Epilogue: Peace is Yet Distant

This place was the child care center that had been in the castle for a long

time now. It was mostly a place where people who worked in the castle,

such as the maids, left their children.

"King, play with uuuus!" one child yelled.

"King, let us ride on your shouldeeeers!"

I said nothing.

Sitting on the carpet, an adorable little wolf-eared boy of around three

was playing with a human girl. Meanwhile, a cat-eared girl who was around

the same age had occupied my lap and was rolling around on it. The cat tail

that grew out of her rear end was swishing back and forth.

"Hmm, I can't get up now, so just climb up on your own," I said.

""Aye!"" the kids cried.

The two who had been fooling around together started climbing up my

back. Yeah, they were pretty darn adorable. I had gotten used to them

hanging over my shoulders and touching my face all over now.

"Hee hee. You really are popular with the children, Your Majesty." The

birth mother of my beloved little sister Tomoe, Tomoko, watched us with a

smile as she folded the children's laundry.

When we'd practically forced Tomoe to become my adopted little sisterin-law, we had also had Tomoko take up residence here to work at the

nursery school. By the way, the little boy who was using his slobbercovered hand to touch my face right now was her eldest son (Tomoe's real

little brother), Rou.

"Big brother," Tomoe said, "I'm happy that you're playing with Rou and

his friends, but are you sure its okay? Won't Big Sister get mad at you

again...?"

Tomoe, who stayed here to help her mother when she didn't have to do

work negotiating with rhinosauruses, was busy soothing a baby. When I

thought about it, Tomoe was still only ten years old. What a good, reliable

kid she was.

"It's fine," I said. "I don't have a massive backlog of work to get

through anymore. Besides, I've left my Living Poltergeists in the

governmental affairs office to keep up with the work."

"Oh, I see," said Tomoe. "You can play the day away, then. Isn't that

nice, Rou?"

"Aye!" Rou raised his hand up straight.

He's so cuuuute.

I really liked kids. I could watch them toddling along with their little

steps all day. It stimulated a protective urge inside me. When my grandma

and grandpa had been alive, I'd helped out with book readings at the local

preschool, after all.

After I had played with the children for some time...

"That's an incredible look for you, Master."

When I turned to see who had called out to me, Carla was standing

there. In a maid outfit.

"No, I don't want to hear that from you, Carla," I said.

"...I suppose that's fair." Carla said, slumping her shoulders. Really,

when I looked at her...

"It's terrifying how badly that maid uniform suits you."

"Please, don't tell me... I feel the same way."

Carla was a dragonewt to begin with, so she already came with more

accessories than your average person. She had a tail, dragon wings, and

little horns. If you made her wear a maid uniform on top of that, it was too

many character traits piled onto one person, and she beamed with too much

personality.

"To top it off, isn't the skirt on that maid outfit awfully short?" I asked.

"D-Don't look," Carla said, holding down the front of her skirt.

The maids in the castle wore classical maid outfits with long skirts, but

with the one Carla was wearing right now, it looked more fit for working

the floor of a maid cafe. The skirt only went down to just above her knees,

and it was an airy dress type maid outfit. It made her figure stand out all the

more.

"Urgh... the head maid... said to wear this one..." Carla muttered,

flustered.

"Ahh. I thought it might be Serina's handiwork."

The head maid, Serina, was a talented maid, but she did have a sadistic

side reserved for cute girls like this. Apparently she enjoyed making them

wear embarrassing outfits, then watching the girls go through the shame

and agony of it.

What was more, the stronger-willed a girl was, the more she enjoyed

"buwwying" them, which meant Liscia and Carla were right in the middle

of her strike zone. Liscia had told me stories with a distant look in her eyes.

Buddha save both of them.

"But, still... Has it been a week since then?" I asked. "Is your training

period as a maid done now?"

"T-Training... Urkh... Ah..." Carla clutched her head.

No, seriously, what happened to you? I wondered. Weren't you just

trained in the basic skills you'll need as part of the maid force?

"The... The whip..."

"Whip?!"

"She used the whip... to hit me..."

"It was that hard?!"

"What's more, it was a special one, with a magic spell on it," said Carla.

"It wouldn't leave a mark where she hit me... But. It struck half with pain

and half with pleasure."

What's with that whip?! That's not for disciplining, it's for breaking them

in, isn't it?

