Chapter 14
The crimson sky.
The earth covered in a haze of red iron dust.
And we stood upon it.
“Cough!”
Bricks brushed off the sand clinging to his armor and asked,
“Where are we?”
“The prophecy mentioned it in the guidebook.”
“The One-Man Kingdom?”
“Yes. The kingdom that once existed long ago.”
The others groaned as they got to their feet, their bodies aching from the fall.
“‘The One-Man Kingdom, Fonta.’”
“…Come to think of it, that name sounds familiar.”
Madwoman Shelia lowered her head, lost in thought—then slapped her thigh as the memory struck.
“Oh, no way!”
It was the story of two rival kingdoms.
There were hundreds like it during the age of war, but it made sense that Shelia remembered this one.
“It’s from The Children’s Book of Old Legends, isn’t it?”
A storybook for children—
one of the continent’s best-selling titles.
Black Shield Bren also began recalling the tale.
“I remember now. It started with, ‘In the Blue Kingdom, a great general was born…’ right?”
The Red and Blue Kingdoms had long been bitter enemies.
But when a great general was born in the Blue Kingdom, the tide of war began to turn.
Under his brilliant command, the Blue Kingdom won victory after victory.
Meanwhile, the Red Kingdom’s cities were burned to ash—and when they could no longer fight the great general—
“They gathered all their people…”
The Red Kingdom summoned every citizen to the great square.
Millions crowded together beneath the sun.
Upon the altar, the king raised a boy—
an orphan chosen as the vessel for a forbidden ritual.
The Red Kingdom had decided to entrust everything to him—
to pour the strength and talent of every citizen into a single child.
“A One-Man Kingdom. A man who carries his nation in his heart.”
“That’s right. And the name Fonta—in this region’s old dialect—it meant ‘slow walker.’ The kingdom put its fate in the hands of the slowest, dullest fool among them.”
That was the legend of the One-Man Kingdom, Fonta.
But that strange ritual wasn’t the end of the story.
“Fonta went straight to the Blue Kingdom—but lost.”
“Right… that’s how it went.”
Fonta was defeated.
A foolish ending, really.
Even if you gathered the talents of thousands of swordsmen, in the end only one man wielded the sword.
And in single combat, even a thousand talents could not overcome one man of pure genius.
So, after a fierce fight, Fonta fell to the great general and died.
“It was a story to show the folly of the masses.”
“…Which is why it was printed in a children’s book.”
But now everything had changed.
The One-Man Kingdom, Fonta—
was real, and standing before us.
Bricks turned to me.
“So this place… is it the real past?”
“No.”
I gazed across the crimson wasteland and explained,
“The body died—but the soul of the kingdom couldn’t. The spiritual energy remains. Millions of spirits, and Fonta’s own.”
“A plasm, then.”
Shelia’s eyes narrowed.
She had some knowledge of black magic—it comes with being a veteran mercenary. Her deduction wasn’t bad.
“Smart, aren’t you?”
“Manifested soul matter—sometimes it clings like ooze after a spirit fades away. Then… that thing we saw earlier?”
“Yes. That white liquid from the fountain. The sealed corpse meant to warn against the forbidden ritual. I released it.”
“…”
This place was a mental realm.
Fonta had died, but he had become the kingdom itself.
We were inside his mind.
“Allen.”
Bricks called out to me, shrugging.
“But if this is the story, isn’t he just some loser who couldn’t even beat one general? Can’t we just beat him up?”
Heh.
I laughed right in his face.
“Bricks. I told you—it’s his inner world.”
Rumble—
A massive dust cloud rose all around us.
The ground shook as if in an earthquake.
“Allen! What’s happening—!”
“Look! The horizon!”
“No way… those are all soldiers?!”
From afar, a countless army was approaching.
Hundreds of thousands—no, millions.
“Millions…”
Bricks’ face turned pale.
The Blue Kingdom fought only one man.
But we were inside that man’s mind.
“Now you understand?”
“You bastard!”
Bricks cursed—but it was too late.
“Allen! If we get out of this alive, I swear—!”
This place was the cursed One-Man Kingdom itself.
Our enemy was the entire kingdom of Fonta.
***
Bricks stared down in disbelief.
Thousands of people glared up at him with pure hatred.
“Ah.”
His throat was dry as he muttered,
“This is… really uncomfortable.”
He was bound to the execution scaffold,
his wrists and neck locked in iron restraints.
His back ached terribly.
“Lean your hips back. It helps.”
“Thanks, Bren.”
Beside him, Bren was also tied up—sweating, exhausted, and resigned.
“I’m fine though.”
“You’re just more flexible, damn it.”
“‘Damn it’? We’re about to die.”
All of Squad 3 waited for the blade to fall.
Even the strongest can’t fight an entire kingdom.
