Flirting
In the center of the first Lord’s territory stood a colossal spire.
It was Arkan’s building, the heart of the Monarch Assembly and a fortress that monopolized at least a fifth of the deepest reaches of Blackmore.
And in that very heart of headquarters, there was a room no one could enter save the Lords themselves, regardless of rank or station: the conference room.
A space granted solely to the Lords of the Monarch Assembly.
And I, a mere human, was the first to set foot there.
The first words I heard inside were—
“Want to become a Lord?”
A scouting offer.
More precisely, nonsense about whether I wanted to take up a Lord’s post.
“Are you insane?”
“Of course not. I’m perfectly normal.”
“No, you’re definitely insane. No sane person would say something like that.”
“Really? If you say so. So, what do you think of my offer?”
There was no need to think about it. It was an offer so far removed from common sense that it barely qualified as one.
The Imperial Court and the Monarch Assembly were the two great powers of the continent, always keeping one another in check, and yet here she was, offering a Lord’s seat to an official of the Imperial Court.
She’s completely lost it.
If I’d anticipated this kind of situation from the start, I would have refused her suggestion that I rest here at headquarters for a while.
Things in Kalmash had been wrapped up, and Elfride had also been unconscious for a time, so I’d been led astray by her words. That was where the trouble began.
……To be honest, I’m only human. I did want to rest for a little while.
I had worked hard enough for that much, after all.
But the moment we arrived, she dragged me into the conference room and had been repeating the same thing ever since.
“I refuse.”
“Why? I thought it was a rather attractive offer.”
“It’s an unreasonable offer. Has a human ever held a Lord’s seat in all of history? More importantly, what do you plan to do about the other Lords’ backlash?”
“……Hm?”
Arkan looked genuinely puzzled by my question.
“The authority to appoint a Lord belongs solely to the Great Lord, doesn’t it?”
“And even so, you can’t just ignore the other Lords’ opinions.”
“That’s odd. If I personally guarantee your identity, why would they rise against it? Who would dare?”
“……Are you seriously asking because you don’t know?”
I barely swallowed the sigh that tried to escape me.
It was true that the Monarch Assembly had helped me quite a bit so far.
But that had always been a transaction, pure and simple.
We had exchanged what each of us wanted and nothing more.
So now, it was time to draw a clear line.
“You know I’m affiliated with the Imperial Court, right?”
“Of course. I know that very well.”
“Then you also know the Imperial Court and the Monarch Assembly don’t exactly adore each other. And yet you want to place a human from the Imperial Court in a Lord’s seat? Do you really think that makes sense? Let me make this clear in advance: I have no intention of giving up my post.”
“Hmm…”
Arkan raised a hand to her mouth and savored my words as though rolling them around on her tongue.
She wasn’t wrong about anything I’d said.
The Imperial Court and the Monarch Assembly, the two massive powers that formed the continent’s twin pillars, might refrain from interfering with each other’s territories on the surface in the name of peace, but their relationship was anything but friendly.
It was closer to a razor’s edge that could be turned into a killing blade at any moment.
And if I became a Lord in a situation like this?
The ripple effect would be beyond measure.
“……This has never happened before.”
I delivered the final nail in the coffin.
That should be enough for her to understand.
A Lord, my ass.
I wouldn’t touch a pretty title like that even if they begged me to take it.
“Well, you’re not wrong. The Monarch Assembly may claim neutrality, but it doesn’t exactly get along with the Imperial Court.”
“At last, you’re making sense.”
“Then I’ll just have to solve that first.”
What?
“What exactly are you going to solve?”
“The relationship between the Monarch Assembly and the Imperial Court.”
“No, I mean… what on earth do you plan to do to solve that?”
“Oh, that?”
Arkan smiled.
That clear smile looked deeply ominous.
“I’ll go meet the emperor, I guess.”
……Hold on.
Who exactly was she saying she’d meet?
“On the condition that you’re installed as a Lord, the Monarch Assembly will establish a top-priority friendly relationship with the Imperial Court. How’s that? Pretty good, right?”
“……”
“I’d still have to get it through the Lord Council, of course, but if I push it through, that’s all there is to it. The emperor would obviously agree unless he’s insane. I’m the Great Lord, and I’m willing to be this cooperative; surely he won’t be stupid enough to kick that away. And if he does, I can always resort to force…”
“Wait, wait. Push what through? And what do you mean, force? Are you really insane?”
“Why? It’s neat, isn’t it?”
I had no idea where to even begin correcting her.
Her words were absurd from beginning to end.
They were nothing but outrageous delusions.
