Chapter 56 — The Me Even I Didn't Know (2)
Chapter 56 — The Me Even I Didn't Know (2)
Roan had practiced mostly with Fiora.
It was because he needed Fiora's instruction. He'd only used a wooden sword on the occasions when Fiora held a deathlike silence.
But perhaps because he'd grown accustomed to the Demon King's body,
the wooden sword, too, clung to his hand snugly.
'Fiora's going to be sulky.'
If she wasn't touching Roan's body, Fiora couldn't perceive the outside world. She'd pester him for a detailed account later.
Roan smiled quietly and took his stance.
"I will cede the first attack."
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
The moment the courtesy ended, Helen's sword flew in, targeting Roan's midsection.
The Demon King's swordsmanship in response was not flashy.
But it carried overwhelming power.
There was a reason his skill was called 'Overwhelm.'
Struck through their locked blades by colossal force, Helen's stance crumbled in an instant.
It was barely a single exchange.
"Kh?!"
"Shall we go again."
Gratefully, the Demon King permitted another attack. Helen silently dipped her head in acknowledgment and launched herself forward.
'Incredible. I see everything.'
Helen's speed was fast.
Even compared to the body I'd moved in the real world, Helen's body was sprightlier and lighter. Even while holding a sword.
But the moment I objectively registered that, I could also tell where Helen's movements were headed.
That was because the Demon King's body held an overwhelming advantage in both kinetic vision and the sense for reading presence.
On top of that, daily training and the improved 'Detection' skill guided Roan to an advantageous position.
'He's strong.'
Helen was purely admiring.
Any other assessment was impossible.
It wasn't simply a difference in power.
Of course, Roan's strength was formidable. It was fair to say no one of the same build could produce such explosive force.
Layered on top of that were numerous other elements.
Simple yet refined swordsmanship.
Senses honed to a razor's edge.
A conditioned body that could bear all of it.
Experience in combat.
Neither Helen nor Roan knew it, but the fact that the Demon King had killed people without rhyme or reason also played a part in reaching that state.
Swordsmanship feeds on someone's blood and grows.
Carrying the dark and weighty aura that revealed that plainly, Roan's sword slammed into Helen's once again.
"Hrghh!"
A stifled groan escaped through Helen's clenched teeth. In contrast, Roan continued his assault without so much as disturbing his breath.
Amid it, Helen sensed that Roan had reduced his strength. Her gaze sharpened.
'He means to settle this with technique alone.'
With her own power, it was difficult to fully receive his blade.
Roan regulated the force behind his sword as he attacked.
Facing someone else blade-to-blade for the first time, he'd been slightly worried, but fortunately, it wasn't difficult.
What's more, it was fun.
Being able to share with someone the sword he'd always swung alone was a pleasure.
Helen's swordsmanship was swift and unconventional.
Just when he thought she'd come one way, she'd thrust in from the opposite direction, aiming for Roan's openings.
But Roan's body was quicker than his eyes.
Before he could even think, his sword blocked Helen's and counterattacked.
Smiles rose to the faces of the two who were crossing blades with a proper opponent for the first time in a long while.
Dozens of strikes flew back and forth in a blur.
Only then did Helen notice something.
A disturbance was mixing into the Demon King's sword path.
She thought it was an illusion at first.
But unmistakably, amid the clean movements of his sword, a tremor appeared like an impurity.
With Helen's skill, merely seeing it was the limit.
Exploiting that gap was something only a person with skill far surpassing Helen's could manage.
But you never know.
A single clash of swordsmen always divides life and death.
And so, Helen, carrying her respect for Roan,
gave a large shake of her sword, stepped back, and asked.
"Your Majesty."
While she steadied her ragged breathing, Roan simply gazed at Helen quietly.
"Is there something... weighing on your mind?"
At Helen's question, Roan's eyes flickered slightly.
"...Mm."
"Could it be the matter of the commanders... the lords, that you mentioned before."
"It is."
Helen first bowed to Roan, who had accepted her sparring request, and expressed her thanks.
