The Desperate Princess of a Fallen Kingdom Was Looking for a Hero... So I (the Hero) Decided To Look With Her - Chapter 2

The ascent of consciousness felt like peeling away layers of skin stuck to a cold, damp stone floor—slow, painful, one strip at a time. It was too sluggish to be called awakening, accompanied instead by the discomfort of being dragged forcibly from the depths of mud.

The first thing to pierce her nostrils was the dense, stagnant air unique to sealed spaces; the sour, earthy stench of mold accumulated over years, the dry dust of abandoned books and rotting fabric, and above it all, the cloying reek of something rotting decisively in the distance, a sweet stench of death. It was like life’s final proclamation after its end, or perhaps a premonition of the future awaiting them.

Next, she felt the hard, piercing cold against her back, stealing her body heat inch by inch. Her body, accustomed only to the softness of fine bedding, screamed at the absolute rejection of stone. Jagged unevenness dug into her joints as she lay there, carving dull pain into her flesh.

Even when she forced her heavy eyelids open, there was no light. A complete, physical absence of it, an absolute darkness where keeping her eyes open or closed made no difference. It was a bottomless void that stole sight, numbed direction, and blurred even her own existence. The darkness amplified sound. Nearby, someone’s shallow, labored breathing repeated. Inhale, exhale, the faint pauses between laced with the premonition of death. Then, just when she had forgotten, a single plink. A drop of water, sliding down the wall to strike a distant puddle with a cold, clear sound. That lone droplet was the only proof that time still flowed in this endless silence and dark.

“…Princess, have you awoken…?”

A voice emerged from the pitch-black void—frail, powerless, like weathered bones scraping together. It took her seconds to recognize it as belonging to the elderly attendant, Balfour. The once-resonant voice that had filled the morning audience hall was now a shadow of itself, flickering weakly like a candle on the verge of burning out.

Sylphia did not answer. It was as if she had forgotten how to speak. Slowly, she forced her creaking body upright, lashing her stiff muscles into motion. Every movement made her shoulder joints scream. Each vertebra shifted awkwardly like rusted hinges, and deep in her skull, a dull pain reverberated as if a great bell had been struck from within—thud, thud.

Then, in the darkness, a tiny spark scattered—chiri. The hard clink of flint was followed by the faint scent of burning sulfur. Soon after, with a muffled whoosh, a torch ignited in orange flame. The feeble light, barely resisting the wind, hesitantly pushed back the surrounding darkness.

What the light revealed was a corner of a vast underground storeroom deep beneath the royal castle. Once, this place had been stacked high with wine barrels and grain sacks, symbols of the kingdom’s prosperity. Now, all that remained were collapsed walls, shattered barrel fragments, and the dozen or so people who had miraculously or perhaps as part of an ongoing nightmare survived the “punishment” that had rained from the heavens that day.

Covered in soot and grime, their clothes worn and faded, their eyes utterly devoid of the light of will to live. Deep wrinkles lined their faces, cheeks hollow, lips parched. They were no longer the kingdom’s last subjects merely survivors. No, “those who failed to die” was a far more accurate description of the air here. They did not move, only stared blankly at the torchlight, like crude puppets bereft of will.

How many days had she slept?

When had she last been conscious?

Such questions didn’t even cross Sylphia’s mind. They didn’t matter. The past, the present, and the now-nonexistent future all seemed equally worthless.

The days that followed were a repetition of waiting, waiting for time itself to rot away as they inched toward a slow death. Colorless, flavorless, soundless, emotionless.

The kingdom had fallen.

The depth of despair those words carried was impossible to fully grasp. Completely, without a trace.

The king was dead. The people were dead. The kingdom’s undefeated knights, its magnificent castle, the bustling streets of the capital. All had melted into light, twisted in heat, and turned to ash. The dozen here were the last, pitiful remnants of a kingdom whose might had once resounded across the continent.

