She had just turned fifteen when she became completely disillusioned with her father and her teacher.
She had run excitedly to the king, wanting to show off the Magecraft she had just learned, only to accidentally overhear a secret discussion about a certain plan outside the door.
Uther and Merlin were planning to fuse a human bloodline with the dragon factor and create a non-human heir for Britannia.
Not to turn a dragon into a human, but to graft the functions of Dragonkind onto a human body.
They intended to create a Red Dragon in human form.
To carry out that plan, they needed a noble mother, and the girl's mother, Igraine, was the ideal candidate.
"......"
After learning the truth, the girl fled back to her room, locked the door, threw herself onto the bed, and cried her heart out.
So her father had never loved her mother at all. He had only used her womb to produce an heir for the kingdom.
So her father had never intended to let her inherit the throne. As his daughter, she was nothing more than dead weight.
Since ancient times, whoever was meant to become King of Britannia received the island's blessing and was granted mysterious power from a very young age.
She was no exception.
Her power even surpassed Uther's.
So when Uther forced Igraine to divorce her husband and marry him, the girl had naturally assumed that his goal was to claim her, his daughter, and raise her as the next King of Britannia.
In the end, it had all been her own wishful thinking.
Her father would not even acknowledge her as the "true king." He was trying to create an inhuman king instead.
The girl cried the entire night.
Only at dawn did she finally come back to herself, still groggy.
She clutched the doll in her arms, its fabric soaked with her tears.
It was a cloth dog doll from a fairy tale she had read as a child.
An anthropomorphic little dog who loved cooking and would turn into a knight to protect others at critical moments. He was her favorite character.
His name was "Shirou."
"You really have it easy... You do not have to worry about any of this. I wish I could be as carefree as you..."
The girl muttered to herself as she gently smoothed Shirou's fur with her fingers.
She had held him all night while crying to him, and he still wore that crooked little frown. Could he not smile for once?
And yet, for some reason, the moment she looked at Shirou's face, strength suddenly welled up inside her.
No, it was not for no reason.
Ever since she was very small, Shirou's story had always given her courage.
Whenever something painful or sad happened, Shirou would always sit there with that unhappy little face and listen in silence.
Shirou was her emotional support, and also the source of her strength.
The girl set the doll down beside her pillow after fixing it up, then slapped both cheeks hard to pull herself together.
"Alright~~~ It's decided!"
Even if neither my father nor my teacher acknowledges me, I will never give up!
Even if I have to rely on my own strength alone, I will become the King of Britannia!
As she stroked Shirou's head, the girl made up her mind.
That afternoon, when it was time for the daily Magecraft lesson, Merlin waited and waited, but the girl never showed up.
At the same time, on a country road several thousand meters away from the royal palace, a dignified young girl stood in the path of a group of outsiders trying to loot a village.
Soft golden hair and blue eyes with a hint of green.
Delicate, refined features and a small, slender frame.
This girl, whose face still retained a trace of childishness, would soon become known to the kingdom's knights and common folk alike.
She was none other than...
"My name is Aesc! Aesc the Rain Witch!"
"I'm working to save Britannia, so nice to meet you, and now die, villains!"
...
...
After that, two years passed.
During those two years, the girl used Magecraft to change her hair color and eye color, and began operating throughout Britannia under the name "Aesc."
In that time, she was no longer the sheltered princess she had once been, ignorant of the world beyond her chambers. She had become someone who ran from place to place helping others.
And the range of that aid covered all of Britannia. To make that possible, she specially developed a space-time Magecraft called "Water Mirror."
Sometimes she would save soldiers on the verge of collapse after barbarian attacks.
If a village was suffering from famine, she would hunt Magical Beasts and use their meat to ease the villagers' hunger.
If she came across a village under attack by barbarians or savage monsters before the soldiers could arrive, she would step forward and hold the line to the very end.
The girl ignored borders. Whenever she saw people in trouble, she helped them without hesitation, saving countless civilians and soldiers from hunger and the ravages of war.
