The floor was damp.
It's not often that a modern person can feel the damp stone floor and the moss in the crevices.
"Ugh——."
I don't know how long I've been on the floor, but I feel chills all over my body.
"I'm cold— Someone get me a blanket——."
[Ha-ri!]
"Wow, I'm not sleeping!"
It was a reflexive response from someone who has been out of school for a while. Ha-ri breathes a sigh of relief as she realizes she's not in a classroom or at work.
"No, not like this, this is a prison!"
[Do you realize that now?]
Mossy, damp stone floors and rusty grates. Ha-ri turned his gaze to the incarnation of the God Poma, wondering what had happened.
[Karina, she subdued you.]
"What, Karina, the daughter of King Leon?!"
[Yes.]
Why would Leon's daughter recognize her? No, when she thought about it, it was obvious.
From anyone else's point of view, she was an intruder who had fallen into the palace. The logical thing to do would be to subdue her and throw her in jail.
"Ugh, we need to clear up the misunderstanding, Etch!"
Etch! Etch!
Ha-ri coughs and Poma shrugs his elongated turtle neck.
[You can't help it, you were lying on your stomach]
"Hmph— I wasn't expecting to fall asleep on the prison floor——"
Her clothing preferences are often criticized, but she has no intention of changing them. Poma thought his shrine maiden was very desirable.
[Our Ha-ri is very desirable with her armpits and side boobs and belly button and thighs bare]
"You sound like a pervert again——."
[Nostalgic~ In his prime, this master of the seas had the good fortune to bed countless virgins]
Indeed, the Sea God was so insistent that a nude goddess be placed on the prow of his ships that it was considered unclean to have a woman aboard.
"Still lighting up women, horny god. Do you still put naked goddesses on your statues these days?"
The voice echoes through the prison and Ha-ri's gaze snaps to it.
A woman as black as ebony descends from the entrance of the hallway.
[Still unable to honor the gods, though your father serves them above all others.]
Poma clicked his tongue at the woman beyond the grate and said.
"Because I had a father like that."
The woman retorted nonchalantly while Ha-ri looked up cautiously and asked.
"I– Karina, Archduchess of Dragonia?"
"It's been a long time since I've been called by that title. The last time was when Delvoske was dying."
The woman, Karina Dragonia, reminisced, remembering her true title, which she had not been called for so long.
Ha-ri thought it sounded just like the Leon he had once pondered.
"I, Your Highness, the Grand Duke."
"Your Majesty, for now. This is a grave offense that would be enough for me to decapitate you, if not here, then within the palace. Did you learn such manners during your time with the Lionhearted King?"
"I'm sorry ehahaha——."
Ha-ri prostrated herself. Her experience with Leon has taught her that the powerful people of Lionheart are no joke.
The manners they followed were not an extension of social life like on Earth, but an order that came from real class differences.
"Your Majesty?"
"Speak, sea maiden. Hmm— strange. I sense another divinity in you."
Karina stepped into the cell, puzzled. The heavy bars were meaningless in the face of the malevolent power of the Emperor of Dragonia.
"Your Majesty?"
"Be still."
Karina looked her over, staring at the crown of her head, then down to her face, feeling for any sign of trouble.
"Your majesty, there, there!"
"You're a young wench, I see, but why are you sticking out your navel, haven't you learned that sticking out your navel on a cold floor will catch you in the horns?"
"Pfft, it's fashion!"
How long had she been pecking at her like that? Karina said in amazement.
"It must be the power of the god Petos. To think that the god of the sea should think of embracing a flame so antithetical to his own."
[Technically, I beat him to the punch]
"Hmph. He can barely handle Lord Vulcanus, and he's greedy."
[He is]
Karina stepped out of the cell door and turned to Ha-ri.
"Come out. I'll let this one slide for trespassing in the Imperial Palace."
"Ugh, I didn't mean to——."
Ha-ri trotted after her, using the same clumsy historical diction she'd used with Leon. And as she passed, the palace's soldiers and maids bowed low.
'A little different.'
