“Don’t worry about that skinny bastard. He’s fake, and you’re real.”

“…What do you mean?”

“All his power comes from that divine object, right? Then it’s the object’s power, not his. You manage to subdue those divine beasts just fine without any of that stuff.”

Rude raised one eyebrow as if to say his point was correct.

And judging by the words he poured out without hesitation, it was clearly a long-held grievance.

“That Videntia or whatever, the prophecy made by the founder who got all their heads chopped off for making it. It said a king greater than the first would come. But that bastard? Greater my ass. He’s just using the power of the first king from some unknown divine object. How is that being a greater king?”

As my numb ears gradually cleared, Rude’s distinctive slightly raspy low voice became clearer.

At the same time, the fog in my mind also cleared significantly.

“Anyone with a divine object is a king. I’d be king too if I just wore that red ring and laurel wreath. What an amazing king we have.”

It was nearly half mockery and half criticism, but the point it contained hit the mark. He was right.

Videntia’s prophecy said the newly born king would surpass the first king. A king greater than, overwhelming King Iker.

The divine object of the deceased King Iker, the remnants of his power left behind, could never surpass the living King Iker, could it?

After all, divine objects are relics of the past.

Moreover, if the power can only be maintained with a divine object, the throne built upon it would be no different from a crumbling tower that could collapse at any time.

Exactly as Rude said. Anyone with a divine object becomes king. Such a person could not possibly be a greater king than the first king.

“Divine object…”

Merche mumbled as she crouched down on the floor. As her thin robe fluttered in the wind, she exuded a mysterious yet precarious aura like a legendary hybrid creature with wings on its back.

Rude neither spoke to her nor acted conspicuously to draw attention as usual. He simply stared fiercely at Merche.

Her ghostly pale face subtly showed signs of life.

Her cheeks, which seemed to lose heat with every gust of wind, now flushed red as they generated heat to fight against the cold.

“The king’s three divine objects.”

As if gathering scattered pieces, Merche recalled the many fairy tales she had read as a child and the kingdom myths contained within them.

It was closer to a historical record than a myth.

A story that appropriately mixed the actual story of King Iker with a small amount of fiction.

Among them, there were quite a few fairy tales dealing with King Iker’s three divine objects, so it wasn’t difficult to figure out what each of them was. Rather, it would have been harder not to know.

The laurel wreath, the ring, the sword.

In some fairy tales and rumors circulating among enthusiasts, it was said that the laurel wreath symbolized love.

That King Iker had received the wreath as a gift from someone, and the one who gave the wreath loved the king madly.

So the laurel wreath became a tool for proposing marriage in the kingdom.

Merche herself had received both a crude laurel wreath and a very well-crafted one as gifts.

Both from the same person, though.

−…I have something to give you.

Suddenly, she recalled the laurel wreath that Rude had placed on her head when he dragged her out of Lupinus Castle.

What had happened to that wreath?

She had no memory of taking it off, but at some point the wreath had vanished without a trace.

The ticklish sensation of it crumbling like sand was strangely vivid.

While blinking and retracing the sensations of the past, two clean hands without any ornaments came into view.

Merche habitually stretched out her right hand evenly, spreading the gaps between her fingers wide.

−This is an item that Lady Carla asked me to deliver. I don’t know what’s inside, but it seemed the lady hoped Merche would use it to face the basilisk.

The ring from Carla that Fabio had delivered.

She clearly remembered picking up the ring rolling on the ground and putting it on her ring finger when she was in mortal danger from the basilisk.

However, when she checked again after some time had passed, the ring had vanished without a trace as if it had never existed in the first place.

“The laurel wreath… and the ring…”

They overlap with two of King Iker’s divine objects. They were also similar in that she had lost them without realizing it.

…Could it really be just a coincidence?

It was then that the forgotten voice thundered through her mind like a bolt of lightning.

Her ears became muffled, all sounds scattered, and even her surroundings became blurry. Merche blankly straightened up from her crouched position.

Why had she forgotten? It was a voice that had come to her several times before.

“…The power of the earth…”

The voice had clearly said that. Not to return ‘here’ until she had recovered all the power of the earth.

