Prelude 1: The Girl in the Kingdom of the dead
Alfred Continent was the fabled realm of death, since the continent had been discovered three thousand years prior by the great adventurer Alfred, there have been tens of thousands of adventurers who had traveled to the continent seeking fame and glory, not lacking those who were famed for their prowess and ability as adventurers. Not a single one of them were heard from again, even Alfred himself failed to return from his second voyage to the continent.
Ever since, there has been no one foolish enough to risk their life searching for the treasures that may or may not exist, the continent itself was turned into a forbidden territory and all mentions of the continent were censored by the Church and all of the countries. With the pa.s.sing of time, mortals forgot about the terrors that this continent had once brought. Today, this continent welcomed a new ruler.
At the center of the continent, a giant fortress, dark as night, imposed over its' surroundings with a height that reached three hundred meters. At the heart of the fortress stood a tower, a shadow was at the top of the tower, looking out at the world around her.
She was a unforgettable beauty, with hair that was as dark and luxurious as high quality onyx that casually draped down to her waist; it had created a striking, yet beautiful contrast with the unadorned white gown. She looked to be at least 170cm tall, with delicate features, skin the color of ivory, and beautiful eyes of different colors that looked down quietly at the vast swarm of monsters in the fortress below.
Currently, in the vicinity of the castle, were an uncountable amount of monsters. It was a breathtaking sight to look at all the types and numbers that had blotted out the sky and ground.
The beautiful girl hesitated for a while, then reached out her unblemished hand and gestured, the monsters below her immediately scattered, disappearing from her sight within moments and leaving behind only the empty castle and the beautiful girl.
As Samantha Bella saw that all the monsters had left, she let out a long breath that she had been holding. She has not seen any signs of a living human since she had arrived; and now she was regretting going to that dinner not so long ago, as she had enjoyed herself too much and drunk more than she was able to handle and blacked out. When she had woken up, she discovered herself in the nightmarish environment.
(H:Samantha is her surname, I’ll refer to her as Bella from now as the author likes to use her full name randomly)
Most importantly, even her gender was changed! She had read many light novels in her past life where the main character would be reincarnated into another world, so she wasn't too shocked about this; the problem was that she hasn't eaten anything for ten days, yet she had not starved to death. She was starting to seriously question if the current her was even human.
The monsters here feared her, and weren’t willing to go near her. She wishes that this was all a dream and that she would wake up tomorrow in the world that she had lived in for all her life. As Bella was turning around to return to the depths of the fortress, she inadvertently saw a shadow in the wasteland beyond the castle, it looked like a little girl from the distance.
A living person? Forgetting the fear in her heart, Bella rushed out of the fortress; when she finally managed to leave the fortress however, she hesitated, the shadow was still in the same area. Bella had taken almost a hour to leave her fortress that was nearly three hundred meters in height, if that shadow was a person they should have left the vicinity long ago, not remaining on the same exact spot.
Finally, Bella decided to gingerly approach the shadow. When she got closer, she luckily discovered that it did not look like a monster. It was a pet.i.te loli resting under a large dying tree, she was dressed in a Gothic Lolita fas.h.i.+on, matched with her silver twin tails and features that resembled a porcelain doll. Bella decided that the loli was very cute indeed.
(H:Raws refer to little girls in general as loli, not sure if I should keep using the term loli)
Bella faced the resting loli, about to open her mouth and wake the loli up, she suddenly noticed that the loli was holding a pale white skull. Bella was shocked, instinctively she looked around to discover what had once been a barren waste land, was now a bone field filled with bones as far as the eye could see. It was as if she was in a horror movie.
Bella was scared that this loli was some demon, and thought to immediately return to her fortress, at least the monsters there made her felt more at ease.
“Sis…Sister, you’ve come?” A soft and pleasing voice stopped Bella from running away, the loli opened her eyes and stood up. Her eyes were also of differing colors, but not the same as Bella’s, Bella’s eyes consisted of a red and a golden iris; while the loli had both a blue iris as well as a pure black iris.
