This place was the child care center that had been in the castle for a long time
now. It was mostly a place where people who worked in the castle, such as the
maids, left their children.
"King, play with uuuus!" one child yelled.
"King, let us ride on your shouldeeeers!"
I said nothing.
Sitting on the carpet, an adorable little wolf-eared boy of around three was
playing with a human girl. Meanwhile, a cat-eared girl who was around the same age
had occupied my lap and was rolling around on it. The cat tail that grew out of her
rear end was swishing back and forth.
"Hmm, I can't get up now, so just climb up on your own," I said.
""Aye!"" the kids cried.
The two who had been fooling around together started climbing up my back.
Yeah, they were pretty darn adorable. I had gotten used to them hanging over my
shoulders and touching my face all over now.
"Hee hee. You really are popular with the children, Your Majesty." The birth
mother of my beloved little sister Tomoe, Tomoko, watched us with a smile as she
folded the children's laundry.
When we'd practically forced Tomoe to become my adopted little sister-in-law,
we had also had Tomoko take up residence here to work at the nursery school. By
the way, the little boy who was using his slobber-covered hand to touch my face
right now was her eldest son (Tomoe's real little brother), Rou.
"Big brother," Tomoe said, "I'm happy that you're playing with Rou and his
friends, but are you sure its okay? Won't Big Sister get mad at you again...?"
Tomoe, who stayed here to help her mother when she didn't have to do work
negotiating with rhinosauruses, was busy soothing a baby. When I thought about it,
Tomoe was still only ten years old. What a good, reliable kid she was.
"It's fine," I said. "I don't have a massive backlog of work to get through anymore.
Besides, I've left my Living Poltergeists in the governmental affairs office to keep up
with the work."
"Oh, I see," said Tomoe. "You can play the day away, then. Isn't that nice, Rou?"
"Aye!" Rou raised his hand up straight.
He's so cuuuute.
I really liked kids. I could watch them toddling along with their little steps all day.
It stimulated a protective urge inside me. When my grandma and grandpa had been
alive, I'd helped out with book readings at the local preschool, after all.
After I had played with the children for some time...
"That's an incredible look for you, Master."
When I turned to see who had called out to me, Carla was standing there. In a
maid outfit.
"No, I don't want to hear that from you, Carla," I said.
"...I suppose that's fair." Carla said, slumping her shoulders. Really, when I looked
at her...
"It's terrifying how badly that maid uniform suits you."
"Please, don't tell me... I feel the same way."
Carla was a dragonewt to begin with, so she already came with more accessories
than your average person. She had a tail, dragon wings, and little horns. If you made
her wear a maid uniform on top of that, it was too many character traits piled onto
one person, and she beamed with too much personality.
"To top it off, isn't the skirt on that maid outfit awfully short?" I asked.
"D-Don't look," Carla said, holding down the front of her skirt.
The maids in the castle wore classical maid outfits with long skirts, but with the
one Carla was wearing right now, it looked more fit for working the floor of a maid
cafe. The skirt only went down to just above her knees, and it was an airy dress type
maid outfit. It made her figure stand out all the more.
"Urgh... the head maid... said to wear this one..." Carla muttered, flustered.
"Ahh. I thought it might be Serina's handiwork."
The head maid, Serina, was a talented maid, but she did have a sadistic side
reserved for cute girls like this. Apparently she enjoyed making them wear
embarrassing outfits, then watching the girls go through the shame and agony of it.
What was more, the stronger-willed a girl was, the more she enjoyed "buwwying"
them, which meant Liscia and Carla were right in the middle of her strike zone.
Liscia had told me stories with a distant look in her eyes.
Buddha save both of them.
"But, still... Has it been a week since then?" I asked. "Is your training period as a
maid done now?"
"T-Training... Urkh... Ah..." Carla clutched her head.
No, seriously, what happened to you? I wondered. Weren't you just trained in the
basic skills you'll need as part of the maid force?
"The... The whip..."
"Whip?!"
"She used the whip... to hit me..."
"It was that hard?!"
"What's more, it was a special one, with a magic spell on it," said Carla. "It
wouldn't leave a mark where she hit me... But. It struck half with pain and half with
pleasure."
What's with that whip?! That's not for disciplining, it's for breaking them in, isn't it?
"According to the head maid, 'The pain keeps you from giving in to the pleasure,
while the pleasure keeps you from bearing the pain by tickling your ribs.' While I
may have fallen to become a slave and a maid, I won't let myself be reduced to being
useless, so I was determined to learn my job properly, but... that whip scares me.
