Matthiaz Kornelia’s penchant for strategy was apparent from childhood when he started outplaying veteran military officers in war games before he was even twelve. Initially, those around him thought this was just a knack relating to the ‘game’ aspect of the war games, but when, at only the age of 16, he overthrew his elder half-brother and usurped his throne, it became evident that the infamous bastard son of the late King Vladimir stood head and shoulders above even the elders of Zarland when it came to mind games. For nearly a decade he continued outfoxing and cutting through any who stood in the way of his ambitions, whether they be rebellious aristocrats, warlords, foreign rulers, or even his own blood. Under his brief tenure, Zarland’s border was restored to its ancient zenith and Matthiaz became the first Zarlander monarch in over five centuries to take the ancient title of “Overlord of the Realm.”
This was all to be short lived when one individual, decreed by destiny itself, would thrust her blade into the heart of everything he had worked so hard to build.
“Man, the chefs really went all out today!” the heroine said while stuffing her face.
The food she was helping herself to wasn’t meant for her but rather for the regal-looking young man roughly her age on the other side of the enchanted bars that separated the two. The young fallen king of Zarland ignored the meal-napper, focusing instead on his painting. It was one of the few respites that had been allowed to him. His half-brother, the new king, had wanted him to sleep in his own filth without any change of clothes, a bed, and with meals of hard bread and water out of a dog bowl. Had it not been for the red-haired heroine in armor snacking outside of his prison cell, that would have been a reality.
“Tell me Josephine: Why do you bother eating the food here every time you come by?” Matthiaz asked. “It’s awful.”
“What? It’s great!” she replied. “That royal palate of yours is just too picky to appreciate quality prison food.”
“A connoisseur of prison food, are you?”
Josephine shrugged. “A lot of crazy things happen when you’ve traveled as much as I have.”
After another bite, she slid the rest of the plate inside of the prison cell.
“There’s the rest. No hint of poison detected.”
“Do you really still expect me to buy this narrative of yours that you’re only eating my meals to test for poison? At this point, the prison chef knows he’s practically cooking for you too and wouldn’t dare mess with my food.”
“Well, that just adds to the reasons for me to keep doing it, doesn’t it? What king wouldn’t want a poison ward around? You don’t even need to cast a spell.”
Matthiaz looked away from his painting to shoot at annoyed look at the smirking young woman on the other side of those enchanted bars.
“And exactly what use is a poison ward to a man whose less than twenty-four hours from his execution? And I’m no longer a king. That title was stricken from me shortly after my defeat. You ought to know this, seeing you’re the main reason I’m in this damn tower. And…” Matthiaz pulled up his shirt. “The reason I’ve got this scar.”
Josephine gently brushed her fingers across the scar on her face that Matthiaz had given her. It wasn’t the only scar she had on her body, but it was the only one she had ever gotten on her face. She then curled up her legs so she could rest her head on her knees. Going silent, she peered out one of the handful of windows that lit the top floor of this tower which the Overlord had been imprisoned. Matthiaz’s canvas and easel were situated near another window. He only had natural light to paint with since he was not privileged enough to have been given a lantern or even a candle, and the only torches were outside the bars of his cell. The only sounds heard were of bird’s chirping outside and his brush’s strokes across the canvas.
“I want to tell you while I still have the chance that I’m holding no grudges,” Matthiaz said while he painted.
“Huh? You mean towards me?”
“Toward everyone. Toward the other coalition leaders. Toward those who betrayed me. Toward Ferdinand. But, yes… Especially towards you. I’m not taking any grudges with me to the grave.”
“That… was pretty fast. It’s only been a few months. There have been lots of guys who I didn’t kill when I beat and swore they would ‘make me rue the day’ afterwards.”
“Josephine, I was… No. I am a conqueror. Conquerors don’t lament the past and bygones. Conquerors can only look ahead. I am defeated, captured, without lands or titles, and soon to also be without a head; but I refuse to be ‘conquered’ myself. And that’s exactly what I’d be doing if I went toward the guillotine with gritted teeth and a mouthful of grievances.”
Josephine stared at Matthiaz. She then found herself snickering before bursting out into a full-on leg-slapping laugh. The guards who sat outside the door of the room must have been exchanging befuddled expressions at the sound of the battle-hardened heroine laughing so jollily in front of the very man she had cut down. Anyone who had come face-to-face with the Chosen One knew that, despite having prophecy lingering above her head and forecasting her actions, she was a predictably unpredictable young lady; her frequent visits to the Overlord’s prison at the tallest prison room within the Royal being just the latest of her incalculable actions.