But two things bothered me.
One was that this kind of reckless idea was exactly the sort of thing Arkan would come up with.
And the bigger problem was...
She actually had the ability to make a plan like this happen.
“…Are you serious?”
“I am.”
I pressed hard against my throbbing temple.
I already knew her obsession had been twisted away from the original protagonist and toward me.
But I hadn’t expected her to be this stubborn.
“And you’re not planning to stop?”
“Nope. Unless it directly harms you, but it doesn’t really, does it?”
That much was true.
Far from harming me directly, it was actually the fastest and easiest way to seize immense power.
…If you ignore the fact that it would become a monstrous pain in the ass.
So, swallowing another sigh, I said, “……Let’s talk about this again later.”
“Shall we?”
I nearly tried to talk her out of it again, then gave up.
I didn’t have the energy to keep wrestling with her, and she wasn’t the type to listen to reason anyway.
The Arkan I knew had a stubborn streak no one had ever managed to bend.
For now, I wanted to rest.
I had opened the runes with the overflowing mental image I’d gained by absorbing that malice, but it was still power that went against the natural order.
Of course, because I’d awakened all five stars of the rune, there hadn’t been any serious side effects, but it still wasn’t something I could dismiss as simple fatigue.
“Oh, right. The woman you brought. Her name was… Elfride, was it?”
“Elfride Trivia. Did something happen?”
“Nothing like that. She woke up a little while ago. Looks like you crossed the line to save her, too, so if you want, I can send her to your room later and you two can talk.”
“…Thanks for looking out for me.”
I offered a brief word of thanks and turned away.
Just as I was about to leave the conference room, Arkan’s voice came from behind me.
“The Demon King, right? The thing inside that woman’s body.”
“……”
Of course.
I should have expected her to notice.
“I thought something was off the moment the Imperial Court started bragging that they’d slain the Demon King. No matter how heroic you are, there’s no way you could completely erase a shard of chaos. But now it makes sense. You kept it stuffed inside some woman’s body for all those years, didn’t you?”
……That was a sharp guess.
It was so accurate even I, the one listening, was startled.
“The fact that she endured that thing in her body all this time means she can’t have been an ordinary woman… so then, surely…”
Watching my expression, she tilted her head at an angle.
“A saintess?”
“……”
“Then the woman pretending to be a saintess now is fake, huh? Wow. She’s got guts. Those lunatics are daring enough to scam people in the name of a god? They don’t seem afraid of divine punishment at all.”
Wasn’t there a familiar trope like this in romance fantasy novels?
Among them, the story of a fake and a true one whose fates were reversed was practically a classic.
“What a mess. We sent her to Blackmore so she could die in some place where nobody would know, and some human not only removed the thought-malice, but actually managed to save her properly? And she even got careless enough to have her secret exposed.”
“What are you trying to say?”
At that, Arkan grinned.
“You should be careful. The people of the Holy Order are, in some ways, even worse than the Imperial Court.”
Well, fanatical cultists were all like that.
They’d already been a bunch of deranged villains in the original story, so it wasn’t exactly surprising.
“Want me to help?”
……Help me?
“It’s just pure goodwill, so you can take it. I’m not planning to turn this into a trade.”
Just help me? For free?
From a woman more ruthlessly transactional than anyone else?
I couldn’t suppress my curiosity and asked, “Why?”
“……”
Heavy silence settled over the conference room.
Then Arkan’s eyes curved into a soft smile.
“Can’t you tell?”
“Tell what?”
“I’m flirting with you right now. Fairly fervently, too.”
“……”
She leaned her upper body closer before I’d even realized it, and her face came right up to mine.
“So… take good care of me, okay?”
Am I being flirted with right now?
I left the conference room and headed straight for my room.
It was no surprise that a room prepared personally by a Great Lord was on a different scale entirely.
Every piece of furniture was so lavish it would have drawn admiration even from nobles.
And after resting there for a while, Elfride came to my room about two hours later, just as Arkan had said.
No—strictly speaking, I hadn’t even realized she’d come.
I’d only meant to lie down on the sofa for a moment, but somewhere along the way, I’d fallen asleep.
Which was why I was so badly thrown off when I opened my eyes.
The first thing I saw was Elfride kneeling before me.
With a face so reverent it seemed almost holy, she pressed her lips to the back of my hand, then lifted her flushed face toward me.
“……My Kahbila.”
A faint murmur drifted to my ears.
“Your…… faithful servant has come……”
She was probably praying, I thought.
“Please…… grant me salvation……”
……Why are you praying at me?