Ventorino Kingdom - Meeting (5)
"Hmm, is that so."
Marc nodded, his face easing with relief.
The boy in front of him was an important figure. If his injuries worsened and he died by accident, the situation could spiral beyond repair. They had promoted him tirelessly as a hero to rally morale, and if anything went wrong now, the common people would not take it lightly.
"Valdes, was it...?"
"Your Majesty, is something wrong?"
Valdes deliberately let a hint of unease show on his face.
It had nothing to do with Katarina, who was diligently licking the head of his cock under the blanket. If a commoner remained perfectly composed in the presence of a king he had barely met a handful of times, that would have been stranger by far.
But Marc was too preoccupied to notice any of that.
He does... look like him....
Until this incident, he had only seen Valdes a few times.
Before now, the impression he had of Valdes was merely that of an unpleasant half-demon the queen had insisted on bringing into the royal castle. She had even told him something mildly interesting—that the boy was Serenia Bernstein's disciple—but that hardly changed Marc's dissatisfaction. There had been no reason to look at his face in any detail.
And then, at last, he had a chance to observe him closely. The moment Marc saw Valdes, the thought struck him.
He looked like the Hero Pedro.
If he grew a little taller, he'd be his spitting image. ...There's no way that's a coincidence. A distant relative, maybe? That seems most plausible. He was an orphan, too, so there could have been blood left somewhere along the line.
Marc never once considered the possibility that Pedro might still be alive and have left behind children.
After all, the final blow had been struck by none other than himself. Those were the hands stained with the blood of monsters and demons, the hands that had personally cut down more than tens of thousands of lives. They had said it plainly: there was no way he could have survived. A human body simply could not endure that. At the very least, he would have needed healing magic on the level of a saintess—but a saintess was the Hero's enemy.
How strange. Was he born with the bloodline of a hero from the very beginning? Or perhaps he's descended from some named king from long ago.
At the same time, he was desperately rationalizing it all, piling conjecture upon conjecture just to reassure himself that Hero Pedro could not possibly still be alive.
His former friend. The one he had killed with his own hands. And yet, he was also a source of unease.
Because Marc knew something.
Hero Pedro had once shared drinks with one of the soldiers assigned to the Ventorino royal family rescue mission. He had no idea whether Pedro had heard anything from him. Marc only learned of it after that soldier died, through another man, and there had been no way to ask Pedro himself.
So Marc had worried.
If his friend ever developed ugly ambitions. If he coveted the throne. If greed took root in him.
Then he would be nothing more than Pedro's eternal subordinate—his slave. Worse even than Double-Knife, who at least knew about the brothel. That anxiety gnawed at him endlessly, and in the end it had driven him to help kill his friend.
He comforted himself with the lie that it had been unavoidable.
"......"
"Your Majesty?"
"...No, forgive me. I was lost in old memories for a moment...."
Outwardly, the king wore a distant, wistful expression, while inwardly he thought the boy's face was infuriatingly unpleasant. On the other hand, he did feel relieved. If Valdes truly resembled Pedro in personality as well, then he would probably be exceptionally heroic and devoted.
He was trapped in the delusion that the only Pedro he knew was Hero Pedro.
"I came here because I have a request."
"A request?"
"Yes. It's about the demon prisoners you captured."
"Hmm...."
Valdes let out a soft groan and frowned slightly, then reached a hand to his stomach as though in unconscious pain. He looked like someone whose wounds still throbbed from what they had done to him.
It was rude enough to groan and wince at the king's words, but Valdes judged that this much would be acceptable. Just receiving the king while propped up in bed was already absurd. Marc himself claimed to be fine with it, but the face of the courtier standing behind him said otherwise.
Valdes kept himself from crossing the line Marc had set, while also trying to endure the pleasure rising from beneath the blanket. With a single blanket between them, Katarina had become so aroused by the fact that she shared the same space as her husband that she was now slowly moving her head back and forth, swallowing his shaft.
"Slurp, suck, ngh... haa, hahbvv...♥"
It was enough to make even Valdes think things might be getting a little dangerous.
But the queen did not seem to care if she was discovered. No, she seemed as though she wanted to be discovered by her husband, Marc, as she sloppily sucked his cock. With her other hand, the one not gripping his shaft, she had hiked up her dress and was fingering herself, making it obvious just how aroused she was.
