"You cur!" Julius screamed, lunging for me.
"Sir Julius!" Jeanne snapped, reaching out a hand to stop him.
While Julius did stop after only taking half a step, he still gnashed his teeth in
frustration. I hadn't permitted them to carry weapons during the audience, but it
would have been a risky situation if Jeanne hadn't intervened.
"Aisha, you take your hand off your hilt, too," I said.
"...Yes, sire."
I had been able to feel the bloodlust behind me, so I'd put a stop to it. Her voice
sounded dejected, like a child who had been scolded.
She didn't have to let it get her down so badly, though. The reason I could
brazenly tear into Julius like this was that I felt safe in the knowledge that, if it came
down to it, Aisha was there to protect me.
"Sir Souma... I would ask that you refrain from agitating Sir Julius," Jeanne
objected, with a sigh.
"I only spoke the truth," I responded. "Governing the nation and providing relief
to the people... those are the two duties of a ruler. They, however, taxed the people
heavily to pay for their wasteful military spending. That is the very definition of
oppression."
"And whose fault was that?!" Julius shouted. "If the royal family of Elfrieden
hadn't stole land from my grandfather...!"
"Not this again..." Hearing Julius trot out the same tired arguments, I let out a
sigh. "The royal family of Amidonia calls out for revenge against Elfrieden at every
turn, but neither you, nor even Gaius, were party to those events. What's more, I
haven't been in this world that long. What grudge could you possibly have had
against me?"
"Ah! That's..."
"If anything, your country is the one that's continuously tried to bring harm to
mine," I said. "...Hakuya."
"Yes, sire." Hakuya pulled out a piece of paper that was rolled up inside a
cylindrical tube and handed it to the two of them.
On the paper was written a number of names. When they saw those names,
Jeanne seemed confused, but Julius had a look on his face like he had just bitten into
something unpleasant.
"What... is this?" Jeanne asked.
With a bow, Hakuya explained, "The names you see written here are nobles of the
Elfrieden Kingdom who were incited to sedition by the Principality of Amidonia.
Some of them rose up during the reign of the former king and were put down.
Amidonia incited them, fomenting rebellion, tempting them into corruption, and
encouraging them to adopt an uncooperative stance towards the royal family."
"Oh, my..."
When Jeanne turned a cold look towards him, Julius clenched his jaw.
It had seemed like they'd been trying to stir up the three dukes, so I'd had Hakuya
look into it, and, boy, had we ever found some shady stuff. I could see the names of
corrupt nobles who had taken part in the uprising on the list, but some of the names
I saw belonged to nobles who had refused to take a side in the recent conflict. When
I returned to the royal capital, I was going to have to do something about that.
"Madam Jeanne," said Hakuya. "While they pay lip service to the Mankind
Declaration, the Principality of Amidonia has been engaging in all of this
skullduggery behind the scenes. It's hard to see how they can talk about revenge
against our kingdom after all this."
"Even when it comes to that revenge, they only bring it up when it benefits
them." I glared at Julius as I spoke, following Hakuya's example. "'Our country is
poor because of the kingdom, everyone goes hungry because of the kingdom, our
people suffer under their heavy toil because of the kingdom, the heavy taxes we levy
go to the military and not the people because of the kingdom.'"
"What are you getting at?" Julius demanded.
"It's awfully convenient," I said. "If you just use that excuse to pay lip service to
the theme of revenge, you can hide your policy blunders and redirect the anger of
your people towards Elfrieden."
"You cur! How dare you say that!" Julius exclaimed, dashing towards me.
"Sir Julius!" Jeanne snapped, stopping him again. Then she turned an equally
harsh glance in my direction. "Sir Souma, I believe I asked you not to agitate him."
"...Sorry," I said. "It's just that we want you to see that we're furious with
Amidonia's behavior, too."
"That... I can understand," said Jeanne.
"Thank you," I said. "Now, I have a proposal."
I turned to them, as if saying, Now, it's time to get down to business.
"Could we have Sir Julius leave the room?"
Julius's face contorted with rage. "Don't be absurd! Why should I be removed
from negotiations that will determine the fate of my nation's capital?!"
An intelligent and beautiful face showing all that anger was at least fifty percent
more intimidating than an ordinary person's would have been. Before coming to this
world, I'd probably have been overwhelmed by his threatening attitude, but... now I
had spent around half a year as king, dealing with far scarier people such as Gaius
himself, in matters of life and death. After all of that, this level of intimidation wasn't
enough pressure to faze me.