"According to the head maid, 'The pain keeps you from giving in to the

pleasure, while the pleasure keeps you from bearing the pain by tickling

your ribs.' While I may have fallen to become a slave and a maid, I won't

let myself be reduced to being useless, so I was determined to learn my job

properly, but... that whip scares me. Maybe it would be easier if I could

have given into the pleasure..."

"That is because the maid force are the master's dogs," a voice said

pleasantly. "We have no use for a perverted sow."

"Eek?!" Carla shrieked.

When she turned around, Serina was standing there with a glossy smile.

Given that she'd just made Carla, who had fearlessly plunged into the

battlefield, shriek like that... just how scary was she?

"Is something the matter, sire?" Serina asked.

"...No, it's nothing."

Sorry, but as long as she doesn't have her sights on me, I'm going to

play ignorant, I thought. It'll be fine, Carla. I'm sure you won't die.

...Physically, at least. Emotionally, I'm not so sure.

"Now then, Carla," Serina beamed. "I believe I asked you to make His

Majesty's bed in the governmental affairs office, did I not?"

"No, um... Collecting the sheets of a man I'm closely acquainted with

was embarrassing, so I..."

"What are you talking about?" Serina demanded. "If you call yourself a

maid, eventually His Majesty and the princess will [censored], and you

have to make the bed where they [censored] and [censored] while it's all

[censored], while keeping a straight face."

"I-I really hope you'll spare me from that, at least?!" Carla said with her

face turning a bright shade of red...

Wait, huh? Aren't Liscia and I being indirectly embarrassed here, too? I

was feeling really awkward right now.

On top of that, Tomoe asked her mother, "What is [censored]?" and left

her struggling to answer.

Don't say things in front of a child that are going to affect their

emotional development...

As I was thinking that, Serina tilted her head to the side questioningly.

"Incidentally, sire. Are you going to be okay, sire?"

"Huh?"

"No, it's just that I see someone running this way from behind you,

sire." Serina smiled.

When Serina said that with a smile, I turned around to see...

"Oh, crap!"

I got Rou down off of my back, then hurriedly tried to run away, but... I

was grabbed firmly by the collar.

"Gwah!" I yelped.

"Gahaha! I've been looking for you, Your Majestyyyy!"

When I turned around, a muscular man who was just starting to show

the signs of old age, with his gray hair combed back and a beard in the same

color, was standing there with an overbearing smile.

When I had judged Castor and Carla, he was one of the two who had not

been intimidated by me and continued to defend them. It was the head of

the House of Jabana, Owen Jabana.

After the trial, I had hired him on as my personal educator and advisor

(and martial arts trainer). I'll talk more about that one in a parenthetical

later.

Oh, by the way, as for the other person who had defended the two of

them, Piltory Saracen of the House of Saracen, when I'd explained the evil

deeds of the former head of the house (his father), he had said, "My word...

I can't believe that my father did such things. I can offer you no proper

apology. Knowing what I do now, I am prepared to serve you to the bitter

end, sire. I will go through any peril for you."

He seemed to be thinking in the way you might expect from a serious

young man of the nobility, so I gave him the very dangerous mission he was

looking for. The mission of "Special Ambassador in the Elfrieden Kingdom

Embassy to be established in the Gran Chaos Empire." We were in an

experimental phase still, so there was no telling how far extraterritoriality

would protect him.

Now, back to Owen.

Owen was the type who could vociferously speak the truth to those

above him.

By his own account, "These old bones have nothing to lose. I'm going to

live out what little is left of my life being true to myself!"

He said he didn't have much time left, but it felt like even if I killed him,

he'd still come back somehow...

If I kept someone like this, who could tell his ruler the honest truth, at

my side, it would reduce the chance of me straying from the right path.

While I might have ordered Carla to die to stop me if it came to it, I would

prefer to make it to retirement without getting killed.

So, after a bit of this and that, I brought Owen on to help educate me,

but...

"Gahaha, sire! If you were free from administrative work, you should

have told me! Come on, come on, let's start our training for the day!"

I was silent.

It seemed that, in Owen's mind, education included physical education,

and any time I was free from my administrative tasks, he would try to train

me. If he caught me, it meant running, practice swings, mock battles,

everything on the training menu for a newly-recruited soldier.

"No, I have Aisha training me already, so..." I said.

"What are you saying? The princess of the God-Protected Forest,

Madam Aisha, is much too easy on you, sire! She only makes you train

with your puppets!"

"You're too loud," I said. "But, if I use my puppets, at least I can put up

a fight."

