“You have zero persuasion when your hands are filled with cream puffs.”
“Can it, Rave,” Hadis said. “Jill won’t divorce me anyway.”
Jill swallowed a strawberry cream puff whole. That’s a decent response. She was secretly delighted that Hadis no longer easily believed she would betray him. Hadis sat on his bed, and Jill piled her tray high with food before she moved to the bed, too. She shook off her shoes and climbed up.
“It’s bad manners to eat in bed,” Hadis scolded.
“It’s fine,” Jill said. “I have to build up my strength for tomorrow’s meeting, and you have to eat too, to regain your energy as soon as you can! Say, ‘ahhh!’”
“Will you forgive me?” Hadis tilted his head cutely to one side.
Jill cleared her throat. “You acted by putting faith in me this time, it seems,” she said. “But you made Millay your empress candidate and— Mmph!”
A fruit sandwich was pushed into her mouth.
“I’m proud of this one,” Hadis said. “Nothing went on between us.”
“But she said she was wooed.” When Hadis tried to push a beef sandwich into Jill’s mouth, she stopped him. “Stop trying to change the subject!”
“Huh? I’m not. Not one bit. This is really good, you know.”
“I know that you’re not cheating on me, but I’m sure you made her misunderstand the situation!”
“I didn’t do anything, I promise you! I made her the empress candidate so that others would take notice of her to gather information. And I thought it’d be troublesome for her since she wouldn’t be able to act so easily!”
“How true is this, Rave?” Jill turned to the Dragon God.
“It’s all true,” Rave replied. “In fact, he took her hand and begged her to become his empress candidate.”
“Owwwie!” Hadis cried.
Jill grabbed his arm and twisted it, but she also ensured to toss the beef sandwich into her mouth.
“Which hand was it? Is it this one? Or that one?” she asked.
“Stop! I-I really didn’t mean to…” Hadis gasped. “I didn’t do anything! Honest!”
“Yeah, yeah, sure! I bet you didn’t do anything, but still did!”
“I don’t even understand what you just said! Rave, explain the entire thing!”
“I guess she drew her own weird conclusions since we didn’t go searching for you, Missy…” Rave said.
Jill frowned as she loosened her grip on Hadis.
Rave took a few bites of the fruit sandwich as he languidly said, “I didn’t think that a little girl like her was the commander of the Arks… Our plan was to restrain her when she received an order. I didn’t expect her to be the one giving orders, so we were a step behind. Well, Hadis, you may have been a bit stubborn, but aren’t you glad you held yourself back from searching for Missy here?”
“You held yourself back?” Jill asked.
“Of course I was! You went missing, for god’s sake!” Hadis cried. “Everyone said that you grew tired of me and left me! A-And if you really were with Prince Gerald, I don’t know what I would’ve done!”
“Ah…” Jill said rather wearily. “Why don’t we stop being bothered about that point?”
“I am and always will be! For the rest of my life! You might not care, but I do!”
Hadis frowned and tried to turn away. Jill pinched his cheek.
“You’re not acting cute again, Your Majesty!” she declared.
“Fine! I’m…noff cute anyway! Jill! Shtop! Leff go!” Hadis shouted.
Her husband’s smooth cheek was surprisingly malleable. As she stretched and squished his cheek over and over again, she felt silly for being so stubborn. Oh, fine. She knelt on the bed and hugged his head to her chest.
“I was holding myself back, too,” Jill confessed. “I wanted to steal you away.”
As Hadis rubbed his cheek, he blinked and gazed up at his wife.
“Millay’s more mature, isn’t she?” Jill asked. “Even though she’s only a year older than me.”
“Huh?” Hadis asked.
“She’s good at her studies and excellent at pouring tea. She’s got perfect etiquette, and she’s so reliable, and she can control dragons well, and is adept with the sword and magic… And she’s got a fuller chest than me, doesn’t she?!”
“J-J-Jill! I can’t b-breathe! U-Um, I—”
“But I endured it all since I know that I’m the one who can tie you up and hang you from the roof! I know that I’m the real winner!”
Jill puffed out her chest proudly in front of Hadis, who sat upright. After a few moments of silence, Hadis gazed diagonally at the ground.
“I see… Under those standards, I doubt there’s much chance you’d lose…” he muttered.
“Exactly!” Jill declared. “You’re mine no matter what, Your Majesty!”
As Hadis stared back, she cupped his face in her hands and peered into his eyes. He still looked a bit pale, likely because he’d been tense this entire time. When would the Goddess appear and take advantage of an opening? When would the enemies slip up? Even now, he was likely nervous.
“I’m sure it scared you,” Jill said. “But you’re all right now.”
Hadis’s desperate cry as the Heavenly Sword slipped from his hand still remained a vivid memory in Jill’s mind, along with the moment the Sacred Spear flew beside her.
