Intermission
The young girl seated in the sole chair—a throne—of a luxurious but not terribly large room raised her voice, which anyone would have said was innocent and befitting her age.
“All right! I’m leaving it up to you!”
“Yes, Your Majesty! You can count on me!”
The man who seemed to be a knight stood up from his prostrate position in front of the little girl, his head bowed, before leaving the room in a self-assured manner.
The door closed, and a few seconds later, the girl asked her prime minister next to her, “Is it okay now?”
“Yes. He was the last one, so it’s no problem.”
At the sound of the man’s cool voice, the little girl’s cute, naive expression crumpled.
She sulked—that was the only way to describe it.
Perhaps because she was tired, her eyes went dull and half-closed, her lips warped into a frown, and her shoulders slumped.
“I feel horrible.”
She was acting less like a little girl and more like an exhausted woman in her forties. But her voice sounded youthful. It was like her external youth had remained, but her insides had changed.
“You must be tired.”
“I really am. I’d really like to quit this form.” She picked up the hem of her skirt. “There’s something disturbing about these clothes that leave my legs hanging out.”
“I’ve told you many times, Your Majesty, but there’s nothing that can be done.”
This girl was queen of the Dragon Kingdom, the Black Scale Dragonlord, Draudillon Oryukules.
She was called a dragonlord, but her combat ability was the same as any average person’s. Incidentally, according to the Theocracy’s criteria, she was a true dragonlord, but since it amounted only to the powers she was born with, she was also sometimes known by the rare term true yet false dragonlord.
The issue was that being true or false depended on whether one could use primeval magic or not.
“The reason everyone works so hard if you’re in this form is that it stimulates their urge to protect you.”
“Does everyone have a loli complex? I think being bigger feels better in all kinds of ways…”
Draudillon held her hands in front of her flat chest and jigglingly mimed something.
“That form certainly does have its—”
“Don’t say ‘form’! That’s my real body!”
“Do excuse me, Your Majesty.”
“Oh, c’mon, I can tell you don’t have any intention of apologizing whatsoever.”
“That’s not true.”
Gazing at her prime minister’s cold smile and unable to read the emotions behind it, Draudillon averted her eyes in frustration.
“You seem to understand. Back to the point, it’s true that you might be more popular with men in that form, but that’s not the case with women. In contrast, with this form, we can expect nice reactions from everyone regardless of sex or age. You understand that, I’m sure. If you want to assume the other form, you should wait until after we make a breakthrough in the country’s current situation. Do you have any bright ideas?”
“…Don’t call it a ‘form.’”
“That said, at the rate we’re going, you’ll be able to take whatever form you like. There will be no one left to see it anyway!”
The thought of the Dragon Kingdom’s current state caused a heavy silence to fall between them.
“So this beastman invasion will be different from the others?”
“Without a doubt. I hardly think that great host’s main objective could be the same as the piddling armies that have come up until now. Surely, they mean to bring down our nation. It seems like they’re determined to put up livestock pens or something.”
Near the Dragon Kingdom was the country of the beastmen.
Beastmen were subhumans who were like lions or tigers—carnivorous beasts—who walked on two legs. One look at their heads was enough to tell they were meat eaters, and naturally, their diet included humans.
Races that ate humans weren’t rare. In three of the six great countries competing in the center of the continent, humans were food. In the troll country a little removed from the central area, they were such human connoisseurs that the best food for entertaining guests was human fetuses that were about six months along.
To meat eaters like that, this country was just hordes of food gathered together.
Up until this point, perhaps because the beastmen had seen them as food that would multiply on its own if they let it be, there hadn’t been a full-scale invasion. But for some reason, the latest attack was gigantic, and three cities had already fallen.
The feasting going on out there was enough to make even the queen feel sick.
Naturally, since there was no way to negotiate with this external enemy, the nation had come together against it. They were trying to cope, but beastmen simply had different base stats compared to humans.
Just as indicated by the fact that one of the major countries in the center of the continent belonged to the beastmen, their physical abilities far surpassed those of humans.
For example, if a human and a beastman grew up in the same manner, the beastman’s stats would be ten times greater than the human’s.
In adventurer circles, they had established difficulty ratings—numbers measuring the strength of monsters. If an adult human was 3, then an adult beastman was 30. Mysteriously, yet perhaps because average beastman strength was so high, there weren’t a great number of incredibly powerful individuals; that was the sole saving grace.
“For now, a group of adventurers rallying around the adamantite plates is fighting them off, but they’re outnumbered. They aren’t able to stop the various armies—they must be tribal units or something… Our only option may be to gather all the people in the capital and wait for our opponents’ food supply to run out, but I fear our food situation will worsen first.”
“My head hurts. The future is too dark.”
“Otherwise, we could send in a select team to bash their heads in? It may only invite their fury, but if we can’t stop the invasion, we should at least do what we can.”
“And the leader of that team would be that guy, I suppose?”
“Yes, him.”
