The Flock
Deep beneath the capital lay the secret altar of Nox, Goddess of Darkness.
A single blood-red mana stone resting upon it split with a sharp crack and crumbled into dust. The stone had been bound to the guild master's life.
"The guild master's been taken. That maid wench of the Sixth Prince finished him in three seconds flat."
Three executives, robes hauled up over their heads, had gathered to speak in grim voices.
"They dared kill a devotee of Lady Nox? We storm the imperial palace this instant and take that prince bastard's head!"
"Don't be an idiot. Did you not see the power that woman unleashed? We'd gain more by luring her in as a devotee. Our cult is few enough already. Let our numbers shrink any further, and Lady Nox will be furious."
The two executives were heating themselves into the argument when a woman seated in a corner of the altar, poised in languid allure, let out a scornful little laugh.
"My, my. And what good are those heads if they won't turn?"
"What?"
"Tempt the prince into worshipping Lady Nox, and the girl follows him on her own, doesn't she? Rotten or not, he's still a prince. Use him as a piece on the board, and we can draw in far more believers."
The woman licked her red lips and smiled like a serpent.
"As it happens, I hear that prince is looking for fiancée candidates to fill the seat of principal wife."
"Don't tell me you mean to go yourself."
"I'll disguise my station perfectly and walk myself into that Detached Palace. With my Unique Ability and this stigmata Lady Nox granted me, making some talentless little prince pant beneath my feet will take no time at all."
She was already smiling with the arrogance of a woman who had made herself mistress of the Detached Palace.
At that same hour, in a splendid mansion somewhere in the capital, a count of the neutral faction summoned his daughter with a grave face.
"His Highness Kyle is confined to quarters. The Second Prince is finished."
"Then... are you thinking of attaching us to His Highness Leonhardt's First Faction?"
"No. Backing the First Prince openly now puts this house in real danger of being shaken apart. We have to walk the rope."
The count set a hand on his daughter's shoulder and dropped his voice to a secretive whisper.
"Daughter. I hear the Sixth Prince is seeking fiancée candidates. He may lack ability, but he is imperial blood all the same. Catch his eye, and become his principal wife."
"...Yes, Father. I will become his betrothed without fail, and take the real power of the Detached Palace into my hands."
The daughter nodded, obedient.
Across the backs of her quietly clasped hands, the crest of Terrasia, Goddess of the Earth, shone with a steadfast light.
And in a shabby inn room on the outskirts of the imperial palace, the elf princess who had run away from Alfheim and her knight escort were checking their human disguises before a mirror.
Vmmm—
Then the blue communication orb cradled against the elder elf princess gave a short vibration.
She read swiftly down the cipher that surfaced upon it, and her expression hardened into something grave.
"...Little sister."
"What is it, Sister?"
"Urgent word from the intelligence network back home. They say signs of the Savior we've been searching for so desperately have been picked up on the Aquaris side as well."
She clenched the orb and bit her lip, regret plain on her face.
"I need to go out this instant and trace the source of this information, and whether it's true. I'm sorry, but I can't go to the Detached Palace with you."
"What? You want me to go alone?"
"Yes. Disguise yourself perfectly as the young lady of a fallen barony, and infiltrate as a candidate for the Sixth Prince's principal wife. I'll move on the outside."
Thrown for a moment by the sudden order to stand alone, the younger elf princess soon nodded, her face set alight with curiosity and a sense of mission.
"All right, Sister! The Sixth Prince has to be a Transcendent, deceiving the whole world to perfection. Once I'm his principal wife, I'll dig out every last secret of that tremendous power and bring it all back to you!"
An executive of the Dark Cult that worshipped the Goddess of Darkness. An arrogant noble lady who served the Goddess of the Earth. And the younger elf princess of the forest, come to unearth a Transcendent's secrets. Arrogant sheep, each with a reason of her own. It was a night on which they finished preparing to walk, of their own feet, into the maw of the true monster who held the leash of absolute dominion.
A few days later, in the audience hall of the imperial palace.
"We greet Your Majesty."
Seria and I dropped to one knee before Emperor Theodore upon the dais and paid our respects.
"Yes. How fares life in the Detached Palace? Have you, by any chance, found a moment to look for fiancée candidates?"
At the emperor's offhand question, a chill ran down my spine.
Oh, no.
By day I had been tearing around the market with Seria, and by night I had been training her, slow and sticky, upon the bed. Finding a fiancée had slipped my mind entirely.
