In the following period, Faerie Britain experienced a series of upheavals.
"Her Majesty is getting married soon."
"Her supposed partner is the Child of Prophecy who rang the Bell of Pilgrimage in Salisbury a few days ago."
"Salisbury was nearly destroyed, yet the one responsible is now going to become the Queen’s husband."
"Fairy Knight Lancelot, Fairy Knight Gawain, and Fang Clan Head Woodwose had fought the Child of Prophecy together, and now the Child of Prophecy is under house arrest in Camelot."
News like this gradually spread over time.
Especially with the Wind Clan fanning the flames, the speed at which it circulated far exceeded normal expectations. In just a few days, the incident in Salisbury and its aftermath had reached the ears of every fairy, becoming common knowledge throughout the land, which stirred quite a commotion across the Fairy Kingdom.
For instance, the factions that had been openly or secretly resisting Morgan frowned upon hearing the news.
"Huh, the Child of Prophecy actually fell into the Queen’s hands?"
"After going through all that trouble to ring the Bell of Pilgrimage, he just got captured like that?"
"What can you do? Two Fairy Knights and a clan head joined forces, and those three are all known for their strength. Even for the Child of Prophecy, going up against all three at once and losing isn’t surprising."
"But what’s Morgan thinking? Why would she marry the very Child of Prophecy, who’s supposed to overthrow her according to the prophecy?"
"Hmph, that witch is definitely up to something."
Just like that, those rebelling against Morgan each started speculating, trying to figure out what she was scheming.
But considering they didn’t even know Morgan had left the throne and personally acted in Salisbury, how could they possibly guess what she had in mind?
In fact, not even the clan heads who had always remained loyal to Morgan knew what kind of game she was playing.
"She’s really marrying the Child of Prophecy? Her Majesty sure made a move no one saw coming."
In the port city of Norwich, Spriggan, the head of the Earth Clan, chuckled a few times after hearing the news before he went off to prepare wedding gifts so he could attend the wedding ceremony.
"I’m not going. That witch might be waiting for me to leave my territory."
Muryan, the head of the Wing Clan, was just as surprised by the news, but she rejected the wedding invitation without hesitation. Instead, she sent her prepared gift to Camelot and stayed in Gloucester without any intention of leaving the city.
Meanwhile, the King Clan, having only one member and already somewhat opposed to the Queen’s faction, took note of the situation but made no statement.
In other words, the head of the King Clan had no plans to attend Morgan’s wedding either.
As for the Mirror Clan, they had nearly vanished entirely due to special circumstances, so their head naturally wouldn’t be attending the wedding either.
In the grand hall of Oxford, Woodwose had been in a volatile state ever since returning from Salisbury. He had killed several humans and even some fairies to vent his anger, plunging Oxford into a state of unrest.
On the other hand, the Cathedral of the Ash Tree in Salisbury was in even worse shape. It had been partially destroyed in the recent battle and was now undergoing extensive reconstruction.
Aurora herself had appeared in the city to comfort many fairies and humans, showing no intention of criticizing the Queen’s actions.
As for the other fairies in Faerie Britain, some treated the whole situation as lively gossip, while others debated it intensely, and quite a few were even lamenting.
"Is the Child of Prophecy really going to marry Her Majesty? If that’s the case, will the prophesied war between the true king and the false king still happen?"
"Probably not anymore."
"Figures... prophecy’s never reliable."
"I was really hoping the Child of Prophecy would overthrow the Queen. At the very least, I wanted a full-on war that dragged in all the fairies."
"Looks like there won’t be any war. What a letdown."
Among all the topics, these were the sorts of things the fairies were sighing about, forming the dominant opinion among the public.
Many fairies believed that with Morgan marrying the Child of Prophecy, the war mentioned in the prophecy would never come to pass.
At the very least, the prophesied savior was now in Morgan’s hands, and escaping from Camelot would be extremely difficult.
At this rate, the Child of Prophecy might fade into obscurity, never to rise again, let alone overthrow Morgan’s rule.
Of course, there were still some fairies who thrived on chaos, hoping for conflict like gamblers placing bets.
"Maybe the Child of Prophecy can actually escape from Camelot?"
"Come on, we’re talking about the savior who was given the title of true king. If the goal is the Queen, then something like Camelot shouldn’t be that hard to get away from, right?"
"Even if they end up becoming husband and wife, that wouldn’t be a bad outcome either."
"Yeah, the true king and the false king, married to each other and clashing on the battlefield in a death match... just thinking about it sounds fun."
"Right?"
Just like that, the fairies’ twisted nature was stirred up in the worst way.
In the end, various factions started moving both openly and in secret.
For example, the King Clan, as well as the Round Table Army, which was made up of humans resisting Morgan, began to take action.
Even the ’Calamity’ that had recently shown up in Norwich seemed to be getting worse as if it had sensed the unrest within Faerie Britain and wanted to get involved. As a result, there had been a noticeable increase in the Moss wandering through the wilderness lately.
