The hall they entered was magnificent in every sense of the word. It's floors were made out of marble and its walls were built out of white rock with beautiful engravings and decorations on it of all kinds.
Its pillars were dozens of meters high, supporting the white ceiling. On each side of the hall stood many people, wearing all kinds of clothes. They were all there clearly to celebrate the arrival of the heroes.
Arthur was stupified by the beautiful place as he looked around curiously. As he was completely occupied by his own thoughts, two people appeared right at the end of the hall were two huge thrones were set. One of them was an older man wearing beautiful clothes and a golden crown while the other was a beautiful woman with a calm smile on her face.
"Welcome back, our great heroes!" The man exclaimed, catching their attention.
'Is that the king?' Arthur blinked in surprise when he saw the man addressing them. 'He's the most king-looking king I've ever seen.'
From th stories he read, a king would have a huge build, a long beard and a strong presence and that completely applied to the man in front of him. The queen was also what he imagined she would like.
'You really didn't put too much effort into them, didn't you, MangaVerse?' He secretly rolled his eyes before he focused on the two monarchs again.
Mino stepped forward before he smiled and bowed down. "We're back, your highness."
The rest of the heroes also bowed, except for Arthur who took a second to understand what was happening before he followed suit.
"Hahahaha! Lift your heads up, brave heroes! You need not to bow to me! Instead, I am the one who shall do that." The king, with a proud smile, started bowing down.
"Please lift your head up, your highness!" Mino panicked visibly as he tried to stop the king.
"You do not know the great favor you bestowed upon this kingdom and every human out there. I would bow all day long and it won't be enough to show my gratitude." Tears welled up in the king's eyes as he lifted his head.
Those words took the heroes aback as shocking as they were. The king of the strongest empire in the world was tearing up as he tried to show his gratitude towards them? Nobody would be able to easily ignore that.
"We always believed that you, the heroes of this world, will fulfill the prophecy and end the suffering or our kind by the hands of the demon king. You did great! You truly did great!"
As everyone was listening to the king's words, Arthur heard some heavy breathing from his side.
"Hm?"
"Looking to the side, he saw Ani heaving up and down with her head bent down. Her arms were tightly holding into her staff with all her power. Her feet were visibly shaking as if she can't hold on any longer."
'What's wrong with her?' The boy started panicking as he didn't know whether he should cut the king's speech and speak with the girl or simply brush it off. But, no matter how he looked at it, Ani was struggling greatly.
"Psst, Ani, are you ok?" In the end, he decided to get closer to her and whisper so that she's the only one that could hear him.
"H-Huh?" The girl seemed surprised as she looked up. However, her eyes didn't directly stare at Arthur and instead stared at nothing in particular as if she was lost, unable to discern what was around her.
"You don't look good. Should I tell the others?" He asked.
"Huh? No! I'm fine. Don't tell anyone." She said as she looked down again as if she didn't want to speak anymore.
'Am I really supposed to believe that? This makes no sense.' Rubbing the back of his head, Arthur looked ahead again.
At the same time, a girl suddenly appeared from a door on the other side of the hall. Her mere presence took everyone's attention with how beautiful she looked.
"Mino! You're back!!"
Arthur didn't even need to ask who she was as it was as clear as day. With her beautiful dress, her long blonde hair and clear blue eyes, the girl looked exactly like a beautiful princess.
"Your highness." The hero froze in his place for a second before he quickly woke up from his daze when he realized that the princess had just jumped into his embrace.
"Hey! This isn't the pla-"
"I missed you!!" The princess cried as she tightly hugged the hero. Mino found himself in a difficult situation as everyone was looking at him, including the princess' father and mother.
However, luckily for him, they all ended up chuckling. Seeing that no anger was apparent in the king and queen's eyes, Mino finally sighed before he hugged her back.
"I missed you too."
The two lovers stayed in that position for a while. Meanwhile, Arthur simply smiled at the sight.
'Hmm, I guess love isn't all that bad.' He thought to himself.
Never in his life did Arthur even entertain the thought of having a girlfriend. Mainly because he was too busy drawing and learning how to be a Mangaka, and secondly because he knew that his social skills were too under-leveled for such a task.
He even found it pointless to fall in love since it seemed like so much trouble for too little of a reward.
As they were like that, suddenly, Arthur noticed that Ani, who was still fidgeting beside him, suddenly dropped her staff.
"Hm?" Looking at her, Arthur was about to speak, when his attention as diverted by a completely unexpected event.
Boriat, who was on his other side, suddenly fell to the ground with a loud thud. Then, Kali followed suit before Arthur could even react to it.
"Huh? Mino? Are you ok?" On the other side, The princess' feet stepped back as she felt Mino's whole body falling on her.
"Mino? Mino?! Mino, can you hear me?!!!" As she called for him, she didn't get an answer at all so she started to panic.
"Oi, Boriat! Kali! What is going on here? Get a hold of yourselves!!" Arthur quickly rushed to his two companions and tried to wake them up. He didn't even understand what was going on.
However, no matter how much he nudged them, they didn't move. That's when he noticed something. Both of them had their eyes fully open even when they were laying face down. Peering into them told Arthur everything he needed to know… They were dead.
The moment that realization hit Arthur, his face paled and his entire being shuddered as he froze in his place. No word could even come out of his mouth. The whole world stopped moving for a good few seconds.
Even the yells and screams of the people around him stopped reaching his ears. The only thing that he could hear was the slow mutters of a small girl.
"I'm sorry… I'm sorry…"
His eyes slowly turned to stare at the only hero still standing. Ani had her arms around her body as she kept muttering some incoherent words.
"... Huh?"