I stole a glance at Seria, kneeling one step behind me.
Come to think of it, we eat together every day and share a bed every night. At this point, aren't we basically lovers?
Rather than meet noble ladies I didn't know, paste on a smile, and sit through tea, it would be easier to simply seat Seria—the most manageable of them, the one who actually listened—as principal wife. Hadn't she been crying and clinging beneath me every night of late, begging for exactly that?
I squeezed my eyes shut and blurted it out.
"Father. I failed to say it properly before, but... living with Seria, I have come to truly care for her. I wish to be betrothed to Seria."
"...!"
At my sudden declaration, Seria's shoulders flinched. Her ears flushed a red that looked ready to burst.
The emperor upon the dais gave a deliberate cough, but inside he was dancing.
Ho ho. Our youngest has finally chosen a daughter-in-law with his own two hands! How admirable!
His lips twitched with the urge to grant it on the spot. Then he let out a heavy sigh.
"Haa... I understand your feelings well enough. But it cannot be. Not yet."
"Pardon?"
"The nobles of the palace have a great deal to say. They are in an uproar, insisting that a prince, of all people, cannot seat a maid of no lineage as his principal wife. Petitions demanding a daughter of a proper noble house are piled up like a mountain."
The emperor rubbed the spot between his brows, looking tired.
"So I selected a few myself. A young lady the neutral nobles pushed in hard, and candidates of my own choosing. They will stay at the Detached Palace for the time being. Meet them at your leisure, and if one truly will not do, you may send her back on your own authority. I will abide by your judgment."
"Ah..."
So there was no escaping the tiresome interviews after all.
When I nodded in resignation, the emperor gestured toward the doors of the audience hall.
"Fiancée candidates. Enter."
Creeeak—
The great doors opened, and three women walked in, one after another.
First came an astonishingly beautiful young lady, her silver hair pinned up with neat precision.
"I am Lia Roen, daughter of the fallen Baron Roen. It is an honor to stand before Your Highness."
Lia Roen. The elf princess, her identity disguised as human. She offered a demure greeting and stole a glance up at me with bright, sparkling eyes.
Behind her, a woman of jet-black hair and bewitching red lips approached with a languid sway of the hips.
"I am Ella Camilla, eldest daughter of Viscount Camilla of the borderlands."
Ella, an executive of the Dark Cult in disguise. As she bowed, her gaze licked the whole of me—secret, and blatant.
The third woman wore a lavish, costly dress and carried herself with a rigid, aristocratic bearing.
"I am Claire Varis, second daughter of Count Varis. I stand here in answer to Your Highness's summons."
Claire, devotee of the Goddess of the Earth, bearing the fate of her house upon her shoulders. Her eyes flashed, sharp and open, as if to check Seria where she stood.
Haa. Every last one of them looks like a headache.
I sighed inwardly and was about to nod along when the doors opened once more, and someone strode in on confident feet.
"...Huh?"
Seria's eyes and mine widened in the same instant, pure shock.
A girl with gorgeous reddish-brown hair cut short and tied into pigtails, wearing a smile full of mischief.
"Fourth Princess Aria von Grand Terra enters the audience hall as a fiancée candidate of His Highness Gun, the Sixth Prince!"
I nearly jumped out of my skin and shouted up at my father on the dais.
"F-Father! Why is that lunatic of a sister standing there?!"
"Ah, well..."
The emperor cleared his throat and looked away.
"Aria threw quite the tantrum. She has no betrothed of her own yet, she likes you far too much, and since you are half-siblings anyway, she rolled about on the palace floor insisting she wanted in as principal wife."
"What?!"
"She swore she could get along just fine with Seria as well... I don't know! Sort it out amongst yourselves! I'm busy, so I'm off!"
As if dumping a headache onto someone else, the emperor rose and fled the audience hall in a hurry.
"Hello, my cute little Gun. And hello to my sister-in-law Seria, too."
Sister Aria waved and smiled, bright as anything.
A disguised elf princess, an executive of the dark, a lady of the earth, and a mad brother-complex of a Fourth Princess. The Detached Palace's peaceful life of nightly training was one breath away from a catastrophic storm.
A few hours later, the Sixth Prince's Detached Palace.
The whole carriage ride back from the palace, the air inside had been suffocating. The silent war the four women gave off had my head pounding.
The moment we arrived, I beckoned Seria.
"Seria. Please show those troublesome guests to their rooms. I'm tired. I'm going to rest first."
