Ulsro Kingdom - Tidying Up and Preparations (5)
In the end, Mercedes's operation failed.
It had been an ambitious scheme. The clever princess had put everything she had into winning the heart of the man she loved. Under normal circumstances, it would have been harder to fail than to succeed. In fact, the plan had come perilously close to working.
It had been going well right up until the night she summoned Valdes to her bedroom while he was sleeping in his own. Valdes had noticed that she was plotting something, and because he had recently been a little careless with her, he had even intended to indulge whatever she wanted as a way of making amends.
The trouble began after that.
The princess, excited and nervous in equal measure, made mistake after mistake—forgetting the tools she needed, accidentally dropping the bottle of oil, and shattering it against the floor.
As a result, Mercedes ended up sitting on the floor with tears in her eyes, and in the end, Valdes had to comfort her in bed.
After their passionate bout was over, the two of them leaned back against the headboard and chatted companionably.
"Ugh... I shouldn't have put the oil on my own hand...."
"Puhaha. Well, that can happen."
"Are you seriously laughing that much after saying that?"
"It's because you're cute. You're just too cute."
He wondered how nervous she had to have been to spill the oil on her own hand before she even got the chance to use it on him. To be honest, he had been looking forward to seeing what she had prepared, and it was a little disappointing that it had come to nothing.
Still, seeing Mercedes's flustered little face had left him more or less satisfied.
"Don't be so hard on yourself. We'll do it again next time."
"But then it won't be a surprise anymore."
"Then we'll make a different surprise, and enjoy this one for what it is."
"But...."
Mercedes still looked uneasy, unable to calm down. Valdes stroked her cheek and asked, "Why are you so impatient?"
"Haah.... It's just that...."
After hesitating for a moment, she let out a sigh and poured out the worries she had been carrying.
At least in Ulsro, Mercedes was the woman closest to Valdes. Not physically—emotionally. They had acknowledged each other as lovers, and the princess had even been thinking of making the boy her royal consort.
But what about now? Valdes's secret had been exposed. No matter how she looked at it, weren't the two women tied to the Hero's previous life closer to him than she was?
Her frustration as the woman who had once stood nearest to Valdes, her fear of losing his love, her unease at the thought that the ever-growing number of women would leave them less time together, her sensitivity to the fact that nobody could say what would happen to Valdes next...
Once Mercedes started talking, the words poured out of her like a burst dam, soaking Valdes's ears in one anxious confession after another.
When she finally fell silent, Valdes patted his lover's head.
"Honestly, that's almost all useless worrying. Still, I'm sorry for making you worry."
"N-no, it's fine. I should be the one apologizing...."
She wasn't doubting him, exactly, but as time went by, the situation would probably only grow more complicated. He would leave again for another campaign of revenge, and once he became the Demon King, he'd surely be too busy for them to spend as much time together. If she was already acting like this now, how was she supposed to endure what was coming?
Once she had unloaded the truth of her feelings onto Valdes and calmed down a little, thoughts she had not been able to consider before began to surface.
"I'd like to say something sweet and promise to stay by your side, but I can't make a promise like that."
"...You'll be busy."
"Yeah. Still, we'll be together for a while yet, so cheer up."
But Mercedes still couldn't shake the sulky look from her face.
"That only lasts until the conference ends. No matter how long it goes, it won't take a full month, will it? That means there won't be enough time for revenge, right? So you'll leave and stay there instead?"
"Ah."
At her worried words, Valdes remembered that the women of Ulsro still didn't know the details of his plan.
From the start, only a handful of people knew anything about what he intended to do in the Ventorino Kingdom. That was because the plan was tied up with top-secret information from the Demon King Army, and he had deliberately kept his mouth shut as much as possible. Even among the few who knew something, none of them knew everything except him; everyone else had only been told the pieces they needed.
Of course, he couldn't tell Mercedes everything. Even so, Valdes decided there was no harm in telling her as much as he safely could.
"The conference will probably go on for quite a while."
"It'll last that long? ...Hmm. So you're scheming something."
"I can't tell you everything, but... I do have a plan that could pull off four things at once. The merit I need to become a knight, extending the conference, tightening control inside the Demon Realm, and, if necessary, a cover story on top of all that."
"Hmm, that's a lot of hints. I can kind of guess what it's about, but I won't pry."
"Haha. Thanks. ...By the way, in Ulsro, I only told my big sister about this."
At her lover's calm, matter-of-fact smile, the princess's eyes widened.
Only her big sister.
There was hardly a more effective phrase for soothing her.
Mercedes couldn't quite suppress her smile as she leaned her head against Valdes's chest. He was a little shorter, so she had to lower herself a bit more, but the pillow behind them was so soft that her back wasn't uncomfortable at all.
Since they had just been in bed together a moment ago, both of them were naked. The firmness and warmth of his chest came directly through to her cheek, and whenever she touched skin with him like this, her heart settled down.
Maybe it was because of the Mark of Recognition, or maybe it was something else, but Mercedes believed it was love. The love that would be her first and last.
"Mm, haah...♡"
As she clung a little more tightly to the body beside her, a breathless sigh slipped from her lips. By then, Valdes's hand had already risen to her chest and was kneading the soft flesh there.
"...Shouldn't this be a time for emotional bonding?"
"We can do both."
"Hnh... pervert...♡"
With a light kiss, his hand wandered over the princess's naked body.
She had complained, but she didn't actually mind, and so she silently surrendered her bare skin to his touch. It was still early evening, so there was plenty of time. They could enjoy each other a little more and still fall asleep without feeling tired.
"Ahhn... u, haah...."
"You seem more sensitive than before. Maybe because you're more relaxed mentally."
"Haah... r-really?"
Mercedes blinked dazedly.