I've seen so many people bow down to the monarch. Even in those tiny tents in the Lionheart Kingdom, soldiers and people bowed to Leon as best they could but there was trust and respect in it. They are genuine feelings but——.
'Fear. Not as much as I saw in the serfs, but——.'
I can sense an emotion in them that is closer to submission than loyalty.
It was strange.
The Karina that Ha-ri had met, the Archduke of Dragonia who had traveled north with 30,000 soldiers in search of revenge, undoubtedly had soldiers who risked their lives to follow her.
There was no air of coercion or subservience from them, just following the Archduke as they should.
"Chamberlain."
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
The old chamberlain bowed deeply as he stood before Karina.
"Prepare a room for our guests."
The chamberlain didn't glare at Ha-ri or ask who he was supposed to prepare for, just obeyed.
"Your Majesty."
"What?"
Ha-ri felt there was something she had to say before the chamberlain went to the room to prepare. Why hadn't Karina asked her about that man?
"About His Majesty–about His Majesty Leon–"
Karina held up a hand to stop Ha-ri, her expression blank, but the air she breathed was fierce.
"He'll be here soon enough. There's no need for you to blabber on."
"Still, His Majesty Leon wants you to——"
""——!!""
Gazes around the room turn to Ha-ri and she could feel how stunned they were, even though they ducked straight down, as if they didn't dare commit the rudeness of looking at the Emperor.
Ha-ri lowered his head under the unspoken pressure, but in the meantime, she noticed something.
Karina's eyes, once as blue as Leon's, had turned an ominous shade of gray.
"He'll take care of himself. It's none of your business."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah——."
Karina put a hand on Ha-ri's shoulder as she averted her gaze and chuckled.
"It's a shame you're in a woman's body, by the way. You could have been a pretty good candidate."
"What? What's that——?"
"We'll see about that for now. The things from 'beyond the gate' that have invaded my empire, unless they're demons, I have the patience to watch."
"????!"
Ha-ri gasped and the chamberlain hurriedly led her away, as if to prevent her from making any more rash moves.
"Come with me, honored guest."
"Ah, yes, please——"
Ha-ri was led by the chamberlain to the inner palace. When they arrived, the rooms were so overwhelmingly opulent that they seemed to overwhelm rather than serve their guests.
"Well then, if you need anything, just call me."
"Yes——"
In any case, it's a much-needed break after only half a day here. Ha-ri flopped down on the bed, hugging the turtle, an incarnation of the God Poma.
"Haha— this is the second time I've met her, but there's just something about her aura that overwhelms me."
[——]
"Poma?"
Ha-ri lifted the unresponsive Poma but its pouting turtle face was lost in thought.
[This is it— my lighthouse is in for a rough ride in more ways than one]
"What do you mean—?"
[It's vague, but it's domestic, you'll see.]
Ha-ri pouted at the vagueness of Poma words. Gods— can't you just be a little more straightforward?
[By the way, Ha-ri, let's check on that quest thing]
"Oh, right, we're inside a gate. It's such a normal world, I forgot to check."
She saw a lot of gates, but this one was a little different.
Whereas the other gates were fragments of a lost world, this was something else–an otherworld.
"It's not just a re-creation of the past, like it was for Lord Georgic, is it? Anyway, the quest is——"
It was a privilege granted to Hunters awakened on Earth but Ha-ri's golden eyes widened as she checked the floating system message.
"Huh? Huh?!"
What the hell is this?!
* * * * *
This world has been invaded by demons.
Over 300 years ago, countless nations fell under a demonic invasion, and the world seemed to crumble at the hands of the Demon Archduke Meltimorphol of Lust but at some point, the demonic invasion lost momentum.
Their infinite lives remained, but their numbers dwindled— the most notorious, the Demon Archduke Meltimorphol of Lust, and most of his Archdemons, were never seen again.
Historians have puzzled over this hiatus, as the world was so close to destruction.
Then, a hundred years later, when the demons' erosion had slowed, they returned.
Meltimorphol, Archduke of Lust, the world's nightmare had returned.
