I bowed and left Rokujou behind—
Psssht.
—and arrived in Profen.
It’s been two years since Eve’s fall, and this is not a country I have fond memories of.
I may have been possessed, but I spent years here, ruling in a bunny costume and turning citizens into accomplices, only to betray them. Those weren’t my actions, but they left me with a pang of guilt nonetheless.
Eve… Perhaps somewhere deep in her heart, she did have affection for the country she’d founded.
Immigration proceedings here were notoriously stringent, but since I could just warp inside, I headed right for the Profen palace.
My body remembered the way, and I made it to the conference room without getting lost.
My father’s rampage had half demolished it, but it had long since been rebuilt. The new king had likely worked very hard, but he was not alone.
The conference room was even nicer than before. I took a seat and waited.
Not long after…
“Oh, fancy meeting you here.”
Of all people, Micona had to be the one to walk in.
She’d long dreamed of becoming a diplomat, and she was currently bouncing between Azami, Profen, and Jiou in the process of building friendly ties.
“Here for work, Micona?”
“Yes, a diplomatic mission. I’m off to Jiou next, won’t be in Azami for a while yet.”
“Sounds rough. I can just teleport, which does make it easy.”
Micona smiled, shaking her head. “It’s not that bad. My demon lord powers give me flight—but I do sort of have to avoid getting spotted.”
She certainly made great use of those post-congenital powers. I made a face, but she wasn’t paying attention.
“Nothing like jobs only I can do.” She grinned. “I’ve got a need to rise through the ranks.”
“Do you?”
She chuckled. “The king of Azami is married again—to Marie’s mom, Rinko. That makes Marie a princess! I’ve gotta get promoted to keep up.”
“Ah. Ha-ha-ha.”
My laugh was rather hollow. She and Lloyd were pretty much the only people who remained blissfully unaware that Marie had always been royalty.
It was one of the few things she and Lloyd had in common. I actually found it rather adorable.
At that point, someone else came in.
“Micona, Asako!”
“Mm? Alka!” Micona cried.
Alka was wearing her usual white robes and black ponytails.
Micona ran over and gave her a high five. They hung out a lot; I guess they were pretty close. Riho said they had equally dirty minds.
This was beside the point, but Micona’s social circles were quite wide. She knew so many people, from weirdos—er, big names like Chief Alka and Selen—to Renge, Mena, and Rol. She hadn’t become a diplomat by chance. As long as Lloyd’s not in the picture, she’s quite talented.
“I didn’t know you were this close,” I said. Last time I’d seen them, they hadn’t been quite this tight.
“How observant!” Alka said, looking impressed. “You always were, Asako.”
“Praise will get you nowhere, but…can I ask how this happened?” I took the modest approach.
“But of course,” Micona said, clearly pleased I’d asked. Had she been hoping for this? “Add it to your novel, please!”
“Mm, indeed! Thing is, we—”
“We both…”
They overlapped, glanced at each other, and then harmonized.
““Got sidelined in the last war!””
“……………”
Their voices were gloomy indeed.
Oblivious to my look of horror, they began unloading their woes.
“I fought so hard to delay Eve all on my own!”
“I was at the heart of this entire enterprise! But at the end of the whole thing—I didn’t even get to be there! Tragic!”
“Yeah, we couldn’t join the final battle! We never even saw what happened to the last boss! What about closure for us?!”
They were basically talking like a culturefest monitor who’d worked themselves to exhaustion getting the festival ready but then missed out on the after-party.
“Huh…” was all I could manage.
They really wanted my seal of approval here, though.
“You get it, Asako! You didn’t even wake up till it was all over!”
“Yeah, but escaping Eve’s clutches was more on my mind than being left out.”
Honestly, I did not want to join their little pity party. Leave me out of this!
I decided to feign sympathy until we moved on. Like grown-ups do.
“I do get it, though. It’s like, I have this energy, where do I put it?”
“Exactly, Asako!”
“Wow! We’re the sidelined squad!”
Now I was being forced into their huddle as they licked each other’s wounds… I definitely didn’t want Lloyd to see the look on my face now.
But neither of them noticed.
“And when it was all over, Eve went and offered Lloyd the moral of the story or whatever! I’m honestly impressed that happened without me to instigate it!”
“I should have been there, too! Lloyd Belladonna and I were neck and neck, competing for love! He has no greater rival than Micona Zol! Morals, delivered without me?!”
“A climax without the mentor and rival around? That’s just bad writing!”
“Exactly! If I’d been there, I could have played the ‘rival finally acknowledges him at the last possible second’ card, and it would have been much more satisfying! I had lines written!”
She’d probably have been better off just bringing her own beer.
But before their unproductive griping could go in circles for too much longer, the doors swung open.
“……”
And in came a mysterious individual in a bunny costume.
Whoever it was stomped over to us, flopped down in a chair, and collapsed on the table.
“I’m so tired…”
The voice inside the head definitely sounded exhausted.
