Chapter 79 — Everything Is to Be Loved More (1)
Chapter 79 — Everything Is to Be Loved More (1)
"Do not dare forget that your lives are in my hands."
With the emperor's smile, every ounce of his power bloomed.
'Politics' advised him.
Now is the decisive moment when you must show everything you have.
'Overwhelm' tightened around everyone's throats,
and 'Mihon' paralyzed the reason of every female demonkind present.
The banquet hall was soon filled with a chorus of varied moans.
Fear, terror, sorrow, pleasure, instinct.
The nobles were forced to endure much.
While the power of words wrought by 'Charisma' numbed their normal thought processes,
'Appeal' conveyed both Roan's fury and his mercy straight into their brains and hearts.
— Whether you choose defiance or fealty,
the choice is yours.
And so are the consequences.
Choose wisely.
Some, sensing the true intent within Roan's voice, ultimately could not withstand his power and rage and fainted, while others burst into tears.
'Will' whispered.
You are strong. Now, grant mercy.
Your justice is for the weak, isn't it?
The suffering of everyone, felt through 'Detection' and 'Attentive Hearing,'
gradually cooled Roan's anger.
Roan drew a deep breath.
When he blinked, the menacing glint that had been in his violet eyes a moment before was gone.
The banquet hall was in chaos, littered with people who had collapsed or slumped over. Yet no one had the composure to look after anyone else around them.
A trembling female voice silenced the hall, which had echoed with nothing but laments, sighs, and sobs.
"...To Your Mercy-filled Majesty, I swear my fealty."
Aranya, who had been standing beside Roan, declared her submission to her liege, bending all six of her supporting legs as far as they would go.
Her enormous abdomen touched the floor.
Her human-like upper torso above the waist was also deeply bowed toward her emperor.
"To His Majesty, who has granted mercy. I swear my fealty."
From behind Roan, the Lord of the East Yellow Territory, who had been watching the conflict, knelt on both knees and pressed his forehead to the ground.
It was the posture of absolute fealty.
Beside him, the grand duke of the West Blood Territory also bent his four legs and settled onto the floor.
"Your Majesty, who possesses my everything. I swear my eternal fealty."
Further inside the hall, Erenier, who had been surrounded by noble ladies, lowered her body deeply.
The Lord of the South Black Territory, who would normally have glared at his daughter with irritated eyes, could not do so now.
He was clenching his teeth, barely enduring Roan's sharp gaze.
Soon, voices swearing fealty rang out from all around, and everyone knelt.
The nobles of the banquet hall realized anew that the emperor held their lives in his hand, and that they could only sustain those lives through his mercy, and felt gratitude for it.
In that moment alone,
Roan became the absolute emperor of every noble there.
No resistance or objection was even possible.
All the nobles capitulated utterly to Roan's words, comprehending and accepting them wholly in their hearts.
With everyone in the banquet hall prostrate, the last to swear his fealty was the lord of the South Black Territory.
The Dark Archduke.
His high-pitched voice trembled with terror.
It was a suffocating voice,
the likes of which none had ever heard from him.
"For Your Majesty's mercy... I am grateful... I swear my fealty... Your Majesty."
[Ahahaha, maggots, daring to— to Roan! Ahahahaha, Roan, next time! Next time, kill them all. Okay? Maggots have to, be killed! To ever listen. Roan is far too kind.]
Roan, having heard Fiora's maniacal laughter and scolding, merely laughed lightly. With a sound effect, Fiora's Affection shot up.
"We accept your oaths of fealty.
This shall suffice for the evening's entertainment. Enjoy the rest of the night among yourselves. We shall return shortly. Do not seek us out."
After seeing Fiora's Affection rise all the way to +55, the emperor left everyone behind and exited the banquet hall.
*
"...I'm exhausted. I need a glass of soju."
The garden was quiet.
Ordinarily, it would have been a place where people tired of the festivities hid away here and there to enjoy secret rendezvous, accompanied by the distant sound of music.
