peasant
Explanation
The Joke
The comic follows a classic "rags to riches" fairy tale setup. A narrator describes how "once upon a time, a poor peasant" worked hard, lived humbly, and through determination eventually "walked among the royalty" -- the standard underdog story. The peasant, now dressed in regal finery with a crown and scepter, declares triumphantly: "It turns out royalty is really hard!"
The final panel delivers the punchline with the peasant back at a workbench (possibly a chopping block or desk), saying: "It's a lot more work than you'd think." The implication is that after all the effort to climb to the top, the peasant discovered that being royalty is not the life of leisure and privilege they imagined -- it is just a different, possibly worse, kind of hard work.
The Humor
The joke subverts the fairy tale expectation that reaching the top of the social hierarchy is the happy ending. Instead of "and they lived happily ever after," the peasant discovers that power and status come with their own crushing burdens. This is a comedic take on the "grass is always greener" principle and the reality that leadership positions are often far more stressful and demanding than people on the outside assume. The final panel, showing the peasant seemingly back to manual labor or administrative drudgery, suggests that the "reward" for climbing the social ladder is just more work -- deflating the entire aspirational narrative of the fairy tale genre.