by Hyougetsu
I had been born in the territory of Origania, and had been with Her Highness for years. Back when she had still been playing with dolls and reading picture books, I’d been there to protect her. Both as a soldier and as an individual, I couldn’t bear to lose her. Yet here she was, burning to death in a faraway land. This was a nightmare.
“Adjutant!”
“Give the order to rescue her!”
The soldiers gripped their Blast Canes tight, but there was no way for us to douse those flames. Her Highness’s magic was on a level far greater than ours. More importantly, she herself had ordered us to remain on standby until she gave further instructions. Meaning from the very start, she’d been prepared to do this. It was my fault for not seeing through her plan earlier.
The flames raged on, incinerating both Ryunheit’s monster of a ruler, and Her Highness. I doubted she was even alive anymore. What a nightmare. Please, if this truly is a dream, let me wake from it. Just as I thought that, a man’s voice rung out through the communicator ring on my finger.
“Princess Eleora has lost consciousness, but she’s still alive. However I, the Black Werewolf King Veight, have taken her prisoner. If you value her life, then do not attempt to flee, or commit suicide. Surrender at once.”
“What!?” Someone shouted. How could anyone survive in that hellfire? I don’t believe it! Is the Black Werewolf King immortal!? I had no choice but to believe it, though. After all the voice coming through the communicator belonged to a man. The Black Werewolf King was alive. And if he was speaking the truth, so was Her Highness. Without a second thought, I shouted, “Understood! We surrender! So please, protect Her Highness! I’m begging you!”
He didn’t reply to my request, but his calm voice made it clear that he was still in good health.
“Are we really going to surrender?” One of the soldiers asked me. I turned around and smiled sadly at him.
“If I told you to prioritize your duty over Her Highness’s life, would you do it?”
“I...”
Judging by the hesitation in his voice, he probably wouldn’t. I turned to Her Highness’s subordinates and shouted, “The Black Werewolf King has captured Her Highness. As she is in no position to give orders, I will hereby take over as acting commander of the first battalion.”
Everyone nodded in acceptance, so I ordered, “We will hereby surrender to the Black Werewolf King. Prepare to disarm!”
“Yes, sir!”
* * * *
Eventually, Eleora’s mana ran out and her fire tornado vanished into the ether. Some patches of forest were still burning, but I’d get the werewolves to put those fires out later. I princess-carried Eleora out of the clearing, and her soldiers walked out of the shadows. There were 18 of them. That’s everyone. After making sure Eleora was safe, they threw down their Blast Canes and swords. The oldest among them walked forward and said, “I am adjutant Borsche Norlinskar. As our commander is incapacitated, I have taken over command of the mage corps.”
He finished his introduction, then said, “Henceforth, the 209th imperial mage corps shall surrender to the Meraldian Commonwealth. But in return, I request that no harm come to Her Highness Eleora.”
“I swear on my name as a Meraldian Councilor that no harm will come to any of you.”
Borsche and his soldier saluted me in response.
Eleora opened her eyes and examined her surroundings. She was lying on a hospital bed somewhere.
“Where...”
I strode to her bedside and replied, “You’re in Ryunheit, inside the demon army’s hospital. You’ve been asleep for three days and three nights, Princess Eleora.”
According to Master’s diagnosis, Eleora had been overworked and overstressed, so it was hardly surprising she’d collapsed. We’d used sleeping magic on her to let her rest, then made preparations to deal with her and her troops. It turned out our princess was more fragile than she looked. Eleora looked up at me and asked, “Why won’t you kill me?”
“Because that’d just cause problems for us. If we kill you, Rolmund will have an excuse to invade Meraldia in force.”
“I see.”
Eleora returned her gaze to the ceiling and I continued, “All we want to do is chase you out of Meraldia and never have to deal with Rolmund again.”
“So long as conquest of the south is an imperial edict, I’m afraid that’ll never happen. Even if a new emperor is crowned, he will likely continue what the old emperor started. Besides, Rolmund’s frigid land is unsuitable for large-scale agriculture. We’re also running low on available land to gift to newly-minted nobles. Eventually, Rolmund will return to invade Meraldia.”
Now that’s a problem. But that aside, Eleora really had no awareness that she was a prisoner. Despite being my captive, she still took such an arrogant tone with me. Annoyed, I decided to prod her a little.
“Incidentally, your subordinates—”
Eleora sat up and shouted, “What did you do to them!?”
Her mage corps had suffered catastrophic losses. Of the 95 members of the mage corps that had participated in this operation, 61 had been captured. The remaining 34 had died. In other words, 40% of her forces had been killed, and of the survivors most were wounded. Of the dead, all of them belonged to the units who’d invaded the western gate. Seventy members of the mage corps had participated in the infiltration operation, and half of them had died during it.
Unfortunately, my forces had suffered casualties too. Beluza’s landing forces had lost 19 of their men. Baltze’s Azure Knights had been hit with a surprise attack as well, and had lost four soldiers. The one silver lining was that Master had returned right after the battle and treated those with mortal injuries. Without her magic, both sides might have lost a lot more men. While Eleora had been asleep, we’d already conducted funeral services for the dead. When I told her as much, she smiled sardonically and said, “I never imagined you would take them prisoner. I suppose they’re hostages to ensure I don’t commit suicide?”
