DUCIS

I walk out into the pristine white courtyard filled with noisy people below me (these steps really work well as a natural stage). These are around a quarter of Eagswall’s total population—approximately 100,000 people. The rest of the country will find out of my crowning through official town-criers and unofficial hearsay.

These people, who were just talking to each other in questioning tones and hushed whispers, slowly quiet down as they notice my presence above them. The crowd silently and curiously watches me, eagerly waiting to find out what’s going on.

I scan the entrance of the Royal Castle one last time and frown. Eremus still isn’t here—I’ll have to start without him.

I set down the ceremonial blade down on the ground beside me as a giant, brass megaphone is rolled up to me, and let my eyes rove over all the different faces staring at me in confusion.

I take a deep breath… and speak,

“220 years ago, a boy was born to a pair of minor nobles in this very nation of Salvorum,”

My voice echoes through the courtyard due to the megaphone, and I see that everyone is instantly curious as to where I’m going with this.

“But back then, Salvorum wasn’t as we know it now. It was a country divided into six states which were constantly at war with each other in order to grab more wealth and power for themselves. And while the six states conducted their infighting, the country of Ardenia—which bordered us to the East—easily blew past our weakened defences, taking fort after fort, city after city, and village after village.

It was a time of great suffering. War is costly, after all. Farmers would be forced to give up their grain, soldiers and labourers would be forced to fight and work for little to no pay, and to top it all off, even the nobles, with all their armies, faced death day after day.

When the young child grew up, he saw this ugly truth. He saw how much Salvorum was struggling under the strain of war. So, what did he do?”

The people wait with baited breaths for my answer. Although, it’s not as if they don’t know this story. No, they know it all too well…

I show them my clenched fist, “He rallied the people to his side and conquered the six states! He established the centralized government system in Salvorum that we know today, and then he went on to expel the Ardenians from our lands!”

I loosen my clenched fist, “This young man… would later come to be known as the Calamity-King.”

The crowd breaks out into cheers and clapping. I’m not done with my speech, but that doesn’t matter. They aren’t clapping at my speech, they’re clapping at the mere mention of the Calamity-King—such is his influence in this country.

I raise a hand to quiet them down.

“So now I ask you, how is our situation any different than 220 years ago? Instead of six warring states, we now have seven warring countries. The Great War may have ended eighteen years ago due to the superpower nation of Vincere conquering Ardenia, but that doesn’t mean that peace has arrived. Border disputes are waged all the time, and all the countries are simply waiting for that single inciting incident from which all-out war can begin again.

And that’s why, to prepare for the upcoming war, the farmers, soldiers, and labourers are once again forced to give away their skills and products for nearly nothing.

I’m tired of living in a world as flawed as this. I want to fix it. And thankfully, we already have a solution—a solution passed down to us by the Calamity-King himself.

We must simply conquer the entirety of Terra and put all six countries under our control, as the Calamity-King did to the six states of Salvorum! If we do this, then all wars will disappear! Suffering will disappear! Farmers and labourers will be able to enjoy the fruits of their labour, nobles will enjoy the spoils of their victories, and no one will have to be killed simply by the virtue of being from an “enemy” country!”

I pick up the bronze blade beside me and raise it high into the air,

“This is the Calamity-King’s blade! Join me, and help me use it to carve the future that its master desired!”

The crowd roars its approval, and I’m pretty sure even the people in Vincere can hear their cries. It’s quite amusing really; how easily people’s emotions can be manipulated by old legends.

With this, the people are now on our side.

I nod to a messenger and he calls the priest we have prepared. It’s not like Salvorum is a very religious country, but a priest conducting the coronation of a new monarch is a tradition passed on from the olden days—a time even before the Calamity-King.

The priest takes his place beside me, a golden, jewel-encrusted crown in his hands.

I turn to him. It’s time for the official crowning ceremony.

EREMUS

“…and with all the nations under our control, we will finally have lasting peace in our land,” I finish explaining our basic plan to Luna, “No one will have to suffer through the horrors you went through last night ever again.”

Luna sits there quietly for a while, as if she’s unsure as to how to respond. Her tears have long since dried up during my explanation, and it seems that, at the very least, her emotions have settled down.

Finally, after a while, she speaks. Her voice is quiet and tentative,

“So… you want to stop people from killing each other by killing people.”

She makes it sound a bit ridiculous, but she isn’t wrong. So, I nod,

“Yes. We will conduct one final war against the world in order to stop all wars.” I reach my hand out to her, “Help us, Luna. Help us make sure that no one will have to see the sight that you did last night, and help us make sure that no one will ever have to wonder what life would have been like if their home country hadn’t been completely destroyed… help us make sure that no child will have to try and survive out on the streets because of some stupid conflict that couldn’t be resolved peacefully.”

Luna looks at my hand with a guarded expression on her face, “I… I don’t know what to do… I don’t want other people to suffer like last night, but I don’t want to suffer either…”

“There are things worth suffering for,” I say resolutely, “At the very least, I know that Ducis and I will gladly take any amount of suffering to change this twisted world.”

Luna looks down at the ground, as if she’s ashamed, “I… don’t have one though—something I would willingly suffer for, I mean.”

“Nobody is born with ideals, but anyone can develop them,” I say with conviction, “After seeing what you saw last night, can you really say that you’re okay with letting stuff like that go on? You have a chance to join us and right this wrong, so are you really okay with abandoning us?”

My hand is still outstretched, and she looks down at it with a conflicted expression on her face. After a while, she finally looks up at me and speaks,

“I’m sorry, but—”

Her words are cut off when the sound of far-off cheering greets our ears.

She looks to the direction of the Royal Castle—where the sound is coming from—and something in her eyes changes.

“…They sound happy.”

“Of course, they do. They’re the ones who suffer most from war after all.”

She stares off into the distance for a while before she looks back towards me, her expression infinitely more resolute than it had been a second ago.

“I’ll... join you, and help you make sure that eventually no one will be forced to take another person's life.”

She takes my hand and shakes it firmly.

I grin, “Welcome aboard.”