At some point, Tomoe had evolved from a cute little girl into a pretty girl.

She could have men dancing in the palm of her hand, should she want that... If we don’t find her a partner and announce their engagement soon, she’ll end up making men go mad. As her big brother, I had complicated feelings about that.

“You’re going to keep working in the castle, right?”

“Yes. I’d like to keep using my ability to help arrange environments where we can breed all sorts of different animals,” Tomoe said, nodding. Clapping her hands, she added, “Ah, I’ve also been learning about royal ceremonies from the royal chamberlain, Marx. I love living in the castle with you and all my big sisters, so I’d like to take over for Marx, and run things inside the castle at some point.”

“A successor for Marx... That sounds good.”

“O-Oh, I see.”

I welcomed this, but Liscia seemed a little conflicted.

“Hm? Is there a problem?” I asked.

“No, but in Marx’s position, he had to worry about producing heirs, right? I’m not sure how I feel about Tomoe being the one to pester us about that from now on...”

“I see where you’re coming from...”

With that in mind, I felt awkward about it too. Marx was a man, so while he’d been fussing about an heir, it was the court ladies who kept track of the queens’ health and scheduled our nights together. But with Tomoe in his role, she would be making the decisions herself.

While Liscia and I were exchanging awkward glances, Tomoe grinned.

“Big Brother, Big Sister, isn’t it about time you had your third?”

“S-Sure...”

“W-Well, give us time... Okay?”

The king and queen were powerless before this little devil.

I cleared my throat loudly, trying to get past this awkwardness, and looked over at Ichiha. He was fourteen, turning fifteen this year. Of the three of them, he had grown the most. He was taller than both the girls now, and was rapidly catching up to my own height of 174 centimeters. His face was still youthful, but he had grown into a handsome, literate young man.

If we put him on the broadcast, housewives’ll love him. When he stood next to Hakuya before, it looked like something off the cover of a fetishized manga magazine targeted at women.

“I assume you’re going to keep serving with us, so do you want to be assigned to Hakuya’s place?”

“Yes. Please let me work for Hakuya as I continue to learn.”

“I’d like that as well, sire,” Hakuya said, bowing his head too.

While Ichiha had become recognized as an expert in the field of monsterology during his time at school, he’d also been learning about politics and strategy from Hakuya. When he saw his elder sister Sami—who fled here after being caught in the political struggles of their homeland—he’d been motivated to study those sorts of things to protect the people he cared about.

Hakuya had taken a shine to him and was raising the boy to be his successor. I was considering him as a candidate to be the next prime minister too.

“Hee hee. Do your best, Ichiha,” Tomoe cheered.

“Okay! I will.”

Tomoe and Ichiha smiled at each other.

For a foreigner like Ichiha to attain an important position, he needs powerful backers... Like a marriage to an adopted daughter of the royal family of Elfrieden... Is it time I had a talk with the two of them?

As I was thinking that, I looked at Yuriga.

“And Yuriga...”

“Yes...”

Yuriga was older than the other two, and would be turning eighteen this year. She was about as tall as Liscia now, and also had a more womanly figure. Her hair was the same length as before, but now she wore it half up and half down. According to her, “Wearing twintails at my age would be pretty cringey!”

She had a brave, dignified appearance that reminded me of how Liscia was when I’d first met her. While she didn’t have a unique skill like Tomoe or Ichiha, she’d developed into an all-rounder who could handle military matters, academics, and administrative tasks better than average. But...compared to the others, she was in a much more delicate position.

“Has Fuuga given you any instructions? Like about what to do after graduation?”

“No.”

“He hasn’t called you back to the Great Tiger Kingdom or anything?”

“Nope.”

“Seriously, nothing?”

“I told you, there’s nothing! Augh!” Yuriga crossed her arms and peevishly looked off to the side. “I’ve asked him for a long time what I should do after graduation, but all he’d say was to ‘stay in the Kingdom.’ Seriously, what does he want me to do?! I’m just stuck here in the dark otherwise!”

“Whoa, Yuriga,” Tomoe said. “Please calm down.”

“Shove off!”

Yuriga pinched Tomoe’s cheeks. Their relationship hasn’t changed much even as they’re older.

Still...what’s Fuuga planning? Back when Malmkhitan, the precursor to the Great Tiger Kingdom of Haan, was part of the Union of Eastern Nations, Fuuga had sent Yuriga to study in our country. He’d done so in order to protect her from the chaos during their war of unification, and also to have her learn. I never would’ve expected that she’d have no instructions for what to do post-graduation.

Things had settled down in the Great Tiger Kingdom, so there shouldn’t have been any problem with her returning home.

“Is he intending to leave Madam Yuriga in our country as a hostage?” Hakuya suggested.

Yuriga let go of Tomoe’s cheeks and snorted. “Hmph! If that’s what he wants, I wish he’d just say so. I wouldn’t mind being a hostage for his sake. As long as Tomoe and Sir Souma are around, I won’t be mistreated, and I can lay back and relax. The worst thing is being left hanging with no instructions.”

That was an incredible way to look at it. Yuriga’s pretty gutsy.

She turned and looked at me. “Hey, Sir Souma. Is there any work I can do while I’m waiting to hear from my brother?”

A job for Yuriga, huh? We could always use another pair of hands, but... Thinking about it, I said, “Well...your abilities make you an appealing candidate, but until we know what position you’re in, I don’t know how we can utilize you. The way things stand, you’re still a guest, which makes it hard to give you a job in the military, administration, or academia.”

Hearing my response, she slumped her shoulders.

“I don’t want to just sit around... Velza and Lucy are working too.”

Their friends Velza and Lucy had also graduated. Velza had joined the land forces through her connections with the House of Magna. Apparently, she was acting as a secretary for Halbert now. Lucy had taken over her family’s parlor, and I occasionally spotted her at the castle, planning events with Roroa. Yuriga felt impatient, seeing all four of her friends doing their own things while she had nothing.

Ah! Come to think of it... That’s when I remembered something, and pulled a document out of my desk.

“It just occurred to me, there was a request from someone who wants your help.”

“There was?”

“Yeah. A mage soccer team, the Parnam Black Dragons,” I said, handing her the document.

Mage soccer started as a club in the Royal Academy. It was soccer, but you were allowed to use magic. So, people went around doing things like kicking literal balls of fire. We’d tried broadcasting a game, and the people really liked it, so we’d ended up forming several pro teams to make it work as a broadcast program. The Parnam Black Dragons, based out of the royal capital, was one such team. Their mascot was actually inspired by Naden in her ryuu form.

“You played a lot of mage soccer while you were at school, right? They were saying—if it’s possible—they want you on the team. I just assumed you’d be going home after graduation, so I never brought it up before.”

“This could be good...” Yuriga said as she looked through the document. “It looks like some of my seniors are on the team, and it might be nice to keep on playing. Not like I have anything else to do.”

It sounded like Yuriga was on board for it. She wasn’t going to run into any classified information as a mage soccer player, and she’d make the broadcasts more fun, so it suited her well.

“Good for you, Yuriga,” Tomoe said. “You don’t have to be an unemployed bum.”

“Don’t call me a bum!”

I smiled as I watched the two of them go at it.

Seriously... What?

“She really pulled it off,” Liscia said as she walked over to us.

“Do you know something about this?” I asked.

“She’s been talking to me about it for a while. Come on, Yuriga. We have to explain to Souma.”

“Oh! Sure thing, Lady Liscia.”

Yuriga seemed to come back to reality when Liscia called for her. She let go of Tomoe and cleared her throat before slowly approaching.

“Erm... Uh... Where do I start?”

“How about with what you said about winning a bet?”

“Of all the potential futures for me, I was able to win close to the best one.”

“Close to the best one? You mean getting married to me?”

“I mean, in my position. It was always a given that I was going to be thrust to someone for a strategic marriage.”

Yuriga shrugged her shoulders and sighed.

“I mean, the Great Tiger Kingdom is rising rapidly, and I’m the younger sister of their king, right? People were going to want to marry me to get closer to my brother, and he was going to want to wed me to someone influential who could help him on his quest for dominance.”

“Yeah...I get that.”

“So, at that point, the only difference is who I get married off to. Having lived in this country for a few years now, I’m used to living here. I didn’t even want to think about getting sent elsewhere. I want to keep playing with my mage soccer team. And as for having to leave behind my friends like Tomoe, Ichiha, Lucy, and Velza, well, um...I didn’t want that either.”

“Aww, Yuriga,” Tomoe cooed, a huge grin on her face.

Yuriga turned her head away, refusing to look at Tomoe.

“Um, that’s why I wanted to marry someone who’d let me stay in this country, and hopefully continue playing mage soccer a while longer. But when it came to who my brother would be willing to accept, you were about the only person who came to mind. Ichiha meets the first two criteria, but my brother wasn’t going to settle for me marrying a vassal of yours. And besides...”

“Yuriga?” Tomoe called to her, still smiling.

“...Your little sister kind of scares me.”

“Ah ha ha...”

Given these events, I was going to have to get Tomoe and Ichiha formally engaged too. They each seemed interested in the other, and a lot of other people were aiming for both of them, so making it official would nip that in the bud.

Yuriga looked at Liscia. “That’s why I went to talk to Lady Liscia and the others. I needed to know if she could accept me as one of your wives, and I wanted help convincing my brother to give me the order.”

“Wait... The other queens were in on this too?” I asked, looking at Liscia.

“Well, you could say our interests were aligned. Right, Yuriga?”

“Yep!”

Liscia and Yuriga high-fived one another, looking smugly satisfied.

“You said you wanted to avoid a war with the Great Tiger Kingdom now, right? And that we needed to convince Sir Fuuga not to fight with us. That’s why when Yuriga came to me for advice, I said I’d accept her as one of your queens if she’d use her letters to make Fuuga less likely to attack us. We wanted to convince him to win us over instead of opposing. Juna was in charge of overseeing the letters, by the way.”

“Oh... Well, damn...”

If she was getting tips from Juna, who’d learned from the experienced Excel—then yeah, of course she’d be able to make Fuuga cautious of this country. And since Yuriga was writing the letters of her own accord, he was unlikely to notice it. Well, that didn’t guarantee Fuuga would make the decision they wanted, but... Oh! So that’s why it was a bet.

I stared at Yuriga.

“So you had him dancing in the palm of your hand?”

“Ah... What I said in my letters and what he told you just now were all true, you know? If a mighty warrior like my brother was going to fall, I think it would be to this country. And honestly, I do plan to beg for his life if it comes to that.”

“That’s some determination... But are you really satisfied with this? Having to marry me.”

“Well, I do like you. Up until now, I would have been more into someone like Sir Shuukin, who’s like another big brother to me. But I respect you, and I could see myself loving you.”

“Y-You could...? You’re being awfully pragmatic about this.”

“She’s like a past version of me, isn’t she? I just couldn’t leave her alone,” Liscia said with a wry smile as I stared at them in awe.

“Oh, and one other thing...” Yuriga looked at Tomoe. “If I marry you, that makes Tomoe my little sister, right? I like the idea of that.”

“Ah! But I’m the adopted daughter of the former royal couple, so this won’t make me your little sister, Yuriga.”

“Huh? It won’t?”

“I only call Big Sister Liscia my big sister. I just call Big Brother Souma that because he’s married to her. I don’t call Aisha, Juna, Roroa, and Naden ‘Big Sister.’”

“W-Well, when I’m queen, you’d better show me respect! You’re just a princess!”

“Okaaay,” Tomoe said with a chuckle. “I’ve applied to be chamberlain, by the way. I’ll do a good job scheduling your nights with Big Brother.”

“Bwuh?! Oh, I can’t stand you!”

“Ah ha ha ha ha ha.”

Tomoe and Yuriga bantered back and forth.

Yuriga probably came up with this plot and found the determination to carry it out because she didn’t want to lose this sort of interaction.

Hakuya and Julius were no doubt listening somewhere nearby, so I said, “A question for the brilliant minds that help run this country...”

“May we help you?” asked Hakuya.

“What is it?” followed up Julius.

“Did you two see this coming?”

When I asked that, they looked at one another and shrugged.

“No. I never anticipated the queens were backing her...”

“I doubt Fuuga or Hashim imagined this either. They might have expected you, me, or the prime minister to be planning something, but...they wouldn’t have counted on having to consider the intentions of the queens as well. What a terrifying country.”

“Tell me about it,” I said with a nod.

These reliable, frightening women were working as a team. We were no match for them. If you looked at just the result, they’d pulled one over on both Fuuga and me.

Further away were newcomers like the Saint of the Tiger, Anne, sent by the Lunarian Orthodox Papal State, as well as Lombard Remus and his wife Yomi. It was a who’s who of Fuuga’s subordinates.

The only one not present was Moumei Ryoku, the Hammer of the Tiger, who was currently serving as viceroy in Mercenary State Zem. Fuuga had determined their next target was the Empire, and now Hashim was explaining the strategy they would use against them.

“We must strike quickly and decisively,” Hashim said, pointing to the map of the continent in the center with a pointer. “If you include our allies, we have twice as many soldiers as the Empire. However, the Empire is still a more powerful nation. If this turns into a protracted war, we’ll likely have a hard time.”

“We can’t maintain our supply lines?” Shuukin asked, but Hashim shook his head.

“That is not a major concern. Fortunately, our forces are more mobile than those of other armies. When the Kingdom of Friedonia was experiencing a food crisis, I heard that they rolled out a transportation network to bring food from places that had it to places that didn’t. We can do the same. We have a lot of mounts in our forces, so we’ll have no shortage of overland transportation options. With the current strength of our country, we can wage war for a few years. The Empire also has a transportation network, perhaps modeled after the Kingdom’s. That will help us to move faster as well.”

