Did You Think You Already Had Him? - 1
While someone was savoring pure bliss with a belly filled to the brim with semen—
someone else sat drumming her fingers against the armrest of her throne, lost in thought.
A gathering for the purpose of claiming Albert.
Kristia—one of the members of the Albert-Eating Club.
"Hmm…"
Meeting face-to-face every day would be pointless, so they had agreed to convene once a week on a set date.
That much had been fine. But today, once again, no decent plan would come to her.
If some ordinary noble had been the one holding Albert, the matter would have been finished long ago and then some.
The problem was that it happened to be Beatrix.
How frustrating.
Wilhelmina and Maria must have felt the same.
Kristia sighed as she ran her fingers through her red hair.
Today was another meeting day at the Tower of Reconciliation, yet she could already see the future: more complaints, and nothing else.
"Your Majesty! Urgent news!"
As if her chest weren't already tight enough.
A lady-in-waiting in campaign dress came rushing forward, shouting as she ran.
When someone said "urgent," there wasn't much room to complain. Kristia forced herself to settle her mind.
"What is it?"
Asked in a sharp gaze and sharper voice, the lady-in-waiting's face betrayed open fear.
I have to keep it together.
If I want to leave here alive.
The lady-in-waiting swallowed dryly and answered.
"A… a rebellion, Your Majesty."
"A rebellion? By whom?"
Kristia's brow twitched.
Not everyone was wise, so incidents like this cropped up from time to time. Even a notoriously infamous tyrant could be killed—if you raised a large enough army, it was entirely possible. Then the ringleader would seize power and establish a new order. Greed born of that delusion often blinded people.
Continental history had proven as much, and it was history that Kristia and the other tyrant queens had lived through themselves. It was also proof that some people never learned the lessons history offered.
"That is… several nobles have united under Duke Locust, Your Majesty."
Perhaps she was growing used to the chill in the air; the lady-in-waiting's manner had become rather steady.
"Tsk. So they finally went and did something stupid."
Kristia clicked her tongue in disbelief and rose to her feet.
Handling state affairs and wringing out schemes already filled an entire day. And now a rebellion?
Her eyes flashed as sharp as a freshly honed blade.
"How many?"
"Roughly over a hundred thousand, they say."
The four sovereigns of east, west, south, and north ruled vast territories. Dividing the continent into four made that inevitable. And so the people who lived and breathed within those lands were many as well. That was the background that allowed nobles, when combined, to field a host of more than a hundred thousand.
Kristia herself, if she so chose, could raise a far greater army than that.
But she did not choose the army.
She chose the path of going alone.
It was the least wasteful, and the fastest.
"Tell them to maintain peacetime alert status—not a wartime footing."
As Kristia strode down the great hall corridor issuing orders, the lady-in-waiting following behind asked,
"Pardon? By that, you mean…?"
"I'll handle it myself."
Annoying little insects.
Grind. The unnerving sound of teeth grinding made the lady-in-waiting flinch and bow her head.
Ordinarily, facing a hundred-thousand-strong army alone was the most absurd notion imaginable. For Kristia, though, it was simply something she could do—just as the other three sovereigns could.
She headed straight for a vast storeroom-like place prepared within the royal palace: the armory.
As she walked the corridors and palace interiors, she took in the necessary information—march routes, formations, and the rest—through her ears, thanks to the senior officers trailing behind her who worked their mouths hard.
"Emilie."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
As Kristia ran a hand along a well-maintained spear shaft and asked, the blonde woman standing behind her answered.
Emilie Frost.
Chancellor of the West Kingdom.
"Have candidates ready to fill the vacant seats this time."
"I shall see to it."
"Mm."
With that brief hum as her last word, Kristia vanished without a trace. The place where the red-haired queen had stood was simply empty.
Had it been a dream?
An ordinary person might have blinked and wondered if they were dreaming. Emilie, for her part, remained perfectly unfazed.
She would already have flown, via teleportation, to wherever the rebel forces were gathered.
The vanished Kristia was standing atop the outer wall of Hexel County.
She knew the coordinates of the West Kingdom like the back of her hand; that made it possible.
"Hah—! S-someone just appeared!"
