by Dojyomaru
The reason it was only a “near” elimination was because I had survived.
That was the reason Excel was here.
“But I’ve already married out of the family, and cast away the Elfrieden name,” I tried to protest.
Excel silently shook her head. “The only one remaining in the direct royal line is you, Lady Elisha. If someone outside the House of Elfrieden were to name themselves king, the chaos would spread further. Neighboring countries like Amidonia and Turgis are already making unsettling moves. In order to quell the chaos, I need you to ascend the throne.”
“But... I...”
I was at a loss for words, and Albert put his arm around my shoulder.
“From what Georg told me, the three dukes won’t be getting involved in the issue of who succeeds the throne, right?” Albert asked.
“...Yes. That was the case, at least. It was because we were doing all we could to keep our own forces in line, so as not to expand the chaos. However, at this point, Lady Elisha is the only royal left. There can be no division now, so the three dukes and our forces will put our lives on the line to protect and serve Lady Elisha.”
When she said that, Excel knelt on the ground and pressed her head to the floor.
“I am aware that you two have avoided the conflict, and were living in happiness here. I also know our request will destroy that. However, if the country falls into chaos, it won’t be long before the fires spread to this land.”
I could understand what Excel was saying. I understood it, but...
“If I return to the castle, what will happen to Albert and this child?” I brought my hand to my not-yet-apparent belly.
Excel’s eyes went wide. It seemed she hadn’t known.
She bowed her head deeply once more.
“I beg your apologies for troubling you at such an important time! Of course, the child and its father will both move to the castle, too. I swear we will protect all of you. In particular, Georg, who assumed the mantle of the Duke of Carmine the other day, is prepared to throw his own life away for you.”
“Georg took over as head of the house, did he...?” Albert whispered to himself.
I closed my eyes in meditation for some time.
...No memories are coming, huh?
I had thought a future “me” might send back the result of a decision I’d made here, but there was no sign of that happening. Did that mean this decision would not be fatal, or had no other “me” managed to reach this point yet...? I couldn’t be certain. What I did know was that I had to make a choice.
The choice I should make is...
I thought, and thought... then looked at Albert.
“Darling. Will you stay with me, no matter which choice I make?”
Albert gave me a big nod. “Of course! We are husband and wife, after all.”
Hearing his response, I made up my mind.
The choice I made, after having seen what became of all the other “me”s up until this point, was...
“Very well. Let’s return to the castle.”
“Ohh...!” Excel cried in relief. “You have my gratitude, Your Majesty.”
“However...” I held up a hand to stop her before she could bow again. “Once I have ascended the throne, I will entrust all of my rights as king to my husband, Albert.”
“Wha?! That means...”
“Yes. With my assent, Albert will rule the country as king.”
“M-Me, rule the country?! That’s impossible!” His eyes wide with shock, Albert vigorously shook his head.
...Sorry to get you involved, Albert. But this is an absolute necessity.
“With all due respect, I have to agree that is not possible,” Excel said. “For one thing, if he is not of the Elfrieden royal line, I doubt the people will accept him.”
However, my resolve did not falter.
“I have inherited the blood of the royal house, as will this child. Albert, who is my husband and the father of this child, should be able to serve as a temporary king until the next generation.”
“No, but... again, with all due respect, I cannot imagine Albert has the qualities required to be king...”
Excel seemed pained to tell me this, but I shook my head silently.
“Duchess Walter, the Royal House of Elfrieden has shed too much blood. That is the result of ugly internecine violence. That is known by our retainers, and even by the people. The Royal House of Elfrieden has lost their faith. Am I wrong?”
“I... believe it is as you say.” Showing some hesitation, Excel finally acknowledged what I was saying and nodded.
“Even if I were to take the throne now, I couldn’t bring the country together,” I told her. “More than anything else, that is because of the royal blood which is my claim to the throne. Even if I took the throne, the people would feel uneasy, and it would gall those who backed other candidates in the succession crisis. I couldn’t unite the country in times of crisis. Because the royal house has lost its power, if there were further division among our retainers, the country would truly be finished.”
Excel listened to me silently.
I probably was convincing. That was because I had seen it through the eyes of a future “me.”
Even if one faction survived the conflict, the resentment it gave birth to would have lasting repercussions. Unable to unite in the face of crises like natural disasters, monster attacks, and foreign invasions, the castle would burn.
That would be the same, even with me as the queen.
“I understand what you are saying, but... why would you make Sir Albert king?” Excel asked.
I gave a direct reply to her obvious doubts. “Because Albert will be a king no one hates.”
“A king no one hates?” she repeated.
“Yes. If he were a wise king, that would please our loyal vassals, but the corrupt ones would find it restricting, and eventually bring him down. If he were a powerful king, he could eliminate those corrupt vassals, but I suspect the royal house currently lacks the power. If we act carelessly, it will lead to resistance and civil war. In the opposite case, if he were a king who pleased the corrupt vassals and pushed away the loyal ones, the country would go to ruin.”