“Introducing good ideas even if they were developed elsewhere... It speaks to Madam Maria’s broad-mindedness,” Mutsumi said, sounding impressed.

“Yeah, sure,” Fuuga replied with a laugh. “It seems the Kingdom and the Empire are more connected than we thought... Come to think of it, Souma was saying we shouldn’t underestimate Maria.”

“Indeed. That is why we must go at this with everything we have,” Hashim said with a polite bow.

The youngest member of the group, Kasen, raised his hand. “Sir Hashim. If we don’t have to worry about our supply lines, why do we need to strike so fast and decisively?”

“It’s simple. We run the risk of losing our all-important ‘momentum,’” Hashim said, tapping his left hand with the pointer. “Lord Fuuga has expanded the country this far by winning every battle he’s fought. The people supporting him believe Lord Fuuga cannot lose. It’s the same for us soldiers, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” Kasen said with a nod. Hashim nodded in return.

“Right now, if Fuuga says we are going to fight, the people will have no doubt victory is assured. When Lord Fuuga takes to the field, our enemies tremble. However, if we struggle against the Empire, we will lose that advantage. Once our abilities come into question, this smooth expansion we’ve experienced up until this point will no longer be possible.”

“So, basically, if we say we’re gonna fight, we’ve gotta win or we’re finished,” Fuuga added.

Hashim nodded in response. “Indeed. There is no need to occupy the entirety of the Empire; we just need to move quickly to the point where they concede. We can strike down Empress Maria and her sister Jeanne to destroy the House of Euphoria, or take the Imperial capital Valois... Perhaps make Maria surrender so that people see she’s lost her authority, and impress upon them that Lord Fuuga has won.”

“Hmm... You’re talking about destroying the House of Euphoria, but they have that other sister, what’s her name, in the Kingdom, right? Can we leave her alone?”

“You mean the third sister, Princess Trill. Opinion of her in the Empire is low. They talk about how she was shipped off to the Kingdom because even Maria couldn’t keep her in line. Even if King Souma were to trot her out later, no one would follow her.”

Hashim said this as if it were no big deal. Shuukin arched an eyebrow at that.

“We owe the Kingdom and Empire for their help in suppressing Magic Bug Disease. So, I don’t know about this talk of destroying them...”

“Hmm. It’s not to your liking, Sir Shuukin?”

“They did save me, after all.”

Seeing the pained look on Shuukin’s face, with cold eyes Hashim said, “We must prioritize Lord Fuuga’s great work. Or am I wrong?”

“I know that... When the time comes, I’ll kill my emotions and fight like a demon.”

“If you’re not keen on it, you can leave it to me. I’ll send those Imperial losers packing!” Nata, the battle-crazed lunatic, said with a hearty laugh.

Men as simple as him make for easy pawns, Hashim thought, but didn’t say it out loud. He pointed to the map.

“What we need is speed. There are two routes from our territory for a fast attack on Valois. One heads through their former vassal states, the Kingdom of Meltonia and the Frakt Federation, in the northeast. The other heads straight west from our allied nation, the Lunarian Orthodox Papal State, and Mercenary State Zem now ruled by Sir Moumei.”

“Let all be as Holy King Fuuga wills it.” Hearing the name of her country, Saint Anne bowed her head.

Anne was of the Lunarian Orthodox Papal State, but had been taught to submit to the ruler she served, so she would never oppose anything Fuuga did.

Looking at those routes, Lombard cocked his head to the side.

“Wouldn’t the route south from the former buffer zone be shorter?”

Hashim shook his head. “I would prefer to avoid routes near the coast. We can’t be sure that the Maritime Alliance won’t intervene.”

“I see...”

As things stood, there was no nation that could equal the Maritime Alliance in terms of naval power. Even with their incredible momentum, Fuuga’s forces couldn’t handle even just the Kingdom on its own at sea. Thus, an inland route was of utmost importance here.

“I gave him Yuriga and told him to stay put though...” Fuuga said with an exasperated shrug.

Mutsumi furrowed her brow. “Are you saying the Kingdom will align itself with the Empire?”

“Looking at how strong their connection ended up being, he might be considering protecting Maria and helping her escape... Yuriga’s going to be acting as Souma’s queen from here on, so we can’t count on her to keep him out of it. But that’s why we’re making a strong offensive, right?”

Fuuga turned to Hashim, who nodded.

“Indeed. If we let her escape, all we need to do is loudly spread the word that Maria abandoned her people. Depending on how we do it, we might even be able to make it so that Souma abducted her in the confusion. If we can hurt their opinion of the Kingdom, they will reject Maria if she tries to come back with the Kingdom’s support.”

“Harsh,” Fuuga said, half appalled, then looked at the map. “If we want to hit them hard and fast, dividing our forces is a bad idea. Do we choose one route and go with it?”

“No, we attack using both. We also make the Empire aware we will be attacking by these two routes. That will force them to spread their forces to defend them.”

“Oh-hoh...”

“However, on one route, we will only make a token effort while we focus on the other. That means we will be making a primary and secondary attack. We’ll break through their divided defenses all at once with our main force. However, while the secondary attack is not a serious one, we still need to act in a way that makes them think it will be the primary one.”

“Hmm. So, north or east? Which side do we make the main one?”

“This one,” Hashim replied, pointing to the route through the Orthodox Papal State and Zem. “If they learn we intend to attack by two routes, the Empire will assume one must be the primary invasion force. The natural thing to consider, then, is how well we can coordinate with our allies, Zem and the Orthodox Papal State. It’s only natural to be suspicious of a country you haven’t been allied with for long. Therefore, the Empire will assume ‘They will invade through the north, as it’s closer to the Great Tiger Kingdom’s main force, and the east will only be a token effort from Zem and the Orthodox Papal State.’”

“I get it. That’s how we trick them, huh?”

Fuuga crossed his arms and grunted. Hashim gave an exaggerated bow.

“Indeed. Even if the Empire does predict that this is the primary attack, they still need to position forces on the northern route. The mental strain of having a border with the Great Tiger Kingdom up north should be considerable for them. I think that our forces, together with those of the Orthodox Papal State and Zem, will be able to break through.”

“Got it.”

Fuuga stood up and drew the sword at his waist, holding it backhanded as he swung it down at the Imperial capital on the map. It went through both Valois and the table.

“We’re going with Hashim’s plan. Everyone, prepare for war!”

“““Yes, sir!”””

His vassals all rose from their seats and saluted him.

◇ ◇ ◇

While Fuuga was preparing to invade the Empire...

The Empire had noticed the moves he was making. Jeanne, the commander of the Imperial forces, went to her sister Maria to ask how they should respond. She had her soldier-face on as they stood with a map of the continent between them.

“The Great Tiger Kingdom is preparing to invade us. One route is from the north through the Federal Republic of Frakt, while the other is through their allies in Zem and the Orthodox Papal State to the east. His forces are large, and many of the soldiers are recently recruited, so I expect they will aim to strike fast and decisively. No matter which route they take, we can expect them to come straight for Valois.”

“How much greater are their forces?”

“With the loss of the Frakt Federation and Meltonia, our forces now amount to less than 250,000 men. If you include his allies, Fuuga has 400,000. That’s less than twice as many as us.”

“I see...” Maria said, nodding. “Then there’s no chance they’ll split their force perfectly in two.”

“Agreed. If they had double our strength, that would be one thing, but without it, they run the risk of being defeated in detail. The steep mountains of the Star Dragon Mountain Range lie between the two routes, so it will be hard for them to communicate. I can’t imagine that Fuuga or his advisor Hashim would employ such an amateurish plan.”

“Yes, I agree... That’s why I think one of the two must be a ruse while they focus their forces on the other. And this will be their real target.”

Maria pointed towards Zem and the Orthodox Papal State on the map.

“They’ll attack through their allies, not closer to their homeland...is what you’re saying?” Jeanne asked.

“Sir Fuuga trusts in his strength, while a schemer like Sir Hashim doesn’t trust others very well. He won’t think his allies would put up a good fight without him there to command. That said, Zemish mercenaries are experienced at acting as a diversion, and the Orthodox Papal State has a sizable military too. Without those two countries, they wouldn’t have considerably more forces than we do, right?”

“Well...even without them, they’d still have slightly more.”

“Then he’ll want them under his control so he can use them to his advantage. To do that, he needs them to join up with the main force. That’s why he’ll choose this route.”

Maria spoke confidently, but Jeanne was still unsure.

“It’s true if he takes this route, he can secure the men he needs. However, if he brings men who are not marching at the same pace with him, his advance will be slowed. Is it not entirely possible that he will use his allies as decoys while attacking from the north with a force purely of his own men?”

Jeanne presented her doubts, but Maria quietly shook her head.

“I’m sure that’s what Sir Fuuga expects us to think. It’s certain that if his goal is to destroy us and become the greatest power on this continent, that plan would work. But Sir Fuuga has grander ambitions. He intends to strike into the heart of the Demon Lord’s Domain, and perhaps to have a showdown with the Maritime Alliance to unite the continent. Which means...”

“He doesn’t want to use up his soldiers fighting us,” Jeanne said bitterly. “We’re being taken lightly...”

Maria didn’t respond. Instead, she placed a pawn on the border with Zem.

“That is why I will have you and Sir Gunther lead the majority of our forces to the east. Please, do everything you can to hold back Fuuga’s forces as they come in from Zem and the Orthodox Papal State.”

“Yes, ma’am! Understood.”

Jeanne clicked her heels together, stood up straight, and saluted.

“But what will we do about the northern route?” she asked.

“I have Sir Krahe defending us with his personal forces there. He will join up with the knights and nobles who have land in the north. That should be enough to deal with a decoy army.”

“In the north...?”

Maria’s comments made Jeanne look hesitant.

“Jeanne?”

“Oh, no... Sir Krahe is an odd one, but his loyalty to you—or his faith, rather, is abnormally strong. It’s just...Lumiere and all of them have their lands in the north.”

Lumiere was the Empire’s young and talented top bureaucrat. And she had also repeatedly objected to Maria’s policies on domestic issues.

Ever since Maria rejected her advice that “the Empire should take part of the buffer zone too” as the Great Tiger Kingdom was seizing the territory, she had secluded herself in her own domain.

“It’s not just Lumiere. The northern regions were confused by your sudden abolition of slavery, so many of the knights and nobles are pushing back against that.”

Jeanne’s comment made Maria nod sadly.

“Yes... That’s why it’s best to have them focus on defending their own lands. We’d be in trouble if they collaborated with Fuuga’s forces on the front lines. It’s my fault for not doing a better job of keeping them attached to us though.”

“Sister...” Jeanne couldn’t help but address her not as a soldier, but as a family member.

Maria smiled at Jeanne as she stood up and walked to the window.

“Hey, Jeanne? What do the soldiers think about fighting the Great Tiger Kingdom?”

“Everyone is highly motivated! They want to fight for the country, and for you! Many of the knights and nobles criticize your policies as being too passive, but those of lower birth understand! They know it’s your politics that have protected their families!”

Jeanne spoke from the heart, but Maria’s expression was unchanged.

“Then...what of the common people?”

“They love you, Sister! I...never really respected you for it, but the way you sang and danced on the broadcast made a fine lorelei that everyone loved! They’re prepared to endure any hardship for you!”

“I imagine they are,” Maria murmured, running her fingers along the window glass. “The one the people love, getting them caught up in a war... It’s almost as if...I’ve brought the war upon us.”

“No! That’s absurd!”

“Jeanne.” Maria walked over to Jeanne, took her hand, and wrapped both her own around it. “No matter what happens, I want you to survive. You are not allowed to throw your life away.”

“Sister...!” Jeanne gritted her teeth and pulled her hand away. “I will protect you, Sister! I will protect you and our country to the end!”

Then, saluting, Jeanne said, “Excuse me,” and left the room.

Left behind, Maria dragged herself to the bed and collapsed into it. She turned onto her side, clenched the sheets, and mumbled. “Sir Souma... I really...”

Kuu smiled wryly. “I’m amazed you can say that. I hear you’re even more popular with the ladies than I am. Bet you’re getting more tail than you know what to do with, am I right?”

Nike had been famed as a beautiful young spearman in the Union of Eastern Nations, so he’d been looked at affectionately by many women of different races since coming to the Republic. Kuu became jealous when he’d noticed, and his wives called him out for it; Taru with silent fury and Leporina with a teary-eyed lecture. The two of them had learned how to keep their man under their thumb while they were in the Kingdom.

“I prefer to be the one making offers, not receiving them,” Nike said with a shrug. “If there was someone well-tempered and dignified like my sister Mutsumi, I just might go after her.”

Now it was Kuu’s turn to look at Nike in dismay.

“They’ve got a word for people like you in bro’s world, you siscon.”

“Siscon? What’s that? Some sort of title?”

“You know what, forget it... More importantly, you know what we’re doing next, right?” Kuu asked, regaining his composure as the head of the Republic.

Nike also snapped back into serious mode and said, “Yes. We keep intimidating them as we close in on the city, yeah? Making as big of a show of it as we can.”

“Yeah. Zem’s got something like 100,000 troops in total, but most of them are out supporting Fuuga. When you consider that they need to have troops on their border with Friedonia too, even if that place is one of their key defensive positions, they can’t have left even 10,000 guys in there.”

“And that’s why we’ll be able to intimidate them—acting like we could crush them underfoot easily and getting them to run away, right? If our enemies are smart, they’ll likely pull back their defensive lines to concentrate their forces.”

