Even the Demon King Would Weep
The Imperial State Council Chamber.
Before even the lingering warmth of the sweet breakfast Anastasia had shared with Logan in the garden could fade, she found herself fighting down a surge of disgust rising from the very pit of her stomach.
Because of the noble sitting across from her, sneering at her with barely veiled contempt.
Duke Cardo Lindemark — leader of the Noble Faction, the man who had backed that degenerate prince who was once her rival for the throne. He had invented some absurd "urgent matter" to skip both the victory audience and the banquet celebrating their triumph over the Demon King, and today he had shown up to the State Council meeting for the sole purpose of picking a fight with her, right to her face.
And it was because of men like him that His Majesty had no choice but to turn his back on me...
Her father, Valerius, had been forced by the previous emperor into a political marriage with the daughter of House Lindemark — the woman who now sat as Empress. But the one Valerius truly loved was Anastasia's mother. To protect her, a woman of humble birth, he had given up a great deal, and in doing so inevitably left himself at the nobles' mercy.
In the end, he had failed to protect her. Had it not been for Logan, Anastasia herself would have met a miserable death as well.
So she had no intention of pitying or understanding her incompetent father. The one who would rule this empire would not be him. It would be her.
"Duke Lindemark. It seems His Majesty has been rather generous with you all this time."
"I beg your pardon? What is it you mean by that, Your Highness the Crown Princess?"
Even after Anastasia's cold voice rang out as a warning, Cardo kept up his languid, mocking attitude, needling her without reprieve.
"Duke Lindemark! That is quite enough! Did His Majesty not say so plainly yesterday!? The Crown Princess's word carries the same authority as the Emperor's own! This is the woman who led the Demon King Subjugation to victory! What part of that makes her 'too soon'!?"
Esman, the Prime Minister, could no longer stand by and watch Cardo's insolent posturing — he bellowed in outrage.
Cardo merely snickered, sneering at him inwardly.
Hmph. An old man who could do nothing but hover at the Emperor's side, now fawning for all he's worth, trying to pick a winning side at last.
Ordinarily, no one could afford to ignore a Chancellor who commanded so much authority and real power. But Cardo had long since stopped caring even for the Emperor's regard, so he didn't so much as flinch. Shameless as ever, he simply carried on.
"His Majesty is merely worn down by the long years of statecraft, I'm sure, and that is why he spoke so generously. Besides — wasn't the true credit for the Demon King's defeat owed to the Hero's Party?"
"Why, you insolent—!"
Esman was rising from his seat in a fury at Cardo's disrespect when Anastasia lifted a hand.
"Enough."
She turned her gaze back to Cardo.
What kind of eyes does this woman have...
Cardo flinched inwardly — her crimson eyes were gleaming with something feral, like a beast about to pounce — but he told himself he could not back down now. The Crown Princess would surely try to leverage the success of the Demon King Subjugation into popular support, using it to shore up the imperial authority that had grown so weak.
Which meant he had to provoke her, deliberately and relentlessly, until she lost her composure. He needed public opinion to form around the idea that a girl so young was unfit to lead the empire.
Because only then—
—can I have my nephew restored as Crown Prince.
A pitiful fool of a nephew, deposed after botching everything despite having every advantage handed to him, now confined to the Detached Annex Palace. And thanks to that, Anastasia had risen to the position of Crown Princess so effortlessly.
A throne can never be given to a woman born of that lowborn whore.
So resolved, Cardo refused to yield an inch in this war of nerves against her. Even as her gaze pressed down on him like a physical weight, he forced himself to appear perfectly composed.
Anastasia spoke to him in a voice like a blade being drawn.
"Stop stalling with your transparent games, and tell me plainly and precisely what exactly makes it 'too soon.' This bill will pass. That is not negotiable."
The reconstruction of the infrastructure devastated across the empire by the demon army's invasion had to go forward. Only then could the empire reclaim the prosperity it had once known.
