"The queen is dead. Long live the king!"
Ogai looked at his sword, from which blood was dripping onto the corpse of the sovereign. At the end of a ruthless battle, he and his nine mercenaries had eliminated one by one the thirty members of the queen's close guard. In fact, when he raised his head, he could see that of the nine men who accompanied him, only one had survived. This one ran towards him, all out of breath:
"Ogai! We did it! There are only two of us left but we did it! The queen is dead and with her all the elite of her guards. Now nothing prevents us from taking over the kingdom of Genib, no one can oppose us anymore.
Ogai was still shaking and slightly dazed by the accomplishment: after infiltrating the castle at night, they had managed to get as close as possible to the queen's private quarters before being spotted. They had to engage in a fierce battle with all their pursuers until they managed to seal the throne room where the sovereign had taken refuge with her elite guard. They were thus able to carry out their dirty work...
He remained silent in front of the macabre scene in the throne room. A woman was dead, the floor was strewn with corpses, blood had flowed abundantly, curtains had been torn apart, the throne had been ripped open but his accomplice was right. They had indeed carried out their mission and Ragan, the king of Arcadia, would soon reward them, as promised.
"Ragan will shower us with gold! All the gold we want! Just the two of us, we'll share the gold that was promised to us ten. We will be rich!"
Ogai jerked. He felt nauseous and a horrible migraine was pounding his head. He wanted to collapse on the ground but his body refused to move. He was as if petrified even though an irresistible force had overwhelmed his armed arm and was preparing him to strike again, an invisible enemy.
"Ogai? What's wrong with you? Why are you so quiet? Come on! Let's go back to the kingdom and alert Ragan that the queen is dead and now he's the king. The king of two kingdoms!"
When he turned his back on him, Ogai raised his sword in a flash and struck his comrade. The mercenary screamed as he fell on his side. He rolled onto his back and looked at his former ally with a pitiful look:
"Why? Why m..."
But Ogai mercilessly finished him off by plunging the sword into his heart. Even if he was even more dazed after the act of treachery he had just committed, he ended up having a completely different design for the throne of Genib.
Really? All the gold they wanted? Ragan would certainly be generous but certainly not to the point of giving them all the gold they wanted. Moreover, would he give them more gold than they could seize in the kingdom of Genib knowing that the power was vacant? Ogai had begun to realize this as soon as he had assassinated the queen: he would be much richer and much more powerful as king of Genib than as the vulgar hitman of the king of Arcadia.
As strange as it may seem, he now found himself alone in the middle of about forty corpses in the most symbolic room of royal power. The force that was concentrated in his armed arm had now spread throughout his body: he was terribly afraid. His muscles were so tense that he had been paralyzed a few minutes earlier. Fortunately, he no longer had a headache since everything had become clear to him. It was still time to turn back but the situation was so unprecedented that it aroused extreme excitement in him.
He took one last look at the body of his former comrade and sighed.
There will be no king for two kingdoms, he thought, there will not be a reunification of the two kingdoms either. Ragan will not be the king of Genib because it is I who will inherit the throne. Me and me alone. I am the one who risked my life and those of my comrades to get here. Why would I hand it over to Ragan in exchange for a few pieces of gold when I can grab whole carts as king? Why would I return to Arcadia when I can lead a lavish and delightful life here? Why would I submit to Ragan when today, I have obtained the same status as him.
He lifted his sword, still gleaming red, and considered it with satisfaction. "I do not fear him for I am his equal. He must contend with this bitter reality. If he wants the throne, let him come and take it by force. My sword and I will welcome him as he deserves."
Shouts were heard from behind the throne room door, probably the queen's advisors. The regicide slowly regained his senses.
"That said, I have no legitimacy as a sovereign and any commoner would see that at first glance. Dirty and covered in blood, I look more like a demon from hell than a king. For this, it suffices for me to make people believe that I am of royal origin and all the inhabitants of Genib will respect me. Common folks always respect warlords. They even fear them."
He ran to the body of the deceased queen and tore off the magnificent diadem that adorned her hair. He moved away from her but returned quickly. He brutally removed the wide bracelet studded with precious stones that decorated her wrist. The gold of the diadem was extremely malleable, so he managed to reduce its dimensions with his hands by folding it in half. He quickly picked up his cape and wrapped it around his neck: it had been relatively spared from the ravages of the fight. By a trick as amateurish as clumsy, he arranged the diadem to serve as a gigantic pendant under the chin, at the button that closed the cape. He folded the bracelet on the blade of his sword, just above the guard. He now had a sword of immeasurable value, a sword that no one but a king could own. With some luck, no one would notice the trick. Ogai hoped that the queen's advisers would pay more attention to the grim spectacle the room offered rather than to his appearance.
Knocks came from the other side of the door. Ogai took a deep breath and walked firmly towards his new life, his new world. He had to make a strong impression to distill this aura of warlord that people liked to fear, so he removed the heavy and solid safety bar and with a powerful kick, he flung open the doors of the throne room.