“...Basically.” Kuu let out a mischievous chuckle. “Bro and his prime minister only ordered us to intimidate them. If the enemy there tells their guys who are out supporting Fuuga that their homeland’s under attack, they’ll get antsy and want to go home. That’ll be our job done.”

“Then is there any need to force an attack?”

“What do you mean? If I’m coming out all this way, then there’s no problem with having a city or two to show for it.”

With a boyish grin on his face, Kuu continued.

“Let’s call in Taru to turn the cities we take into impregnable fortresses. She’s got all these ideas that she had to give up on because of the pushback there’d be if we did them in one of the Republic’s cities. But a city we took off the enemy? We can remodel it all we like and they won’t be able to complain much. This place looks like it’s got potential for agriculture too... Oh, I know! We’ll drill a tunnel through this mountain and hook it up to the Republic! That’ll make maintaining our supply lines easier too!”

Nike’s eyes widened as he realized that despite the innocent look on his face, Kuu was steadily thinking through how he’d rule the area after the war. As carefree as he might seem, Kuu was fit to stand at the top of a nation, and Nike now served him.

“Well, I don’t see a problem with that,” Nike replied, subconsciously tightening the grip on his spear. He was too proud to let it show on his face, so he deliberately remained aloof in his response. “I know I’d prefer to be somewhere less cold. That city looks like it’d fit the bill.”

“Sure would. If the mercenaries defending the place put up a resistance, I’ll be counting on you to show us your stuff. Let’s race up the walls together and send them packing.”

“You’re going to the front line too, Master Kuu? If you don’t hold back a little more, Lady Taru is going to get upset, you know?”

“Ookyakya! Well, keep it a secret from her!”

In the middle of their friendly banter...

“Jeez! Would you two stop talking like I’m not here?!” Leporina protested, still in an embarrassing position.

◇ ◇ ◇

Also at the same time, on the east edge of the Great Tiger Kingdom, countless ships appeared in the open sea next to a port city on the coast...

These vessels of varying sizes, towed by sea dragons and horned doldons, belonged to the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago Kingdom’s fleet. Responding to changes in naval warfare, the Archipelago Kingdom had worked with the Kingdom of Friedonia to augment their existing fleet of wooden and ironclad ships with steel battleships like the Albert II. These new ships could carry large cannons and anti-air repeating bolt throwers.

Incidentally, Shabon had said to Souma, “I would like an island-type carrier. I will pay for it, so would you please give us one,” but obviously he had to refuse. However, Shabon had learned to negotiate from Kuu, and was far more persistent than Souma and the others expected. To that end, they had agreed that once enough new carriers were built and it was time to retire the originals, she could have one. Shabon was currently developing into a determined and stubborn queen.

Nine-Headed Dragon Queen Shabon was on the bridge of the largest, most impressive battleship in her fleet, the New Dragon King.

“They are far too defenseless... Did they never consider that we might attack by sea while Sir Fuuga is away?” Shabon said to Kishun, her royal consort and prime minister. She watched the soldiers of the port city run around willy-nilly in response to the arrival of the fleet.

“Who can blame them?” Kishun said in response. “Sir Fuuga’s people are of the steppes, masters of war on land. They have never been attacked from the sea, so they cannot be expected to be wary of such an event. I am sure that he simply left the task of ruling this port city to its former lord when they submitted to him.”

“Just like Sir Souma told us, then?”

In the past two years, Souma had explained the importance of sea power to Shabon, as well as Fuuga’s presumed lack of awareness about it. This meant that the only country on this continent other than the Kingdom of Friedonia and the Archipelago Kingdom with a proper understanding of sea power was the Gran Chaos Empire. And he’d explained this to Shabon, who, due to the geographical makeup of her country, best understood the importance and was able to build her forces to take advantage of it.

If he had kept it secret, he could have built the Kingdom’s naval forces into a power unmatched by any other country’s, but that would have led to pushback, and likely the breakup of the Maritime Alliance. If the Archipelago Kingdom would become hostile to him and start engaging in piracy, that would be incredibly tough to deal with.

Instead, Souma and Hakuya had decided it was best to explain it to her from the beginning and arrange things so that they both benefited. Even if the Kingdom’s fleet was not absolute, so long as they had the strongest fleet in the Maritime Alliance, they could maintain peace at sea.

Shabon smiled a daring and regal smile. After having given birth to two children, she was developing a dignified presence that rivaled Juna’s or Excel’s.

“Then we will have to show them what it means to fight at sea.”

“Indeed.” Kishun nodded. “We will teach them the importance of being able to make and act on decisions immediately.”

Shabon swung her arm towards the port city. “As planned, our first target is the artillery battery in the port. Our second is the military ships in port. Let us neutralize them before they can come out. All ships, open fire.”

“Roger. All ships, open fire!”

Boom! On Shabon and Kishun’s orders, the New Dragon King’s guns roared.

With that as their signal, the rest of the fleet began bombarding the port with their cannons, lion-dog cannons, and other gunpowder armaments. The countless shells all slammed into the battery that had been built to protect the entrance to the port. These were not explosive shells, but ones that relied on pure kinetic force, so there were no showy pillars of flame or smoke.

Still, as the buildings in the artillery battery crumbled, it was clear to see that it had been neutralized. That was when the ships left port, possibly to intercept them, or perhaps to flee.

“Much too slow. They lack training.”

Shabon ordered her fleet to continue firing, and the New Dragon King’s main cannon roared once again. Its cannonball slammed into the largest enemy battleship—likely their flagship. Even at a distance, they could clearly see its bridge collapsing and falling like a crumbling tower.

“Excellent.” Shabon gave a satisfied nod. “Our gunners are superb.”

“Indeed. Ours have far more experience than theirs do, after all... Now then, Lady Shabon. Our task from the Kingdom’s prime minister was to ‘destroy Fuuga’s military vessels,’ which he expected to be gathered here, correct?”

Nodding, she replied, “Yes. As well as the destruction of any warships under construction. Even if they failed to understand sea power, Sir Fuuga and Sir Hashim would not be amused that we seized control of the seas. So they had to be building a fleet at their port city on the east coast. We were directed to seize or destroy it.”

“And we do not have to take this city?”

“They have a land connection to it, after all. We would struggle to hold it when Sir Fuuga returns,” Shabon said with a shrug before pointing to the west. “More importantly, this city is near Sir Fuuga’s homeland on the steppes, so now that we have threatened it...”

“I see. It should serve to shake up the old hands among Fuuga’s forces.” Kishun let out a groan of admiration. “Then what do we do now? Their defenses are neutralized; if we are not going to occupy the city, should we at least destroy their storehouses?”

“No... It would be unwise to incur too much ire from the people who support Sir Fuuga. If all we attack are their military facilities, that will create a difference in the emotional response from the military and the civilian population. Treating them equally will only serve to unite our enemy.”

“Very true.”

“It would be best not to touch their food stores, lest people starve. I forbid any looting that targets civilians as well, of course. See to it that everyone has strict orders to that effect.”

“Yes, ma’am! It will be done.”

“However...” Shabon stuck her tongue out and smiled mischievously. “Let us help ourselves to the weapons and ammunition that they have no doubt stocked at the base. If possible, I would also like to drag back the warships that are under construction, as well as ones that have been neutralized. And all the resources they have for building more too.”

Kishun stared blankly at her for a moment before smiling wryly.

“You’ve become quite merciless...”

“Does that hurt your image of me?”

“No, it is most reliable.”

“Hee hee, good, then. I think we will have some nice souvenirs for Sharan and Sharon.”

“You mean to give the children warships as presents...?” Kishun gave an exasperated shrug.

Their children, Princess Sharan and Prince Sharon, were currently in the care of the former Nine-Headed Dragon King, Shana, who had been entrusted with the rule of the Twin Islands. They’d indeed both smiled wryly when they saw how the stern face of the former monarch softened and he became a doting grandfather.

Shabon clapped her hands and said, “Now, let us do as a pirate fleet should, and help ourselves to everything we can.”

Having become a queen and the mother of two infant children, Shabon had become highly reliable.

◇ ◇ ◇

At the same time, as Mercenary State Zem and the port city in the east of the Great Tiger Kingdom were being thrown into chaos, there was great confusion unfolding in the Lunarian Orthodox Papal State...

Thirty thousand forces from the Friedonian National Defense Force had appeared on their border. People screamed and ran about in terror, and all signs of life vanished from nearby cities and towns. They were all terrified by the forces of the Kingdom, and piled into the holy city of Yumuen as refugees.

Overrun by incoming people, Yumuen was left unable to send the defenders they had left there to the border.

Meanwhile, the source of that chaos—the Friedonian army composed of 30,000 soldiers mainly from the National Land Defense Force—made no attempt to cross the border. They were not firing so much as a bolt of magic or an arrow into the country. They acted as if they were “just passing by” as they assembled there, displaying their might to the Orthodox Papal State. And yet what terrified the people—the true source of such pandemonium—was the general leading this force.

They screamed his name as they ran.

“I-It’s Julius! Julius is here!”

“The bloody prince Julius?! W-We have to flee, quickly!”

Everyone from the common folk to rank-and-file soldiers was shaken by news of his arrival, and things devolved from there. They dropped everything and ran like people who’d panicked after encountering a bear in the mountains.

With an indescribable expression on his face, Julius watched this unfold from the main camp of the Kingdom’s forces. It was like he’d bitten into an unpleasant food...but with a far-off look in his eyes like he had resigned himself to something.

“The people of the Orthodox Papal State are awfully frightened of you, Sir Julius,” called out an easygoing voice from behind him.

Julius slowly turned to see Mio Carmine standing there in her armor. Because they were mainly using the National Land Defense Force, they had called in Mio and assigned her to be Julius’s second-in-command.

Incidentally, when she got the order, she and her fiancé Colbert had this exchange:

“Finally, a chance to serve as a warrior again! I have to participate!”

“Hold on, Madam Mio! What about the Carmine domain?!”

“I’ll leave that to you, Sir Bee, my beloved fiancé!”

“Since when did fiancé mean slave?”

“I hear people talk about being a slave to love all the time.”

“No, that’s not very witty, okay!”

Julius looked at Mio with dead fish eyes.

“Oh, it’s you...Madam Mio.”

“Yikes! You look even more dead inside than usual. What happened?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I’m just realizing how much it hurts to have things pushed in my face from when I was less experienced...” Julius sighed and looked towards the Lunarian Orthodox Papal State. “It was after I took over the Amidonian throne from my late father... I ruthlessly suppressed the believers who the Orthodox Papal State stirred into rebellion against me. My infamy must have made its way back to the Orthodox Papal State proper.”

“Ah... That would explain how scared they were, yeah.” Mio clapped her hands together as she made the connection.

Julius sighed. “I thought it was my only option then, and I still don’t think I was wrong, but...then Tia’s face flashes through my mind. I imagine her being saddened by the blood of all those I trampled beneath my feet.”

“Perhaps... But there’s more to her, isn’t there?” With a deliberate smile, Mio patted Julius on the back. “Tia looks innocent, but she’s got a level head on her shoulders. Even if she learned about your bad reputation, she has the capacity to accept it and keep it close to her heart. She’s not just going to sit around being sad.”

“Madam Mio... Heh.” Julius finally cracked a smile. “I never would have thought a daughter of the House of Carmine would say that to me... To think I had fought against them in the past.”

“Well, us military folk need to take the good with the bad. That’s what my father always told me. If you’d left the rebels to do as they pleased, someone else would have been hurt instead, so we can’t say your actions were all bad. And, look. Thanks to your infamous reputation, we’ve been able to stir the Orthodox Papal State without fighting.”

“Using everything he has, including my bad reputation... The prime minister comes up with some nasty ideas.”

It was Hakuya who ordered Julius to lead 30,000 troops to go stand on their border with the Orthodox Papal State. In light of his past suppression of their believers, Hakuya judged this would be enough to shake them, and was why he’d given firm orders not to take the troops across the border. Because there was no need to invade, everyone—except Julius and a number of soldiers like Mio who had been sent to guard him—were weak troops who might as well have been cardboard cutouts.

Mio looked at him quizzically.

“But are you sure we shouldn’t go in? The plan is for the Republic to attack from the south, the Archipelago Kingdom from the east, and us from the southeast. Meanwhile, His Majesty leads a unit to join up with the Empire in the west, right? If all four prongs of our attack were serious, wouldn’t Fuuga’s forces fall to pieces?”

“It would end in a quagmire...” Julius said, crossing his arms with a pensive look on his face. “If the Maritime Alliance were to launch a serious attack just as Fuuga was about to destroy the Empire, we could likely deal him a crippling blow. However, were we to do that, Fuuga’s supporters would deeply resent Souma. They’d see him as the worst kind of person, marrying Fuuga’s sister on one hand, then actively obstructing his brother-in-law’s dream on the other.”

“That’s a rather selfish interpretation of it, especially when they’ve gone and destroyed Madam Maria’s dreams themselves.”

“Well, that’s just how people are. Fuuga and Hashim would no doubt make a lot of noise about how unfair the Kingdom’s been to them. And from there it would turn into a quagmire—an endless war that went on until one faction or the other was destroyed. Although, Hashim likely diverted all his forces to the Empire on the assumption that Souma would never do something so foolish...”

“I see...”

Julius let out a sigh.

“This is likely where the real challenge starts for the Black-robed Prime Minister.”

◇ ◇ ◇

“What we need in this war is not victory. In fact, it would be unnecessary.”

At this point, Prime Minister Hakuya was in the castle at Parnam, in front of a map of the continent, explaining his strategy to Tomoe, Ichiha, and Yuriga.

