Chapter 64 — Whose Side Are You On? (4)
Chapter 64 — Whose Side Are You On? (4)
"Do you mean that, Your Majesty? They may become the fashion this winter."
"Fashion?"
"Among the nobility."
Was that all it took?
"They're small, but if you place one in a brazier overnight, it radiates heat all through the next day. With a hot pack, one can display a dress and jewelry without draping furs over them."
So one could show off a bit more while defying the cold. Roan nodded absently, and Shwikviena smiled again.
"They are useful objects even for those who are not soldiers active outdoors, Your Majesty. Keeping the body warm is an important matter for women as well."
Aranya spoke with a gleam in her eye.
"Truly astonishing. How does Your Majesty manage to produce such creative ideas every time?"
...I didn't know who the original inventor of the hot pack was.
But I might have stolen it a bit. Sorry about that.
Roan cleared his throat awkwardly.
"Ahem. If everyone is using them well, then that is enough for me."
The chancellor was moved.
'I thought he possessed only the bearing of a conqueror, but truly, I had no idea his thoughts ran so deep.'
They do say you can never truly know the heart of another. Having tucked away her admiration for her lord, Aranya brought up another topic.
"Thanks to that, the number of lords seeking to purchase additional winter supplies has grown markedly."
"Hm?"
"It seems word of the other supplies spread as word of the hot packs did. The things you wear over winter shoes...."
"Snowshoes."
"Yes. Upon learning that there are ingenious goods such as the snowshoes and water flasks that do not freeze, more lords have belatedly requested further supplies."
"And so the treasurer has been kept busier as well."
The correction officer spoke with a mischievous smile.
"I am told some lords are seeking to purchase supplies even at a price exceeding what Your Majesty has set."
"Hm."
Roan was impressed.
You really did need at least one loss leader.
In truth, the stone that served as the raw material for the hot packs was, as mentioned earlier, originally a useless stone.
It was one of the stones that simply lay around in any village.
But now, passing through a defense contractor's hands, it had become a star product.
Its actual utility aside,
the fact that others — even the nobility — were using it seemed to have drawn the lords' interest.
In a manner of speaking, it had become a trend item.
Moreover, the morale of the units that received the winter gear had visibly risen. Shwikviena's troops would not be the only ones.
It was something you had half-doubted would be useful even if you bought it, but all around you, everyone and their neighbor was buying it. And on top of that, word of mouth declaring, 'I tried it and it's wonderful!'
At that point, people would open their wallets just to avoid falling behind the trend.
"In any event, we will all have to reorganize the plunder units before long, will we not? In a situation where additional goods must be procured, they seem to have heard of the ingenious items. Half necessity, half curiosity, I imagine."
"Curiosity is fine. It is enough that they feel no aversion and do not consider them useless."
"Yes. As you say."
The correction officer nodded. The chancellor continued after her.
"A victory that was like prophecy, wheat moving along supply routes prepared in advance, winter equipment of unimagined efficiency. All these things are drawing the lords' attention."
That was a good thing.
Attention was important. Attention became power.
It was not for nothing that YouTubers and influencers all desperately clamored, 'Please like, comment, subscribe, and hit the notification bell~.'
It was a different matter from whether one had power or not.
People were made to follow the words of the one who drew their attention.
The way I took it when some nobody piece of shit gave me an order, versus a dazzling leader whose every move became a topic of conversation giving an order, was completely different.
And on top of that, that leader was the strongest in the world. That was to say, me.
Not long ago, I'd threatened that I'd kill them if they didn't fall in line. I even kindly told them I'd see them alive at the New Year Festival.
"Your Majesty has begun to move the lords."
Aranya spoke with a smile.
"Not everyone is a powerful figure like the great lords. The truth is, most of the lords are busy watching the mood. Caught as they are between us central nobles and the great lords."
The chancellor did not particularly hide that she herself was a principal axis of a faction. It did not matter, after all.
Everything would converge upon His Majesty.
So Aranya thought.
"However, through this affair, the lords have realized that Your Majesty is watching them. In practice, the most comfortable choice for the lords is to follow Your Majesty wholly."
