"Father!" Rodin staggered and found his father King Nero with little blood on his gown and a dirty face, "Father! The traitor of queendom took Katharina and escaped! And brother, he …"
King Nero reluctantly held himself up from the bed and asked: "What happened to Tiberius?! Say it!"
Rodin faked his tears and said: "The controlled a monster and killed my brother in chaos. I'm useless. I couldn't save him. Father, please publish me for my incompetency!"
The death of his favorite son took all the strength of this old king. His voice was shaking: "Where, where is his body?"
"The monster was too fierce. The body… was broken into pieces."
King Nero used up his final strength and heavily fell back to the bed: "Rodin, you're the successor right now. Assemble the army. Go find them. Kill! Kill them all! I can't hold on for much time. As long as you complete this mission, you'll have my throne."
"Yes, your majesty."
On the other hand, after leaving the enemies' sight, Ryoichi retracted the megalodon and took Katharina's body back to the queendom. He carried her on his back and covered her body with a blanket he found. Katharina looked like sleeping on his back. Now the queendom was called Jonathian Kingdom. The previous residence bubbles near the sea level were almost empty. Public right of enjoying the light was further exploited. Instead, more people were expelled to the deeper sea to collect more offerings. Meanwhile, there seemed to be more guards around the center.
Before he could approach the palace, Ryoichi was stopped by the guards.
"Who are you?" The guard questioned.
"This is queen Katharina. I'm her guard. We'd love to see princess Fiona."
"Queen Katharina? Now it's King Jonathan and Queen Fiona."
"Okay. Then, could you please introduce us to the queen Fiona? This is her sister. The queen would love to see us."
The guard refused: "The king has the order. No one would ever see the queen Fiona without his permission. Please leave."
"But…"
Suddenly, a guard looked like leader came here. It was previous guard B.
"What happened?" He asked. Because Ryoichi had huge changes in his outlooking, guard B didn't recognize him immediately.
"These two people wanted to see the queen."
"How dare you ordinary people… wait," he came closer and looked, "is that queen Katharina? Who are you?! What happened? Isn't the queen Katharina in Pulchritudinem?"
Ryoichi stepped back and hid Katharina: "I'm just nobody, accidentally saved her outside the border. I guess she must be escaping from the Pulchritudinem. She's too tired. Could you please pass the information to princess… I mean queen Fiona and see if she could come over and see her?"
Guard B secretly turned his eyes and promised: "Sure thing. I'll take you to the palace."
"That would be great. Thank you, guard B." Ryoichi slipped his tongue by accident.
"You fool. That's guard leader A." One soldier corrected.
"Doesn't matter. Indeed, I was in guard B position." The big-bellied leader smiled and led them into the palace.
He led them to one room in the palace and said to Ryoichi: "Could you please wait here for a second? I'll go find the queen Fiona. She is currently not here."
After the person left, Ryoichi laid Katharina on the bed. He didn't know why Fiona became the queen. He had to tell her the truth that her brother Jonathan was the traitor and set Katharina up. He thought of just taking Fiona to leave this place, but he couldn't let go of everything. What he expected was helping Fiona take the throne from Jonathan and giving Pulchritudinem some lessons. Besides, no one could recognize his look right now. That was why he took Katharina's body back to the queendom. At this moment, he also thought of his friend: 'My dear friend S, you didn't have a real name, but I've printed your face into my brain. This is the palace that you never got a chance to visit. Here we are. Have a tour.' Then he took out a handful of ashes and scattered it.
While Ryoichi was waiting and mourning his friend, guard B rushed to the king Jonathan and reported to his ear: "Your majesty! Queen Katharina is back!"
Right now, Jonathan was out there patrolling the army and weapons just got from Pulchritudinem. This information shocked him. He stepped aside and asked.
"What did you just say?"
"Queen Katharina! But she doesn't look well. She is sleeping and I think I sensed a rotten smell when I got closer. A young man took her back from Pulchritudinem. He said that the queen escaped and met him near the border. He kept asking for meeting the queen Fiona."
"A young man… What does he look like?"
Guard B recalled: "Doesn't look familiar."
Jonathan was deep in meditation. He thought that all the queendom soldiers at that time should've been dead. Now all the people regarded that dead Ryoichi as the traitor. But then he had a very bad feeling. Could that young man be some acquaintance?
Guard B added: "But there's one thing. He knows I was the previous guard B. He must be one of the previous guards!"
A thought came to Jonathan's mind: 'It seems like Katharina was either sick or dead. She could not talk with Fiona for now. So that young man is the key. No matter who that was, he must be one of the survivors, who knew what happened in the past, which meant that person knew what I've done. And he kept asking for meeting Fiona, he must intend to tell her the truth. I can't let them meet. I have to get rid of him. What should I do?'
Then he said something to the guard with a low voice.
"Yes, your majesty."