“If we prevent Sir Fuuga’s conquest of the Empire while dealing him a major blow, that will earn us the enmity of those who lionize him. Once that happens, even if we take a city, it will not be stable, and Sir Fuuga will easily be able to show up to retake it. And to keep Sir Fuuga from invading us, the Maritime Alliance would need to constantly keep sending troops to areas Sir Fuuga is not in, forcing him to repeatedly take them back in a game of whack-a-mole.”

That was almost like the final stages of the Three Kingdoms period in China. In order to avoid being destroyed by the more populous and powerful Wei, Shu and Wu took turns attacking them, making them split their forces between the east and the west. There are those who believe that this is why Zhuge Liang and Jiang Wei continued the Northern Expeditions despite Shu having little strength as a nation.

“It would be a quagmire. The era would grind to a halt, and all factions would be exhausted. If a demon wave were to come from the Demon Lord’s Domain then, none of our countries would be able to recover. It would be impossible for our exhausted nations to absorb the fresh waves of refugees while fighting a defensive war. We need to give people...the impression that Sir Fuuga won.”

“That’s why you didn’t order them to take any of the cities, right, Mr. Hakuya?” Ichiha asked.

“Exactly,” Hakuya answered with a nod. “It might be fine to take one city, but if we reach for any more, it will give the impression we were victorious over Sir Fuuga. What we are looking for is to give Fuuga’s forces a Pyrrhic victory. The equivalent of him winning by decision.”

Hakuya pointed to the Empire on the map.

“What the Great Tiger Kingdom wants now more than anything is the Empire’s bureaucrats. These are the people who know how to run a large nation. If he can get his hands on them, then the vast lands of the Empire are only an added bonus. That’s why I expect he’ll use an insider to quickly assault the Imperial capital and force Madam Maria to surrender. In fact, it would be a problem for him if Madam Maria were to die. Should that happen, he would invoke the wrath of her supporters and the newly acquired Empire would be unruly, leaving him unable to assign his new administrators to positions in the Great Tiger Kingdom. He’s going to want to take the citizens of the capital hostage in order to force Madam Maria to surrender. However, anyone who knows Madam Maria knows that is wishful thinking. Because she is the type who would choose her own death over surrender if she thought that was what was best for the people of the Empire.”

“That’s what Big Brother said too,” Tomoe interjected. “He said that’s the kind of person Maria is.”

Hakuya nodded. “Yes. If that happens, Sir Fuuga and his people won’t be able to get what they want. The Great Tiger Kingdom and the Empire will both be harmed, and no one will benefit from it.”

“Yeah. That’s why I decided to cooperate with Sir Souma,” Yuriga said, crossing her arms and scratching her cheek. “I told my brother, ‘If I’m going to marry Sir Souma, I need to put the Kingdom’s interests first,’ but I don’t want either country to get hurt. I want to do everything I can to ensure that both sides benefit. That said, after listening to Mr. Hakuya, I think my brother shouldn’t completely destroy the Empire right now.”

“Yuriga... Are you okay with this?” Tomoe asked, worried, but Yuriga nodded.

“My brother needs to learn. There are some things you can’t get by winning all the time.”

“It may be that we would benefit from both their countries collapsing... With the Empire destroyed and the seeds of unrest sown in the Great Tiger Kingdom, that would serve to elevate the importance of the Maritime Alliance.”

When Hakuya said this, Tomoe blinked at him.

“No...! Then we’d be abandoning Maria and Jeanne. You and Big Brother have been friends with them all this time, haven’t you?”

“We have. But even as a prime minister, there are times when I may be pushed to make such decisions. Madam Jeanne understands this. That’s probably why she told me I didn’t have to strain myself on her account. I...couldn’t find a way to save the Empire in its current state. That being the case, I couldn’t put my own feelings first and send our people to intervene in a war because of my personal affection for her.”

“Mr. Hakuya...”

Seeing the pained look on Tomoe’s face, Hakuya suddenly smiled.

“But one word from His Majesty changed the conditions entirely.”

The day Jeanne had rejected his help...

“It is impossible to protect this country and maintain the Empire. If we recklessly try to defend both, it will turn into a quagmire. No matter how I think about it...I can’t find the answer I want.”

As Hakuya hung his head, Souma told him this: “There’s no need to keep the Empire perfectly intact. Maria wants the Empire to shrink.”

When he heard that, Hakuya snapped his head up, eyes wide with surprise. Souma continued.

“Maria is exhausted with the current situation where she is the only person supporting an empire that’s far too massive. All this time, she’s wanted to find a way to peacefully dismantle it. She opened up to me about that back when we met in Zem.”

“I can’t believe the Saint of the Empire would say that...”

“Listen, Hakuya. You said it was impossible to maintain the Empire, but if there’s no need to, then we can choose a slightly better future, right? After all, we’ve got Fuuga, who wants more land and people, and Maria, who wants to cut some land and people loose. I’ll bet you could find a way to make this work out in a way that saves Maria and Jeanne, couldn’t you?”

Then, moving to another place and showing him the preparations he’d been making, Souma said this to Hakuya: “I want you to use that head of yours to devise the optimal future for us.”

Seconds later, when our faces parted, his eyes were wide. I chuckled at his goofy expression.

Then, as he stared at me in a daze, I told him:

“From now on, I think I’ll do what I want without holding back. So...accept me for everything that I am.”

Hakuya was predicting the new empire would be in a personal union with the Kingdom of Friedonia. If you looked at the closeness of the relationship between Souma and Maria, it was entirely possible to predict she would marry him now that she was no longer an empress. That would mean that Souma would be entrusted with the imperial title like he had the princely title of Amidonia. But unlike the Principality, which had been their neighbor, the Empire was not connected to them geographically, so it would be difficult to annex. This meant there would be a personal union headed by Souma to strengthen relations between the two countries, while the actual ruling would be done by their new ruler Jeanne. In that situation, Hakuya could be the prime minister of both countries.

Jeanne looked at him, confused.

“Are you sure? It’s going to be difficult, you know?”

“I am prepared for that. His Majesty told me to be ready for it too.”

“You’re really okay with coming to the Empire?”

“I find myself looking forward to it, surprisingly enough...” Hakuya wore a faint smile that you would never have expected from him normally. “I hear that the Great Library of Valois is even more wonderful than the archives we have in the Kingdom.”

“Murgh... Your number one reason is books?”

“Heh, certainly not. My number one is you, of course.”

“Well, that’s fine then.” Jeanne took Hakuya’s hand. “I suppose...I’ll be able to touch you whenever I like from now on.”

“For so long as I live.”

“I’m starting to feel like I can give it my best. But that means I’ll have to get used to ordering you around...”

With that said, Jeanne let go of Hakuya’s hand and patted the seat beside her.

“First, I’d like you to sit beside me.”

“By your will.”

Hakuya sat next to Jeanne as directed. Jeanne kept going.

“Let’s see. I think I’ll have you put your arm around me next.”

“Heh, is that an order?”

When Hakuya pointedly asked that question, Jeanne smiled shyly.

“No. It’s a cute request from the woman who’s going to be your wife.”

◇ ◇ ◇

Around two o’clock that afternoon, the Friedonian National Defense Force arrived in Valois.

Fuuga seemed uninterested in continuing the war, and the forces of the Great Tiger Kingdom had broken the siege of the Imperial capital, so the National Defense Force deployed across from them. This was done intentionally in case Fuuga’s forces desired to keep fighting.

While the National Defense Force led by Excel and Ludwin kept the forces of the Great Tiger Kingdom in check, Liscia came to Valois Castle with Aisha. Naden and I met with them in the castle’s governmental affairs office.

“Souma, you okay? You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?” were the first words out of Liscia’s mouth as she started touching me all over, checking for injuries. I felt like now that she was the mother of two infants and helped the other queens with theirs too, she was even more prone to fussing over me.

I smiled wryly and placed a hand on Liscia’s shoulder.

“I told you, I’m fine. You saw the broadcast, right? I’ve been in the castle ever since.”

“But you caught Madam Maria as she was falling, right? No one told me there’d be a show like that, so I got the shivers.”

“Yeah...so did I,” I said. Thinking back... Because Maria opted to pull that stunt herself, I shudder to think what would’ve happened if I hadn’t made it in time.

Liscia waived to Aisha, who reacted with evident glee. She was wagging her metaphorical tail as she came over to have her turn with me.

“Your Majesty! I’ve missed you so!”

“Oh, come on, it’s only been a few days, right?”

“But you didn’t take me with you when you were going to a castle under siege,” she complained, her cheeks puffing up. “That made me feel so lonely as your queen and bodyguard. If I were with you, I could have mowed down the onrushing hordes of Great Tiger Kingdom soldiers.”

That’s an awfully violent thing to be saying with cheeks puffed up so cutely...

I smiled wryly as I patted Aisha on the head.

“Sorry. But I had to consider the possibility that if Fuuga decided not to be reasonable there might be a fight between our forces. I wanted to have you at Liscia’s side if it came to that.”

“Hrmm... Well, yes, I do want to protect Liscia too...”

“Hee hee, thanks for always being there, Aisha,” Liscia said.

“Yes, ma’am! You’re too kind!”

Aisha snapped off a salute in response to Liscia’s smile.

They got along great thanks to all the burdens they’d shared and the experience of raising children together. Although, you could say that about any two of my wives.

Next, Liscia smiled at Naden.

“Thanks for taking care of Souma, Naden.”

“Hey, it’s my job. I’m not much of a dragon, but he’s still my knight,” she replied with a smug snort. All the while, Naden’s scaly tail flopped back and forth, slapping the ground behind her.

She’s so easy to read. It always brought a smile to my face watching my wives interact.

“Hee hee! By the way, Souma?”

Liscia looked at me suspiciously.

“Hm?”

“It’s been in the corner of my eye all this time, so I’ve been wondering...what is that?”

Liscia was looking at the curtains covering the windows next to the door that led out onto the balcony. One of them bulged out unnaturally, wrapping around itself.

“Oh, that...” I scratched my cheek. “...would be the empress of this country.”

“Come again?” Liscia looked at me sideways. I could practically see the question mark floating over her head.

“Ah...Madam Maria? Would you come out already?”

The lump in the curtains twitched as I called her name. Then, spinning to unwind herself, she emerged bright red, her airy, long hair a little disheveled and her eyes somewhat teary.

Liscia stared, dumbfounded to see the normally calm and self-possessed Maria in this state.

“What...on earth happened to her?”

“I spoiled her like you said, and well...this is the result.”

I’d indulged Maria’s every whim the night before. Spoken and unspoken. This led to Maria mewling like a kitten until almost dawn. Unlike me, who had been caring for her all night, Maria’s complexion had been improved greatly by proper rest. That meant she was more conscious than I was.

Yes, having come back to her senses, Maria remembered all the things we’d done last night. Everything from the moment she kissed me, to the things we got up to after that—most importantly the time she spent acting like a kitty. So...

“Sir Souma, pet me moooore.”

“Mrrow... I don’t wanna wooork.”

She remembered all the times she’d talked to me in that purring voice.

When she’d woken up in bed, resting on my arm, and found me asleep beside her (I’d obviously hit my limit), a flood of memories from the night before came flooding back. By the time I myself woke up, Maria was too embarrassed to look me in the face. Instead, she was thrashing around with her face buried in a pillow. It was kinda cute.

“And that’s how we got to where we are now?” Liscia asked after hearing my explanation, and I nodded.

“Yep.”

“For Madam Maria to be so embarrassed... Just what did she do?”

“You should have seen the way she purr—”

“Don’t tell her!” Maria cried, covering my mouth to shut me up.

Then, trying to cover up the awkwardness, Maria cleared her throat.

“Um...it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Lady Liscia.”

“Huh? Ohh, yes it has. Since the leaders’ meeting in the Dragon Knight Kingdom, I think?”

“That sounds right. About two years then?”

“At the time, I’d never have guessed our next meeting would be like this.” Liscia looked into Maria’s eyes. “But you were already preparing for this at that point.”

“Yes, I was...” Maria said with a slightly apologetic smile. “The leader of a nation, preparing to break it up. It was cowardly of me, wasn’t it?”

“No...I actually respect you for that. You stayed true to yourself, defending those you wanted to defend—even if that meant the country broke up and people blamed you for it. As someone born into a royal family myself, and as a fellow woman, that’s so impressive it makes me jealous.”

“Oh...! Thank you, Lady Liscia.” Maria smiled, her eyes dewy with tears. She’d found another person who understood her.

Liscia, meanwhile, groaned, a difficult expression on her face.

Maria looked at her quizzically and asked, “Is something the matter?”

“I’ve heard from Hakuya what happens next. You’re probably not going to be empress anymore. And once you’re free, you want to come marry Souma, right?”

“Well...yes. If it’s possible, I’d like that,” Maria said, blushing and glancing in my direction.

Liscia, Aisha, and Naden’s eyes all stabbed into me. They weren’t blaming me per se, but I still felt guilty. It was like I was sleeping on a bed of needles.

Liscia let out a sigh. “Will I be able to do a good job standing above you as the first primary queen...?”

“I’ll make you look better. Unlike me, who cast it all away, you’ve bravely carried the burden your blood placed on your shoulders, haven’t you?” Maria smiled slightly at Liscia. “And I’ll do what little I can to support you in that, of course.”

“Madam Maria...”

“Hee hee. Though, now that I won’t be empress, I’ve found something I want to do, so I think I’d like to put that before any work in the castle.”

“And what might that be?” Liscia asked.

With a mischievous smile, Maria just put a finger to her lips.

“It’s still a secret for now,” she said. “We’ll talk when I’ve gone back to being ‘just Maria.’”