Maybe it would be easier if I could have given into the pleasure..."
"That is because the maid force are the master's dogs," a voice said pleasantly.
"We have no use for a perverted sow."
"Eek?!" Carla shrieked.
When she turned around, Serina was standing there with a glossy smile. Given
that she'd just made Carla, who had fearlessly plunged into the battlefield, shriek
like that... just how scary was she?
"Is something the matter, sire?" Serina asked.
"...No, it's nothing."
Sorry, but as long as she doesn't have her sights on me, I'm going to play ignorant, I
thought. It'll be fine, Carla. I'm sure you won't die. ...Physically, at least. Emotionally,
I'm not so sure.
"Now then, Carla," Serina beamed. "I believe I asked you to make His Majesty's
bed in the governmental affairs office, did I not?"
"No, um... Collecting the sheets of a man I'm closely acquainted with was
embarrassing, so I..."
"What are you talking about?" Serina demanded. "If you call yourself a maid,
eventually His Majesty and the princess will [censored], and you have to make the
bed where they [censored] and [censored] while it's all [censored], while keeping a
straight face."
"I-I really hope you'll spare me from that, at least?!" Carla said with her face
turning a bright shade of red...
Wait, huh? Aren't Liscia and I being indirectly embarrassed here, too? I was feeling
really awkward right now.
On top of that, Tomoe asked her mother, "What is [censored]?" and left her
struggling to answer.
Don't say things in front of a child that are going to affect their emotional
development...
As I was thinking that, Serina tilted her head to the side questioningly.
"Incidentally, sire. Are you going to be okay, sire?"
"Huh?"
"No, it's just that I see someone running this way from behind you, sire." Serina
smiled.
When Serina said that with a smile, I turned around to see...
"Oh, crap!"
I got Rou down off of my back, then hurriedly tried to run away, but... I was
grabbed firmly by the collar.
"Gwah!" I yelped.
"Gahaha! I've been looking for you, Your Majestyyyy!"
When I turned around, a muscular man who was just starting to show the signs
of old age, with his gray hair combed back and a beard in the same color, was
standing there with an overbearing smile.
When I had judged Castor and Carla, he was one of the two who had not been
intimidated by me and continued to defend them. It was the head of the House of
Jabana, Owen Jabana.
After the trial, I had hired him on as my personal educator and advisor (and
martial arts trainer). I'll talk more about that one in a parenthetical later.
Oh, by the way, as for the other person who had defended the two of them,
Piltory Saracen of the House of Saracen, when I'd explained the evil deeds of the
former head of the house (his father), he had said, "My word... I can't believe that my
father did such things. I can offer you no proper apology. Knowing what I do now, I
am prepared to serve you to the bitter end, sire. I will go through any peril for you."
He seemed to be thinking in the way you might expect from a serious young man
of the nobility, so I gave him the very dangerous mission he was looking for. The
mission of "Special Ambassador in the Elfrieden Kingdom Embassy to be established
in the Gran Chaos Empire." We were in an experimental phase still, so there was no
telling how far extraterritoriality would protect him.
Now, back to Owen.
Owen was the type who could vociferously speak the truth to those above him.
By his own account, "These old bones have nothing to lose. I'm going to live out
what little is left of my life being true to myself!"
He said he didn't have much time left, but it felt like even if I killed him, he'd still
come back somehow...
If I kept someone like this, who could tell his ruler the honest truth, at my side, it
would reduce the chance of me straying from the right path. While I might have
ordered Carla to die to stop me if it came to it, I would prefer to make it to
retirement without getting killed.
So, after a bit of this and that, I brought Owen on to help educate me, but...
"Gahaha, sire! If you were free from administrative work, you should have told
me! Come on, come on, let's start our training for the day!"
I was silent.
It seemed that, in Owen's mind, education included physical education, and any
time I was free from my administrative tasks, he would try to train me. If he caught
me, it meant running, practice swings, mock battles, everything on the training menu
for a newly-recruited soldier.
"No, I have Aisha training me already, so..." I said.
"What are you saying? The princess of the God-Protected Forest, Madam Aisha, is
much too easy on you, sire! She only makes you train with your puppets!"
"You're too loud," I said. "But, if I use my puppets, at least I can put up a fight."