She even subdued a pure white Magical Beast that had been sneaking into villages to steal crops. After fighting it, she made it her companion and gave it the name "Fou."
Stories about her gradually spread among the common people at the very bottom of society, and among the knights as well.
She belonged to no faction. She was simply a righteous ally who sought to save Britannia and its people.
And so, the people of Britannia began to call her "Aesc the Savior."
Before long, the girl turned seventeen.
Although Merlin objected, Uther made a decision. He would marry the girl off to faraway Orkney.
By this point, King Uther had fallen deep into obsession. He had always been a man almost as warped as Vortigern, the one who had brought outsiders onto the island.
Otherwise, he could never have come up with such a mad proposal as using the dragon factor to create an heir.
On the very day she was informed that she would become the Princess of Orkney, the girl gave her answer with the sword in her hand.
After two years of real combat, her fighting ability was nothing like it had once been.
She was not only proficient in all kinds of Magecraft, but also highly skilled in close combat.
When it came to martial skill, even the men of Britannia were no match for her.
And that was not all. She also possessed a supreme technique that even the sage Merlin could not hope to match. Projection Magecraft.
In a single instant, the thousand treasured swords she projected struck down all the knights guarding Uther.
Then she rushed straight to King Uther, pressed a demonic sword to her father's throat, and forced him to swear a death oath.
First, he would abandon the plan to create the Red Dragon.
Second, he would pass the throne of Britannia to her.
Merlin could only stare in stunned silence the entire time.
Before Merlin could even react, the girl turned to her teacher and offered her two choices.
Either assist her.
Or be imprisoned forever in the tower she had prepared for her.
And so, by her own power alone, the girl successfully carried out a coup and ascended the throne at seventeen as the new King of Britannia.
Thus began the age of "Queen Morgan."
...
...
Uther and Merlin's conspiracy was exposed.
And the news that Aesc the Savior's true identity was none other than the Queen spread throughout Britannia.
It did not take long for the Queen to gain a great number of supporters.
They had already admired Aesc the Savior, and now they sympathized even more with the misery of her childhood.
Not long after ascending the throne, the Queen had already won overwhelming support.
Knights from all across Britannia came rushing in to stand with her.
But the knights who entered the Queen's service soon noticed a problem.
The Queen was not much like Aesc the Savior.
It was not just their appearance. Their personalities were also completely different.
The Savior had been cheerful and brave, shining on everyone like starlight in the dark of night, while the Queen gave people an impression of chilling coldness, like a machine built to rule.
Their only point of similarity was probably that white beast on their shoulder, the one that looked neither quite like a cat nor quite like a dog.
Was the Queen really Aesc the Savior?
People began to wonder.
What they did not know was that Queen Morgan was a persona the girl had created in order to rule Britannia more effectively.
Not long after her coronation, the Queen came to a small town in Tintagel.
Several years earlier, Merlin, who had once served Uther and was now the Queen's aide, had personally come here and delivered a prophecy.
"Whoever draws this sword shall be the King of Britannia."
That day, the town was packed with people.
Knights and commoners alike waited eagerly for the result.
They believed in the Queen. If she really was Aesc the Savior, then she would surely be able to draw the Sword of Selection.
But when the Queen arrived before the stone, she did not draw the sword.
She only gave the sword embedded in the stone a cold glance, then pulled a demonic sword from the void and sliced it in two.
"My Holy Sword!!!!" Merlin dropped to her knees and let out a miserable scream.
"Fou fou fou fou!?!" The white beast bounced happily on the Queen's shoulder.
"What a boring trick... I'm busy, I'm leaving."
After saying that, the Queen turned and left without a second glance.
After a few seconds of stunned silence, the crowd erupted in an unprecedented wave of excitement.
"Her Majesty Morgan is the true King of Britannia! Her Majesty Morgan is Britannia's Savior!"
Right in front of everyone, the Queen had cut the Sword of Selection in half.
Through that act, she was telling them that a mere piece of scrap metal was nowhere near enough to measure her worth as a king.
