Elmer tipped the brim of his flat cap forward as his stomach tied a knot.

He was not particularly feeling sad about Princess Elodie’s end, or angry because of the barbaric traditions of the Eastern Kingdom, he was just irritated. And it was to the point that he almost lost the zeal to read anymore of the past history of Fitzroy and how it had come to be.

But he knew he had no choice than to keep reading. He understood just how crucial history was in his plans now.

No stone should be left unturned.

And with that he flipped over to the next page of his palm sized notebook, transitioning from Princess Elsa’s exploits in the Eastern kingdom to Princess Canadra’s experience in the Nation of Ertus, the desert kingdom to the north.

Princess Canadra—fifteen of age—was the youngest of the three royal ladies who had been sent on the expedition to Aflorere’s neighboring kingdoms as spies, but her exploits had been the shortest of them all.

Maybe that was why the desert kingdom to the north had held on for longer than the rest of the attacked kingdoms.

King Athelstan had marched his men on the Southern, Eastern, and Northern kingdoms all at once on the twenty-eighth of July, year 103.

To each of those kingdoms he’d sent five thousand soldiers, the troops which marched on the latter two commanded by his personal Kingswords: Sir Dullivan Snowfall and Sir Shepherd Hedgewood. While he went with the last of his Kingsword, Sir Ronald Atkinson, to the Southern Kingdom.

The Southern Kingdom had fallen in a week. And three weeks after that, while King Athelstan had still been tidying things up in the White Castle, a raven had brought word from Sir Dullivan Snowfall of the defeat of the Eastern Kingdom’s Castle of Crows as well.

But unlike the quick fall of the Southern and Eastern Kingdoms, the battle to take over the Northern Kingdom had caused King Athelstan’s quest for amalgamation to drag out into five months. It ended on the eighth of December, in the year 103, when he’d personally taken to the battlefield himself after putting an end to Princess Elodie’s life of pain, and scarring his second daughter emotionally.

Just like her sister, Elsa, Princess Canadra had kept most of her exploits to herself.

The royal scholars, who documented whatever history they could get their hands on, deduced that Princess Canadra’s hesitance to talk was as a method of keeping the memories of her unsavory life in the Nation of Ertus away from herself.

She’d begun her vile expedition by sneaking onto the carriage of a traveling slave merchant, who she’d come across in the vast expanse of the northern desert, heading to the Capital of Ertus. And even though the merchant had known his count had suddenly increased by one, he had not minded the extra money and just went on with selling her.

Canadra had spoken of none of her experiences during her life on the carriage of slaves, as well as their journey through the hot desert sun and its scorching sands. All she did say though was that it had been very unpleasant.

Her following narration went on to be even more brief, entailing how she had been sold into servitude for the Boa Castle, the castle of the royal family, headed by Monarch Ari. And simply that she had worked her way up from toiling in the sewers to becoming one of Monarch Ari’s three cup bearers—all of which had been ladies.

The rest of her story was summed up to how her plans had been executed, and how they had helped with her father’s conquest.

She had purchased a poison by the name: fang of death, from a shady merchant she’d found in a dim sandy alleyway on a night she’d had a chance to venture into the main city.

Her role had been to retrieve a dented helmet from a tavern in town, per the request of a drunken guard who had forgotten to pick it up after his jolly.

If it had been any other job which had not required her to leave the castle, she would have scurried away without heeding the order passed across to her. But since it was a rare occasion where she could finally set her plan into motion, considering it had been only a month left till the date her father had given her and her sisters, she’d grabbed the opportunity by the scruff of its neck.

Though, the number of coins she had had only been enough for the poison of a hooded merchant in an alley. Still… She’d had no choice.

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After her purchase, Canadra picked a date to throw the castle into chaos and waited patiently until it was the week for her fellow cup bearer, Sha, to serve Monarch Ari.

When the day arrived, she distracted Sha for a moment and made use of the slight opportunity to poison the drink Monarch Ari was to receive.

From the merchant she had purchased the poison, fang of death, from, she’d learnt that the poison took at least twenty minutes before it kicked into effect. Because of that Canadra had no fear that Sha poison tasting it in the presence of Monarch Ari wouldn’t prevent him from drinking it. And even if the poison was fake and no one died it would just seem as though nothing had happened, prompting her to try all over again.

