If Drei had to describe his past life, then it was crap.
Oppressed and not needed by anyone.
With the memory of a world he could never go back to.
Those times were so painful that he felt like he would kill himself.
The only solace in this hell-like place was his sister.
Gretel. Though she was not called like that then.
Like him, she had a memory of another world. The two of them never asked what their past life was. They simply decided to live as they could.
They saw the medieval world and wished to change it.
Slowly, he began to see himself as some sort of messiah whose goal was to bring science to the world.
How laughable and absurd.
When the two of them finally became of age, they were sad to realize that they had in fact no talent. Their capacity points were ridiculously low.
This wasn’t surprising.
90% of humans were born without the talent necessary to even make contact with the lowest ranked magical being.
That was normal.
But…In that world filled with war and death.
Being powerless meant that you were destined to be used and then discarded.
It was then that Hansel realized that he was no protagonist.
He was nothing but a kid with the disillusion of grandeur.
A brother who could not protect his sister.
If everything proceeded as normal, they should have simply died in a ditch because of hunger or gotten sold as a slave or even worse.
Gretel was beautiful after all and it was harder to hide her beauty as she grew.
One day though, the two of them met a witch in the woods.
It was no gentle witch.
Simply a woman full of malice who did not hesitate to absorb the life force of men in order to grow her power.
Once she got them, she helped Gretel become a witch in order to have some assistant help her with her experiments and she used him as a life force battery, always taking a little out of him as if he was some great source of food.
This was her demise.
Together, the two of them managed to take down the witch.
They even decided to change their names.
He could still remember her impish smile,
“Hahaha, do you know this story where two siblings meet a witch in a house made out of sweets and were nearly eaten by her?”
“Heh..?”
“Don’t you think this is really similar to what happened to us? If so, rather than using the name those shitty parents gave us. Why not take on a new name on our own?”
“Hah…”
“But this isn’t enough. We need a surname.”
“A surname? Only nobles have surnames.”
“Hehehe! Your big sis is a witch now! I am far nobler than a normal noble, right? Maybe?”
“You aren’t sure?”
“Don’t sweat the small details. Well then. Since I chose our name, how about you find us a family name?”
Hansel was startled, but looking at her sparkling eyes, he couldn’t help but nod and thought seriously. In the end, as a science fanatic, many names came to him, but only one really stuck with him. Because of a bold theory he had.
“Darwin…”
“Ohh? From the theory of evolution? Hehe. Okay, From now on, we are Darwin.”
Without waiting for him to change his opinion, she nodded to herself as if pleased with the way the names sounded, “Umu, this is decided. My name is Gretel Darwin. Happy to meet you, Hansel Darwin.”
Her smile. A pure smile full of joy without any malice or darkness in it. Even though they had luckily managed to survive, she showed no sign of fear.
On that day. Hansel swore that he would protect her.
…However, he failed.
He was powerless to protect her.
In the face of the power of the church, a weak witch like Gretel and a powerless human like him were no match.
They were executed for Blasphemy against the goddesses.
Thus ended the pitiful short life of two mortals.
At least….This was how it should have ended.
—-
https://youtu.be/5Yamu70Z_FI(Mozart Lacrimosa)
As someone who was reincarnated, Drei was different from most Kings who awakened their name without really knowing the significance behind it.
In the past, the Duke rank was known as the Legend rank, while the King rank was called Myth.
He had long since understood a part of the reality of this world.
"Nent, do you ever wonder what an ant must feel like when it's put in a sandbox and lives its full life without ever knowing it wasn't really Free?"
Dark, heavy music began to fill the air. Meanwhile, the skeleton of Drei slowly was covered by muscle fiber then skin until what stood in front of Nent was no lich at first glance but a normal human.
In his human form, Drei, with his black hair and rectangular glasses gave the impression of being a great scholar.
For a human to reach the king level, he needed to act in a certain way and satisfy certain conditions. The more conditions were met, the higher the chance of awakening a name.
But what were the conditions? What path should they follow?
For being in this world, it was impossible to know and this was why they simply acted as they pleased.
But Drei was different.
He wasn't too interested in myths but as a man of modern society, there was simply too much he knew.
When he was still alive with his sister, he really wondered what name he should get.
Sadly he wasn't even able to become a Duke back then.
It was only after dying and coming back to life that he broke through his limitations and it was while imprisoned in hell that he understood his path.
His path was not one of gods nor spirits.
He wanted to show the greatness of humans to their world that did nothing more than underestimate them.
"Did you know? In a world with no spirit nor magic, humans obtained the power to destroy the world."
[Zone: Requiem of Zero]
By burning his soul now and giving up all chances of reincarnation, he could bring himself back to a true King.
Nent immediately shuddered.
'Not good.'
"FAFNIR!! INCREASE THE POWER OF THE SHIELD!"
She used her domain and moved as fast as possible to end this while screaming to warn Fafnir. But, no matter how fast she was, it was already too late.
Looking at the crackling hammer that was about to smash his skull, Drei showed no signs of fear.
After all,
<<My name is Einstein.>>
A thousand-strong army made out of skeletons and other undead, as well as recently deceased, shone with a red light and all their power was compressed in the body of the Drei.
All of this added to the power of a king self combusting.
As he thought about this, his lips stretched upward as he thought about a fitting name.
It was the most powerful know bomb mankind created when he was still alive.
Finally, the hammer smashed him but,
[Tsar Bomba] [1]
On that day, be it those on the Chaos side or Order's, all those present on the battlefield witnessed the birth of a supernova.
BOOM!!!
This explosion should have been enough to wipe out more than half of the dragon army even with Fafnir's shield.
Drei would have without a doubt accomplished his goal of dying with honor.
Sadly for him,
"How interesting."
A cold voice sent shudder to his soul as the supernova died out with a whimper.
"To think I would find one of the people who escaped from my prison here. Hahaha, this is truly funny. Don't you think so?"
Drei could feel his soul that should have dissipated slowly gather back and fading consciousness was once again awoken. Even the wound inflicted by Lilith was no more.
But…Drei did not feel happy.
Not even in the slightest.
All he could feel was immeasurable dread.
After all, in front of that man, not even death was a release.
"Anubis…"
A being even more absurd than Surtr appeared unexpectedly on the battlefield, bringing the silence of death with him.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
(AN: This is the end of the Drei fight. I honestly think I could have done better. Still, poor dude, imagine thinking you will die with honor but falling in the hands of the necromancer king.)
