by Aneko Yusagi
Wringing what bravery he could from his trembling body, the boy looked at us and spoke strongly. “So what will do you with us? We are defeated, correct? Then take us where you will and execute us if you must. But those who followed us are without blame in all of this. Will you please see right by them?” he begged. He had it all the wrong way, of course. Those who “followed” him were the true criminals here, making this boy far closer to blameless than they were. Honestly, from my perspective, they were the ones I wanted to execute.
Still, his tone was now markedly different, and was that the royal “we”? He’d had some training in his post, a least. Hmmm, when I took into account his attitude as a whole, with a proper education, he might have turned out okay, I thought. He was still related to Raphtalia, after all, even if he was just a distant cousin or something.
“We’ll see. I’m not inclined to take it easy on you, but we’re definitely starting by taking away your title of Heavenly Emperor. What happens after that, we’ll decide later.” At my words, the boy quietly closed his eyes and quelled his trembling. Our intel suggested his parents had been killed while he was still a babe, and he’d clearly come through his own share of hardships.
With our capturing of the eastern capital, anyway, the state of play in Q’ten Lo would dramatically change, with almost no one left who could oppose our forces. The old city would be restored and would be called the “Royal Capital,” and peaceful rule could be expected to be restored as well.
We’d done a pretty good job extracting the puss, from the look of it.
Of course, by the customs of this world, if we were announcing the birth of our new authority to the people, then we should hold a public execution of the captured Heavenly Emperor. But I wasn’t so sure about that.
In either case, those who had set all of this up would definitely get what was coming to them. Not to mention, at this point, my own purpose here had pretty much been fulfilled.
“Maybe we’ll give him a slave mark and see how he holds up under torture?” I’d suggested in order to see what his reaction was to that, and think about his future based on it.
“I-if that is to be our punishment, we shall accept it!” he stuttered. Oh? He was pretty forthright about it. He had some awareness of his responsibilities as the Heavenly Emperor, then. Even if his awareness of the concept of “torture” wasn’t especially fleshed out, he had to know it would be painful and scary.
Yeah. I was having a hard time really hating the boy. Considering the information we had already collected, he was definitely only being used.
That’s what it seemed like, anyway. But I wanted to make sure. See his true self.
“Hmmm. Just give me a moment,” I said and ordered Raphtalia and the others to stay there to watch the kid. Then I took the human-form Filo with me out of the room by basically pushing her out.
“Maaaaster, whaaat’s—?”
“Filo, I want you to turn into your filolial queen form, stay silent—that bit is important!—and follow me back inside, then stare at that boy. When I give the signal, I need you to grab his collar with your beak and lift him into the air. If you do everything I say, to the letter, I’ll make you a special meal later,” I explained to Filo.
“Really!” Filo looked really happy, then turned into her filolial queen form and followed me back inside, practically skipping.
“Oh? Mr. Naofumi, just what—why is Filo in that form?” Raphtalia began.
“Oh my?” Sadeena exclaimed.
“What do you think Naofumi is planning?” Ren inquired.
“Don’t ask me!” Itsuki said.
“Feeeh?” Rishia mumbled.
This was how my other companions in the room all reacted to this turn of events. It was pretty easy to imagine what their reactions would be to what was going to happen next.
“Ah, a filolial!” The boy’s eyes lit up and he moved over to her. Yes, that’s right. This was the idiot Heavenly Emperor who made the proclamation about not harming living things because of his love for filolials. So this was the best way to really see his true nature.
The boy rushed over to Filo and started to stroke her plumage. Filo looked to be enjoying it and turned her gaze on the boy. I’d told her to keep quiet, in no uncertain terms. If she’d spoken, even a few words, she and the boy might have quickly become friends. Filo had that way about her. But she stood true to my instructions and said nothing, just continued to look at the boy.
It didn’t take long for his smile to fade into fear.
Just as I thought. From all this merchandise he had collected, I’d been pretty sure that he didn’t really understand much about real filolials. To frame it in terms from home, he was like a super otaku. I could place the sentiment because of my own otaku tendencies—the type who loved the heroine of their favorite show rather than a real woman.
In other words, he didn’t know a thing about real filolials.
“Eh? A-aaaah!” Heh. Ah, Filo. She’d completely forgotten how everyone in the village had first been so scared of her. “Waaah!” She was in a great mood, her appetite stimulated by my promise of food, even as she continued to just stare at him.
Indeed, stare and salivate. She was looking at the boy like a bird of prey staring down its next meal.
The boy’s face completed its descent into terror, and his legs almost gave out. Truly, if she had spoken, the entire scene would have played out quite differently. At the moment, his reaction was quite a bit like Melty’s had been.
That said, Melty had still done her best to make friends, even with a starving filolial. Just as I’d surmised, this boy had a liking for filolials, but he wasn’t all that familiar with them.
I gave Filo the hand signal.
With that, she started to move slowly toward the boy. She made a slurping noise, looking exactly like a predator closing in on prey.
“W-wah! S-stay back! Please, save me before I’m eaten!” he screamed in terror. Filo stopped and looked at me, clearly uncomfortable. Maybe she realized that I’d set her up. But she immediately started moving again.
