Chapter Text
Queen Priscilla sat in her chair with a neutral expression.
It was the fifth month of her reign.
She was the Vollachian queen of the Monarchy of the Lugunican Empire.
She had won. She had won the brutal competition between the four dragon ordained candidates.
The royal selection went a little something like this.
An incident occurred with the canidate Emilia encountering the bowel hunter and routing her with the assistance of the sword saint. The bowel hunter escaped however.
Over the next couple of months, horrific occurrences began to happen across Lugunica.
Firstly, a failed expedition against the white whale seemed to occur, having been ordered by the sage council? Or was it the government? Was it the knights?
Hold on. Let me check my notes…
…
The healer blue was believed to have fallen in this battle.
Secondly, the Archbishop of Sloth was slain by the forces of the Emilia camp.
Shortly afterwards, Julius was assassinated in the Capitol. No motive or suspect was found.
Over the next year, the Emilia camp made great strides, slaying the Archbishops of Wrath, Greed, and gluttony.
Shortly before the last week of the royal selection, Anastasia fell into a coma. Her gate-related disorder having dragged her down to hell.
The election was close. Very close.
There were many recounts. Lots of people screaming bloody murder at eachother. Priscilla’s national-populist stance vs Emilia’s pacifism, Felt’s anarchism, and Anastasia’s market-liberal ideology. M.L.G.A rallies were held.
After a few tense months where it seemed the country’s breathe was collectively held.
And…
A narrow Priscillan victory.
And she currently had a problem.
Actually, two problems.
Firstly, the economy was in the toilet.
It started a few months before the end of the selection. In Kararagi, an event known as “BLACK SOLDAY” occurred. The joint-stocks crashed brutally.
The reverberations of this event hit Lugunica hard. International trade collapsed as the 4 nations implemented complete isolationism and autuarky.
Priscilla had ridden her way to victory by promising an end to the economic crisis, beating the second most popular forerunner -Emilia- by a couple thousand votes. It irked her greatly how close the election actually was.
But Priscilla also had a different problem.
The Archbishop of pride, who had previously been dormant throughout the royal selection, suddenly went apeshit. Even as it seemed the Archbishops were dying one by one, The Archbishop of pride seemed completely unaffected.
The Archbishop of Pride attacked Lugunica differently. He was the first archbishop to target infrastructure rather than the population.
In the first weeks of Priscilla’s reign, thousands of bridges, aqueducts and roads were blown to smitherines. Millions of gold in property damage were inflicted. The disruptions reached unimaginable intensity during the coronation ceremony. In the exact second Priscilla put the crown atop her own head, the walls of pristella hundreds of miles away were mysteriously blown. A huge flood washed away the watergate city into the tigracy sea, killing thousands.
Every attempt to capture, kill, or even slow down the Archbishop had failed miserably. People began to call for the “Archbishop-slayer” Emilia to usurp power.
Not even the sword-saint could track the Archbishop, who always managed to slip through the cracks.
In the fourth month of her reign, the attacks reached horrifying levels of destruction.
After a month of drought in the royal capitol, powerful southern winds suddenly arrived. As if on cue, somehow, someway; fire rapidly appeared everywhere. The flames started from the southern districts and formed a firestorm which ripped northwards towards the royal palace.
A rumor was spread that Priscilla played the harp as the city burned, further leading to her rising upopularity.
When the night turned to day, nearly 65% of the city lay charred. Thousands dead. The Archbishop of Pride Responsible.
The Archbishop of pride was now the most feared person on the continent.
And fear turned to anger as people looked up to the untouched royal palace demanding his head, their safety, their security.
In an attempt to consolidate her control over the nation, she had Emilia, her primary opponent, exiled to the Elior wastes. Such a decision has led to instability in the north and has been viewed by most political strategists as a mistake.
Every day, more instability and discontent compounds. Priscilla can see the writing on the wall but refuses to acknowledge it.
.
\\\
“
“Aldebaran. What goes in the search for the Archbishop of Pride?”
“Nothing more than the usual.”
“And of the dog’s recent activities?”
“When compared to the recent floods on pristella and fire at the Capitol, his activity seems to have been getting milder and milder. Today there was an attack on a barielle estate, but nothing more was reported.”
