In a Different World with a Smartphone (LN) - Volume 20 - Chapter 3

Chapter III: Shadow of Nokia 

“Nokia sent an envoy?” 
“That’s right, yes. They wish to meet with you.” 
I was a little bit surprised by the sudden news from Kousaka, our prime minister. Nokia was a country east of where Yulong had once been. It was a secluded country that didn’t interact with any other, save for a little bit of trade with Xenoahs. It was similar to Horn in that it only traded with an immediate neighbor, but Nokia was far more strict about its isolation policies. The reason for that, much like it was with Horn, was the former nation of Yulong. 
Nokia was a country formed by those who’d sought to escape the oppressive Yulong regime. They’d used terrain to their advantage, defending themselves against Yulong by hiding behind a huge mountain range. Because of their geographical and political reclusiveness, visitors to and from Nokia were practically unheard of. Even during the Phrase invasions and the whole crisis with the mutants, they’d kept to themselves and didn’t ask for aid. Therefore, it was only natural for me to be surprised about them sending an envoy. I was very curious about what they wanted. 
It was a tiny country, after all. They certainly didn’t have any specialty exports, so I couldn’t think why they’d be here. I wondered if it was related to the league of nations, but I felt like they’d have tried to broach that through Xenoahs. 
“Well, guess there’s only one way to find out what they want.” 
“Very well, then.” 
I decided to meet them after an hour. Before that, I had to change into my ceremonial garb. I didn’t exactly like the outfit, but I was told to wear it when meeting with royal representatives from foreign lands. With all that said and considered, though... I actually wore casual clothes around other world leaders, for the most part. 
The outfit was basically a formal suit. I wasn’t a huge fan of flashy capes or fur-lined cloaks, so I had Zanac make me something stylish and sleek. It was woven from rare magic beast fur fibers. It let my ass breathe, which I truly appreciated. I wore a simple black coat on top of the ensemble. If I added a top hat to the mix, I’d have looked like a stereotypical English gentleman from some country... Er, that country being England. 
Lapis, our head maid, called out to me. We made our way to the audience hall. The envoy from Nokia hadn’t yet arrived. Commander Lain, along with her direct subordinates Nikola and Norue, stood by in the room. Baba, Yamagata, and Naito were there as well. On top of that, we also had Tsubaki and Leen (who was there as court mage). We’d really rolled out the red carpet. 
These were the most important people in Brunhild as far as official duties went. We also had a few regular knights lined up for the sake of keeping up appearances. Paula the stuffed bear toddled around at Leen’s feet, and Kohaku was curled up in her heavenly beast form by my throne. 
“Man, we really went all-out on this, huh?” 
“We don’t know their intentions, darling. I feel that this kind of welcome is appropriate. We wouldn’t want them thinking less of you, would we?” 
As I moved to sit upon my throne, Leen positioned herself to my left and gave her opinion. Even with that reasoning given, I wondered if all this was really necessary. After a short wait, three individuals entered the hall. One man walked in front of the other two. He wore a robe and cape with yellow-red color tones and seemed to be in his mid-twenties. His hair was brown and cut short. In all honesty, he looked pretty average. That being said, he was surrounded by armed knights and diverse individuals, so many people would look ordinary by comparison. 
The two people trailing behind him wore green robes that covered them from top to bottom, including their lower faces. It was hard to discern their sex at a glance. One had black hair, while the other had chestnut hair. Their hair was also cut fairly short, but they both gave off a feminine vibe. The two of them stood immediately before me before lowering themselves to one knee. 
“I-It is, er, our pleasure to meet you, Grand Duke. I am a diplomat from Nokia, and my name is Faro Jantje.” 
“Please rise, Ambassador Jantje. Allow me to bid you welcome to Brunhild. I am the grand duke, Mochizuki Touya.” 
I sat upon my throne and spoke to him in a lordly manner. My instincts told me to go over and try to shake his hand, but Kousaka had expressly forbidden that kind of behavior. He told me that being too friendly off the bat created complicated relationships down the line. 
“Now, Ambassador. What brings you to our lord’s fair nation?” 
“Ah, erm... That’s, well...” 
Kousaka immediately cut to the chase, skipping all formalities and asking the visitor for his business. The ambassador only murmured and muttered in response. 
He kept saying things like “Uhm...” and “I, uh, well...”, completely failing to bring anything of note across. I wondered if this guy was really qualified for a diplomatic position. 
“A-Ah! I hear y-you’ll be having your wedding before long, Grand Duke! C-Congratulations on that front!” 
“Uh... Thank you...?” 
...Did he just come to congratulate me on my wedding? Why would they send an ambassador for that when a letter would have sufficed? 
Everyone around me seemed stunned and confused. I wondered if the people of Nokia just had no idea how to deal with outsiders due to their lack of outward contact. 
“Y-Yes! W-We’ve heard that y-you’re marrying nine women! A very, e-er, sturdy number, Your Majesty! We t-truly respect your bold nature and virile charm! I-I am not s-surprised to hear it, as the tales of your womanizing h-have even reached Nokia’s borders...!” 
“Ahaha... Right...” 
I forced a smile on my face and laughed at his words. Leen tried to hold back her laughter. I glanced around and saw every last one of my people (except Kousaka) desperately holding back their own laughter as well. 
What the hell, man? Did you come here to try and publicly embarrass me or something? Or are you trying to get me to hit you? 
“...Please be more clear with your intentions, Ambassador.” 
“A-Ah, yes. Sorry. W-Well...” 
Kousaka cleared his throat, stone-faced as ever, and implored the ambassador to continue speaking. 
Yeah, there’s gotta be more to this visit than just congratulating me. 
“W-Well, Grand Duke... we are here today to ask if, w-well... you’d be interested in a t-tenth bride!” 
“Sorry?” 
The atmosphere suddenly turned cold, or at least the vibe from the girl to my left had turned icy in an instant. When I glanced at Leen, the grin on her face had completely vanished. Her expression was difficult to read, but it was obvious she was in a state of deep contemplation. Paula moved away from her feet and shuffled behind the throne. Kohaku, still laying down, scooched back slightly from me. 
C’mon, you guys... 
“What exactly are you proposing, Ambassador?” 
“Well... Please take our offer seriously. We wish for you to marry Nokia’s second princess, Pafia Lada Nokia.” 
Oof... I had a feeling this kind of thing would happen at some point. But I kind of figured most countries had given up on the idea of marrying me into their families once they realized nearly half of my current fiancees are royals... Though, maybe Nokia doesn’t know that part. 
“W-We won’t ask that you take her as a primary wife or anything. We’d be content even with her as a concubine, or a low-ranking mistress... Princess Pafia is an educated woman with a fine grasp on literature and military history, and also a fine beauty. I am certain you would find her of use.” 
“I’m sorry, but I already have more fiancees than I ever thought I’d have, so I don’t think I can—” 
Just as I was about to let them down softly, the cloaked individual with chestnut-colored hair stood up and looked at me. She was a woman, and one around my age group. She had to be sixteen at the very least, but my gut told me she was around seventeen. Her short hair swished a little as she moved forward. 
“Please, Grand Duke. You can merely consider me a beneficial retainer. I would ask that you at least consider adding me to your list of potential brides.” 
“Wait, then, you’re...” 
She removed her robe, revealing a colorful exotic outfit with red and white markings covering it. 
“I apologize for my delayed introduction. I am Pafia Lada Nokia, second princess of the Nokia Kingdom. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Grand Duke.” 
The girl, who had a surprising degree of fire in her eyes, bowed her head as she spoke. 
 