At some indiscernible hour between morning and noon, an emaciated maid would bring something in a wooden bowl. A watered-down, unidentifiable soup. The grayish liquid carried only a faint earthy smell, no taste to speak of. Sylphia would merely wet her lips before stubbornly refusing more. The maid’s empty eyes would linger on her, as if wanting to speak, but eventually, she would withdraw the bowl in resignation. Sylphia couldn’t comprehend the act of consuming nutrients to survive. Why live? In this world where everything had already ended.

Balfour visited her once a day, carrying the remnants of a torch. His words no longer held the sweet delusion of revival only merciless reports counting down to death.

“…The northern reservoir mud has seeped in through cracks in the wall. It’s undrinkable now. The murk is too thick some are falling ill. ”

His voice echoed heavily in the damp underground air. Somewhere, someone coughed dryly.

“The last of the dried meat stores… will last only three more days. After that we’ll have to scrape moss from the walls…”

Licking his cracked lips, he lowered his gaze. Everyone knew what lay at the end of that look only despair.

“The western passage was completely buried in the earlier collapse. There’s no path to the surface left…”

The gogogo of what had surely been a tremor earlier that sound had severed their last hope.

One by one, the options for survival vanished with audible finality. All that remained was the act of confirming it. No one cried anymore. No one even lamented. Tears and grief had long since dried up. Their bodies seemed to understand that emotional fluctuations only wasted what little vitality remained.

Sylphia spent her days curled up on a crude bed by the wall, knees drawn to her chest. Her eyes stared fixedly into the deep darkness of the room’s corner, where the torchlight did not reach. What she saw there, no one knew perhaps not even herself.

Occasionally, without warning, the events of that day flashed back.

A brand seared into her mind, impossible to peel away.

The city in flames. Crimson-black fire licking the sky, familiar buildings collapsing into blackened skeletons. The scorching wind carried the stench of burning flesh and the screams of the dying.

Her father, the king, his profile twisted in madness. Shouting something toward the heavens in the throne room, eyes wide, devoid of sanity.

And then before her eyes.

Alan’s last gentle gaze, vanishing soundlessly into particles of light like scattered cherry petals. What he had tried to say in that final moment, the shape of his lips she would never know.

Even as those images crossed her mind, her heart remained still as a windless lake’s surface. No ripples of sorrow, anger, or even despair. The vessel for emotion had shattered that day, the moment his existence vanished from the world.

She had stopped living.

Now, she was merely a beautiful husk. Her heart beating out of inertia, her lungs breathing unconsciously. The mere fact of her survival had become an unbearable punishment, quietly, slowly eroding her soul. That was all her world consisted of now.

The change came on the night their last food ran out, when the torch oil would last only until dawn, and everyone had begun to feel death’s cold breath on their skin.

The underground air felt colder, heavier than usual. The survivors huddled around the final torch, but no one spoke. The flickering flames cast deep shadows across their hollow cheeks.

That day, too, Sylphia sat apart from the others on her bed, knees drawn up, staring into the dark. Into that space, Balfour’s voice came rasping, desperate, like a drowning man gasping for air.

“…Princess, please hear this one last thing…”

Leaning against the wall, he mustered the last of his strength to bring the dying torch closer to Sylphia. The trembling light illuminated his face. Beads of sweat on his brow, eyes sunken, his visage like a mummy’s. In his hand was a tattered ancient tome, its cover worn, pages browned and brittle. It was the kingdom’s founding chronicle, passed down through generations of royalty. The one thing he had miraculously salvaged from the rubble of the king’s study.

“We’ll all die here regardless. So at least let us hear the tale of our kingdom’s beginning…”

It was no longer even comfort. More like a requiem for the dying to inscribe upon their own graves. Perhaps this was the old retainer’s final duty to etch into their hearts, one last time, proof that the kingdom they served had truly existed.

Between dry, hacking coughs—goh, goh. Balfour turned the brittle parchment pages with trembling fingers. The dry, fragile parari of paper echoed in the silence. Then, in a hoarse voice, he began to read.

The tale of creation. A common myth of a goddess emerging from chaos, dividing light from dark, shaping the earth.

