Author: Nikss

While a slightly embarrassed Morgana cleared her throat and regained her composure…

Excalibur’s voice rang in her head.

‘Master, it’s cramped in here.’

Right. Excalibur was behind them, of course…

‘That dark human is annoying, so can you tell him not to stick to you and to go to the back?’

In reality, having Excalibur between Kellive and Morgana didn’t change much.

‘Yeah. He’s just a means of transportation.’

Morgana quickly returned to her usual self and simply ignored his words. When she reached her hand toward the ground, Mangeum, who had been circling the horse and whining, leaped toward her.

Morgana put Mangeum inside her robe hood.

Thinking that it was essentially three people and one dog riding together made her feel less embarrassed. Morgana firmly wrapped her arms around Kellive’s waist purely for survival.

His Adam’s apple bobbed briefly.

She could feel his muscles tense beneath her arms, fitting together like pieces of a sculpture.

Morgana peeked up at him and asked.

“Kellive, are you tensing up too?”

Was it her imagination that his golden eyes darkened slightly?

He looked down at her for a moment before slowly lowering his head.

Just as she thought he was getting closer, thud, his forehead lightly brushed against hers for a brief moment.

Kellive called out to the knights who had come to see them off.

“I’ll be back. I leave the rest to you.”

“Uh, oh, uh. Y-yes?!”

As Gawain gave a creaky, broken-sounding farewell, the horse began to run with a clop clop. While quietly watching the departing horse, the knights beside Gawain whispered among themselves.

“When they return, won’t we be holding a national wedding?”

“Right. It’s the first time I’ve seen His Majesty like this.”

As expected, in a place without a ruler, all sorts of rumors spread.

Gawain, the captain of the royal guard, could not simply watch this. With a rigidly hardened face, Gawain barked at them.

“What nonsense are you all spouting? His Majesty is simply close to Britain’s ruler, that’s all!”

“Captain. Have you ever been in love?”

At someone’s question, Gawain answered solemnly.

“No. I live for Avalon and will die for Avalon!”

💫

In Avalon, there existed a forest that looked like flat land from a distance.

Thick, dense trees grew so lushly that the internal terrain was not visible from outside.

The reason the name Mount Badon was no longer used was that it wasn’t particularly high for a mountain.

No one had ever actually entered Mount Badon.

It was because the place was teeming with magical beasts.

However, for some strange reason, the magical beasts never came out of Mount Badon.

Since they didn’t cause harm as long as people didn’t enter, Avalon had long ago hidden the entire area with magic to prevent access.

As a result, most ordinary commoners didn’t even know of Mount Badon’s existence.

Crunch…

The sound of something breaking rang out from the forest of Mount Badon.

“Annoying.”

Mordred, wearing a robe, wiped the magical beast’s blood splattered on his face with his sleeve and frowned.

“Where the hell is the Holy Grail?”

Dozens of pairs of eyes gleamed in the dark forest.

Seeing them, Merlin flinched and stepped back. She roughly brushed her goosebump-covered arm with one hand and answered in a fed-up tone.

“There are too many magical beasts.”

Their forms couldn’t be clearly seen due to the darkness, but ever since they set foot on this land, every single one had charged at only Merlin and Mordred as if to kill them.

No matter how many they killed, it never ended.

They simply rushed in blindly to kill the intruders.

Mordred answered while casually killing the magical beast in front of him with black smoke.

“How long have we been in here? If you hadn’t lost the divine beast, we would have found it long ago.”

“I’m sorry…”

At his rebuke, Merlin could only bow her head.

Step, step…

She diligently followed Mordred, thoroughly searching the dark forest.

There were places where the ground suddenly sank and areas as high as hills.

Merlin poked the hill with a long branch and climbed up, looking around. Because of the dense trees, she couldn’t even guess where the Holy Grail might be.

Mordred, who had been walking ahead, let out a short voice filled with joy.

“Found it.”

Following his gaze, a cave hidden among the trees appeared.

“I can finally summon the Great Demon…!”

A fierce light shone in Mordred’s eyes as he entered the cave.

The entrance was only as tall as an adult male, but inside it was quite spacious. It seemed large enough to fit a room in a decent-sized mansion.

After walking for a while, a massive iron door blocking the entrance greeted them.

In the center, a dragon the size of a human face held a round door handle in its mouth.

Mordred’s black smoke slithered hissing into the gaps of the door to pry it open.

“Tsk, there’s no gap.”

With his irritated tone, the smoke spread out and disappeared.

Mordred nodded toward the iron door.

Merlin belatedly grabbed the round handle and pulled, but it didn’t budge.

After straining several times, Merlin shook her head.

“It doesn’t seem like a door that opens with force.”

“Then find another way, you incompetent fool. Should I just offer your blood?”

“I-I’ll look for it. I’ll find it.”

At his chilling tone filled with sincerity, Merlin turned deathly pale and desperately examined the area around the iron door.

There was a strange groove on the cave floor.

At first glance, it looked like a groove that the door would catch on when opened.

Merlin rubbed the groove with her foot.

Faint letters written in an ancient tongue were visible underneath.

“What does it say?”

At Mordred’s question, Merlin hesitated and fumbled.

“Well, I’m not very good at ancient tongue either…”

“Just what have you been doing as the acting high priest?”

“Couldn’t it be the condition to open the door?! There was a similar groove in the Holy Kingdom’s garden, too.”

The long, thin groove about the width of a finger felt familiar.

‘I heard Morgana stuck Excalibur into that groove…?’

Mordred’s eyes grew even fiercer.

“I know it requires dark magic power. Don’t tell me you’re saying we need Excalibur now. Holy power wouldn’t meet the condition in the first place.”

“There is a sword with dark magic power.”

At Merlin’s urgent explanation, Mordred’s eyebrows drew together for a moment.

“If you’re talking about a demonic sword…”

“It’s Tyrving. The one passed down through generations to the King of Avalon.”

Merlin answered desperately so she wouldn’t be scolded further. She had never once thought that Mount Badon would be in Avalon.

That was also why Mordred and Merlin had been unable to find it until now.

The Holy Grail was one of the sacred relics hidden by the gods.

They had thought there was no way something containing holy power would be hidden in a country ruled by the master of magic power and a demonic sword.

Mordred’s lips twisted cruelly to one side.

“If a demonic sword is needed to open the door hiding the Holy Grail, then it makes sense that it’s in Avalon.”

“Y-yes, exactly!”

Merlin nodded, trying to please him.

Mordred lightly wrinkled the bridge of his nose as he stared intently at the closed iron door.

“Hmm… a demonic sword…”

Merlin quietly observed his back for a moment.

The servile expression had disappeared, replaced by a cold and calculating demeanor quite different from her usual self.

But the moment Mordred turned to look at her again, she bowed obsequiously as if it had never happened.

“H-how should we proceed?”

“Are you seriously asking that? If Morgana comes, that damned King of Avalon will come with her!”

He irritably kicked the door with a bang and continued.