Let's Meet The Family First...

Turns out familiarizing the rest of the members of the Spadian ruling monarchy was the right call for not even half an hour later since Annika was left alone in the room, the heavy silvery blue painted mahogany doors were roughly opened and three worried looking men unceremoniously entered. When their gazed landed on a very surprised (and honestly panicked) looking Annika, their expressions collectively lightened up as they beelined towards her bed.

The closer the men were to her getting to her the more panicked Annika felt inside. Damn it! She hadn't gotten around to studying the original owner's attitude and mannerisms around people and yet she's already being attacked like this. What was she going to do? And its not like she could even feign an amnesia as such an incident never happened to the story during this time. Most importantly: she's scared that if she acts even a little unlike the original owner, the butterfly effect made by it would be huge enough that it would make the story unstable enough to reject her - or worst, would directly collapse the world.

She's not ready to take responsibility of an entire world's destruction!

But it looked like there wasn't much that she should be worried about, for when the man wearing a crown on his head sat on the chair beside her bed, suddenly it seems like her entire body stiffened and became out of control - automatically doing actions against her thought. It was like she had suddenly gone into auto-mode.

Maybe it's this world's security measures acting up to ensure no deviations would happen? But if that were the case, then how the hell did the original owner manage to act out of script?

She kept in mind to ask for more in-depth with what really happened with the original owner to the fairy-like woman when they meet again.

Together with her loss of control towards her body, various information suddenly popped out of her mind as she silently observed the three men.

The person sitting beside her at the moment, and was probably the man who looked the most worried about her, was called Nikolai Trent. And if it wasn't already obvious by the silver crown embeded with sapphires he was wearing, he was the current Queen of Spades. A man who, the more Annika read his files, the more he felt was the most pitiful out of them four Spadian monarchs.

It was much to Annika's immense relief to find out that even though she was the King and the man was the Queen, both of them weren't really married to each other at all. It's merely a title that both of them wear, which probably also explains why a woman managed to become the King, and a man the Queen respectively.

Apparently in this world, four (complete strangers) people are (un)luckily chosen (forced) to rule their respective kingdoms wearing the titles of: King, Queen, Jack, and Ace. These four people are chosen by fate regardless of gender, age, status and nationality and is distinguished by a tatoo fate marks them with during their selection.

As everything was completely dictated by fate (though Annika was inclined to believe it was more like the author of the story - what lazy writing was this!? So damned convenient...) of course there were often times when the person chose by fate did not really wish to fulfil it - and one certain example was Nikolai. Prior to becoming the Queen, he had been a soldier heroically serving in the kingdom's military and happily plundering lands that the kingdom has yet to conquer.

As the Kingdom of Spades was also known as the Kingdom of War, it was completely normal for them to randomly wage war against the various nomadic tribes littering around the vacinity of the Kingdom's territory in hopes of expanding it further, or even against the three more kingdoms of the country. It was due to that that all year-round the Kingdom's military was at work and most of the citizens dream of becoming a soldier.

When Nikolai had been accidentally found with the Spadian Queen's symbol tattooed on his shoulder blades as he and a few comrades bathed together a few days after the Queen prior passed away due to old age, he had to be physically dragged back towards the castle as he completely did not want to accept such inheritance and fought back (and actually ran away a few times on their way until the commander had to tie him while spewing various apologies for such disrespect). It was due to that that for the first year of his reign, Nikolai had been nothing but a terror to everyone and was basically the reason why they were in constant war during those times (though it has also managed to gain them countless acres of land).

Annika hadn't really witnessed it all, and had only heared about it after her coronation, as when she had finally arrived from her horrible journey (she was once the princess of Chess continent's Black Kingdom) Nikolai had already mellowed down quite a bit and was nothing if very accomadating and kind to her.

In fact she was actually the last of them four to be crowned, despite her being found first in the wake of her predecessor's corruption and forced resignation, (each respective monarch was replaced only if their predecessors were either dead, or had resigned from their posts) simply due to the distance between the two kingdoms.

For the current era Nikolai had been the first to be found. The Jack, the person standing next to Nikolai looking more distressed than worried, was the second one.

His name was Romero Liberta, and obvious by the healthy olive tone of his skin was a foreigner like Annika, hailing from the Kingdom of Diamonds. He came from an affluent family, and was probably the only one out of them four that had willingly accepted his calling and, like Annika, was actually trained for the job.

Their family had manage to produce a Queen and a King once upon a time and thus was the reason why the succeeding descendants that came after were taught how to handle the jobs of the four positions. The whole family actually was very thankful of Romero having been chosen that they hadn't minded it was for the wrong kingdom and a day after a hearty celebration immedietly sent the future Jack on his way towards his new kingdom. Apparently their tradition of training future monarchs was about to be abolished due to no one else from their family being chosen as of late, (they were told beforehand they should consider themselves already lucky two monarchs had come from their family and shouldn't be greedy) but was pushed to be extended yet again due to Romero.

It was probably also because of his family's expectations that the Jack tourned out to be such a workaholic. He was the one who constantly nagged at them to do their work and constantly reminded them of their scedules (though maybe that has more to do with the fact that the Jack's position as the adviser.) It had even gottent to the point that the original owner constantly ran and hid from him during the times procrastination hits her.

And lastly the Ace, Rembrandt Dane, the jolly older man who was standing at the foot of her bed, looking quite relieved that she had woken up. Funny enough Rembrandt was Nikolai's platton leader back when he was still a soldier and was also the one who tied him up. According to the stories, Nikolai had laugh so hard he fell out of his throne when a few days after Romero's coronation, the commander strode towards the throne room awkwardly scratching the small tatoo on his left cheeks, eyes not meeting the Queen's at all.

He was already a married man, and completely henpecked by his wife who was an incredibly fierce woman and works as one of the military's strategist and had won them numerous wars. For some reason she gets along quite well with Romero and frequently have tea at the Queen's garden.

He has three children of his own, all boys and two old enough to have joined the army and the youngest needing three more years before he is eligible. Although he completely loves his sons but Rembrandt always wanted a daughter so he treats the original owner quite well and even occasionally spoiles her.

All three men were probably the only people in this kingdom who knows the original owner best and Annika was already internally drowning in sweat as she faced them, though her face had shown nothing but boredom - borderline indifference - as auto-programed, and she was quite thankful for that.

Although she had a feeling the next coming scenes are already pre-recorded, and it would be like she's a mere bystander, but she still couldn't help herself but worry because anything could happen!