The Elvish continent 100 years ago was a dreadful place to live in.
The taxes were incredibly high, and each year they only got higher.
An enormous number of civilians were starving because they couldn't afford to buy a simple meal.
A baker that sold bread would have to pay so much tax that he would barely get any profit off of his sales. So, to feed his family, he raised his prices.
Raising the price may have saved his family, but it ended the lives of another hundred families.
The situation got so bad that even some noble families were starving, and the person who had the ability to change everything for the better was currently flirting with his harem of women.
Morrsath was the Elvish emperor, and he had more than a hundred wives who had already given him hundreds of children.
Normally he would be called a king, but he forced everyone to call him an emperor because he thought it made him sound more powerful.
He was the one who took all the money from the taxes, and the richer he got, the richer he wanted to be.
Morrsath didn't care about destroying his country. He only wished to live a life filled with pleasure. Sleeping with beautiful women every day, drinking delicious alcohol, and laughing at other people's misfortune.
The feeling of standing above everyone and being the person who could end someone's life without moving a finger gave him the feeling of ecstasy.
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One day he was getting drunk while pleasuring multiple women at once, like any other day, when suddenly a guard knocked on his door.
"Come in!"
Morrsath shouted at the guard, and he entered.
The room smelled extremely sweet, and there was an aphrodisiac gas floating around.
In the middle of the room was a huge bed where Morrsath laid surrounded by five alluring elf women.
The guard came to deliver important news, but his emperor didn't stop having sex with one of the gorgeous elf girls.
"Did you come to look or what?"
Hearing his emperor's voice, the guard quickly kneeled down while looking down and shaking his head.
He attempted to calm down, even though he could still hear moans all around him.
"I came to tell you that your wife, Tasha, is about to give birth, and she wanted you to be there when she gives you a child."
Raising his voice so that his emperor could hear him, the guard delivered the news.
"Hell no! Do you think that I have the time to help one of my wives give birth? Do you know how many children I have?"
"Two hundred sixty-eight, your Majesty!"
The guard nodded his bowed head.
Morrsath raised an eyebrow and then laughed.
"Haha! See! Even I didn't know that! I thought it was around a hundred or so. Well, not that I care, but if I had to be at every childbirth, I would lose a lot of time, and I have important things to do, you know."
The guard knew that his emperor was spouting bullshit through his teeth because he had never seen him do anything productive ever since he had begun ruling the Elvish continent.
"Yes, your majesty! I will tell her that you can't come because of your busy schedule!"
But he was just a palace guard, so while still bowing his head, the guard accepted his emperor's words.
"Yeah, so piss off already."
Morrsath waved his hand, gesturing for the guard to leave, and went back to what he was doing before.
The aphrodisiac that kept floating in the air had already gotten his wives on his bed intoxicated, so all they could think about was getting pleasure.
Closing the door behind him, the guard walked through the palace and soon entered a small room that only had a simple bed and a bucket full of water.
On the bed was an incredibly attractive elf with golden hair, but she was currently sweating because of her bloated belly.
"Rodias, is that you? What did that scumbag say?"
She looked to the side, where she could see the guard who was just talking to the emperor.
Seeing her in pain while her husband was enjoying himself made the guard clench his teeth in anger.
But, once again, he was only a guard, so he kneeled down before the wife of the emperor.
"Miss Tasha! His majesty had said that he was busy."
"Haha… busy… That bastard hasn't been busy a single time since he was born… Urgghhh!"
Tasha was shaking her head when she suddenly felt extreme pain in her belly, and she knew what it meant.
There was also an old woman in the room who was supposed to help Tasha with the childbirth.
The guard understood his queue and turned to leave.
"Wait Rodias!"
Tasha screamed at him, and he turned around.
"Come here and hold my hand. I need someone to support me if my scumbag of a husband doesn't want to come, and you are the only one I trust for the job."
The guard was touched by her words, so he ran to her side and grabbed her hand.
The birth took some time, and Rodias felt like his hand had been crushed by Tasha during it, but everything went well in the end.
"Waaahh!"
"It is a girl, my lady."
The old woman washed the baby, and after covering her in a white blanket, she handed her to Tasha.
"Look how cute she is, Rodias."
Tasha was exhausted, but she still smiled because she had just given birth to her first child.
The old woman's job was done, so she left Tasha and Rodias alone.
Rodias looked at the baby, and all he could think of was that she looked pretty ugly.
He had never seen a newborn baby before, and seeing this one, he didn't know how Tasha could describe her as cute.
"Y- Yeah, she sure is adorable."
But he didn't want to make her sad after she had gone through a lot of pain, so he agreed with a smile.
"What should we name her?"
Tasha looked at Rodias, who was surprised to be asked this question.
"We? No, my lady, only you and the emperor deserve to name your baby. I have no say in this."
Hearing his words, Tasha looked at Rodias with a frown.
"Don't say that! You have always taken care of me, ever since we were little. I would have even married you if only that man hadn't forced himself on me and then threw me away like a piece of trash…"
Tasha remembered how she was assaulted by the emperor one day when he was riding the carriage through the city, and he forced her to become his wife.
"…Tasha... You know we can't be together… He will cut my head off if he gets wind of this."
Rodias always loved Tasha, and on the day she was assaulted, he planned to ask for her hand in marriage, only to find out that she was marrying the emperor.
"Then let's run away. We will take this baby and run away. He has so many wives anyway that one going missing shouldn't be a problem!"
Tasha looked at Rodias with a determined expression because she was willing to throw away her life in the palace where she was forced to live like a rat and run away with him.
"Do you know how expensive it is to live outside the palace, Tasha?"
"Then we will get a little house with a field that will give us enough food to get by!"
Even though Rodias tried to talk her out of it, Tasha remained set on leaving.
"…Alright. I have some money saved up because I didn't need to buy anything, so I will buy us a house and we will run away."
After some time, he nodded because he was weak before Tasha's puppy eyes.
He would have to buy the house in a roundabout way so that he wouldn't be suspected of kidnapping the emperor's wife, but it was doable.
"WAAAAAA!"
This made Tasha smile, but the baby in her arms woke up while crying.
"There, there…"
She kept babying the girl and smiling because she was happy that she could finally get out of that cursed palace.
"What should we name her then?"
Tasha looked at Rodias with a smile.
He started rubbing his chin and started to really think about it because the baby would have to be stuck with the name for the rest of her life, so it needed to be a good name.
Tasha chuckled at how Rodias was seriously trying to think about it, and while she let him think, she kept kissing the baby's forehead.
The baby was born because of the emperor, but she didn't hate her for that.
Tasha knew that the baby didn't choose its father, and she had to also look at it positively.
Because Morrsath was the child's father, the baby would have silver hair when she grows up, and that means that she would have more authority than the other elves.
The baby could even become queen if it outlived the current emperor, but Tasha didn't want that because she didn't want her child to go back to the palace after they left.
Suddenly, Rodias opened his eyes and raised his head.
"I know! Let's call her Valindra, because that way she will always be filled with valor!"
Tasha didn't like the name at first, but when she said it to herself a few times in her head, she came to love it.
"See? I knew you would pick a great name!"
Looking at the baby in her arms with a smile, Tasha opened her mouth.
"I hope you live a life filled with happiness, my little Valindra."