Then, I listened to the story of the Demon King for a while.
His wife was a woman of a different species called Wise Devil. Although she was a demon, she was not a noble but a commoner.
Well, the Demon race cared more about "power" than status. But even so, it would be quite unusual for a commoner to be chosen to be the King's companion.
Originally, she was one of the maids of the castle, and it seemed that she had known Finar since Finar became the Demon King.
So, they had basically known each other for several decades now.
She was a very lively woman, and even among the highest class of maids, she was so beautiful in each of her gestures that Finar remembered her well, and that was the reason why Finar approached her in the first place.
In other words, she would be like Layla in our family.
He was joking earlier that he could find anyone if he wanted to, but in fact, it turned out that he had already found someone he liked and decided to marry her.
It seems like she struggled a lot with the fact that she was married to such a serious person, and she often got angry with Finar for his inattentiveness and lack of attention towards his own personal affairs due to his daily busy schedule.
"Haha, that's nice. In your case, wouldn't it be better to have someone close to you who is worrying and even angry at you, I think?"
The other Rulers I knew were all basically putting their own family affairs behind and seemed to take it for granted or not care about it at all and focused solely on how to improve their domain.
They do all possess a sense of responsibility as Rulers, and have been doing their best at their ruling.
I would probably be the only one among those rulers who didn't really care about my own duty as a ruler of a country.
As such, I think it would be good for Finar to have someone who watches over him from a different perspective than he was viewing himself.
In our case, I have a lot of people who look out for me and I look out for them, so it was a perfect balance.
As a matter of fact, it was Lefi who was most keen about observing everyone.
She always noticed if something was wrong, like when Layla, who rarely expressed her true feelings, was a little out of shape but never noticed this herself.
"Well, maybe that's true. I've always just said to myself, 'I'm busy, but it's okay,' but I know that's not a good thing to do."
I guess it was just because of his temperament that he liked to be busy, even if he understood that it was not a good thing to do.
He understood that it was a bad habit, but he thought it was inevitable since he was the King.
"Oh, let her nag at you every day, and then have her play silly games with you. It will be quite the experience."
"…Uncle Finar, it would be kind of funny if you became like the Master."
Enne, who knew what happened at home, said after my words, sounding a little amused.
Hmmm, they've probably seen a lot of my pathetic behavior, our kids.
It would certainly be interesting to see Finar do the same.
The Demon King looked at us and said, "Muuu, I bet you're having fun, aren't you, both of you? But well, it's still a bit of a new experience for me. My partner is about to become a Queen, but she has no intention of quitting her job as a maid."
Wasn't that great?
"From what I hear, she seems to be quite a strong woman. I'd like to meet her…"
"Okay, this may be a good opportunity for you to meet her today. –Let's go and see her."
The Demon King called out to his subordinates who were waiting for him, and one of them left the room – and soon after that.
What appeared was a very beautiful lady dressed in a maid's uniform.
She was not a pretty girl, but a beautiful woman, with a horn on her forehead like an ogre, looking slender in appearance.
Her hair color was almost black, and the combination of her face and the single horn gave her an impression of a Japanese-style beauty. She would look good in a kimono or something.
"Kua, this is the Emperor of Rogard Empire and the Demon Lord of a Labyrinth, Yuki, the Demon Emperor. He holds many titles, you know. And the girl next to him is his daughter, Zaienne. She is a rare child who belongs to the Demon Sword race. Now, say hello."
Then she – the maid called Kua – made a beautiful bow toward us.
"Nice to meet you, Your Majesty the Demon Emperor. And, Lady Zaienne. I am Kuala Luka. I have always heard about you from Finar, and I am very sorry that my husband seems to be causing trouble for His Majesty Yuki."
"No, really, please hold Finar's reins from now on."
"Please leave it to me. As Finar's wife, I will admonish my husband."
"Yuki, I don't want to be the only victim of this nonsense."
Finar smiled with meaning, and I shrugged my shoulders.
Although Kuala Luka kept a straight face during the conversation, she was probably just responding to my joke.
Well, I think I could get along with this person.
I want to bring my army of wives and introduce them to her.
"…beautiful bride." (Enne)
"Thank you, Lady Zaienne. You are also very beautiful. Your dress is of very good color and structure, and I can see that you are very elegant." (Kuala Luka)
"Thank you, and please call me Enne." (Enne)
"Lady Enne, I am thankful for your kindness. Please call me Kua as well." (Kuala Luka)
"…Nn…Pleasure to meet you, Kua. But please don't call me Lady. I prefer a more casual approach." (Enne)
"I would also like you to call me more casually as well like Enne. I'm not used to formalities, so please don't use it." (Yuki)
"…I understand. I'm sure this Kua will be able to make friends with Enne and your family." (Kua)
"Is that so? I'm glad to hear that." (Enne)
Finar smiled as he watched Enne and his wife exchange a few words.
"Well, this is the kind of girl she is. Quite a strange girl, isn't she?" (Finar)
I couldn't help but chuckle when Kua replied with, "My, Your Majesty. You are saying that in the presence of the person in question? Please be prepared."