Priscilla rubs her hand to her temple. Truly, she needs a breakthrough in order to salvage her situation.
The next hours are spent upon her throne hearing the pleas of the commoners, nobility, and leadership of the kingdom. Such was an ancient tradition in lugunican history; to bring pleas to the king. It consisted of a noble, emissary, or knightly-man being allowed into the throne room to bring petitions, proclamations, or reports directly to the queen. The visitors would only be allowed in once per month and were expected to postrate themselves in the presence of the monarchy.
Priscilla loathed this aspect of the queendom.
“Queen Priscilla, your humblest servant asks for an estate of land on the eastern banks of the tigracy at limogè.”
“Denied.”
“Oh honorable queen Priscilla. The victims of the Great Fire of Lugunica beseech you for more side and goods!”
“What kind of goods?”
“Tools of craft and looms of weaving to restart their businesses and livelihoods.”
“Approved. Ensure the commoners continue their labors.”
“Oh great benefactor of the lands, your majesty Queen Priscilla. I beseech you for 800 infantrymen to hunt the Archbishop of Pride north of Fleur! My intelligence agents sugg-“
“Denied.”
“-but”
“Denied. And out of my sights dog.”
“Oh queen Priscilla I beseech you, please show a flash of your ample bosom so I may die with peace!”
“…”
“…”
“Approved.”
“Oh queen Priscilla of the great south. I humbly beseech…”
…I humbly request. - It must be done - The people need aid! - the commoners require water in the east. - The Farsalian Aqueduct is in dire need of repair! - I report disturbing movements of the cult at laprushka!
…So much…
Oh honorable queen Priscilla…
Denied.
Oh queen. I beseech…
Denied.
We beseech! We beseech…
Denied. Approved. Approved. Denied.
… overwhelming…
The people need help! Help us!
Denied. Approved. Come back later. Denied.
A horrendous day of dealing with the plights of the nobility, military, papacy, commoners, knights, and economists slowly comes to an end.
It’s overwhelming. She feels enslaved. Enslaved.
Enslaved.
“Oh queen Priscilla. The amputees from the disaster at Pristella request benefits.”
“Denied.
I, a goddess. Im tired. It’s tiring. So tired. I Can never show this. But I am tired. I won, so why does it feel like the other candidates are truely free?
“Oh queen Priscilla! Oh queen Priscilla!
Priscilla! Priscilla! Priscilla! Priscilla!
Prisca! Prisca! Prisca! Prisca! Prisca! Prisca!
Stop it. Stop it. Shut up. Mine divine self demands you all shut up.
I beseech you! I beg you! You! I request! I demand! I demand I demand I demand! I want it and I want it now! Now! Now Now Now ! I praise you! Give it to me! Give it to them! Don’t give it to them! I beseech you! I honor you! You! You! You!
Stop it. I command you. Leave me be.
You! You! You!
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
Prisca! Prisca! Help me!
“SHUTT UP!”
The accumulated stress of months finally gets an outlet. Months of goose-chases political intrigue, bullshit, warfare, diplomacy, and politics had finally gotten to the Queen.
She is panting. She is tired. So tired. The queendom, the most powerful position on Laguna, it was a lie. A lie. A trap. She is trapped.
Trapped. Trapped and Enslaved. Chained.
A fitting punishment for a goddess like her, who tried to give enlightenment to the commoners but was chained. Chained to the cliff like Prometheus, pecked at by the birds.
She pants with exhaustion. Weeks of insomnia take their toll on the Queen.
“N-Next.”
The previous petitioner -a merchant named Sigrum- left with arms shaking, as something he did seemed to cause the queen of Lugunica to scream in wrath.
The next petitioner, the final one of the day, arrives to bring their petition or Plea before the queen.
“Your Majesty, Queen Priscilla. I have come to report of a new deposit of energetic rock in the northern provinces. I believe this mineral could provide great boons for our civilization in the near future.”
There stands a boy. Young. Black hair. Evil eyes. Tunic of leather and a circular metal ball in his right hand.
A circular metal ball in his right hand. Actually, it is two semicircles, completely polished to be like that of a mirror. Within these two semicircles, a smaller ball is seen. The smaller ball is also shiny, and shimmers the air around it.
Great. Geology. Fucking great. A goddess like me forced to listen to Geology.
