Subjugating the Female General (34)
Of everyone in that room, it was Duke Silvestri who reeled hardest at Adrian's appearance.
He had been certain — absolutely certain — that by Emperor Ailes's own decree she had been packed off to the Krantz Empire and wiped from this world as if she had never drawn breath. That she would suddenly stand before him now was something he had never once imagined.
Had he known Adrian still lived, he would never have dared lay a finger on House Wendelin.
"S-someone stop her!!"
The duke's voice cracked with raw terror.
Adrian's form streaked toward them. Two knights ripped their blades free and stepped into her path.
She launched herself off the ground and came at them like a thrown spear. The speed of it was monstrous. The first knight got his sword up in time to meet the blow — and the sheer force of the impact hurled him backward, slamming him into the wall.
The instant her boots touched earth again, her blade swept sideways.
Shhk!
The second knight's head left his shoulders before he could even flinch.
Duke Silvestri tore his own sword free and leveled it at Teresa, who stood directly in front of him.
"D-don't move!! Not if you want your mother to live!"
Teresa had been trying to cover herself with her hands ever since Adrian burst in, scrambling to pull some scrap of dignity back together — and now the duke's steel was suddenly at her throat. She froze.
Adrian hesitated.
A triumphant grin spread across Duke Silvestri's face. Threatening people into the dirt was, for him, as easy as breathing.
"Heh heh heh. I don't know how you crawled back here, but do you really think one woman is going to change a damn thing? Drop the sword."
When Adrian still refused, he eased the edge of the blade against Teresa's neck.
She had no choice. Adrian lowered her weapon.
"Bind that bitch."
Duke Silvestri had already decided — leave Adrian unbound and you were keeping a monster in the room.
The knight who had been put through the wall dragged himself upright and staggered over. Humiliated at being buried in masonry by a single stroke, he drove a fist straight at Adrian's gut.
She slipped sideways, let the punch whistle past, and slammed an uppercut into his jaw. He had never imagined she would hit back. The blow dropped him cold.
"What the hell do you think you're doing? Is your mother's life that cheap to you?"
The duke snarled and pressed the blade closer.
"You think a pathetic little threat like that is going to work on me? If my mother dies, you die with her. Horribly. Think a coward like you has the stomach for it?"
Compared to Dong-hyun, Duke Silvestri was nothing. Adrian snorted and started walking toward him.
The duke felt his threat land on empty air — and his whole body began to shake all over again.
In that same breath, Arisa crept up behind him and kicked the sword clean out of his hand.
The knights had already cut her free. She had been watching for an opening the entire time, and the instant every last one of them was down, she moved.
"Well done, Arisa. You've been through hell. Watch over Mother for me, will you?"
"Okay. I will, Sister."
Adrian had been painfully aware of her mother's nakedness from the moment she arrived. Arisa stepped forward and pulled her own outer garment around Teresa's shoulders.
Then Adrian's fist smashed into Duke Silvestri's face.
"Gyaaaaah! You think you can do this and walk away? The Kairan Kingdom won't let this stand — and neither will the Krantz Empire! Come under me. I'll take responsibility for you and your family's lives."
He kept talking even as he rolled on the floor, trying to talk her over.
"Hah. I'd rather die than live as your plaything."
"I don't know how you got here — but if Emperor Ailes finds out, you won't die an easy death!"
"Did somebody call my name?"
Dong-hyun had already walked in through the front of the house. He answered the duke himself.
"E-Emperor Ailes??"
"Emperor Ailes? What, are we drinking buddies? Adrian. Rough him up."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Adrian started grinding Duke Silvestri under her heel. She would have done it even without the order.
"Gyaaaaah!!"
"I didn't want Adrian for her looks alone. Her strategy. Her martial prowess. Who wouldn't covet that? Your Kairan Kingdom failed to see it — so it has no reason to keep existing."
Hearing that Emperor Ailes had wanted her, Adrian flushed scarlet even as she kept stomping. Before long, the leather of her boot was stained a deep, wet red.
"Nnngh..."
"Our war of conquest will begin with your Krops Duchy."