"And what will you do when you find yourself in a situation where you

can't use them?" Owen demanded. "Your life is the life of this country

itself. If an assassin attacks, if you can fend off the enemy's attacks for a

few exchanges, or even just one exchange, your bodyguards will be able to

get to you in time. That one exchange will decide the life or death of our

country. That one exchange will bring our country glory."

Urgh... Because he was right, there was nothing I could say. As I

slumped my shoulders, Carla, who Serina had also grabbed by the collar,

looked at me with just a little sympathy.

"I see you have it hard, too, Master..."

"You too," I said with no emotion.

"Come, come, sire! To the training grounds!" Owen declared.

"You, too, Carla," Serina scolded. "You need to hurry and learn how to

make a bed."

And so, the two of us were dragged off in different directions.

Some days later, we received a report that a rebellion had broken out in

Amidonia.

◇ ◇ ◇

"It's lookin' like my brother couldn't win, after all," Roroa said.

In a room at an inn in a town near Van, the first princess of Amidonia

looked at the two people with her. One of them, the former Minister of

Finance, Colbert, shook his head.

"This country has already been defeated. The negotiations were only to

limit the damage. I think it's too harsh to blame Lord Julius."

Julius gave off a cold impression, but he rated Colbert's skill at finance

highly and, partially because of their close age, the two had formed a

friendship. Colbert couldn't bring himself to criticize his employer and

friend.

Roroa smiled wryly at Colbert, seeing him like that. "Maybe not, but if

there're war reparations to be paid, the ones sufferin' will be the folks in

town. We call it the capital, but it's just one city. The area around it's not all

that productive. Shouldn't he have let the kingdom keep it for a while and

avoided takin' responsibility for the war? We're not totally beat yet, and if

we left the territory as-is, the Empire and Kingdom couldn't say anythin'

more. If that got us past the current crisis, there were any number of moves

left he could've played."

Roroa said all that like it was no big deal.

Sebastian, the other person who was here with her, shrugged. "Not

everyone could accept that so easily. People don't act solely on the

arithmetic of profit and loss. We all have things we're emotionally attached

to, you see. Lord Julius has them, you have them... and I am sure the young

King of Elfrieden has them, too."

"Me and Souma, too?" Roroa asked.

"Yes," said Sebastian. "In the same way that the spirit of Amidonia was

precious to Lord Gaius and Lord Julius, the smiles of the men and women

who live in the principality are precious to you, right? Would you be able to

cast them aside because your arithmetic said to?"

"...I see," Roroa said.

True, that's somethin' I want to protect, profit or loss aside, Roroa

thought. Does that Souma have somethin' he's attached to, profitable or

not, too?

"You met Souma, didn't ya, Sebastian?" she asked. "Watchin' the

broadcasts, he seemed like a clever, funny guy. What'd you think, meetin'

him in person?

"Well, let me think... He looked like an ordinary young man, able to

listen to the opinions of others and, more than anything else, he felt like

someone who valued the people close to him."

"The complete opposite of my old man, huh," Roroa nodded. "But, in

that case, there's still a chance."

Roroa shook her closed right fist in circles. It was the gesture she made

before throwing dice when gambling or playing a board game.

"Will it work out in my favor or not? I was thinkin' my odds were fiftyfifty, but maybe it's not so bad a bet, after all. He'll make a fine opponent

for the biggest gamble of this gal's life."

"Princess... Are you absolutely certain about this?"

Colbert wore a look of concern, but Roroa said with a serious look,

"We've gotta do it. Uncle Herman'll keep things under control down

south... but somethin' smells fishy up north. We've got information sayin'

the forces of the Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria have come up near the

border."

On this continent, there were two major faiths, Mother Dragon Worship

and Lunarian Orthodoxy. The center of the latter faith, the Orthodox Papal

State of Lunaria, was a dangerous theocracy with a unique system of

values. With this country looking like it was on the verge of death, they

might try something.

Roroa rose to her feet, turning to the other two and clapping her hands.

"Now, here's where we'll turn it all around. From here on out, we won't be

lettin' my brother, the Papal State, or Souma go doin' whatever they please.

We'll be the ones to get the last laugh!"

Roroa spoke proudly, puffing up her meager chest.

Then, mentally, she added, And, Souma, you're gonna be laughin' with

us. Though, unlike ours, yours is probably gonna be a strained smile!

Roroa smiled like a mischievous child who had just though up a new

trick.