Aldebaran seems to perk up at the sight of It. Something about it is familiar. He can’t put his finger on it.
“I bring here a sample of it. Indeed this metal holds quite the mass. Quite the mass indeed.”
A small, tiny, imperceptible smile is desperately being suppressed on his face. His eyes. There is something wrong with the boy’s eyes. Something terribly wrong. The air in the room shifts. Something is off. Something.
“Alright Commoner. Tell me more.”
“Oh yes indeed! This ore was first discovered by me in the deep mines of the far north, a place near Elior.”
The half-Devils realm? Why should I give two- Why are you smiling?
“It has the properties of producing a tiny amount of heat, and can assist in central heating for the northern regions.”
Something is terribly wrong. He isn’t asking or begging for anything. There is not a hint of want or request in his tone.
It is statement.
All day, all week, all year. People have looked at her with eyes of WANT.
They have wanted something some way or the other.
The few times somebody has come before Priscilla truly without a request of desire has been near nonexistent. These times have been savored by Priscilla.
Interesting. The commoner has the audacity to walk before the Queen with full confidence and waste her time on Geology. What gives you this confidence commoner?!
…Why is your face like that?
Aldebaran is at full attention. His instincts are screaming bloody murder.
The boy’s eye twitches. Madness desperately festers below it. It wants out. The smile is slowly creeping. Priscilla takes note.
That face. What the hell is wrong with that face.
“
Between each semicircle, there is a tiny piece of wood. Very small. A small slit is between them.
“Would you like a demonstrat-strat-ation?”
At the word “demonstration”, he is giggling. He is giggling. Madness. Hate. Evil.
“Very well. I’m sure this waste of my time will hold some value of entertainment to mine divine-self.”
Aldebaran finally decides to ask a question. A foolish question. A 28 year old question.
“Hold on Pal. What is this magic-material called?”
He is smiling. Oh my god he is smiling. It is the most horrendous smile. It is mischievous. It is mischief incarnate. It is Evil. Evil. His semblance of a civilized self is completely gone. Gone. Gone. Run Priscilla. Run.
“Heh. Heh. Heheheh. Heh.”
“…”
“…Uranium.”
Aldebaran’s eyes grow wide with horror.
He slits the two wooden pieces from their slots.
Aldebaran activates his authority. But. In this moment, Priscilla summons the yang sword and charges to bring it to the boy’s neck. Her instantaneous motion brings two people into the matrix of Aldebaran’s Authority, invalidating it’s activation conditions.
His stars were bad. Likely because there was an actual star in the room. Not figuratively, Literally.
And.
[TZTZTZTZTZTZ]
The room is blue. Blue. Bluer than any blue which has ever existed. So blue. It is beautiful. It is terrifying. Cosmically terrifying.
I’m sorry Priscilla.
20 Sieverts.
A wave of heat emanates from the boy’s hand. Not the heat of air or a hot oven, but rather the heat of the sun.
The air around his hand simmers with the color of tv static tuned to a dead channel.
The atmospheric mana is instantaneously corrupted to miasma, not by the effects of an authority or the witch, but by the sheer magnitude of the corruptive ionization.
Paintings and plants, living material in the room, begins to release steam.
The heat of creation washes over the room. In an instant. An instant. An absolute instant.
The boy is smiling. He is smiling. Absolutely smiling. Oh my god is he smiling.
He grins as if he looks at the corspe of his sworn archnemesis.
But is that not a true comparison?
…he is looking at the corpse of his sworn archnemesis.
Priscilla is dead. Aldebaran is dead.
Archbishop of Pride Subaru Natsuki is Alive..
The Yang sword is millimeters from his neck.
Aldebaran looks with a shellshocked look. He has realized what has happened. He is probably the only one to have realized the full truth of the situation. He is defeated.
The 1000 Yard stare is upon his face.
His mind flips back to a decades old sermon at a half remembered school. Particles. Rays. Radiation.
That was why that strange sphere felt familiar.
The demon smiled. His core was no longer emitting an aura of blue.
“EXPLAIN YOURSELF AT ONCE!”
She is furious. Furious and- when she looks at Aldebaran’s face- concerned.
“You’ know, when I killed the Archbishop of Greed and stole his authority for myself…”
I knew it. That half elf didn’t kill shit.
