The Divelion Magic Principality
In a certain room of the Divelion Mansion.
Lucy, who had been sunk in a deep sleep ever since her return from Orbit, slowly opened her eyes upon the bed.
"Ah..."
What resolved itself in her gradually clearing vision was her own bedroom.
"I'm back..."
She murmured it under her breath, and in the moment she tried to sit up—
"Nnh...!"
Lucy trembled faintly at the lingering heat of pleasure still coiled in her lower abdomen. The instant she laid a gentle hand over her throbbing sex, the memories rose vivid and unbidden.
Well. Aphrodisiac or not, they had joined their bodies that thoroughly. There was no forgetting it even if she had wanted to.
"Master..."
The name she had cried out hundreds of times, even through the wet, slapping percussion of flesh on flesh. That noble sound slipped through her slightly parted lips.
Just recalling the way he had shown her a male's vigorous strength last night made the little womb in her belly give a hungry throb.
Could she ever have imagined it would come to this?
As a child, after the death of her devilish parents had dragged her out of one hell, life in the city's back alleys had held nothing but despair. To keep from starving you had to steal. Children unlucky enough to be caught suffered unspeakable things at the hands of adults.
The one who had pulled her from that place of nothing but despair was none other than her Master. After he took her in, being at his side had become her happiness — and even a brief separation, her sorrow.
But last night. Even if the bond had been sealed under the influence of an aphrodisiac, she had been closer to her Master than any other woman in the world. That knowledge filled Lucy with a fullness she could barely contain.
The door creaked open.
"You're awake."
"Head Maid."
"You look much more at ease. How is your body feeling?"
"I'm fine. Thank you for your concern."
Lucy bowed her head slightly toward Vanessa as she entered. The leather outfit Lucy had been wearing had been changed for clean new clothes, and the smeared traces and scent of their coupling had been washed away. The maids had surely bathed and dressed her with painstaking care.
Head Maid Vanessa, however, spoke as if it were nothing at all.
"Hehe. It's nothing compared to what His Grace went through last night. He carried you so carefully all the way from Orbit to this mansion, you know."
"Ah..."
"He handled you so gently, my heart was pounding just watching."
Vanessa set a steaming teacup on the table beside the bed with a soft clink, and smiled.
At her words, Lucy felt her lower belly throb all over again.
"Master... carried me..."
"Ah, and last night a priestess sent by Lady Milinarise used healing magic on you. I heard there shouldn't be any aftereffects — which is truly a relief."
Vanessa's tone was one of genuine ease. That explains it, Lucy thought, giving a small nod. She had been wondering about it: the sensation of having been intimate was still there, yet she felt no pain or fatigue below.
Something, though, did not quite add up.
No aftereffects...?
She gazed down at her lower abdomen. Then what was that trembling of the little womb in her belly, every time she thought of her Master? The aphrodisiac's influence shouldn't have been remaining anymore.
She wanted to be gathered into his firm arms again, and let those thin, keening cries spill out of her.
Holding onto that unsolved mystery, a rosy flush rose across Lucy's face.
"Lucy woke up?"
"Yes. At present, there appear to be no issues with her health."
On my way to the aura training ground a short distance from the mansion, Vanessa and a priestess came to find me.
A relief. She woke up safely. I felt the tension ease at the welcome news.
"So you're the priestess who treated my aide."
"Yes. I am Hene, a High Priestess in service to the Chief God Pales."
A slit-eyed priestess of pure, refined features bowed deeply toward me. The overwhelming display of her enormous holy-power pouches swaying as she did so was... considerable.
I recalled that even Milinarise, a highest-ranking priestess, was described in the original novel as possessing overwhelming holy-power pouches of her own. Does the Pales Order rank their priestesses by breast size?
I discarded the idle thought and asked Hene what I had actually wanted to know.
"More importantly — is there any concern of aftereffects remaining for Lucy?"
"She should be fine. Thanks to Your Excellency taking such thorough measures."
Is she complimenting me for how well I pounded her?
Not a bad feeling, all told.
"Well done. Vanessa, send a 'small donation' to the Order before long."
"Understood."
"I thank Your Excellency for your consideration. May the grace of Pales be with you."
At the mention of a contribution, High Priestess Hene's slit eyes curved into crescents.
Don't mention it. It isn't even my money. It's Goldman's.
We exchanged a few more words after that, but the conversation did not run long. If I had questions about the Order, I could simply ask Milinarise myself.
A short while later, having sent Hene on her way — and after Vanessa had left to attend to the mansion's affairs — I arrived at the training ground, walled in by trees on every side. There was something I wanted to check before meeting my subordinates.
The wind played across the leaves like a melody. The full, ripe breath of spring stroked through my hair as it passed. I stood on the rustling sand and closed my eyes.
Focusing, I drew up my mana and set it circulating through my body. Mana pulled to its very limit held a stable current, tracing a great circle within me.