Even the Queen’s army began intensifying its movements under Morgan’s orders.
Some were sent to the cities of the great clans to discuss the wedding with the clan heads, while others patrolled Faerie Britain, occasionally eliminating the Moss—clearly trying to issue a warning and keep potential troublemakers in check.
Morgan herself even made a declaration right in front of the envoys and officials.
"I don’t want something insignificant to disturb my wedding."
It couldn’t have been a clearer threat.
Many fairies immediately picked up on Morgan’s real message.
Her Majesty the Queen was basically saying this—if anyone dared to disrupt her wedding, she wouldn’t hesitate to personally teach them a painful lesson.
Needless to say, that was enough to scare off quite a few fairies who had just wanted to sit back and watch the chaos unfold.
After all, Morgan was no benevolent ruler but a witch who had ruled the top of Britain for over 2,000 years through fear and terror—someone who had once single-handedly crushed the six great clans and unified Faerie Britain through sheer brute force.
After becoming queen, she rarely left her throne again, but if she ever did return to the battlefield, how many people would die?
No one even wanted to imagine it.
As a result, the envoys quickly became more obedient, and the Queen’s army ramped up its activity. Meanwhile, the factions opposing Morgan saw which way the wind was blowing and started backing off one after another.
Under these circumstances, Riezel found himself living a surprisingly peaceful life in the royal palace.
Because he couldn’t leave Camelot, Riezel had no way to fight others to accumulate excelia, nor could he go on any journeys, since all he could do was wander around. Whether it was inside the palace or outside, he had pretty much explored every corner of Camelot.
It seemed Morgan had issued an order telling her people to ignore Riezel and let him move freely, so wherever he went, there were no restrictions—not even the palace treasury was off-limits.
’Is she not worried I’ll just empty this place out?’
Riezel had seriously thought about using this chance to teach Morgan a harsh lesson, to show her that this pile of gold and treasures couldn’t even fill a single corner of the storage space inside the Dimensional Magic Cube.
However, after thinking it over, Riezel gave up on that childish idea of revenge.
’Even if I really did empty the whole place, that witch probably wouldn’t even care.’
Sure, the treasury of a country was supposed to be an important resource, but would someone like Morgan care?
No, she wouldn’t.
Even if the treasury was looted clean, the ones affected would be the country itself, or more specifically, the fairies of this country.
Besides, whether the fairies lived or died, Morgan couldn’t care less.
For this reason, even if Riezel cleaned out the treasury, it wouldn’t mean anything to Morgan and wouldn’t hurt her in the slightest.
Knowing that, Riezel stopped bothering with the so-called treasury and went off to check out other places.
Honestly, the part of the palace that interested him the most was the library.
It didn’t just store tons of books like grimoires, but also held various magic items.
He took a general look through everything and found that whether it was the grimoires or the magic items, all of them carried a considerable amount of magical energy.
If he were to classify them using the item grade system from the world of Overlord, with ranks from low to high being: low, mid, high, top, legacy, relic, legendary, divine, and world—then all of these grimoires and magic items could at least be ranked legacy-class, and some could even be considered legendary-class.
’Did Morgan make all of these?’
Riezel had every reason to suspect that.
First of all, there were only two magi in all of Faerie Britain.
Even if Artoria was counted, that only made three, and among them, only Morgan had the ability to create grimoires and magic items of this level.
’Too bad they’re useless to me.’
Riezel couldn’t help but think that with some regret.
He could sense that the grimoires either contained some obscure magecraft or served as auto-defense items against enemies, but their power was mediocre at best.
In Riezel’s hands, they were nothing but dead weight.
For someone like him, who could use ’Almighty’ to directly memorize magic and reproduce it, learning magecraft himself was completely unnecessary. If he needed help against enemies, he could summon monsters or release mechanical dolls, so these grimoires served no purpose for him.
Meanwhile, although the Mystic Codes were a bit more useful, Riezel hadn’t found anything among them that suited his needs.
In other words, while this library might be impressive, it was of no use to him.
’If Morgan’s ’Mirror’, ’Tower’, ’Garden’, or ’Coffin’ were here, that’d be worth something.’
Needless to say, the grand magecrafts Morgan had created—Mirror, Tower, Garden, Coffin—each held immense value and potent Mystery.
Mirror was a time-space transfer magecraft that included magecrafts like the ’Water Mirror’, which could even banish modern things into ancient eras, and the ’Infinity Mirror’, which allowed dimensional travel through the link between a main mirror and its sub-mirrors.
When compared to Riezel’s teleportation and time magic, its practical uses were not inferior.
Meanwhile, the Garden was a magecraft that trapped specific targets inside corresponding cages. Its variants included ’Sweet Dreams’, ’Dark Abyss’, ’Lost Will’, and ’The Innocent’, each with different effects.
