Chapter 1
Reincarnation. That is a weird thing to experience, but here we are. The reincarnation itself is not bad, but going through the baby phase is painful. Now, I am a fifteen-year-old man (at least in this world), and I will now take the throne.
Yup. I am reincarnated into a royal family and have become a crown prince to a throne. I am born into a world of Gaia. I was born as Lukas Herrinton, the Crown Prince and soon-to-be King of the Korven Kingdom.
The Korven Kingdom is one of the kingdoms that was previously under a bigger kingdom. This kingdom’s name is gone in the sand of time, and we only call that kingdom The Falling Kingdom.
This kingdom was divided into four kingdoms: Norwell, Stuven, Korven, and Koston. The Norwell Kingdom is the northernmost Kingdom and the one nearest the Great Waste. Where once an ancient empire stood, now there is naught but a cold desert filled with bones. Whatever calamity struck them down has cursed the lands, and so the bones walk the earth. The undead in those places are powerful. There was once a twenty-meter-tall undead that almost destroyed half of Norwell in the past. If not for the heroic sacrifice of their late king, their kingdom would fall to the undead.
The Stuven Kingdom is the westernmost kingdom. It borders the Mage States of Magcaria to the west. Magcaria was where the knowledge of sorcery that was stolen from the gods themselves was first taught. They are ruled by a Council of the most powerful mages in the world. They are people who put magic above all else and have a Caste System that reflects that. The people without magic are slaves, and they will be printed because of it. When the children of the slaves have magic in them, that child will be given freedom, but their parents are still slaves. They hate people without magic, and if not for the fact of fierce competition among the mages who are willing to kill each other to gain more power, they would attack other kingdoms to enslave their people.
The Koston Kingdom is the Easternmost kingdom. It borders the Sea of Leaves to the east. The Sea of Leaves is a region of this world dominated by giant valleys filled with great green forests, with tree tops stretching out into the distance as far as the eye can see. The tree’s growing hundreds of meters tall, and light barely reaches the detritus below. This place is filled with all kinds of monsters that are hostile to any outsider. Ninety percent of people who enter this place will not return, and the ten percent return, but they are so traumatized they do not have a good life for the rest of their short lives.
And now the Korven Kingdom. We are bordering the three kingdoms: Norwell to the northwest, Stuven to the west, and Koston to the southeast. We are relatively safe and only need to worry about the raider from the north. Our capital city sits next to the Great Lake of Ka-Tao, and the northern part of the lake is the Northern Tribes. They are like a combination of Viking and Mongol. The tribes that sit next to water will have Viking-like culture where they master the art of sailing and raiding. The one that is far away from the water, they take the Mongol-like culture. They are nomadic tribes that ride bears instead of horses. They are masters of the bow and ambush. Norwell kingdom is the one mostly attacked by the latter, but my kingdom still needs to worry about the former.
And that is the problem from the North. We also have the problem from the South. The Selariad Empire is an expansionist and fanatic empire. The one leading them is a man who claims Godhood through fear. He forces his people to believe him as a God, and after years of propaganda, brainwashing, and fear tactics, he ascends as a New God. The reason why he wants to invade other places is because he wants to increase his divinity and become the only God of this world. The other Gods do not like and make sure the empire cannot spread their belief. They make sure to appoint champions to stop their expansion.
This empire is the reason why the Falling Kingdom fell, to begin with, and that happened two hundred years ago. That is how long the empire has spread its influence. Sadly for the empire, because they attack all of us at once, they are fighting in all directions and cannot move as quickly as the emperor wants them to.
I shake my head and lean over my chair. While my kingdom is not as bad as the other three, we are still facing a lot of trouble, which is why I am the only man left in the royal family. I only have a mother, a sister, an aunt, and a grandmother. Yup. All of them are women because all the men died in battle against the Northern Tribes.
My mother is Rosalina Herrinton, and my sister is Gabrielle Herrinton. My aunt is Sylvia Herrinton, and my Grandmother is Louise Herrinton.
We are the richest family in the entire northern kingdoms of this continent. We are no match against the empire or the Magcaria States, but we are rich. This is because we are the main food supplier to the three kingdoms. Norwell kingdom is too cold for plants to grow, and only a small number of plants can grow there. Stuven kingdom territory has problems because a rogue mage from Magcaria contaminates their land, and now they only have a small patch of land that can grow food. Grass still grows there, but nothing else grows. This is why they mostly sell their horses to the other kingdoms. The Koston Kingdom can grow food, but they need to grow it on the western side of their kingdom because anything they grow near the Sea of Leaves, those plants will be corrupted by the strange energy the area releases, becoming carnivorous plants. Dead plants, animals, and humans will not get corrupted, so the eastern area is used as a defensive place against the empire.
They can produce food, but it is not enough to feed their people. This is where we are coming in. We feed them with our food, and to help them, we make sure to sell them the food at a very low price. We do not profit much from selling our food to them, but we gain allies in return.
For this reason, we have a united front against the empire. When the empire moves, the others will move and help the one that got attacked. We need that kind of thing to survive in this world.
All of this sounds bad, right? Well, it is bad. Becoming a king is great, but with how many factions threaten your rule, it will be a stressful and short life. Lucky for me, I know this world. This is a world of a CYOA I filled the day before I died by that fucking truck, and I know I will get something powerful because I pick a Godmode instead of a regular difficulty.
It will give me a lot of power, make my life in this world easier, and a way out of this world in case it starts to get spicy. I have been waiting for it and even praying for it to appear, but it does not.
I am getting desperate and already preparing for a backup plan in case it does not appear alongside me. I have already bought a long-distance teleportation crystal from the black market that can take my family and me to the Alliance, a group of kingdoms that bunch together to fight the empire.
[System activated! Say status to start the tutorial!]
I grin at the floating blue box in front of me as my cheat has arrived.