My general modus operandi was to let defeated enemies live so they felt indebted to me, but it looked like Eleora wasn’t going to accept my goodwill easily. Fine, we’ll do things another way then.
“If you attempt anything foolish, I cannot guarantee their safety.”
For some reason, Eleora seemed to look relieved when she saw me acting intimidating.
“I suppose I have no right to choose my fate. So what do you plan on doing with me?”
God, what an awkward woman. I’d noticed this a while back, but Eleora seemed obsessed with picking the thorniest path for herself at all times. There could be plenty of easier paths that led to more favorable outcomes, but she would definitely not choose them. Even if I was willing to set aside my responsibilities as a councilor and offer to protect her out of the goodness of my heart, she would refuse my help. If that was how she insisted on being, then all I could do was force her into picking the path with the least amount of hardship. I scowled and folded my arms.
“Honestly, you’re nothing but a nuisance for us. If I could, I’d just send you back to Rolmund and never hear from you again.”
“If you did that, I would be court-martialed and likely executed for my failures.”
The surviving Rolmund soldiers had explained the empire’s tangled political situation to me already, so I was expecting a reply like that. Quietly, Eleora added, “I’d rather you just kill me here than send me back. At least that way I would die an honorable death. More importantly, if it’s the empire who executes me, they’ll also execute every member of my mage corps, and the rest of my household, down to the apprentice maids.”
“That’s one frigid country you live in.”
“It is. But it’s not so frigid as the winds that blow through Meraldia.”
Sounds like you’re sick of our country. Those words revealed just how exhausted Eleora was from her campaign.
“It’s certainly true that there’s no longer a place for you here in Meraldia.”
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“From the very start, the only place I could call home was when I was with my mage corps. Were it not for them, I would have been assassinated a dozen times over.”
“Are people really that worried about someone sixth in line for the succession?”
Her expression grew serious.
“Those seventh in line and lower see me as a rival that needs to be eliminated. And those fifth in line and higher are worried I might be aiming for their lives.”
Man, what a scary country. Isn’t preventing squabbles like this the whole point of deciding who your successor is ahead of time?
“I see. I suppose the winds in Rolmund are warmer than the ones here.”
Since they’re blowing straight out of hell. I added, half-sarcastically, “You must have been surrounded by a lot of wonderful people in your life.”
“Oh yeah. I reunited with my wet nurse ten years after she finished looking after me, and she’d turned into an assassin after my life. As a final act of mercy, instead of killing her I tortured her until she told me who hired her. First, I took her nails and...”
I despised talk of painful things, but I couldn’t let her see me cringing. So I feigned composure and interrupted her before she got into the meat of her torture story.
“That’s enough reminiscing. I care nothing for your past.”
I had zero interest in what happened in that godforsaken country. Her talk of torture had shaken me a little though, so I decided to get the information I’d come for and leave.
“So why is it Rolmund’s so harsh? You call yourselves the civilized ancestors of Meraldia’s northern citizens, but you seem more barbaric than them to me.”
Eleora averted her gaze. She looked up at the ceiling, then closed her eyes.
“Let me tell you the story of ‘Cold Micha.’ You’ll understand then.”
Who the hell’s that? In a surprisingly gentle voice, Eleora regaled me of this tale from her homeland.
“Deep inside a forest, Micha lived happily with her father and mother. But one winter, their crops went bad and they didn’t have enough food to survive until spring.”
I guess they’ll go searching for food and find a fairy or someone who’ll help them... right?
“The little food they had was only enough to get two people through the winter. So the father left the house and vanished into the forest.”
Stop, I hate sad stories like this. Even torture talk is better than this.
“Thanks to that, both Micha and her mom were able to survive the winter. But the harvest next year was poor too, and they only had enough food to get one person through winter.”
Expression still gentle, Eleora said, “So the mother left the house and vanished into the forest. Micha was left all alone.”
“What a horrid tale.”
“It’s a nursery tale everyone in Rolmund knows. In order to survive the harsh winters, the people must learn to harden their hearts.”
“I see, so that’s the kind of land you live in.”
Eleora smiled and replied, “Don’t worry, the story isn’t over yet. Micha grew up into an upstanding adult, and became a mother herself.”
Oh good, it’s not all doom and gloom.
“But then, the next year they had a bad harvest, it was her turn to vanish into the woods. She had to, in order to protect her own child. That’s why she’s known as ‘Cold Micha.’”
Why would you end the story in such a depressing way? This is like, psychological terrorism! I’m going to have nightmares about poor Micha now. I just barely managed to feign composure in front of Eleora.
At the very least, now I understood why Rolmund had ended up the way it had. Its climate forced people to come together and serve harsh punishments for anyone who failed to complete their assigned duty. Because if even one person failed, the group perished. That was the kind of land they lived in.
“I understand now. The reason Rolmund is so harsh is because survival of the fittest is the only way for the country to survive.”
