Vol. 1 CH. 16 – The bright new day for the kingdom of flowers (Epilogue)

The kingdom of Ambrosia, revived from an old ancient kingdom called Aurolius, found itself in a predicament after the 9th Demon Lord appeared in order to conquer the reviving kingdom of Ambrosia. However, thanks to the joint efforts of the Elven nation's ruler, her soldiers and the Black army of the Black king as well as the heroes' brave stand, Ambrosia was spared from destruction from the hands of a Demon Lord.

The kingdom didn't sustain much damaged from the battle. The exterior walls were only cracked and the barrier that the Black king erected before protected the whole kingdom. The buildings weren't much damaged but the pillars that support them underneath were worn out due to the endless earthshaking that was due to the attacks of the 9th Demon Lord.

Fortunately, the shelters were spared. The citizens that were no fighters like the young and old, men and women, were immediately treated. The soldiers that fought and wounded were given special care in order to get back to their feet immediately. The soldiers that perished during the relentless attacks of the monsters were immediately buried and as for the ones of the elf army, their bodies were given a proper preservation process before taking them back to their home country.

Truthfully, the estimated damages and lost should have been higher. However, thanks to the help of the heroes and the potions the Black Army had provided everyone, the death toll was merely ten. 7 were from the elf army and 3 were from the black army.

No one actually believed that the amount of death could be counted in the fingers of a hand. With the appearance of the Demon Lord like Kakal, everyone had thought that there would be thousands of dead.

But reality wasn't so pretty that it would give such false numbers, everyone accepted the amount of death with just exasperated words like "The heck just happened...." as if they just woke up from a nightmare.

And then, as the new day came after completing the menial tasks like repairs and burials, the Kingdom of Ambrosia welcomed the new day with bright smiles.

"GAAAAAAAH!!?"

But the ear piercing scream of the black king who was covered in bandages allover his body welcomed the new day with terror in his face.

"Geez!! Disappearing like that without saying a word, you really got me worried you know!!"

"AAAAAAHHH!!?"

"That's so right!! You got us all worried you lunatic!!"

"S-Stop!! AAARGH!! M-My wounds still hurt!!!"

With two lovely girls sitting atop of his arms with their hands pressing in his chest, Kyoushiro, with tears in his eyes pleaded the two to get off of him. However, his protest fell on deaf ears as Lucinda and Mikoto were pressing their hands on his wounds.

Right after Kyoushiro vanquished the 9th Demon Lord, Kyoushiro's unconscious body was taken back to the castle. His severe wounds reopened due to the fight and were bleeding out on the dessert. If no one got him back to the castle on time, he would have died by now.

Kyoushiro's black arm also became an issue. Because it was due to a powerful curse, no one in the palace was able to remove it. It wasn't due to lack of personnel that was adept in holy magic; it was because the curse itself had already latched itself on Kyoushiro's arm.

But thanks to a certain Elven ruler that happened to be a High Elf Fairy Queen, the curse was temporarily cured and Kyoushiro's arm returned back to its normal color albeit for a short time.

Then, after sleeping for two days straight, leaving all the jobs to his aide Kuro, Kyoushiro woke up with Lucinda sleeping on both of his side of the bed. The bed he has in his room was big enough to fit five people so three people sleeping on it, side by side, wasn't a problem.

But the two woke up due to Kyoushiro's surprised voice. Then just as natural as the wind, the next Queen of a Human country and another member of the 17 heroes brought their wrath upon the unfortunate king who was covered in bandages.

Kyoushiro held Lucinda's and Mikoto's arms as he sat up on the bed.

"Haaah... geez you two, are you planning to kill me?"

"Uuu...I am very sorry Kyoushiro-sama..."

"We were just... worried after all..."

'I think I'm more worried about how I'll survive in this kind of relationship...' Kyoushiro exasperatedly thought as he let go of the two who were just concerned about his condition.

Just a month ago, Kyoushiro was abducted by Avfritzed, the Demon Goddess of this world. His body was nearly crushed by sheer pressure and his right arm was eaten by a curse. Not only that, he was corrupted by the Elder-God-Blade Hastur before he got out from that unknown place.

