Audience with the Hero Queen (1)

Outside the demon gate, the city guards that were setting up a perimeter in preparation to deal with the monsters that would come pouring out of it were shocked when they noticed that the gate was slowly disappearing.

The guard captain had been in a frantic mood earlier since he saw someone jump into the gate which was basically suicide since it was impossible to destroy from the inside without the Goddess's blessing.

That was another thing about demon gates. The gates would appear but the only people who could close them from the inside were Neo, the Goddess's Chosen, and their Disciples.

Since Neo was asleep for the past 2 decades and the Goddess was being unresponsive to the calls of her people, there currently was no Chosen present in the current timeline and with no Chosen, there were no Disciples.

The Goddess's blessing is granted via Neo or Uria herself. Once a person received the blessing, they would then become what people referred to as a Chosen One, or just a Chosen for short.

From there, the Chosen can spread the Goddess's blessings among a few people and these people would be called Disciples. The only other person that would have the Goddess's blessing without the need to receive it from Neo or the Goddess would be the Saint or Saintess because they were existences who were blessed with the Goddess's grace from birth.

Unfortunately, however, the Saint of this timeline had been killed during the war against the Demon King. Without them, the method to close the Demon Gates was lost–at least until now since Neo had awoken.

The deterioration of the Demon Gate continued and all of this was seen by the confused soldiers who were waiting for it to explode.

The guard captain had a contemplative look on his face when he saw this and couldn't help but be reminded of the young lad who had jumped into the demon gate earlier without any hesitation.

Only a few minutes had passed since then when all of a sudden, the demon gate had begun to disappear.

"Could it be?"

Right as the captain mumbled that to himself, the demon gate shone with a bright light and it spat out Neo who nearly fell face first onto the ground, but thankfully, he was quick to stabilize his body and save himself from an embarrassing moment.

Neo looked around before setting his eyes back on the demon gate and sighed in relief, "Looks like I made it just in time."

The demon gate disappeared from existence and peace was returned to the city square. Neo was about to leave the place and head towards the chapel, but he was stopped as the city guards surrounded him.

"Halt!"

Hearing that, Neo stopped moving and with no expression on his face, he just stared blankly towards the guard captain that had told him to halt.

It had been 2 decades since his descent to the mortal realm from the divine realm. The Luminance Faith had decided to keep his existence a secret because he hadn't awoken yet so there was no way someone would be able to recognize him unless they were in the know.

The guard captain, whose name was Paul, obviously wasn't aware of Neo's true identity. Since he didn't know, Paul had to detain Neo for questioning. For all he knew, Neo might've used some demonic power to close the demon gate that was virtually like a natural disaster that couldn't be stopped.

The machine developed to prevent its appearance had likely malfunctioned so a demon gate appeared in the middle of the city's most populated area, but he needed to be sure that Neo wasn't the one who had opened it in the first place.

"Sir, we're going to detain you for questioning!"

Upon hearing that, Neo was confused, "...Excuse me?"

"Please do not resist or we will use force!" Paul warned.

Neo was confused. He didn't know why the city guards were doing this. It wasn't like he was the enemy or did he do anything bad. In fact, he did a service for them, but since Neo didn't know that they weren't aware about his existence and identity, he wasn't sure about how to respond.

The Goddess had forbade him from attacking his fellow human unless they were evil or had any evil intentions towards him, but since the guard captain and the people who were coming over to detain him weren't evil, he just quietly let them cuff him.

"Please follow us."

Neo silently nodded and just let himself be taken away, unsure of where they were even going to bring him. He just hoped that it wasn't the slammer. He was no criminal after all.

Paul had thought about sending Neo to jail, but when he was reminded that Neo had the power to close demon gates, he thought that it was best if he directly brought him to his higher-ups and gave them his report.

The surrounding area had been evacuated so there were no people around. With no obstructions, the soldiers and Neo were able to arrive at the city guards headquarters very quickly.

Neo was brought inside and after Paul explained the situation to his commander, the commander decided that this was much too big for them to handle on their own and immediately sent one of the squires to request an audience with the Queen.

The power to close demon gates was highly sought after because from what was known, there was no being, from Edels'herah or those from other worlds, that could do it besides those that possessed the Goddess's blessing.