She wanted to eat my cooking that badly?
When I asked her about it later, she said she’d thought it was a punishment for causing so much trouble for Raphtalia and the people of the country.
“Oh my,” Sadeena said again. I felt a crowd of cold looks collecting on me.
“Ah—can I ask, just what are you doing?” Raphtalia took the initiative to ask for everyone.
“First things first, he needs to be punished,” I announced, making sure he could hear me, of course. But I also spoke in such a way that hopefully the others would cotton on. “If he loves filolials so much, I think he deserves to die by being eaten by one. Eaten alive, no less!”
“N-no! Please, spare me that!” he begged. Ah ha! Finally, we were reaching his true nature. No matter the regal front he tried to put on, he was still just a child at heart. And even if he had been used by those around him, he needed to be punished for making the proclamation against hurting living creatures and placing blessings on the sealed monsters.
Experiencing this terror for himself seemed about right. Have him feel for himself the damage done to the people of his nation by monsters.
“W-waaaaaah!” The terror of being attacked by a filolial, in exactly the form and colors that he loved so much, was surely going to be burned into the child’s brain.
As I thought that, I noticed one of the leaders of the revolution using a video crystal to record the proceedings. What were they planning now? That item had been imported from Siltvelt, if I recalled correctly.
At the point that Filo lifted the child up by his collar, they stopped shooting the video. That was it, then. Spreading this footage across the land as the execution of the Heavenly Emperor would put the people at ease.
“Gyaaaaaaaaah!” he screamed. Of course, he wasn’t actually eaten by Filo.
Still holding the boy in her beak, Filo came over to me. After screaming for a while, the ki
d pissed himself and then continued to beg to be saved between gasping for breath. Upon finally realizing that no one was going to help him, he just struggled harder, but to no avail; when he finally gave up and slumped still, I ordered that he be released.
“Uh—” He gasped for air. Realizing that he was free, the boy tried to scramble away from the source of his terror. Raphtalia and the others looked on, not especially approvingly.
“I think maybe he’s had enough now?”
“There’s so much more I’d like to knock into him, but I guess this is a good first step.” Now, at least, he had an understanding of how terrifying monsters were.
“Master, that was mean!” Filo scolded.
“Shut it. How would things have gone if the kid was Melty?”
“Huh? Well, she would have given me food and stroked me where I liked it and made me all fluffy and happy!” Exactly. Even if Melty was facing execution in this manner, she’d surely be able to overcome it.
That was the big difference between Melty and this boy.
“I-it’s speaking! It’s saying something!” Ren announced.
Filo had spoken to me in the language of Melromarc. She could also speak the languages from Siltvelt and Q’ten Lo too. Her experience of being put on show in another world had left her with the lesson of quickly wanting to learn new languages. For this boy, though, even a talking filolial was now a source of fear. He was curled up in terror in the corner.
“Boy. I’m going to tell you something very important,” I began.
“W-what?”
“Filolials may have always just looked cute and fluffy to you, but they are vicious, violent creatures. You’ve experienced that for yourself now, haven’t you?” I said.
“Boo to you!” Filo didn’t like that characterization.
“Why are you being so antagonistic toward filolials now?” I ignored Raphtalia’s sharp comment too.
“I’m guessing those you’ve touched in the past have been trained not to get violent or been restrained,” I continued. The boy nodded. He understood the difference now. “Wild monsters are not the same. In fact, you went around putting the blessings of the Heavenly Emperor onto horrible monsters that could have really harmed your nation. Do you understand what that means?” The boy lowered his head at my words, and Raphtalia held her tongue as well. It looked like everyone finally understood my intent with all this.
“Boo!” Well, everyone other than Filo and her puffed-up, indignant cheeks. In this moment, though, she was just helping to make my point.
“That terror wouldn’t be the end of it either. You should have been chewed up, shredded by claws, covered in poison, died painfully—and that is what has been happening to your people. That’s what you did, even if you didn’t know it.”
“We see. We understand now. In which case, we’re truly not fit to be Heavenly Emperor. Everyone called her an imposter, but it is as you say. For one who serves the revolutionary Heavenly Emperor, we will give the throne to her,” he stated. Wow! He was still a kid in many ways, but he knew what was going on. He wasn’t some moron thinking just about money and luxury, so this would probably serve as punishment enough.
“I can’t really speak to what’s going to happen next, but it might be good for you to leave this country and see more of the world,” I said.
“If we were to be given that opportunity—” he began. It was also worth noting that the idiocy of the Q’ten Lo we’d fought against had honestly helped us out, allowing us to take the nation so quickly. Banishment was likely more fitting than execution. If he really had just been used, it would be good for him to see the world and learn more about real life.
He was related to Raphtalia too.
Publicly, of course, we would tell people he had been executed. We could even take him to the village and privately call him Raphtalia’s cousin or the former prince.
“Anyway, we’ll decide exactly what to do with you later,” I said. The boy looked scared by my words, but also receptive. Right, then. Seemed like a good chance to share some other important information with him. “Let me share something else important with you. Here’s a monster that’s much cuter, smarter, and more useful than any filolial,” I said and picked up Raph-chan with both hands and presented her to the boy.