Since she had heard it just as she was losing consciousness after struggling against Leviathan, ‘here’ must have referred to the primordial sea.

Merche closed her eyes and slowly recalled her memories.

The voice that had spoken to her several times in the past. It used to come when she used the royal family’s unique power of dominion. And it always came with the sound of waves.

“When you recover all the power of the earth… return here.”

In other words, that’s what it meant.

She still didn’t know what the power of the earth was, but the voice seemed to assume that she would have to return to the primordial sea someday.

The primordial sea, would she gain something if she went back there?

No, before that, she needed to find out what exactly the power of the earth was.

Merche clenched her fist and turned away from the lake.

“Where are you going now? No, wait. Stop for a moment!”

Chasing after Merche who suddenly started running off somewhere, Rude’s tone became harsh as Merche staggered and stumbled.

He glared at Merche in his arms with a deeply furrowed brow.

“If I hadn’t caught you, you would have face-planted on the ground. Want to smash up that pretty face of yours?”

“I need to go to the library.”

“Hey. You’re letting my words go in one ear and out the other, and only saying what you want to say.”

“Rude.”

“Ah, fine. I get how urgent it is, so shut up.”

How soft had he become to let it end with just calling his name once, even with such a desperate look on her face?

While muttering complaints, he wrapped his arm around the woman’s body.

“Happy now?”

She’s so thin anyway.

Holding her, she weighs like a feather.

He felt a bit annoyed that all the food he had stubbornly brought her recently seemed to have been for nothing.

Damn it. Instead of getting angry at Merche, he just vigorously shook his head.

Soon, looking at the clear blue eyes gazing up at him, he spoke calmly.

“Just point the way. I’ll run there.”

What else could he do but run like hell for her?

Rather than seeing those fragile, pale legs get scraped and bloodied from running, he’d prefer to carry her like a horse and run frantically himself.

As Merche hesitantly pointed in one direction, he held her tightly in his arms like a treasure and moved his legs.

Rude started running as if flying, at a speed rivaling his divine beast form.

Among the many buildings of the Venenum main house, the building housing the library was located in a dark corner where sunlight didn’t reach.

Two figures crossed the gloomy corridor as the darkness of night descended.

Amidst the countless tall bookshelves spread out, Merche moved busily.

Beside her, Rude also carried ladders back and forth several times, sweeping up various books and piling them like a mountain on one side of the floor.

“Ipero Mythology, The Legend of King Iker, The Origins of Ipero. All these similar nauseating names.”

A small mountain of books. Rude circled around Merche, who was absorbed in reading among them.

It was a busy movement that would have irritated the observer’s mind. But Merche didn’t give him a glance.

Rude examined the woman’s face immersed in the book from various angles.

Consistently well-shaped face.

Since being surrounded by books, she hasn’t given him even a single glance, which was both annoying and indifferent to him.

After all, isn’t she a woman qualitatively different from him?

For someone like him who yawns just looking at tiny black letters on a white background, Merche seemed only impressive.

His impressive and smart companion. A woman who would be praised as excellent anywhere.

He approached behind Merche, who was reading dense sentences as if being sucked into the book, trying to suppress his presence as best he could.

A white, slender hand turns page after page.

She mumbles something occasionally, her lips moving, and seeing that made him feel hot again uncontrollably, so he quickly turned his eyes away.

Meanwhile, the pages of the thick book had turned substantially, already past the middle.

“The primordial sea…. King Iker…”

Merche murmured what she was looking for over and over, not even realizing she was speaking aloud.

At least one, among these many books, at least one must have the content she wanted.

History, myth, legend, or even rumors intertwining the first king, King Iker, and the primordial sea… anything would do. She hoped for anything to appear.

“Merche. Close that and get up. You’re going to pass out like a corpse again at this rate.”

“Just a little. Just a little more.”

“That’s enough.”

“I can find it.”

“Stop being so stubborn, Merche. I said that’s enough here. Want to become a corpse reading books?”

“……”

However, until the distant east broke and a reddish light filled the horizon from the horizon.

Not even once did the content she was looking for appear.