But with the earlier commotion, everyone in the garden had gone inside the banquet hall. Nothing made for a more fascinating story than an incident that had occurred in the palace.
And they had been caught up in the incident and Roan's skills.
Belatedly, a few nobles reappeared in the garden for fresh air, and the sound of music began to drift out again.
So Roan hid from them by slipping into a deeper, more secluded section of the rear garden.
[...Why are you hiding?]
"...Ah, fuck. I want a smoke, too."
[Roan was truly magnificent today!]
"You, you seem to like blood a little too much."
[I'm a sword. Isn't that natural? It's the whole reason for my existence. Roan was just being far too sparing with me.]
"...Oh. Um..."
[The feeling of my whole body drenched in blood is, aah, utterly blissful. An experience that words simply can't capture.]
Fiora let slip a moan midway through speaking that was so overflowing with sensuality, Roan was thrown into confusion.
Roan's footsteps suddenly halted.
[Hmm? That's...]
"Rauka...?"
He had called out in a low voice, yet the forest elf who had climbed onto a thick garden wall in the corner near the outer fortress wall and was looking down over the garden turned to face Roan.
Roan lightly bounded up onto the wall, which was a bit over a meter high, and sat down beside Rauka. Rauka was chugging straight from a bottle.
"...All hell's broken loose inside and you just left Grünent in there..."
"She's got Helen."
"Helen is meant to guard me."
"Your Majesty's got the knight commander."
"..."
Rauka looked at Roan, who was seated beside her. Though it was dark, neither had any trouble seeing the other.
Rauka frowned slightly.
"No wonder it was so chaotic. What's with your expression?"
"I'm tired."
"From what?"
Roan snatched the bottle Rauka was holding. Rauka's frown deepened, but Roan took a deep drink from the bottle she'd been holding.
"...Keuh, I feel a little more alive now. This stuff's intense for a lightweight like you."
"It's a once-in-a-while thing. Once in a while."
Without a word, Rauka swung her two legs where they dangled over the wall, kicking them back and forth.
"Seems like you ran away because your head hurt, Your Majesty."
"What is it."
"About your fiancée."
Roan, who had been about to take another drink, stopped with the bottle raised and looked at Rauka.
"She's a little... strange."
At Rauka's assessment, Roan ended up sighing. Yeah. She's a little... peculiar and strange, sure.
But Rauka's expression was serious.
"The aura of her power is strange. It isn't mana, and it isn't holy power, either."
"She is a powerful dark mage."
"...I heard about that. I know, but..."
Rauka closed her mouth for a moment and only spoke again after Roan had taken a few more gulps of the drink.
"Just... I think it would be good to be careful."
After the (former) Demon King, this was the second time.
When not just one person but a consensus formed around the same opinion, it really did mean the omen wasn't promising.
But careful of what?
Roan pressed one hand to his head.
He couldn't tell if the dull throbbing was from the alcohol, or because all his worries had come crashing down on him at once.
"And you said something to me, but look at you, Your Majesty, also a wreck."
"Nngh."
Rauka reclaimed the liquor bottle, took a swig, and grimaced hard. Roan asked,
"And why are you out here alone?"
"Because I'm tired too."
Rauka heaved a sigh. A strong smell of alcohol wafted out.
"They said they're heading to the forest."
A forest elf who hated going to the forest.
It was a little funny, but she was serious.
Roan replied lightly.
"Worried your mana will be drained? You only need to guide us reasonably well."
"No. It's just that the forest... it's been so long."
"Hm?"
It was a difficult statement to interpret.
Roan stayed quiet and waited for her to continue.
Since Rauka hadn't been a primary romanceable character in the game, he didn't know her past.
He only knew that she was rescued by Helen, persuaded by Grünent to become a companion of the Hero, and simply wanted revenge against the Demon King.
Rauka let out a sigh.
Her Affection was currently at -20.
To her, Roan was still someone she felt reluctant around.
"...Why am I even telling Your Majesty such things."
Roan carefully focused his 'Mihon' on her.