Because of that, it was very understandable that Lucinda and Mikoto to be worried. Kyoushiro recognize Lucinda as his wife so he was sweet with her and for Mikoto, it was just a promise he had to fulfil due to his negligence.

Although Kyoushiro had no plan on having a family in this world, in the end, he got one.

"Nah, I don't really care anymore just don't do it again"

Kyoushiro said so as he brushed the heads of the two girls that meaningfully fell in love with him. Though despite the fact that Kyoushiro sees Lucinda as his wife, he was very conflicted since Lucinda was allowing Mikoto to express her feeling to Kyoushiro; there seems to be a team forming with the two of them, Kyoushiro was very worried about this.

'I don't know why these two get along so well while I was away but it's really freaky when the two of them agrees on the same thing. I'm scared that I might get pushed down by them one day...'

Even though usually there should be a feud between the two, they were both acting nice to each other. They even went to a point where they call themselves the "Wives of the Black Hero" there wasn't any uproar just a tired sigh coming from Kyoushiro himself. Well, doubtful as it may be, Kyoushiro didn't try to pursue the topic and just ended it there and then.

In the end, Kyoushiro just accepted what was in front of him and stayed quiet. Kyoushiro stood up from his bed and proceeded to dress himself.

After the battle with the 9th Demon Lord, every one of the Ambrosia kingdom was working hard in order to immediately restore the previous state of the kingdom. Although there wasn't much damage, the corpses of the demons were still in the battlefield. It was feared that if those corpses were not collected, it would resort in a major catastrophe with a disease running amok.

Kuro, Kyoushiro's trusted retainer, immediately issued the retrieval of the monster corpses. With there being a million of them, there was a whole lot to gather. Fortunately, the kingdom had survived eating monster meat in the past. There were no one getting caught some sort of illness by eating those monster meat, it became a norm in the wasteland to make food out of them.

Kyoushiro had already made a cultivation of crops on the eastward of the kingdom; there he had turned the barren soil into something more appropriate for cultivating using his skills. It took a while but the crops that were planted before were already good for harvesting.

There was no issue in terms of food supply because of that so in the end, the problem with dealing with the monster corpse would land on Kyoushiro's hands once he wakes up. Kyoushiro doesn't know that this has already been decided and was completely clueless at the amount of work he was about to face later on.

Kyoushiro then finishes fixing himself and turned around. But as he faced back, the smiling faces of two supposedly innocent girls were grinning with flushed faces. It seems that they had watched Kyoushiro changed the whole time.

"You two..."

"K-Kyoushiro-sama!! I-It is alright for me to see!! I am your wife after all!!"

Sensing that Kyoushiro probably got angry that he was being watched when he was changing his clothes; Lucinda bashfully made an excuse to avoid getting flick on the forehead. Mikoto seemed to be daydreaming on the side as her expression depicted her unusual dream. A water stream flowed down on the corners of her lips.

Kyoushiro just scoffed "Humph..." and went back to where the two were. Since the morning won't wait for them if they dilly-dally, Kyoushiro brought the two down from the tower then to the royal palace just in front of the tower.

"Kyoushiro!!"

Just as Kyoushiro, Lucinda and Mikoto entered audience room of the loud voice of Arianne echoed. Within the wide audience room, Arianne was sitting a high throne on top of a pedestal. Surrounding the perimeter of the audience room were the powerful experienced knights that have been in the old ruins before. All knights wore black luster armors with readied swords and lances on their sides.

They saluted as they saw Kyoushiro entered and quickly went back to their post. The ones inside the audience hall beside Arianne and the guards were the heroes, Elf Queen Elfianna and her aid General Durif.

As they saw Kyoushiro and the girls entered, they turned their way towards them.

"You've done good protecting the place while I was gone Arianne"

"Geez!! Don't say that as if you've been only gone for days!!"

The sight of the beautiful purple headed Queen rushing to the chest of the young Black Hero was like seeing a fairy tale coming to life. Arianne was young but her position was a Queen. If this sorry sight of a young girl obviously in love with the Black hero gets out, it would shame her position as Queen. But as the whole capital already knows just how infatuated the young Queen Arianne was with the Black Hero Kyoushiro Kagami.