The heroic saga of the first king, who received the holy sword Ascalon from that goddess and founded their nation. A well-worn fairy tale of slaying monsters, repelling evil dragons, and bringing peace to the people.

The dull recitation echoed through the dim underground like a lullaby for those awaiting death. The other survivors listened with closed eyes. It was doubtful they even understood the words anymore, but perhaps the mere sound of a human voice spared them, if only slightly, from the loneliness of death.

As Sylphia listened, her consciousness began to sink slowly into a comfortable darkness. Toward a deep, tranquil sleep from which she would never wake. That was fine. That was good. It would end everything.

“…Chapter Five, the final passage… ‘—When the kingdom’s history spans a thousand years, and a great calamity descends from the heavens to sunder the earth, when the blood of man flows as rivers to drown the land…’”

At those words, Sylphia’s fading consciousness reacted just slightly, but sharply, as if a cold needle had been thrust into her slumber. Behind her eyelids, something flickered.

“‘…When the people’s lamentations reach the heavens, and the goddess’s tears fall as gray rain, beware. It is not the end, but the sign of a beginning. By the ancient covenant, from beyond the world’s logic, a single visitor shall appear.’”

Balfour’s voice grew slightly stronger, mustering the last of his strength. In the depths of his sunken eye sockets, Sylphia saw a faint light flicker in the dark.

“‘That one, though bearing human form, is not human. Within them, they carry the gods’ caprice—shattering stars, shaking the earth. Their name shall be—’”

A momentary silence.

Balfour inhaled—a loud, rasping sound.

Then—

 “The Hero.”

Hero.

That single word.

Like a bolt of lightning from the heavens striking directly into a heart that had stopped beating, it pierced Sylphia’s body.

Into the hollow of her chest, into the void where her soul’s darkness had spread, that word alone plunged like white-hot iron sizzle. Something that had been still began to move a rusted gear, screeching gi, gigigi, forced into motion.

“…Hero…”

For the first time in days, Sylphia’s own voice left her lips. Hoarse, dry, barely recognizable as her own, wrung from the depths of her throat.

Encouraged by her reaction, Balfour continued.

“‘The Hero appears to wipe away the world’s tears. With their unreasonable power, they shall right the twisted causality, repaint despair as hope. Therefore, do not despair. O last king, wait with hope in your heart for their coming.’”

Balfour finished reading just as Sylphia tumbled from her bed, crawling toward him on all fours. The bed clattered loudly, drawing startled looks from the other survivors.

“…Give me that…!”

The force in her voice was unimaginable coming from her hollow shell. Uncaring of the dirt and dust, she scrambled to Balfour and snatched the ancient tome from his hands. The dry, rough texture of the parchment felt unnervingly vivid against her fingertips. The rusty scent of aged ink stung her nose sharply.

Holding the book up to the flickering torchlight, she devoured that passage reading it over and over, again and again.

Her trembling fingers traced the characters for “Hero” as if confirming their reality, tracing them like a madwoman. Those words alone seemed blacker, deeper, shining with absolute meaning compared to the rest.

“Princess…?”

Balfour’s voice wavered with fear at her sudden transformation. The Sylphia reflected in his eyes was no longer the princess he knew.

This was it.

The only way.

This hopeless reality. This world abandoned by gods and fate, where nothing went as desired. The one and only possibility to overturn it all.

A legend? A fairy tale?

It didn’t matter. Rational thought had long since turned to ash.

For her now, no other “meaning” existed. In her hollow world where even the meaning of living and dying had been lost, this was the sole absolute “command” that had been dropped upon her.

For the first time, a clear light dwelled in her vacant eyes.

But it was not the glow of hope.

It was the cold, fanatical light of one possessed—a light so chilling it seemed to freeze the very air.

From that day onward, Sylphia became a different creature.

She transformed into a precise machine, moving not to live, but solely to fulfill one singular purpose: “Find the Hero.”

At dawn, when the underground darkness was at its deepest, she rose on her own. While the other survivors slept like the dead, she drank the last remaining water from the storage tank, ignoring its muddy stench, and scraped the faintly green moss from the walls with her fingers to eat. She tasted nothing only the gritty texture of dirt and water on her tongue. It was not a meal, merely “fuel” to keep the machine called her body running.