She was silent.
“What this country needs right now is a king who will not be hated by loyal vassals or corrupt ones. Only a ruler the loyal retainers will want to help, but the corrupt vassals will see as easy to manipulate, can keep the country alive.”
“...And you’re saying that’s Sir Albert?” she said slowly.
“Yes. The reason I wasn’t caught up in the conflict must have to do with his personality. He is incompetent and harmless. That is why no one has paid attention to us.”
Excel sighed and said, “What you describe is practically a puppet, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “In the current situation, I don’t believe the country can be maintained by anyone other than a puppet king. That is just how deep our country’s wounds run. We need time for them to heal.”
I looked straight into Excel’s eyes.
“Even if we cannot eliminate the corrupt vassals, if we rule by listening to the loyal ones, the situation shouldn’t degenerate too easily. We will have the loyal support of the three dukes, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then, as I’ve said, Albert is the most suitable king for this country right now. Let us maintain the status quo, buy time for our wounds to heal, and leave improving the situation to the next generation.”
I brought my hand to my belly.
Excel slumped her shoulders in resignation. “Put off seriously rebuilding the country until the next generation?”
I chuckled a bit. “For a member of a long-lived race like you, it’s not that long, is it?”
“I understand,” she said regretfully. “Very well. We three dukes will support Lady Elisha and Sir Albert. I would have preferred to leave the throne to you, who can think this far ahead, though.”
“There i
s no future where that happens,” I told Excel firmly, and then turned to face Albert. “Darling, I’m sorry to cause all this trouble for you, but, please, for our child’s sake, could I ask you to become the king of this country?”
Albert seemed to have gone into a daze at some point in the conversation, but when I took his hand and made him touch the belly our child was in, he came to his senses.
“H-Hmm... I think the burden is too far beyond me, but if it is for you and our child, I will have to do it. I can already feel the pain in my stomach, though.”
Albert’s tone made him sound less than reliable, but he nodded.
The way he couldn’t say no when others relied on him was a weakness, but it was also a strength that kept people from being cruel to him.
Thus, we returned to the castle, and Albert became king with my assent.
Though there was some resistance to the idea, the three dukes who were in charge of the three forces gave us their full support, and because Albert wasn’t self-righteous and would listen to anyone’s opinions, there were no major sparks over it.
Time went by, and the country did not get better, but it did not get much worse, either. You could say Albert was doing a solid job of maintaining the status quo.
As for me, I gave birth to a girl not long after returning to the capital. Albert gave this girl, who cried with great energy, the name Liscia, taking the overall sound of her name from my own.
Liscia grew up smoothly, without any major illness, and before I knew it, she had become the same sort of tomboyish princess I once was.
“If it’s a girl, I hope she’ll be gentle and quiet, like my husband.”
It seemed my wish from that day had not come true.
She grew attached to Georg, who came to visit from time to time, and took an interest in the sword.
When she went out to play, she received an endless number of cuts and bruises, making me worry for her as her mother, but, well, if she would just grow up healthy, that was good enough for me.
However, as we spent our peaceful days, unexpected events like the appearance of the Demon Lord’s Domain, the invasion of massive numbers of monsters, and the flow of refugees from the ruined countries of the north caused the slow decline of the country.
Until the day when he was summoned.
In the middle of the burning castle, I remembered all this.
Had the threat to my life brought back the memories?
The hero summoned from another world, Sir Souma Kazuya... Albert had mishandled his treatment of him.
He’d made him the prime minister so that his revolutionary policies could get the country back on its feet, but he’d been unable to protect him against resistance from the nobles, and been forced to relieve him from his post and drive him away.
The result was that our loyal vassal who supported him, Georg Carmine, had died in the burning of Randel, along with Sir Souma and our daughter, Liscia.
Now we, too, faced our ends at the hand of a noble insurrection.
The nobles had hated Sir Souma, but the people had supported him, and driving him out had pushed the people away from us, leaving us isolated without support.
If we had trusted him more, and given him more authority, things might have gone differently.
However, thinking about that now wasn’t going to help.
I decided that the least I could do was confess to Albert about my magic, and send our memories back to “us,” around the time we first met Souma. So that the past “us” wouldn’t have to arrive at this future.
It was my first time sending another person’s memories (it was my first time sending my own memories, too), but I feel like it worked. I could be confident the “me” who received them would reach a different future. Perhaps even a world in which Liscia, Sir Souma, and the others wouldn’t have to die.
When I thought about that, it lightened my heart a little.
“I’m sorry, Elisha,” Albert apologized. “This is all because of my folly.”
I shook my head. “No. I’ve had more than enough happiness. Meeting you, giving birth to Liscia. More than any past ‘me,’ I can say with pride that I was happy.”
The fact that I was facing a crisis to my life, and had just sent my memories to the past, was proof that I was the first to have reached this point.
