Ch.4444. The Peculiar Fate of the Kingdom of Levia (1)

How long has it been since the avatar was created?

‘Hmm, hmmmm.’

As I busily darted around delivering news using my wolf avatar, it suddenly occurred to me that I needed an avatar for operating in the spiritual realm.

Right now, I’m moving around directly, but if the day comes when I become a high-ranking… or even a mid-ranking deity.

In the worst case, if I appeared in person, I might accidentally kill my believer while trying to bestow a blessing.

So, in order to prepare avatars for use in dreams or visions,

I began gathering fragments of divinity to create several forms.

Since avatars used for this purpose essentially require an air of mystery,

I started designing their appearances to be more ambiguous and abstract.

An avatar in the form of a massive red wolf with an imposing size and majestic appearance,

and an avatar with a human form bearing a red wolf’s head are just the beginning.

An avatar in the form of a knight-lord, wearing black and blood-red full-body armor created based on the war deity aspect,

wrapped in a solemn atmosphere and dignity like a cloak.

An avatar in the form of an old soldier with short white hair, white beard, and impressive red eyes that, despite his age, exude charisma.

An avatar in the form of a handsome young man taking the shape of “the most ideal vampire.”

And finally, the one I put the most effort into creating—an avatar in the form of an old sage,

distinctive for his glossy blood-red robe, a knockoff Ganda—… avatar.

For now, I’ll wrap things up here… but at the same time, I had a certain intuition.

That I would probably end up with dozens, if not hundreds, more avatars.

※ ※ ※

To the south of the Rom Empire, across the inland sea on the opposite shore.

There lies a small kingdom called the Kingdom of Levia.

Of course, while small in size, the Kingdom of Levia was known to have a history several times longer than the Rom Empire and was highly regarded for its substantial foundations.

It has abundant fertile land advantageous for agriculture, vast plains perfect for livestock farming, forests dense with straight and sturdy trees, and mountain ranges containing various mineral deposits.

Particularly, those forests filled with straight and sturdy trees.

The quality of the timber is so excellent that it’s perfect for building good ships, and the coastal areas are famous as golden fishing grounds.

During the sardine spawning season, it’s said that the sea turns white with sardine milt, which naturally led to the development of shipbuilding and fishing industries.

As a result of this advanced shipbuilding technology, the Kingdom of Levia became a small but powerful nation, protecting its weakness of a small population with a navy superior to any other of its time.

About 100 years after that brilliant past.

“Fuck, fuck, fuuuuuck!!!”

The Kingdom of Levia was rushing toward catastrophe every day.

This dark age began with Barca XII, who succeeded Barca XI, considered the greatest ruler in the history of the Kingdom of Levia.

In the early days of his reign, he continued the golden age through his father Barca XI’s legacy, the vigor of youth, and his own exceptional governing skills—though not quite matching his father, who was considered superhuman… but.

One day, his wife was killed by his stepmother who had intended to assassinate him but failed, and like King Gongmin who lost his Noguk Princess, he completely degenerated into a tyrant.

He would sexually assault 11-year-old boys naked in the streets, dismember his executed stepmother and consume her as a meal, reach the pinnacle of extravagance with the national budget, and employ strange individuals as his close associates.

Barca XII, who seemed determined to destroy the country, eventually died after falling into the water during a boat party (a threesome on a boat), and Barca XIII, who was truly only 13 years old at the time, ascended to the throne.

Barca XIII was the eldest illegitimate son born between Barca XII and his concubine, and was greatly favored by XII, securing his position as the royal successor.

Fortunately, Barca XIII was genuinely kind and diligent, a model student type… but.

The problem was that, perhaps due to his young age and gentle nature, he was too kind and naive, surrendering power to his birth mother, Barca XII’s concubine.

And since Barca XII’s extravagant and dissolute concubine could hardly be expected to be a sensible person, naturally, after this transfer of power, the Kingdom of Levia’s true dark age began.

The bureaucratic verification system, which filtered candidates by connections and then by ability, collapsed, and positions were priced and sold at government offices.

Even the great British Empire had some degree of selling offices, and if done with moderation, it could have the positive effect of increasing the budget… but how could that be expected?

Of course, all the money obtained from selling offices went into the pockets of the concubine and the kingdom’s ministers, so the national budget decreased rather than increased.

Moreover, those who attained high positions through purchased offices wanted to earn at least the price they paid from their positions.

Naturally, the budget became a common property whose ownership changed depending on who took it first.