Haa, ahh... this is really dangerous... it's dangerous, but... ngh♥
The blanket was loose, but not thick. And it wasn't exactly hot weather to begin with. Even through the blanket, she could hear her husband's voice clearly.
Every time that deep, subdued middle-aged voice brushed her ears, her whole body shivered. She needed that just to somehow convince herself that this filthy, perverted thing she was doing was acceptable. It was intoxicating beyond measure.
I'm not a pervert. I'm not. But... I like it too much, too much...♥
"Mmm...!"
In the end, while sucking the cock of a boy young enough to be her son beneath the blanket, Katarina came lightly.
"Those demon prisoners... hmm? Did I just hear something?"
"Pardon? I didn't notice anything, Your Majesty...."
"Hmm... it sounded like the queen's voice somewhere... Ah, come to think of it, where did the queen go?"
Marc's eyes sharpened.
He had momentarily forgotten because Valdes's face resembled the Hero's, but there had definitely been a maid outside the door. One of the queen's favorites, too. Yet the queen was nowhere inside, even though her maid was standing right there. And the maid had said nothing about it.
It couldn't be helped. No one would ever imagine that a maid would be involved in something this intimate with Valdes and Katarina. Especially not with the king visiting. She had even announced his arrival in that calm, measured voice of hers; who would have guessed someone was doing something like this inside?
"Ah... you mean Her Majesty? I, I... well..."
"?! "
Her husband searching for her. And Valdes, his voice trembling.
Listening from beneath the blanket, Katarina suddenly felt as though her heart had stopped. To be so obviously flustered—this was nothing like the smooth, slippery demeanor he had shown until now.
W-why is he acting like that...! Don't tell me, don't tell me....
She desperately tried to calm her pounding heart. It was still too early to know. Marc might be a little sharper after becoming king, but it was still too early to know.
Please, please....
"Hey now, boy! Speak properly!"
The king's loyal retainer barked at Valdes. The man wasn't actually suspecting any illicit relationship between Valdes and Katarina. He simply seized on the opening because he already disliked the boy and had no intention of letting the opportunity slip.
"I don't know what's going on, but... speak."
"I only ask that you not mention that I told you."
"Fine. So where is the queen?"
"......"
Valdes slowly turned his head to the side. His gaze settled on the bathroom attached to the room.
"!!"
Most guest chambers in the royal castle had a bathroom attached. It was there more for women than for men, since they couldn't be expected to come and go from the room every time they needed to use the toilet. The room Valdes was lying in was no different.
Marc and the retainer looked as though they'd made a mistake. Now that they thought about it, it was obvious. The room was sealed off except for the window and the bathroom. If she wasn't going out through the window, then naturally one would assume the bathroom.
If the queen had gone into the bathroom, it made sense that Valdes had been reluctant to answer.
"I... I made a mistake."
"Ah, n-no."
A brief silence followed, and Marc, eager to change the subject, brought up the original matter again.
"A-about those demon prisoners."
"Yes."
"Go and interrogate them once."
"You want me to interrogate them? But surely someone like me..."
"There's been a problem."
Marc let out another sigh.
They needed information from the demon prisoners. That was not optional—it was necessary.
Ordinarily, since the attackers were demons, killing them would have been perfectly acceptable. If they wanted to extract a little more value, they could have executed them publicly in front of the capital's citizens to vent their anger and unite public opinion. But this time, things were a little different.
It had only been a short while since he had heard the saintess speak of the Hero and the oracle. Anyone with a brain could connect the "darkness" mentioned in the prophecy to the demons. If it had just been a normal war, they could have dealt with it somehow, but the prophecy had said darkness was seeping into the continent.
The oracle reeked of conspiracy no matter how one heard it. And in the first place, the scars of war had not yet been fully erased from either side. Marc did not believe the demons were likely to choose all-out war. Which made information even more important.
They needed to know what the demons were plotting, and why they had attacked this place.
But interrogating a dark elf was no easy matter.
Damn it. So dark elves really had a trait like that....
Dark elves.
Elves corrupted by demonic energy and turned into demons.