Matthiaz sighed and resumed his painting. “So, are you going to lambast me with another one of your tall tales one last time?
Josephine abruptly cut her laughs short at the Overlord’s sudden prick.
“Tall tales? You still think my stories are lies?”
“If ‘tall tales’ is too insensitive we can settle for ‘fits of overactive imagination.’”
“Well… I guess you have as a good a reaction as I could ever hope from someone while telling these stories. I’ve only tried telling a few people, but nobody’s ever believed me. They either think I’m lying if they aren’t a friend or that I’ve gone crazy or hit my head if they are.”
“Naturally. What else are they supposed to think after hearing all that craziness?”
The heroine slightly pouted. “Y’know it’s really crazy how, in a world of wizards, witches, and dragons, me reincarnating from a previous life is too much for anyone on Ein to believe.”
“Spellcasters and creatures like dragons can be perfectly broken down and explained by scholars who specialize in research of either. This idea of reincarnation – even for someone who happens to be the Chosen One – has no foundation or basis in reality outside of the most bizarre and outlandish of cultists. What’s even crazier is you expecting me to believe that you’ve not only reincarnated, but that you did so from a completely foreign world. Come on now…”
“How much more detail do I have to go into to convince you Earth is real?”
While Matthiaz was still unconvinced, Josephine had gone into quite exhaustive detail about certain parts of her story for something he thought she was just making up. The greatest poets and bards throughout the realms could spend their whole lives trying to make a world only marginally as descriptive.
“Some elements of your stories are wanting. Like those spellcasters in your world that you just renamed espers,” the Overlord said while dabbing his brush over his canvas.
“For the last time… espers aren’t wizards. Wizards use magic to cast spells while espers use psy-energy to use psychokinesis.”
Matthiaz shrugged. “Sound pretty interchangeable to me.”
“They’re not! Espers have a way stricter rulebook to how they can use their abilities compared to the stuff wizards and their magic can get away with here. There are no psychic necromancers or time-travellers on Earth. But, whatever, if you still don’t believe me, it doesn’t really matter. I’ve been sharing these stories with you just because I felt like it.”
“But why with me specifically though? Hard to imagine that the Heroine of Six Realms doesn’t have any friends she can talk to in her spare time.”
“It’s Five Realms.”
“It’s six. You beat me, the Overlord of the Realm of Zars. That means you’re now the Heroine of Six Realms, not just five.”
“Well, nobody’s called me that yet so—“
“Them being slow doesn’t make me incorrect.”
Josephine gave the Overlord a look, before running her fingers through her red hair in agitation.
“Every time I end up coming we end up fussing about something dumb at least once.”
“So, again, why talk to me at all?”
“Because… You remind me of someone. Someone I knew from Earth. It was a long time ago; back when I was still a little kid on Earth. There was a boy I knew who looked a lot like you. Acted a little like you; not up his own ass as much, but there was definitely a semblance.”
Matthiaz snorted, not taking his eyes off his painting. “So, what happened to my little doppelgänger?”
“He died.”
That did get the Overlord to pause.
“What was the cause?”
“Nobody knows for sure because his body was never found, but if I had to guess: murder. There was allegedly a serial killer loose in the city I was staying in at the time and the period they were apparently wreaking chaos perfectly coincides with his disappearance some time around late spring. That’s what I’m pretty sure happened anyway.”
“Hmm…”
A silence came over the room again. Josephine knocked on the enchanted prison bars to disperse the awkward mood.
“Hey, don’t think too hard on it. It’s not like he’s actually you. Besides that, I just come up here from time to time for lack of anything better to do these past few months.”
“Well, aren’t we a lazy heroine? Are there no kingdoms left for you to save? No great evils remaining for you to slay? Surely there’s a handsome prince or two out there for you to smooch?”
The Chosen One snorted as she finally stood.
“Y’know, O’ Great Overlord, I’ve been called ‘heroine’ a lot over the years. And not just in the snarky way you do it, but by people who try their hardest to play me up; and, to be honest, I’ve never really felt like it fit me.”
“Are you not a hero who comes in blazing on a charger with your mythical sword in hand?” the fallen king asked.
