This city is near the eastern coast of Britannia in the Fairy Country.
It had once been abandoned until it was given to Elf Knight Tristan as a fief and then it revived, reborn in this Britannia.
But for the humans and even the fairies of Fairy Country Britannia, this place was like a sinister Demon King Castle, second only in terror to Camelot, perhaps even surpassing it.
For the lord here was a capricious Slaughterer, a bloodthirsty being who had killed over four hundred thousand fairies during a hundred years, and also the daughter of the most fearsome being in this Britannia, the witch Morgan.
She was the only magician besides Queen Morgan.
She was a demon who could decapitate others just by plucking a harp string.
Her appearance was that of a beautiful princess, but inside, she was an evil vampire.
This was Tristan, an Elf Knight as renowned as Lancelot and Gawain.
Today, the Elf Knight was, as usual, suddenly in a foul mood.
A very beautiful harp sound then echoed through New Darlington.
The sound came from a theatre.
It looked like an ancient Roman coliseum, circular with rows of spectator seats surrounding it. It wasn’t very large, but not small either, suggesting that when it was jam-packed, it truly must have been a sight with oceans of heads and cheers that could pierce the clouds, never ceasing.
In the past, this theatre was indeed very lively, with countless fairies visiting daily.
For almost every day, a blood-curdling slaughter was staged here.
The protagonists thrown into the circular arena were usually humans captured from the outside.
They were either rebels against the queen or slaves sent there, and sometimes fairies from other cities, tired or dissatisfied, would send the humans serving them here to enter this theatre.
And what these humans had to do was put on a show, a battle, to put it simply.
The winning side would survive.
The losing side would die on the spot.
Continuously killing, continuously fighting, until only one person remained, that person could finally gain their freedom.
However, no one had ever seen the last remaining champion leave alive from here.
After gaining the championship, they were taken away, then vanished, evaporated as if from the face of the earth; their fate could be imagined.
Unspeakably horrific.
This was New Darlington’s National Slaughter Theatre, a place that filled countless beings with fear and thrilled countless others.
Of course, those who felt thrilled were generally fairies.
For many fairies, slaying humans and watching humans slaughtering each other was a highly entertaining game, an excellent form of entertainment.
But when that beautiful harp sound echoed here, today’s audience (the fairies) in this theatre were doomed to turn their cheers into screams.
Because only today, they themselves were the ones being slaughtered (the prey).
The head of a fairy was suddenly severed by a surprise attack, flung high, causing the body, now headless, to spew copious amounts of hot blood while slowly falling, staining the spectator seats red.
"Ding-dong—ding-dong—ding-dong—"
The beautiful sound of the harp being played continued non-stop.
"Puchi!""Puchi!""Puchi!""Puchi!"...
One after another, the heads of fairies were cut off, sent soaring into the sky.
Undoubtedly, this was the work of that played harp.
The fairy holding this harp played it non-stop, turning the beautiful sounds into invisible attacks, like unseen piano wires, each swipe in mid-air decapitating a fairy, resulting in instant death.
In such a ruthlessly tragic scene, the fairies who had come to enjoy a slaughter show became unwilling participants, either screaming as they fled from the spectator seats or horrified into chaos.
Suddenly, the entire National Slaughter Theatre turned into a hell and also a place of utter pandemonium.
"Why, why do this to us...!?"
"We just came to see the humans be slaughtered!"
The fairies’ frantic escape and hysterical screams only irritated the person who had suddenly appeared in the spectator seats, mercilessly slaughtering them.
Tristan, clad in a bright red princess dress, held the harp, shouting irritably.
"Don’t run around randomly, just stand there nicely. After all, you’re just consumables who will sooner or later be unable to pay the existence tax and die, why not let me have some fun?"
While saying this, Tristan walked slowly on the spectator seats, as if modeling high heels in a fashion show, playing the harp, turning the sounds into blades, the strings into killing white lines, continuously slicing through the air, decapitating one panicked fairy after another.
"So annoying, truly too annoying."
"The mere existence of you garbage fairies already irks me and now you serve no purpose to vent on, making it even more annoying."
"If not for Mother needing your Magic Power, I sincerely wish all the fairies in this country would die."