章 5: Protectors of the Kingdom
"You know, this is some otherworldly poison," I said as we were currently standing on the shore of the lake, which is poisoned to the core.
We felt that magic signature, the one that was on the tiara. I have an inkling that this is the work of a demon. All demons have an infinite lifespan unless someone destroys their soul, so it's possible.
Bending down and touching the clear water, I found my holy magic resisting and neutralizing the poison, but it looks like this was purified once just before we came here.
"So that was why the queen was so weary and exhausted; she must have spent her life force in order to use the tiara." I got some gasps from the group that led us here, the advisers of the queen, of whom one was a demon, the elven doctor.
I took my sword from my 'spatial storage", covered it in blazing flames, and beheaded the demon, cauterizing the wound so that there would be no blood.
It all happened in a millisecond, and only me and Shizue were the only people who could react to it, so when one of them just dropped dead headless, they freaked out like headless chickens.
They jumped back as guards came rushing, pointing their spears and weapons at our necks. "What is the meaning of this? Lord Karna?" One of the advisers asked me in fury and grief.
We did not answer that, and we were looking at the headless corpse. This caused them to look at it with sadness.
The body began to be converted into magicules and dusted away. "Was that supposed to happen to humans? Or even elves?" Shizue was the one who spoke; well, she did know what to say after all.
Before they could even utter a word, "No. That was a demon; he was giving the queen slow poison constantly and was lying about him being a doctor." was my observation on this matter, now that they understood the situation, I was going to scare them a bit.
"Well, this is clearly staged from the days of the queen's ancestors. I don't know why the demon put the magic circle inside the lake, but this kingdom is in danger." Shizu gave me a look as she understood what I'm going to do.
"Magic circle?"
"Inside the lake?" They began to ask themselves as they came to the realization, "What are you going to do now?" Shizue asked them, as they were panicking.
"Lord Karna and Lady Shizu, please help us!" They lowered their heads as they pleaded with us to help them. Well, we were going to help them anyway.
We decided to put on a show. I bent down and took a stone in my hands and used holy energy to concentrate it into the stone.
The stone began glowing inside my closed fist, and once the glow was leaking out, it prompted them to close their eyes.
I roughly threw the stone into the lake, where I felt the magic signature. The stone traveled in a blink, reached its target, and blew up in a wide palette of colors, with gold being the most prominent.
Once it blew up the magic circle, the holy energy began to do its job—the exorcism of the leftover demonic energy inside the lake.
The people opened their eyes to the view of their lifetime; the rainbow was twinkling in its glory, and the lake was crystal clear without any type of impurity in it.
"Thank you! Lord Karna, lady shizu!" These guys are really dedicated to their queen; I could sense that they were willing to offer their lives if we disagreed. What a lucky queen she must be, even with this curse haunting her.
We were then once again requested to visit the queen's chambers after the purification of the lake reached the queen..
"Your bloodline is quite dedicated to keeping your kingdom and your people safe, going so far as to even sell your own body to a demon." Seated in front of us was the 25th queen of the kingdom, Queen Tetris of the Raja kingdom.
They all die once they reach 50 years old, and they pass down the kingdom along with their curse to the next generation.
After analyzing her soul, I found traces of purple lineage, so the demon whom they contracted must've been the primordial purple. Violet.
A quarter of her soul already belongs to the purple primordial; in other words, we might even have to fight her for saving the royal family, even though her lackeys took action and the contract would be null by now.
"I have to do it; my people trust me as much as I love everyone and everything inside my land, and a ruler must do everything in their power to make sure their people are safe." She was telling the truth. Traveling the world with Shizue, we got to meet lots of different kinds of people, and now we could tell a lie by a glance.
"If we healed you, could we get a permanent residence in this kingdom? We were already planning to retire from adventuring and were trying to find a peaceful place to spend the rest of our time."
This shocked all of the people—the queen and her advisors, and her royal guards—who were inside the chamber with us; after all, we were known as the strongest heroes of the century, because there have been no heroes other than us in this century, at least that's what I think.
"We could arrange for it, but I have one condition." Hm, I think I should ask her too; 'Should we hear it?' Hearing the voice of my partner inside my head, I replied, 'Hm, let's hear it, we should at least hear them out.'
'Hm, I will do whatever you decide, as long as it will not harm us' This is why I love her so much; she understands me better than myself.
"We will be glad to hear your condition; if it's not harmful to us, We will consider it," I said as the queen stared at us.
In their perspective, we were beings with power, and beings with power have the power to make decisions for everyone.
"Please become the kingdom's protector! We will not ask you to go to war or anything, but the other western states keep harassing us, and this will escalate into a war if we do not do something, Having the Heroes name as our protectors will deescalate this situation."
Quite the smart and cunning queen, but this is not an unreasonable demand; moreover, we will get a permanent residence and a position that is even above the queen as the protectors of Raja.
Sharing a glance with my partner, I decided. "We shall become the protectors of this kingdom and its people; let's start with healing the queen."
In front of the shocked and extremely happy people, with a small smile, I raised my hand and put the palm against her head, and I transferred a slight amount of holy energy.
A golden light shone brightly, blinding everyone except us—me and Shizue—and once it was over, the newly rejuvenated queen was there instead of the exhausted and frail one.
On this day, the Kingdom of Raja gained a lot, and the western states and countries were shaken beyond reason. In the future, the Kingdom of Raja will be known as the "Land of the Flaming Sun."
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