One funeral followed another. Before long, more black flags hung from every household in the Hori Kingdom.
Compared to the Queen's death, The Church made an even grander spectacle of this one. Countless priests took to the streets, chanting hymns, accompanied by Paladins guarding both sides as they loudly mourned the dead King. White petals were scattered from one end of the street to the other, and weeping echoed through every corner of the kingdom.
Throughout the Hori Kingdom, all rumors and all arguments over The Church and the mages came to an abrupt halt, completely suppressed by this event.
The Church also took this opportunity to reorganize the administrative system. With the King dead, the people no longer had the heart to cause trouble, and the chaotic order was forcibly bent back into place.
Naturally, The Church pinned the King's death directly on the mages. For now, however, most people were still immersed in shock and grief and had not considered that angle. Yet the seeds of a new debate were gradually beginning to show.
Just how had the King died?
After being bombarded by wave after wave of information, people no longer knew what they should believe. The Church's fanatics grew to hate the mages even more, while its opponents became even more convinced that The Church was full of lies and that some greater conspiracy must be lurking beneath it all... As for even more people, they no longer wanted to think about such questions at all.
With the dead unable to testify, there would never be a conclusive answer to something like this. They only wanted to mourn their King and worry over their own fate, and that of the entire nation.
And as for the Black Nightmare Society...
After the King's death, Koester's lockdown was