That was why, even when the guards were trying their best not to laugh, no one would reprimand Arianne for her actions. But there was one person that had an expression painted in shock as he watched Arianne jump into Kyoushiro's chest.

The troublesome friend beside him was enduring not to laugh at the sight of the dumbstruck Katsuto.

"You... were you this clingy in the past?"

"Of course not. I was only holding back but since you made me worry, I can't help showing this side of me"

Although Kyoushiro somehow gets why Arianne was acting so reckless when it comes to hiding her real feelings, it still felt complicated for Kyoushiro to be surrounded by women that has absolutely no shame in showing their real selves to him.

It wasn't really a bother just that, he was conflicted on how he was supposed to react right now. Whilst showing a troubled smile, he still let Arianne nuzzle her head on his chest. It was sort of a reward of not leaving the citizens of Ambrosia in faced against a Demon Lord.

"Are you alright now?"

"Feeling better than I expected. My curse seemed to have died down a bit but some muscle aches are still there"

Kyoushiro smiled and showed the bandaged right arm to Arianne.

"I guess it was the Elf Queen's doing?"

"Yes, it was Elfianna-sama's power that we were able to reduce your arm's curse"

As Kyoushiro has some idea of who was able to minimize the extent of the curse of his right arm, his eyes went over to the beautiful blonde haired elf standing along with Katsuto, Koizumi and Aizawa. Arianne smiled and told Kyoushiro that it was indeed Elfianna that helped him.

Then as Kyoushiro's eyes met with Elfianna's, he lowered his head and thanked her.

"I am very grateful for the help you have given me"

"It is alright. You too have helped in the battle with the 9th Demon Lord"

Elfianna bowed elegantly as she greeted Kyoushiro with a smile. As the two were getting acquainted, there were two persons next to Koizumi that was silently watching Kyoushiro's group with dead fish eyes.

Basically, Minami and Katsuto don't like what they were seeing for some reason. Katsuto was eyeing the place where Arianne was resting her head onto as she leaned her body on Kyoushiro's chest. Minami was somehow feeling left out as she was looking at Mikoto's happy smile as she stand behind Kyoushiro. Lucinda was right next to Kyoushiro on her wheelchair wearing her usual loving smile.

Koizumi on the other hand was enduring not to laugh at the two.

"Ah... Kyoushiro... I missed your smell..."

*Snap* at that those words filled with affection, something snapped inside Katsuto. In his line of sight was Arianne sniffing Kyoushiro's chest and Kyoushiro getting creeped out and tearing her off of him. Looking at it closely, even Elfianna was looking at the two with shock eyes. It seems that she did not expect a respectable queen like Arianne to act so loosely.

"You!! Get off Arianne!! Lucinda and Aizawa are right here!!"

"Ufufu~ I won't for a million years~"

"Kagami you bastard!!"

Unable to endure any longer, Katsuto lunged into action with tears spilling from the corner of his eyes. How embarrassing, Koizumi thought as he was already laughing at the sight of his best friend unable to endure his jealousy any longer.

Just as Katsuto's loud voice echoed, the guards who were standing by the pillars instantly moved to protect the King and Arianne, who was supposedly the Queen of Ambrosia, and caught Katsuto's body.

Even though there was a difference in attribute values, the knights easily caught Katsuto by holding him down by the waist, arms, neck and legs using their spears and hands. Then just like that, Katsuto stopped right in front of Kyoushiro and the girls.

"...What were you doing?"

"You! I don't care how or why but why is it only you?!"

Confused as to why Katsuto was crying and yelling at him, Kyoushiro looked down on his chest and stared at the purple headed queen that as still clinging to him. Lucinda and Aizawa were tilting their heads as to why Kyoushiro was looking at them as well. Well, they were under the impression that Kyoushiro was merely admiring their beauty so they were smiling at him.

Still, as it was poor taste to leave the guy who helped saved Ambrosia be held down like that by the magically armed knights, Kyoushiro ordered them to stand down and return to their post.

The knights then silently let go of Katsuto and went back to the places they were standing before.

"Uuu..."

"Geh... Are you seriously crying? Those guys weren't really rough on you right?"

"Damn it... That's not it...!!"