There was only one person the pair could be referring to: “Furious Flash” Celebrate of the adamantite-plate adventurer team Crystal Tear. He used a fencing technique called Effulgent Sword, hence the nickname, and his class was holy lord.
“That guy definitely has a loli complex. Whenever we’re talking, his eyes are just plastered to my body. Does he really get such a kick out of this flat thing? Why not just look at the wall, then?”
“Because it’s a fetish. Yes, it’s true, Your Majesty. He has a loli complex.”
Draudillon’s face twitched.
“I wasn’t asking you to make a definitive declaration… I wish our nation’s adamantite plates were a little more normal…”
“What are you talking about? All you have to do is play the part of a cute, pure child and he’ll fight like mad for you. Isn’t he actually extremely convenient for us?”
“But I’m going to have to fulfill his desires at some point! …Hey! Don’t look at me like I’m the pork for tomorrow’s breakfast!”
Her subordinate heaved a conspicuous sigh, and she practically popped a blood vessel.
“Isn’t that all, though, Your Majesty? Please just bear it. You’re still better off than the people who are literally being eaten.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
“…If I had the money, I would hire Optix full-time, but what is the Theocracy even doing anyway?”
“Hmm, I’m afraid I have no idea.”
“In past years, they contributed to no small degree. Now is about the time they usually come to help us out, right? I’m not saying they have to send the Black Scripture, but why don’t they at least dispatch the Sunlit one?”
The Theocracy had been secretly sending in force
s to save the Dragon Kingdom. It wasn’t much, but they probably helped because she was the head of the country.
“This is what we get for leaving our national defense up to another country. How sad.”
“It’s not like we wanted to! We had no choice. You know that. Our military expenses are already pushing it. If we try to increase them any further, we’ll go broke! Plus, even if we allocate money, it’s not like the soldiers will immediately be stronger.” The Dragon Kingdom had long been spending quite a sum on a yearly basis to counter the beastmen threat, and this was what had come of it. But she wanted to think that spending what they had had kept damages lower than they might have been. “If the Theocracy has abandoned us… Right. What if we asked the empire for help? If we fall, the next will be the empire, right?”
“The Katze Plain is there, so it won’t be the empire straightaway. They could also go around the lake and strike the Theocracy.”
“…Yeah, maybe they aren’t brave enough to plunge into a zone where tons of undead spawn.”
Incidentally, both of them excluded the wyvern-tamer race in between.
“It’s less about bravery and more that they can’t eat undead. There’s no point in conquering them. The only ones who would be happy to take that territory are other undead. Plus, isn’t the empire busy? It’s almost time for their annual war, right?”
“It’s a bit late this year.”
“Hmm, yes, it’s about half a year late. We got this proclamation about some caster, if you’d like to see it.”
“Eh, who cares about the situation in other countries? We need to worry about how to save our own country!”
“Aren’t you the one who brought it up, Your Majesty? …What about using your magic?”
The prime minister waved a finger around. That must have been what he imagined magic to be. Draudillon winced.
“Primeval magic? That’s not the sort of thing a person—even someone with an eighth of dragon’s blood—can control. One wrong move and I could end up assisting in the country’s downfall. It’s our last resort.”
“Our last resort? I hope the day we need it will never come. All right, I’m going to request support from the Theocracy.”
“Okay! Thanks!”
Draudillon responded in a naive, childlike manner, and the prime minster looked coldly at her. “That’s it, Your Majesty. If you can find the wherewithal to do that, it seems like you can write thirty letters to encourage the commanders at the front—tell them a little girl believes in them. And of course, make sure to do it with a child’s handwriting.”
“Blegh. I can’t do that sober. Bring me a drink.”
“Understood. I don’t mind if you get wasted, just please make sure the work gets done today.”
The prime minister bowed and left the room.
Seeing him off, Draudillon looked down at her hands.
“Spirit magic, huh?”
Primeval magic was different from normal magic in that it was cast with souls. If she sacrificed a ton of her people, then connected and broke down their souls, she would probably be able to use an immensely powerful spell. She could probably even imitate the huge explosion her great-grandfather had told her about—the Platinum Dragonlord’s ultimate attack.
That said, she was far weaker than a dragon, so even an optimistic estimate meant the spell required a million sacrifices.
Draudillon buried her face in her hands, trembling at the feeling that it was hell that awaited her no matter what happened.
Chapter 3 | Another Battle
1
Headed north, away from the commotion of the army preparing to head to the Katze Plain, Prince Barbro Andréan Yeld Ryle Vaiself was in a foul mood.
“Shit. Damn you, Marquis Raeven…”
He couldn’t hold back the curse.
Since his younger brother had borrowed some of Marquis Raeven’s men and patrolled the capital to keep the peace during the demon disturbance, he had given the nobles the impression he was the type who could stand and fight on the front lines in an emergency. That made the opinion of the nobles who had been supporting Barbro as the next king begin to waver. There was also the fact that Marquis Raeven was supporting the second prince—some of the nobles had already switched sides.
Not putting himself out there during the demon disturbance was a fatal mistake.
