The streets were busy. Stands and merchants were scattered everyway. It was only a few days after the Queen had hastily passed the town, and it is a given that she would take this route back to the Royal Palace, so of course it was natural that people would flock near the town gate to anticipate her return.

"Hey, I've heard...", a woman told another amidst the crowd. "The Queen had killed her own brothers so she could ascend to the throne..."

"Really? Wasn't it just mere gossip?", the other woman who stood a little bit lower asked and raised a brow in doubt. "It just may be coincidence!"

"If it was then wouldn't it be strange that the four Princes suddenly passed on at the same exact time right after her coming of age-?"

"That couldn't be true! The Queen is just another meek child!", a nearby man, a soldier fledgling heard the gossipers and joined, probably triggered by the topic of their gossip. His sudden appearance obviously surprised the two women. "Besides, one little girl could not have killed four grown men alone!"

Refusing to drop her arguments the woman who started the gossiping asked, "Then how about an accomplice?"

This enraged the soldier and almost raised his voice. "That-!"

A trumpet had suddenly sounded, followed by the huge town gate opening. It wasn't confirmed from where the gossipers stood, but that is most probably the signal for the Queen's arrival. As if they instinctively recognize it, the three had stopped and faced the direction it came from without a single word coming out of their mouths.

"THE QUEEN HAS ARRIVED!!!", someone shouted. And immediately after, an elegant black carriage came from the gate nearby, bringing silence with it.

The gossips have stopped. The shouts from the shops have ceased. There was only the sound of the horses' tracks, and nothing else as the Queen of all Thalsia arrived before the crowd...

Meanwhile...

"Ugh, it's annoying.", she commented.

"Hm? W-what is, your Majesty.", another voice asked.

"All these people flocking the streets like this. It wasn't like this earlier!"