Filling the General's Need for Recognition (2)
They said Rien was weak to praise.
So the second I met her I threw every compliment I had—real ones, fake ones, the whole damn arsenal—and her favorability dropped instead.
You bastards tricked me again, didn't you?
Rien of the Gale, one of the Ten Swords of the Kingdom.
She loved praise and possessed an enormous need for recognition—yet if the praise wasn't sincere, her favorability actually dropped. Surprisingly picky.
But that kind of minor fussiness was no problem for me at all.
"The way you completely dominated Belga, the Demon King's Army thousand-man captain, from start to finish—piercing through demon armor at speeds the eye couldn't follow—that was the very definition of a gale. You made a high-ranking demon who once struck terror into humanity scream in fear instead. That brilliant sword was the very definition of a hero! That day, every soul in the Benos Kingdom met the fierce gale that would lead them to victory!"
I knew everything there was to know about Rien.
As someone who had cleared every achievement in Crack Kingdom short of the maximum rift difficulty, praising her was child's play.
"I never witnessed General Rien achieve that feat with my own two eyes, yet simply hearing the words of the warriors who fought in that battle moved me to tears. A single gust of wind that blew through despair... Those warriors told me that when your wind rose at their backs, fear and hopelessness vanished, and hope began to shine!"
Sincerity was required? Then I only needed to pour in the long-accumulated sincerity I had built while playing Crack Kingdom.
"While our Benos Kingdom warriors trembled with joy at the sight of the hero who appeared like the wind, Belga—the high-ranking demon and thousand-man captain of the Demon King's Army—broke out in a cold sweat and unconsciously tightened his grip on the handle of his flame whip. Instinctively he realized the enemy he was about to face was no ordinary foe. But no matter how tense he became, no matter how thoroughly he prepared, no matter how completely he focused every nerve—you cannot stop the wind. One fierce gale swept through, Belga closed his eyes, and with that the match was over. A sword faster than the wind had carved up that massive body. As his strength drained away in an instant and he collapsed, Belga must have thought: I should never have come here. You cannot defeat the gale..."
Vague praise bored her quickly? Then I simply needed to praise her achievements more accurately and in greater detail than even she herself remembered.
"From the very day General Rien first made her name known to this world, you have been my hero. It is thanks to the feats you accomplished that I am even alive today. Thank you truly for protecting our Benos Kingdom, General."
I rose from the dining chair and bowed at a full ninety degrees, offering my gratitude to Rien.
Every word I spoke was sincere.
Whether as Offen Termin, third son of the Termin baronial house of the Benos Kingdom, or as a veteran player of Crack Kingdom, she was someone to whom I was genuinely grateful.
When I finished that round of praise, Rien's tightly closed lips slowly parted.
"H-heh... heh heh. I-I was merely fulfilling my duty as a knight. Uhihi..."
Success.
"Not at all, General Rien. You say you were merely fulfilling a knight's duty, yet is not fulfilling one's duty the most difficult thing of all? I respect you, and respect you again. Because you stand as one of the Ten Swords of our Benos Kingdom, every citizen who bears duty can walk forward without losing their way."
"Heh heh heh... Is that so? When Baron Termin speaks so highly of me, I realize that everything I have pushed myself for until now was not in vain. Thank you, Baron."
Just as expected, Rien was completely undone by my sincere praise and flattery, her lips curling into a foolish grin.
But if all I wanted was to make her grin, I never would have invited her in the first place.
"I have merely spoken the sincerity I have always carried in my heart. And there is still so much more I wish to say. Would it be all right if I opened my bundle of sincerity a little further?"
I sat back down at the table, faced her squarely, and asked permission to continue.
"Ahem... If you have that many things you wish to tell me, I suppose there is no reason I cannot listen."
Rien nodded, granting me leave to speak further.
Of course she would. How could Rien cut off praise of this quality? A dog would sooner stop eating shit.
I smiled faintly and opened my mouth once more.
"Another feat that moved me deeply—what I wish to speak of next is the tale of when the Hero's party set out to strike down the Demon King."
Eight years ago, at the age of sixteen, Rien had skipped grades at the knight academy, graduated early, and been thrown straight onto the battlefield. There she felled Belga, thousand-man captain of the Demon King's Army, and made her name known to the world.
From that first battle where she overwhelmingly crushed a high-ranking demon and announced herself as a rising star, she had received endless praise and adoration from countless people.
Every time others praised her, it felt as though her worth was being proven. Every time people cheered at the sight of her, a thrill like pure ecstasy raced through her entire body.
And so Rien came to understand.