“I mean… yeah. I’ve done that a lot, but I’ve always felt like there’s more to being a hero than just killing a few monsters, bandits, and witches. There ought to be some, I dunno… I guess sacrifice is the word I’m looking for? I never feel like I’ve sacrificed anything in all my adventures throughout the Six Realms. Everything I’ve ever done, even joining the coalition and fighting you, was stuff that I wanted to and would have done regardless. The prophecy just put it all on cruise control for me.”
“Cruise control?”
“Oh. Yeah, you wouldn’t know what that is, would you? There’re no cars on Ein after all.”
“Hmph. All this talk about heroism makes me worried you’re going to talk about those Hoplites you love so much. Not sure if I could bear one more story about the exploits of those ‘knights’ of yours.”
“How many times do I have to keep telling you that Hoplites aren’t knights? …Well, maybe they kind of are, but they don’t fight wars. They only fight to protect people against bad espers; especially the dangerous ones. They sacrifice a lot. I saw it for itself time and time again. Those guys – they’re real heroes. Me? I’m just a girl playing with a sword compared to them. Actually, do you wanna hear about the time—“
“No. Feel free to leave now, miss food thief.”
Josephine pouted at his quick response and started for the door. She then stopped once more and faced Matthiaz again.
“Matthiaz, your execution is tomorrow morning.”
“I’m aware.”
“…And are you aware of how you can prevent it?”
“Of course. How couldn’t I when you go in such deep detail at the end of every visit?”
“Then why don’t you just take the offer and—“
“Did you not hear me earlier? I refuse to be conquered. If I were to agree to the terms that had been offered to me – accepting exile, permanently relinquishing any claim to any title, acknowledging my older brother as king and kissing his precious signet ring, and then living the rest of my life as some quaint farmer under surveillance on some little island – that would be an admission of defeat my heart wouldn’t be able to bear. And I would rather give my head than my heart. You should know this, because I know; even though we couldn’t be any more different, you’re exactly the same.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
She was, which is why, even though she did ask at the end of every visit, she always knew in her heart what his response would be. A moment of silence passed again in the room. After a moment of exchanging gazes, the heroine pointed her finger at Matthiaz’ canvas.
“Can you show me what you’ve been painting this whole time?”
The imprisoned monarch consented, held up his painting, and turned it around for Josephine to finally see. It was an immaculate portrait of the Chosen One, the Heroine of Six Realms, stuffing her face with the Overlord’s prison food. Josephine burst out in an ebullient laugh she kept up as she left the tower for the final time. The last time she would see Matthiaz would be when he was guided to the guillotine the next morning.
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As Matthiaz was escorted to the guillotine that morning, he couldn’t help but smirk over the irony of the situation. Throughout his reign he had never executed a single member of the royal family or their relatives. He had used executions quite sparingly actually. Public executions were mostly reserved for his unpopular political enemies, bandits, warlords, and the like; and were meant more as tools of intimidation rather than outright punishment. And yet, the person whom he had spared the most and whom deserved to lose his head more than any opposition the Overlord had dealt with, his elder half-brother Ferdinand, had not hesitated to sentence him to death. His first decree as the newly crowned king of Zarland was to have the bastard usurper executed immediately, and immediately it likely would have been had others, especially Josephine and Francesca, another half-sibling of Matthiaz, not talked Ferdinand down and convinced him to put off the execution for a few months. In the Chosen One’s case, she hoped that Matthiaz would find it within himself to accept permanent exile rather than death. In his half-sister’s case, she just didn’t want Zarland to possibly fall into chaos because a freshly crowned king killed the previous king on the spot. Despite his infamy abroad, Matthiaz had developed a genuine cult of personality around him over the years.
The large crowd that had gathered in the plaza to witness the fallen monarch lose his head validated Francesca’s concern. It was as big as the crowd that greeted him after he returned from his first conquest years ago, perhaps even bigger. Unlike the awed expressions that hustled and bustled amongst each other to watch Matthiaz triumphantly marching through the streets, the faces here were without smiles. Some were anxious, some were vexed, and some were simply somber, but out of them all; the only person who Matthiaz noticed enjoying every moment of the occasion was his brother, Ferdinand Kornelia.
He was seated on a throne even other aristocrats would have found too gaudy for an execution. He and his queen were also seated beside each other on a platform elevated with magic. The platform alone was no doubt a large waste of the royal treasury’s funds. The newly minted royal crown and scepter Ferdinand had crafted personally for himself shortly after his coronation and the royal knights who stood on guard around the monarch with their enchanted swords at the ready Matthiaz estimated were all equally as costly. The Kornelian Dynasty’s signet ring that adored Ferdinand’s finger might have been the least expensive thing Ferdinand wore. The new king would likely make a record in how quickly he bankrupted his kingdom if nobody reined him in.
