Chapter 662: Misunderstanding

It was now the 27th day of the 12th month in the year FT8. There were three more days until the year would end (as Eich had only 30 days in every month).

There was no solar or lunar calendar in this world. The New Year’s celebration in three days would be the biggest holiday celebration of any year. As the snowflakes fell, people started walking faster with expressions of satisfaction and expectation. The stores were covered in bright banners with celebratory phrases, and everyone carried a festive atmosphere.

As the standard of living constantly improved, the flourishment and development brought along a tremendous number of job opportunities. For the citizens of Diffindor, as long as they weren’t too lazy to go out to get a job, their lives would naturally constantly improve. This was an improvement far more valuable than abundant resources.

A constant improvement in the standard of living made everyone filled with hope for the future. Everyone worked even harder for this beautiful future, and they were all filled with gratitude for the Mist royalty who brought all this improvement.

This time of the year would also be the busiest time of the year for the Mist government and royalty.

Not only was there the year-end work to deal with, winter food rationing and winter hunts were all major affairs that could determine the survival of an entire country. Meeting various international representatives and participating in numerous events was also necessary to maintain the populace’s morale.

The door to the palace was wide open, and horse-drawn carriages constantly went in and out. The meeting hall was hosting the year-end celebratory parties. Numerous diplomats kept arriving and leaving. Reyne, who was the host, had smiled for more than five hours consecutively, to the point where she had a muscle strain.

However, the visitors wouldn’t care about such a thing. They excitedly waved their hands at the seemingly friendly queen, stampeding over to lower their heads and kiss her fingers.

After the past eight years of development, the citizens truly viewed the previous Princess Knight as a queen now. Being able to see that the queen and her concubines were well meant that the Mist Kingdom would develop steadily in the next year as well. The citizens’ only worry was regarding a certain side effect of the queen’s personal preference…

“What will we do about the fact that there’s no royal descendants? If anything happens to Her Majesty Reyne…”

Although this sounded rather laughable, and nobody cared about such a topic back when the Mist Kingdom was still weak, as the country kept strengthening, a dangerous fact was noticed by everyone—the royalty had no descendants.

Having an heir whose status was secure would naturally be of utmost importance to any kingdom. Although East Mist was a Communal Country in name, no matter if you looked at its territory or influence, it was unmistakably an empire. The benefit of having centralized authority was having a highly efficient government, but the downside was that if something happened to the person in authority while they had no heir apparent, the entire empire would collapse.

Moreover, this Princess Knight had been raised as a boy since young, which also caused her to be more interested in women than men.

This was only something minor. The citizens wouldn’t be dissatisfied with Reyne because of her sexual preferences. In fact, the streets were filled with funny stories about her, making her seem even closer to her citizens. However, Reyne’s sexual preferences meant that she had been married for several years already without producing a single descendant.

Of course, if any of her concubines ever got pregnant, her citizens would probably be the first to cause an uproar despite how much they loved gossip. Still, Reyne was the only member of the royalty even after so many years, which made the citizens uneasy.

If only the Mist royalty still had branch bloodlines, then some distant relative could have been brought over to inherit the throne. But in this situation, if Reyne continued not to have any descendants, even if nothing happened to her, she would grow old eventually, and if the ruler died, then it would only be natural for there to be a tremendous power struggle with no heir.

As for adopting from other countries? Sorry, that wouldn’t work, as the People of the Mist were quite serious about bloodlines. The ruler absolutely had to be from the royal bloodline of the Mist. The People of the Mist still remembered the ancestral kings who always protected their people and country. They wouldn’t be able to accept any other bloodline.

Thus, Reyne was constantly feeling awkward at this welcoming party. The diplomats would first offer New Year’s congratulations, and then start indirectly mentioning their sons, grandsons, and so on. It was almost to the point where everyone was trying to directly tell her “You should hurry up and find someone to have a child with,” which would be a massive breach of etiquette. Meanwhile, major nobles and powerful individuals in the kingdom were even more directly trying to introduce their nephews’ and grandchildren’s accomplishments and experiences… Reyne had to suffer through this each year starting from three years ago. Considering how plenty of people got married at 14 years old in Eich, it was indeed expected that Reyne should have been a mother to two or three children already as she was now 22 years old.

“People are trying to force her to get married once again? Reyne truly is such a pitiful queen.”

“…Do you have the right to say that? Don’t you feel any shame at all?”

The silly cat sounded quite happy, but I felt like she meant more than that.

“What does it have to do with me? Isn’t this all because of Karwenz?”

“Karwenz? Did you forget who’s supposed to be Reyne’s guardian knight in name?”