(H: the loli calls Bella older sister, I could use Nee-chan or something, but this is a Chinese novel so I'll refrain unless people want me to)
“You, you recognize me?”, as soon as Bella closed her mouth she regretted speaking, the loli wouldn’t have called out to Bella if she did not have any clue who she was, she might have just exposed herself with her question.
“Yes, but you have never come to see me, this is the first time that you left your castle to see me.”s.h.i.+rley Angel said with a hint of happiness in her voice.
(H:Surname that is basically a given name strikes again, keeping her as Angel)
She had wandered around here for a few thousand years, having known that there was someone with dreadful power that matched hers, but as the power of the two sides was very close she wasn’t willing to risk knocking on the front door to the castle, scared of causing unnecessary misunderstandings. Probably due to her loneliness she often stopped around the imposing fortress to rest, wis.h.i.+ng to have a meeting with the owner of the fortress.
When Bella sensed no hostility from her, she let out a held breath. Taking into account that the surrounding environment was rather shocking, Bella brought the loli to a graveyard near her castle. The graveyard had the ruins of an ancient church, and the church had some still usable chairs.
Normally she would be too scared to come, this time she was bringing a companion to boost her own courage, the loli probably wasn’t someone who would be scared of something like this as Bella had found her calmly holding on to a skull.
Through discussion, Bella now knew that they were currently located in a place called Alfred continent, the loli was called Angel and she was the governor of the Alfred continent bone fields and had the ability to a.s.sume total control over all undead type monsters.
(H:Not sure if limited to Alfred bone fields or all undead types, author makes it sound like the latter)
Bella also learned that she herself was the creator of all the monsters on the continent, Bella was awed the ident.i.ty of the body she now resided in. Bella noticed something, isn’t she what would be the final boss in a light novel? Something is wrong with the setting! Isn’t the protagonist supposed to be aligned with the good side?
As they continued their discussion, Bella learned that this land was once a peaceful and bountiful land ten thousand years ago, but due to the tyrannical reign of emperor Frederic XIX of the Frederic empire, the largest empire on the continent at the time, the people of the empire as well as its client states rose up against the emperor in a large scale revolt.
The tyrant’s armies were unable to hold back the revolutionaries for long, just as defeat was imminent for the emperor, his head diviner Leander thought up a trick. Leander’s divination was very accurate, but it was because he depended on deals with monsters as well as black magics. This time Leander suggested using the blood of tens of thousands to open the gates of h.e.l.l, luring in h.e.l.l’s demons to decimate the revolutionaries.
Frederic XIX was initially scared that the situation would spiral out of control; but he finally agreed when Leander consistently insisted that he would be able to fully control the army of demons and bending them to the will of the emperor, along with the fact that the revolutionary army pressed closer and closer to the capital with each pa.s.sing day. The desperate emperor ordered his men to round up all the slaves in the city and sacrifice them in a ritual to open the gates of h.e.l.l.
The results were as expected, as soon as the gates opened, countless monsters flooded into this world. Their first target was the capital that they were summoned in, Frederic XIX and Leander died on the spot and the city was ma.s.sacred. The monsters under the control of the 12 demon kings ravaged the entire continent for many decades, almost completely ridding the land of life.
Later, after the G.o.ds in heaven finally discovered the disturbance on the land, sent their armies to seal the demons. The G.o.ds fought with the 12 demon kings for a millennia, finally managing to seal away the rampaging demon kings. As the tattered remnants of the G.o.dly army were about to leave, they discovered the demon kings had not given it their all in the fight, the 12 demon kings had been setting up for a evil ritual, expending much of their power in order to summon the legendary Great Demon king.
Angel didn’t know anything that happened after this, as she had learned all that she knew of this event from the art on the many and varied ruins on the continent. The records had stopped here, not giving any clues to whether the 12 demon kings were successful or not in their ritual, or the fate of the G.o.ds after the fight.
Angel herself had arrived around six thousand years ago through the portal that the 12 demon kings had left behind, as to where she had come from before that, she had said that too many years had gone by and she was unable to recall. Bella did not pry any deeper, as everyone has secrets of their own.
