kingdom that seemed to have gained nothing from victory.

For the moment, the joy of being a victorious nation would settle in the hearts of the people, but Ragniel believed that once they realized it had been a war that brought them nothing, their anger would surely turn toward the Heroes as well. So he followed the court ministers’ advice and had the statues removed. Of course, the ministers’ true reason was their fear that if the Heroes continued to be revered as national champions, their popularity would rise above that of the royal house.

And so, little by little, the traces of the Heroes were erased. Eventually, the kingdom went so far as to lease them out like mercenaries to other continents. Unlike the eastern continent where they lived, the western continent—where dragons, those legendary beasts, existed—was full of strange incidents: dragons kidnapping princesses, stealing an empire’s royal seal, and other such nonsense. While the Heroes were sent scattering beyond the country like that, their traces vanished from the kingdom.

The people who had once shouted the Heroes’ names and sung of them in ecstasy over war and victory closed that chapter like a history book. As if they had never memorized those names at all, they treated them as something from a distant, ancient past and no longer thought of them.

And it had been only one year ago, after the Seven-Year War had ended and all those events had passed, when Ragniel had told those who wished to lay down the title of Hero at last that they could do so.

“Has it been weighing on your mind?”

Watching Ragniel sink into thought, Giselle asked.

“Of course it has. I’ve always felt nothing but sorry toward all of you... and grateful too. But I’m so incompetent... I have no choice except to rely on you.”

“The work of protecting this kingdom is for you to remain alive.”

“No. It would be better to have a capable ruler. But as for royal blood...”

Ragniel swallowed the rest of his words.

“When Temar left, I thought all the kingdom’s problems were gone.”

Temar, his most loyal Star. The warmth in him, and the goodness he gave so freely, still remained in Ragniel’s heart as a vivid memory.

And that man had said, as if enough was enough, that he would quit being a Hero and return to his hometown for good. So Ragniel had believed there could be no more problems left in this kingdom.

He had mistaken that for time having passed long enough.

But the prophecy about the treasure had descended not long after Temar left, and though it had already been a full year ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) of investigations and inquiries, Ragniel still had learned nothing at all.