Tales of Wedding Rings (結婚指輪物語)

Are we close to Romca yet?

The Great Mountain Wall was exhausting too,

and it's been nothing but mountain roads!

Is this how a nation's princess should travel?!

You're full of complaints.

Want me to carry you?

No thanks!

Look, it's coming into view.

This is how Romca was truly meant to look.

Nefritis, can you hear me?

I brought the book you wanted to read.

It's me, your brother.

Please open up.

Jade-sama, Nefritis-sama is...

Nefritis has shut herself in again today.

No one in the palace has seen Nefritis since that day.

No one has seen what lies behind this door either.

Which means that so long as this door remains closed,

no one can prove that Nefritis isn't here.

He became like this shortly after you left Romca,

No, she is in here!

and he's been this way the whole time.

Brother...

Huh?

Nefufu—!

Nef—!

Nefriti—!

No! Nefritis is inside that room!

Who are you?!

I'm sorry for losing my composure.

So what did you need?

The Elves' Great Library. We'd like to see it.

I've gathered all of the rings, but I'm still not a match for the Abyss King.

So I want to know more about the Abyss King and the past Ring King.

The Great Library would certainly hold tomes on that.

Though that's also our people's graveyard.

Graveyard?

The Great Library

that houses the books containing our knowledge

is only opened when an elf dies.

But Brother...

You should try asking the Elder.

She's in charge of the key to the Library.

Hey, Grandpa,

when and how did the Abyss King come to be in the first place?

Hmm... To be honest,

no one has a clear answer on when or how he came to be.

I should've known.

Long ago, the world was in balance.

An endless equilibrium between the Abyss and "living people."

Darkness poured from the north,

taking the form of monsters,

and the darkness of the Abyss attacked and infected people.

Those who were infected would die,

their bodies vanishing without a trace.

People used all the wisdom and courage they possessed,

constantly fighting against the Abyss with swords and magic.

Then the balance suddenly broke.

The king of the monsters...

The Abyss King—darkness in human form—had appeared.

The monsters were organized into armies under him,

and they began flooding out of the north.

The people fought to defend their nations.

Yet they were defeated by the Abyss King's overwhelming power,

and the darkness of the Abyss

spread so far, it nearly swallowed the world.

So the Abyss King appeared from the Abyss?

Then the Ring King appeared as well.

S-So then?

I don't know.

What happened afterward was never passed down to anyone.

You want into the Elves' Great Library?

Yeah.

I can't permit that.

Wh-Why not?

I know you saw it for yourself too. That black ring.

The Abyss King possesses power that wasn't spoken of in the myths.

We need as much knowledge as we can gain right now.

I don't know anything about those black rings either.

The Great Library contains records of the past.

You won't find knowledge about the present Abyss King.

What is that ring?

They fused into one during my fight with the Abyss King.

I heard a voice from the ring.

A voice? Was it the Ring King's?!

I don't know.

He spoke to me on occasion before,

but I'm not getting any response now.

So everything is different than it was in the past?

Very well.

I'll show you to the Great Library.

Um, by the way, Elder?

Have you seen Smaragdi-sama around?

Yeah. She returned the sacred bird and immediately left for Nokanatika.

Maybe you two just missed each other?

I-I see.

That's a bit frightening, but also a relief.

I feel like that woman can be extreme and intense.

Even you walk on eggshells around her.

What's all this about eggshells?

N-No! It's nothing like that!

I understand!

I'll hear you out at great length, then!

All by ourselves.

No...

No!

Here at the large tree at the center of Romca,

there's a space formed by the gaps between its roots

which was used to build the Elves' Great Library.

The knowledge of Romca's elves...

This is the accumulation of that?

It's staggering.

Research on the Insects Living in Moss,

Nokanatika's Home Cooking Volume 3,

How Different Races Produce Children...

Oh? That one's similar to my own research.

How about it, Ring King?

Care to show me how you lay with your wives this time?

You must be used to it by now, right?

No, actually...

How shy.

This is the deepest section.

Nearly all of the books in the world were lost at the hands of the Abyss King.

Then the few remaining books were burned by humans.

All so the true shape of the battle between Ring King and Abyss King

wouldn't be passed down...

Why would they do that?

Everyone was afraid.

Of the Abyss King, the Ring King,

and what man is capable of.

This is the first tome we collected

of those that escaped the burning after the age of the Abyss King.

The answers you seek are in there.

The author is "Peridot Romca".

This is your book?!

Yes. It's a record I left behind.

A memoir of that time.

I was the first Ring Princess.

Ring King,

and Maidens of the Rings,

you should brace yourselves before seeing this.

This is the arm of the first Ring King.

The sin of us Ring Princesses.

One man appeared when the darkness of the Abyss was swallowing up the world

and plunging everyone into despair.

That was the Ring King.

That man, with his powerful magic and brimming confidence,

appeared in Nokanatika when it was surrounded by armies of monsters

just waiting for its inevitable fall.

He wielded Light magic, a magic none had ever seen before.

The Ring's source of power is the bonds between people.

To draw out more power from this Ring bestowed upon me by God,

please let me take the beautiful princess

who channels the hearts of her people as my wife.

We were to become the wives of the hero who would save the world.

Nothing could have made us prouder.

So the man took a wife from each of the five races.

We happily chose to become that man's brides.

The Light Princess was kind and pure.

The Wind Princess saw a clear vision of the future.

The Fire Princess blazed with fierce courage.

The Water Princess was brimming with beautiful love.

The Earth Princess was righteous and quick-witted.

Hold on a second!

Isn't "The Wind Princess saw a clear vision of the future"...?

That was me, of course.

Every time the Ring King welcomed a new bride,

he created a new ring that paired with his own.

He granted one to each of the five races,

and thus the five Wedding Rings were born.

As the hero who would save the world,

his title of Ring King rapidly spread across the world,

and his victories gave the people encouragement.

The hearts of the masses passed through their rulers, the princesses,

to join together under the Ring King.

The Ring King fought and brought victory.

Then, to reward him for his achievements,

we Ring Princesses offered him our hearts and bodies.

Fight,

have sex,

fight,

have sex,

and then off to fight again.

Over and over again.

The Ring King was strong.

Yet our battles against the forces of the Abyss King only grew more intense.