“Francesca said she was leaving Zarland and never coming back, and she was the only person besides father that could ever keep Ferdinand in check, so… I guess the exchequer’s fate is as sealed as mine.”
It was fitting, because if there was one thing Ferdinand yearned for more besides power and wasting money, it was trying, often in vain, to destroy his younger half-brother. Since they were children Ferdinand, the “Golden Child of the Royal Family” felt threatened by the Royal Family’s Black Sheep. It was as though he knew, intuitively, that Matthiaz was his superior – in academic pursuits, in martial exercises, in matters of war and politics, in the study of magic – his younger brother displayed an affinity for all of these things. Even though he had no legitimate claim to the throne, Ferdinand and his other legitimate siblings came to the conclusion that their ambitious little brother needed to be permanently put in his place. Initially, it was passive bullying – excluding him from certain activities that the other princes and princesses were privy to. It evolved into active hazing, with Matthiaz being frequently injured ‘accidentally’ during physical and magical lessons. Eventually, Matthiaz found his life being threatened outright. More than once he had been framed in an attempt to have him permanently banished or imprisoned. On one occasion, an assassin was even involved.
It all came to naught. In a strange irony of fate, Ferdinand and his siblings’ attempts at pushing their brother into the depths from which he would never return only resulted in accelerating the creation of a man who did not fear the abyss. The bastard child became equal parts as ruthless as he was ambitious, and the rest was history.
“Look at Ferdinand’s face…” Matthiaz muttered while looking at his grinning brother. “Bastard looks so damn smug.”
Smug the king was indeed. He childishly raised the finger to show off his signet ring. His goal was no doubt to mock Matthiaz by brandishing the ultimate sign of Zarland authority that had, only a few months prior, belonged to him. In the time Ferdinand had acquired it himself, he had smiled at the ring more than he had his wife. To him it represented how he had ‘masterminded’ his little brother’s downfall through all his years of scheming across the Six Realms. If only Ferdinand knew that all those ‘daring escapes’ he bragged about to those misfortune enough to have to listen only happened because Matthiaz deliberately let him escape each time. That the reality was that his little brother was just using him as a walking casus belli who continually pushed whomever was foolish enough to heed his pleads of ridding his homeland of an evil usurper to invade with hope of an extremely generous rewards by the future king. Whether they were warlords, frontier tribes, or foreign monarchs, their attempts at invading all ended the same – a quick defeat followed by a easily justified counter-invasion, wherein their territory was quickly annexed into the Overlord’s burgeoning empire while Ferdinand was sent running for the hills with his tail tucked between his legs and a new scheme in mind.
Ferdinand always liked to think himself the brightest in the royal family. He was the Golden Child of the Royal Family after all, and had it not been Francesca and Matthiaz he may very well have been the most capable of the late king’s offspring. What he failed to understand, however, was that this was simply proof that the current generation of the Kornelia had largely fallen as much as Zarland itself had. In all his years, Matthiaz had still yet to find a person who overestimated his abilities as much as Ferdinand Kornelia. None coveted lavishness so much, depended on others so often, and were tempted by power so easily as the current king of Zarland.
How many treaties would he break? How many advisors would he go through for simply offering slight dissent in their council? How many political imprisonments and assassinations his typical paranoia would create? How many foolish wars will he start over piss-poor justifications and lose? How poor would the country eventually be within a few years of poor economic decisions and pointless wars leaving the king bankrupt, the royal treasurer suicidal, and the taxpaying masses rebellious against their sovereign? How many bastards would he sire from his legion of mistresses, and how catastrophic will the ensuing dynastic civil wars between those bastards and the legitimate heirs be?
“It’s going to be one hell of a dark age,” Matthiaz muttered to himself while he was put on his knees and had his neck fit within the guillotine’s lunette.
Just the thoughts of all the future chaos had Matthiaz sighing tiredly while the executioner readied himself to release the blade.
“Any last words, sire?”
“Sire? You forget who your king is? He’s down there smiling like a child with a pot of cookies in his lap.”
The executioner gave an awkward cough, obviously trying to mask the chortle he almost gave.
“Any last words… Overlord Matthiaz?”
“Oh? I still get that keep that title?”
“It’s what people still call you.”