The people were swept away by the force of the Queen's presence and charisma.
The knights celebrated, the people sang, and the bards carried the news across the island.
In this ceremony of selection, everyone felt inspired. The only one left wounded was the flower Magus, who wanted to cry but had no tears left.
Because of the betrayal she had suffered in childhood, the Queen could no longer trust anyone.
This was the Queen's path.
To rely on no one and trust no one. Even the children she had adopted were no exception.
Gawain, Agravain, Gaheris, Gareth.
All of them were war orphans the Queen had taken in from across Britannia.
No matter how overwhelmingly busy she was, the Queen never forgot to take personal responsibility for the children's education.
She personally taught Gawain and his siblings swordsmanship and horsemanship, and she also instructed Agravain in matters of administration.
Raised under their mother's care, the siblings quickly grew into knights capable of standing on their own.
The Queen also restarted the plan that had once been abandoned.
She created twins who possessed the Red Dragon factor, adopted them as her daughters, and gave them the names Artoria and Mordred.
Like their other siblings, the older sister Artoria and the younger sister Mordred also admired their mother and resolved to become great knights.
In the tenth year after the Queen's coronation, her conflict with the Tyrant King Vortigern finally reached the point where it could no longer be reconciled.
The Queen ordered her army to surround the fortress city of Londinium, which Vortigern had occupied.
Once the battle began, Gawain led the knights in breaking through the gates and charging into the city, where the Tyrant King awaited them in the form of a pitch-black white dragon.
The Tyrant King's breath scattered the army and swallowed even the radiance of the Sun Holy Sword.
Just as everyone was about to be defeated...
A disturbance in space-time appeared over Londinium.
The knights immediately began to cheer, because they knew it was the Queen's Water Mirror Magecraft.
Soon, the Queen appeared high above the white dragon.
She merely waved her hand, and thirteen brilliant pillars of light appeared in the void behind her.
"...Holy Lances, Unleash."
The Queen parted her pale blue lips and softly pronounced the Tyrant King's death sentence.
The final battle ended with astonishing ease.
Two of the thirteen Holy Lances pinned the Tyrant King's claws in place, while the other eleven pierced straight through the white dragon's body and killed it.
The overwhelming power the Queen displayed left everyone who witnessed it utterly shaken.
As she declared the war at an end, the Queen shone more brilliantly than ever before.
Just looking at her back was enough to make people believe that Britannia's future would surely be a bright one.
After Vortigern's death, the Queen took Guinevere as her wife and received Camelot.
Of course, the marriage was only a political performance in appearance.
The Queen had devoted both body and soul to Britannia. She did not trust humans, and there was no way she would fall in love with Guinevere, another woman.
Guinevere, for her part, revered the Queen from the bottom of her heart and was willing to dedicate her life to Britannia's cause. The two of them became dearest friends for life.
After that, Britannia entered its most prosperous era.
The seats of the Round Table were filled, and the knights followed the example of Aesc the Savior from those earlier days, traveling all across Britannia righting wrongs and leaving behind countless legendary tales.
Under the Queen's supervision, Lancelot married a princess. The two lived happily together, and before long they had a child named Galahad.
With his mother's help, Gawain developed a new high-yield potato, solving Britannia's food problem and causing the kingdom's population to explode.
The Queen used her authority to settle the conflict between Tristan and King Mark, allowing Tristan and Isolde to love each other freely.
And so on.
In any case, it was a peaceful and flourishing decade.
After that, the Queen noticed unusual movements among the minority tribes, and uncovered the mastermind behind it all. The restless Roman Empire.
After discussing it with Merlin, the Queen decided to lead an expedition herself.
The final outcome of that campaign was that the Sun Knight, strengthened by his mother's Magecraft, successfully forced back the Sword Emperor Lucius.
Not long afterward, Britannia and the Roman Empire signed a peace treaty.
At the port where Britannia's army returned, the Queen's son Mordred led the people in holding a grand welcoming ceremony.