For instance, the ’Garden of the Innocent’, also known as the ’Garden of Avalon’, could trap those heavily burdened by sin, and only those free of sin could break free, while the ’Garden of Lost Will’ whittled away the hearts of its targets by stripping away their delusions and torturing them with self-loathing.
Riezel had also recently encountered Morgan’s Garden, which sealed off part of the world and prevented any magecraft or magic from working inside.
Coffin, on the other hand, was a magecraft that froze the life of the user or another person, basically artificial hibernation. Anyone sealed inside would remain unchanged, even after thousands or tens of thousands of years. Theoretically, one could even survive the end of the world with it.
As for Tower, it was Morgan’s trump card—an unbelievably powerful magecraft with a range wide enough to cover all of Faerie Britain and could even target places outside of it and strike accurately across entire worlds.
From the various astonishing effects of these grand magecrafts, one could see how exceptional Morgan’s ability as a magus had been.
It was truly unbelievable that Morgan had managed to develop so many types of grand magecraft all on her own, including time-space magecraft and life-freezing magecraft.
Of course, this wasn’t even all Morgan could do.
Not only had she developed a grand magecraft called the ’Stake’, which even Riezel got caught up in, but she had also forcibly branded command spells onto every fairy across Faerie Britain and extracted magical energy from them.
Such feats were far beyond what ordinary magi or even magicians could achieve.
If this library held legacies of grand magecrafts like Mirror, Tower, Garden, or Coffin, even Riezel would have been tempted.
Unfortunately, it didn’t.
However...
’Just because it’s not here now doesn’t mean it won’t be in the future, right?’
Riezel glanced behind him, then placed a hand over his chest for a moment before leaving the palace library and returning to his room.
It was worth noting that over the past few days, Lancelot and Gawain had stopped by Riezel’s place quite a few times.
Apparently, the two Fairy Knights who had been locked in a deadly fight with Riezel not long ago seemed to be treating him like an old friend ever since arriving in Camelot, as proven by how they had been dropping by casually without hesitation.
And the reason for their visits was simple—just to chat.
"Are Fairy Knights always this free?"
Riezel had said this straight to their faces, but the two Fairy Knights were even more direct than he expected.
"Her Majesty didn’t send me to the frontlines. I guess she wants me in the palace in case someone tries to break in and rescue you?"
At Riezel’s question, Gawain had responded bluntly without a shred of lie.
Lancelot was even more straightforward.
"I’m just free. Is there a problem?"
As Lancelot said this, she tilted her head with an expression that looked genuinely confused, leaving Riezel almost speechless.
"Whatever. As long as you two are enjoying yourselves."
Riezel didn’t bother with the two of them anymore and simply made sure the drinks kept coming.
On the other hand, Morgan, who would soon become Riezel’s wife, had not shown up again ever since their separation in the throne room, as if she had completely forgotten about him, staying inside the throne room twenty-four hours a day without ever stepping out.
"Well, that’s just how Her Majesty is."
"Her Majesty normally never leaves the throne."
Gawain and Lancelot had said this in response to Riezel’s curiosity.
It was also because of this reason that when Morgan suddenly left the throne and appeared on the battlefield back in Salisbury, Lancelot, Gawain, and even Woodwose were completely shocked.
It was exactly because Morgan rarely left the throne that her sudden presence in Salisbury had shaken them so much.
Naturally, that also proved one thing.
"You were worth enough for Her Majesty to leave the throne."
"Don’t know why, but it’s obvious Her Majesty values you a lot."
Upon hearing this from Gawain and Lancelot, Riezel was left in silence for a long while.
Regardless, he didn’t go to the throne room to find Morgan but continued his laid-back days in the palace, acting like she didn’t exist.
A man and a woman who were less than a month away from getting married, living under the same roof while acting like the other didn’t exist, each doing their own thing—if anyone knew, they would definitely find it strange.
In any case, that was exactly how things were between Riezel and Morgan.
One roamed freely around the palace all day, the other holed up in the throne room, never stepping out—it was quite the stark contrast.
Today was no different.
Riezel, still treating Morgan like she didn’t exist, went out for a stroll before eventually returning to his room.
However, just as he was about to step inside, his foot froze mid-step.
"..."
Nothing had changed in the familiar room he had stayed in for days—everything looked just like the first time he saw it.
Riezel quietly stood there for a moment before walking in and shutting the door.
In the strange silence of the room, he walked forward until he reached the center—and stopped.
"Here, huh?"
Riezel suddenly turned to face the mirror beside him and pointed a finger at it.
Surprisingly, instead of reflecting Riezel’s figure, the mirror showed an unfamiliar image of a girl.
"Fufu..."
Letting out a seductive laugh, the girl in the mirror pointed a finger at Riezel like a gun—and in the next second, a pitch-black magic bullet shot out from the mirror, heading straight for him.
At the same time, Riezel’s extended finger fired a fireball at the girl in the mirror.
*BOOM!*
In that instant, the fireball and the magic bullet collided midair and exploded against each other.