The World Is Mine For The Taking

Suddenly, the relentless barrage of stones came to an abrupt stop.

A brief moment passed before I heard the sharp, rhythmic sound of heels clicking against the wooden platform, the footsteps echoing clearly throughout the square as whoever they belonged to steadily approached us. Instinctively, I raised my head toward the source of the sound.

The moment I recognized the person standing there, my eyes widened far more than I expected them to.

It was the Princess of the Bethlan Kingdom herself, standing before everyone with an expression that looked far calmer than the situation should have allowed.

"Princess! Why are you doing this?!" one of the people beside me shouted at the top of his lungs. He glared at her with burning anger, his face already covered in blood from the countless stones that had struck him earlier. "Don’t you know who I am?! I don’t appreciate being treated like this, especially after everything I’ve contributed to this Kingdom over the years!"

The Princess simply looked at him for a brief moment before a faint smirk slowly spread across her face, almost as though she had expected someone to say exactly that.

"Princess?" she repeated with an amused smile. "I’m not the Princess anymore."

The knight standing faithfully beside her, the very same man who had served the late King with absolute loyalty for later years, stepped forward without showing even the slightest hesitation.

Within the blink of an eye, he closed the distance between them before swinging the flat side of his sword directly into the man’s stomach with enough force to make everyone nearby flinch.

"Gah...!" the man cried out as the blow landed with frightening power against his body.

Judging by the impact alone, the strike had been far stronger than it looked, because the instant the sword connected with him, he immediately vomited onto the ground while gasping for air.

"Address Her Majesty by her proper title," the knight said coldly.

"Y-You’re the Queen now?" I asked, unable to hide the disbelief in my voice. "W-When did the coronation even happen? I never heard anything about it."

"I held it privately," she answered without sounding particularly concerned. "Besides, I don’t think a grand coronation is necessary anymore. At this point, it would only waste time and resources, don’t you think?"

I continued staring at her for another long moment, trying to make sense of the person standing before me.

Something about her felt completely different from before, and it wasn’t simply because she now called herself the Queen.

She had lost her father not that long ago, so I expected to see someone weighed down by grief, struggling to keep herself together while carrying the burden of an entire Kingdom.

Instead, the woman standing before me didn’t look burdened in the slightest, nor did she seem like someone who had spent the past several days mourning.

Her eyes were steady.

Her posture remained composed.

Her expression carried an unexpected confidence that hadn’t been there before, almost as though she had already accepted everything and moved far beyond the pain that should have still been haunting her.

Honestly, the change was unsettling enough to catch my attention for longer than I wanted.

Still, none of that really mattered anymore, at least not from where I was standing.

Whether she appeared here personally or chose to stay inside the palace, the outcome wouldn’t change one bit.

If I couldn’t claim this Kingdom for myself...

Then nobody else was going to enjoy it either.

The Republic would simply erase this entire place from existence without leaving much behind except smoke and rubble.

"Hehehe..."

A quiet laugh escaped from my mouth before I even realized I was doing it, and I honestly couldn’t stop myself anymore.

These fools had absolutely no idea what was waiting for them.

Right about now, the Republic was probably preparing its flying machines for takeoff.

Soon enough, they’d arrive above this Kingdom.

Once that happened, bombs would start falling from the sky one after another, and this entire place would become nothing more than another ruined battlefield. Talk about terrible timing for a change in leadership.

"What exactly are you laughing about?" the Princess asked before correcting herself with a faint smile that almost mocked me.

Well, she wasn’t the Princess anymore.

She was the Queen now, whether I liked acknowledging it or not.

"It’s just funny," I replied with another small chuckle. "For the longest time, I believed this Kingdom would eventually become mine. Somehow, though, one obstacle after another kept appearing until I honestly got tired of dealing with all of it."

I looked directly into her eyes without looking away.

"So I eventually came to a very simple conclusion."

"If I can’t have this Kingdom..."

"...then nobody else gets to have it either."

Another laugh slipped out of my mouth because the irony of the whole situation was honestly amusing in its own way.

"This entire Kingdom is about to be bombed. Haven’t you heard about those cities that were reduced to nothing but ashes? Places where hundreds of people died before they even realized what was happening?"

I shrugged my shoulders slightly while continuing to smile.

"The exact same thing is about to happen here, and none of you will be able to stop it."

Despite everything I had just said, the Queen didn’t look frightened in the slightest, nor did she show even the smallest hint of panic.

She simply continued looking at me with that same calm expression, almost as though my threat wasn’t worth reacting to.

It honestly irritated me more than I cared to admit.

"Do you even understand what the Republic is capable of?!" I shouted, raising my voice loud enough for everyone nearby to hear. "They can literally bomb this entire area until nothing but ashes remain, and there won’t be anything left worth rebuilding afterward!"

Unlike the Queen, the people surrounding us clearly looked shaken after hearing those words.

Fear slowly spread through the crowd as worried whispers began breaking out from one person to another.

Several people exchanged uneasy glances, while others swallowed nervously and quietly lowered their heads.

The Queen, however, didn’t even take a single step backward despite the growing panic around her.

"You don’t have to worry about those threats," she said, speaking loudly enough for everyone present to hear her clearly. "Someone incredibly powerful is currently staying within this Kingdom."

A small but confident smile appeared across her face as she continued speaking.

"And that person is more than capable of dealing with any attack that might ever fall upon this land, no matter how overwhelming it may seem."

"And who exactly are you talking about?" I asked with a scoff before shaking my head. "Someone like that doesn’t exist, and I refuse to believe otherwise."

A quiet laugh escaped me again because the very idea sounded completely ridiculous.

"How is one person supposed to protect an entire Kingdom when bombs are going to fall across practically all of it at once?"

From my perspective, her words sounded less like confidence and more like wishful thinking from someone desperately trying to reassure her people.

She wasn’t acting like an experienced Queen who had already accepted the weight of the crown.

She still looked like a young Princess who stubbornly refused to let go of the ideals her dead father had spent his entire life believing in.

If she truly believed something that unrealistic...

Then she was still nothing more than an inexperienced girl trying far too hard to carry the legacy of a King who had already passed away.

"Haven’t you heard what happened to Milham?" she asked calmly, her expression remaining completely unchanged despite everything I had thrown at her.

Her voice never wavered for even a second while she continued speaking.

"It was bombed, yet the country didn’t suffer so much as a single scratch."

She looked directly into my eyes without showing the slightest trace of hesitation.

"The person I just mentioned is the very reason Milham remained completely safe despite everything the Republic threw at it."

The moment those words reached my ears, all of the confidence I had been showing faltered for the very first time.

For several long seconds afterward, I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.