“I thought I got a useless ability! Wavelength nullification!? Seriously?”
“ DOG. What was that blue light and heat? Explain yourself lest I rip your soul from your body at once!”
“At first, all it could do was make myself immune to rays, magic beams, and radiative magic for just 30 seconds too! Who could have any use for such a useless ability as that?”
“But now, I believe I was given this ability for this very moment.”
“Authority of Greed, ABSOLUTE NULLIFICATION!”
Silence once again permeates the room.
There is only one known Archbishop left on the continent. The one known holder of an authority.
The Archbishop of Pride.
“Archbishop of pride is it not?” Priscilla’s voice is low.
“Tsu. That’s right! One hundred on the dot! SUBARU NATSUKI. Archbishop of Pride.
The world truly does revolve in my favor. The person I have been searching for now stands before me.
But why do I feel so unsettled?
…
“Here is how it’s going to go. You are going to explain exactly what you have just done to me. Very. Very carefully. If you even hesitant, even stutter, I will rip your head from it’s spine and throw it to the dogs.”
“Are we clear?”
Her tone is absolute. Booming. How ironic. A corspe is interrogating the living.
Subaru sticks out his tongue.
“Okie dokie!”
One of the most poweful swords in existence is to his neck. And he is smiling. Blowing a fucking raspberry.
“To put it in the most simple terms, you will be joining an exclusive club consisting of Al, possibly Rein, and another person who I will not mention who have experienced death twice.”
…
“…Explain.”
“The DEE ENN AYE in your body has been irreversibly annihilated. Every strand and chromosome utterly destroyed-“
“Speak normally Dog. You’re life is on the line.”
“Sorry Pris, what I meant to say was that the deoxyribose nucleic acid within every nucleus of every-“
“LUGUNICAN BASTARD! DO YOU SPEAK IT?”
Priscilla screams like Marcellus. Aldebaran has run out of the building to get reinforcements. He was muttering “No. No. No.” as he went.
“Your body has now forgotten it is a body. It has lost the ability to self repair and survive. In other words, the cells, building blocks of the human body, are now completely inert.”
No lies. What the fuck is he talking about.
“Your natural functions, replacing the dead skin cells, growing the hair, producing the secretions and regulating the body, have now ceased.”
“In other words. You are dead.”
How absurd. Me? A goddess? -an overworked miserable goddess at that, but still a goddess? Dead? What blasphemous words do you dare to speak.
The sheer insanity of the statement hits Priscilla like a truck. It is absurd. Absurd. It’s the truth.
Priscilla tries to force the Yang sword to cut off Subaru’s neck, but unseen hands push back against it. The unseen hands, powered by one’s Evil, have reached complete compatibility with the monster’s.
“A dead man walking.”
“The first three weeks. You will begin to notice the hair fall. The skin irritated.”
She continues to try and force the yang sword inro Subaru’s neck. It doesn’t move.
“The fourth to the fifth, brutal lesions and your skin falls off. The muscles atrophy and all hell breaks lose.
“The fifth to the Seveth, absolute misery and death without medical care.
Madman. Madman. You speak lies. Lies.
“The eighth week and beyond will be true hell. You will beg for death.”
… Beg for death?
“That is what will happen to you. Such is the price to pay from usurping the true ruler Emilia’s rightful place on the throne and even considering bringing harm to her.”
Priscilla is speechless.
Reinforcements are clobbering in. Subaru knows his time is running out. The sword saint nears.
“Now now. It seems I must go. Toodles!”
Just like a blur, Subaru simmers out of existence. A powerful use of his other authorities is displayed. It happens in a flash. A mirage of boiling air is the only thing left behind.
She is left bewildered. Aldebaran, having failed to deploy his authority in time, returns to the room with the sword saint.
“Queen Priscilla, What has happened here?”
Reinhard -whose candidate lost but was graciously accepted into the new government- now stood before the queen.
And when he did. His divine protections picked up an anomaly. Something wrong. Something terribly wrong. There were no signs of life emanating from the appendages or core of Priscilla’s body. It was absurd. Absurd.
His divine protections detect something bizarre.
Od Laguna no longer recognized her. The connection had been severed. Only a thin core of the light of life emanates from the brain and gate.
The queen of Lugunica is Dead. She doesn’t even know it yet.