Maria looked so beautiful when she said that. What does she want to do? She hadn’t told me either, but it was clear she had some bright future penned out for herself. That made me happier than anything.

While we were chatting, a messenger rushed in to inform us that Hakuya and Jeanne had arrived. We all hurried to the courtyard of Valois Castle.

Jeanne was just coming out of the gondola as we got there.

“Jeanne!”

“Huh?! Sister!”

Maria ran over and dived into her sister’s arms.

Jeanne looked surprised at first, but was soon shedding massive tears as she hugged her, verklempt to see her sister was safe.

Seeing the Euphoria sisters reunited, I felt a heat in my chest. I must protect these two. It burned hot enough to make me swear that to myself.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Honestly, Sister! Do you have any idea how much trouble you caused for everyone?!”

“Yes...”

Once they were reunited, Maria and Jeanne asked the others to give them some time alone, and they retreated to Maria’s room. Now Maria was being forced to kneel on the bed while Jeanne gave her an earful.

Maria was shrinking into herself like a little girl despite being a woman in her mid-twenties.

“When I saw you jump...it nearly tore me apart! The soldiers at Jamona Fortress were all screaming too! You’ve always been like this! You don’t value yourself enough! It’s just unbearable for everyone else watching!”

“Yes...I’m sorry.”

“Yeah... You...better be...” Jeanne said, her voice rising in anger. But gradually it stifled as her eyes filled with tears. “Big Sister...”

“Jeanne...”

“I’m... I’m just so...so glad...you were...all right... Wahhhhhh!” Jeanne squeezed Maria tight as she bawled. Maria wrapped her arms around Jeanne and softly stroked her back.

“Jeanne. You’re making it a little hard to breathe.”

“Ohhh... Just put up with it for a little while...” Jeanne said, sniffling.

“Hee hee! Okay.”

Maria continued gently embracing Jeanne as she cried.

Some time later, once Jeanne had settled down, Maria stopped kneeling and had Jeanne sit next to her. The two sisters sat side by side on the bed. Maria was patting Jeanne on the head when she brought up something they needed to talk about.

“Hey, Jeanne. There’s something I wanted to ask you for.”

Jeanne sniffled before asking, “What is it...?”

“It’s something I can’t do well myself, so I wanted to ask you,” Maria said with a soft smile.

“A-Are you sure about this, Sister?” Jeanne asked hesitantly as she stood behind Maria, who was sitting in a chair.

Maria, however, was completely relaxed.

“Yes. Chop away,” she said in a chipper tone. That made Jeanne steel herself for what she had to do.

“O-Okay... I’ll start cutting, then!”

With those words to rouse herself to action, Jeanne squeezed the scissors she was holding.

Snip! The scissors snapped shut, and a lock of Maria’s beautiful golden hair fell and scattered across the floor.

“Eek!” Jeanne cried out in surprise, jumping backwards.

Jeanne had fearlessly faced Nata Chima, a man who was like the incarnation of violence. Yet now, she was reacting like a peasant girl who’d suddenly come across a frog.

Maria chuckled at how odd that was. “Hee hee, what are you screaming for?”

“B-But! Your hair!”

“Don’t make such a big deal of a little haircut,” Maria said, toying with her bangs. “Ever since I heard the story of how Liscia cut her hair as a show of determination, I’ve wanted to do the same thing. I feel like it will help me get a fresh start.”

Jeanne blinked repeatedly.

“You’re doing this so lightly?! But you’ve been growing your hair out forever, haven’t you?”

“I did it because I thought it would help give off the impression of a dignified empress, but...it’s heavy, you know? And hard to take care of. I’m starting to feel like it’s the embodiment of my title as empress.”

“Don’t say such heavy things so easily.”

“That’s why I wanted to take the chance to chop it off. But I’m not confident I could cut it as neatly as Liscia did, which is why I wanted you to help me.”

“That’s fair... It would probably go horribly if you were to attempt it yourself.”

Maria was kind of clumsy when it came to anything other than being charismatic or taking care of her administrative work. It was easy to imagine that even if she were just evening out her bangs on her own, she’d cut them strangely and then come crying to Jeanne for help anyways.

When Jeanne imagined her sister looking like such a goof, whatever strong feelings she’d had over cutting her sister’s hair rapidly cooled.

Maria beckoned her sister.

“Come on, Jeanne. The job’s not done yet. If you leave me like this, I’ll look weird, missing just part of my hair. I’d be too embarrassed to let Souma and the others see me like this.”

“Right, right...” Jeanne sighed and got back to cutting Maria’s hair.

Snip, snip. Each time the scissors went into Maria’s hair, strands of gold scattered across the floor.

“Isn’t it such a shame to do this though? You have such pretty hair.”

“Then once you’re done cutting, how about we gather it up and start a business of some sort? We could sell wigs made from the hair of the Saint of Empire, or maybe string.”

“There are certain maniacs who would appreciate it...”

“I’ll bet you Krahe would pay a lot, don’t you think?”

“None of what this is making me imagine is pleasant, so please, just stop...”

Snip, snip.

“Well, how about I give it to Sir Souma then? As his first present from his new wife.”

“His first present from you is your hair? That’s way too heavy!”

“I don’t think there’s enough of it to get in the way though?”

“I’m talking about the emotional weight!”

“Whaa...” Maria looked dissatisfied. “I thought it was a good idea. That black uniform of his has a lot of gold embroidery, so I don’t think he’d notice if I wove some of my hair into it.”

“You were going to do it without telling him?! Okay, maybe he wouldn’t notice, but that’s still heavy! Making him carry your hair with him at all times? That’s the kind of thing you do for someone who’s deceased! To remember them by!”

“Oh, but wouldn’t it be lovely for him to remember me at all times?”

“No... Your lack of romantic experience has given you strange ideas.”

Snip, snip.

“Oh, and you said it casually before, but...”

“Yes?”

“His new wife? You’re going to be marrying Sir Souma?”

“Yes...that’s the hope. We’ll have to talk it over still.”

“Erm...congratulations. It’s okay to say that, right?”

“Hee hee, thank you, Jeanne. But...”

“Hm?”

“You have a partner you want to share the rest of your life with too, don’t you?”

“Huh?! Ah, right...”

“Is it Sir Hakuya?”

“Yes. He’ll be coming here...um...to this country to marry me.”

“Oh, my!”

“Urgh... You’re making me feel embarrassed...”

Snip, snip.

“Sorry, Jeanne... I know I’m going to be putting a heavy burden on you from now on.”

“No, don’t worry about it. You’ve carried an even greater burden all this time, so I’ll manage. I won’t be alone, after all.”

“Hee hee, because you’ll have Sir Hakuya with you?”

“Don’t bring that back up!”

“Hopefully Trill can find someone nice too.”

“Ah... She’s currently going around acting like Sir Ludwin and Madam Genia’s nosy sister-in-law... If Sir Ludwin would just marry her... No, that wouldn’t be fair to him; she’d give him stress ulcers.”

“Hee hee, the drill princess would live up to her reputation by punching a hole right through his stomach, would she?”

“That’s not a funny joke if you’re Sir Ludwin... Anyway.”

Snip...

“We’re all done, Sister,” Jeanne said as she handed Maria a mirror.

Looking into the mirror, Maria’s own face peered back with her short and neat hair. She’d lost the dignity lent to her by her long hair, but in exchange, Maria’s face as an individual woman stood out all the more.

Maria tilted her head, inspecting all around her, then nodded. “Yes, I think I look good with short hair too.”

“You’re going to say that yourself...?” Jeanne sighed in exasperation.

Seeing her sister’s expression, Maria smiled and said, “Thank you, Jeanne. I finally got that load off my shoulders.”

Maria showed off her new hair to Souma and the others later. Their eyes went wide with surprise at first, but once they recovered, she received a whole lot of compliments.

Hearing all the positive feedback, Maria flashed Jeanne a triumphant peace sign.

“We did it, Jeanne!”

Chapter 12: Resolution

That evening, I received a report that Hashim had arrived together with the wyvern cavalry Fuuga had dispatched to go pick him up.

We would begin the peace talks between the Kingdom of Friedonia, the Gran Chaos Empire, and the Great Tiger Kingdom immediately. In order to prevent undue confusion, we would set up a camp in between the forces of Friedonia and the Great Tiger Kingdom, and keep the delegations from each side small.

The two sides were both on edge, making it clear they were ready to charge in the moment anything happened to one of their VIPs. In this tense situation, here is who was chosen for each delegation: The Kingdom of Friedonia sent me, Hakuya, and Aisha. The Empire sent Maria and Jeanne. The Great Tiger Kingdom sent Fuuga, Mutsumi, Hashim, and the traitorous Lumiere. Old general Gaifuku came as well, serving as a bodyguard.

Because the Kingdom and the Empire were already viewed as being on one side, the Great Tiger Kingdom’s team was the size of both of ours combined. Incidentally, I’d told Fuuga in advance to keep Krahe out of this because he would just complicate things.

“Lumiere...” Jeanne murmured when she saw her old comrade on the other side.

Jeanne had thought of Lumiere as a close friend, so Jeanne didn’t know how to feel about the fact she’d sided with Fuuga over her sister. Hakuya put his hand on Jeanne’s back, gently supporting her.

Lumiere, on the other hand, didn’t so much as bat an eye. In fact, she had such a serious expression on her face that one would suspect she was suppressing her own feelings. She’d done this in order to pridefully insist she hadn’t done the wrong thing.

Inside the camp, we were divided into our respective teams, and everyone but Aisha and Gaifuku took a seat. From where I was sitting, Hakuya was across from Hashim, Jeanne was across from Lumiere on my left, and there was a map of the Empire in between them.

“I’d like to get straight to determining borders for after the war,” Hashim began, and Hakuya nodded.

“Very well. Madam Jeanne, Madam Lumiere, is that all right?”

““Yes.””

And so, the four of them began discussing our respective domains. I was trusting Hakuya to negotiate for me, while Fuuga had Hashim negotiate for him. They were both smart, so they’d probably find a decent compromise. They’d be integrating the areas of the Empire that defected into the Great Tiger Kingdom as is. After that, it was a matter of working out the fine details.

While the smartest people in the room were negotiating, Maria, Fuuga, Mutsumi, and I discussed what was going to happen from here on in the larger sense.

“I wasn’t counting on you intervening now,” Fuuga said, sounding exasperated, but I just shrugged.

“My ally was in peril. I couldn’t just leave her out to dry.”

“Even though you might have gotten the entire world if you did?”

“Unlike you, I don’t want the world.”

“Um...” Mutsumi, who had been listening, raised her hand. “You called her your ally, but when did the Kingdom and the Empire form an alliance?”

“The secret alliance wasn’t long after I came to this world, so...since 1546, I think?”

“Huh?! It was that long ago...?”

As Mutsumi’s eyes widened, Maria chuckled.

“Yes. Souma has been a reliable ally ever since then.”

“Ha ha ha, you really pulled one over on me. I underestimated the strength of the bonds between the Kingdom and the Empire.” Fuuga scratched his head. It had been a while since I’d seen him without his helmet on.

Then he flashed a combative glance at Maria.

“Hold on... You cut your hair? Looks good.”

“Thank you. It was heavy. It feels like a load off my shoulders.”

“Did you cut off the guys in the north the same way?”

“Hee hee, I have no idea what you could possibly mean.”

Fuuga gave a toothy grin, while Maria’s smile was relaxed, yet had a mysterious intensity to it. Mutsumi and I watched, both breaking into a cold sweat as these two massively charismatic figures butted heads. It was like being thrown into a cage with both a lion and a bear.

I’ve got to mediate between these two...? I felt like I was going to be overwhelmed by the position I was in, but I had to keep myself together.

Suddenly, Fuuga spoke up, breaking my train of thought.

“So, how do you plan to settle things?” Fuuga asked, resting his cheek on the palm of one hand. “We can let all of them hash out what the borders will look like, but what’s going to happen to the Empire from here on? The Mankind Declaration’s pretty much dead at this point. Maria...or should I ask Souma instead? What are your plans for the Empire?”

“Maria should probably be the one to say.”

I looked at Maria. She silently nodded.

“First of all, I am disbanding the Mankind Declaration. You will have control of the north of the continent, while the Maritime Union will expand across the south. Our country will be participating in the Maritime Union as well, so the stagnant era that needed the Mankind Declaration is already over. At the same time, my country will completely relinquish our former vassal states the Frakt Federal Republic and Kingdom of Meltonia.”

“You’re stepping down from representing mankind? Souma, Maria, you both have the strength to take the world. Why are you so passive about seeking glory? I can’t understand it,” Fuuga said contemptuously, his brow furrowing.

Maria gave a small smile, and said, “It is not good to let your reach exceed your grasp. My wishes are smaller, but no less important.”

“The wishes you have not as Empress Maria, but as just Maria?”

“Yes.”

Maria nodded firmly and Fuuga let out a hearty laugh.

“You’ve got unswerving eyes like Mutsumi. I can’t disapprove of that.”

“Thank you.”

“So, what about the Empire itself?”

“The people who submitted to you and the lands they rule will not be returning to us, I’m sure... With the end of the Mankind Declaration, my country is greatly diminished. I don’t think it’s fitting to call it the Gran Chaos Empire any longer. Henceforth, we will be the Euphoria Kingdom. I will abdicate the throne, and my younger sister Jeanne will replace me as queen.”

“What...?”

The dismantling of an empire, the founding of a new kingdom, the abdication of Maria, the coronation of Jeanne... Even Fuuga had to be surprised, getting hit with all this at once.

