Chapter 57
Part 56
Why had anyone bothered taking those things when they weren't even worth much?
Step. Step.
There it is.
After walking for about twenty seconds, Yugeon reached an enormous chamber at the end of the corridor.
It almost felt like a cathedral.
At the far end of the space stood a massive coffin.
The wooden coffin was decorated with jewels, gold, and silver.
However, the craftsmanship itself was rather crude.
Normally, if someone had enough wealth to decorate a coffin with that many jewels, the coffin itself would have been made from marble instead of wood.
Yet the one before him was clearly wooden.
Even the embedded jewels looked uneven, and the gold and silver had been attached rather roughly.
The materials are good, but whoever made it wasn't very skilled.
Yugeon slowly examined the coffin.
The jewels were all different sizes.
There were visible traces where gold and silver had been added in separate patches.
But Yugeon already knew why.
The Nameless King.
Before his regression, scholars had investigated this tomb after it was discovered.
Yet in the end, they couldn't even determine the name of the kingdom.
The king's name.
The queen's name.
Even the history of the kingdom itself.
Everything about that small kingdom had been forgotten.
That was why people simply called this place the Tomb of the Nameless King.
Yugeon's gaze suddenly fell on a stone pedestal positioned in front of the coffin.
A single yellowed sheet of paper rested on top of it.
I've never seen this before.
It hadn't been here before his regression.
Perhaps the first person who discovered the tomb had taken it.
Or maybe it had simply crumbled away over time.
Yugeon approached and looked down at the paper.
"I can't read it."
There were traces of writing, but nearly all the ink had faded away.
At that moment...
Ding!
[Record: Letter of a Nameless Retainer]
Most of the writing has been damaged by the passage of time.
The record will be restored through the Status Window.
"So it can even do something like this."
Yugeon smiled faintly and began reading the restored text.
[I do not know who will one day read this letter.
But I ask one thing of you.
Please do not treat the person sleeping within this coffin carelessly.
He was not a king who ruled over vast lands.
He was the king of a very small kingdom.
His Majesty and the Queen had grown up together since childhood, and even after becoming husband and wife, they were always by each other's side.
The two of them truly cherished their people.
They knew who had recently given birth.
Which household had an ill parent.
Even which farms had suffered poor harvests.
It was a poor kingdom, but everyone lived with smiles.
Then one day...
The Empire began preparing for a long war and demanded enormous supplies from the surrounding kingdoms.
Grain and iron.
Weapons and livestock.
The amount demanded was far beyond what a small kingdom like ours could afford.
The ministers insisted that taxes had to be raised.
But Their Majesties refused.
The reason was simple.
The people were already suffering enough.
His Majesty personally went to the blacksmiths and took up a hammer.
Her Majesty went to the farms and harvested grain.
They were tasks no king or queen should have been expected to perform.
But the two of them said they couldn't allow only their people to suffer.
His Majesty truly hated sunlight and heat.
Even on slightly warm days, he would be the first to search for shade.
Yet that very man worked beneath the sun all day long.
Her Majesty always smiled when she saw him.
Whenever they rested, she would personally put up a tent to create shade for him.
Several years passed that way.
The kingdom endured.
But Her Majesty, who had always been physically frail, collapsed first.
At some point, she began complaining of frequent headaches.
There were also many days when her nose bled.
His Majesty told her to rest.
But Her Majesty refused to stop working, saying she couldn't be the only one resting while the people were suffering.
Then one day...
Her Majesty finally collapsed.
She never opened her eyes again.
His Majesty desperately tried not to fall apart.
There were still people who depended on him.
Even the day after Her Majesty's funeral, he went back to the blacksmith's forge.
He endured for more than ten years that way.
But the Empire's war never ended.
The land dried up.
The storehouses became empty.
Eventually, the people began leaving the kingdom one by one.
His Majesty did not stop them.
He distributed the remaining food and told them only one thing.
Please survive.
And on the day the final citizen passed through the gates...
His Majesty finally broke.
Every day, he would cry before Her Majesty's grave until he fell asleep.
Then, at some point...
His Majesty became obsessed with alchemy.
It seems he could never forget how often Her Majesty had complained of headaches while she was alive.
How much she had suffered while bleeding from the nose.
He ground herbs.
Boiled them.
Mixed them.
For ten years.
Even as the kingdom collapsed around him, the light in His Majesty's room remained lit every night.
And eventually...
He succeeded.
He created a small elixir.
One that relieved pain in the head.
Washed away accumulated exhaustion.
And cleared the mind.
