After Lina guided her to the King's chamber, she hurried to look for Albert.
"The new King is a woman... In past summonings by the former kings, only men were summoned; that's why they either became heroes or kings" she thought, wondering how complicated things were because the title "King" was traditionally for men as a symbol of a strong leader.
Meanwhile, Albert had called all the butlers of the chiefs who were unconscious. The butlers were shocked; he only explained to them that it was the effect of the summoning.
Except for the doctor, who was now the new chief of their village. The butler was called in by him.
They sat in his room; the doctor lay unconscious in a chair.
"A–Albert... I am very sorry. I had no other choice..." the butler cried. He was the one who had blocked Lessa and Albert when they entered the chief's manor.
"What do you mean?!" Albert asked, his face a mix of curiosity and anger, his voice loud.
"I'm the one who let that man in the black hood enter the manor...! But I didn't mean to! He threatened to kill me if I didn't..." the thin, old butler said, sobbing. He knelt before Albert, guilt clinging to Albert's clothes.
Albert stared at him, then pulled him to his feet. "Mister... I, too, have my own guilt. You don't need to carry that anymore, because I will purge the root of all our nightmares." He stared at the doctor and walked straight in front of him.
"This man is the cause of..." Tears flooded his face as memories came: the moment of Lessa's death, his fight with the corrupted Seth, and the villagers' accusations against him. Then he muttered a word, a new spell he had just created.
"Cage Spell," he said in a cold voice.
Out of nowhere, beneath the unconscious body of Doctor Rey, an iron cage appeared and covered him. It slowly sank into the ground.
[Cage Spell > A spell that locks a single person in an iron cage and then stores it in an empty space underground.
Special Trait > The stored cage can be brought back aboveground anytime through the holder's will.]
The butler froze in shock, sweating and gasping. "Is this the power of his artifact?... The Albert who always locks himself in the library for decades has become this powerful?" he said, smiling through tears.
"Finally. Justice has been sent for their restless fragments," the butler muttered, sobbing.
After that, Albert wrote a letter for his master, Lady Merry, who now owned Albert's library. Without Lina's consent, he wrote that their chief, Doctor Rey Bet, was being held as a prisoner for murder and false accusation. He also wrote that she would be the new chief of the village. He gave the letter to the butler.
Having delivered it, Albert returned inside the castle looking for Lina.
"I wonder how she is with the new Ki... wait, a king is a man... How can we hail her as the new king?" he thought, hurrying to tell Lina.
As he turned, he spotted Lina near his room. They met each other's eyes and approached one another.
"Albert!! About the King," Lina said loudly.
Albert took her hand and led her into his room to talk.
He sat on his bed and Lina in a chair, facing each other. She told him about the issue that the king must be a man, and asked what to do because, even if the rules were to be renewed when the throne became vacant, the title of "King" was considered unchangeable and had to be followed.
"That is what I'm thinking too. Do the citizens already know about the king's summoning and the new king's existence?" he asked, making a plan for a temporary solution in case the citizens didn't know.
Lina answered that only those present during the summoning knew, since there were no guards and all the maids had been sent away. They planned to educate the new king first, then reveal her to the public; the chiefs also knew about the plan.
"Then only me, you, and the chiefs are aware of the new king," Albert said, his face serious in deep thought.
Lina thought of a solution as well. "No one knows about her, so this plan should be the only thing we can do for now," he thought.
"How about we disguise her as a man for the time being while we look for a permanent solution?" he suggested to Lina.
Lina hesitated at first but had no other choice. "T-Then we should both go to her now," she said, accepting his suggestion.
Albert and Lina left his room and walked together to the King's chamber where the woman who was going to be the new King sat. Albert knocked on the door.
"Open the f**ing door yourself!!" a loud, annoyed voice answered from inside.
Albert opened the door nervously. Is her earlier cry true? Is she really on our side? Is she a good person? Is she the only candidate for King? Questions lingered in his mind as he entered. Even though he had already spoken with her and witnessed her behavior on arrival, he was still unsure if she could be trusted as a leader; he had seen something in her soul.
Inside, she sat on her wide white bed, legs crossed, facing the door.
Albert bowed and greeted her. "Good day, my King."
