Hitsugi no Chaika Volume 1

Prologue: The End of War-Torn
A girl watched as battle raged in the kingdom, the enemy stronghold flies above and their soldiers advancing. A maidservant called out to her, the princess, and leads her to the throne room for safety. Both the princess and the maidservant goes through the castle corridors dyed red by the flames and the rugs soaked in blood. They pass by the corpses of soldiers of both sides; corpses stabbed, slashed, chard and melted. As they pass by through the many corpses, the maidservant tries to assure the princess that everything would be fine if they reached the emperor.

When they reached the audience chamber, it was empty save for the corpse of the emperor and eight people surrounding him. The maidservant cried out for the emperor as she ran towards him but she was cut down by one of the eight, her head sent flying off. One of the eight spoke to the princess questioningly identify her as "the daughter of the Demon King". All eight gazed at the girl and approached her as they spoke lines to justify what they were about to do.

The year was 1604 of the continental calendar. The land of Verbist had ﬁnally seen the end of the Gaz Empire that had reigned for three generations. The military force that had been committed, including not just regular cavaliers and soldiers, but also wizards, saboteurs, and mercenaries, 620,000 in total, had thoroughly annihilated the combined forces of evil of the Gaz Empire—their magical arms, the Feila Corps, the Dragoon Knights, had all been exhausted.In reality, the true end of the war had come when the six great nations of the land signed a peace treaty and formed an alliance against the Gaz Empire. The Gaz Empire was divided up, as were the vast riches of the Forbidden Emperor, and they were put to use to rebuild the six great nations in the wake of the war. The pride of the Gaz Empire, its magical engineering, saw the same fate. The age of peace that the people had been waiting for had ﬁnally arrived. But. ..

The Coffin Princess
A young man named Toru awakens to find his sister Akari straddling on top of him. She greets him good morning and banters with him that one would mistake for flirting. Toru then questions Akari why her sledgehammer is embedded in the pillow where his head was. She tells him that she wasn't aiming for the pillow but his head. He scolds her and asked if she was trying to kill him. She tells him that she just wanted to wake him up; Toru retorts that she almost made him sleep forever. Akari then asked if he is going to work (get a job) which Toru tells her no and gives a lame reason why. Akari then swung her hammer and threatens to call a taxidermist to stuff him since in the long run it would be cheaper than him being alive to feed if he does nothing. Toru relented to get a job over her alternative suggestion. Toru wanted to eat breakfast first but Akari reminded him that they are out of food from last night. Toru then resigns to gather food from outside the city walls.