Celestine Cruelle Margareth

Somewhere in a certain part of land, where houses were built with different height, where the wealthy lives a normal and decent life and the poor ones who live right under them, a country that has no border walls unlike the others, as if it's deliberately telling the foreign countries to pay them a visit freely - This is the Kingdom of Kruule.

In the training ground in the middle of the two seperate district in the said country, the drums sounds as a knight attired in a black plated armor whips the ground with the black whip he carries with him, telling the people he supervises in training to push themselves further.

"Keep going! If you want to become part of the peerless and cunning soldiers of the kingdom of Kruule, if you don't want your family to pay the consequences of your inappropriate actions, don't stop!"

So as the supervisor said, the people ran an endless circle, strengthening their physical prowess through carrying huge boulders, the spell casters sharpens their mana control while practicing their magic, the bow users trains with their aim, while the swordsmen and other melee fighters trains in a joint combat practice.

In the midst of everything, where everyone have been training for who knows how long, one of them suddenly fall to the ground, as his body that almost looked like of a dead person as he trains restlessly gives in from the exhaustion and fatigue.

"Hey! Are you okay?!" One of the unknown fellows approaches the person who lies on the ground without moving an inch. The man observes the person carefully, looking to see if the person was still breathing, fortunately enough, the person is still alive. But the person's condition was in a terribly bad shape.

"S-Someone! Someone who can use healing magic, please heal him!" As the man screams for help to heal the person, one of the black armored knights approached the two.

"Hey, who told you to stop on your training?" The knight stares at the man with a wicked expression on his eyes.

"Please! Help him! He's been training endlessly with us for days and he barely gets any rest! He's too tired that it might kill him! Please treat him!" The man continued to plead for help, as he bows down to the knight just so the black armored knight would listen to him.

However, ignoring the knight's previous words, the man in a black armor grabs the other and pushes him away, asking him the same question from before. "I said who told you to stop on your training?!"

The people who stopped their training from the sudden commotion tries to approach the man who shrieks in pain after being thrown away by the black armored soldier, but before they could even take a step to get to the injured man, the movement of their feet halted after they saw the supervizing soldier glaring daggers at them.

A mere glare of a soldier froze the people from taking any action, showing how the people with lower status than the average person in the country lives in fear and despair.

The man struggles as he tries to get up on his feet, the feeling of pain surged through his frail and tired body after being thrown away mercilessly. Even so, he gathers up his remaining strength, he stands bravely with his quivering feet, facing the man who threw him with an unwavering determination in his eyes.

"That's it! I've had enough of living in this kingdom, no, this is hell!" His voice echoed throughout the whole training ground. Everyone's eyes lits up as they hear the man speaking the words that the others couldn't bring themselves to do it on their own.

"You dare talk against the kingdom, you bastard?!" the soldier raised his voice over the man. The two stared at each other's eyes, the standoff lasted for a few seconds. Until something came flying right beside the soldier's head, it was so fast that even the soldiers did not notice it.

In that moment, everyone's eyes were on the man's stained shirt being painted in red, apparently it was a blood coming from his heart, flowing down on his body underneath his shirt like a river. The thing that strucked his chest resembled the shape of a spearhead, connected in a silver chain that extends far enough to it's wielder who is standing not far behind the soldier in a black armor.

"It looks like there's a miscalculation with our newly recruited soldiers, I see~." A female voice spoke, talking in a weirdly sing-song tone as it comes from the wielder standing not far from the soldier, along with a few other people with their faces being hidden from the shadows, the wielder pulls the chain, pulling the spearhead shaped edge that was deeply stabbed directly at the person's heart by force.

The pull was quite strong that the edge took the man's heart along with it. The poor man's heartless body or perhaps lifeless body fell on the ground slowly with him facing the surface. The people who watched the horrible display of cruelty were left frozen in fear. Feared that the same fate would come their way if they let their emotions takeover their actions.

Some of them looks away, the others closes their eyes while their heads were downlow over the situation. They knew there was nothing that they can do for the man who died but to look away from the horrible reality of going against the kingdom that caged them with fear and cruelty.

The chain returns to its owner, with her empty hand taking the heart of the innocent fellow who only wanted to get out of the living hell he was in. Actually, he did get out of the hellish country that is Kruule, although it happened in a painful way.

The blood surrounding the disembodied heart soaked the hand of the person who holds it. Surprisingly, the person does not show disgust over the said blood channeling down her hand. Instead, the person began shrieking with laughter.

"Amazing! It's so soft and tender and squishy. I could play with this thing all day!"

The black knights quickly goes down on their knees to give respect and honor to the person in front of them. The supervising soldier greets the young lady passionately.

"Oh welcome to the training grounds, my lady. May I ask you what you came here for?"

The people from the background, the crowd of people who're being trained without any time to rest follows the soldiers lead and lowers their heads on to the ground as they started mumbling around each other.

"It's her. The daughter of the cruel king and the evil witch, Celestine Cruelle Margareth."

"The woman who's far cruel and evil than the cruel king and the evil witch."

"Damn her!"

"Hey lower your voice!"

As the crowd lowers still their head over the princess of Kruule, the princess answers the soldier who asks of her sudden arrival.

"Well, I've been taking a walk with the others while we wait for our carriage to be ready, until I heard the sudden commotion in here, so I decided to pay a visit..."

Celestine turns around as she stares around the people who hides their faces on the floor. They were all too scared that they couldn't get themselves to look in her eyes. Celestine then continues to speak.

"...It looks like there's a little bit of an error in taking in all these people to be part of our... my army."

The tension coming from her words sends a chill down on everyone's spine. Some are soaking with their sweat over their nervousness, the others have their hands and feet trembling relentlessly over the presence of Celestine. Even the soldiers were trying their best to not act in a way that would upset the princess.

At that time, Celestine extends her hand that is holding the heart of the man she killed to the one soldier who stood on the way of the chain earlier.

"Bring this over to his family, and bring his corpse and that other corpse to the cerberus pit. It'll be a waste if we just let them rot around here."

"Understood!"

With the other soldiers dispatched in the area, they took the two bodies off the training ground as it was being sent to the Cerberus Pit that shooked everyone as they heard its name. While the one soldier was tasked to bring the heart of the man to his family. And just when they thought it was all over, Celestine glares at the four who were gossiping over her a while ago. Apparently, Celestine hears them mumbling to each other earlier. And thus, Celestine ordered the supervising soldier:

"That four, bring them over to the torture chamber. I'd like to play a game with them once I get back."

The four people she pointed her fingers at got worked up after they realized that they were going to be sent to the torture chamber.

"What?!"

"N-no! Not the torture chamber!"

Soldiers quickly approaches the four people, blocking all the path they could escape from. The four tries to resist the soldiers grip, but that resulted into violence as the soldiers hits the four people brutally, taking them down and making them unconcious. And without resistance from the unconcious men and the people who watch in silence on the back, they were all sent to the torture chamber.

As the soldiers taking the four people away, the princess warns the other people who were left in the training ground. Threatening them for taking any action against the kingdom.

"See this as an example for any of you who tries to betray or take actions against the kingdom of Kruule, against me."

"I'll make sure you experience something worse than those mongrels."

As everyone was taken aback after hearing the threatening words from the cruel princess, one of the few people accompanying her talks and tells Celestine:

"Lady Celestine, everything is set, it's time to go."

"Ah, yes. I'll go get cleaned up and changed." Celestine performs a malicious smile as she continues. "I can't wait to see the kingdom... my mother... and my brother."