"When you try to tighten discipline, defiant acts occur more often than one would think."
Helen smiled bitterly. Seeing that expression, Roan likewise nodded.
Only the degree of defiance differed; wayward intent manifests in many forms. From neglect all the way to active insurrection.
"The reasons are just as varied. It would be good if Your Majesty could personally 'thump' each one, but you cannot always do so."
At Helen's quiet smiling remark, Roan, too, ended up chuckling. She was remembering his words from before about wanting to thump the lords.
"That is why you must all the more demonstrate the majesty of military law. Your Majesty. You must show them that their actions are always under Your Majesty's appraisal."
Always, are under appraisal....
Hearing Helen's words, Roan's face suddenly brightened as if a light had been lit inside it.
At the smile that rose on the Demon King's face,
Helen felt as though her breath had stopped.
Helen had never in her life felt attraction to the opposite sex, but the change of expression surfacing on that face like a beautiful sculpture was unbearably alluring.
Listening to the timid bleep-bleep of the rising affection sound, Roan's grin deepened.
Affection reached +30!
"Thank you, Helen."
"Pardon? No, Your Majesty."
A question surfaced in Helen's expression, but Roan quickly gathered Fiora and vanished.
The place Roan headed in haste was his office.
'I need to write this down before I forget.'
[So, so what happened next? Tell me quickly, Roan! I feel dizzy!]
"I'm the one who feels dizzy, Fiora."
Despite Fiora's interference, Roan safely took out a pen and notebook in his office.
The first thing he wrote, in Hangul, in his personal notepad was: 'Secret Royal Inspector'.
In other words, a covert inspection unit.
The lords acted recklessly because they thought Roan had no interest in them.
If they learned that their every single move was being reported to the emperor and that he took an interest in them, they would no longer commit acts that contravened the norms, at the very least.
Additionally, it would report the lords' movements directly to himself, bypassing the Small Council.
Thus, he could also safeguard the independence of information.
Roan was currently obtaining all information through the Small Council. The four nobles of the Small Council were deeply loyal people, but people are prone to overlooking the flaws in those close to them.
'Of course, I'd have to find reliable people before that...'
Although the task of searching for highly loyal officials or nobles remained, Roan decided to just jot down the idea for now.
He didn't need to agonize over it alone.
Weren't there now any number of people around him with whom he could share his opinions?
Having vented his thoughts to some extent, Roan shut his notepad with a satisfied face, then moved on to his next schedule.
The place his steps took him was the penthouse of GDI Corporation — Grünent and Baron Grabe's office.
They were using a residential property near the royal castle, purchased in a hurry, as the trading company building. Thanks to that, the top floor, where Grünent's office was, was full of lived-in atmosphere.
"...That kitchen is needlessly large."
Roan accepted the teacup brought to him by Naore, who handled practical work as well as escort duty for the company and had brewed it in the adjacent kitchen, and remarked.
He'd said they were relatives, and certainly, the appearance was similar to his, and the aura as well.
Even the eye color was the same.
They said this kind of violet eyes was rare.
Roan's gaze, which had been scanning Naore, caught on the ornament at his belt.
The black bead ornament was familiar.
With a feeling of being on the verge of remembering yet unable to, Roan stared at it for a long while.
If that was a relative's crest, maybe it lingered in his memory because he'd seen it somewhere.
"Well, the place was originally a house where someone lived, after all, Your Majesty."
"It's all right. It has its own charm, in its own way. Your Majesty. For an old man like me, it brings back memories of when I first established the trading company. I like it."
"Hmm?"
The baron stroked his beard as he traced his memories. Grünent accepted her teacup and pricked her ears at a story she was hearing for the first time.
"Back then, I started my company in a rented storage room of the landlord's house. It was next to the kitchen, so it was smelly and hot. Every day, I'd bicker with the landlord's noisy young lady in the next room."
"Don't tell me that young lady became your wife?"
"Oh, how did you know?"
Roan guessed clichés were clichés for a reason.
Baron Grabe lifted the teacup Naore had brought and spoke.
