Yuuki rested one hand on an antique, exquisitely crafted desk made from expensive blackheart wood. His fingers tapped lightly twice as his gaze settled on the three dossiers laid out before him—records of former Wizard Kings.
They were nothing like the version the Clover Kingdom presented to the outside world, where every past Wizard King had either sacrificed themselves nobly for the nation or stepped down in an orderly fashion.
These three—along with the previous Wizard King, Conrad—shared one thing in common: none of them had met a normal end. All had died under abnormal circumstances. The Vermillion family's archives recorded this with painstaking clarity—
so clear, in fact, that the arrogance unique to royalty practically seeped out between the lines.
Princia.
Born into a fallen noble house, she joined the Blue Rose Knights and rose through the ranks on an unbroken streak of victories. Her fame and prestige grew without pause, until the royal family selected and elevated her as the Eleventh Wizard King.
During the war with the Diamond Kingdom, royal advisers deliberately concealed intelligence that her family—and numerous civilians—had been taken hostage by the enemy. The war was won, but her family and those civilians all died.
Princia confronted the royal family over this betrayal.
Her reward was the stripping of her title and magic. She was exiled and confined to a remote village.
Later, that village was attacked by bandits. Having lost her grimoire and her power, Princia still chose to stand between the attackers and the villagers.
She died protecting them.
"A Wizard King who never knew defeat, brought down by mere bandits… How ironic."
A cold smile tugged at Yuuki's lips. The records on Princia were remarkably detailed—what he'd read was only his own summary.
Someone of Princia's caliber wouldn't be helpless even without a grimoire. A handful of mountain bandits could never have been enough to kill her.
In Yuuki's view, the true reason she was stripped of her title wasn't her conflict with the royal family—
but the fact that she had dared to side with commoners and peasants against them.
Jester.
Born to a high-ranking noble family, blessed with exceptional talent and an ideal upbringing, he became a Magic Knight at a young age. Along the way, he formed deep bonds with two Magic Knights of lower status—commoners, not nobles.
Rising swiftly on the back of overwhelming achievements, he became the Sixteenth Wizard King. But during that ascent, both of his closest friends died one after the other.
Their deaths twisted something inside him.
To prevent nations from constantly warring with one another and creating endless tragedies, Jester conceived an extreme solution—
to unify all four kingdoms through war.
A plan that earned him the full support of the populace. They called him the Mad King.
But his immense influence threatened the foundations of both the nobility and the royal family. In the end, the nobles conspired against him, and he died as a result.
Yuuki stared at Jester's file in silence for a long moment before murmuring four words:
"A genius… and a lunatic."
In a world that had never once been unified, anyone who sought to unite all nations was bound to be both.
Unfortunately—
his strength couldn't match his ambition.
The outcome had been inevitable.
Yuuki shook his head and turned to the final dossier.
Edward.
A noble by birth, yet uninterested in becoming a Magic Knight. He spent most of his life as a priest, taking in and caring for orphans within the church.
Then, a sudden attack wiped them all out.
Every orphan under his care was killed.
Consumed by rage, Edward annihilated the perpetrators with his magic. Determined to prevent such tragedies from ever happening again, he joined the Magic Knights.
Because he fought for the weak, he earned the support of commoners and peasants alike—and eventually became the Twentieth Wizard King.
But that very ideology trampled on the interests of the nobles and the royal family.
He was stripped of his title.
Edward didn't give up.
Instead, he formed a resistance army.
Seeking to save corrupted souls through destruction itself, he marched straight toward ruin—and failed.
"Impressive."
Yuuki couldn't help but voice his admiration.
Compared to the previous two, Edward—the priest who became Wizard King—seemed the most dangerous of them all.
Even after losing his title at the hands of nobles and royalty, he hadn't fallen into despair. He still possessed the ability to organize a resistance force—and even strike back directly at those who had wronged him.
That kind of resolve and capability…
It truly drove home the point that no one who became Wizard King was ever a simple figure.
Yuuki closed the dossiers and set them aside. Aside from their abnormal deaths, these Wizard Kings all shared another trait—
they held genuine goodwill toward commoners and peasants.
"Under a hierarchy where nobles and royalty stand above all else, that kind of thinking is a crime in itself—especially for a Wizard King."
Yuuki shook his head lightly. He had pondered this long ago: the very existence of the Wizard King system was meant to ease the divide between nobles and commoners.
Yet at its core, it still represented the interests of the royal family and the nobility.
To those above, these Wizard Kings were traitors to their own class.
To those below, they were heroes.
But—
failure was still failure.
Conrad's fate mirrored theirs. He, too, had ended up sealed away.
"So I really did underestimate just how ruthless the royals and nobles are… That said, Julius truly is something else."
Yuuki let out a note of genuine praise.
Looking at the history of the Wizard Kings, it was obvious how tightly the royal family controlled the title. Conrad's fate alone made that clear.
And yet—
Wizard King Julius's prestige had already surpassed that of the royal family itself.
Even in the face of the current Clover King, Augustus Kira Clover XIII, Julius could simply ignore him—while the king could do absolutely nothing in return.
And this was before Julius had even revealed his true strength.
"Tch… terrifying."
Yuuki muttered under his breath, then broke into a bright smile.
"I wonder… will I fail too?"
Studying these former Wizard Kings stirred an inexplicable urgency within him.
Even if he continued accumulating magic power— even if he obtained Underworld-tier magic—Yuuki still lacked confidence in defeating Wizard King Julius.
And that was assuming Julius didn't possess a Devil King's heart.
Underworld-tier magic could injure devils, yes—
but injuring and defeating were two entirely different matters.
He needed answers.
Answers about the conditions required to evolve a Clover Grimoire into a Four-Leaf Grimoire.
If even the royal family had no such records, then the rest of the Clover Kingdom likely wouldn't either.
Which meant—
there was only one place left.
The Witch's Forest.
With that decision made, Yuuki returned the files to their original place. In the next instant, his figure vanished from the Vermillion estate.
Elsewhere.
While Yuuki had been researching, the strategy he'd set in motion—having Domina's mostly useless magic tools dumped onto the black market as bait—had finally borne fruit.
"My lord, the target should be within the forest ahead," a member of the Eye of the Midnight Sun reported respectfully. "To avoid alerting him, I didn't follow further. His exact position is still unclear."
Yuuki was more than satisfied. He chuckled softly, nodded, and tossed a coin pouch from his robes.
"Well done."
"Thank you, my lord!"
Feeling the weight of the pouch, the man's face lit up with joy as he bowed deeply.
Yuuki waved him off, his gaze turning toward the dense forest ahead.
As expected,
When it came to tracking people, nothing beat the Eye of the Midnight Sun's manpower. Just like in his memories, Fanzell had indeed arrived near the capital during this period.
Once Domina's magic tools surfaced on the black market—
it was only natural that they'd lure Fanzell out.
End of Chapter
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