“The Euphoria Kingdom? Wasn’t that the name of the country destroyed by Emperor Manas?” Mutsumi asked.

“Yes,” Maria replied with a nod.

The Gran Chaos Empire was founded when Manas Chaos, the King of Chaos, annexed his wife’s homeland, the Euphoria Kingdom. I’d heard that he might have felt guilty for doing it because Manas inherited the Euphoria name from the land he destroyed. Was that why later emperors used the Euphoria name?

Basically, Maria planned to restore the Euphoria Kingdom. The former kingdom had been situated in the northwest of the Empire, so this was a restoration in name only. But it would be enough to hold on to the nobles and knights who followed the traditions of that country.

Hakuya, Jeanne, and I were all surprised when we heard this. Just how thoroughly had Maria prepared for such a conclusion?

“What happens to you after you abdicate? You’re stepping down to take responsibility for this war, right?”

“Well...”

“I’ll be taking her,” I answered Fuuga on Maria’s behalf. “While Madam Maria is stepping down to take responsibility, we will be the ones to take custody of her. I won’t let anyone lay a hand on her, Fuuga. Not even you.”

Fuuga and those who had submitted to him likely wanted to capture Maria and persecute her politically in order to make the lands they had taken easier to rule. If they subjected her to a kangaroo court, loudly crowing about the righteousness of their own actions, it’d make great propaganda. But I wasn’t going to let them do that.

“I’m fine with this being a win for you on paper, at least. The Great Tiger Kingdom was able to secure human resources, and minus any deaths during skirmishes, you haven’t lost anything. But if you’re going to demand custody of Maria, reparations, or anything more, that will change.”

“Do you think you could win a fight with me...?” Fuuga glared at me. He was scary, but I held my ground.

“Yeah. Or force a tie that only hurts both of us if I couldn’t. You’d lose your ‘win’ here if that happened. That ought to be a painful blow to you when constant victory is what lets you bring people together.”

“Yeah, you’ve got a point.”

Oh, so he gets it himself then? That was a relief.

Fuuga looked at Maria. “What’re you going to the Kingdom for? To marry Souma?”

“I hope so.”

“My sister Yuriga’s there too, you know?”

“Well, from what I’ve heard, we’ll get along swimmingly. I hear that Miss Yuriga’s decided that you can’t defeat Sir Souma as you are now. I think we’ll get along fine.”

Seeing the smile on Maria’s face, Fuuga gave an exasperated shrug.

“Too many tough women out there these days. They keep defying my expectations.”

“I found that out a long time ago...” I murmured.

“I’ll bet,” Fuuga said with a wry smile.

◇ ◇ ◇

As Souma, Maria, Fuuga, and Mutsumi were having a surprisingly relaxed discussion of what was to come after the war, Hakuya the Black-robed Prime Minister and Hashim the Wisdom of the Tiger were engaged in an intense war of words.

Hashim slammed his hand down on the map between them.

“We currently hold the east of the Empire as far as Jamona Fortress,” he said. “That land is an important connection between Zem and the Orthodox Papal State. We’ll be keeping it.”

Hakuya retorted, “If you return some of the northern lands of the Empire along the coast, I will be willing to accept that.”

“These lands have already fallen to us.”

“Then you should exchange other lands for them. There are a number of knightly and noble houses in the northern territories that chose loyalty to the House of Euphoria despite finding themselves surrounded by members of the Fuuga faction. We will take custody of them, so you can redistribute their lands.”

“But domains that have ports are valuable.”

“And we will be conceding territory that is important for overland shipping, so it is an equal trade. Madam Maria has moved most of the Imperial Navy to the south anyways. If we were to force the issue with our fleet, do you suppose that you could defend that territory?”

“Not likely... Very well, then we will take some land north of Jamona Fortress.”

“That is inevitable, I suppose... Let’s discuss the three cities the Republic has seized from Zem.”

“You’re not going to give them back even if we ask, right?”

“Right. While they are part of the Maritime Alliance, the Republic is an independent nation, so I’d like to negotiate that matter separately.”

“Heh, it’s no great pain to us if Zem loses territory, but... This one, near the center, they’ll have to give back. If they do that, they can keep the other two.”

He wants them to return the city that will be hardest to defend in the event of an attack, does he? Hakuya thought. “I will pass the message to Sir Kuu.”

The two of them were both brilliant minds, so they understood what was important to their own countries, what wasn’t, where would be easy to defend, and where would be hard to attack. They saw where the points of compromise were in these negotiations, so they didn’t waste time holding out to try and maximize the amount of territory they gained. They decided on the apportionment of territory after the war appropriately and in few words.

Next to them sat Jeanne and Lumiere.

Jeanne had a pained expression on her face, while Lumiere looked at her with frustration.

They had been good friends, but often ended up disagreeing over Maria’s policies, and Lumiere had chosen Fuuga over Maria.

“Lumiere...”

“Don’t say it, Jeanne. I’ve chosen my path.”

Lumiere pushed her away at first, but then she gazed up at the ceiling.

“No...I thought I’d chosen my path, but looking at it now, I may just have been dancing in the palm of your sister’s hand. Now that I see the results, I can tell that your sister predicted we would lose faith in her and prepared to cut us loose in advance. It’s hard to say who gave up on who at this point.”

Lumiere let out a self-effacing laugh before looking at Jeanne.

“What I don’t understand, though, is why you provided support for the reconstruction of the north. If you intended to cut us loose, why provide support at all? If you hadn’t, it would have been a financial blow against Fuuga when he acquired the territory.”

“I think...Sister was torn over what to do,” Jeanne said with a glance over at Maria, who was chatting with Souma and the others nearby. “Up until now, she always tried to be the empress people believed in. But she’d reached her limit. I think that if you’d continued to believe in her, she’d have kept going, but if you gave up on her, then that was that... That’s why she kept working for the benefit of the northern territories until just before the end.”

“If she had that kind of resolve, I wish she’d have used it to liberate the Demon Lord’s Domain!”

Jeanne pitied Lumiere, seeing the frustration on her face.

Ultimately, they’d just had different goals. Still, Maria and Lumiere each had their own positions to consider, so a large number of people got caught up in the disagreement, and the rift had developed into a conflict there was no coming back from.

Even so, I’m happy it turned out this way. Because my sister will finally be free now, Jeanne thought.

Soon enough, Hakuya and Hashim’s negotiations came to a close.

“Would you say that will do for now?” Hakuya asked.

“I suppose it will...” Hashim agreed.

Hakuya and Hashim exchanged a handshake that was entirely formal.

◇ ◇ ◇

Here is an overview of what was decided at the talks:

1. No reparations were to be paid by either party.
2. The Great Tiger Kingdom would not hold Maria responsible for the war and would not demand custody of her.
3. The Empire would relinquish the northern territories and the eastern part of the Empire.
4. 4) The lords of the relinquished territories would decide which country they wanted to belong to. (Most of the lords and knights of the north would switch their allegiance to the Great Tiger Kingdom.)

This whole war was to be known as the Armistice of Valois. People would no doubt view this as a victory for the Great Tiger Kingdom. While they were unable to get reparations, they did gain land and human resources, and only ended up at a disadvantage in one skirmish against the Kingdom of Friedonia at the very end.

Meanwhile, the Empire, having lost land and people, was viewed as the loser of the conflict. Their land forces were particularly diminished, and the core of their air force left for the Great Tiger Kingdom with General Krahe, so their ability to wage war on the ground was cut roughly in half. However, with their naval forces practically untouched and the decision made to join the Maritime Alliance, they were still a force to be reckoned with.

Maria abstained from taking responsibility for the crisis and announced the dissolution of the Gran Chaos Empire. With the founding of the new Euphoria Kingdom, her younger sister Jeanne would ascend the throne in her place. Jeanne immediately announced the Euphoria Kingdom’s intention to join the Maritime Alliance.

Now the continent was divided into two; between north and south, Fuuga and Souma.

The era of the three-way confrontation ended, and a new era of north-south contention began. The Great Tiger Kingdom pulled its troops out of the Euphoria Kingdom’s territory, and once the Friedonian forces had seen them off, they would return home too.

“Fuuga. What do you plan to do from here on?” I asked as we were preparing to pull out. “The Great Tiger Kingdom’s big enough. You’ve got the personnel to run a great nation now too. What else is left?”

“The Demon Lord’s Domain, obviously,” Fuuga said, the fire of ambition burning in his eyes. “What people want from me is a world without the threat of the Demon Lord’s Domain. The world’s neatly divided between you and me now. Once I firm up my support on the home front, I’ll finally be able to raise an army for the final liberation of the Demon Lord’s Domain. I’m gonna strike the final blow against the heart of what’s been causing this era of turmoil.”

Fuuga was fired up. This had to be what drew people to him.

“I see... Will it go that well?” I was uneasy.

That was partially because I’d seen that massive cube in the Star Dragon Mountain Range. I suspected there was something up north that this world’s knowledge wouldn’t be able to handle. Fuuga couldn’t just walk into the demon lord’s castle, slay the demon lord, and get a happy ending like this was some old video game. There was a lot to think about between the relationship between monsters and demons; the mysterious cube’s message to “Go north”; and the name “Demon Lord Divalroi,” which seemed familiar to me somehow...

However, Fuuga seemed unconcerned.

“We’ve become the greatest country on land. You people rule the sea. We’ll head for the north by land and by sea. Let’s change the times with our own hands.”

“Right...”

I could only give that noncommittal response.

Epilogue: That is Her Way of Life

—Some time after the signing of the Armistice of Valois—

When Fuuga’s forces had fully withdrawn from the newly decided borders of the Euphoria Kingdom and the world was at peace once more, Souma and Maria appeared together on broadcast receivers in fountain plazas around both of their countries.

“Hey! Look at Lady Maria’s hair!”

“Yeah. But she looks so peaceful now—like she’s been set free from something that was possessing her.”

“She’s so pretty... I wish I could be like her.”

Many in the crowd were surprised by Maria’s short hair. However, there was no shadow over her expression now. Seeing the peaceful look on her face, they were relieved to see that she hadn’t been forced to cut it or anything like that. For the citizens of the former Empire who had watched her throw herself from the balcony in despair, it was a relief to see her alive and smiling so peacefully.

“We have something to tell everyone in the Kingdom of Friedonia and the Euphoria Kingdom today,” Souma began, and then Maria stepped forward.

“It involves what has happened so far, and the futures of our countries.”

Then, the two of them went on to explain the Armistice of Valois to the people of both kingdoms. The northern territories of the former Empire would become part of the Great Tiger Kingdom, while Maria would abdicate the throne to take responsibility for their loss in the war, and her sister Jeanne would reign as the new Queen of Euphoria. They also explained the Euphoria Kingdom would join the Maritime Alliance.

Souma had prepared a new map of the continent, showing that the Maritime Alliance rivaled the Great Tiger Kingdom in size. Because he showed them a physical map rather than just telling them, it put the people of both kingdoms at ease. For the people of the Euphoria Kingdom who had narrowly escaped destruction at the hands of Fuuga, having their security guaranteed for the immediate future made them welcome this alliance.

“Now then... Jeanne.”

“Yes.”

When Maria called her sister’s name, Jeanne appeared on the broadcast and knelt in front of her. She placed the tiara that had marked her as queen on Jeanne’s head, saying, “From now on, I entrust you with this country’s future.”

“Yes, ma’am! I will work with all due diligence so that I don’t bring shame upon your name, Sister.”

With the formal transfer of power completed, Maria announced that to strengthen their country’s bonds with the Kingdom of Friedonia and also ensure that her influence in the Euphoria Kingdom would not be a hindrance to Jeanne, she would be marrying King Souma, the head of the Maritime Alliance. At the same time, they announced that Hakuya the Black-robed Prime Minister would be marrying the new Queen Jeanne as her royal consort.

Because Souma had saved Maria during the war and rescued the Empire from its plight, people in both countries supported the marriage.

Although the Kingdom of Friedonia and the Euphoria Kingdom were two separate nations, they would move as one. The people would informally call the combination of these two countries the Gran Friedonia Empire. And Souma, who was to become Souma Euphoria Friedonia, would be called Emperor Friedonia.

◇ ◇ ◇

With the curtain falling on the conflict, we left Hakuya, who was now prime minister of the two nations, with Piltory and his family in the Euphoria Kingdom and took Maria back to the Kingdom of Friedonia with us.

There was a mountain of work waiting for me when I got back to Parnam Castle. Now that we were working with two countries under one system, the amount of work that came my way had increased.

Liscia and I both looked at the high piles of paperwork with dismay.

“You know, this sight brings back memories,” Liscia said, and I agreed entirely.

“Yeah...and we don’t have Hakuya with us this time. Though, we do have more people than we did back then.”

“R-Right! I’ll do my best to help!”

I glanced sideways at Ichiha, who was clenching his hand with enthusiasm.

The moment I got back, I’d appointed him, Hakuya’s protégé, to be acting prime minister in his teacher’s absence. He had Hakuya’s seal of approval, and he’d be taking over Hakuya’s role in the Kingdom going forward.

“Huh?” Liscia tilted her head to the side. “Come to think of it, where’s Madam Maria? She’d be a lot of help...”

It was true, considering Maria had supported a great nation all by herself, that having her administrative abilities would be a great help. Not to mention her charisma. She could more than fill the hole left by Hakuya.

“Ah...I wouldn’t count on Maria to help,” I warned Liscia. “I mean, if we really can’t manage, she might lend a hand occasionally.”

“Hm? Why not?”

“As soon as we got here, she ran off, saying she had things she wanted to do.”