“Tali?” Rafu chirped. What! A new sound? What new evolution was this! Raph-chan cutely raised a hand to the boy.
“What are you playing at now?” Raphtalia snapped. She had clearly reached the limits of holding her tongue. But I carried on. The boy said, “I’ve n-never seen a monster like this before. Never even in a book!” With that, the boy reached toward Raph-chan. She purred with rafu sounds, enjoying being stroked by the child. Starting from the head, the boy stroked her on the cheeks, belly, hands, feet, and tail, and she even stroked the child’s hand in return.
“Oh wow!” His eyes sparkled, and he clearly wanting one of his own.
“This little cutie is a monster made from the hair of your relative. Cuter than a filolial, isn’t she?” I asked.
“Boo!” Filo continued her booing.
“Please, Mr. Naofumi. Stop this.” Raphtalia didn’t look pleased either. The others were just shaking their heads.
“That girl you see over there, she’s called Raphtalia. The revolutionary Heavenly Emperor, and your relative.”
“Okay.”
“Those around you may have said the bloodline of the Heavenly Emperor was best if it was only you and that others were imposters and should be killed, but wouldn’t it be better for your family to get along?” I inquired.
“Yes. Just why did everyone say she was my enemy when we’re related?”
“Why do you think? Because, for the “everyone” you’re talking about, Raphtalia being alive was a problem. An inconvenience. That’s why they gave the orders to kill her.”
“I see.” Even though he was a child, he seemed to have some understanding of political affairs. It had been a quagmire of corruption, after all.
“Anyway, if you’re going to be friendly with us, I’ll let you pet Raph-chan a little longer.” The boy looked from Raph-chan to Raphtalia and then nodded. “So rather than filolial merch, how about making some Raph-chan—” Raphtalia grabbed my shoulders tightly.
“Mr. Naofumi, I’m not sure what you are planning, but don’t take things too far,” she scolded. Gah. Enough for now. I could bring him into the light of Raph-chan worship later.
“Anyway. We’re not going to treat you badly, and we can be a bit flexible, so you just need to learn more about the world.”
“Very well. If you will give us—me—the opportunity, I’ll do what I can to make up for all the trouble I’ve caused.” Phew. Things seemed to have worked out pretty nicely. We took the boy into our protection and left the castle behind.
“You think this is okay?” I asked Sadeena abruptly.
“I think so. You’ve really risen to the occasion, little Naofumi, which I’ve loved to see, and I couldn’t be prouder of Raphtalia.”
“Although, this was all the fault of that miko outfit. If I’d never put that on, we wouldn’t have got caught up in this conflict,” Raphtalia sighed. No need to bring that up again.
“Tali, rafu.”
“Why is she starting to say the rest of my name now?” Raphtalia asked, turning her complaining to Raph-chan now. She had lots of energy even though she’d just been in a major battle.
Amid this chatter, we quietly sneaked the boy out, and our invasion of Q’ten Lo finally came to an end. To be honest, I was amazed at the incredible speed we took the nation. They’d clearly been on their last legs, but “sloppy” hardly covered the way they had waged war.
Atla and the others who arrived late to the battle, of course, were upset at missing the action. But as Raphtalia had been the one doing the fighting, everyone else had only watched anyway.
Epilogue: Dusk
Two days after we completed our occupation of the eastern capital—
I went to
visit Shildina, who was now a patient at the eastern hospital. She’d just recovered consciousness. I was accompanied by Sadeena, bravely coming to visit her sister, and the boy, disguised to hide his face and tail. The video crystal footage starring Filo from the other day had been spread far and wide, and the people believed the Heavenly Emperor had been put to a grisly death. Honestly, hatred for him had built up so much that it seemed like the only way to appease the people’s anger.
Raphtalia, meanwhile, was busy with her new duties after the transition of power, and Atla was leading a party in mopping up the last of our enemies. Filo had gone off to play, saying she’d made friends with the children of the city. Ren and Itsuki were training with Rishia.
Shildina slowly opened her eyes with a groan and moved her face to look around.
“So you finally came to?” I said.
Shildina noticed Sadeena and me in the room and tried to sit up, but she wasn’t fully recovered and collapsed back onto the bed.
“Shildina!” When the boy cried out, Shildina looked for a moment between him and me and tilted her head.
“Seriously. You’ve only just regained consciousness, and you thought, what? You’d get right back to fighting us?” I shook my head, half in amazement, as I asked Shildina this. She just turned her face away, as though she didn’t want to talk.
“You really did give something absolutely, insanely important to a person you’d only met once, didn’t you?” I prodded. Someone who she’d shared drinks with, just once, she gave a piece of her soul. Just what was she thinking? I hadn’t even been able to help her, in the end, either. Raphtalia had been the one to save her.
“Not really. You were the first man I’d ever met who I thought was really nice, so I gave you a card with a piece of my soul sealed inside it. It was something I’d thought I may never be able to give up,” she admitted.
“You thought I was nice—I’m taking it, from your love of drinking, that’s because I ate the rucolu fruit?” I asked. Shildina nodded.