The Engineer Captain's Shattered Illusions
Nella had never once felt confident about her appearance in her entire life. Among orcs she was widely regarded as a beauty, yet she believed that standard existed only within orc society. Her elder brother, Veryberry Beck Begrit, had spent every day in the library to ensure no orc lord would ever lack knowledge, steadily building his tower of learning. Countless orc lords before him had amassed an immeasurable collection of books long before Hemonigent's fall. Loving books as much as he cherished them, Veryberry had succeeded in transcribing every volume that had begun to crumble over the course of a thousand years, and he had even constructed a library where the texts could be preserved without a single trace of fading. Through years of painstaking effort he established the grand library, and he visited it daily in pursuit of knowledge. Whenever her brother entered, his younger sister Nella would follow him inside.
Nella, too, had absorbed considerable knowledge by reading widely, yet she had never sought the library purely for study. Learning was merely something she accomplished on the side. The books that truly claimed most of her time were novels. Those fictional tales, born from the civilization of a thousand years past, had escaped the fate of books meant only to convey knowledge and information; they had entered the realm of the heart. Sometimes they brought laughter, sometimes sorrow, sometimes anguish, sometimes joy. No two emotions a novel evoked were ever the same, and each moment felt like a fresh encounter.
Among them, Nella especially loved the bittersweet sweetness of romance novels. She adored the world contained within those leather-bound pages, the stories of lovers written in ink. When she lent her ear to the sweet whispers of the letters, she felt as though she herself had become the heroine, her entire heart submerged in the tale. She could even imagine meeting the ideal partner the novels portrayed.
There were tales of warriors fighting to reclaim princesses stolen by dragons, of fighters rescuing noble daughters from bandit raids, of a farm girl who grew from childhood friend to lover with the boy who painted, of a noble lady tormented by love between her aristocratic fiancé and her own knight, of a crown prince falling for the princess of a neighboring kingdom taken as a hostage, of a boy searching for mandrake to cure an incurable illness. Every time she opened a romance novel, a new world unfolded, and Nella delighted in losing herself in those sweet love stories.
When she opened the sturdy, tanned leather cover, inside lay dreams and romance woven from thick paper. The mere traces of ink soon crept into her heart and carved poignant memories there. Yet romance novels also inflicted deep wounds upon her. While she had been deeply immersed in the novels that had become both her happiest pastime and greatest interest, while she had continued to fall asleep each night with five or six books stacked beside her pillow, Nella came to realize the sorrowful reality the novels had never told her.
Having seen as many splendid and beautiful protagonists as there were books—or even more—she understood the painful truth: no romance novel featured an orc as the main character. Orcs appeared only as beings who abducted or harmed frail heroines, or, in some stories, as hideous, lustful monsters who gang-raped the heroine only to be slaughtered by the male lead arriving too late. Recalling the books she had read, Nella realized that every handsome and beautiful protagonist had always been a demonian or a human. Occasionally elves, dragons, animas, or mermaids were depicted, but orcs were never portrayed as protagonists. They were lumped together with goblins, ogres, trolls, and cyclopes as monsters committing evil deeds, or, at best, relegated to insignificant background characters. Even novels from Hemonigent that featured demonians as protagonists and portrayed orcs in a friendly light never depicted them as objects of romantic affection.
Once her thoughts reached that point, Nella could no longer hide her miserable feelings. To other races, orcs were nothing more than an ugly foreign species. Human-authored novels commonly described orcs as “pig-like beings with green skin.” She could not begin to count how many hours she had spent shut in her room weeping afterward. The world of Nella, who had read countless stories of beautiful lovers in romance novels and dreamed of the day a wonderful partner would appear for her as well, collapsed in ruins.
Even when other orcs praised her as pretty or beautiful, she only smiled awkwardly on the surface. Never once had she felt genuinely pleased by such compliments. After all, they were merely exchanging praise according to orc standards of beauty; by the universal standards of the world and other races, orcs were nothing but a hideous species. That thought tormented her endlessly.
Born an orc, Nella had given up many things. She had been interested in the pretty dresses and sparkling accessories worn by the heroines in novels, and she had encountered quite a few male orcs she thought rather handsome. Nevertheless, she had abandoned the act of adorning herself and given up on cultivating her own beauty. The conviction that she could never become the heroine experiencing romantic love in a novel had dominated her thoughts, and she found her own vulgarity repulsive—the way she could never truly rejoice at kind words about her appearance because she always thought, “It’s only by orc standards after all.” She had simply wanted to set everything down and feel at ease, so she had abandoned herself as a woman.