"It's simple, really," I said. "I don't even need to negotiate with Amidonia to begin
with."
"What did you say?!" he shouted.
"I am at the negotiating table because I want the Empire to recognize my
sovereignty over Van," I said. "The Empire takes the position that they can't recognize
the changing of borders due to the exercise of force, so they're here to negotiate
because they want me to return Van, right? In that case, the matter can be settled
entirely through negotiations between the kingdom and the Empire."
This had always been a negotiation between the kingdom and the Empire. The
principality had never been more than a sideshow. If his resentment was going to
stop the smooth proceeding of the negotiations, I would be happier to see him
removed from them. Jeanne seemed to understand this, too.
"...Sir Julius," she said. "Could I ask you to let me handle this?"
"Madam Jeanne?!" he exclaimed. "But..."
"These negotiations will go nowhere with you both at each other's throats," said
Jeanne. "The Empire does not wish to spend its time mediating other nations'
disputes. I will definitely reclaim Van, so I would like you to leave this to me."
"That's... very one-sided of you, isn't it?" Julius asked angrily. He seemed ready to
keep arguing, but Jeanne cut him right off.
"Then the Empire will have nothing more to do with this matter, and you will be
welcome to negotiate for yourself. In my personal opinion, the fault lies with
Amidonia on this occasion. We are doing what we can to help you because you're a
signatory to the Mankind Declaration, but if you find yourself unable to trust us, the
Empire will withdraw from these negotiations."
Julius knew the principality could not reclaim Van on its own. If the Empire
hinted they might withdraw from the negotiations, there was nothing he could say.
Julius looked anguished, choking out the words, "You will... get Van back for us,
yes?"
"I swear it on my sister, Empress Maria Euphoria's, name."
"I'm counting on you." Julius bowed his head to Jeanne, then left the audience
chamber.
After we had seen him off, Jeanne and I looked to one another and sighed.
"...I'm sorry," said Jeanne. "Our signatories can be such a handful."
"...I feel your pain."
We both smiled. In order to hide our true feelings, both of us had naturally put on
a smile. The dangerous air had vanished from the room, but the air was still as tense
as ever. No, if anything, it was more tense now than before.
These talks would decide what was to come from here on for both the kingdom
and the Empire, so that was probably inevitable.
"Did you deliberately agitate Julius to set the stage for this, perhaps?" Jeanne
asked.
I shook my head with a wry smile. "I meant most of what I said. Thanks to his
father and him, the kingdom's recovery was delayed, and I had to do a lot of
unnecessary work. I wanted to vent a little."
"Is that so?" Jeanne said, not seeming to care all that much. Then Jeanne brought
one hand to her chest, giving a polite bow. "Let me introduce myself once more, Sir
Souma. I am Jeanne Euphoria, emissary of the Gran Chaos Empire. I come
representing my sister Maria Euphoria."
"Welcome, Madam Jeanne," I said. "I am the (provisional) King of Elfrieden,
Souma Kazuya."
To start things afresh, Jeanne and I had reintroduced ourselves.
Jeanne had been a little taciturn before, but she now took on a cheerful tone,
completely at odds with that. She smiled to Liscia who stood beside me. "I'm relieved
to see you are well, Princess Liscia."
"You seem to be in good health yourself, Madam Jeanne," Liscia said, returning
the smile.
"Hm? You two were acquainted with each other?" I asked.
"Yes," said Liscia. "We met just once, when we were little. Before the Demon
Lord's Domain appeared, I believe?"
"Yes, it was," said Jeanne. "If I recall, it was the time I forced the minister in
charge of talks with your former king, Sir Albert, to bring me along. Because of our
close age, we played together."
I see, I thought. When they're both royals, they have those sorts of connections, huh.
Then, Jeanne eyed Liscia's body up and down and said, "You must be even
stronger now than you were back then. I can tell just looking at you."
"I could say the same of you," said Liscia. "Back then, I never did manage to land a
single hit on you."
Whoa, hold up! How did we get from the two of them playing to them landing hits
on each other?!
"You two were way too tomboyish..." I muttered.
"Even the mild-mannered Marx was mad at us that time," said Liscia
nostalgically.
