148 4.10 Deal with the dead - Part 3

It was sad, but I expected nothing less from a society where classes and ranks are a critical aspect of daily lives. If one tries to tell them that their actions are stupid, the truth will only be seen as an unpopular opinion, or in the worse case, it would simply be taken as treason.

That's how societies here worked. When one is outnumbered, no matter how impressive their ideals are, it would simply be seen as strange by the crowd. If 99 people are lying and one person is telling the truth, the most likely outcome was the 101st member siding with those 99.

"Then what happened?" Markus asked.

Even though he was from one of those aristocratic families, I could see a look of disgust on his face. He must be already aware of these kinds of customs happening around.

"The king didn't realize that he, himself, was being tricked by the nobles. They were manipulating his thoughts little by little. Under the mask of offering aid and advice, they were trying to achieve their own greedy goals. As soon as the marriage happened, the nobles who were supporting the king moved in favor of that fool. It was apparent that he was just a puppet they created to sit on the throne, but it was too late by the time king realize that. In just a month, they deemed the king too old and started pressuring him to name a successor. Of course, there was no one but that fool who could be named as one."

While he paused to collect his thoughts together, I realized the solution to this was obvious. The problem was just that fool, so if someone else became the ruler, the problem would be solved.

"If the situation was like that, why not just name your queen the successor?"

"Yes, that is what the king thought too. He named our Queen, Himiko the successor. But that decision turned out to be an even worse choice, and its consequences were even worse."

Gram paused. It was hard to notice since his head was only made up of bones, but it appeared as though he was lost in thought.

"What happened?" Markus asked out of curiosity.

"If I may ask, what was the name of the country where this happened?" Markus asked.

Gram turned around. "It was called the Kingdom of Cilicia."

Markus put his hand on his chin and hummed after hearing the name of the kingdom. "I remember reading about the kingdom somewhere... Wait, I remember now. It was a book. A book called something like, 'The last standing queen.'"

Gram sighed. "Then that must be it. At least, it's good to know that the queen's bravery is engraved within the history somewhere."

"Yes, but the ending of that tale was too tragic. And it skips a lot of details in comparison to the story that you just told us."

"That's understandable. Since no one from our side survived, it must be written by our enemies. It's only natural that they wouldn't be aware of our internal matters."

"Indeed. Anyways, please continue."

Gram looked towards the ceiling. It was dark, but few brown crystals were emitting dim light here and there.

"They kept the fool occupied with wine and women and ruled over the kingdom as they saw fit. But it didn't take long for them to be divided. Soon the neighbors noticed the lack of proper governance and started preparing for the war. And while this all was happening, we were just in-fighting."

"I remember what happened from here"—Markus stood up—"When the neighbors slowly surrounded the kingdom and attacked from every side. The kingdom was left defenseless, and there was nowhere to run or hide. But even after the king was slain, the queen didn't give up. She and her guards defended the kingdom till their last breath and slayed thousands of soldiers. However, in the end, they were just humans. They couldn't fight without proper rest, and at last, they fell along with the kingdom... This is where the story ended in the book."

I also stood up when I realized I was the only one sitting on the grave. "If that's what happened, how did it all come to this?"

Gram sighed. "Our enemies also suffered heavy casualties in the war. They barely had an army left to defend their own region, let alone control this newly occupied territory. So, they simply left the region unoccupied and backed out. The other neighbors fought over it for a few years, but after undead started appearing in the region, no one came forward to take charge of it. Hence the whole place became abandoned."

That all made sense, but it was still unclear how this place came to be. It's not like a lone hill can appear out of nowhere in the middle of the plains. If there were other fellow hills here, it would be believable that it was part of the geographical change, but there were none.

"Then what happened?" I asked as this was the only piece of the puzzle missing.

Gram looked at his hand— or what's left of his hand. "The spirits took possession of our bodies. We decayed over time, but we realized our consciousness was still somewhat intact. We occupied the manor and scared the humans from coming near us. With time, we realized we were different from other undead, but that didn't matter. What mattered was how we had struggled enough and how we just wanted to rest our souls in peace. We just wanted to sleep here forever"—He turned around and looked towards us—"It was like that for a while, but then the era of chaos ended, and there was peace. It was then the Earth dragon came back to get her."