Chapter 232

Before we knew it, the Arctic was right in front of us.

“Who would have thought there was a gate directly connected to the Arctic?”

To be honest, I had been quite worried. Getting tangled up with the beastmen of the Eastern Plains had caused a lot more time to be spent than I had initially anticipated when we first set out on this journey.

Rather than focusing on the distant future, I chose to prioritize helping the person right in front of me, which is why I willingly stayed here. However, I was still deeply concerned about whether the time I had left would allow for such a delay.

But in the end, the Lord provided me with an answer to my worries. Even if I had passed them by, the two weeks spent on the Beast King War would have just been spent crossing the Kalkanmir Mountain Range instead.

“Beyond that, the Demon King must surely be waiting.”

But I still had other concerns, and this time, I had to find the answer myself. On the way back from the gate, I was lost in deep thought.

How should I prepare for my second encounter with the Demon King? Who should I take with me beyond that point? I had thought it was something I could think about later, but now I knew it couldn’t wait, and I had to make a decision immediately.

“I pay my respects to Your Majesty the Beast King. I have an urgent report, which is why I’ve come to see you.”

Of course, I wasn’t the only one with a lot on my mind. The tired child just wanted to go home and sleep, but everyone around kept holding her back, not letting her rest.

“The national treasury is empty, and tax revenues are insufficient, making it impossible to run the country properly. We humbly request Your Majesty the Beast King to make a wise decision.”

After all, the order of the Beastman Kingdom, which had been tightly held together by Epirna, began to fall apart after her self-destruction. Roka, who hadn’t received any special royal education, couldn’t possibly manage the kingdom well, and it didn’t seem like she had the will to do so either.

“I won’t do it. No, I can’t! What am I supposed to do with this?”

Since others called her the king, she tried her best to act like one for about three days. After that, she gave up and threw the royal seal. The Princess watched her and gently spoke up.

“Being a king is hard, isn’t it?”

“Nothing’s going right, and they keep telling me to produce achievements. What am I supposed to do? They should do it themselves. I’m not the Beast King!”

Unlike training, where effort directly translates to progress, being a king doesn’t guarantee that your efforts will pay off. Even Princess Ardein, who was of royal blood and had learned much from a young age, felt inadequate and eventually gave up the throne.

Still, Roka tried her best, but in the end, she gave up. The next day, she called Sir Leon and tried to force the Beast King position onto him. Sir Leon, however, shook his head and refused.

“Being the Beast King isn’t something just anyone can do.”

“It’s not something just anyone can do?”

“The people acknowledged and accepted you because you defeated Epirna in a fair one-on-one battle. You proved your strength to everyone, and that’s why they accepted you as a great warrior. That’s the qualification for being the Beast King. As a defeated person, I don’t have that qualification.”

Indeed, after the Beast King War, the beastmen’s attitude toward Roka changed. Before, they had looked at her with suspicion and doubt, but after her victory, they treated her with utmost respect wherever she went.

Proving her strength in a fair battle seemed to mean a lot to the beastmen. Even the gray wolf clan, who had been dissatisfied with Roka from the start, now bowed their heads in respect whenever she passed by.

“Indeed, the Beast King War is a truly significant ritual for us…”

“The position isn’t something you can just hand over to someone else. Unless another warrior defeats you in another Beast King War…”

“Or unless someone challenges and defeats you, it’s going to be difficult.”

Both Rovo and Sir Urban agreed. Though they had their desires, they couldn’t bring themselves to accept the position. Unless another Beast King War was held and someone defeated Roka, no one would accept the throne.

“To be honest, the Beastman Kingdom is already on the verge of collapse. The only thing holding it together is the focal point of the Beast King War’s victor. If you give up the throne, even the last semblance of order will completely collapse.”

“Then let it collapse. What’s the point of a kingdom that falls apart without me?”

“What are you saying! This is the land we’ve all lived on. How can you just let a country with such a long history collapse like that!”

Sir Urban was the one passionately arguing, but I could feel it. Lady Kisea and all the beastmen secretly supported his words.

The collapse of a nation is a truly serious matter. If you imagine the empire collapsing tomorrow, the meaning becomes even clearer.

Even if it’s just a facade, the difference between a nation being maintained or not is huge. The demon-occupied lands, where multiple kings had risen and created chaos, were extremely dangerous when I traveled there. So dangerous that few adventurers dared to venture there.

The Eastern Plains. It’s already a difficult land. Making life even harder for the people here isn’t something to be taken lightly. So I left Roka’s matters to her for the time being and discussed various issues with others.

But the opinions on both sides were so different that the discussions were almost at a standstill. Roka, who hadn’t grown up here and didn’t care about the rise and fall of the kingdom, couldn’t possibly compromise with those for whom this land was their home.

But in truth, we didn’t have a choice. Maybe we never did from the beginning.

I looked up. I looked north. How long had it been there? Why hadn’t I noticed it until now?

Ever since Epirna fell, I kept seeing something strange in the north. At first, I thought it was just my imagination. But the more I saw it, the stronger the feeling that it was real became.

A vast, towering life force, so strong that even dragons couldn’t match it. It was so powerful that I could vaguely sense it even from this distance. Something enormous and ancient, definitely not human, was there in the north.

I had never felt anything like this before. The closest I had come was with monsters, but even they weren’t this vivid. The hydra and cockatrice I had seen a few days ago didn’t have this level of life force.

Could that be the life force of the Demon King? At the time, I hadn’t opened my Apostle’s eyes, so I couldn’t compare, but I had a feeling it wasn’t.

Had Epirna’s aura been masking its presence, making me unaware of it? Or had she been absorbing all the life force radiating this way?

“I should check it out at least once. It would be good to have a mage with me.”

This would be a good time to have a skilled mage, but unfortunately, it’s hard to find one in the Beastman Kingdom. Epirna had run the country so closed-off that not even a branch of the Magic Tower could be found here.

Of course, inviting a mage from the Magic Tower now is impossible. Distance, time, and cost are all issues, but more importantly, the Magic Tower is in chaos due to the arrival of the Death God.

According to the Princess, the mages of the Magic Tower managed to escape without major casualties. But they’ve all been conscripted by the capital. The empire issued a conscription order in preparation for the battle with the Death God, and the Magic Tower accepted it without complaint.

The Death God is a common enemy to them, an invader occupying their homeland, Orphiel. Even if that weren’t the case, those smart mages know that if the empire falls to the Death God, there’s no future.

“Even if we asked the empire to send a mage, it would take a considerable amount of time to travel this distance again. And there’s no guarantee they’d make it alive.”

There are people here with the potential for magic, but without a place to learn, there are no mages. Moreover, the beastmen revere warriors and disdain mages.

Some even call magic a human technique and look down on it, so it’s no wonder there are no mages here. In the end, the person to take was decided from the start.

The dragon, who had been silent for a while, whose whereabouts were unknown.

I’ll have to persuade the dragon to explore the north with me.

“Ugh! What more do you want from me! I said I’d give it up, but no, I can’t! Every time I try to do something, I have to maintain the dignity of the Beast King… What kind of king is this!”

…I’ll take Roka with me too.

She seems like she needs a break.