One of the soldiers on the wall nearly fainted in shock, spear still in hand. Naturally, the soldier was a woman as well.
Even while the soldiers floundered, Kristia's gaze remained fixed far beyond the wall.
The skill of raising an army in silence was worth praising. But a great host was slow by nature. That was why Hexel County—lying near the rebels—had managed to catch wind of it.
As the soldiers around the Red Queen panicked, not knowing what to do, Kristia finished her calculations and slowly spoke.
"Do not panic. Hold your posts. When this is over I will issue further instructions, so behave as you normally would."
"Y-yes, Your Majesty!"
The red uniform, the red hair—every soldier recognized that she was their king, and obeyed without protest. Her appearance was striking enough that even a first-time witness would have found it hard to mistake her.
Kristia asked in a low voice,
"Who holds the highest rank here?"
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
The gate captain, who had come running at the news, hastily bowed. Having just arrived, she was still slightly out of breath.
"Steady the soldiers. When the count arrives, tell her to maintain peacetime posture—but not to grow too slack."
"I shall obey."
"That's right."
Thump. Having said only what she needed to say, Kristia kicked off the ground and shot into the sky.
All the sovereigns were skilled in magic; flying was as easy as eating cold porridge.
There they are.
She drew one of the three spears slung across her back and hurled it with all her strength toward the center of the ant swarm visible in the distance.
Shrieeeeek!
The spear tore through the air as it plunged, and drove through a single point with brutal force.
A sound like an exploding bomb. Women's screams. Chunks of flesh and droplets of blood spraying in every direction—plus rising clouds of dust and a rather large crater.
In the blink of an eye, a catastrophe beyond words had unfolded.
The black ant swarm was the rebel army the duke had gathered. From above, they simply looked like ants.
"Somebody help me!"
"Do not fall back! Hold the line!"
At the sudden ambush, the entire rebel force stirred in turmoil. The officers tried hard to steady the soldiers, but it was no easy task. They themselves were as terrified as their troops.
Exactly as Kristia had expected.
Where is he?
Even after causing this massacre, Kristia did not so much as blink. Her only thought was that everything was proceeding according to plan.
She enhanced her vision with magic and swept her eyes across the rebel army.
Found him.
At last she had located the ringleader—more precisely, the great banner bearing the crest of House Locust.
Without hesitation, Kristia manipulated her mana and cast another spell: a spatial magic similar to teleportation, but used for relatively short distances.
The instant she vanished from midair—
—she was floating right in front of a middle-aged man on horseback: Duke Locust.
"H-how are you already here…!"
The duke's eyes went round with shock.
A tyrant who commanded a wide array of magic with ease and could face a great army alone with power to spare. The duke had believed every bit of it was empty rumor. The power the Red Queen had shown until now had been limited to weapon arts and close combat, after all.
"You need not know."
Crunch!
Before the duke could even regret his mistakes, his neck snapped and he died on the spot.
Give a man a title and he loses all sense of his place in the world.
Come to think of it, something similar had happened in the East as well.
Kristia released the strength from the hand that had gripped the corpse's neck and raised her voice so it would carry.
"The duke is dead! Next I will execute those who joined him! The lives of the soldiers, however, I shall spare!"
Even the soldiers thrashing about in unexpected shock, even the nobles trembling with fear—every ear turned toward that voice. She had even used magic to amplify it; missing it was impossible.
Only the nobles would die.
Having so declared, Kristia launched herself toward the remaining nobles.
Half a day.
In less than half a day, she had crushed the rebellion.
The aftermath she left to Emilie and the other vassals, but in practical terms Kristia had handled everything herself.
I'm tired.
With an exhausted face, Kristia climbed the stairs of the Tower of Reconciliation.
She had already been worn out from using her head; dealing with the rebels on top of that made it inevitable.
"Good work. I heard there was a rebellion?"
When she entered the round-table chamber on the third floor, Wilhelmina—who had arrived a step earlier—greeted her.
Thud.
Kristia dropped into the chair assigned to her and asked, fatigue audible in her sigh-laced voice,
"Mm. There was. I heard you had some nuisance of your own?"
"Yeah. Someone got above themselves, so I stomped them. How many years has it been, though?"
"About five, I believe."