"...Yes, Master. I shall attend them perfectly, so that not a single insect is permitted to cling."
Seria answered, and turned a cold gleam of killing light upon the four candidates.
I left that murderous atmosphere behind and fled to my private parlor.
"Haa..."
The moment the door shut, I threw myself onto the plush sofa and let out a long sigh.
"Even so. I never thought Sister Aria would crawl in as a fiancée candidate too. I'm actually going to lose my mind."
I had just closed my eyes and muttered it when—
A soft rustle.
From behind me, someone slipped their arms gently around my neck over the back of the sofa. With the distinctive smell of a leather jacket, a full breast pressed firmly down against the top of my head.
"My cute little brother. Did I just hear you badmouthing your sister?"
"Hk—?!"
I jerked my eyes open in shock, and there was Sister Aria, who had somehow snuck into my room, looking down at me with a mischievous smile.
"Are you insane, Sis?! When did you get in here!"
I tried to pull free, but there was no breaking the arm strength of an S-rank melee combatant by brute force.
"A betrothal between half-siblings—Father's lost it too, allowing that!"
At my grumbling, Sister Aria pinched my cheek and giggled.
"Whyyy? Better to be engaged to the little brother I cherish most than to force an engagement with some stranger and make a nuisance of it, don't you think? Do you hate it too?"
"It's not that I hate it. It's just, common sense—"
"And be honest with me."
Sister Aria brought her lips right up to my ear and whispered.
"You completely forgot you were supposed to be looking for fiancée candidates, didn't you? Night after night you were just rolling around the Detached Palace in that sort of relationship with Seria, and when Father asked today, you went oh, no."
"...!"
Struck dead center, my shoulders gave a hard twitch.
"You absolutely loathe feeling out young ladies you don't know over tea. So you tried, in a fit of annoyance, to shove the most manageable, most obedient one—Seria—into the principal wife's seat and dump every tiresome duty on her. Am I wrong?"
Caught.
Cold sweat slid down my spine.
Wh-what? How does she know?! Did she use mind-reading on me?
The Fourth Princess's wild, animal intuition was genuinely enough to raise goosebumps.
While I floundered, unable to get a word out, eyes darting, Sister Aria left a light smack of a kiss on my cheek and smiled, alluring.
"Well? I'm right, aren't I?"
I sat there dumb as if I'd swallowed honey, and Sister Aria pinched my cheek once more.
"You are right, but... this still isn't it. Half-siblings or not, you're a princess, for heaven's sake."
At my voice, shrinking in on itself, Sister Aria snorted softly and loosened the arm around my neck.
"Don't look so wronged. Stay a few days, and if you keep refusing because you truly hate it, I'll give up cleanly and step back. Don't you trust your sister?"
She shot me a playful wink.
"And you ought to thank me. Sister Chloe was throwing a raging fit about dumping her own betrothed and coming in as your fiancée candidate too. Father and I barely talked her down."
"What?! Sister Chloe as well?!"
I was genuinely aghast that money-mad Third Princess Chloe had nearly joined this mess. The imperial family was well and truly out of its mind.
"Haa... Fine. Fine, so please—my head hurts. Go out and let me rest alone."
I pressed hard at my throbbing temples and waved her off.
Sister Aria rose from the sofa obediently, humming under her breath.
"All right, my cute little brother. See you at tea."
"...Tea? What are you talking about now?"
A bad feeling made me scowl, and Sister Aria stood in the doorway and smiled.
"Oh, Father ran off before he finished telling you? Starting today, you have to hold a mandatory one-on-one tea with the fiancée candidates. Every day."
"Are you crazy? Why would I do that! I'm not doing it. It's a pain!"
"Oho. Is that so? You won't?"
She propped her chin on her hand and added, as if she were having the time of her life.
"We thought you might say that, so the candidates—myself included—set one condition with Father."
"...What did you say?"
"If you won't have tea with us, all the better for us. No questions asked—principal wife, confirmed on the spot. I'm welcome anytime, little brother."
She blew me a sticky kiss, shut the parlor door, and slipped out.
The empty parlor. I sat alone on the sofa and slowly chewed over what that vicious condition meant.
Refuse the tea, and one of the fiancée candidates automatically becomes principal wife. Become principal wife, and I am a married man by force.
"......"
I clutched my head in both hands.
"Fatherrr—!!!!!"
In the Sixth Prince's Detached Palace, where I had only just slipped free of the imperial palace to enjoy a comfortable exile, my wretched scream echoed.