The reason he was unable to leave the palace and join the front lines was that he didn’t have any men under him.
That in itself was the correct judgment. Even if he had gone to the front, there wasn’t anything he could have done as an individual. He would have only gotten in the way. The demons could have also assaulted the palace.
His brother wouldn’t have been able to go on patrol without the use of Marquis Raeven’s troops.
Barbro was confident that he had made the right decision to stay put. But the fools didn’t understand that and were tricked by appearances. In the end, everything went according to Marquis Raeven’s plan.
“Doesn’t anyone understand his aims? Plus, all they did was patrol—it’s not as if they actually participated in the fight against the demons!”
If his brother had been on the actual battlefield, it would have been revealed how pathetic he was. In that sense, Marquis Raeven had a brilliant mind.
And there was one other thing that offended Barbro.
How miserable it was to be headed to Carne, that desolate village.
He was falling behind in the struggle for the throne.
In this fight against the empire, he needed to score some achievements and look like the eldest prince he was supposed to be. He had to show the world that he was fit to be the next king; the reputation his brother had stolen from him would be his once more.
That made this battle with the empire critical, but instead of participating, he had been ordered to conduct this trivial job like an errand boy. Where was the honor in riding to a frontier village and investigating its link to Ainz Ooal Gown?
Just then, a chill went up his spine.
Could it be that the orders were meant to prevent his achieving anything?
Father already decided on my brother, and he doesn’t want me to do anything that might result in my comeback. That’s why he sent me to this nowhere village…
His breath grew labored. His heart was burning with hatred for his father for passing him up and yielding the throne to his little brother just because he happened to show a little bravery.
It was only by chance that he noticed the person riding next to him despite his agitated tunnel vision.
“Prince, are you feeling ill? Shall I call a priest?”
The shrill voice from so near grated on his brain as if it were echoing and made him want to vomit. But he held back. It was thanks in part to the chilly winter air but also his daily-life training in glossing over things as a member of the royal family.
Showing one’s true emotions was foolish.
“No, no, don’t worry. I was just thinking about this job my father gave me and how best to get it done. More importantly, Baron Nosmartz, you went to visit the adamantite-plate adventurer Momon, right? How did it go?”
“I’ll tell you, Prince! It’s most dreadful! Momon was out, so I didn’t get to meet him at all!”
“Well, these things happen. He’s an adamantite-rank adventurer after all. Why are you so upset about it? You didn’t have an appointment. What could you expect?”
“No! Not like that. What I found offensive was his partner, Nabe!”
“Nabe? Ohh, ‘Beautiful Princess’?”
Barbro remembered the peerless beauty he had seen in the capital. She was as lovely as his youngest sister. He wanted her, but she was one of the team of adventurers his father had been rewarding. He couldn’t just do as he pleased like a commoner.
“So what did that gorgeous woman do to you?”
“She was violent! Take a look at this!”
Nosmartz removed his gauntlet to reveal a big blue bruise.
<
br /> “What? Adamantite plate or not, she’s not allowed to perpetrate violence against a noble!”
“And yet she suddenly grabbed my hand and threw me out.”
This wasn’t enough information to go on. Barbro quit taking him seriously. There had to be some reason for it that the baron was hiding.
“Prince! I beg you, bring your iron hammer down on that foolish wench!”
Can I use this to my advantage and get her to do whatever I want?
Barbro wondered.
Was there a way to give the baron a hand while also making that woman his? He couldn’t think of one. It was this idiot baron he was dealing with; the man would probably consider the prince indebted to him.
This guy really is useless. Well, for now I’ll stay close to him, and once I’m king, he’ll be the first I cut off. Until then, I’ll use him as best I can.
But even as he was making those calculations, the reality sank to the pit of his stomach that even this man had his own territory and military strength, yet he didn’t—he had to borrow forces if he wanted to fight.
In response to the baron’s expectant eyes, Barbro made the same empty promise. “I’ll take that into account when I am king!”
“Thank you, Your Highness!”
Barbro didn’t want to talk to that bowing moron anymore, so he turned to one of Marquis Beauleurope’s knights who was riding nearby. He was one of the commanders of the marquis’s elite forces.
“Hey, there’s something I want to ask you.”
“What is it, Your Highness?”
Actually, there wasn’t anything. But he couldn’t very well say it was a convenient way to cut off the conversation with the baron. When he paused briefly to come up with an appropriate question, the unpleasant thoughts from earlier came back.
The whole reason Barbro was headed for the frontier village was that Marquis Beauleurope had suggested it. Which meant…
Did the marquis betray me? Has he defected to my brother’s side?
He wanted to believe it couldn’t be true.
He had taken the man’s daughter as his wife and gotten along well with him as his son-in-law. If Barbro succeeded to the throne, Marquis Beauleurope would be the most important of the six great nobles. If he switched to Barbro’s brother’s side, he would only end up in conflict with Marquis Raeven. But what other reason could there have been for him to suggest this?
The Caster of Destruction Page 17