****(POV)

This fight only brought destruction and sorrow on both sides.

The whole continent was in a state of unrest. One would have expected wars for supremacy to take place. None of that happened.

As dying words, one invader had left an omen. More of them would come. More of the insanely powerful beings that had destroyed all of this continent's military might with only a handful of them.

In fact, not only did people not fight for supremacy but many kings even suddenly retired to the countryside and played the simple farmers. It was all a colossal joke. Their hope was that the new rulers, the soon-to-come invaders, wouldn't touch the subservient population.

The previous kings would be happy with living the life of slightly wealthy merchants from then onward with all dreams of power forgotten. For once in our history, there was no bloody battle for the throne.

Actually, it was even the opposite. No one whatsoever wanted to paint such a big target on their back.

That's when they remembered the existence of this lowly ghost. I had been ignored because I was bound to die from my short lifespan. Yet I had outlived all the others. Pretty ironic, right? It hadn't even been my intention.

Then came a period of peace. I rose to the throne as a scapegoat. It was a cold empty and uncomfortable throne. I truly abhorred it, but I figured I might as well fill it.

Still, everyone obeyed my orders for they didn't know if any of these powerful beings were observing using magical means or when they would invade.

I had absolute power over them, and they showed me absolute loyalty, but it was just a play. A ridiculous and useless play.

I felt I had nothing better to do so I started implementing new policies.

I made sure that plenty of food was available for everyone, created ample shelters, reduced the work hours of pretty much everyone, increased the training resources offered to the public too.

I opened schools to disseminate all of the knowledge accumulated in the royal library across the land freely for everyone. Experts started appearing like cabbages.

The incredible medicines we had? I diluted them to save millions instead of a few wealthy and powerful individuals. From all the youths saved came even more experts.

The old ancestral training grounds of the royal family? I turned all of them into parks. Everyone was free to access it as long as they worked to make the city better. For that, I created a special point system. At that point, there was no distinction between civilians and experts.

In fact, at that point, I was pretty much the only weakling on the continent. All these policies were not wise nor especially thought through. It was nothing big, I was simply bored. I didn't know what I was doing, nor did I care about screwing up.

So what if someone overthrew my reign after all that bullshit? Every other day I'd ask the servant in charge of sweeping if he didn't want to become an emperor. He didn't believe me when I said I knew that he was qualified by the amazing way he handled the broom.

Somehow, just like that, decades passed. The populace slowly forgot about the omen of destruction, forgot about the invaders. From time to time some warlord from somewhere would try to use me as a puppet to govern.

It was always some power-hungry new guy that didn't know much about history. I actually got overthrown a few times. Every time they would beg me to take the crown again in tears a few days later.

Why? Well, that damn servant of mine was a blabbermouth and kept telling them of the heavy catastrophe they'd have to face.

So I'd lose power and regain it instantly, a power I didn't even want. At some point, the citizens were so used to it that no one ever showed up to the newcomers crowning ceremonies. They knew I'd be back tomorrow, or the day after.

Once, a tyrant tried to force people to attend his coronation ceremony. He and his men got slaughtered by a few civilians. Even with the spreading of knowledge everywhere, the palace grounds were still the best place to train so they were stronger.

Sometimes I would add a crazy reform on a whim. Everyone would simply go along with it. Eventually, they started calling me an omniscient ruler. I had no clue what I was doing really, I was simply applying a few of the things I had coincidentally read about.

I was simply waiting for time to pass. I was simply waiting for the end, for the invaders to come back. What about making preparations against them? I had done all I could already.

- I had created as many powerhouses as the continent could accommodate.

- I couldn't grow my personal power

- Begging the gods was useless too

At first, the gods had considered this continent kind of a hot potato without much potential. Most churches had slowly faded away. No blessings, no believers.

Then there was another issue. Gods are especially good at making one champion. To choose the most powerful guy and make him into even more of a monster. On this continent, everyone was moderately powerful.

When everyone is powerful, no one is really haha. Finding a good champion candidate was relatively hard. For the gods, splitting their power wouldn't work.

So in summary, the power of the continent itself was pretty much optimal given the low resources on it. It was simply that the individual power was sorely lacking. Since the gods didn't like the place at least there was way less mindless bloodshed caused by lunatic deities.

So I simply waited for death. After a long time, they came. Well, they weren't as powerful as we expected. Came a bunch of merchants, or at least they called themselves merchants, but they were bandits.

They were powerful. Powerful enough to kill, arson, steal and flee while cackling easily. They simply didn't have the power to fight the whole city. They had been teleported on this continent by mistake, somehow.

They swaggered in the palace like conquerors and demanded I have my queen attend to their needs, all twenty of them at the same time. They were extremely perplexed once they learned that I had none.

Of course, my servant had to open his mouth...