The History of the Royal Family (1)
"This is the place."
The place my father and mother brought us to was the audience chamber of the royal castle.
"Long ago, the Founding King gave a speech here. This is where the Kingdom of Arland began. And it is also where the Founding King died. Before the current castle was built, this was the king’s bedchamber.
According to the will of the Founding King, this room was converted into the audience chamber."
As he said this, Father shifted something next to the royal throne.
"You know that the tomb of the Founding King is kept secret, don’t you? In truth, it lies beneath the audience chamber."
Indeed, there is a royal mausoleum for the successive monarchs, but the body of the Founding King is not among them. It’s a well-known mystery of the kingdom. However, most people say nothing about it. Especially long-lived races—perhaps they know the truth. But it's considered such a taboo that they absolutely never speak of it.
"That’s why we were never allowed to touch the underground part of the audience chamber, even during renovations."
"Exactly. We couldn’t tell you about the secret chamber."
"Well, I already knew there was a space down there, though."
There were some suspicious details during the renovation. I didn’t investigate thoroughly, but I was aware there was a hidden space.
"I-Is that so..."
Father scratched his chin, clearly thinking I hadn’t known anything. But if there’s an obviously suspicious space, it’s pretty easy to figure out.
"Well, never mind that. What’s important now is the story of the Founding King.
Why was there a need to conceal the body? Because the Founding King wasn’t a king—but a queen. The first ruler never removed their armor in public throughout their life, and even in death, sealed their remains to protect their secret."
"But… why beneath the audience chamber?"
Wouldn’t you normally hide something like that in a more obscure place?
"Well, one reason is that no one would expect the body to rest beneath a place with so much traffic, especially one visited by people from other countries.
Second, this is the place where the kingdom began. And finally, it was to conceal the truth of her origins."
"Her origins? I thought the Founding King—or rather, queen—was a traveler?"
Big brother voiced the same doubt I felt.
"No. This is where the hidden history of the kingdom begins."
Once, this continent was home to many races that lived together in relative peace.
With the decline in conflict, the number of ordinary humans surged rapidly.
Beastkin, elves, dwarves, and other minor races also lived here.
And then, there were the demons, who have now vanished from this continent.
This all happened about 600 years ago. Despite their rapid increase in number, ordinary humans were at a disadvantage on the continent.
They couldn’t match the physical strength of beastkin, nor could they outdo elves in magic. They also lacked the manual dexterity of dwarves.
They couldn’t even fly like the winged races.
Among the many races, elves, dwarves, and beastkin were considered the major races and ruled several nations along with various minor races. These nations were generally more prosperous than the human nations. However, the difference in national strength wasn’t overwhelming. Elves and dwarves, among the major races, were long-lived and had few children, so their populations were small.
Demons, however, were different. Some matched elves in magic, others rivaled beastkin in physical prowess. Though not unified as a race, they concentrated in a single country and became the continent's largest power—a demon nation called the Land of Eternal Night.
There, the most powerful of the demons, the vampires, reigned with their king.
Many demons had appearances close to monsters and had been persecuted for generations, but the Vampire King expanded the nation by absorbing these scattered groups.
"However, the Vampire King was a wise ruler. He treated the past as the past and maintained normal relations with humans and other races. He wasn’t someone who flaunted superiority.
But the demons were simply too powerful."
The Land of Eternal Night had two allied nations: the Kingdom of Sylvenia and the Avalon Kingdom. Both pursued a policy of harmony with demons and other races.
Due to its terrain, Sylvenia struggled with agriculture and was in a position where it couldn’t defy the Land of Eternal Night. But in truth, its king was a close friend of the Vampire King, and they trusted each other so deeply that they drank together without bodyguards.
Avalon also had friendly relations, though not to the same extent—it was simply an ordinary allied nation.
The three nations had close ties and political stability. However, within the Orthodox Church, a factional conflict broke out. The victors were the sect that advocated for human supremacy.
The human supremacy doctrine held that all other races were failed versions of humans, inferior beings. Naturally, the three nations fiercely opposed this.
"The backlash from the Avalon Kingdom and the Kingdom of Sylvenia was especially fierce. They severed diplomatic ties immediately, labeling any nation that had fallen under the ideology of human supremacy as unworthy."
Thus, the continent was split between humans and all other powers. To make matters worse, at the time, there were almost no connections between the various races.