“Things she wants to do, huh? Well, we can’t force her if she doesn’t want to do it then.” Liscia sighed and shrugged.

Maria had worked herself to the bone for her people and country before now. We all felt that since she was finally free, she should do as she pleased for a while.

I clapped my hands and tried to change gears.

“Well then, how about we get to work? Liscia, call Roroa and Colbert... He’s going to need to put up with this for a while before assisting Mio.”

“Got it. I’ll send a messenger to the Carmine domain.”

“Ichiha, send any documents that need royal assent to me.”

“Will do, sire.”

Some time after that, Roroa and Finance Minister Colbert were in the governmental affairs office to discuss the budget.

Bang! The doors of the office flew open.

“Wh-What’s goin’ on?!” Roroa exclaimed as this unannounced guest came in without so much as a knock at the door.

Colbert and I were both surprised. We looked towards the door to see a “casually dressed” Maria wearing overalls and a shirt. The white hat she was wearing was just barely fashionable, but everything below that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a farmer.

Behind her was Naden, looking exhausted.

“Souma!”

Maria strode on over, walking past Roroa and Colbert to stand in front of my desk. Then, she laid a map of the country with a bunch of marks on it down in front of me.

“There’s been repeated crop failures in the village of Osahl, halfway between Red Dragon City and Lagoon City. It looks like harmful insects and lack of sunlight are responsible. It could lead to a famine there if we don’t do something.” We all looked at the map as she talked. “I’m requesting you send agricultural gelins to eradicate the pests and food aid to support the people for the time being.”

“R-Right. Got it. I’ll get on that right away.”

“Also, Roroa.”

“Whuh?!”

“The village of Ryan in the northwest is a center of trade and has a large population. I want to set up a school there. Do we have the budget for it?”

“Uh, listen, if you just ask me that all of a sudden, I’m not gonna be able to tell ya anythin’...” Roroa said, dodging the question, but Colbert signed and stepped in.

“We have the profits from the recent lorelei event, don’t we? Couldn’t you use those?”

“No, no, I was plannin’ on puttin’ those towards the next event...”

“I do believe I helped you with that lorelei event, didn’t I?” Maria said, rounding on Roroa with a pleasant smile.

Her beautiful and intense smile is intimidating Roroa... I could relate.

“You used my publicity to make that money, yes? Calling it a dream collaboration between the Prima Lorelei and the Singing and Dancing Former Empress? You’re going to tell me I can’t use that money?”

“Augh, fine! Take the money, ya darn thief!”

“Oh, goodness, a thief? That’s not a very nice thing to call someone.” Maria chuckled.

She had Roroa right where she wanted her. Well, it wasn’t easy outmaneuvering the woman who once ran the Empire in these sorts of negotiations. I sure as hell couldn’t...

This is what she wants to do, huh? I thought, looking at the smile on Maria’s face.

The night I’d arrived in Valois during the war, she’d told me with tears in her eyes...

“I didn’t want to just be nice to everybody!”

“I wanted to play favorites!”

And Maria had chosen to do just that. She began helping the people she really wanted to, those left behind by society without support. Shortly after arriving in the Kingdom, she had hounded Naden into flying her all over the place so she could investigate the situation in this country. Now that she’d found all these potential seeds of future discontent, she was going around remedying them one by one.

Basically, she wanted to do philanthropy. It was also the reason she’d cut her long hair.

Because going into the hinterlands usually meant getting dirty, the long hair was likely to get in her way. Without the pressure she’d been under before, Maria had now become incredibly aggressive about getting things done.

Having attained the result she wanted, Maria rolled up the map again and smiled.

“Okay, I’ll be taking off for a while. Oh! And I’m borrowing Naden again too.”

“Hold on! You’ve been riding me however you please, but the only one who’s normally supposed to ride me is my partner!”

“The partner of your partner is your partner. Come on now, let’s go.”

Maria talked Naden into it, then led her out of the office by the hand. Jeanne had said before that Maria was like a tempest, and, well...that’s exactly what she was like.

Then, as she was almost out the door, Maria stopped and turned to face me. “Oh! I’ll be back for our wedding. Love you, Souma.”

As she said that, Maria blew a kiss in my direction.

◇ ◇ ◇

After that, Maria refused to become a primary queen because she didn’t want the restrictions, and went on to do great things as our third secondary queen, a lorelei, a medical practitioner, a philanthropist, and in a variety of other roles.

She built fountain plazas in areas where the broadcast could only be listened to before, and rolled out equipment so it could be listened to in areas where even that hadn’t been an option. She built schools where there were none nearby, and supported industry in areas that suffered from poverty. Maria even made the case for improving our system of medicine, and got the motion to increase taxes to improve medical coverage to finally pass the national assembly where it had been defeated before.

“That was faster than I thought...”

“Sure was.”

Roroa and I were both flabbergasted when we heard this.

And with the funds she procured, we would go on to build hospitals and clinics all over the Kingdom. Sometimes she would hold charity concerts with Juna and the other loreleis, directing the money they raised to further help the needy.

And so, she came to be called the Angel of Friedonia.

“Wait, that’s a rank up from being a saint!”

“Hee hee, I wonder why.”

Afterword

Thank you for purchasing the sixteenth volume of Realist Hero. This is Dojyomaru.

I only have one page this time, so I’ll skip the silliness.

This volume depicts the collapse and rebirth of the Empire. At the same time, it’s also the story of Maria being set free. Maria has been appearing since near the beginning, but the story needed to come this far before she could be freed from the heavy burdens she was carrying.

Ironically, it was only with the combination of an ally like Souma and an enemy like Fuuga that she was able to dismantle her country. She’s a year older than Juna, which puts her in her mid-twenties, but I’m sure she’s going to go all-out trying to make up for some of those youthful days she missed out on.

On top of that, Jeanne and Hakuya’s long-distance romance was able to find its resolution. It was a long one too... How many years has it been since readers following the web serialization started telling me they wanted to see the two of them happy together? I never expected it to take until volume sixteen. But that’s just how heavy of a burden the Euphoria sisters were carrying, I suppose.

Oh, there was no room for Trill, so she has to wait until next volume.

Until then, thank you to everyone who was involved with this book and all of you who purchased it.

Bonus Short Stories

Maria Visits the Senior Queens (Liscia Version)

Hello, everyone. I’m the Maria who people used to say was married to her country. Now that I was going to get married to Souma, I wanted to chat with my senior wives more so that we could live together happily. This afternoon, I was visiting the daycare to learn about child care from First Primary Queen Liscia.

Liscia was pulling along a pair of twins with the same color of hair as her.

“This is Cian, and this is Kazuha. My kids with Souma. They’re four now.”

“Wow, what cute twins.”

I bent down to look at them. Kazuha looked at me with interest, while Cian hid behind Liscia. They were both adorable.

Kazuha pointed at me before cocking her head to the side.

“Mommy. Is she my mommy too?” she asked.

“Huh? I’m your mommy?”

While I was still surprised at suddenly being called a mommy, Liscia slapped her own forehead in dismay and let out a sigh.

“I gave birth before the other queens, so we all doted on these two. Roroa got carried away and started saying, ‘Mommy’s here,’ and the twins started thinking all of us were their mommies.”

“O-Oh, is that right?”

“Yes. Once even my own mother started saying ‘Mommy’s here’ to them, I did everything I could to stop it though.”

“I...can see why you’d feel that way.”

Cian, who had been hiding up until this point, said, “Mommy?” quietly and toddled towards me with a smile.

Oh, wow, this kid is just too cute, I thought. “Lady Liscia... Can I have him?”

“No! What are you saying crazy things out of nowhere for?!”

“I mean, he was scared of me just a moment ago, but the moment he thinks I’m his mommy, he smiles at me with no wariness whatsoever! I want to mother him!”

“Settle down,” Liscia said, punctuating it with a light karate chop to my head.

“Ow ow ow... Ah! What was I saying?”

“I see you’ve come back to your senses. Cian, Kazuha, go play with everyone.”

The twins responded with an energetic, “’Kay!” and took off, hand in hand.

Aww, I wanted to talk to them more... As I was thinking that, a blue-haired girl who was around three years old came over with a chestnut-haired boy who was maybe two or three. Oh! They’re cute too!

“This blue-haired girl is Souma and Juna’s daughter Enju, while the chestnut-haired boy is Souma and Roroa’s son Leon. They’re both around two years old.”

“Hello, Enju, Leon.”

I got down to their eye level to greet them, as I’d done with Cian and Kazuha.

“Hewwo,” said Enju in a slightly drawn-out way, giving me the smile of a future pretty girl. Meanwhile, Leon fidgeted shyly.

“Oh... They’re cute too.”

“Hee hee, they really are. Enju is fearless, as you’d expect from Juna’s daughter, while Leon is introverted, unlike Roroa. He must get that from Souma.”

Enju and Leon both hugged Liscia.

“Mommy Cia!”

“Mommy Ciaaa.”

They wanted attention. I stared at Liscia.

“You’re making them call you mommy too.”

“I-I don’t see the problem,” Liscia stammered, beginning to turn red. “They make my kids do it.”

I chuckled at how flustered she got. Lady Liscia then handed Enju and Leon off to a lady with wolf ears (I later learned she was Tomoe’s real mother) and brought a baby who was less than a year old to me in their place.

This baby with faintly blue hair was sucking its index finger, looking at me as Liscia held it in her arms.

“This is Souma and Juna’s second child, Kaito. Would you like to hold him?”

“Yes. Very much so.”

I felt the weight of the child I accepted from Liscia, along with a warmth in the air around him. Kaito looked at me and smiled.

Overcome with emotion, I looked at Liscia. “You all raise the children together and have a community of women who provide mutual support in child-rearing. It’s the sort of thing that could serve as a guiding principle for a nation-state.”

“That’s some complicated stuff you’re thinking about there. I can tell you used to be an empress,” Liscia remarked, sounding impressed.

I chuckled. “I want my own children now too.”

“Once you do...I’ll adore them with all my might. Just like the others.”

We looked at one another and smiled.

Maria Visits the Senior Queens (Aisha Version)

Hello, everyone. I’m the Maria who’s a little worried about gaining weight now that she’s been released from her intense workload as empress. Now that I was going to get married to Souma, I wanted to chat with my senior wives more so that we could live together happily. Today, I was watching the Second Primary Queen Aisha train.

“Hngh! Hah! Yah!”

With each cry of exertion, Aisha swung her greatsword downwards, causing silver hair to stream behind the beautiful and powerful dark elf warrior. My own little sister, Jeanne, was a capable warrior in her own right, but Aisha’s martial arts had a visible power to them that Jeanne’s didn’t. She had a natural intensity and techniques refined by daily training. No warrior in the Empire could have matched her.

“You really are strong, Aisha,” I said from where I sat in a corner of the indoor training area.

Aisha let out an embarrassed laugh, continuing to swing all the while.

“With my abilities so concentrated in the martial arts, this is the only way that I can be of service to His Majesty.”

The brown skin of her cheeks flushed red. Oh, my. She’s so cute it’s hard to believe she’s swinging a massive sword around like that.

“You keep up the effort even now that you’re a queen, I see.”

“Yes...! That’s true. I initially pushed myself on His Majesty as a bodyguard, so I wouldn’t want to neglect that duty now that I’ve become a queen.”

“But you’re the second primary queen, right? Hasn’t he asked you to stop doing dangerous things?”

“In this country, we use the people we have, even if they happen to be royalty. It’s not just me—Lady Liscia and the other queens are all still doing the work they did before marriage. Well, aside from Liscia, who carries the blood of the royal house of Elfrieden, and Roroa, who carries the blood of the princely house of Amidonia, the rest of us don’t need to be so stiff about things.”

I think that’s strange for a royal family though... The queens all raised their children together, and each had their own work. Souma tried to look after the kids as much as he could too, and I’d witnessed Liscia kicking him in the butt and saying, “That’s enough; go to work already,” several times now.

The king and queens each had valuable jobs, and because they were so busy with them, they divided the labor of raising children. It didn’t result in a situation where, after getting married, all that was left to do was struggle for power inside the family. It was so unusual...yet, at the same time, so comforting for me.

It lets me do what I’ve always wanted to, after all. I looked at Aisha as I was thinking that. Just as I had things I wanted to do, Aisha had her desire to protect Souma.

“Souma is a lucky guy, having a woman like you to defend him.”

“I wonder...”

Aisha stopped swinging. Is something the matter?

“Did I say something to offend you?” I asked.

“No, not at all. It’s true that I defend His Majesty in situations where my martial abilities allow me to do so. If Fuuga Haan were to attack His Majesty, I would make the battle last at least ten strokes. And yet...in any other situation, more often than not, he’s the one protecting me. As the king, His Majesty has a great number of people at his disposal, and he makes such tasty food too.”

Yes... I suppose that was true. There were times when you needed martial prowess in order to protect others, but the world wasn’t so simple that you could solve everything by strength of arms alone.

Aisha let out a short sigh. “I feel so pitiful at times like that. I don’t know how I should react when the person I hope to protect has to protect me...”

Aisha had the look of a young maiden in love on her face. Despite her incredible strength, she had a delicate side to her too. That had to be part of her appeal.

“I think it’s simple, really.”

“Madam Maria?”

I smiled as she cocked her head to the side in confusion.

“You should just say ‘thank you’ when he protects you. It makes you happy when Souma thanks you after you protect him, right?”

“Thanks for always being there, Aisha.”

“Sorry for the trouble. You really saved me there, Aisha.”

Aisha nodded as if remembering the times he’d thanked her.

“You’re right. It makes it feel like it was all worth it.”