He was now practiced at concentrating a skill onto a single point. Fortunately, without reaching an unbearable peak, Rauka was swept along by the strong 'Mihon' and looked at Roan with a dazed expression.
She possessed formidable resistance. Perhaps it was because forest elves naturally resist mental domination. But Roan's skill was powerful, too.
While it was difficult to make her offer her body, it could easily make her open her heart to Roan. Rauka let out another alcohol-laced sigh and revealed her inner thoughts.
"You know what my name means in the language of the forest elves?"
Roan shook his head side to side.
Rauka smiled bitterly.
"'Demon.'"
Roan unconsciously furrowed his brow.
Rauka gazed at a distant spot in the garden.
"My eyes and hair are so different from the other forest elves. I had a name given by my family, but it disappeared the moment I became independent."
At her heavy words, Roan could say nothing. He simply listened in silence.
"Normally, we meet other kin within the forest, wander among other tribes, and learn knowledge from the elders. We range across the Dark Forest and the Moira Continent like that. But there was never any kin willing to teach me."
Roan couldn't bring himself to ask why.
Yet, as if she had heard the question he never voiced, Rauka smiled bitterly and answered.
"Because it's unpleasant. Amid a tribe all silver-haired or golden-haired, and what's more, a black-eyed forest elf who wasn't even docile. Someone started calling me Rauka."
She took another drink from the bottle.
"And that became my name."
For a moment, her upper body swayed slightly.
Startled that she might fall, Roan moved to extend his arm, but astonishingly, she steadied herself and regained her place.
It had been a dangerous wobble.
"So I learned very little from my own people. It wasn't until much later that I started learning skills from a lone kinsman who hunted near human villages, and from some human hunters. I learned about hunting and the forest, but it'd be absurd to compare me to other forest elves who accumulate knowledge over decades, even centuries."
"Then those people..."
"Mm. Demons devoured all my teachers."
A cold winter wind chilled both of their cheeks.
It was a temperature where breath should have frozen, but their heated bodies didn't cool easily.
Was it the alcohol,
the worry,
or perhaps the tears.
Both Roan's and Rauka's cheeks were burning hot.
Roan was the first to speak after a long silence.
"That's a demon-like thing to say."
"What...?"
"Demon... Someone like me, who made demonkind that way, is the real demon. Someone like me, a king who abandoned his people and even wrecked human lives—that's who deserves to be called a demon."
Rauka's eyes flew wide open.
"You? A demon? Absolutely not. You're just a totally ordinary, insignificant forest elf."
Perhaps the alcohol was suddenly hitting her, because Rauka simply stared blankly at Roan with a dumbfounded expression, her mouth agape.
"You're likely still better than me, even so."
Roan snorted with a short laugh.
"And right now, you're the only one I have to depend on in the forest."
Because a forest elf's instinct to never lose the way and detect danger would find a path even inside the Dark Forest, which rejects both humans and demonkind alike.
Roan looked back at Rauka.
And then suddenly, the jarring beep-beep-beep-beep sound. Even though no one else could hear it, Roan instinctively let out a small sigh.
I wish I could turn that sound off...
Doesn't the special edition come with an on/off function or something?
That moment of wishful thinking vanished the instant he saw the number.
The Affection value had skyrocketed.
It passed -10,
and even crossed 0.
Roan's eyes, looking at Rauka—or more precisely, at the number beside her—wavered.
And so did Rauka's heart, watching Roan.
It shook violently.
The number stopped at +10.
Cheeks that had been reddened from the alcohol
began to flare even hotter, a vivid crimson clearly visible even in the dark.
Roan was flustered by the sudden spike in Affection.
The 'Mihon' he had been focusing on her dissipated softly all around, like forcibly compacted air finally released.
"Hut..."
Rauka took a sharp, short breath.
She touched her own cheek with the hand not holding the bottle.
It was hot.
"...Rauka, no, then what is your actual name...?"
"...Good night, Your Majesty."
Rauka left the liquor bottle on the wall, planted one hand on it, and jumped down.
Even drunk, she vanished with a nimble movement.
The beeping sound faded away with her.