A moment later, Merlin, the court Magus and Great Sage of the Druids, approached in an elaborate purple-and-white mage's robe with his staff in his arms.
He opened a sealed chest, removed the exquisite golden crown resting upon a soft cushion of golden velvet, and walked toward the King of Knights with complicated emotions in his eyes.
Under countless watching gazes, the King of Knights raised her right hand slightly.
The silver lion-maned helmet and the sealed knightly armor covering her body automatically disengaged and retracted, finally revealing the mysterious true appearance of Britannia's ruler, one that few people had ever seen.
Her silky, soft golden hair reached her waist, shining like afternoon sunlight. A circular hair ornament gathered most of it neatly behind her head, while several loose strands of bangs fell across the bridge of her straight, delicate nose. Two locks rested gently upon her smooth, rounded shoulders.
Beneath thick, long eyelashes were eyes greener and clearer than flawless emerald.
Her slender eyebrows arched elegantly above moist, cherry-red lips pressed lightly together. Combined with her flawless, jade-white face and finely sculpted features, she looked almost impossibly sacred and immaculate.
Looking more closely, one could almost see a golden-green flame burning deep within those eyes, casting a cold, majestic light across her beautiful features.
There was only one small flaw.
A single strand of hair stood stubbornly upright at the center of her head, like an unusually conspicuous golden stalk of wheat left standing in a harvested field.
It slightly undermined her otherwise divine appearance, giving her a faint connection to the mortal world.
A pure-white cloak rested upon her slender shoulders, its tall collar rising like a lion's mane and adding both the aloof chill of someone beyond ordinary reach and the commanding majesty of a conqueror.
But following the line of her figure downward, past the snow-white curve of her neck and collarbones, the first thing that drew almost every man's attention was the pronounced fullness below.
Without the breastplate covering her, the upper portion of her blue dress was stretched taut.
A generous expanse of pale flesh pressed together like soft piles of snow, exposed to the air. The fabric had been pulled so tightly that even the golden embroidery along the chest had become slightly distorted.
Below those prominent curves was an astonishingly slender waist, delicate enough to seem as though one hand could encircle it.
For ease of movement, it was cinched tightly by a silver metal belt.
Shining silver-white greaves covered her long, full legs. The metallic sheen reflected against the soft luster of her skin, creating a striking beauty of its own.
Once that layer of steel was removed, everyone finally discovered that the King of Britannia who had led the Knights of the Round Table through countless campaigns possessed not only peerless beauty, but a mature, voluptuous figure as tempting as a perfectly ripened fruit on the verge of bursting.
More than one person found their mouth going dry and their throat moving unconsciously.
At the same time, however, her stern gaze swept down from above.
Every mortal entertaining improper thoughts suddenly felt as though a Great Dragon had turned its attention upon them.
Their hearts went cold.
One after another, they lowered their heads tremblingly, nearly prostrating themselves.
Only after recovering from the conflicting shock did a stunned thought arise in countless minds.
The famous King of Knights...
Was actually a woman?!
"Britannia, land blessed by the Dragon and the Queen. Today, in accordance with heaven's mandate, its authority returns to the hands of the Dragon and the Queen! God save the Queen!"
The Great Sage Merlin stepped forward solemnly, raising Britannia's golden crown high in both hands as he proclaimed the divine decree.
The Rose Emperor of Rome, who had brought advanced technology and culture to the Celts, had been a woman...
Boudica, the Queen of Victory who had once united Britannia and forged a shared cultural identity among the Celts, had also been a woman...
And now, the hero who had won the Twelve Dynastic Wars, defeated the Usurper King, united the Northern and Southern Realms, and driven away the Saxons was also a woman.
Therefore, the conclusion was obvious.
This land was born to be ruled by a Queen.
Only a Queen could lead Britannia to lasting prosperity!
Perfectly reasonable!
Completely reasonable!
"God save the Queen!"
The Knights of the Round Table and the Enforcement Knights erupted into a thunderous roar.
The spectators, their eardrums aching, finally snapped out of their daze. Swept up in the feverish atmosphere, they raised their arms and joined the cheering.