Well, that would be the case.
Following the monarch's command.
A justification beyond that was hard to find.
It was merely that the Demon King had not properly issued imperial decrees until now.
"The peace-faction lords who opposed the war from the start,
the lords whose domains lie far from the front and who have gradually begun to struggle with domain management,
and on top of them, lords with marital ties to the central nobles or lords belonging to the West Blood Territory and the East Yellow Territory."
Aranya recited the list.
"These will actively follow Your Majesty's commands. Unlike a human king, Your Majesty, the master of Evirgio, has no need to engage in political power struggles with the great lords, but...."
"It still does me no harm to have subordinates who obey well."
"Truly so, Your Majesty."
Aranya bent her two forelegs in a gesture of agreement. However, she did not present every word to the Emperor.
The chancellor swallowed a different worry inwardly.
It was not only the reputation of the Central Knight Order and His Majesty that had risen through this battle.
The hero of this operation was, without question, Erenier.
And Erenier was the daughter of the lord of the South Black Territory.
On top of that, the South Black Territory Knight Order had also distinguished themselves in this battle.
The authority of the lord of the South Black Territory would soar frighteningly high.
The most ambitious and inscrutable of the four great lords, that difficult Grand Duke.
No matter how much Lady Erenier was on His Majesty's side,
even if everyone gave priority to His Majesty's command,
it would only grow harder for the nobility to ignore the words of the South Black lord, who had now become a royal in-law and a war hero.
Aranya hesitated over how to report this fact to the Emperor, then decided to put it off until tomorrow.
The chancellor called up a gentle smile.
Let him savor the joy of victory today, at least. Tomorrow would be soon enough for worry.
But Roan was a keener man than Aranya supposed.
When Erenier abruptly contacted him and boasted that 'Father praised me,' the very first thought that came to Roan was,
'Praise came out of that old man's mouth?'
He had been the Dark Archduke, a man of few words even in the council.
If he had gone so far as to say such a thing to Erenier, who he had always treated harshly, then his mood must have been extraordinarily good.
They'd won the battle, so of course his mood would be good.
The achievements of his daughter and his knight order were, in turn, the achievements of their leader, the lord of the South Black Territory.
Erenier was not a soldier, so she would return to the palace, but to a great lord and swordsman like him, renown on the battlefield was like a medal.
'So he was a man with ambition for honor.'
One who sought to exalt his own name was a man of ambition. At last, Roan could faintly understand the request Naore had made of him.
*
"I heard you were victorious, Your Majesty."
"I was helped by your counsel as well. Thank you."
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
Helen, her affection at +30, bowed her head with a gentle face. Just a little more affection, and she would reach +40, the 'push her hard and she'll topple over' state!
Roan, deeply pleased, smiled without realizing it. Then, beep-beep, Helen's affection went up again on its own and hit +32!
'Huh?'
It seemed Helen was fond of my smiling face. I'd never seen such a dramatic effect from merely smiling before. It was a happy thing.
Without losing his smile, Roan listened to Grünent's continuing praises.
"Though it is lamentable that the people of a nation I once belonged to have perished.... This, too, must be a sacrifice necessary to the steps Your wise Majesty takes in hastening toward an end to the war. Your concubine is glad."
At her words, Matthias's eyes blazed with killing intent, but he seemed to have now learned the virtue of shutting his mouth.
He set his teacup down with an air of menace, then turned his head away as if uninterested.
But the captain of the Church's knight order had realized the way of silence far too late. Yesterday was the last night I would lodge that eyesore in my guest quarters. From today, your room would be the basement.
Helen's affection had safely passed +30.
The worries over the lords I'd been concerned with and Erenier's success in taking the granary had vanished, so now I could devote myself to this matter for a while.
Sex was important. And the time limit was only a fortnight.
"The reason I called you here is no other."
Just the thought of throwing the Church's knight-captain into the underground dungeon already made my heart feel lighter.
Because I was a delicate Demon King, I would deliver to you personally the news that you would be going to a hellish prison.