The dwarves had no interest in world affairs, thinking only of how to hone their own skills. As for the beastkin, most of them lived as tribes on the plains, without proper nations.
The elves were even more conservative than they are now and failed to form any alliance to resist the humans.
Even the demons underestimated the humans—and their reproductive capacity. Despite tensions, war did not break out. That state of uneasy peace lasted for thirty years, during which time the human population came to vastly outnumber that of the other races. Although beastkin were relatively numerous, most lived in tribal societies outside of a few organized nations, which limited their numbers.
And so began the Great Human-Demon War. It all started with the Kingdom of Sylvenia launching an invasion on the Land of Eternal Night.
A betrayal beyond belief. Even the Vampire King, ever composed, was shaken. Though the King of Sylvenia had since changed, the new monarch was a young man whom the Vampire King had cherished since infancy.
He had grown into such an outstanding youth that the Vampire King placed complete trust in him, even going so far as to give him his 198-year-old daughter in marriage.
In the vampire race, adulthood is reached at 200 years. Before that, vampires are extremely vulnerable to sunlight—fatally so. Yet the Vampire King sent his daughter off as a sign of trust.
She was a remarkably beautiful vampire, appearing to be in her mid-teens. She and the new King of Sylvenia were in love. Though some of the King’s subordinates insisted she should be married only after coming of age in two years, the Vampire King had said, "Two years would be difficult for a human. As proof of trust, I permit it," and gave her away before she was of age. After that, their marriage was extremely harmonious, and the nobles of Sylvenia welcomed the strengthening of ties with the powerful Land of Eternal Night.
However, within the Kingdom of Sylvenia, fear of the demons had been growing. A species they could never surpass. Many nobles feared that mere co-existence would lead to being kept like livestock. Increasingly, nobles became tied to the Holy Church. As the older generation passed on, the trust built over years began to crumble.
"Then a coup occurred in the Kingdom of Sylvenia. The nobles advocating harmony—and even the king—were assassinated. Behind it all was the Holy Church.
After killing the king, they executed his wife—the Vampire King's daughter—by exposing her to sunlight, a method forbidden even among vampires."
Unaware of the truth, the Vampire King had no choice but to invade Sylvenia to protect his country. The military power between the Land of Eternal Night and the Kingdom of Sylvenia was overwhelmingly lopsided. The Sylvenian army was swiftly crushed, and the royal capital surrounded.
The Vampire King issued repeated calls for surrender. He was convinced some mistake had occurred. If his side had done something wrong, he would overlook it. They could forget the matter.
Yet most of the military refused to surrender. Still, some units, who trusted the Vampire King, did surrender—and thus learned the truth.
The young king who had inherited the throne from his predecessor... His own daughter had already been killed. The inner workings of Sylvenia were now under the control of the Holy Church.
The Vampire King flew into a rage.
"What have we done?! Is our very existence a crime?! Just existing—is that so wrong?!"
The other demons, too, were enraged. The young King of Sylvenia, whom they had trusted. The princess they had cherished. Both were murdered.
Yet the Land of Eternal Night was already seen as an enemy of the world.
To the world, demons were beings who would destroy even longtime allies. The Holy Church declared the Vampire King an enemy of the continent. The fact that Sylvenia had initiated the invasion was never announced.
A race that could not be trusted. Even if a peace treaty was in place, they would one day betray it. Thus, they must be destroyed. All human nations across the continent formed a coalition.
The human alliance, wielding overwhelming numbers, launched an invasion. This time, the demons were at a disadvantage. And finally, a hero bearing the Holy Church's consecrated Sword of Light defeated the Vampire King.
With the loss of their symbol, the demons collapsed. The Vampire King had been a leader of overwhelming charisma—he had united many demons. And so, his death plunged the Land of Eternal Night into chaos. With their inferior numbers, the nation was on the verge of destruction.
Even then, there was one nation that did not abandon the Land of Eternal Night. The Avalon Kingdom.
It would go down in continental history as a nation even more reviled than the Land of Eternal Night. Surrounded on three fronts, the Avalon Kingdom never ceased its resistance. Forced to engage in a three-front war, Avalon had no choice. Even with the Land of Eternal Night at the brink of collapse behind it, Avalon repelled every invading force.
"And that nation became the origin of Arland."
What do you think about this chapter?