She had been too distracted by the pleasure he was giving her to think that far. Besides, who would compare such things one by one? Still, he wasn't wrong—her heart really had grown lighter.
"My worries, my feelings, my body... all of it belongs to Vald...♡ If Vald says I should cheer up, then hehe, I should cheer up too♥"
"Hmm. Then I'll make sure you feel even better."
Saying that, Valdes withdrew his hand and slid under the blanket. His target was the space between her thighs. At his movement, the princess jolted in alarm and twisted her body to resist.
"W-wait... there! Hic, i-it's dirty!"
She didn't mean that her own sex was dirty.
It was because Valdes's semen from barely ten minutes ago was still leaking inside her.
Unlike women, who might hesitate but could still lick and swallow their own fluids, men were completely different. Unless there was some special circumstance, many of them didn't even want to put their tongues there, much less smell it or even touch it.
Having learned plenty of sexual knowledge from Elsa, Grette, and various books after becoming Valdes's lover, Mercedes knew that very well.
"It's fine."
"......"
Before long, Valdes had overpowered her resistance and slipped downward. He pinned her thigh with one arm and spread her outer lips apart.
"Ngh, haah...."
Mercedes's face flushed bright red. This wasn't the first time he'd looked inside her, nor the first time he had lavished focused attention on her sex. They had even played intimate games beneath her skirt when Mari had suddenly shown up in the office.
But lately, rather than taking their time to make love, they had more often been joining their bodies in a rush of excitement. Part of that was because time was limited and the number of women around him had grown, and part of it was because the conference had made everything busier.
Because of that, she felt shy in a way that was almost like a virgin again. Her sex, as if it understood its owner's feelings, tightened from within and refused to show him her inner flesh.
"Mm, aahhn... ngh!"
But Valdes moved his fingers without hesitation, prying her open before slipping his tongue inside. When he lightly scraped the top of her entrance with the tip of his tongue, Mercedes's body reacted instantly and jolted up.
The lower lips that had already begun leaking the moment his gaze fell on her now spilled out saliva thick with arousal. Thanks to that, he could taste the rich, dense sweetness of her juices far more intensely.
The white liquid that should naturally have been there was nowhere to be seen. Valdes didn't particularly like touching his own semen either. The moment he spread her open, he used fluid magic to push the semen deep inside, all the way into her womb, so it couldn't spill out again.
She couldn't get pregnant because of the Mark magic, but just imagining semen sloshing inside her womb only made the excitement stronger.
This time, his tongue covered her little bud.
"Ah, haah, hahhnh... ngh, hahaa... h-hit♥"
Maybe because it had been so long since she'd received cunnilingus, or maybe because so many things had changed in the meantime, Mercedes trembled violently at the exquisite sensation rising from below.
In her mind, it was both. And there was one more factor besides.
She had once heard from the maids that one of the rare cases in which a man treated his own semen so casually was when he loved a woman enough to endure it. Not realizing that Valdes had actually pushed the semen in with magic, Mercedes interpreted it as proof of how deeply he loved her.
Chup, chuuup, lick... slurp....
Relief at confirming her beloved lover's affection, and ecstasy at the thought of the Hero Pedro himself serving her by licking her most private place.
Mercedes wriggled over and over, losing herself in the pleasure he gave her.
"Mm, aahhn... ah, Vald, I love you♥ Enough now, ngh...! Give me your cock...♥"
"Chuuup... Hm. Isn't that a little too eager? I was just about to serve you properly."
The princess spread her legs even wider.
"This is nice too, haah... but your cock is the best, Vald...♥"
"Better than me?"
"Ah! I-I mean, after Vald...."
"I'm kidding. I love you, Merci."
"Ah, hhhhaahhhng─♥ Hehehk, y-yes♥"
After that, Valdes soothed Mercedes thoroughly.
But she was not the only one with such worries.
The women around Valdes had all come to place him above everything else.
There was only one man, while the number of rivals was legion. Each of them was beautiful and alluring in her own way. If they were strangers, it might have been different, but with the exception of a few, most of them were already quite close to one another. Because they knew each other so well, they couldn't help but feel intimidated unless they were especially confident in some area of their own.
Beatris was the same. So was Serenia. So was Mari.
Each of them was confident in her own charms, and yet each also acknowledged the others' appeal, worrying about her own flaws in comparison.
Take Beatris, for example.
She had a great many advantages over the other women: her especially ample breasts, her appearance, which had not withered even with age, the mature elegance that age had instead given her, and the fact that she knew some of Valdes's little preferences from the private investigations she had once carried out.
But she still couldn't hide her age entirely. Unlike Serenia, she didn't train her body, and as a result there was a certain softness to her figure here and there. She wasn't fat by any means, but to a woman, it was still impossible not to worry about such things.
And though she had been forgiven, the sin of having participated in Valdes's assassination still remained. It was a brand of guilt that could never be completely erased, not even over a lifetime.
There were also women who differed somewhat from the four above.
Elsa, Grette, and Ethylene.
Mercedes's two attendants had already given up. They simply hoped to remain as close to Valdes as possible and receive even the smallest scraps of his affection, so they worked hard to support Mercedes in her pursuit of him.
Ethylene, on the other hand, did not ask for much, but neither had she given up. In her own way, she had her own thoughts, and she strove to receive Valdes's love in whatever way had been assigned to her, while quietly helping Mercedes from the sidelines.
Thus, it was his role to ease and soothe the anxieties of everyone caught in this web of worries, and Valdes spent his time faithfully carrying out that duty.
Before long, the day passed, and at last it became the eve of his departure for Ventorino.
"For you to choose me on a day like this... hehe, I'm so happy...."
At Valdes's visit, Beatris smiled shyly.