That was the moment.
"Your Majesty."
The head steward brought word.
Ah, it had been an important moment. Roan's brow twitched.
"What is it."
"Diobe has arrived."
"Hm?"
Come to think of it, what day of the week was it?
It seemed the day had come, before I knew it, for Diobe to return to the palace for her regular report.
"Is it Thursday already? I see. Have her wait in the office for a moment...."
"Your Majesty, might Diobe join us for tea as well? What do you think?"
Roan saw Grünent's expectant expression and laughed softly. She really seemed to have taken a liking to Diobe.
That would be fine too.
Let me send that captain fellow off quickly, and then listen to the report at my leisure.
"Very well, let her enter."
And then something no one had anticipated occurred.
"Your Majesty, it is Diobe. Have you been in good health all this...."
"Diobe of Rose?"
Everyone frowned at the Church captain's rudeness. Even Diobe.
With a dumbfounded expression, Diobe offered her greeting to Roan once more, then studied Matthias's face and twitched her brow as if startled.
"Church of Laurecia Knight Order...? Knight Matthias?"
Diobe now worked outside the palace.
The capture of a human holy knight was, naturally, a confidential matter within the palace.
I had invited Diobe in, thinking she would not recognize him if he wasn't wearing his knight-order uniform, and she knew him?
Roan's face darkened.
No, the complexions of everyone except Matthias turned grim.
"That's right, I heard you were abducted while defending Rose."
Roan pressed his lips tight without realizing it.
There was really nothing he could say to this.
He anxiously checked Diobe's affection, but fortunately, there was as yet no sign of the value changing.
But Matthias's words were not yet finished.
"Then what are you doing here, wearing such clothes? A knight of Merde."
Diobe was dressed in an administrator's garb.
Diobe, having gauged Roan's expression, opened her mouth with difficulty.
"...Having been taken prisoner."
Grünent's face turned troubled.
"My life was saved by His Majesty, and now I serve in Evirgio."
At that, the Church's knight-captain wore a subtle expression. Then his face twisted once more.
"So you've been bewitched too, you wench. That explains it."
His following words caused everyone to recoil in shock.
"The Baron of Rose set up a new household."
"You bastard!"
Roan erupted in fury and shot to his feet.
He didn't even think to deploy Overwhelm.
In an instant, Roan seized Matthias by the collar and lifted him, then hurled him against the wall.
Matthias crashed into the wall with no chance to resist, vomited a scream, and crumpled to the floor.
"Khak...!"
Fuck, this was what I should have done from the start!
His mind went white with rage.
No, was it because of the shocking words?
He couldn't think of anything else.
The Baron of Rose... Diobe's husband was alive? Then who was the one the Demon King had killed?
Even through his dazed senses, he groped through the Demon King's memories.
He had clearly gone around asking who the lord was.
And so he found the lord and cut off his head,
and when they said there was a lord's wife, he saw her and it was Diobe.
What the hell was this bastard talking about...?
No, it didn't matter anymore.
Roan's eyes began to tint violet.
In an ominous voice, he muttered.
"You've steeled yourself not to leave here alive, I trust?"
And Roan raised his foot.
He meant to crush his head and kill him.
"...Your Majesty! Your Majesty."
Just as he was about to smash the bastard's skull,
Diobe's voice reached him.
Every kind of pain contained in her voice transmitted through Attentive Hearing, and his heart ached. Roan looked at Diobe with a twisted expression.
"Your Majesty, please wait a moment..., I beg of you."
Diobe trembled violently as she implored him.
Roan, in the end, lowered the foot he had raised.
"...Why."
"I want... to know the rest."
Grünent, her face aghast, stared at Diobe. There was no way she had not heard the story of a lord's wife abducted from a border city.
She simply must never have imagined that it was Diobe. And the fact that I — that the Demon King — had abducted her was an established fact.
Roan remained standing and buried his face in one hand.
"Do so."
Having received the Emperor's permission, Diobe looked down at the fallen Matthias and asked in a trembling voice.
"The story of the Baron of Rose.... Tell it."