By day, she moved in the cramped space of the storeroom. First, exercises to regain her strength. Then, she took the rusted sword leaning against the wall and swung it over and over. The only sound in the silence was the whoosh, whoosh of the blade cutting through air. Her movements held no hesitation, no emotion only the precise, flawless repetition of actions programmed for her purpose. Even as sweat poured and her breath grew ragged, her expression never changed.

At night, by the dwindling flame of the torch she had taken from Balfour, she scoured every inch of the ancient texts. Were there any other descriptions of the “Hero”? Any scrap of information would do the visitor’s traits, the place they would appear, the time. But the records held nothing beyond those few lines. Still, she read the page again and again, until the parchment threatened to fray.

To the survivors, Balfour chief among them her presence did not bring joy, but a quiet, deep terror.

The princess had not regained the will to live.

Something far more incomprehensible, something terrifying, had taken hold of her.

From her lips came only one response to any question:

“I must find the Hero.”

It was not a declaration brimming with hope.

It was an absolute “mission,” imposed upon one who was not even permitted to die.

It was a new, far more powerful curse, binding her heart for eternity.

“And if the Hero is never found?”

That question no longer existed within her. She would find them. No other future was set in her world. If she did not find them, she would keep searching. Forever. That was all.

And then, three days later.

On the night the torch finally burned out, plunging the underground back into complete darkness.

Sylphia made her decision.

While the survivors drifted between shallow sleep and wakefulness, she moved without a sound. By touch alone, she packed the last water skins and scraps of dried meat meant to sustain them into her bag without hesitation. She heard someone’s faint breathing in the dark, but not a shred of guilt rose within her. They would die here. That was already decided. She had to live to fulfill her mission. That was all. A simple, logical fact.

She donned the crude leather armor Balfour had salvaged from her father’s study and fastened her father’s longsword, his keepsake at her waist. Its weight only hardened her resolve.

“…Princess… please wait…”

From the darkness, Balfour’s frail voice called out to stop her. He had not been sleeping. He had understood everything.

“…Please stay safe…”

Those were the last words the old retainer could muster. There was no accusation, no sorrow only pure, desperate prayer.

Sylphia turned just once toward the voice. But in the dark, her eyes reflected no emotion. She gave a small nod, then turned away, disappearing alone into the northern passage a narrow gap barely wide enough for one person, unlike the western path half-buried in rubble.

A long, long darkness, leading to the surface.

Step by step, as she trudged over debris, the presence of those waiting to die faded behind her. The stench of mold and death thinned, replaced by a cold wind carrying the dry scent of ash of things burned to nothing brushing against her cheeks.

How long had she walked? Eventually, the slope gentled, and ahead, a gray light different from the darkness appeared.

She stood before the ruined gates of a once-familiar castle.

The massive doors, once adorned with intricate reliefs to proclaim the royal family’s majesty, now lay half-collapsed, exposing their pitiful remains. Beyond them stretched an endless, desolate wasteland of gray. The sky, the earth everything was dyed the same hopeless shade. The wind howled, carrying the dry rustle of ash past her ears.

Sylphia looked back just once at her homeland.

The black silhouette of the crumbled royal castle. The hushed ruins of the city. And the leaden sky, choked by thick, suffocating clouds.

She seared the sight into her mind without blinking, then pressed her dry lips tightly together.

“…I will find you.”

That vow was not meant for anyone to hear. It was an absolute command, carved into her very soul.

Not a word of hope to save this kingdom.

But a heavy, heavy curse one that would shackle her heart, her emotions, her very humanity, ensuring that the long, brutal journey ahead would strip her of what made her human.

In the coldest, darkest hour before dawn.

The icy wind sweeping across the wasteland fluttered her hooded cloak like the garb of a wraith.

Princess Sylphia took her first small step alone into the gray wasteland of a ruined world.

Crunch. The dry sound of her footstep on the ashen earth echoed unnaturally loud in the world’s end.