Yet Cardo offered no substantive objection at all — he simply insisted, over and over, that she was too young. So everyone in the chamber except the Noble Faction's cronies glared at him with undisguised censure.
Cardo clicked his tongue inwardly.
Tsk.
She was right — the reconstruction was urgent. If the damage wasn't repaired soon, the empire's economy would remain stagnant, regressed decades in the past.
But at the very apex of the aristocracy, none of it would touch his own lavish lifestyle in the slightest. It would simply mean the commoners suffered a little longer.
And what of it?
Thanks to that cursed thing called noblesse oblige, however, he couldn't say any of that out loud. By rights he would have had no rebuttal, forced to simply concede to her argument...
Except Cardo had one card that was absolutely solid.
"As Your Highness says, restoring the regions destroyed by the demon army's invasion is indeed important. However."
"Does the funding for this reconstruction fall from the sky, perhaps? It comes from taxes — from the very blood of the imperial people."
An enormous budget meant an enormous financial burden, and the people's lives had already been reduced to poverty by the war. Cardo seized on that as his opening for a counterattack.
Esman, listening, looked ready to burst a blood vessel.
"And to offset exactly that, we convened this very council to propose that the assembled nobles contribute a portion of their own fortunes!"
Just as he said — the reconstruction required funds. That would mean raising taxes on the imperial people... so the plan was to raise that burden as little as possible and make up the difference from the nobles' own coffers.
"Now, now. We nobles are subjects of the empire just the same. Our livelihoods have grown quite strained by the demon army's invasion as well..."
It was Cardo's shamelessness, above all, that forced Anastasia to grapple with a fury so fierce that even the sweet memory of that morning in the garden with Logan could not calm it.
"Ha..."
A disbelieving laugh escaped her.
Strained? Your livelihood? What a joke.
When the empire had called for support and cooperation in the subjugation campaign, the Noble Faction had produced nothing but excuses, devoting every ounce of energy to preserving their own wealth. Their lives today were exactly what they had been before the war — not one thing changed.
So Anastasia decided she was done holding back.
"I see... So even His Grace has fallen on hard times."
"Yes, yes~ precisely so."
Cardo, intent on needling her further, let out an exaggerated, theatrical groan.
"Ah, truly, I long to practice noblesse oblige with my own two hands — but as you can see, my circumstances are rather, ah... dire."
A faint smile playing on her lips, Anastasia pointed at his hand.
"Pfft. 'As I can see,' you say? It seems to me that disposing of even a single one of those rings you're wearing at this very moment would go a long way toward funding the project?"
"Wh-what? No, these are—!"
Cardo was flustered by the observation.
A man who relished luxury and ostentation, he wore countless ornaments on his person as a matter of daily habit, despite being a man at all. Which meant—
"One on every finger — several on some of them, in fact. They can hardly all be wedding rings or keepsakes. For the sake of that noblesse oblige of yours, might you part with one? No — perhaps a few?"
Under Anastasia's merciless pressure, Cardo lost every word and could only work his lips soundlessly.
Absolutely not. Not one. Not a single thing!!!
His manor's vault was already piled beyond counting with such trinkets — losing a few would cost him nothing at all. But donate them? For commoners? Did that even qualify as a sentence?
So Cardo glanced frantically around the chamber, hunting for some other grievance to change the subject.
And then—
Oh ho...!
His eye caught the figure of Logan, standing quietly in one corner of the room.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Logan stood in a corner of the council chamber beside Renate, guarding Anastasia.
Disgusting.
He'd had no patience for politics or these petty power struggles in his previous life either. He had never held a favorable impression of politicians or high society types who put on displays like this — because for all their posturing about serving the people, every one of them had eyes only for their own pockets.
Though here, the greed's out in the open, isn't it.
Just as Anastasia said — sell a single one of the rings dangling from the man's fingers, and a few hundred commoners could eat their fill for months.
Seriously, is he a ring fetishist? How many is he planning to wear at once?
Logan was studying Cardo with that thought when their eyes happened to meet. The moment Cardo's expression shifted into something cunning, Logan felt his stomach drop.
