“My order was to spread rice.”
“Gaah! I don’t know what’s going on, but I demand you return the school menu to what it was before!” Fujiko said loudly, motioning for the students behind her to say something too. Even the ones who’d been suffering in silence were driven by her voice to rise up.
“That’s right! That’s right!”
“The Empress is a tyrant!”
“Give us bread! Give us noodles!” The students began to break out of the line and storm the counter.
“If you have no noodles, then you may eat rice,” Korone said, crossing her arms and standing tall in front of the mob. The students began to get more and more out of hand.
“What?!”
“Just because you’re cute, don’t think you can act like an Empress!”
“No, it’s Korone speaking, but there’s a real empress backing her.”
“I don’t care! I just want our menu back!”
The cafeteria wasn’t tiny, but it was small enough that after you were done eating, you were expected to immediately vacate your seat. The area around the counter began to get more and more packed. Korone, however, remained calm, or at least expressionless.
“Very well. Let’s negotiate. I’ll allow you to have curry rice.” With these words, the students exploded.
“Wait, we weren’t even allowed to have curry?”
“Does that mean our only options were white rice and the K Combo?”
“No negotiations! Either we get our menu back, or it’s war!”
“That’s right! We demand real food!”
“This is our rice rebellion!”
The students expressions were turning violent. They were a rowdy group to begin with, but not the sort of people who would lose control easily. But now they were on the verge of a riot. It was a sign of how emotional people can get over food.
“‘Rice rebellion’ seems incorrect, somehow. But from your words I’m going to interpret an intent to attack me,” Korone said. The students’ faces turned tense as they started to murmur among themselves.
Kill or be killed. Things in the cafeteria were turning violent fast. Everyone there knew exactly how deadly Korone was. But the crowd was starving and angry, and wasn’t going to back down.
“We demand food! Bring back our menu!”
“We’re willing to fight if we have to!”
“That’s right, isn’t it, Fujiko?” The students all looked to Fujiko, the girl who’d started it, for agreement. But Fujiko was already gone.
“Huh?”
The students were curious as to where she might’ve gone, but there was no time to really think about it. In the next moment, a dangerous-sounding voice came from behind Korone. “What’s all this fuss about?”
The voice was nonchalant. In other words, it wasn’t the words or the voice that was dangerous. It was Akuto Sai. A very dangerous man. The students began to back away from the counter.
“T-That’s not fair! You can’t use someone that dangerous in a negotiation!”
“You’re trying to threaten us!”
“Let’s resolve this peacefully! Have a nice cup of tea!” The students began to say, their voices full of fear.
Akuto had brought a huge war and terrible disaster to the capital. He was working for the Empress now, but he was still, in every way, the Demon King.
“K-Korone... Why is the Demon King here?” One of the students at the front said in a shaking voice.
“He’s helping me,” Korone responded. She wasn’t lying. Akuto was standing in front of a big pot, making rice and ladling it into bowls. But the students didn’t understand that it was all he was doing.
“H-Helping...?”
“The Demon King wouldn’t just help cook... He has to be there as a hired guard!” Akuto frowned when he heard this.
—No, I’m actually really good at cooking...
He thought this to himself, but he didn’t say it. His silence and his frown only made the students more scared.
“H-He’s angry!”
“He wants to fight!”
“Aaah! I’m scared!”
There was a crashing sound in the middle of the crowd. One of the students had seemingly passed out.
—Is it just me, or is it getting worse than before?” Akuto grumbled to himself unhappily, and with a bit of confusion. But he was able to figure out what was going on. He frowned even more.
“Korone. Explain what’s going on here?”
“I tried to make them eat rice, and a riot broke out,” she explained simply, without moving a cheek. Akuto put a hand on his forehead and sighed.
“Listen... Did you do what I told you to? There are better ways to make people eat rice, you know. What are you going to do about this? It’s clearly your fault,” he scolded Korone.
Korone’s expression remained unchanged, but now the students were even more scared. This is how they interpreted it:
“Did you do what I told you to? So this is the Demon King’s idea!”
“He’s trying to make us eat only rice so we get a vitamin deficiency!”
“What a terrifying plot!”
“And he’s using the Empress’s love of rice to do it! He’s trying to blame it on the Empress!”
“That’s right! Keena, and Korone, who are very cute, would never do this on their own!”
“And now that the plan’s failed, he’s scolding Korone!”
—I don’t really know what’s going on, but I think it’s happening again... Akuto sobbed to himself. But then he looked up at the students, trying his best to stay strong.
“Well, it seems like there’s been a lot of misunderstandings here. Let’s all calm down and talk about this. Okay?” Akuto said, smiling.
His smile wasn’t perfect, but his handsome face looked naturally evil enough that when he said “Let’s talk,” it was nothing but a source of fear. The cafeteria filled with screams as the students rushed for the exits.