“Huh. Well, I still prefer to let my actions speak for me.”
“Sorry, Overlord, but I don’t think that’s much a possibility anymore.”
Matthiaz looked out at the crowd again, honing in on Ferdinand who was still smugly holding up his signet ring finger. Nothing satisfied the king more than the thought that it would be the last thing Matthiaz ever saw. But then, to Ferdinand’s confusion, his younger brother flashed a look at him. It was the same look that he gave them when they were younger – the look that shook the Golden Child to his core.
“Ferdinand… You dumb piece of shit,” the Overlord hissed as the guillotine’s blade finally came down.
Many in the crowd closed their eyes out of squeamishness. When they heard the shocked cries from the rest of the crowd, they imagined the sight everyone else witnessed of the former king’s head being separated from his neck. Upon finally opening their eyes, they found no beheading had taken place. In fact, Matthiaz was no longer at the guillotine at all. Right before the blade had reached his neck he vanished and reappeared on the levitating platform before his brother’s throne. The only thing that had been separated at that moment was Ferdinand’s signet ring finger from his hand.
The king was writhing in agony while his distressed queen stared in horror at her husband’s profusely bleeding hand. Matthiaz, his brother and clothes now splattered with blood, held the finger he had stolen from his brother up calmly along with a shank he had kept hidden on his person.
“I soulbound this signet ring to myself years ago and further put an enchantment on it so I could always teleport to it immediately. I don’t even need to cast a spell to do so. That you or nobody in your circle detected it once in all the time I’ve been imprisoned doesn’t surprise me. About what I expect from you, big brother.”
Two royal knights engaged their former sovereign with blades at the ready, impressing Matthiaz with how quickly they were able to close the distance. Despite his hands still being bound by the enchanted cuffs that kept him from using magic, Matthiaz had no problem ducking a slash from the first knight, weaving a thrust from the second, then bobbing and eventually rolling from their subsequent strikes.
“Those training reforms I pushed paid off,” he praised when one of them managed to give him a slight cut.
A third, rather than join the melee, opted to cast a spell the moment there was enough distance created between Matthiaz and Ferdinand.
By the time that knight heard “Stop! That’s just what he wants!” his bolt of fire had already been cast from his wand. Gripping his brother’s finger in his teeth, Matthiaz held up his hands and braced for impact. The fiery burst further horrified the queen and onlookers in the crowd, many of whom had begun scattering from the plaza.
When the smoke cleared, Matthiaz was still standing. He was bleeding and his hands had been burnt, but they were still useable. More importantly – they were free. The anti-magic cuffs had absorbed most of the damage, and though one of them remained shackled to the Overlord’s wrist, the other had been blown clean off.
“The Overlord is free! Stop him!” one of the knights barked while more of his comrades gathered around Matthiaz.
They were obviously still underestimating his remaining strength otherwise they would have known better than to get so close. As the fighters among them closed in, Matthiaz quickly casted his first spell in months. The battlemages of the royal knights, elite as they were, could not keep up with their former sovereign’s casting speed even while he was without a wand or stave. Instantly, a black pond manifested beneath them and an array of black tentacles shot up from it and snatched every knight in proximity within their clutches. Unable to use their wands or even move, Matthiaz effortlessly stole one of their blade and made a mad dash for his brother.
The bleeding king had been levitated down from the platform along with his queen by a pair of knights. Once they heard Matthiaz land behind them, the two broke off from their escort to face him. One drew his sword and the other his wand in a hope of stopping the Overlord’s stampede with one well-coordinated attack.
They failed.
Matthiaz, to both knights’ surprise, threw his sword at the spellcaster and used his free hands to cast a spell at the sword-wielder. The latter was blasted away without his sword, Matthiaz confiscating it as he continued his dash. The former dropped his wand after his arm was pierced by the blade Matthiaz had thrown and was simply pushed aside while the Overlord closed in on his true target. With a face full of the deepest anguish, his own blood soiling the most expensive clothes he had ever worn, and his heavily polished crown reflecting his brother’s terrifying eyes, King Ferdinand's head was cleaved from his shoulders in a single stroke. Thus the shortest reign of any Kornelian monarch in Zarland's history came to its bloody conclusion.
The queen hollered and fell to the ground in terror while staring at her late husband’s decapitated head. The puddle of his blood had already spread so far it was staining her dress. All around, there were screams of the chaos Matthiaz had borne as people stampeded out of the plaza as quickly as their feet would take them. More of the royal knights, accompanied by the town watch started arriving and surrounding the king-slayer.