Alka responded rather harshly, “You’re giving up that easy? You oughta be used to this by now!”
The rabbit yanked off their head and flung it to the floor.
“Used to this?!”
The head bounced a few times.
Inside—was Eug. Her hair was plastered to her head with sweat. Clearly, it was hot in there.
Her face was beet red, although whether that was from heat or fury, no one could tell.
“Excellent work, Dr. Eug,” Micona said, bowing. “Or should I say—King Profen. I see your health is with you.”
That last one sounded like a dig, and her smile betrayed the intent—clearly bearing a grudge against the whole forcibly-given-demon-lord-powers thing.
“Proxy Profen King!” Eug corrected. “Proxy! I’m just pretending to be Eve until things settle down!”
Eve had run this kingdom single-handedly. Now that she was in deep sleep, they’d feared the whole place would come crashing down—and Eug had decided to play the role of Eve Profen, to help atone for her own misdeeds. Only a few knew the truth.
She’d chosen this atonement, but being Eve meant wearing her costume and acting like a goofball while running the place—a delicate balance that left her pretty worn out.
“Arghh…” Eug had her head down again, muttering to no one in particular. Clearly, she was faring even worse than I thought. “I mean, it’s my fault we all got blown to this world, and I let Eve trick me into believing this was our world…and the more I tried to fix that, the worse I made things, so I know this is what I deserve. But this costume is political torture!”
She clearly didn’t think she deserved that. The stress must be really getting to her. Even Alka seemed to feel sorry for her.
“Running things, you could handle, but doing it Eve-style would be rough. You gotta dance through the council chambers!”
“And if you start acting normal, they’ll suspect someone else is in the costume! Azami’s coordinating with you until you’ve got a successor, so it’s just till that happens.”
Micona came in with a diplomatic answer, not letting her off the hook until things were stable here.
Eug looked heartbroken. “I’m doing what I can! Step in if anything goes wrong, please.”
“Very good,” Alka said, grinning. “Your inability to ask for help has always held you back. If you’ve overcome that, I don’t mind lending you a bit of my intellect. All this was caused by your attempts to do it all alone!”
No one was better at turning any situation into a show of dominance.
Eug glared at her. “That was almost nice before your arrogance ruined it, Alka! Just you watch! I’ll make Profen so big, we annex Kunlun!”
“Um, I wouldn’t advise declaring war in front of an Azami diplomat…,” Micona said before the rant could continue.
But Eug knew Micona too well to buy that one. She was in full devil’s temptation mode.
“Hypothetically? You help Profen unify the continent; I could arrange a political marriage to Princess Marie. What do you say? Hypothetically?”
“Hypothetically, I’m in.”
Treason was playing out before my eyes.
If they were left to their own devices, this could spiral. Hoping to stop that, I reminded Eug why I was here.
“Not to interfere with your fun, Eug, but can I get those documents? My producers want to comb through what happened in Profen.”
Eug pulled a sheaf of papers out of her costume.
“Sure, right here. They’re really calling themselves that?”
“Who are we talking about, Asako?” Micona asked.
Alka made a face, answering for me. “The usual suspects. I found the strangest thing to justify their existence.”
That alone cleared things up for Micona.
“They certainly live life on their own terms. I’ve heard they’ve roped one of my former classmates into it.”
“Best we just watch and wish them well. Nothing wrong with hollow souls finding a new purpose in life.”
“Yes, having Marie as my ultimate goal has allowed all of this.”
“You never change, huh,” Eug muttered. I agreed. Who knows where Micona will end up… Maybe it’s best we don’t find out.
But time was passing, so I gathered up the papers and rose from my seat. “I still have to hit up Jiou, Kunlun, and then this afternoon’s event.”
“I’ll be there, welcoming new faces—it’s our duty to point out how flawed they all are.”
“You can abandon that duty, Micona.”
This crowd was no better than my producers.
Eug bobbed her head at me with a wince. “Jiou, huh? Good luck… I really messed that place up.”
“I know,” I said, nodding gravely.
“I hear it’s getting better. But not the way you’d think.”
“No cause for concern,” Micona said, bringing some diplomatic knowledge to bear. “It’s more prosperous than ever. Technically.”
“Oh, with those two around…,” Alka said, looking shifty. “Well, try to rein them in as best you can. I mean, I know they’re totally serious, just…”
I pursed my lips and equivocated. “I’ll do what I can.”
With that, I teleported out of Profen.
Pssht.
This took me to the Jiou Empire…but they’d cast off the shackles of imperialism and were now a democracy. It was the Jiou Kingdom in name only.
The sinister Sou had once replaced their emperor, turning Jiou into an axis of evil, all to make Lloyd look good. The poor things had been forced into serving as foils for heroism. They’d been pretty corrupt to begin with, but Sou, Shouma, and Eug stirring the pot had actually proven the wake-up call they needed.
For years, the empire’s center had lined their pockets while the rest of the people starved, but now—