—Oh...
By the time he realized his mistake, there was nobody left in the room. Dropped meal tickets blew like tumbleweeds through the empty space.
“Well, at least that solved the problem,” Korone said flatly.
“...Listen, this happened because you replaced the whole menu with rice, didn’t it?” Akuto said, looking at the menu and finally understanding what had happened.
“It was the Empress’s orders.”
“...She just said to encourage more people to eat rice.”
“And I strongly encouraged it.”
“Strongly?” Akuto asked. Korone nodded.
“Extremely strongly.”
“...So this really is your fault, isn’t it?”
“That’s one way to view it.”
“You caused this whole mess, didn’t you?”
“That’s correct, from a certain point of view.”
“And wait, do you enjoy causing messes?”
“A little.”
“...Huh?”
“A little,” Korone said again.
Akuto coughed slightly. “Ahmm... I... I see.”
“Don’t worry. I said ‘a little’ because I don’t enjoy it entirely. You may interpret this as me not meaning any harm, but enjoying the results after the fact,” Korone said with a serious look on her face.
“No, you don’t need to explain it...”
“I don’t? Then I will get to work cleaning up after this mess. I will call the Empress and have her announce that she’ll be allowing meals other than rice. Fortunately, the students all think that it was your doing,” Korone said, nodding.
“Did you plan for it to turn out this way from the start?”
“Something like that,” Korone said as she walked away.
—Well, of course she did. It’s a good idea to use me to make the Empress look better.
Akuto did his best to convince himself, but his idea of retiring to read books all day was starting to seem better and better.
○
Nozomi was a fast worker.
Whether it was all her time spent in her run-down ramshackle house growing up, or her skills as a natural born janitor, she was several times as good as your average custodian. Today, she was just on her way to check the last sensor.
Suddenly she heard loud shouting.
“Glory to the Empress! Glory to the Empress!”
Her ears perked up, and her exposed forehead shone in the light.
“The Empress...?”
She ran in the direction of the voices. Keena was there, surrounded by students, the subject of ferocious applause. Nozomi didn’t know it, but the students were cheering her for restoring the proper menu to the school cafeteria.
—So that’s her? Nozomi’s eyes locked on Keena.
She hadn’t been able to tell when she’d seen her on TV, but not only did Keena look like a commoner, she looked like an idiot.
—Is that really her? She looks so... dumb...
Nozomi’s head began to spin. She was having trouble thinking.
—Is an idiot like that really allowed to be Empress?
—Is your bloodline all that matters, then?
—Then that means that I can be empress, too!
—But there’s already an Empress, isn’t there...
Nozomi’s mind came to the wrong conclusion.
“I know! I’ll talk to her directly and have her let me be Empress instead!”
Since she’d come here without a plan, it was only natural that she’d come to a rash conclusion, but Nozomi was very proud of her wonderful idea. She looked at Keena once again.
—Now, how do I get to her...?
Keena was surrounded by students and impossible to approach.
—I’ll just have to wait for my chance.
She hid herself on the other side of the storage shed. Eventually, the students started to go back into the school cafeteria. Only Keena and Korone were left, and the two of them started to walk away, talking about something she couldn’t make out.
—T-They’re coming this way!
As Keena got closer, Nozomi could feel her heart beating faster.
—I-I’m not nervous. Nope. I-I’m not...
She said that to herself, but she was actually very nervous. And she wasn’t a strong girl to begin with.
—Aah! Here she is! Keena was right on top of her.
“I decided to add a rice field to the garden in the new palace.”
“I assumed that you would.”
“Huh? How did you know?”
She could hear them now.
—Alright, let’s do this.
—No, I’ll wait for them to get a little closer.
—Okay, let’s do this.
—No, maybe I’ll let them get by me and then approach from behind...
Nozomi hesitated. And of course, while she was hesitating, the two of them passed her by. By the time she’d worked up the courage to poke her head out, they were already gone.
—W-What? How?
She began to think with her muddled head once more. There’s no reason to tell you all the mistaken ideas that she came up with, but in the end, she came to a completely absurd conclusion.
—I’ll have to set a trap so I can delay her, and then I’ll talk to her!
Nozomi decided that she’d leverage her position as a janitor to find Keena’s daily schedule. She quickly finished her work for the day, and then called up the class schedule on the terminal in the janitor’s room.
“Empress’s class schedule... here we go. She changes classes... right here!”
She knew where she’d set her trap now. She’d set it on the path Keena traveled in between classes.
—What kind of trap should I set? Maybe lay down sticky glue or something? No, but sticky glue’s tough to work with, and it could get somebody else stuck, too. But it would be great if I could use it... Maybe I can stick it up someplace nobody else would go? Like on the walls. Someplace high up. Someplace you wouldn’t normally fly even if you could use flight magic. And then maybe find some way to get her up there...