As a result, the bureaucratic system, which had been so systematic as to be called mechanical for an ancient state, collapsed, causing the entire Kingdom of Levia to falter… but who would have known?

That this was merely the beginning.

The concubine of Barca XII was a typical greedy and wicked in-law, but at least she was the type of person with her head screwed on right.

At the very least, she knew well how to maintain her position, like the Andong Kim clan, so she tried to keep the Levian Royal Guard under her control.

This royal guard was a loyal organization that had sworn absolute allegiance to their superiors—and beyond that, to the king of Levia. They would never listen to her, who was merely the former king’s concubine and the current king’s birth mother… but.

The concubine asked the king to grant her command and control over them, and using this authority, she committed the atrocity of transferring the position of Guard Captain to her own brother.

She gained military power to protect herself in case of physical conflict, and successfully made the king, the source of power, her puppet.

Thus, at this point, her power reached its peak, and it seemed no one could stop her.

Barca XIII, who couldn’t help but know of her wickedness, was practically brainwashed from childhood through continuous gaslighting, and she completely isolated the palace from the outside world by replacing all the servants and attendants with her own relatives.

Externally, she wielded her position of regent, obtained through what was essentially extortion, to the point of overstepping her authority, and committed eccentric acts such as killing people for trivial reasons—or even acting as a high-class prostitute as a hobby.

She even went so far as to take over the temple of Levia’s guardian deity as her villa because it was splendid, so her influence was at a sky-high level.

But things in this world don’t always go as one wishes.

“Guh, guh…”

“Die, you bitch!”

Was it divine punishment from the guardian deity for her insult, or was it the inevitable result of her karma?

The second son of Barca XII, who was the son of the legal wife and legally the rightful heir, led members of the royal guard in a rebellion and killed the concubine regent.

Having harbored such deep resentment that he had trained to the point of awakening aura, he personally stabbed her in the stomach, then rushed to the palace where Barca XIII was to succeed to the throne—

“…Huh.”

He discovered that Barca XIII had already died of acute heart failure, but the concubine had concealed this to maintain her power. Lamenting the reality, he ascended to the throne as Barca XIV, the legitimate successor of the Kingdom of Levia.

And thus everything worked out well for a happy ending—or so one would hope… but reality is cruel.

“This, this, this bitch didn’t leave a place without shitting on it—!!!”

He felt like resurrecting the concubine, who had been thrown to the people with a hole in her stomach but still breathing, only to be torn to pieces, just so he could tear her apart again with his own hands.

To that extent, the state of the kingdom that the concubine had destroyed was beyond imagination.

As a result of unchecked office-selling, the once-praised bureaucratic layer had evaporated into “debt,” and those who filled the vacant positions were mostly incompetent fools who didn’t even understand basic administration.

In other words, the current officials were by default incompetent yet greedy, with over 90% of taxes being embezzled, and even the remaining 10% wasn’t properly used but went into the concubine’s slush fund.

Naturally, in a situation where the budget was being embezzled like this, it was impossible to maintain the navy, which was famously expensive.

The ports were stripped of anything that could be sold, leaving only shells, and most naval officers who had risen through office-buying sold fleets to civilians—or even to hostile nations or pirates—to recoup the cost of their positions.

Yet despite this, they maintained the number of sailors to create positions for their relatives, treating these sailors as private armies fed with state money.

As a result, public order collapsed, and coastal villages were routinely plundered by the proliferating pirates, while the maritime hegemony that had been painstakingly built up also collapsed.

Moreover, most of the land had been seized by nobles, leaving virtually no independent farmers, with most reduced to tenant farmers. They were even growing cash crops instead of food crops, causing a domestic wheat shortage that required imports… but.

With fewer than four naval vessels remaining, any imports would likely be plundered entirely.

And in this situation, even his own reputation was at its worst, to the point where even his close associates who had joined the rebellion asked if he had really killed Barca XIII.

He was plagued by all sorts of false rumors about the treatment of Barca XIII.

Nevertheless, Barca XIV was enduring solely out of a sense of responsibility for his position and a mission not to let this country perish during his reign.

He was somehow replacing the incompetent officials one by one, using what remained of the royal guard to butcher potential rebels who were soldiers in name only and turn them into fertilizer, and venturing into the emerging salt industry.

Taking comfort in the fact that he had managed to reconcile with the temple, he was barely patching up the tattered nation—when at that very moment.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…”

A major incident occurred that completely shattered his resolve.