“Exactly. We don’t execute the family members of criminals and torture heretics because we like it. If only we were able to live in a warmer land, we wouldn’t need to resort to such measures.”
“Well, unfortunately that just proves Rolmund is my enemy.”
For one thing, I couldn’t abide by any nation that came up with a story as sad as “Cold Micha.” But more importantly, if what Eleora said was true, then Rolmund would always be a threat to Meraldia. They clearly hadn’t given up on their plans of invading. Even if I banished Eleora and collapsed the tunnels leading through the mountains, Rolmund would try again through a different route.
In order to protect the humans and demons living in Meraldia, I needed to do something about Rolmund. I also needed to figure out what I was going to do with Eleora and her troops. Now that they’d surrendered, I wasn’t heartless enough to just kill them.
Fortunately, in one of our council meetings, we’d come up with a countermeasure for this possibility. In my best evil villain tone, I offered Eleora a proposal.
“Eleora Kastoniev Originia Rolmund, you are my prisoner.”
She stiffened a little when she heard her full name. I leaned forward and brought my face close to hers.
“You were defeated by me, and now your life, your dignity, your subordinates, and your future belong to me. Everything from your last drop of blood to the tips of your hairs are mine.”
“...I understand.”
She closed her eyes. Sensing her resignation, I pushed forward. It was difficult keeping the sympathy out of my voice, but I did it.
“But I am a benevolent man. I know to show mercy to those who may still prove useful to me. You possess the right to ascend to Rolmund’s throne. All that remains to be seen is whether you are willing to serve me or not.”
“What?”
Eleora furrowed her brows suspiciously, but a moment later she realized where I was going with this.
“You mean to invade Rolmund and install me as your puppet empress?”
“That’s not a very nice way to put it. I am sure you, who values your comrades so dearly, will be willing to cooperate with me of your own free will.”
If you want to keep your men safe, you’ll try to be useful to me, right? No? Well then, I guess I’ll just execute all of your surviving subordinates. That was what I wanted her to think I was thinking. But of course, I wouldn’t actually kill her men. I didn’t have it in me to be so cruel. I knew it was soft of me, but executing soldiers who’d surrendered was impossible for me. If she refused, I’d come up with some other way to pressure her into saying yes.
Eleora stared into my eyes. Her gaze was cold as ice. I couldn’t help but get a little scared. After a few seconds, she finally sighed and looked away.
“Back then, I should have killed you no matter what it cost me. Not defeating you when I had the chance was my biggest mistake.”
Eleora then bowed her head to me.
“Black Werewolf King Veight. Please lend me your strength. If you make me the next empress of Rolmund, I swear I shall never invade Meraldia again.”
Just in case, I scrutinized her expression.
“Do you speak the truth?”
“I’ve been abandoned by Meraldia once before. Do you truly think I would attempt stepping foot in it once more? If I was that foolish, then you’d have no use for me.”
Judging from her scent, she was telling the truth. She really had learned her lesson.
“Very well. I shall trust in your words. I hope we can form a mutually beneficial relationship.”
Grinning, I swept my cape back. If I could use Eleora to sow confusion within Rolmund, they’d be too busy with internal affairs to worry about invading other nations. At worst, I’d be able to buy Meraldia a few years. At best, a few decades. Either way, it’d be enough time for Meraldia to build up its defenses.
Besides, if I was able to make Eleora empress, she and her troops wouldn’t have to die. I did f
eel a little bad for the people of Rolmund, but I was neither a god nor a saint. My job was protecting Meraldia, and that came before all else.
“Rest and recover, Eleora. You’re our ally now, so you better make sure to keep me satisfied.”
Eleora closed her eyes and breathed a small sigh.
“I’ll try.”
Perfect, persuasion successful. I promise to treat you well, so help me keep Meraldia at peace, alright? I left Eleora’s hospital room and started thinking of ways to avoid seeing nightmares about Cold Micha tonight.
The Princess’s Day Off
“Sir Forne, can’t you change this line?”
I looked over the script of the latest play, and voiced my complaints to Producer Forne. The viceroy of Veira, the city of craftsmen, looked up from the playbills he was designing and turned to me.
“Which one?”
“The one the Black Werewolf King says here. ‘We must fight tyranny when it threatens our doorstep.’ See it?”
“I do indeed, but...”
Forne looked confused. We were currently holding a meeting regarding the latest installment in the Black Werewolf King series of plays. Originally they’d been propaganda designed to undermine Eleora’s rule. But because of how major an event the attack on Ryunheit had been, Forne and I had decided to turn it into a play as well. In order to keep the retelling faithful, I’d decided to thoroughly check over the script. I explained to Forne, “Eleora’s no tyrant. I want to avoid putting anything in the script that isn’t true.”
“It’s fine to embellish her crimes a little, isn’t it?”
Forne looked over the line in question, then sighed.
“Besides, most Meraldians see her as a tyrant. She imposed Rolmund’s law and Rolmund’s version of the Sonnenlicht religion on them. Wouldn’t you say that’s pretty tyrannical?”