"Yes. Though she passed away the year before last."
Uh-oh....
The mood darkened abruptly.
Grünent grew restless, and Roan's expression became visibly downcast.
'Ah, what to do. What do I do with this Talulla situation....'
"...I'm sorry."
When Roan, who outwardly showed little change in expression, apologized with an unmistakably flustered look, Baron Grabe laughed heartily.
"It's fine, Your Majesty. I now have a second wife who's half my age."
"...Well, that's fortunate."
Better a scoundrel than the baron growing despondent, Roan reflected. He swallowed a sigh of relief.
"Then, I'll take my leave."
The demon with the grinning face had a smooth and affable impression, unlike Roan. Naore bowed his head politely and exited the office.
"Well then, shall we take a look at this first?"
Baron Grabe promptly handed a report to Roan. It was a sales report on the wheat the trading company had sold in the interim.
Meanwhile, Grünent produced the next report.
It was a report connected to the military supply business Roan had newly begun.
'Things have really changed now.'
Roan suddenly recalled the Demon King's idle life. Screwing around, loafing about, occasionally killing someone.
When he'd first arrived, he'd had nothing to do either.
He'd never expected it would become this hectic.
'Once a certain degree of system is established, it should get better.'
Roan was focusing himself again on Grünent and the baron's briefing items.
And then,
his vision suddenly warped.
'Huh?'
Roan had experienced something similar in his original world.
It was when he'd been struck in the head by someone's square lumber.
'Passing out...?'
Strength abruptly drained from his body, and his field of view lurched violently. He heard the sound of a teacup falling and shattering, and Grünent's voice calling out to Roan.
Roan fought desperately not to lose consciousness. Blood flowed from his tightly bitten lip.
"Your Majesty?!"
"Someone, in there...."
"You mustn't, Baron!"
Grünent shouted at Baron Grabe, who had been about to thoughtlessly call for someone.
Realizing why she had acted that way, the baron let out a groan.
If the fact that the emperor, the strongest person in this country, had collapsed became known, everything would be upended.
And Roan, collapsed, was watching this scene. Although he could assess the situation with a hazy consciousness, his body wouldn't move.
Just then.
Someone knocked on the door.
"...?!"
As if caught in the act of doing something wrong, Baron Grabe looked back at the door urgently.
Grünent barely swallowed an erupting sob and spoke in a trembling voice.
"What is it."
"I'll be entering for a moment, Lady Grünent."
"What?"
And without answering Grünent's flabbergasted question, Naore entered the room.
Contrary to the atmosphere in the room, he closed the door with calm movements and sat beside Roan.
"Just as I thought."
Baron Grabe asked with a livid look in his eyes.
"Just as you thought. What is this. Naore."
"I did tell you that His Majesty and I are distant relatives."
Naore, with a face that still hadn't lost its smile, explained to Grünent and the baron.
"This is a seizure that occasionally happens to the people of our family."
"...Naore."
"For now, it is not a gravely dangerous situation. As you can see, his eyes are open. Please don't worry."
At Naore's words, Grünent let herself go and began to weep silently, while Baron Grabe clutched his chest in relief.
The collapsed Roan was also reassured.
Naore examined Roan's face, then spoke.
"Lady Grünent, Baron Grabe. Could you vacate the room for a moment?"
For the first time, Naore wiped the smile from his face.
"This is a matter of our bloodline."
And Naore whispered something further into Grünent's ear. At that, Grünent's face suddenly flushed bright red. She bobbed her head repeatedly as if in agreement.
Confirming that she and the baron had entered the farthest interior room of the sitting area and closed the door, Naore looked back at Roan.
And on that face,
an expression he hadn't seen even once since coming to this world had surfaced.
An expression openly mocking Roan.
"Not even in the castle—outside. Nice move. You should bring a sex slave right away...."
Gazing at Roan as he lay with eyes wide open, breathing in shallow gasps, Naore muttered.
"Ah, this dumbass got rid of all the sex slaves, too. Honestly."