A World’s History

50 years ago, the Demon Lord and his army threatened to invade the Kingdom of Taelesta. The small towns were no more, as the demon army had conquered and destroyed them all.

The greatest opposition to the demon army was King Raymond and his most trusted advisor, Daiki. Daiki used to be a simple servant within the castle, but upon solving many problems and conjuring up unique, never-before-thought-of strategies, he swiftly rose in the ranks. The tactics deployed by the king and his advisor were successful in repelling the demon army’s invasion.

The people of Taelesta were now safe from the Demon Lord and his army, but his wrath still lingered on the horizon.

Amid the war with the demons, King Raymond got ill. Despite valiantly fighting alongside his people in the war, his old age was catching up to him.

With the king’s end nigh, he announced Daiki to be the next king, as he believed that under Daiki’s lead, the humans would win against the demons.

King Raymond, inevitably succumbing to his old age, died. Now the new King, Daiki Nakamura, took the throne with his wife, and his reign would never be forgotten.

He invented many creative things that helped humans live more easily, and eventually reestablished the destroyed towns. King Daiki was incredibly loved by his people.

In all of the king’s accomplishments, ‘the king’s gamble’ will forever be his greatest feat. The prolonged fight against the demon army would always end in the humans’ loss, so he approached the Holy Church, in which so few believed in their faith.

He continuously offered his prayers to a god that he didn’t even know if they existed or not. In turn, the people seeing his consistent faith followed his actions.

With everyone’s conjoint faith, the humans were blessed with the ability to use skills. Adventurers were born of many classes, and together, the now powered-up humans were able to push the Demon Lord’s army back to their territory.

This achievement is what got the capital named after King Daiki Nakamura.

Eventually, among the many gifted adventurers, a hero was born. Being strong, handsome, and naturally gifted, he was the pillar for all adventurers.

As the hero journeyed through the world, helping people in need, he formed a party of strong allies. With the king’s permission, the hero and his party were allowed to enter the demon’s territory to try and defeat the Demon Lord once and for all.

The hero’s party was heavily outnumbered upon entering enemy territory, but that did not stop them. They were much stronger than the henchmen thrown at them, so the Demon Lord’s strongest soldiers, the Dragon Generals, had to step in to stop them. To get the most value out of their raid, four of the heroes’ five allies took on the four generals one-on-one. The hero and his closest ally approached and took on the Demon Lord themselves.

After a long, grueling day’s worth of fighting, the hero and his party were successful in defeating the Demon Lord. It has been five years since the Demon Lord’s defeat, in which adventurers from across Taelesta helped in purging the remaining monsters the Demon Lord had reigned over.

This was the brief history of Taelesta that Rina had just finished teaching Kaito about.

Rina, finalizing her explanation, states, “In recent times, in fact, it was 3 years ago, King Daiki died, and the Hero Kouki, who was given the title of Hero Knight, now leads the country in the queen’s vacancy.”

Since Rina had finished her lesson, she looked towards Kaito to hear his thoughts on what he had just learned.

Kaito looked very frustrated at the book containing the history he had just learned. He had realized that he would have to do much more than what he wanted in order to be respected like the Hero Kouki or even King Daiki.

Kaito finally voiced his opinion in frustration, “Dang, if I started adventuring five years earlier, I could’ve been in the hero’s party.”

Rina, not surprised that this was all Kaito gathered from her lesson, responds, “You’d have a long way to go in joining the hero’s party even if you started five years ago.”

“I would’ve been the child prodigy of the party. Yeah, that has a ring to it.” Kaito imagined while trying to ignore Rina’s jab at him.

Rina gathered up the books they were using while Kaito was stuck daydreaming.

“Alright, that’s enough daydreaming,” Rina said, snapping Kaito out of his fantasies. “Let’s return these books and do what we really came here to do.”

Kaito and Rina head towards the library’s northeastern tower, instructed by the dungeon ruin’s text. There were four towers in the four corners of the library, and they all had a similar design. The walls of the room within the tower were all filled with books on bookshelves. The wooden and stone flooring in the room had a circular design on it, almost resembling some sort of magic circle.

“This should be the place,” Rina stated. “I wonder what ‘Nippon’ even means.”

“Probably something we’ll learn later on,” Kaito said, trying to avoid the fact that he knows what it means.

Following the instructions given to them, they spoke the word ‘Nippon’ while standing in the center of the room. Upon saying the word, they were swiftly teleported into another room. It was fairly dark in the room, so the likelihood of it being underground was high. From what the two could see, the room looked like a personal study with a desk surrounded by bookshelves and weird test equipment.

After a few seconds of the two standing in the room, the lights, which were created by magic, turned on. The two were expecting to meet the creator of the text, but instead they were greeted by an open book in front of them. Text appeared over the book, and a mysterious voice read it out loud.

“If this spell is activating, I am unfortunately unable to meet you at this moment. If I make the wrong move, what I have planned will be for naught. First, I thank you for being willing to aid me in helping the kingdom of Taelesta. Now, to get to the main point. The Dragon Generals who worked under the now deceased Demon Lord are still alive. If left unmonitored, they will gather the four relics that grant one person any wish. If that were to conspire, the Demon Lord will be revived. To halt the Dragon General’s progression, I need you to gather the three relics that have yet to be occupied. I have their locations marked on this scroll.”

Mid-speech, a scroll appeared from nothing in front of the floating text. Rina grabbed it and began to analyze it while the mysterious voice continued talking.

“I also have one more thing I want to ask of you, but as I cannot meet with you right now, forming a plan for this task would be incoherent. So, instead, take the dragon egg on the pedestal within this room. After raising it to a suitable age, we will likely be able to continue what I have planned. Until then, I wish you luck in gathering the relics.”

As the text disappeared, the dragon egg the voice talked about came into view. The egg was huge, being half of Kaito’s height. The two approached the egg, and Kaito, excited about obtaining a dragon, tried picking it up. The egg was much heavier than Kaito expected, causing him to drop it. Kaito panicked, thinking the egg would break, but luckily, breaking a dragon egg is no easy feat.

Once again unimpressed by Kaito, Rina instructed him to store the egg in his Inventory skill, as the egg hadn’t been born yet, it could be stored. After doing so, Kaito and Rina left the study with their newly gained information. The kingdom of Taelesta is still in danger, and it would be Rina and Kaito’s job to help save it.