"The kingdoms had not yet recovered their strength from the demonic invasion. Not only that, but now that the demons had retreated, they saw an opportunity to prey on their weakened neighbors."
"Foolish."
"Yes, it was foolish."
The old historian chuckled to himself as he reflected on a past that was older than his own lifetime. He continued to explain the history of the empire to the young man who had come to him.
"But demons were not the only things that appeared in the world that day."
Karina Dragonia.
She came to this world with an army of tens of thousands.
"They were strong, so strong that even the demons feared them."
As the world despaired of the reemergence of demons, this otherworldly legion began slaughtering them.
Taking the place of the legions that had been destroyed by the rise of demons, they defended the cities, marched nonstop through the winter months, and hunted down demons like avenging demons–a legion of vengeful demons.
"The Legion of Dragons was a myth. I wouldn't believe it if it weren't for all living proof."
And because there was living proof, the old historian conceded that it was real history, not false myth or legend.
"But men were foolish, and the kingdoms feared the Legion of Dragons."
They initially treated the Legion and its leader, Karina Dragonia, with kindness. Each sought to secure her legions, to enlist the knights and warriors under her command but they were not swayed by any of the offers, and simply slaughtered the demons in silence.
It was too much, too superhuman to accept.
The kingdoms interpreted the intent differently.
They wondered, once the demons were slain, who would be next?
Such suspicions led to a disgusting incident.
A combined army of the Seven Kingdoms attacked the Dragon Legion, which had just won a long and bloody battle against Archduke Meltimorphol.
On that day, most of the Dragon Legion, exhausted from the fight against the demons, were killed──
"Eight hundred and fifty thousand of the combined forces of the Seven Kingdoms were slaughtered without a trace."
In a normal war, it was rare for a side to suffer more than twenty percent casualties, no matter how crushing the defeat, especially if it's a pre-modern war fought with cold weapons.
But on this day, the majority of the Kingdom's allied armies that attacked the Dragon Legion did not survive.
They were slaughtered on the spot—as if they could even think of fleeing.
The slaughter continued afterward.
The leaders of the treacherous kingdoms and their sympathizers all perished at the hands of a hundred surviving Dragon Legion and the Archduke of Dragonia.
"And so the seven foolish kingdoms fell, and a new empire was built upon them."
The Empire of Dragonia, the most powerful empire in history, with the absolute power of Karina Dragonia as its god.
Thus began the two-hundred-year reign of Emperor Dragonia.
"So——"
Leon felt sorry for her, knowing that she had fought the same hard fought battle he had but he was also relieved that the child was still alive and well after her father's long neglect.
That was what he was most grateful for, and relieved for.
"Karina–where do we go to see the Emperor of Dragonia?"
"Oh, don't ask me that. You could get yourself killed if you tried to visit the palace."
"What are you talking about?"
"His Majesty the Emperor is—— No, where in the world are you from that you don't know this?"
"Understand only that I come from far away, commoner. This king's time is not wasted in answering your questions."
"——"
The old historian had a hunch that this man was the real deal, though he knew he wasn't a commoner when the florist's mistress brought him in.
He also knew it was dangerous to pry into the affairs of such a high ranking person, so he tamped down his curiosity about Leon.
"The Emperor doesn't usually come out of the palace, and the easiest way to see her is— well, that's the best way these days."
"What is that?"
Here Leon did not consider the undignified act of barging into the palace.
Though otherworldly, Karina was technically the Emperor here so he would have to give her imperial honors.
A casual knock on the door of the Imperial Palace would be met with a challenge from the loyal guards, and if a commoner challenged the king, Leon would have no choice but to punish the insolence by beating him.
Then he would have struck the emperor's guards, and Karina's face would not stand.
[My knight tends to be more archaic than I am]
"A man with a Lionheart should be an example to others.
[Aye, aye.]
At the goddess's sarcasm, the Lionheart King kept his dignity, but soon the old historian's words failed him.
"Why don't you take part in the Emperor's courtship duel? The whole empire is buzzing about it."
"What?"
[Quest: State Marriage]
Clear Condition: Successfully marry the Emperor of the Dragonia Empire, Karina Dragonia.