"…Prepare for what?" (Finar)
"Well, it's not something I'm willing to say…" (Kua)
"Oh, are you planning to do something you couldn't speak of?" (Finar)
"…well, I can tell that you two are getting along pretty well, I would say." (Yuki)
What to say… they didn't look like they would match each other at all, but they might be surprisingly well suited for each other.
After that, we spent some time chatting with Finar's wife.
In this short time, I was able to get a general idea of her personality, and the jokes she told from her serious face were surreal and amusing, and I learned that she was actually a person with a good sense of humor.
The important thing here was that she kept a very serious face, and it barely changed whether she was making a joke or not.
However, she laughed gently in some parts of the conversation, and I could sense her love for Finar as it was evident in her words when talking about him.
In fact, my girl immediately took a liking to her.
Finar certainly had chosen an interesting person to be his wife.
The conversation then turned to Rir, and Enne said, "…I'll bring you over there, and I'd like you to touch Rir's fluffy hair," to which the wife of the Demon King replied, "Well, I'm looking forward to that," and they left the room together.
We talked about a lot of unrelated things, but it was a good time for me to start talking to the Demon King about something else while sipping the tea he had brewed for me.
"Oh yeah, I had to ask, how's the competition thing going on now so far?"
"We're still discussing it. I think we've decided on the general framework and what we're going to do. Actually, we were planning to have a meeting with you, Yuki, at Rogard Empire soon. –We're planning to have two competitions this time."
I see, so they have narrowed it down to two.
"One is to test the beauty and difficulties in magic. And the second one is all about tests of physical strength, magical skill, tactical acumen, and perfection of teamwork, all of which are required. This second one is based on the main points of the competitions you have told us about. The first is the Magic Festa and the second is the Battle Festa. If you come up with a better name, let me know."
"Wow…that's great, I'm getting excited just hearing about it!"
A sport that used magic and was developed in this world.
I wanted to be a part of it from the very beginning, and I could watch how it develops in the future.
As someone who loved sports from previous life – or rather, as someone who loved the competitions that people engaged in, I was delighted.
Even if it was a game or a play, it would still be an interesting event in its own right.
"Well, here comes the hard part. How do we make the newly created competitions permeate the public, create expectations among the people, and promote accommodation through this? And how to separate it from politics… I would like to see the world continue to run through its current 'fever' without cooling down, but if we neglect the foundation, it will soon crumble. It's important to make proper adjustments."
I was a little excited, but Finar's serious tone of voice made me calm down.
"…Yes, that's right. I'd like to hold it while there is still a sense of anticipation among the people, but since it's the first time we're trying this, no matter how much we work out the details, it will not be enough."
"Maybe, is what I would like to say, but for sure, there will be some problems. I'm not certain if we can keep moving forward without falling back on the issues. –And by the way, I'm going to ask the Dwarves to build an arena first, so can I build it in the Imperial Capital?"
"Oh, of course, and it should have a variety of uses, right? I'd like it to be able to host multiple sports events, and I'd also want a hotel and stores around it."
I personally would be happy if it were like a complex in my previous life, with the stadium as the centerpiece.
A couple of hotels in a row, a department store of some sort, and a park or something would be a blast.
No, wait, maybe a "department store" concept did not exist yet in this world?
I should use this opportunity to make it permeate the world.
But it would take a lot of time and money to develop a department store to a certain extent, and the parks would likely be a problem. So I should probably limit it to a stadium and a hotel where visitors could stay…but it could develop into a big project in the future.
Taking all of this into account… I think the best location would be by the seaside.
In this world, unlike my previous life, there were still a lot of distribution problems.
Although airships have become a new means of transportation, there still existed a big difference in transportation capacity, both in people and goods, between airships and ocean vessels.
Considering that this was a competition that would bring together countries, it would be more convenient to have the event as close to the sea as possible.
Fortunately, the imperial capital of Gallia was very large, and its southern end faced the sea.
As one of the largest nations in this world, the scale of its capital alone would be comparable to that of the royal capital of Allysia Kingdom and perhaps even to the royal capital of the Demon World combined in size.
I wish someone in this world would invent something like a train. That's right, a TRAIN!
I think that this world was comparable to early modern times in the history of my previous life.
However, it was clear that the development of this world was slow compared to the length of its history.
This was probably because of the harshness of the environment surrounding the humanoid races.
In addition to strong external enemies in the form of monsters, there were multiple humanoid countries that did not get along with each other, and the seeds of conflict were everywhere.
According to the story of the God Ruin, Dominus, which was this world itself, sought chaos, in other words, diversity of races… but I couldn't help but think that it was a little too diverse.
But still, there existed scenes that could only be seen in this world, and I think I understand what Dominus was aiming for.
This world was cruel, ruthless, merciless, and harsh – but above all, it was fantastic.
I wonder if Dominus and the elder Gods would like to witness the competition we were going to organize…
"…Hmmm, that sounds good. The construction plan is being planned mainly by the Dwarves, but Yuki, can I hear what you have in mind right now?"
"Okay, I'll tell you what I think would be a good plan."
We then proceeded with our discussions.