"Our foreign minister was in tears, too," Jeanne chuckled. "Ha ha ha!"
No, no, that's nothing to laugh about... I felt bad for Marx and this minister for the
Empire whose face I'd never even seen.
"Well, anyway, that's enough reminiscing about old times," Jeanne began. "I think
it's about time we talked heart-to-heart."
"I know," I said. "Let's move somewhere else, for a start."
I wanted to take this chance to speak frankly with the Empire. In order to make
that possible, the meeting site needed to be a spot where both sides would feel
comfortable. I was going to want a pen and paper, too.
"But, first... Liscia, could you summon Serina for me?" I asked.
Liscia nodded, leaving the room. Shortly thereafter, a woman in a maid uniform
entered.
It was Liscia's personal maid, the head maid Serina. The head maid, an
intellectual beauty who was slightly older than me, lifted the hem of her apron-skirt
slightly, and curtsied. "I have come at your behest, Your Majesty."
"Serina," I said. "Amidonia's crown... no, Amidonia's sovereign prince, Julius, is in
the visitor's room. I may be speaking with Madam Jeanne for some time, so begin the
banquet without us and see to it that he is made welcome."
When I gave her that order, Serina bowed respectfully. "Very well. In that case,
sire, I would like permission to open a well-aged bottle of tequeur from the castle's
wine cellar."
In the moment she said that, I thought I saw a suspicious glint in Serina's eye.
Does she want to drink that alcoholic beverage, whatever it was called? I
wondered. She seems like the tight-laced sort to me, but maybe she's actually a
drinker. Is she saying it's for our guest, when really she wants to drink it herself?
"I'll leave the matter to your discretion," I said at last. "So long as our guest is
properly entertained."
"Understood. I will pour Sir Julius's share and entertain him personally."
With those words and an icy smile, Serina bowed and exited the room.
Her smile did worry me, but she'd said she would entertain him, so I figured it
was probably fine. As I was thinking that, I looked next to me to see Liscia and
Hakuya grimacing.
"Wh-What is it, you two?" I asked.
"Souma... tequeur is famous for being a strong alcohol," said Liscia.
"It has a pleasant taste, which encourages heavy drinking. However, if one who is
not used to drinking it does that, it will quickly send them off to the land of dreams.
Normally, it's the sort of thing you'd drink a few drops of mixed into a glass of tea or
juice," Hakuya explained, looking like his head hurt.
"Huh? Wait, if she goes pouring him glasses of the stuff..."
"The banquet will be over not ten minutes after it begins."
"She has no intention of entertaining him whatsoever?!" I exclaimed.
The head maid Serina. She had an elegant beauty, she carried out her duties
perfectly, she was polite, and she could also show great consideration, all of which
made her flawless as a maid. However, she was also a little too much of a sadist.
When it came to cute girls, she always wanted to "buwwy" them. Not "bully,"
"buwwy." Not that she'd do anything that would hurt them; she just enjoyed stirring
up their senses of shame a little.
Left alone with Serina, Julius didn't stand a chance.
Well, the goal of the banquet was always to keep Julius from finding out what's
going on with our negotiations with the Empire, I thought. If she gets him to drink
himself into a stupor, that's one way of doing it...
"Just this once, I feel bad for Julius," Liscia said, with eyes as emotionless as those
of a dead fish. "Serina, she just loves to toy with swaggering types like him."
"I-It sounds like you have personal experience with this..." I said.
"Whenever I misbehaved, Marx was the one who would scold me, but Serina was
always the one in charge of disciplining me," said Liscia. "Of course, Serina's a maid,
so she couldn't punish me physically. No, she went for psychological attacks instead.
If only... If only she didn't know about that one thing... No, there's that, too, isn't
there...? Augh, why does she always, always have to see me at the worst possible
moments?"
As I tried to console Liscia, who was holding her head in her hands, I let out a
sigh. "Just how much blackmail material does she have on you...?"
"Heh heh. This really is an... interesting country." In the corner of my vision, I saw
Jeanne doing her best to hold back a smile.
After that, we changed locations, and I showed Jeanne to the governmental affairs
office. That was because, if we were going to be sitting down and negotiating at
length, I felt this was the best place to do it.
It was large enough to hold a reasonable number of people, and there were
plenty of pens and pieces of paper there. Being able to easily get our hands on any
documents we might need was another point in its favor.