That meant I was the first to have chosen Albert as my partner.
I was the first to have loved him, and the first to be loved by him.
I was also the first to give birth to Liscia, and the first to know the happiness of family life.
Even if the “me” that I sent my memories to would have a more wonderful future than my own, none of that would change. My life was fully satisfying.
“I’m glad I met you that day,” I told him.
“Elisha...”
In the middle of the flames, we embraced one another.
◇ ◇ ◇
“Lady... Lady Elisha!”
“Huh?!”
Hearing a voice, I came to my senses, and found Carla looking at me blankly.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “You seemed out of it.”
“No, I was just thinking about a different ‘now.’”
Looking at Cian and Kazuha’s faces, I remembered the memories I’d received that day.
Based on our memories from that day, Albert had been able to give our son-in-law the throne without making the wrong decision. The country had been rebuilt after the transfer of power, to the point where it was actually greater than before, and we could now look upon our grandchildren’s faces.
If I thought of it that way, I had to thank the “me” who had sent these memories.
I must be the happiest of all the “me”s so far.
“Come to think of it, when I said I would be going ahead to help out and see these children first, he pouted a little,” I chuckled. “He said I wasn’t being fair.”
“Of course he would. Sir Albert’s been left all alone in his domain.”
“Hee hee, what a troublesome grandfather you have, Cian, Kazuha.”
As I spoke the children’s names, they both turned and stared blankly at me.
“Oh, gosh, you’re both so cute. I wish I could just drag you back to the mansion like this.”
“If the heir to the throne suddenly vanishes, there will be a huge uproar, so please don’t,” Carla said.
“I suppose I’ll just have to visit regularly, then. About twice a week.”
“If you leave the house that often, won’t Lord Albert end up sulking again?”
“He can come with me,” I said. “Staying the night would be nice, too.”
“If you come and spend the night twice a week, you’ll be at the castle more than half the week, won’t you? I thought you two had left the castle to prevent sowing the seeds of strife?!”
It was cute the way Carla felt the obligation to respond to everything, so I giggled.
Ohh... I really am happy...
◇ ◇ ◇
In the middle of the flames, as we prepared for the end, I heard two voices echo.
“Father! Mother!”
“Are you both okay?!”
When I looked up, there was a young man and woman rushing to our side.
Why? How am I able to see these two? I thought in my dazed mind. They were supposed to be dead.
Were we seeing phantoms? Or, with our deaths approaching, had they come to take us to the other side?
“Liscia! And Sir Souma!” Albert had a shocked look on his face, and called them by name.
When I heard those words, it woke me up. It wasn’t just me; Albert could see them, too.
That meant what I was seeing before my eyes was the undeniable reality.
Liscia rushed over to my confused side. “Thank goodness. You’re both all right.”
“Liscia, you’re alive?!” I exclaimed. “I was sure you’d died...”
“Duke Carmine got us out,” Liscia said painfully, grasping at
my sleeve.
It turned out that while Randel was burning, Georg had bought time for the two of them to escape.
“I want you to remember this,” he had once said. “I pledge to do my utmost to help you when I inherit the House of Carmine. Even at the cost of my life.”
Sir Georg, you kept the promise you made that day, I thought gratefully. You risked your life for Sir Albert, and you saved Liscia and Sir Souma’s lives.
I closed my eyes in thought for a moment, and then asked something that had been bothering me. “But how did you two get here? The castle is surrounded, and on fire.”
“Ahh... That would take some explaining, so let’s save it for later,” Sir Souma told me. “First, we’d better get out of here.”
I heard the sound of footsteps rapidly approaching.
A cute, petite girl with long, black hair, antlers that were larger than Excel’s, and a black lizard tail growing out of her bottom rushed into the room.
“This is bad, Souma! The fire’s spreading fast. We’ve gotta get out of here, quick!”
“Got it, Naden,” Sir Souma said. “Okay, you two, come this way.”
Sir Souma led us out onto the balcony. We were able to get some fresh air there, but the rising smoke made it hard to see the situation around us. This place was high up in the castle, too, so even if we got outside, there was no escape from here.
However, Sir Souma said, “It’s okay,” with a laugh. “All right, we’re counting on you, Naden.”
“Roger that... I’d rather not let anyone but my partner ride me, though.”
Once she had said that, the girl called Naden jumped over the edge of the balcony.
That’s dangerous! I thought, and tried to run over, but Liscia caught me by the wrist and stopped me.
“To sum things up quickly,” she said, “when we escaped Randel, we disguised ourselves as adventurers and headed for the Empire. Souma figured if we went to the Empire, which wanted the summoned hero, they would protect us, given the right conditions.”
“Then, on the way there, we met a messenger from the Star Dragon Mountain Range.”
The Star Dragon Mountain Range? I thought, befuddled. The independent domain of the dragons, ruled by Mother Dragon?