Samael halfheartedly shouted along a few times and suddenly felt as though he had been transported back to the British Empire.
At the same time, however, the Ancient Serpent noticed that the people of Camelot, upon learning the truth, had happily accepted the new Queen being crowned.
His gaze immediately turned sinister as he looked toward Merlin putting on his performance onstage.
You damned old fraud.
I was wondering why a coronation somehow dragged Nero and Boudica's history into it.
So all of that was groundwork for Artoria to reveal her true appearance and be crowned openly as a woman.
Which means those rumors ruining Boudica's reputation and mine...
You were the bastard who made them up, weren't you?!
The Ancient Serpent narrowed his eyes and viciously added another entry to the little black book in his heart for the charlatan onstage who was enthusiastically stirring up the crowd.
As the golden crown settled upon the King of Knights' brilliant golden hair, the newly crowned Queen slowly raised her head and extended her right hand, fingers curling slightly.
Responding to her divine will, countless Ether particles spiraled together overhead, forming a silver-white torrent visible to the naked eye.
The torrent gradually condensed within her outstretched hand into a silver-white lance formed from bands of light.
Hum!
Ether across the entirety of Britannia resonated.
The bands of light compressed to their limit, sweeping away the surrounding clouds and forming a vast hollow visible to the naked eye, as though a staircase had been built from the mortal world toward heaven itself.
Holding the Holy Lance Rhongomyniad, the goddess looked down upon the mortal world from within the immense Ether storm and solemnly proclaimed.
"I, Artoria Pendragon, hereby take the crown and declare that I shall accept heaven's mandate, guide Britannia, establish the Sacred Round Table Domain, build the perfect ideal city, and found a pure-white kingdom that shall endure for a thousand years!"
As the spiraling pillar of light rose into the sky, countless fragments of starlight scattered down.
Bathed in the sacred radiance, the people of Camelot suddenly felt invigorated.
Old illnesses accumulated within their bodies seemed to be swept away by the miracle descending from heaven, leaving them feeling almost ten years younger.
"God save the Queen!"
Those who had personally received the blessing gazed upward in rapture and awe.
Above them, the clouds had been torn apart as layer upon layer of heavenly gates seemed to open.
The people cheered for Britannia's new deity.
The grand coronation came to a successful conclusion.
Artoria ruling as a Queen not only failed to hinder her authority, but within just a few days the story had spawned countless versions and spread throughout Camelot and the surrounding cities, becoming one of the favorite topics of conversation among the people of Britannia.
Unfortunately, Samael was also one of the central figures in those rumors.
According to the increasingly ridiculous stories, he had supposedly transformed into a dragon and become involved with every imaginable humanoid and non-human creature throughout every era and region of Britannia.
At this point, Samael estimated that the rumors had practically completed the task of spreading his bloodline across the entire island.
As long as a legendary species lived somewhere in Britannia and happened to be female, someone could apparently find a way to connect her to him.
And there were even more outrageous scandals.
For example, some claimed he had slept with Boudica, both of her daughters, and even the Rose Emperor Nero...
Another version claimed Nero was actually the illegitimate daughter of Samael and Boudica.
The Christians once brutally suppressed by the Roman Empire had called Nero the Whore of Babylon, the seven-headed and ten-horned red dragon of the apocalypse, and the Beast of 666...
Others even claimed that the one who had violated the Duchess of Cornwall was actually that very same dragon in person.
Otherwise, where had Artoria's dragon blood come from?
Merlin...
You are so dead.
Surrounded day after day by increasingly outrageous rumors, Samael's eyes turned cold as he silently passed a death sentence upon a certain white-haired bastard.
For the moment, however, dealing with that old fraud would have to wait.
Two more important things had happened during this period.
The first was that after revealing her True Name and appearance, Artoria had chosen the lion and dragon as her symbols in order to distinguish herself from her former identity and began calling herself the "Lion King."
That meant if Britannia's situation continued developing in this direction, it might drift even farther from the proper course.
The second was Morgan.
Ever since returning from the coronation, her mood had remained noticeably poor.
And lately, she seemed to have begun researching potions and the creation of artificial life.