Kingdom of Coleus

The **Kingdom of Coleus** ｢コリウス王国, *koriusu ōkoku*｣ also known as The **Kingdom of the Hot Sands** ｢熱砂の王国, *nessa no ōkoku*｣ is a nation located to the far west, on the border between the Western Nations and the Barren Lands. It's a nation with a strong Arabian-style culture and mandatory military service.

## Background

Coleus is a desert kingdom located on the border between the Western Nations and the Barren Lands, serving as a bulwark to prevent the numerous Monsters in the Desert of Death ｢死の砂漠, *shi no sabaku*｣ from entering human lands. Due to this, it is a nation with an enormous amount of Adventurers, with it having over four times as many adventurers as it does actual legal citizens.

Its inhabitants live in cities built around oases and typically wear extremely light and exposed clothing. The intense sun and the long hours spent outside fighting monsters cause most of its inhabitants to develop deeply tanned skin, although children and others who spend most of their day indoors such as merchants often have paler complexions.

## Government

Coleus is a traditional Monarchy that is ruled over by a King or Queen and a board of ministers. It has a typical class system with nobility and the upper class, although their status does not prevent them from fulfilling their mandatory military service.

## Military Strength

As a nation whose economy and way of life are sustained by the constant fighting and hunting of various monsters, Coleus places an exceptional amount of importance on its military. Every able adult resident of the kingdom, be they a citizen or a free person, is required to undergo mandatory military service, with the weaker among them being able to opt out of combat service and join logistics. Additionally, Coleus is home to two Champions of exceptional strength in the form of Prince Aslan Coleus and the Marquis Barak Jahil.

## Economy

Coleus, despite being an extremely independent nation, has an economy backed almost entirely by trade. The materials of the innumerable monsters they kill are exchanged for food, their almost entirely desert land being unable to support the agricultural infrastructure to feed their entire population. Besides this essential trade and the support provided to them by the Council of the West, Coleus has almost no trade whatsoever with other nations, while domestic trading is frequently carried out between cities by merchants and their convoys pulled by sand lizards.

## Notable Locations

### Herbaria

Herbaria is the capital city of the Coleus Kingdom, surrounded by numerous oases and natural hot springs. The city has only a relatively weak barrier to not hinder the Sand Lizards of travelers and merchants as well as a royal castle at its center.

### The Long Wall

The Long Wall ｢長壁, *osakabe*｣ is the boundary that separates Coleus from the Desert of Death. It's, as the name suggests, an extraordinarily long wall. It was created by Luminous Valentine, who covered it with a magical barrier that lowers the concentration of magicules to decrease the birth rate of Calamity Class monsters and imbued it with the effect of Monster Intrusion Prevention ｢対魔侵入防止障壁, *taima shin'nyū bōshi shōheki*, lit. "Anti-Monster Intrusion Prevention Barrier"｣. It prevents the overwhelming amount of monsters and magicules in the Desert of Death from overflowing into Coleus and the rest of the West, with only a small portion of monsters managing to get past it and enter the lands of Coleus. It's patrolled by both soldiers from Coleus as well as the Holy Knights, who make short work of any monsters that get past the barrier.