X: The Melancholy of Sheila
WHILE Mars and the others were fighting in Eyland, Sheila was in Vulcan leading a rebel army in a conflict against the pro-king faction. The rebel army—which was mainly just the Vulcan branch of the Hundred, led by Sheila’s younger brother Hart—was small in size, while nearly all of the prominent Vulcanian nobles had sided with the king. Although the rebels had seized the capital of Thracia, they were surrounded by the crown’s forces and being forced into a defensive struggle. They were only managing to hold their position because their nominal leader, Sheila, had joined the fighting herself despite being pregnant.
As it happened, the situation hadn’t been this dire in the beginning. Many nobles had stood off to the side and waited to see how things would play out, and there had been a contingent that may have even sided with the rebel army, depending on the rebels’ claims and the result of the war in Eyland.
Frau had completely changed that. She had burned a forest to the ground, and with it a twenty-thousand-strong army led by the king of Vulcan en route from Eyland. Those who had somehow managed to make it through the flames had been torn to pieces by the Warwolves of Farune’s monster army. In the end, there had been very few survivors, and they had broadcasted the news of Farune’s brutality far and wide. They had told everyone they could what had happened, insisting that Farune was the world’s great evil and that it must be defeated.
In other countries, this might have caused some to side with the rebels out of fear of Frau’s brutality, but Vulcan was a nation that prized valor. Burning with a righteous fury, nearly all of the nobility had united behind the throne.
“This isn’t easy,” Sheila said to herself. She was in a room in the royal castle, agonizing over the situation.
If anything, it had been going too well at first, but that had taken a turn after they had seized Thracia. It wasn’t necessarily all Frau’s fault. Had the army of twenty thousand returned from Eyland, Sheila’s force of three thousand never would have been able to stand up to them. The members of the Vulcan branch of the Hundred were certainly strong, thanks to their implementation of the Hundred’s teachings. However, they weren’t at the level of Farune’s Hundred. They hardly ever lost in a one-on-one fight, but things got uncertain when they were faced with two opponents at the same time. And, many of them had never been knights or soldiers, so they had little military experience and weren’t used to fighting as a cohesive unit. They would have lost immediately if the king’s army had returned. In that sense, Sheila was deeply grateful for Frau’s reinforcements. However, there had been too many casualties. Yes, they were enemies, but killing more than nine-tenths of them was just unimaginable. For better or worse, Frau had done the unthinkable.
On top of that, while there were twenty thousand deceased soldiers, they had several times as many family members, all people unlikely ever to forgive Farune.
This was the cause of the Farunians’ current predicament. Winning wasn’t everything—people had feelings to think about. Even in Thracia, which was under Farune’s control, many were hostile. The rebel army had ended up being unable to gain the support of even the branch families of the Seven Celestial Swords.
I’ll have to scold Lady Frau for this, Sheila thought, making up her mind.
It was something Sheila had been considering for some time now. While her husband, Mars, was a powerful warrior, he rarely ever wielded that power. If anything, he was more of a clever planner, and he had used his long-ranging foresight to expand Farune’s influence. He was widely considered to value strength above all else, but Sheila had begun to suspect that this was a clever manipulation of his public image on his part.
Now, as for the origin of Farune’s evil reputation, Frau held much of the responsibility. Needless to say, Sheila had met Frau many times. The queen was expressionless like a doll, and it was hard to tell what she was thinking, but everyone who had known her for a long time all said the same thing: she was bad news. As her appearance suggested, she was deficient in human emotion, and she just took things too far. When Mars had ascended to the throne, she was the one who had killed the most people in the opposition army, and she had also dealt the greatest damage to the enemy army in the clash with Dorssen at the Battle of Brix. Sheila had heard that she had caused quite a few casualties in the Magedom of Kiel, too, by sending in monsters as part of her invasion of the country. And now, here in Vulcan as well…
Frau was the true darkness of Farune. Perhaps she was playing an unpleasant role of her own volition—for her husband, Mars. It saddened Sheila if the woman was sacrificing herself for the sake of the one she loved.