The city guard commander didn't believe that Neo had the Goddess's blessing because the Goddess was currently 'asleep' and was completely unresponsive to the calls and prayers of her believers.

As for the thought of Neo being the Saint, that didn't cross the commander's mind at all because if he was the Saint, the Luminance Faith would've already announced it and his name along with his appearance would've been known to everyone already.

Since the Commander couldn't identify Neo as the Saint nor did he know about Neo's true identity as the Goddess's Champion, the conclusion he came to was that Neo possessed a different kind of power altogether that could close demon gates like those blessed by the Goddess.

After waiting for a while, the squire came back with news that the audience was granted and the Queen wanted Neo brought before her immediately.

The commander left the task of escorting Neo to the person who found him, the guard captain, Paul.

Since Neo was being so cooperative and he had ID in the form of an Adventurer Plate, the guards released his cuffs before they went to meet the Queen.

'This is perfect. I was meaning to meet the Hero Queen anyway.'

Neo thought to himself. Even though the situation he was in earlier was completely absurd, Neo thought nothing of it. If he was 'normal', Neo would be complaining and cursing instead of complying and being cooperative with his detainers.

He had done the city a service and instead of receiving a reward, he had been cuffed and detained like some kind of criminal. Luckily, this was Neo. If it was someone else, they'd be completely outraged at the treatment or worse, they would've fought back or something.

On the way to the castle, Paul and Neo were both on a carriage and with nothing to do, Paul decided to engage Neo with a little small talk to liven up the atmosphere since he felt a little guilty for treating him like a criminal earlier.

"So…you're Neo, right?"

"Yes."

"I'm Paul. Sorry about earlier. I didn't mean to treat you like that."

"It's fine."

"O-Okay…"

The way Neo responded made Paul think that he was angry at him. Unfortunately, this was just how Neo was. He didn't think anything of Paul's treatment of him earlier though the latter clearly didn't know what was on his mind.

Neo's face was blank and completely without emotion so it wasn't like Paul could read him and figure things out.

"Uhh, okay."

With the small talk having ended in failure, the remaining journey to the castle became quite awkward for Paul. Thankfully, the awkwardness ended the moment they arrived at the castle gates.

Once the castle guards confirmed the identities of the people inside of the carriage, they let them in. Neo and Paul were escorted to the great hall which was already filled with people waiting for them.

Sitting on the throne inside of the hall was a woman who exuded a powerful aura and she had her eyes trained on Neo from the moment he entered.

When Neo saw this person, his eyes brightened a little bit as he recognized the person sitting on the throne.

'Merlina!'

This was Merlina, the Archmage of his previous lifetimes. Judging by the powerful magical aura she was exuding, Neo believed that she still had the powers of an Archmage but instead of being hailed as an Archmage, she was instead hailed as the Hero Queen in this life.

He wondered just what kind of life this regression's Merlina had gone through. To think that the Merlina he knew who was always complaining that tedious desk work inside of an office didn't suit her as she was more of the 'action' type of gal was now the queen of an entire nation.

Neo and Paul arrived in the middle of the hall, flanked by two castle guards who were on high alert. When they arrived at the steps leading up to the throne, Paul stopped and gave Merlina a military salute before saying, "Your Highness, I've arrived with the young man who resolved the demon gate problem in the city earlier today!"

Merlina turned towards Paul and smiled, "Good work, Captain. You can head back now."

"Yes, Your Highness!"

"The others as well. We'll cut our meeting short for today. Master Henry, Advisor Lawrence, High Priest Illyan, and Cecilia please stay behind."

After dismissing the others in the room, all that remained were Neo, Merlina, and the 4 others that she told to stay behind.

Neo recognized everyone in the room except for Lawrence, who was apparently Merlina's advisor. He remained as expressionless as ever so the others in the room, including Merlina, couldn't get a read of him.

From Neo's perspective, they were obviously appraising him but that didn't bother him. What did bother him was that the person standing next to Merlina's advisor, an expressionless yet beautiful young lady with violet-colored hair, was exuding demonic energy.

Neo was about to say something when Merlina broke the silence first and asked, "So, you're Uria's Champion."