"Hmm."
Just as I thought. My mana capacity had increased dramatically compared to the last time I had trained my aura. It still wasn't enough to reach the realm of Grandmaster. Even so, the change was considerable.
...What is this. I can't think of a reason.
I had been steadily practicing the Divelion family's mana cultivation method, but there was no expecting a sudden leap like this. Of course there wasn't. If mana capacity shot up overnight, every last nobody in the Empire would be a Sword Master.
Then how on earth had it increased this much?
...Is it because the trait evolved back then.
The moment I had met Luke Stareil, the original protagonist. My entire body had been swept up in a sensation of omnipotence, and I had gained a new power.
The trait named Absolute Monarch.
As its effects, I had obtained three Authorities with downright broken performance. And on top of that, even my mana capacity had surged. Apparently that message wishing me luck had not been empty words.
"What a jackpot."
I felt a little giddy at this excellent gift, arriving just before the fight with Albireo. As a celebration, I put my aura through a thoroughly vicious workout — and when I next looked at the sky, the sun had already passed overhead.
Already time for my subordinates to have gathered. I had been so absorbed in training I hadn't noticed the hours slipping by.
"They'll be waiting."
Hands clasped behind my back, I left the training ground and walked toward the mansion.
The regular, monotonous sound of my footsteps. Was it my imagination? Despite the cloudless, brilliant weather, a strange fog seemed to hang over the mansion grounds.
Not my imagination.
It was highly refined magic — meant, no doubt, to keep anyone other than myself and my subordinates from approaching. I walked on, thinking of Raphaela, who would have been the one to veil the estate in fog.
Then powerful auras spreading in every direction registered on my senses. Figures standing guard outside, as if they would not permit a single intrusion into the mansion.
The elite from Orbit, huh.
Looks like Lüdenburger had brought his own men all the way here. He was loyal enough that I hadn't expected him to arrive empty-handed — but he had certainly hung a lot of extras off himself.
I kept walking, hands still folded behind my back.
"...Corpse dolls?"
"We, greet, Your, Supreme, One."
Upon reaching the building, human-sized dolls in white masks bowed deeply in greeting. They stood to either side of the entrance like doormen. Their movements were as natural as a person's, and yet there was an inexplicable uncanny valley to them.
The puppeteer's collection. So Laplace had already arrived. That creature who lived holed up in his laboratory must have had a miserable time coming all this way. Looking at the refinement of the mana imbued in the dolls, they appeared to be elite pieces he had poured considerable blood and effort into making.
"We shall, escort you, inside."
"Alright."
As I approached the entrance, the dolls courteously opened the doors. They swung inward with a heavy, resonant groan.
A red carpet stretched ahead, and to its left and right, dazzling ornaments stood in ranks. Gold as a baseline, plus statues wrought from every kind of jewel. There were even pieces that looked as though they had been made by dwarf artisans. I touched and tapped each of the treasures laid out before me as I passed.
"Goldman, you bastard. You decorated the path real pretty for meeting me."
A veritable road of gold. Feeling thoroughly pleased at the way the Empire's greatest merchant magnate chose to express his loyalty, I walked on.
Then I stopped. One ornament had been displayed apart from the rest, and a brilliant orange gem was pouring light from it.
Adamantite...
A metal created under a god's blessing. An item the Order treated as nearly a sacred relic. Even most nobles would struggle to lay eyes on one once in a lifetime — and a piece of this size could buy an entire noble house.
Milinarise's doing, by the look of it. Was it really all right for her to bring something like this out? Well. I had heard her authority within the Order was immense, so it was probably fine.
And with that, I had looked over every gift my subordinates had prepared for me. I lingered a moment in the afterglow of it, then moved on, and reached the end of the central hall.
There, my five loyal subordinates were kneeling on one knee, their expressions solemn.
"You've all come a long way. Well done."
"We greet Your Supreme One!"
A vigorous cry that seemed not to know what to do with the emotion of reunion. Their voices rang through the wide central hall.
Figures of every kind. Facing them, I could feel it viscerally — a tingling across the skin — that each and every one of them possessed power enough to shake the Empire.
How did I look to my subordinates? There was one thing in common in every gaze they turned on me. Awe, as if they were looking upon a god. The eyes of the five looking up at me were filled with light.
To them, I am the world.
A god, huh... Something that sacred doesn't suit me. If I had to pick, a Demon King would be a better fit.
Then a thought flashed through my mind.
"Listen, all of you."
"Yes."
"You've all been informed of the plan to found a new nation."
"That is so, Your Supreme One."
"Through this gathering, I will tell you the name of the new country we shall establish."
The five subordinates reacted as one. Every cell in their bodies focused on me, their faces bright with anticipation of what I would say next.
Since we had decided to create a new country, it was better to settle the name before the fight with the princes. I declared it to those who spared no loyalty toward me.
"The Divelion Magic Principality. That is the name of our new land."