According to Angel's memory, she discovered Bella as soon as she arrived in the world, Bella had already settled down in the area and the two of them had never interacted with each other, until today. As the continent as quite literally littered with bones, many undead hung around as they were unable to be leave this world to be reincarnated, Angel had spent her time making a grave yard to put these unfortunates to rest.
As Bella was constantly busy in the fortress, there were constantly monsters leaving the gates. After six thousand years, Bella's countless monsters had repopulated the once barren continent. Yet, they had not a single clue on where the 12 Demon Kings had been sealed away.
After she was finished listening to Angel, Bella sank deep into thought; in a typical light novel the MC would be given a quest to save the world after being summoned, but after her discussion with Angel, there was no hints or clue to start her quest. On the other hand, it sounded like she herself was the villain, had light novels lied to her?
As she had finally found herself a companion, Bella would finally be able to sleep peacefully. Angel did not resist when Bella brought her into the fortress, she was a little shy however. Luckily, the fortress had a very large bed that was able to comfortably sleep two.
When Bella woke up the second day, nothing had changed apart from the fact that there was now a sleeping loli beside her. Even though this loli was pet.i.te in build, her chest area was well developed much to Bella's surprise when she had discovered as they held each other in their sleep last night. It seemed that the 2D law that decreed lolis = flat chested did not hold power in this world.
Angel had carelessly shoved her head into Bella's chest last night, Bella had tried to push her out, for she was scared of suffocating Angel with her C-cup b.r.e.a.s.t.s; but Angel had clung tightly to her, and Bella had given up trying after a few gentle pushes. Fortunately Angel was still breathing when Bella had woken up, not too surprising, the loli had wandered the land for millennia, Angel was probably an existence similar to herself and not a human, Bella thought while mindlessly looking at the sleeping girl.
"Sister, you've woken?" Angel opened her heavy eyes and said lazily, Bella gave a curt reply and turned around, afraid that she would not be able to control herself.
Not because she was a lolicon, even though Angel was a loli of a rather high quality. The reason lie within the fact that Bella had been a young male of barely over twenty years of age just a few days ago, even though she had been 'castrated' she still had memory of the animalistic instincts that all males would be susceptible to. What was even worse was even though Angel wore a gothic lolita dress, she wore nothing underneath! Bella could not decide if the loli had some perverted hobbies as she herself wasn't much better off, the previous owner of the body had also chosen to not wear any underwear.
(H: Not literally castrated, but because she had her gender changed when she was brought to this world)
When she had first arrived in this world, the only thing she knew was her name, Samantha Bella, and nothing else. There was no change of clothes or underwear in her room, only a mirror, it seemed that this monster creator was on some pretty hard times, a final boss being poor to this extent was laughable.
Luckily there wasn't any showering facilities, even though not being able to wash for the past couple of weeks wasn't every uncomfortable; Bella knew that her own body was too desirable, she was scared of losing control of herself while she showered and preformed some indecent things to her own body which would be pretty awkward. It seemed that she would need to take some time to get used to her body.
"Sister, Sister!" Angel's rapid voice pulled Bella back to reality
"What is it, little Angel?"
"I am detecting large amounts of living humans on the beach, it seems that adventurers may be landing on the beach once again."
"Uh, let me go out and check on what's happening" Bella walked to the castle's observation deck; as far as the eye could see, there were numerous monsters rus.h.i.+ng towards the seash.o.r.e. Apart from the flying monsters that Bella had seen many times, there were countless skeletal dragons as well as various ghosts and spirits in the sky, on the ground many skeleton and zombie soldiers had also appeared.
"My Children have come as well! I think the two sides probably were wary of each other until I showed up together with you." Angel rubbed her still cloudy eyes as she walked towards the railing.
Bella temporarily ignored her ambiguous words When she thought carefully about it later, it looked as if the two bosses had prepared for war against each other for the past six millennia and had kept reinforcing their armies. If all of that was resolved by the two bosses having a 'one night stand' that would have been pretty awkward indeed.