Was Kyoushiro unable to see or was just oblivious? Or was he just pretending that he doesn't see that Katsuto was obviously jealous of him with how Arianne was clinging to him? Koizumi, who already stopped laughing, was walking towards Kyoushiro and Katsuto along with Minami right by his side, who was smiling coldly at Kyoushiro.

"Are you really that dense or just playing?"

"I don't get what you're saying but can you take care of this guy? I can't have him act like that right before I give everyone my thanks"

"Thanks huh? Are you in a position...? No, you are in the right position to give thanks huh?"

Setting aside the mumbling, broken hearted [Guardian], Koizumi was about to say that Kyoushiro doesn't have any rights to give his thanks but as he remembered how everyone of the Ambrosia kingdom's citizens and soldiers admire him and call him "His Majesty" Koizumi rethink and accepted Kyoushiro's odd position as King.

Kyoushiro didn't mind getting insulted as he was already used to it but since Koizumi switched how he thought of Kyoushiro himself, Kyoushiro didn't bother saying anything. His eyes just silently said "Thanks for that" and exhaled.

"Haaa... Now then, since it's still early and I doubt everyone here didn't ate breakfast except for me and these two behind me, let's have a light meal and talk about everyone's rewards"

Although he was not the ruler of Ambrosia, he was still respected as the one who completely rebuilt the whole ruin. Even as Arianne as the Queen of Ambrosia, everyone recognizes Kyoushiro as the king. That was why; it well within his power to give something to the people that saved the place he rebuilt from scratch.

Durif, who stand right behind Elfianna the whole time, had his eyes wide when he heard about Kyoushiro giving rewards. His thought reached Elfianna somehow and was worried at what kind of reward the renowned Black hero would give them seeing as Ambrosia was currently the most advance city in the world.

Immediately after sorting things out with Katsuto, Kyoushiro lead everyone to a peaceful place that was hidden underneath the palace.

The place Kyoushiro lead everyone to was the secret underground garden. Here, the whole room around a complete 100 yards far was covered in greenery. The ceiling produces light that feeds the plants sunlight and a small canal system where water drawn from an underground vein was running through the whole room.

Not just plants like flowers, bushes and grass, there were even the trees here that touched the ceiling as they were taller than a few twenty meters. It was like they entered a different world, the deserted wasteland outside seemed nothing like a dead world compared to here.

"I didn't know that something like this existed underneath the palace Kyoushiro"

With her eyes wandering around, Arianne was amazed as to how such vegetation was growing underneath the earth. The health of every plant as outstanding, it was as if they are just inside a small forest garden.

Kyoushiro made an accomplished smile as if he had done something god.

"Well, I made this whole place right before I rebuilt the palace. This place was once a Desert Ant monster house before so after clearing the whole place, I made used of it"

Instead of making a dungeon room to keep all criminals here, Kyoushiro made the whole thing to a beautiful garden. Kyoushiro truly hate the idea of staying inside or seeing a prison cell as he was once brought and tortured inside it. Making one would just make him remember what he experienced back when he was falsely accused.

"This has a lot of rooms so I made various arrangements myself. Things like water reservoir for emergencies of water shortage, a shelter house, a dummy treasure vault, a training arena and a testing room for my experiments. I usually stay here to sleep but I haven't been here lately since I got caught up in some things"

Kyoushiro looked at the Queen that had left the tending of her kingdom to a hero. Arianne, who was sitting right next to Lucinda, was averting her eyes while sweating profusely. Arianne wasn't good at lying to begin with so Kyoushiro didn't think too much of it and just smiled.

In front of everyone was a lovely tea set and decorative sandwiches for a light lunch. Kyoushiro hasn't eaten yet while Lucinda and Aizawa seemed to have eaten before. They both had early breakfast back in the tower right before Kyoushiro woke up.

As for the others, Elfianna, in particular, was admiring the nature around her. Her eyes wandered around the place as though curiously wanting to ask how such nature exist underground. Durif was of the same opinion as he sips his tea with a satisfied smile.

"You have been busy before the incident it seems. I apologize on behalf of Arianne as I was one of those that wished to see her in person and acknowledge her country"

"Its fine, I don't mind it now since I've got some time to rest"

"It seems so"