“Yes. It’s the same for me. Jeanne was always helping, so when she thanked me for something, it just made all the exhaustion from my hard work go away. I’m sure Souma’s the same.”

“Thank you, Madam Maria,” Aisha said, smiling, then picked up a wooden sword that was lying on the floor. “It must be boring for you, just watching. Come sweat with me.”

“Uh... About that... Err...”

I tried to object since I’m not very athletic, but if I was going to be traveling around the kingdom, it might be wise to learn to defend myself. This was as good a time as any.

“Could you go easy on me, please?”

Maria Visits the Senior Queens (Roroa Version)

Hello, everyone. I’m the Maria who can only be described as “unemployed” right now. Now that I was going to get married to Souma, I wanted to chat with my senior wives more so that we could live together happily. This afternoon, I was called on by Third Primary Queen Roroa, who had a request for me.

When I arrived in a workroom for bureaucrats in the finance ministry, Roroa noticed me and started speaking in a coaxing voice.

“Hey, hey, Big Sis Mari. I’ve gotta li’l favor to ask ya.”

“Big Sis Mari?!” I’d never been called that before.

Roroa put her hands together in a pleading gesture, resting them against her right cheek and tilting her head to the side. It was a calculatingly cute pose.

“Settin’ our positions aside, I like havin’ older people to think of me as their honorary li’l sister. I’m already callin’ the others Big Sis Cia, Big Sis Ai, and Big Sis Juna, so that makes you Big Sis Mari.”

“Oh, I see... Huh? What about Naden?”

As a member of a long-lived race, Naden was likely older than her, as well as all the other queens.

“Nya ha ha...” Roroa let out a wry laugh. “Y’see, with the way she looks, it’d be strange for me to go callin’ her my big sis. Even Tomoe and Ichiha are lookin’ older than her at this point.”

Sorry, Naden... I can’t refute what she’s saying.

“Well, that aside, your cute little sis has got a favor to ask ya.”

“The little sister thing’s already a done deal, I see.”

“Our country’s gonna be comin’ together with your old country in some kinda two countries, one nation deal, right? So, there’s been talk of unitin’ our broadcast programmin’ too, while we’re at it.”

“Ohh, that would be convenient, yes.”

Each country had a limited number of broadcast jewels, which meant a limited amount of broadcasts. With our two countries working together, we would be able to afford larger budgets. There were only benefits to it, but...

“There’s close to a half-day difference in time zones between our countries.”

“Well, there’s nothin’ we can do about that. We could each make half the content and show the same things twice—in the morning and noon in each country. We’ll find workarounds.”

“So for music programs, it’d be like having multiple performances. That sounds reasonable.”

Roroa was always quick with ideas like this. As a large nation, we could make most things work in the Empire, and there wasn’t much call for creativity. That led to a lot of the bureaucrats becoming inflexible. They couldn’t have come up with ideas like hers.

“So, now on to the main ask. You were a lorelei in the Empire, right, Big Sis Mari?”

“Hm? Yes. I tried it out once, and a lot of people asked me to continue.”

“Mm-hm, I hear you were pretty popular. So, as our first program in the new unified lineup, I was hopin’ to do a Parnam Music Festival headed by a dream team of Big Sis Juna, our Prima Lorelei—the pride of the Kingdom of Friedonia—and you, the Empire’s Singin’ and Dancin’ Empress.”

A music program? And one where I’d be collaborating with Juna? I thought. “I’m no longer the empress, you realize?”

“Ya don’t have to be an empress anymore, but that’s no reason to give up bein’ a lorelei, is it? Big Sis Juna’s still out there workin’ hard despite bein’ married and havin’ two children. If the people hear that you and Big Sis Juna—who they all love—are puttin’ on a music show together, people’ll talk. I’m sure those with a nose for profit like Lucy’s folks at the Evans Company’ll be eager to put up the funds as a way of advertisin’ their businesses.”

“We’d be doing this for the money, would we?”

I knew Roroa had a strong sense for finance. But I had to question her fixation on making money; especially when she’d be using family members like me or Juna in order to do it...

“You want to help the weak, don’t ya, Big Sis Mari?”

Perhaps picking up on my hesitance, Roroa dropped her goofy smile and put on a serious face. It was undoubtedly the face of a queen.

“The important thing with money’s where ya make it and who ya use it for. If you’re just makin’ money for money’s sake, that’s exploitative. If ya give cash to people without them earnin’ it, you’ll make ’em decadent. Ya’ve gotta earn it, use it, spread it around, and keep that virtuous cycle goin’ as long as you can. Don’t ya think?”

“You have a point...”

My ears burned a little with embarrassment. Still, being the idealist that I was, it made me grateful for someone who would shove reality in my face. That was true of both Souma and Roroa.

“Okay...I’ll do it.”

“Ya will? Whew, you’re a lifesaver.”

The friendly smile returned to Roroa’s lips. She really made use of a lot of different expressions. But I wouldn’t lose to her on that front. I had the smile I’d cultivated in my time as empress.

“But you’ll be diverting the profits to my charity work, won’t you?”

“Huh? Uh, I was hopin’ to use some of ’em to fund the next event...”

Roroa averted her eyes. I wasn’t going to let that fly.

“You’ll be making money off of me. You’ll let me decide how it’s used, won’t you?”

I smiled at her. Roroa finally caved.

“Aw, fine! I get it! This time it’ll be a charity event!”

“Hee hee, thank you.”

I may have found myself a good backer.

Maria Visits the Senior Queens (Juna Version)

Good evening, everyone. I’m the Maria who’s decided to live for the people and her beloved family. Now that I was going to get married to Souma, I wanted to chat with my senior wives more so that we could live together happily. Tonight, I was appearing as a guest on a music program with First Secondary Queen Juna.

It was Roroa’s idea to hold a music festival where Juna Doma, the Prima Lorelei—pride of the Kingdom of Friedonia—and I, the Empire’s Singing and Dancing Empress, would appear on stage together. Clever, isn’t she? I was wearing my lorelei dress—which Jeanne had kindly sent from Valois Castle—for the first time in a long while.

The broadcast jewel always projected images from the present, so we only got one chance to get things right.

“Maria?” Juna called out to me as I was waiting in the wings, feeling the pressure.

The blue-haired beauty was wearing an outfit with a thin veil that managed to balance both elegance and sexiness. It was graceful, yet at the same time sensual. Even though we were both women, I found myself a bit short of breath when I saw how beautiful she was.

Juna smiled at me.

“Are you feeling tense?”

“Yes. It’s been a while since I’ve sung in front of people.”

“I understand. I’ve heard your schedule was always incredibly packed.”

Her eyes were sympathetic, her words compassionate. There was probably no one who rivaled her ability to read people’s hearts. Souma had told me that Juna had been there to comfort and support him when he was struggling more times than he could count.

Juna gave me a soft smile.

“Do you like singing, Maria?”

“Huh? Uh...yes. I do like it. I used to sing for Father and Jeanne when I was little.”

It was a distant memory, from before I had the weight of being an empress thrust on me. Back then, I just loved singing and wanted people to hear me.

“I think...that’s why I had so much fun with being a lorelei.”

“Hee hee, you’ll be fine, then.” Juna pressed both hands down on her chest over where her heart was. “Songs are one with the heart. First, they come from the heart of the singer, and then come to rest in the hearts of the listeners. And they’re passed down and spread.”

With her left hand still over her heart, Juna reached out and touched my chest with her right hand.

“Just have to do as your heart commands, singing the way you enjoy. Maybe it won’t be a song that everyone will love, but a song you enjoy will move more hearts than a song you don’t. That’s what I believe.”

“You’re right,” I hesitantly agreed, putting my hand over Juna’s on my chest. “You’re the Prima Lorelei, after all. I’ll remember your advice and sing my hardest.”

“Hee hee! It’s embarrassing when you make it sound like such a big deal.”

What a mature smile. It’s hard to believe she’s a year younger than me. I was starting to feel a little competitive.

“Sorry if I steal the spot of Prima Lorelei from you.”

“I’ve already withdrawn that battle. I’m not concerned with how people rank us.”

“Oh, and what if I stole your popularity with Sir Souma?”

“That, I’d get upset about.”

Juna puffed up her cheeks angrily. I was satisfied to have gotten an expression out of her that was more fitting for her age. Soon enough, her face morphed into an intense smile.

“I understand. I’ll take you on with everything I have.”

“Yes. Let’s fight fair and square. As loreleis, and as queens.”

We exchanged harmonious smiles.

“Um, I’m the one feeling the most worried here, you know?” said a timid voice from behind us.

I turned to see a cute girl in a lorelei costume.

“Juna? Who is this?”

“This is Miss Komari Corda. She’s currently the top lorelei in both popularity and ability.”

When Juna said that, Komari looked at her with tears in her eyes.

“Ohh... When you say that, Juna, being number one among the active loreleis really weighs me down. You’re still incredibly popular with the people after stepping back from the spotlight, and I’m going to be standing next to this lady who used to be an empress too. Try to imagine what it’s like, standing next to you two and being introduced as the current number one lorelei.”

Yeah. I could see where she was coming from.

“Is that really true?” I asked.

“Maria?”

Sure, Komari felt less like a finished product than Juna. But I felt as though that incompleteness might draw people in too.

“It’s not possible to empathize with someone you worship, because you’ve placed them in a different place from yourself. Juna and I can move people’s hearts, but the listeners can’t insert themselves emotionally into our performances. If anyone here can let them do that, it’s you, who’s on the same level as them.”

“Yes. I think that’s part of your charm, Komari,” Juna said with a nod, taking Komari’s hand. “Your incompleteness makes people excited to see what you’ll show them in the future. That’s something that we, having reached some level of completion, can’t do.”

“Lady Juna, Lady Maria...”

As Komari teared up again, Juna and I reached out to her.

“Come on, let’s go, Komari.”

“Everyone is waiting for us.”

With a sniffle, she said, “Okay!”

Now, let the music festival begin.

Maria Visits the Senior Queens (Naden Version)

Good morning, everyone. I’m the Maria who just lost the job she held for many years. Now that I was going to get married to Souma, I wanted to chat with my senior wives more so that we could live together happily.

Early in the day, Second Secondary Queen Naden said she’d be going down to the castle town, so I joined her.

“Souma tells me you do the weather forecast, and also act as a sort of jack-of-all-trades in the castle town?”

“Well, that’s how it’s worked out, yeah,” Naden said, awkwardly scratching her cheek as we walked down a cobbled road in Parnam. “When I was killing time in town, I helped out an old lady who was in trouble. Then I did a bunch of other stuff, like delivering some things a customer left behind or moving a damaged cart out of the road. It kept happening to the point that people just casually ask me for favors now.”

Naden was a black ryuu from the Star Dragon Mountain Range. She had strength and mobility, which probably made her a big help to the townspeople.

“You lend an ear to the common people. That’s lovely.”

“It’s not that big a deal.”

I was serious, but Naden waved it off.

“Ah! Naden. Thanks for that delivery earlier.”

“Hey, Lady Naden! I’ve got good vegetables in stock, would you like some to take home? Your husband loves cooking, so he’ll be grateful for them!”

“Lady Nadeeen, let’s play hide and seeeek.”

The baker’s wife, the greengrocer, and a child walking down the road all called out to Naden like close friends. Naden turned and responded to each of them.

“Your kids are still little, right? If you need anything else, just let me know.”

“I’ll drop by on the way home, so hold onto them for me!”

“I’m showing someone around today, so no can do! We’ll play next time!”

So she played hide and seek too, huh? The number of people calling out to her never let up. My eyes widened with surprise.

“You really are popular, Naden.”

“They’ve all forgotten I’m a queen.”

When things settled down a bit, Naden said, “They respect Souma, Liscia, and the others like they’re supposed to. I’m the only one they treat so casually. Your people loved and respected you too, right?”

“They did, yes, but...that’s not always a good thing, you know?”

“Hm? It’s not?”

“No. People respect kings or queens because they don’t see them. Obviously, they see our faces over the broadcast, but they aren’t closely involved with us. That’s why the common people fear and respect royalty.”

“That...could be right.”

Naden looked somewhat, but not entirely convinced. I was telling her what I really felt though.

Thinking back to when I was an empress, I said I was doing things “for the people,” but never had the chance to actually come into contact with those people. I never spoke to them directly, so could I really hold my head high and say I was a good ruler?

“I think their relationship with you is healthy, Naden. If anything, I see it as close to ideal, the way you’re able to hear the voices of the townsfolk directly.”

“It’s not that big a deal. But I don’t mind hearing you say that,” Naden said with a smile. That’s when I had an idea.

“I know!” I exclaimed, clapping my hands together.

“Huh?! Wh-What was that about?”

Naden gave me a dubious look. I didn’t let it bother me. I grabbed one of her hands with both of mine.

“You have a lot of free time, right? Let’s use that time to travel the country together! Then we can meet people all over the kingdom!”

“Travel?! What’s this out of nowhere?!”

“If you let me ride you, I’ll be able to hear from people all over the kingdom. From the weak and downtrodden, whose voices rarely make it to those at the top too. With you there, we won’t need bodyguards. Naden! Let’s go hear from lots of people, and make this country better together!”

“H-Hold on!” Naden hurriedly shook free of my hands. “I respect the idea, but the only one who’s supposed to ride me is my partner, Souma, you know?! I can’t just let you ride alone and take me all over the place...”

“The partner of your partner is your partner. So it’s fine!”

“It’s fine? On what basis...?”

“Now, with that decided, let’s go and get Souma’s permission!”

I took Naden’s hand and started walking along.

Naden started protesting, “Listen to meeee!”

But...that’s fine! We were going to get along great!