At this point, it would be a complete waste of energy to point out how many flaws there were in what Nozomi was thinking.
In the end, this was the idea Nozomi came up with:
She would put a banana on the path where Keena was going to walk.
Keena would slip and fall backwards, and when she did, she’d look up.
Up above her would be a flyer saying “Big sale on rice!”
It would lead her to a place where nobody else was around.
When she picked it up, a metal wash basin would fall from above.
It would hit her head, and she would stagger until she fell on the trampoline next to her.
The trampoline would send her skyward, until she got caught in the sticky glue that was high up on the wall.
—And then I’ll be waiting at the window next to her to talk to her! It’s perfect! Just perfect! I can’t believe how smart I am!
It did, indeed, take a certain type of mind to come up with a plan like that. Regardless, Nozomi decided it was best to act quickly. She set up her trap just like she’d planned, and waited for Keena to come.
According to the schedule, Keena would always wait for the other classmates to go first, and then follow them by herself. Nozomi watched as Keena’s classmates walked past her, laughing and talking among themselves, and then put a banana peel in the middle of the floor, then quickly hid behind a nearby pillar.
“Heheh... Now she’ll trip!” she grinned to herself.
But the next person she saw wasn’t Keena. It was Keena’s servant, the beautiful Liradan.
—Does her servant go ahead of her, maybe...?
Nozomi gasped, but what shocked her more was when Korone reached down, picked up the banana peel, and tossed it in the garbage.
“My perfect plan...” Nozomi said, turning dead pale.
Just before she was about to collapse, though, a voice called out to her.
“Excuse me.”
“.............Huh?”
Nozomi snapped back to her senses and turned towards the voice. Shockingly, it was Korone.
“Uhyaah!” she screamed and tried to run away, but Korone calmly grabbed her by the arm.
“Wait.”
“Aaah! Forgive me! Don’t hurt me! I didn’t mean anything by it!”
“What are you talking about? I just said something to you because you were standing there like you were lost.”
“Huh? Then you didn’t realize I set a trap?”
“A trap? You set a trap?”
“Oh no! I”ve been found out!” Nozomi screamed.
She tried to run, forgetting that Korone was holding her by the arm, but of course, she failed. Korone pulled hard, and she staggered forward.
“Are you an idiot?” Korone said expressionlessly.
“Waah... I don’t want to be called an idiot. But right now... I’m a big idiot.”
Nozomi immediately gave up, fell to her knees, and started to cry.
“Crying will get you nowhere. Confess your crime. What do you mean, you set a trap? Why?” Korone asked, looking down at her.
Nozomi confessed to everything she’d done, wiping away tears as she spoke. She told her that she’d tried to capture the Empress with sticky glue. That she wanted to talk to the Empress. And that she had imperial blood herself.
“I see. And that’s why you set this terrible trap?”
“That’s right. But I didn’t
mean to hurt her...”
“I can’t believe you thought you could capture the Empress like this.”
“I said I’m sorry! I’m really sorry!”
“That’s right. I can’t believe you though you could capture her with a trap like this.”
“Huh?” Nozomi looked upwards.
Korone nodded expressionlessly.
“You’ll never be able to become the new empress with a trap like this. You need to be more realistic.”
“Huh? Huh? What?”
“But think about it,” Korone explained to her, “Even if you capture her, you won’t be able to become Empress.”
“Y-You’re right. I was just going to talk with her...”
“There’s no way that you can get what you want through peaceful conversation.”
“Huh?”
“Negotiations mean doing what it takes to get your opponent to agree to your conditions. In other words, if you negotiate when your opponent is in dire peril, you’re more likely to get what you want,” Korone said calmly.
“W-Wait, you can’t mean...” Nozomi was scared, now that she realized something was wrong here. But Korone was serious. In fact, her expression hadn’t changed at all. But Nozomi could tell what it was she was trying to say.
“...Isn’t that what they call a threat?”
Korone shook her head, though.
“Of course not. Negotiations aren’t threats. Whether someone thinks it’s a threat is up to them.”
“You can’t do that! It’s wrong! I mean, it’s really wrong! But just... out of curiosity... could you tell me how I could threat- I mean, negotiate with her?” Nozomi squeezed her eyes shut, but she was holding Korone’s hand tight as she spoke.
“First, you need to make the trap something that causes no actual harm. But the negotiations have to succeed for you to get what you want, which means you should do something that puts your target at risk of psychological harm,” Korone said.
Nozomi appeared to think for a moment, before she suddenly clapped her hands together. “You mean, for example, a trap that stripped its target completely naked in front of other people?”
“That’s one way, of course,” Korone nodded.
“Oh! Thank you, kind person!” Nozomi said with tears in her eyes.
Demon King Daimaou: Volume 10 Page 2