Guardian knight? That was usually a euphemism for a noblewoman’s secret lover. Reyne had a guardian knight? I felt like I had indeed found a guardian knight for Reyne back at Auland, and that was the time when rumors started spreading that Reyne was a yuri princess.

“Who was that? Oh… where can I find a time machine, Doraemon? It’s time to go back to the era of dinosaurs!”

I finally remembered now. Back then, in order to have a proper excuse to be involved in the Mist Kingdom’s affairs, as well as to block off the rumors starting back then that Reyne was into women, I had indeed made myself into Reyne’s official guardian knight, meaning that I was her personal knight who others might see as her secret lover… Now I finally understood why her concubines were constantly glaring at me so angrily for no apparent reason. I really needed to go find a time machine now!

Now, I no longer felt like I could simply enjoy watching the show. While watching a show would be quite fun, it would no longer be fun when I became part of the show.

“Now you finally remember. Reyne is also known as Yongye’s woman… Do you think that anyone ordinary would still dare to pursue her with such a title? It’s all your fault that she hasn’t been able to get married.”

“Ridiculous! It’s clearly Karwenz’s fault! He was the one who slept with so many women using Reyne’s body, creating all those yuri princess rumors!”

“Alright, let me correct myself. It’s the fault of you two shameless twin brothers. You’re a pit digger, and he fills in your pits. Both of you specialize in making pitfalls for your granddaughter. How do the two of you intend to make it up to her? You’ve probably ruined her future marriage prospects forever.”

I hesitated for a moment, and finally gave up on the idea of finding a time machine… Perhaps I should instead go searching for a dokodemo door.

Typically, the pre-New Year’s celebratory party would end quite quickly. However, things seemed to be slightly different this year. It seemed that not a single visitor this year wanted to leave.

The visitors saw an astonishingly familiar person sitting at a table while reading a book.

“Who is that? Could it be him? Has he finally returned?”

“No wonder the reward on his head has finally been canceled. So, Her Majesty Reyne finally found him.”

“Shh, let’s not talk about him. He might run away again.”

Those coarse men all spoke quite loudly about me. Of course I would be able to hear them. I didn’t even know what to say about these words that made me feel rather helpless.

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“Run away? Reward on my head? They all think that I’m a naughty child who left home?”

“Please, you’re far worse than any naughty child. At least a naughty child doesn’t really understand what they’re doing. You understand perfectly well, and act ridiculously because you want to go along with your personality.”

Even the people just two tables away from me were still pointing at and whispering about me, yet they didn’t dare to come over to talk to me. It was as if they were afraid that I would run away instantly, as if…

“It’s good that His Highness Roland has finally returned. Now we no longer need to worry about Her Majesty Reyne having no descendants.”

“Yeah, our Mist royalty will finally have descendants. I hope that the first child will be a prince. Everyone will feel reassured then.”

“Haha. I didn’t believe the rumors back then, but I finally figured out that the rumors were real when I saw that play.”

“Play? Oh, the Princess Peach play? I remember that Her Majesty Reyne was acting as Princess Peach, while His Highness Roland was a dragon knight. In the end, the dragon knight kidnapped the princess… Oh! So that’s what the play meant.”

Wait a moment, that was far too much information for me to take in, so I needed to organize it… Damn it all, this was too ridiculous to even organize! I didn’t even know what to comment on first!

“Teehee!”

As always, the silly cat rolled around on the floor while laughing. She didn’t care about her image one bit when she was a cat.

I opened my mouth, intending to quell the rumors, but instantly closed my mouth again… How was I supposed to quell the rumors? Was I supposed to tell that truth that I was actually the one acting as Princess Peach? It seemed that the rumors had spread even more instead of vanishing after all these years.

Now I finally understood why Reyne’s two concubines were so unfriendly towards me. So they had thought that I was their biggest love rival?

I felt incredibly awkward with how everyone was trying to secretly sneak glances over in my direction. However, I was attending this event for the sake of the citizens’ morale, showing them that I was indeed currently in the Northlands, and that I had no intention of going out to cause trouble for the time being. This would also help to pressure certain rats hiding in the shadows. Right now, the main event hadn’t even started, so escaping would be quite improper.

“Forget it, I’ll focus on the serious business.”

And so, while others were happily chatting, drinking, and greeting each other, I focused on the documents in my hand, just like a pitiful student who had finally remembered his summer homework on the very last day after three whole months of playing around… Cough, cough, I was only making an analogy! Was I someone who would forget to write his summer homework? Oh, right, I never turned in any summer homework at all, so of course I wouldn’t write any.

Documents had never left my hand ever since the day I arrived in Diffindor. There were far too many things for me to deal with, and far too much for me to catch up on. All these things were also quite important, and I had to take it seriously.

Currently, I was holding one of the newest combat reports on what was happening in Eich. This was basically the biggest headline news recently.