Sheila could somehow sense that Mars himself probably loved Frau the most out of his wives. If he hadn’t been king, he never would have married anyone else besides her. It made Sheila feel both jealous, and envious. This was why she wanted Frau to take better care of herself. Perhaps it was in Mars’s nature to be kind to women. In any case, he couldn’t bring himself to be assertive with any of his wives, including Sheila. And the other princess consorts also tended to be reserved with Frau, in particular. Even the audacious Cassandra was no exception.
That’s exactly why I have to say something.
The world didn’t only revolve around strength. Farune ought to have paid greater attention to how it was perceived. And as a matter of fact, Farune was a pretty good country. There was low inequality due to Gamarath’s constitutional government, taxes were kept to a minimum, and thanks to the Hundred, there was no mandatory conscription. The economy was booming because of all the tourists the arena and the monster exhibits attracted. And, because there were so few nobles, there were no visible status distinctions. Broadcasting all of this out to the world would be a good plan.
First, though, it was necessary to tell Frau that displays of strength and terror weren’t the way to get people to follow you. Sheila would politely speak to her like she was admonishing a child, saying, “You mustn’t kill too much, and you mustn’t use dangerous magic just for fun. Everyone will be afraid of you.”
With her mind made up, Sheila immediately went to the hall she had assigned to the Mages’ Guild. She opened the doors and saw that Keely, Mika, and Noa were also there, alongside Frau.
Keely was short, with black hair and black eyes, and she looked almost like a child. She was the leading figure in monster research and the commander of the monster army; apparently she was the one who had defeated the legendary wizard Matou in the fight against Kiel. Sheila had actually met her the first time she had come to Farune, and her impression ever since then had been that Keely was a dangerous person.
Mika had been a member of the final party of adventurers that had stood in Mars’s way when he had usurped the throne. She had been quite an excellent adventurer, so Sheila, who was a former adventurer as well, had a previous acquaintance with her, but she had greatly changed since back then. She now had a blank look in her eyes and a blind worship for Frau. However, thanks to Frau’s instruction and the effects of monster meat, her mana had also risen considerably. She was said to be the strongest magic user after Frau.
Noa had been a participant in the Consort Selection Tournament, like Sheila, and she had been the only wizard who had made it into the bracket. She had long, flowing brown hair and a cute face. Unfortunately, she had been crushed by her sudden loss to Cassandra. Even worse, she had been forced to join Frau’s Mages’ Guild after that. One would have expected her to have a fairly bold personality, seeing as she had tried to use nothing but her skill at magic to become Mars’s consort, but nowadays she too was Frau’s loyal subordinate.
Now that she thought about it, Sheila realized that she had some sort of connection with every member of the Mages’ Guild’s leadership.
None of the three paid Sheila any mind when she entered the room, instead continuing their lively discussion. They were talking about the most efficient way to kill someone using magic, which made Sheila start to feel a little lightheaded. Incidentally, Frau was silently listening to the others, conveying her own beliefs with nothing but nods and shakes of her head.
“Excuse me, Lady Frau,” Sheila said, “I have something I’d like to speak with you about…”
The other three all turned their gazes on Sheila at the same time. Their eyes were empty, devoid of either goodwill or malice. It was enough to make even a hardened warrior like Sheila flinch.
After a brief moment, Frau nodded slightly, and the three other wizards silently exited the room. Sheila wasn’t so much surprised as creeped out that that was all they needed to understand each other. Then, she realized that Frau was staring at her.
Frau had lovely white hair, porcelain skin, and blue eyes like gemstones. She was beautiful, like an exquisitely crafted doll. Though she was older than Sheila, and a mother, she seemed more like an ageless maiden.
This ageless maiden tilted her head to the side in curiosity as though she were an innocent child.
Sh-She’s adorable… Sheila was entranced. She had been planning to harshly admonish Frau, but she felt herself wavering.
No, I can’t hesitate, I have to pull myself together.
Sheila slapped herself on the cheeks with both hands, then faced Frau.