That only made her angrier. "Shut up!! And, screw you!! magician." She shouted.
Phew, he's a man no doubt... then he must have some kind of magic that blocks my curse of seeing through men, she thought, wondering why her curse to see men's inner intentions was not working on him.
Lina waited outside the room so she could stop the King if she tried to run. She had asked Albert before he entered to see if the new King would accept the role willingly.
"What brought you here, perv?" she asked bluntly.
Albert raised his head and suddenly changed his manner of speaking to her. "Right now she is not yet the King, as there is no official announcement. So, I will..." he began, though he didn't understand some of the modern words she used; he felt insulted.
"Ahem, miss, give me your name? What kind of world is yours? Are you really a savior of your... Oh, I'm sorry but I am not a gentleman toward women who don't have manners when speaking to their fellow humans." He said this with a smirk; his formal voice shifted into a casual, commanding tone.
Her head heated and she clenched her teeth. Their interaction was far from their first meeting.
"This man, he's an a$$hole." She planned to pull her weapons from the corner, but she realized she couldn't because of whatever chain magic he had.
She sighed. "I'm sorry too. My name is Zoey Suthasia. And... f**k you!!" She raised her middle finger at him.
"I have no choice but to teach this punk a whipping," she thought angrily.
After what she said, the room went dark in a blink. It became a dimension with no end, yet Albert could still see her form. The chamber had transformed into an infinite darkness, her power, which she called the Zombie Realm.
Albert was paralyzed; not even his eyelids could move. He couldn't see his System to use spells or make a spell that required spoken activation. He forgot about a spell that didn't need to be recited, a spell he had used twice before.
She stood in front of him smiling. Is this her power? What kind of feeling is this... he thought, overwhelmed by an indescribable fear.
"Hahahaha, oh my goodness!! You're sending shivers down my spine with that stare, human," she said, laughing. Dark red smoke spun around her.
"What kind of power do you have, moron?" she asked in a boyish voice.
Though Albert wanted to answer, he could not because of her overwhelming power. "Kya-hahahaha," she laughed maniacally.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... By the way, because you are special, I will reveal my true name to you, so be grateful, human," she said, chuckling.
She stood tall as her clothes changed into armor made of black bone.
"I am the Queen of Zombies... Oh, I should explain. Either way, I am very good at storytelling, so sit and listen."
"Since the beginning of my world I was a single tiny molecule floating in space. As I wandered in the world of particles, I grew and grew bigger every second, and after decades I gained a sense of consciousness inside me. It was the first time I felt alive. I became a kind of parasite-like worm.
I entered a dead body, and so my first body that I used to explore the world was a corpse. When humans in a world full of metallic weapons shot at me, I felt pain for the first time.
The feeling of pain made me burst with rage. My dead body began to control the dead, and the world filled with man-eating zombies.
As I observed humans fighting for their lives, I thought they only fought to survive for themselves. But through years of observing them, I realized that some fight for others.
Then I gained a surging desire to experience human life. I left my zombie body and sought a human vessel."
As she spoke, Albert closed his eyes and concentrated, searching the deepest parts of his mind. I need a spell that negates her power... he thought.
[Function Activated > Absolute Ego Raiser]
"And finally I found a newborn human, and when I entered this body I and that child became one in mind and soul," she continued, sharing her story until she revealed that when she sided with humans she also increased the zombies in that world to defeat them, making herself look like a strong human leader. She then decided to eliminate all the zombies in that world because she grew bored of being their leader. She also told him that if she hadn't been summoned into this world, she had planned to keep peace in that world for a decade and then release a new type of zombies the size of buildings for her entertainment — which she regretted not doing earlier when she was summoned into Albert's world.
After she finished her long story, Albert kept his eyes closed; she thought he had fallen asleep. "Don't you disrespect me, maggot!!" She walked close to him.
"Spell Zero!!" The first words came out of his mouth the moment he was inside her zombie realm that had enveloped the room in infinite darkness.
Almost an hour passed. Lina waited outside the door, hearing nothing amid the tension. She opened the door and looked inside. She saw the body of their new King lying with no head in front of Albert.
"What have you done?! Albert!!" she shouted in panic and disbelief.