“The powerful Undead Emperors of old fought against the upstart mages of today, and the fight ended in a loss for both sides! Yongye says that both sides are so weak!”

“…Those fairies are getting more and more skilled at writing attention-grabbing headlines. They even invited me to write a review for them, getting my name involved.”

The undead army in Bardi had finally been stopped in their tracks. Bardi’s dragon allies had finally intervened, along with another Bardi “ally”, the Mage Country.

“…You even wrote, ‘The Truth Symposium was beaten really badly by the Undead Emperors.’ You dared to write such a thing? The old artifacts in the Cloud Tower are probably enraged by this. They’re quite difficult to deal with.”

“Ridiculous! I’m not stupid enough to write such a thing! All I said was, ‘If you look at both sides’ estimated combat strength, the Truth Symposium members’ individual strength is slightly weaker than the Undead Emperors’.’ Yet, the fairies changed my words into ‘Emperor Yongye says that the Truth Symposium’s mages are all garbage in combat with 1 in all stats’! Those shameless goblin relatives, they actually twisted my words! Do the fairies want me to get killed by the old artifact mages?”

This combat report was about what happened in Bardi. It was indeed mages on both sides of the battle, so the headline was at least partially accurate. Since I had the unique status of being a member of the Truth Symposium (nominally) and I was also an Undead Emperor (retired), those fairies brought over a memory crystal to hear me say a few words on the matter. It seemed that their edited version of my review would bring me great trouble.

“…Are you a newbie? You actually trusted what a reporter told you? Should I help write a letter on your behalf to those artifacts in the Truth Symposium for you? I just want a little bit as a kickback.”

“No need. They’re not idiots. Anyone who actually believes the fairies’ headlines will be a real idiot.”

Since the fairies were well known for being greedy and being everywhere there was money to make, the fairies had recently gained a new nickname, “universal goblins”. Still, as fairies were professional information brokers, even if their headlines were rather ridiculous, the content was still quite factual.

After reading over the combat report, I then thought back to two days ago, when I saw a memory crystal recording of the battlefield.

The tidal wave Undead Calamity had finally been stopped. The archmages of the Truth Symposium had used a dual-element fire and earth forbidden spell to directly change the terrain in that location, creating a brand-new volcano mountain range there, killing much undead fodder in the process.

In a way, those old artifacts were indeed keeping up with the times. They all teleported into the battlefield in floating mage towers, and then the forbidden spell archmage remained within the floating mage tower while incanting and waiting for the undead to enter his effective range. This shameless fighting method was foundationally no different from the tactic I used back when I cast Ice Aeon.

The Undead Emperors had responded with an equally vicious forbidden spell. I didn’t know how they managed to do it, but it was a mega AOE withering spell that had reached the level of a forbidden spell based on its tremendous AOE and killing power. This withering spell had drained all water from all life in its effective area, turning all animals and humans into dried mummies.

This forbidden spell exchange was only the beginning. The following battle between the Undead Emperors and the mages would be more important. Bardi had invited over three Supreme Immemorial Dragons as well as seven Truth Symposium archmages. It seemed that they wanted a 2:1 advantage in numbers.

All sorts of spells flew around on the battlefield. All sorts of ancient forbidden spells and secret techniques could be seen. I was unable to recognize most of them. However, I was at least able to tell how both sides were faring.

I could tell that both sides were only testing the waters in this battle. Neither side had attempted to use their true power. After all, it would be foolish for any mage to go all out from the very start without a good understanding of the enemy’s true powers, aces, and strengths.

It was as written in the combat report. Between the five Undead Emperors, and Bardi’s ten dragons and archmages, not a single individual died, nor was anyone seriously injured. The end result was just that the entire battlefield became a volcano mountain range, along with some new lakes, mines, ice tundras, and so on. Old maps would evidently no longer be usable there.

Judging from the battle, although neither side showed their true powers, it was evident that the old artifacts from the Truth Symposium were slightly losing. By the way, even Harloys’ and Margaret’s teachers had been among them. They were all old artifacts that even I wouldn’t dare to antagonize.

I casually tossed aside the newspaper. This was only the beginning. Both sides would be battling again. The mages would only bring out their ultimate trump cards after finding out the Undead Emperors’ aces. Rather than comparing both sides’ combat strength, it would be more important to wonder about the will to fight on both sides.

“Have the sly old foxes from the Truth Symposium truly risked their lives for the sake of another country? The Undead Emperors are probably also testing to see how the mortal plane will react. This will still take quite a while.”

Just as I was thinking such things, a sudden voice interrupted my thoughts. This announcement made me really want to run away immediately.

“…Her Majesty Glina from the Sleuweir Kingdom has arrived…”