They had many differences from ordinary elves, but they had undeniably originated from the elven race. And those roots, once tainted by demonic energy, had given rise to new traits. Human beings and elves alike, however, knew very little about them.
They were much like succubi and other demons. As enemies, there were limits to what could be learned from combat or corpses, and unlike the demons, there weren't any of them on the allied side either, so no one could help. Valdes and Shurette had decided to make use of that fact.
"One of them wouldn't wake up, so we interrogated the other one. That's when she told us."
"What did she say...?"
"Dark elves respect only the one who defeats them. They won't listen to anyone else."
"Hmm...."
"At first I thought I could ignore that and torture them, but... hoo, they're sturdier than I expected. If we go too far, they might die. Besides..."
"Besides?"
Marc shook his head in obvious irritation, as though merely thinking about it was enough to sour his mood.
"They can still slip into shadows."
"Ah...."
One of the dark elves' most famous traits, known even on the continent, was their ability to enter shadows. It didn't work on the shadow of something living, or on an object too small compared to their own body, but even so it was a highly troublesome ability. In fact, the captain of the royal guard, Heik, had died because he let his guard down and was ambushed through it.
"At first it seemed like they were enduring the torture just fine, but the moment we gave them a little recovery, they'd immediately hide inside a shadow. Fortunately they don't seem able to stay there for long... but there's no way to stop it."
There was one way.
Holy power.
But Marc did not want help from the clergy. It was shameful enough that the royal castle had been attacked by demons; he couldn't afford to beg for help on top of that. He had to obtain information from the dark elf, then use it to cover the humiliation and regain the upper hand.
"I understand. I'm not sure how much I can do, but once my body recovers... urgh! Hh, uuh... I'll try right away."
At Valdes's determined nod, Marc smiled with satisfaction. The expression of pain in the middle had bothered him somewhat, but he assumed the wound simply hadn't healed yet.
"Good. Thank you."
After that, the king exchanged a few light words with Valdes and soon left the room. Part of him wanted to wait until his wife came out of the bathroom, but he figured it would be awkward if they ran into each other at that kind of moment, so he hurried away.
...And yet, with that boy right there, she just goes into the bathroom? Does that mean she doesn't even see him as a man? Well, I suppose that could be true. He does look younger than Clara.
Of the men Katarina had cheated with so far, most had been in their thirties. Thanks to the hints she had secretly dropped to provoke his jealousy, Marc had been able to identify them without much trouble through his own investigation.
I've really gone too far... An affair with a boy in his teens, and not even a man in his twenties. It's absurd.
"Hoo...."
With the resolve to apologize to Katarina already forming in his heart, he returned to being a king even in his thoughts.
"Deputy Prime Minister."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"What do you think?"
"...Your Majesty. Do you really intend to make use of that half-demon?"
"Then do you have a better option? We don't have any talent worth using. There's no one else we can afford to support. He may be a citizen of the Ulsro Kingdom, but we can smooth that over by yielding half a step in the talks. You know it as well as I do, don't you? We need a hero to unite public sentiment."
"That may be so, but..."
Before visiting Valdes, Marc and the Deputy Prime Minister had already discussed the matter once.
They would use him as a hero. A manufactured hero to stand against the demons and gather the nation's people into one united will. The Deputy Prime Minister, who disliked half-demons in the first place, had been reluctant, but Marc had persuaded him that they needed to start embracing half-demons if they wanted to secure talent.
"Or perhaps those new Heroes..."
"Don't say that, even as a joke. Those Heroes were summoned to the Holy Kingdom with no knowledge of anything at all. How much effort do you think the Church of the Goddess will pour into them, and how thoroughly will they educate them? They'll end up nothing more than puppets of the Holy Kingdom."
"Hmm, yes, I suppose so."
"Don't worry. I don't intend to use that boy for long either. The princess already has a fiancé. A hero you can't tie down..."
The king did not bother to finish the sentence. Heroes had always been a threat to royal families throughout history. If they could be brought into the fold through marriage and blood ties, that was one thing, but heroes who couldn't be bound were simply eliminated.
"...Understood. If that's what Your Majesty wants...."
And yet Marc did not know.
He was already planning to throw Valdes away once he had served his purpose, while the target of that scheme was beneath the same blankets, licking his wife's cunt.