They had resisted for as long as they could,
but one by one, they’d been captured.
“What about Allen?”
“No idea.”
“You’re supposed to be the one watching that kid.”
“That kid? Have you seen him lately? He’s sixteen and somehow manipulating mana like—”
“Shh. The king’s coming.”
Creak—
The king climbed the wooden steps to the platform.
A stern old man with steel in his eyes.
“What are you?”
His voice reeked of iron. Bricks answered as their representative.
“We’re mercenaries.”
“From where?”
“We wander. No homeland.”
“Wanderers, then. How did you come here?”
Bricks told the truth.
No point hiding it now.
“I don’t know… We broke a fountain. White liquid came out. We fell through it.”
The king’s wrinkles deepened,
his face trembling with rage.
“Lies! You spies of the enemy!”
Bricks frowned.
“Wait… you don’t know the war’s over, do you?”
“The war? Fool! If it were over, we would’ve returned to the continent! The fighting merely drags on!”
“They’re insane.”
Shelia snorted.
“Even I, a madwoman, think you’re crazier.”
“Blasphemy! You dare call your king insane?!”
“Then I suppose we share a personality type.”
“Blasphemy, I said!”
“…What?”
Even after that ridiculous back-and-forth,
Bricks tried explaining the truth to the king,
but it was useless.
“This insolent dog!”
The king’s fury only worsened.
Bren sighed.
“Give it up, Bricks. He’ll never believe you.”
Bricks groaned.
“But giving up means dying!”
Their endless adventure had led them here—
to death itself.
The king shouted,
“Off with their heads!”
“Death!”
“Death!”
“Death!”
Not just the soldiers—
the entire crowd chanted for blood.
A nation consumed by madness.
Was this what happens when a single ideology devours a kingdom?
The thought echoed in Bricks’ mind.
Click!
The guillotine blade was raised.
Three seconds left to live.
“ALLEN! YOU BASTARD!”
A final, desperate scream—
but then—
“You called?”
Allen appeared atop the scaffold,
holding… a severed head.
“W-what… what are you?!”
“Just finishing some business.”
The king recoiled as Allen approached.
“King Jescard Flamian, 137th of his line. You murder-loving wraiths sure enjoy tormenting the living.”
Thud.
Allen tossed the head.
It rolled across the wood—
and stopped at the king’s feet.
“What filth—”
Then the king saw the face.
“F-Fonta?!”
Allen smiled coldly.
“Strange, isn’t it? He swallowed his entire kingdom into himself—”
“W-why is he here?!”
“—and yet he’s not here? Doesn’t make sense, does it?”
The earth began to quake violently.
Rumble!
Allen’s eyes hardened.
“You murderer.”
***
It became a famous case—almost tedious from how often it was told.
The fountain world discovered by accident.
The first explorers reported only one truth:
It was the inner world of Fonta, the One-Man Kingdom.
Rumors spread like wildfire.
Street thugs, wandering mercenaries—
everyone dove in.
“Fountain of Marron, or Massacre Fountain? Death toll passes 328.”
They all died.
The kingdom dispatched a suppression force,
but by the time they arrived,
the mercenary union had already cleaned up the mess.
What they managed to confirm was this—
the existence of Fonta within his own mind.
A nameless orphan,
ignored until he was chosen as a vessel.
His body covered in sores and boils,
his skin blackened with filth.
Which is why people who only knew the legend
never recognized him.
They found him by sheer accident—
and when an ill-tempered mercenary killed him,
the entire world collapsed instantly.
But for someone like me, who knows the future… it’s easy.
All I had to do was find the boy
matching the description in the after-action reports.
As the world crumbled,
the king stared blankly up at the red sky.
“…Was it all truly a dream?”
Everything was breaking apart into dust.
Citizens froze mid-scream, turning to bone.
The king looked at me again, whispering,
“Did I… truly not know?”
But only he could answer that.
He got no reply before his body too crumbled away.
“Goodbye, then.”
I wasted no time.
I searched Fonta’s headless corpse.
The mercenary in the record found an artifact here.
That artifact later appeared at auction—
and eventually, it came into the hands of me, the Mercenary King.
So it had to be here.
A gurgling sound—Fonta’s body spat something out.
“What’s this?”
A solid shape brushed my fingers.
I wiped it clean.
Let’s see your face, then.
A smooth orb emerged—
not simple stone, but a device of intricate craftsmanship.
The treasure of the One-Man Kingdom.
The Ancient Magical Compression Device.
A sphere capable of compressing all around it into a single space.
Likely a one-time relic now, overused and spent—
but still valuable.
“What’s that?”
“My property. Don’t touch it.”
“Ugh, fine. Stingy.”
Even so, it would prove useful.
Because with it—
we could resist the mind-control of the Old Dragon, Kalisize.