"Five years? Only that long, and another rebellion already?"
Wilhelmina snorted as if she couldn't believe it.
"In ten years mountains and rivers change; five years is just long enough to forget something. All the more so if you never saw it with your own eyes."
"The ringleader? I heard it was a man."
"Indeed. The original duke had fallen ill and granted him full authority to act in her stead."
At the time it had seemed adequate enough. Today had been a fresh reminder of how a man drunk on power could change.
"It makes me appreciate all over again how remarkable that boy is."
Wilhelmina's gaze grew hazy as she chased someone's silhouette. Needless to say, it was Albert—the common object of all their interest.
"Which is precisely why we're burning up with the desire to have him even more."
"Yeah. You're right about that."
As the two women sighed in unison, Maria swept back her pink hair and opened the door.
"I heard you both had a hard time. You must be exhausted?"
She, too, seemed to have received word of the rebellion; she took her seat while naturally asking after them.
"Thank you for the concern. Of all times for a rebellion to break out—it was quite tiring."
In any case—
When Kristia paused for a moment, the other two nodded in silent understanding.
"All right. Let's leave that topic there and get to the main point. Anyone have a good idea?"
"Nope."
"Regrettably, neither do I."
Wilhelmina answered flatly, and Kristia sighed with a look of mild shame.
"What about you?"
Wilhelmina crossed her arms and turned her gaze on Maria. Kristia, too, harbored a faint spark of hope.
"I don't have a clear answer either."
After a heavy silence, Maria spoke.
No answer. From the listener's side, it was a reply that should have disappointed. And yet their eyes still glittered with expectation—because Maria's expression and voice, even as she said she had no answer, were calm and assured.
"But after hearing about Kristia today, I realized something."
"What is it?"
Wilhelmina urged her to spit it out at once. Maria, with no intention of dragging it out, opened her mouth immediately.
"That we have always done whatever we felt like."
All three women here were tyrants. So was the woman who was not here. Neither Wilhelmina nor Kristia was unaware of that fact.
"We know that perfectly well. So what?"
"What have you always done to people who opposed your will? You crushed them with force, didn't you?"
So let's do the same this time.
After long deliberation, Maria had arrived at a conclusion that was simple and crude to the extreme—one that showed not the slightest trace of careful thought.
"Hey. That's exactly why we've been racking our brains this whole time—because that doesn't work."
Wilhelmina frowned as if this were ridiculous. They had always done it that way, yes, but this time the circumstances were different.
Yet Maria's eyes did not waver in the least.
"Then what do you intend to do? What we're trying is ultimately a filthy business. That means it's not a problem where thinking will produce an answer. I only just realized that."
Confess honestly to Beatrix and get her permission?
Not a chance in hell. The way she hovered protectively around Albert was far from ordinary.
The more Maria pressed her argument, the smoother Wilhelmina's brow became. Kristia, too, listened in silence to her comrade's words. It wasn't empty talk; it made sense.
"So you're saying we should strike Beatrix?"
Wilhelmina asked in a calm voice. Maria shook her head.
"That would never do. If one side collapses, the burden on the rest grows that much greater. More importantly, that man would hate us for it."
"True enough. Then what?"
"We pin Beatrix down somehow first, then strike into the opening. We can figure out the rest after that."
"That's way too crude. Is that the best you've got?"
When Wilhelmina needled her lightly, almost sulking, Kristia cut in.
"No. I believe Maria has the right of it. What we're attempting has no clean aftermath either way. In that case, rather than overthinking, we should simply charge in."
"Seriously? There's no other answer?"
"At least that is how I see it. Maria would not have said this otherwise."
Various remarks went back and forth, but in the end the conclusion was one: act first, think later.
Wilhelmina could not come up with a better method either, so she finally sighed and nodded. Opposition for the sake of opposition helped no one.
Maria rested her hands on the round table and rose.
"Then we'll push through with force, and settle the concrete plan the next time we meet. I'd like to make it two days from now instead of a week—would that be all right?"
"Fine by me."
"Likewise for me."
The two sovereigns nodded readily and stood from their chairs.
"Then I'll see you in two days."
With Maria's farewell, the three sovereigns broke up the meeting—already envisioning the day they would claim Albert.