I'd Give Up The World For You

Rukelion's rant didn't stop the king's wails of anguish. He couldn't handle it. 

"Stop it. STOP IT! SHUT UP!" he bellowed as he turned the bunker into a raging inferno. The fire was fueled by his rage and grief. 

The king stopped crying and began screaming in pain. That was more like it! Suffer, you miserable old pig!

The room was completely scorched by the time Rukelion was finished. He had enough presence of mind not to melt the stone so the room wouldn't collapse in on him but everything was completely black except the small patch of ground he stood on. 

The room was smoking and he felt like he couldn't breathe. He opened the bunker door and let a cool rush of air reach his lungs before staggering out into the hall. 

It was done. The entire royal family of Mirea was dead and he didn't feel nearly as pleased as he had imagined he would. He didn't have the same sense of euphoria as when he had killed the water mages or the crown prince. 

Rukelion felt nothing. He was hollowed out after all of that. 

It was highly tempting to find somewhere to sleep the feeling off but he had work to do. He dried his tears and found a bathroom where he could put a cold cloth on his swollen eyes. He couldn't look a mess in front of his men when he met up with them. That would not inspire confidence in their new king. 

Once he deemed himself presentable he strode off in search of someone who could update him on the situation. It took him a while since the castle was so large. 

"Blaze!" Dudley called as he dueled a royal guard. "A little help, please?"

Rukelion managed to get the man's sword out of his hand in nearly an instant. "Done. What's going on?" 

"Nobody managed to raise any alarms so all we have to deal with is the castle's internal forces at the moment. But the royal army will figure out what's going on sooner or later. Did you manage to take care of the king?"

"Yes. He's dead."

"Dead?!" the royal guard cried. "How could you kill the king, you filthy traitor?" 

"He wasn't my king. I'm not Mirean so how exactly does that make me a traitor? He killed my king so I killed him," Rukelion said flatly. "I am a king avenging my country. That is entirely different."

The guard's eyes widened as he noticed Rukelion's hair. Living in the palace he had to know that the royal family of Katalya had the red hair of fire mages. 

He had nothing else to say after that, as Rukelion had figured. He hadn't broken any rules of combat here. No one in Mirea had known it but they had been at war with what was left of Katalya the whole time. 

Dudley tied up that guard and led him to the dungeons with the others. They were going to run out of room, weren't they? There had to be some sort of long-term prison they could be sent to. The problem was that he had no idea where said prison was because he wasn't familiar with the geography of this blasted country. Someone had to know!

He went around checking on everyone else and saw that in a matter of hours they had managed to overtake the castle without any casualties. The battle was half won. They still had the military to contend with. 

Rukelion sighed and flopped down onto the throne in the throne room, exhausted. They would have to wait to deal with the military until morning. His men didn't have any fight left in them either so once everyone was tossed into the dungeon he had ordered them to find somewhere quiet and get some sleep. 

He looked around the throne room feeling disgusted that his enemy used to sit here but wearily victorious at last now that his fit of emotions had passed. He did it. He actually did it after all these years of waiting…and he wasn't nearly as happy about it as he thought he would be. 

He still had a lot of work ahead of him. Honestly, he should go find somewhere to sleep too. He could face the world again in the morning as the new king of Mirea when he wasn't so worn out.

=== 

Juliet had been waiting for something bad to happen but hadn't expected it to be quite so soon. She was woken in the dead of night by a royal guard with an urgent expression. 

"Get up! You all have to get out of here; it isn't safe right now!" 

"What's going on?" Amaya asked, rubbing her eyes. 

"There are intruders. We need to leave now. I'll come back to find you once everything is safe," the guard promised. "Leave everything here. You can come back for it later! What's important now is getting out of the castle."

Shouts and the sounds of yells and clanging swords could be heard coming up the hall, emphasizing the urgency of the situation. Everyone began rushing out in their pajamas but Juliet wasn't about to stand for that. She shoved everything she owned into a bag first—which wasn't much but it would have to do. 

She had barely finished packing when the entire castle shook. That had to be Rukelion Blaze's handiwork. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that he was fighting the king of Mirea at this very second. 

She was too late! Everyone was in grave danger but at least this guard had the presence of mind to warn them. If they were smart, they wouldn't go back to the castle once things were supposedly safe. Things could never be safe with that madman on the loose. 

Juliet couldn't be here to see the aftermath. She had to get to her protagonists as soon as possible!

How she was going to get to Ripore Academy without prearranging a ride she had no idea. All she knew was that the town it was in was southwest of here. That wasn't terribly specific.

She needed their skills though so she had to find a way to make it work! Her protagonists were five students from the same year who happened to excel in their given fields and decided to try and take back the country for the people from the Flame of Punishment, who had taken over a few years before, leaving much of the world burned. 

From the beginning she knew she wanted to write about a water mage protagonist but after deciding that magic was rare during the world-building process she realized she couldn't have all of her heroes be mages. That wouldn't work within the setting.

One was an expert archer and another was a bit of a mad scientist who happened to specialize in both poisons and explosives. She also included a wind mage since those were fairly common within the framework of her world and a darkness mage exchange student from another country. 

It was summer vacation so Juliet doubted they were all at the academy right now. She needed to find her way in as a staff member before the new term started in August so she could weasel her way into their lives. 

She had only met one of the characters she had created and so far he had circumvented her expectations. That was entirely due to Daisy's influence and the odds of there being another transmigrated person around here were incredibly low but you never knew. 

She fervently hoped that none of her protagonists had been affected by the changes to this world. They might not cooperate if that was the case!

Juliet wracked her brains to think of exactly what all of them would be doing during their second year of school. Aside from a bit of backstory for her water mage in the beginning, the story didn't start until their final year of school. 

The mages all knew each other because of a magic theory class they had shared but weren't friends. The others were vaguely aware of each other's existences for other reasons but they didn't begin interacting regularly until one of them proposed a plan to take down the Flame. 

That had been Krae Duwaris's idea. He was her wind mage character and had lost many relatives and friends when his country, Zel, had been invaded. He was the stoic type and the muscle of the group.

He knew he couldn't go up against someone so powerful on his own despite the fact that wind magic tended to cancel fire magic out. That was what made him approach the main character. As a water mage he thought the two of them would be able to take Rukelion Blaze down if they worked together. 

Entirely focused on his studies, he was uninterested in fighting but could acknowledge that it needed to be done. He was too clever to rush headlong into danger with only the two of them and spent the next several days coming up with a list of suitable candidates to approach about joining their party, saying he wouldn't join Krae unless they had enough people with a variety of useful skills on their side. That was how their group was born. 

Juliet's main character was both sensible and book smart. They never would have been able to defeat the Flame without his quick thinking. 

As much as she needed the entire group, her first order of business was tracking him down and pressing the seriousness of the issue upon him without telling him that they were inside a novel she had written. Maybe she could pretend to be a fortuneteller or something. 

She didn't have a full plan in place yet but she knew one thing for sure.. If she was going to save this world or even get the ruined plot back on track she needed Ira Brooks.