She was a monster of recognition-seeking—someone who could only live properly if she was praised, adored, and acknowledged by others.
To receive even more praise and adoration, she drove herself harder still.
She upheld a knight's duty with absolute strictness, cut her rest short to patrol the field, and on days when nothing happened she trained longer than anyone else in the practice yard.
By abusing herself that way she grew stronger by the day, and before she knew it she had risen to the rank of one of the Ten Swords of the Kingdom.
When the king formally appointed her as one of the Ten Swords, Rien felt as though she possessed the entire world.
And from that day, it began.
She started to grow tired of ordinary praise.
Having lived a life so desperately chained to praise, adoration, and recognition, she had developed the ability to appraise compliments.
The honeyed words of high-society nobles and the oily flattery of those with ulterior motives no longer brought her joy.
On the contrary, hearing such empty praise made irritation surge and anger flare until she overturned the table and stormed out.
That was how serious Rien had become about praise—and how rare the compliments that could satisfy her had grown.
Like clothes soaked by a fine drizzle, the lack of satisfying praise gradually wore down her body and mind. Then the Great Rifts erupted, and her mental state reached its absolute limit.
Ten Great Rifts had appeared—each one powerful enough to crush even the Hero's party, humanity's ultimate weapon, in a single stroke.
Even Rien, called the fastest sword of the Benos Kingdom and one of the Ten Swords, could not hope to face such a catastrophe. Her already frayed mind and body teetered on the brink of collapse.
And then, at that very moment, the utterly impossible news arrived that the Abyss of the Army had been destroyed. Clinging to one last hope, Rien had come to Termin Territory—the fief closest to that great rift.
And there she met him.
"The name that perfectly synchronized with the Hero's party—humanity's ultimate weapon—and stopped the Spirit King's rampage: Rien of the Gale! The right arm of the Spirit King that you severed that day was entrusted to the finest blacksmith in the Benos Kingdom and reborn as a single sword. Its name is the exalted Gale Sword Oberon! When the greatest knight and the greatest blade meet, what in the world is there left to fear? That day every evil in the world trembled before the newly rising wind, and every good soul smiled gently. For the King of Wind had been placed in the hands of the great Gale, Rien!"
"U-uuuh..."
The most skilled flatterer she had ever met—an ass-kisser who felt like destiny itself.
"And with that, the twelfth panegyric is complete. Next, the feat I shall praise is the tale of when the Demon Dragon Beliel resurrected and sought to blanket the world in darkness..."
"W-w-w-wait! Wait, let's rest! Yes! Aren't you tired as well!"
Listening to Offen Termin's praise felt so good it would not have been an exaggeration to say she had been born for this day—yet if she heard any more, something terrible would happen.
She was already tasting a pleasure that felt as though half her brain had melted. If she went further, she would surely lose control and start begging him for more praise and adoration.
On the verge of praise-corruption, Rien cut the conversation short with the instincts of a veteran knight.
Of course she planned to take a short break, detox from the dopamine, let her reason return, and then listen again—but for the moment she absolutely could not hear another word of Offen Termin's praise.
"Besides. I did not come here to listen to your panegyrics in the first place. Let us move on to the main topic."
"Ah, of course. With the hero of my life standing right before my eyes, I got a little carried away. Forgive me."
"It is fine. I enjoyed your praise as well."
"Thank you. And I will say it again—I could do this all day."
"Uheuut..."
Offen Termin—had this man received some special education from birth on how to speak beautifully? Just how far did he intend to raise her favorability?
Rien desperately forced down the corners of her mouth that threatened to curl into a foolish grin because of Offen Termin's pretty words, then finally spoke of her original mission.
"Ahem. So then. I will ask again the question I posed when we first met. Why are the corpses of the beast-type magic beasts that emerged from the Abyss of the Army inside your territory?"
Unlike when she had first ordered her soldiers to butcher the intact magic-beast corpses, Rien's voice now held not the slightest trace of wariness.
Offen Termin's barrage of praise had completely demolished the walls of her caution.
Looking at the Rien whose guard had been shattered, Offen Termin smiled faintly and answered.
"Hmm. That would be faster to show you than to explain in words."
"W-what in the..."
Late at night, outside the walls of Termin Territory, Rien stared at the sight unfolding before her eyes in utter shock.
Tens of thousands of magic-beast corpses had suddenly appeared in midair, filling every inch of the landscape as far as the eye could see.
To Rien, who was still reeling from a spectacle that completely defied comprehension, Offen spoke.
"The Abyss of the Army. Our Termin family destroyed it."
A bombshell declaration that would make all of humanity fall over in astonishment.