Yet the very first demonian she had ever met—the Demon Lord she had only just encountered—Neromeltia, overturned Nella’s entire world by declaring her cute. Neromeltia was more beautiful and radiant than any woman Nella had ever seen. The illustrations of princesses she had so admired in novels could not compare. Her bearing was such that one could understand the title “Goddess of Luina” simply by looking at her. She was literally a goddess, her beauty worthy of her omnipotent power.
And that same Neromeltia had told her she was cute. For an instant Nella’s mind went white. She wondered if it had merely been a polite greeting and whether she had foolishly taken it seriously. Yet Neromeltia’s burning gaze and the longing in her voice could only be felt as genuine, no matter how dull the observer.
“D-Do you mean… that I’m cute…?”
Unable to believe her ears, Nella asked in a trembling voice, unconsciously dropping even the stiff military tone she normally used. The Demon Lord’s unexpected praise left her flushed with deep bewilderment; she looked so flustered that her fingertips trembled. Yet her confusion never appeared negative. Rather, the hidden emotion peeking through the cracks of her stern demeanor seemed closer to joy or delight.
“But… my skin is green, and my fangs stick out… I’m an orc……”
“Those are just charming points! You’re cute and lovely, like a little violet!”
When Nella hesitantly voiced her self-deprecation, Neromeltia met it with passionate sincerity. Faced with a Demon Lord who affirmed her so fervently, Nella grew even more flustered and began to fidget, unsure what to do with herself. Such a thing could never have happened in the world she knew. Such words could never have reached her ears according to the common sense she had always held. In a voice that trembled more than before, she voiced her own denial.
“I’m… much taller and larger than other races… and I’m covered in muscles too!!”
“I think your healthy, toned body is beautiful instead!”
Perhaps the reason Nella kept pouring out words of denial even as Neromeltia praised her beauty was because she secretly hoped the Demon Lord would refute the self-doubt that had always gnawed at her. After all, she possessed a large, muscular build far removed from the frail princesses in novels, and she had long since given up on herself as a beautiful woman. She had believed that orcs complimenting one another on their looks was nothing more than ugly people exchanging meaningless words by the world’s standards, and she had resigned herself to being merely a female orc with different skin color and a large frame—the very opposite of frailty.
Yet now the Demon Lord she had only just met was actively and sincerely affirming the appearance she had always been ashamed of. Nella felt the romantic, dream-filled feelings she had folded away in her heart as a child suddenly brush past her mind. She could not understand why a few simple words made her heart race and warmth rise from deep in her chest. What was clear was that Nella herself felt joy at those few words from the Demon Lord.
“Ahem. It seems Your Majesty is quite taken with my younger sister.”
“Ugh…! …… Mm, indeed. It is admirable that such a pretty younger sister is diligently earning merit in an important position.”
“I was rather surprised to see Your Majesty, who had been speaking so majestically, address my sister in such an ordinary, familiar tone.”
Startled by the sudden interruption from Veryberry, Neromeltia realized she had even cast aside the dignity she herself maintained. She tried belatedly to recover her majestic tone. The thought that she had nearly flirted with the younger sister right in front of the older brother sent a chill down her spine, and she once again put on a dignified appearance to smooth over the situation. However, Veryberry’s immediate observation rendered even that effort a meaningless struggle.
“… I speak casually with my subordinates. I was merely trying to be comfortable in advance, thinking I might form a subordinate contract with you all.”
“Is that true!?”
“Yes. Veryberry Beck Begrit. Oun. And Nella. All of you must form subordinate contracts with me.”
Neromeltia had drawn the trump card of a subordinate contract to cover up the fact that she had lost her dignity and revealed her true colors after being captivated by the beautiful Nella. In truth, she had intended to form subordinate contracts with them from the beginning, yet she had not wanted to propose it so carelessly. Still, everything had already happened, and she could only blame her own lack of self-control for crumbling so easily at the sight of a beauty.
While Neromeltia conversed with Veryberry in a dejected, listless voice, Nella quietly gazed at her, holding her breath. She placed a hand over her chest, feeling the fierce pounding of her own heart as she looked inward at her feelings.