But Canadra’s latter thought had not been the case.

Sha died thirty minutes after in the kitchen, and so did Monarch Ari moments later in his chambers. They had both vomited a baby Boa snake from their bellies. And as Canadra had expected, chaos came with the Monarch’s death.

It started with trying to decipher who had killed the Monarch, which later came down to his five wives and their children pointing fingers at one another.

Since no child had been crowned by Monarch Ari as his successor before he’d died, two battles ensued in the courtroom. One for who to blame for the Monarch’s death, and the other for which faction would take the crown.

Through it all, Boa castle remained in a constant heated turmoil, and Canadra made use of that moment to send a raven to her father, bringing the conquest of King Athelstan upon the Nation of Ertus.

…

Elmer sighed morosely.

Quite the disaster your method caused, Canadra… Poor Sha…

He then flipped to the next leaf of his notebook.

This new page bore information on what had happened after King Athelstan’s conquest had ended in a victory over the Nation of Ertus on the eighth of December, year 103.

The four kingdoms, the Southern kingdom, the Eastern Kingdom, the Nation of Ertus to the north, and the Kingdom of Aflorere to the west, had been amalgamated to form the empire of Fitzroy on the twentieth of December, year 103.

Then came the reconstruction.

Every village, city, and castle besides that of Aflorere had been demolished, and with them went their histories, and the names of every location of theirs.

Emperor Athelstan had commanded his royal scholars to wipe out every trace of information regarding the kingdoms he’d conquered, claiming that the time to usher in a new era had arrived. One where he sat comfortably at the top as the first emperor of an empire that will be remembered for ages to come.

But conquering the three neighboring kingdoms of Aflorere had not been enough for Emperor Athelstan the first.

When his advisor came to him with the news that a month had passed, and the sailors they’d sent to serve as voyagers on the magnetic sea to the north had still not yet returned, meaning that civilization existed somewhere beyond Fitzroy, Emperor Athelstan instantly declared his desire for another conquest.

This time, he wanted to turn Fitzroy into a continent, starting from whichever countries existed beyond the sea to the north.

But the sea to the north was known for its ability to throw ships and its sailors into great chaos by forcefully pulling them to whatever direction the ship was tilted toward as soon as it set sail; hence the name it was given: the magnetic sea.

Though, it always did send the ship that had sailed back to where it had sailed from after a month, only it returned without its inhabitants.

That was why since the ship of the voyagers Emperor Athelstan had sent had not returned it was concluded that life did exist beyond the empire of Fitzroy.

But it was also because of that the emperor knew he couldn’t set sail recklessly.

Unlike his conquest with his once-neighboring kingdoms, this one entailed venturing to a whole new different community entirely with only the information that they existed, and a set magnetic compass which pinpointed the direction his ship should be pulled towards.

Creating a continent wasn’t something he could tread on lightly.

So he decided. He was going to go at whatever country existed beyond Fitzroy in full force. And because of that decision he had the slaves he had captured from his previous neighboring kingdoms get to work on a battleship prototyped to span a hundred and seventy five feet in height, and a hundred and eighty two feet in length. A ship that would be able to house at least ten thousand troops along with their armories, and might pose a threat to the great magnetic force of the magnetic sea.

But Emperor Athelstan had not lived to carry out his conquest.

The construction of such a magnificent warship was not a simple task. And by the time it was done, it was too late for the first emperor and founder of Fitzroy.

On the fourteenth of April, year 173, the day the great battleship was finally completed, Emperor Athelstan died at the age of ninety-eighth, and with him went his dream of creating a continent.

His son, and the second emperor of Fitzroy, Cedric Fitzroy, had no intention of risking the lives of his men on an adventure he had no surety about.

To him, the empire of Fitzroy was all he needed, and he did not care for a continent.

The great battleship which never set sail was named “The Greedy Titan”. A name brought forth by Emperor Cedric himself to describe his father’s figure in the eyes of many, and also what had caused the battleship’s manufacture.