“Stand down, Overlord! Drop your blade and step away from Her Highness!” the knight-commander demanded.
The Overlord yawned as though he hadn’t heard him. He finally disenchanted the royal signet ring and threw it, his brother’s finger and all, at the widow who flinched and scurried away from it.
“What was your name again? Leighlah, right?” he asked. “That’s yours now. You’re the Queen Regent. At least until someone bullies Francesca into taking the throne.”
“You already know Franky doesn’t want to be queen, Matthiaz.”
The Overlord glanced back and smiled when he saw the latest arrival in the plaza. While she was not an officer of any sort, all the knights and guardsmen immediately made way for the Chosen One who strode forth alone, sword in hand and shining armor adorning her figure.
“Took you long enough to get here,” Matthiaz said.
“I don’t attend executions. Don’t get what people find so fascinating about watching people who can’t fight back die.”
“Was that a jab? I didn’t kill Ferdinand for fun, you know.”
“Then why? You think you’re gonna get a second shot at being king because you took out the old one? Why not just use him as a hostage and try to escape?”
“I’ve lost a few battles I started, but I’ve never started a war I knew I wouldn’t win. Even if I got away initially, it wouldn’t be long before I’d have people like you on my tail” Matthiaz explained while pointing his sword at her. “I wouldn’t get. Probably wouldn’t even make it out of Zarland.”
“So, what’s your deal then? You just hate your brother that much?”
Matthiaz snorted. “Men like Ferdinand are too pitiful for me to hate. I was actually able to put him to decent use from time to time, though he never realized it himself. No, the reason my stupid elder brother had to die was ‘legacy.’ Specifically: my legacy. You think after putting in all this work over the years – war after war, reform after reform – I was going to go to the grave knowing a fool was going to undo all those efforts in some disastrous reign? If at least Francesca had stuck around to try and keep him in line, I could die assured things wouldn’t go so poorly. But as it was, I found myself having to choose between my own legacy and Ferdinand’s life. I don’t think I need to explain how easy that choice was to make.”
Josephine blinked. She looked down at Leighlah who was still cowering then gestured for a knight to see to her. Two of them did so; one retrieving the queen and the other retrieving her husband’s finger and signet ring. Matthiaz did not even look their way. The Overlord’s eyes were only for the Chosen One, and the Chosen One’s only for the Overlord.
The surrounding knights and guardsmen knew instinctively that they needed to further the distance between themselves and the pair in the center of them. Soon, Matthiaz and Josephine had most of the plaza to themselves.
“You know there’s no escaping this, right?” Josephine asked as she started stepping closer to her foe.
“Of course. I’ve been a dead man walking since you and I crossed swords the first time. Actually, we’re destined to fight, aren’t we? So, really, I’ve been a dead man before I was born.”
Their blades finally clashed, making the whole plaza tremble.
“Feel like I wasted a lot of time visiting you these past few months...”
“Don’t be. Your tall tales were pretty entertaining. And I really did put a lot of effort into that last painting.”
Josephine scowled as they broke apart. After staring each other down, they came together again, and the final duel between the Overlord and the Chosen One began in earnest.
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“There’s no way… to get around it… this time,” Matthiaz said weakly. “You’re undeniably… the Heroine of Six Realms now…”
Though his wounds were beyond anything magic or alchemy could address, Matthiaz felt some pride in the fact that he would go down as the only man to die after visiting the guillotine and still keep his head. The plaza had been devastated by the awesome battle that took place. Many had returned to the plaza to watch the Overlord in his final moments. He laid in a small crater with his vanquisher, Josephine, standing over him. She had plenty of injuries herself. Even her armor was ruined. Still, the look she gave her dying nemesis was not a malicious one.
There was no way a bout between them could go otherwise. Of the many prophecies that lingered about the Chosen One, her defeating Matthiaz was one of the most evident. She knew this and also knew that the ‘ambitious tyrant’ she was destined to beat knew this. And yet, he had still decided to come to blows with her anyway.
“Dumbass... You should have just accepted exile,” she muttered.
“…What did I tell you… yesterday?”
She sighed heavily. She never thought she would ever meet a person more stubborn than her.
“So… Any final words?” asked the heroine.
“…Yeah… I wish… I could’ve painted a bit more…”
His final visage before everything went black for the final time was Josephine’s melancholic smile.