Once both internal and external threats had been put down, the Queen no longer focused her efforts on governing the kingdom. Instead, she began researching a way to preserve Mystery.
Merlin, whom she had spared back then out of a moment of softness, also proved useful at last.
With the cooperation of the two strongest female Maguses of the age, they quickly found a solution.
The "Last Dragon," Albion. If it could be turned into a Mystic Code while retaining its 4.6 billion years of Mystery, then Britannia in the Age of Gods could continue on.
Merlin suggested having the Knights of the Round Table join the operation to capture the boundary dragon, but the Queen refused.
"There's no need to put everyone in danger," she said flatly.
"From this point onward, this is no longer a realm humans can set foot in."
To challenge Albion, the Queen decided to ascend to godhood herself.
She was no longer merely a queen, but also the storm god upon the earth.
A limited form. The "Goddess of the Holy Lance," Morgan le Fay.
The Goddess of the Holy Lance and the Crowned Dragon fought over the Atlantic for an entire week.
In the end, the goddess cut off one of the dragon's wrists and let it escape.
Half a year later, the "Pseudo-Root" made from that dragon wrist was buried beneath Londinium.
Britannia's doomed fate was rewritten there and then, and the Age of Gods would continue for at least another thousand years.
After that, there was nothing much left worth dwelling on.
The Queen herself realized that she had already done everything she could. Whatever remained would be left to those who came after her.
She passed the throne to Artoria and announced that the kingdom would begin attempting reforms toward a parliamentary system.
After bidding farewell to the people who adored her, the Queen went to a hidden retreat deep in the countryside and began living there alone in seclusion.
"Now that I think back on it, it really was an incredible life."
Sitting in a sunlit garden, the Queen stroked the white young beast's fur and showed a faint, contented smile.
"I originally meant to rule Britannia with an iron hand, yet before I knew it, I had somehow become a great king praised and celebrated by the people.
Hah... I never actually meant to go that far."
"Hehe, I'm shocked too."
Sitting across from the Queen, the sucubuss who was both her teacher and her friend said with a smile, "When you put your sword to Uther's throat and forced him to give up the throne, I truly never imagined it would end up like this."
"...It's not bad, right?"
The Queen narrowed her eyes against the harsh sunlight as she asked.
After working this hard, there was nothing wrong with being a little proud of herself, was there?
The flower Magus nodded again and again.
"Not just not bad. It's absolutely flawless!
I got to witness such a wonderful journey, and everyone found happiness... Morgan, I'm truly glad you were my student."
"Hmph. Getting a fair evaluation from you really is no easy thing."
Merlin puffed out her cheeks.
"Don't make me sound that awful! I saw all of Morgan's hard work with my own eyes!
Besides, as your teacher, I'm happy too that you were able to live such a happy and fulfilled life."
"Happy..."
The Queen fell into thought. There was no doubt that she was happy.
She had left behind no regrets at all, and even an impossible dream, the salvation of Britannia, had been achieved.
It was a happy life, one so full that even she could feel immensely proud of herself, and yet...
"What is it, Morgan?"
Merlin asked with a slight frown. She had noticed that the Queen had seemed distracted lately.
The Queen asked tentatively, "Say, Merlin... have you ever had the feeling that something was strange?"
"Strange in what way?"
The Queen shook her head.
"No, I can't explain it clearly myself.
When I'm busy with work, it doesn't bother me. But whenever I have a little time to myself...
I start feeling like there's something wrong with this world..."
"?"
Merlin tilted her head in confusion, and the Queen went on.
"Maybe it's because I'm no longer so occupied with work, but lately these thoughts have been getting stronger and stronger.
I remember that when I was very young, I used to have some very strange dreams...
I can't remember what they were about anymore, but whenever I woke up, I would find that I was crying."
The Queen lightly furrowed her delicate brows, touched her fine chin, and murmured to herself,
"I can't shake the feeling... that we've forgotten something important.
Something we absolutely should never have forgotten. Something more important than anything else."