That sly look could only mean the man was cooking up some scheme — and Logan's glance had just handed him one.
"Ah, just the man we need! Sir Logan — of the Hero's Party, and a commoner!"
"What— why are you bringing Sir Logan into this...!"
Seized by a terrible premonition, Anastasia moved to shut Cardo down. The sight of her flustered only convinced him he'd sunk his hook into the perfect bait, and a venomous smile spread across his face.
"As Your Highness herself said — even if I contributed a share of my personal fortune, the burden on the imperial people would remain considerable, would it not?"
"Ha...! Sir Lindemark, really—"
Anastasia tried furiously to cut him off, but Cardo clearly had no intention of letting this go. He turned to Logan with a smug, oily grin.
"What is your view, Sir Logan? A man of your station would understand better than anyone. For people like you, even that modest tax increase would be blood wrung from your veins, would it not?"
Not even hesitating at open insult, he moved to corner Logan completely.
Cardo was riding high. So the man was celebrated as a member of the Hero's Party — big deal. At bottom he was nothing but an adventurer, a nobody. He had no standing to stick his nose into the affairs of nobles and presume to lecture them.
But whatever his petty calculations, the answer that came out of Logan's mouth left Cardo utterly aghast.
"Yes. I find myself in complete agreement with His Grace."
"Oho! Wiser than I expected, young man!"
"Certainly — insofar as the people's taxes are indeed blood wrung from their veins."
"...?"
"And that is precisely why I believe the burden should fall a little more heavily on those who have no intention of bleeding so much as a drop. Or of spilling any at all, come to that."
"What did you—?"
"I speak, of course, of nobles like Your Grace — the ones who are not in the least bit 'strained.'"
"...Are you insulting me just now? Even as a member of the Hero's Party, you are nothing but a commoner, and—"
"An insult, you say? If my words are an insult, Your Grace, then what would you call spewing such drivel at Her Highness the Crown Princess — a man who is nothing but a noble?"
"You wretch!!"
Cardo was raising his voice and moving to menace the room, so Anastasia had been preparing to step in at just the right moment. But before she could, Logan twisted the corner of his mouth into something close to a sneer and kept talking.
"Truly, I'm in awe. Through the entire campaign against the demon army, I never once saw a devil so shameless and greedy as you, Your Grace. Even the Demon King himself would weep at the comparison. Had you played the Hero, Your Grace, the subjugation would have been far easier."
"Why you—!!"
Logan's scathing rebuke turned Cardo's face scarlet, and he looked ready to leap across the floor and seize the man by the collar then and there.
But the other nobles and ministers in the chamber were already nodding along with Logan's words. A stifled "pfft" here, a strangled snort there — laughter broke out all across the room, and even Anastasia, who had maintained her cool, watchful expression throughout, could not keep the corners of her mouth from curling upward.
Caught in that mortifying atmosphere, Cardo could only squirm, unable to advance or retreat. Even the Noble Faction's own men had bowed their heads into silence — looking suspiciously as if they were biting back laughter of their own.
"Urrghh!! Are you all laughing at me now too!?"
"N-no, Your Grace! Of course not!"
And so, in that absurd little farce of the faction turning on itself, the bill afterward passed without a hitch.
"Thank you, Logan. Truly. I was so worried that men like the Duke would look down on you and dismiss you — but not only did you put that man in his place all on your own, you gave me such an enormous help as well. I couldn't be happier."
"It was nothing, Anya. If anything, I'm the one who's glad — glad that I could be of use to you."
"Logan..."
"Anya..."
Haah...
Watching the two of them orbit each other, showering one another with praise and radiating that same saccharine warmth from the morning, Renate could only exhale another long sigh in her heart.
Still — the biggest hurdle of the day had been cleared, at least.
I'll just leave them to it and have my lunch.
Though she wasn't entirely sure it would stay down, watching those two practically drip honey at each other. It hurt to look at, somehow.