“I won’t hand you over to anyone, Your Majesty,” Jill said. “And I won’t be a step behind another woman ever again.”
A beat later, and the sound of Hadis’s soul leaving his body rang out. His strength left him as he weakly fell onto the bed.
“M-My wife is…” he gasped.
Jill was used to it. As he groaned in agony, she placed his head on her lap.
“Argh! Why are you so cool?!” Hadis shouted.
“I think I’m just being normal,” Jill replied.
“Not at all! That’s not normal! Arghhh!” He covered his eyes with an arm as Jill smiled, her fingers running through his silky locks. “I was terrified,” he whispered weakly.
“Very good. You’re so honest,” she said. “I’ll treat you kindly.”
“K-Kind?!” Hadis gasped. “Rave, say something! I’ll lose at this rate!”
“You’ve already lost,” Rave pointed out.
The Dragon God and Jill chuckled as Hadis pouted. He curled into a ball like a child and turned away. They discussed the meeting for a short while; both countries had already agreed that this ordeal wouldn’t start a war. Based on negotiations, the peace treaty might be made in the empire’s favor.
“Duke Lehrsatz said that the main topic might be on how to handle the Arks,” Jill said.
“Hmm, well, yeah, I can see that,” Hadis replied.
“We let the commander leave and couldn’t catch Canis. Rolf mentioned that there’ll always be others to take their place, so it’s an endless battle, apparently. By the way, Your Majesty…” Jill needed to muster her courage to pose her question here. “What do you think of the Goddess who seemed to be so fixated with Rave?”
“It’s the Goddess. We can’t trust her… And if I…was…”
“Was what? Your Majesty? Your Majesty?”
He didn’t reply, and Jill soon heard his steady breathing as he was fast asleep. Rave peered into Hadis’s face and flashed a strained smile.
“He probably feels relieved,” the Dragon God said. “He’d been desperately reading up on recipes for the past few days…”
“Isn’t his anxiety and hard work going in the wrong direction?” Jill asked.
“So, what about the Goddess? She mentioned something about me losing my divinity.” He mischievously looked up at Jill, fully aware she knew how the future would unfold. Perhaps it was technically the past now.
“Does any of it ring a bell, Rave?” Jill asked.
“Unfortunately, nope,” he replied. “I don’t really recall why I lost my divinity. Those are the rules. Kratos is the opposite, and she remembers everything.”
“What a troublesome rule…”
“Because even if the God of Logic doesn’t remember, he shouldn’t be one to repeat his mistakes. And even if the God of Love remembers, she should be able to forgive it all.”
It was an almost impossible set of restraints a human couldn’t possibly endure. But such reasoning didn’t apply to deities.
“Well, who cares about the matter of the gods?” Rave said. “And judging from your reaction, Missy, it’s nothing good.”
“Do you want to hear it?” Jill asked.
“Nah. I can’t. If I do, I’d have to take care of it somehow.”
When asked whether turning back time went against logic or not, the answer was certainly the former.
“It’s an impossible story. In fact, it can’t be possible,” Rave said. “So, I won’t ask.”
“Thank you,” Jill replied, realizing that Rave had purposefully never brought it up.
He sighed. “But I’m not sure if Kratos will just retreat. She doesn’t give much thought about the future.”
“She was different from what I imagined. And she called you her ‘brother.’”
“Yeah, she’s my younger sister. Gods tend to be related, but did that bit shock you?”
Jill shook her head. She had an inkling of the situation. It was no wonder that the guardian of the Goddess was a replacement for the Dragon Emperor, and the process of how to be bestowed with the Parrying Dagger was telling. Combined with the rumors surrounding the bloodline of the Kratos royal family and the number of issues between siblings, it all made sense.
“She never thinks ahead,” Rave said. “Her train of thought is simple, like getting rid of the crown imperial princes so that Hadis can return to the imperial castle.”
“Didn’t she plan that to isolate His Majesty?!” Jill asked, her surprise causing her voice to raise an octave.
“She couldn’t forgive those of the imperial castle who treated Hadis so poorly. And yet, she doesn’t even understand why he despises her, since she thinks she helped him. Hadis should never become a person who revels in the death of those before him, but that thought doesn’t cross her mind.”
Rave gazed at Hadis’s slumbering face. The deity closed his golden eyes before opening them. Jill was reflected in his eyes.
“I’m counting on you, Missy,” he said. “Don’t let the Goddess approach Hadis. Don’t let him drown in love.” No longer was he relaxed; his eyes filled with the serenity of a god. “He’s not a god. He’s human.”
Jill pursed her lips and nodded, her husband peacefully sleeping on her lap. I hope that your peaceful slumber won’t ever be obstructed. She kissed his forehead.