"And what will you do when you find yourself in a situation where you can't use
them?" Owen demanded. "Your life is the life of this country itself. If an assassin
attacks, if you can fend off the enemy's attacks for a few exchanges, or even just one
exchange, your bodyguards will be able to get to you in time. That one exchange will
decide the life or death of our country. That one exchange will bring our country
glory."
Urgh... Because he was right, there was nothing I could say. As I slumped my
shoulders, Carla, who Serina had also grabbed by the collar, looked at me with just a
little sympathy.
"I see you have it hard, too, Master..."
"You too," I said with no emotion.
"Come, come, sire! To the training grounds!" Owen declared.
"You, too, Carla," Serina scolded. "You need to hurry and learn how to make a
bed."
And so, the two of us were dragged off in different directions.
Some days later, we received a report that a rebellion had broken out in
Amidonia.
◇ ◇ ◇
"It's lookin' like my brother couldn't win, after all," Roroa said.
In a room at an inn in a town near Van, the first princess of Amidonia looked at
the two people with her. One of them, the former Minister of Finance, Colbert, shook
his head.
"This country has already been defeated. The negotiations were only to limit the
damage. I think it's too harsh to blame Lord Julius."
Julius gave off a cold impression, but he rated Colbert's skill at finance highly and,
partially because of their close age, the two had formed a friendship. Colbert
couldn't bring himself to criticize his employer and friend.
Roroa smiled wryly at Colbert, seeing him like that. "Maybe not, but if there're
war reparations to be paid, the ones sufferin' will be the folks in town. We call it the
capital, but it's just one city. The area around it's not all that productive. Shouldn't he
have let the kingdom keep it for a while and avoided takin' responsibility for the
war? We're not totally beat yet, and if we left the territory as-is, the Empire and
Kingdom couldn't say anythin' more. If that got us past the current crisis, there were
any number of moves left he could've played."
Roroa said all that like it was no big deal.
Sebastian, the other person who was here with her, shrugged. "Not everyone
could accept that so easily. People don't act solely on the arithmetic of profit and
loss. We all have things we're emotionally attached to, you see. Lord Julius has them,
you have them... and I am sure the young King of Elfrieden has them, too."
"Me and Souma, too?" Roroa asked.
"Yes," said Sebastian. "In the same way that the spirit of Amidonia was precious
to Lord Gaius and Lord Julius, the smiles of the men and women who live in the
principality are precious to you, right? Would you be able to cast them aside because
your arithmetic said to?"
"...I see," Roroa said.
True, that's somethin' I want to protect, profit or loss aside, Roroa thought. Does
that Souma have somethin' he's attached to, profitable or not, too?
"You met Souma, didn't ya, Sebastian?" she asked. "Watchin' the broadcasts, he
seemed like a clever, funny guy. What'd you think, meetin' him in person?
"Well, let me think... He looked like an ordinary young man, able to listen to the
opinions of others and, more than anything else, he felt like someone who valued the
people close to him."
"The complete opposite of my old man, huh," Roroa nodded. "But, in that case,
there's still a chance."
Roroa shook her closed right fist in circles. It was the gesture she made before
throwing dice when gambling or playing a board game.
"Will it work out in my favor or not? I was thinkin' my odds were fifty-fifty, but
maybe it's not so bad a bet, after all. He'll make a fine opponent for the biggest
gamble of this gal's life."
"Princess... Are you absolutely certain about this?"
Colbert wore a look of concern, but Roroa said with a serious look, "We've gotta
do it. Uncle Herman'll keep things under control down south... but somethin' smells
fishy up north. We've got information sayin' the forces of the Orthodox Papal State of
Lunaria have come up near the border."
On this continent, there were two major faiths, Mother Dragon Worship and
Lunarian Orthodoxy. The center of the latter faith, the Orthodox Papal State of
Lunaria, was a dangerous theocracy with a unique system of values. With this
country looking like it was on the verge of death, they might try something.
Roroa rose to her feet, turning to the other two and clapping her hands. "Now,
here's where we'll turn it all around. From here on out, we won't be lettin' my
brother, the Papal State, or Souma go doin' whatever they please. We'll be the ones
to get the last laugh!"
Roroa spoke proudly, puffing up her meager chest.
Then, mentally, she added, And, Souma, you're gonna be laughin' with us. Though,
unlike ours, yours is probably gonna be a strained smile!
Roroa smiled like a mischievous child who had just though up a new trick.