🌹💘🌹
AFTER Miss Monica left.
“Well, well, Your Highness, are you absolutely sure you want to let her walk away?”
I heard an amused voice come from the shadows. I replied without taking my gaze away from the direction in which she had departed.
“Why don’t you stop hiding already, Xenu?”
He strolled out dramatically from deep within the garden and executed an ever-so-polite bow.
“Listening to you, Your Highness, it’s clear you don’t understand the finer points of love. But for whatever reason, Madam Monica is crazy about you.”
With his long hair pulled back, the man narrowed his slitted eyes behind his glasses and grinned at me, flashing his incisors. He always reminded me of a snake. I narrowed my own eyes and responded with a cold smile.
“Is your plan to pry into my personal affairs and profit by spreading gossip about it?”
“I’m hurt you’d think so. As a subject of Kophe, I’m just deeply curious about the woman you’ve chosen.” Xenu snickered, covering his mouth with one of his sleeves. “Although I for one am grateful for her tireless efforts. Makes it so much easier to hand out the Princess Teardrop Stones. Someday though, her supernatural saintly powers will reach their limit. You and I both know that. So it would definitely be to your benefit for her to create a miracle here in the Kingdom before she retires, thereby giving you the chance to take control of everything. Isn’t that right?”
I started walking away after realizing there was no need for me to listen to his drivel.
“Oh, but, I do have a good reason for coming here.” Xenu casually ambled over to me. “His Royal Highness the crown prince raised an army. Would you like to hear the details?”
At his words, I felt my eyes take on the darkness cast by my role as His Imperial Highness.
✦ ✦ ✦
🌹💘🌹
A few days later, Richard finally acquired a lord’s castle. Viscount Telestraza’s, to be exact. The castle and the area around it had been abandoned with the constant presence of monsters. But the Flame Corps, in conjunction with the unit of holy women, succeeded in recapturing it. It only took about two days to reach the royal capital without using transfer magic, so the castle was very convenient location-wise.
The villa on Telestraza’s castle grounds, the one where the Viscount lived with his wife and children, became my personal residence, for all intents and purposes.
“Miss Monica, we’ve learned to fight without needing your presence on the frontlines.”
Richard assigned me to the rear quite often lately for my own safety. Now, he reported to me the results of the latest battle with a cheerful smile.
As for the citizens of Kophe, they welcomed him fervently all over the country. Approximately 70 percent of the aristocracy had sworn fealty to him.
“I still can’t believe that most of the country has fallen under your control, Richard…”
Even I could hear the wonder in my voice as I listened to his report in the lounge. His grin broadened and he raised his first two fingers in the victory sign.
“With this castle in our hands, as well as my standing order that only those bound by the constraint magic can approach you, you too can rest without worry when the time comes, Miss Monica.”
I blinked in surprise at those words. “You…you did all that just so I can recuperate if I collapse from overusing my powers?”
“Of course, why wouldn’t I? There is no chance I will ever let you be in danger again. Never again.”
His flame-colored eyes narrowed. I shivered at the fierceness in his gaze. The Ferocious Crown Prince was terrifying. His maneuvering behind the scenes scared me.
“Miss Monica, preliminary arrangements have been made for the selection of land to restore for cultivation.” Richard changed the subject. I automatically straightened my spine in response.
“So…the day has at last arrived to put my plan into action, hm?”
“Yes. Do your best, Miss Monica. The first location is…Nowasilo.”
✦ ✦ ✦
🌹💘🌹
“THE people staged a revolt and the castle is on fire.”
The Minister of Domestic Affairs, Duke Strelizzi, jumped up from his chair in his office upon receiving the report. The almost fifty-year-old man had inherited his title in his twenties and since then amassed and wielded tremendous power in the world of politics.
He immediately ordered for a carriage to be readied to depart. If he used a teleportation slate to head directly to his castle, there was a risk the peasants would be lying in wait for him in front of the one on his estate. The journey back took three days under an overcast sky that threatened to dump a torrent of rain at any moment.
When he finally arrived, he found his holdings already transformed to ash. The fields were scorched black and battered armor and weapons lay scattered everywhere. The castle lay charred and abandoned, the treasures protected by him and his predecessors over generations gone.
One of his knights, who had barely managed to escape with their lives, knelt on one knee and reported to him. “The people were enraged to learn that Lord Keunt had instigated His Royal Highness into banishing the Arousing Priestess… Then they started rioting, demanding we hand over Lord Keunt or they would burn down the castle. Before we could inform you in time, they tossed monster corpses that catch fire easily all over the grounds. It didn’t take long for the flames to spread…”
Duke Strelizzi picked his way through the burned ruins of his castle and looked out upon his domain from the terrace that used to have the best view. He could see blackened traces that had been used as the starting points for the fires.
“…What of the peasants? And the rest of the knights?” he asked.
“They all fled. As for…the other knights…”
He fell silent. Duke Strelizzi ground his teeth to the point of breaking them and glared at the sky. Luckily, all his family members were gathered at their residence in the capital at the time, so their lives were protected. But he had lost too much.
“This…is a turning point, isn’t it?” he murmured.
How did mere peasants learn his son Keunt had become the crown prince’s close aide? Not to mention their extremely effective rebellion incinerating his lands to naught but embers. Regardless of how deftly they made their escape, it was entirely too unnatural that not a single one had been captured nearby.
The first drops of rain fell from the cloudy skies.
Duke Strelizzi raised his head and let the water cascade down his brow as he cycled through his memories and pictured Prince Richard Il Belktrius’s face. When the previous emperor had still been alive, he’d met the boy a few times at various functions. Compared to his calm, gentle older brother, the young prince’s blazing flame-colored eyes ensnared people, his ferocity irrepressible even at that age.
“So, this is what he turned into… Terrifying.” His lips turned down, Duke Strelizzi walked back into the scorched interior of his castle. Then he ordered his knight. “We’re returning to the capital immediately. Get ready.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”