"N-no... p-please..."
Several of his teeth had been smashed out. He could barely shape the words.
Dong-hyun walked over to Teresa and Arisa.
"You've both suffered a great deal. Adrian and I are here now. You'll be all right."
"We greet Your Imperial Majesty."
"We greet Your Imperial Majesty."
Teresa and Arisa dropped to their knees before him. In that brief motion, a glimpse of Teresa's bare skin showed through the borrowed coat — and it became immediately, unmistakably clear where Adrian had inherited her figure.
"Please rise. And it would be best if you put on some proper clothes."
"Ah! I-I'm so sorry."
Teresa hurried upstairs in a fluster to change.
Mother and daughter were escorted to the Imperial Palace. Outside, Duke Silvestri's remaining troops were put to the sword — and that same momentum carried the army onward, straight into the duchy itself.
The Kairan Kingdom had nothing left to fight with. The wars that had come before had already bled its armies white, and once Adrian herself took the field at the head of the host, the kingdom came apart like autumn leaves in a hard wind.
Her strategy was on a level that beggared belief. And whenever Sirian led the charge beneath that strategy, there was simply no one alive who could stop her.
They shattered the Silvestri Duchy in a matter of days and folded the surrounding territories into the empire. By the time the army turned toward the Kairan heartland, the kingdom had already raised a white flag and sued for surrender.
Adrian rode into the royal capital as if it belonged to her, and she put the King of Kairan on his knees. She spared his life and sent him into exile. She had given that man her loyalty once. She had no desire to take his head.
After that she returned to the empire and served Emperor Ailes with everything she had.
As far as the people knew, it was Dong-hyun himself who had led the army that pacified the Kairan Kingdom, and they praised him for it from one end of the realm to the other. His imperial authority was still thin — but Adrian and Sirian stood at his left and right, and Count Schmalz held the line behind them. Marquis Metz's patronage never wavered. Piece by piece, the throne grew solid under his hands.
The Imperial Academy was already bearing fruit, and the empire was transforming, in earnest, into a centralized state.
The first to come out and greet the returning triumphant general was Yuria. She approached him looking radiantly beautiful, and she welcomed him home.
In full view of his people, Dong-hyun took her hand and led her into the Imperial Palace. The mere sight of an emperor and empress so openly, deeply in love lifted the loyalty of the realm — and, somehow, the birth rate along with it.
She drew him by the hand into the imperial bedchamber, and there she spoke.
"Your Majesty... I have something to tell you."
"Hmm? What is it?"
"I... I'm pregnant. They said it's been two months."
The words hit Dong-hyun like a blow. It was not a child of the real world — but this place was no less real to him than the one he had been born in. Yuria was the first woman he had ever truly loved. And now she was carrying his child. Tears spilled down his face before he could stop them.
"You've... been through so much..."
"Oh my... Your Majesty, are you crying?"
Yuria wiped the tears from his cheeks, then leaned in and kissed him.
"I'm... so happy. And thank you. For loving me."
"No. Meeting you was the greatest fortune of my life. I mean that."
He did. Through the entire quest to bring Adrian to her knees, Yuria had helped him in a dozen quiet ways. Her husband was out taming other women, and not only had she allowed it — she had trusted him enough to aid him. He could scarcely believe a woman like her existed.
But it had only been possible because Yuria believed, without a flicker of doubt, that he loved her in return. And this was not a world that found it strange for a man to keep more than one woman. The resentment that might have grown never did.
In the years that followed, Adrian and Sirian were raised to the rank of Imperial Consort. Arisa, too — for Dong-hyun had taken her into his arms — ascended to the same seat beside them.
Through his four women he fathered no fewer than eight children, and through wise, patient rule he forged the imperial authority into something unshakable. Even as he pursued his quests in the real world, he slipped back into this one whenever he pleased, and he lived.
Adrian and the other two consorts were young, but they regarded Yuria as their elder sister and served her without reservation. Because of that, there was never a war among the children. Dong-hyun watched them grow, and when the time came he passed the throne to the most outstanding among them.
The rest of his days, he spent happily with his women.