With her chestnut hair cut short, her narrow eyes, and her small grinning mouth, it would have been more accurate to call this princess a beauty rather than a cutie. 
The second princess of Nokia, Pafia Lada Nokia, stared me down. The fight in her was quite something. She certainly wasn’t looking down on me, so I wasn’t intimidated or provoked by the action, but at the same time, I couldn’t exactly say that it felt good. 
“We hear what you’re saying, Princess Pafia. But this isn’t a matter you can only consult the grand duke on. I and the rest of his fiancees would need to confer on it as well.” 
Leen, who’d been standing to my left, smiled as she walked forward. She seemed to be in diplomacy mode, given her way of speaking. 
“Forgive my impertinence, but who are you? Am I to presume you are one of the grand duke’s betrothed?” 
“Forgive my late introduction. I am the former clan matriarch of the fairies, the greatest court mage of Brunhild, and a fiancee to the grand duke. You may call me Leen.” 
Leen gave a small, elegant curtsy. 
...Greatest court mage? You’re the only court mage... 
“Lady Leen, I would ask that you consider adding me to your numbers. I’m sure your country would benefit from it.” 
“My... Even if it would be a boon for our nation, the grand duke didn’t choose to marry us for profit alone. I’m not entirely sure how to treat this offer.” 
“Then tell me, upon what does he base his choices for a partner? Is it literacy? Martial prowess? Beauty? Breeding? I am certain that I have sufficient skills, and that my lineage is of potent enough stock.” 
“Well, I must say... You certainly sound confident in yourself. But I have heard that Nokia doesn’t communicate with the outside world very much. Perhaps if you look around a little more, you may find the world a wider place than you had initially believed.” 
Uh... This ain’t good. I can already see the sparks flying between these two. Please... someone save me... 
“...We cannot give you an immediate answer, since your request is rather sudden. Ambassador, is it quite alright if you give us time to deliberate?” 
Kousaka broke the silence by addressing Ambassador Jantje, who had been nervously watching the exchange the entire time. He immediately began to nod his head at a rapid speed. 
“V-V-Very well! P-Please take your time to consider it! We’ll be warmly awaiting your response!” 
“Head Maid, take the ambassador and his companions to a guest suite.” 
“Of course. Please, follow me.” 
Lapis ushered the visiting trio away. They turned and left with our maid, but not before the princess turned to give me one last parting glance. I sensed the determination in her gaze. When the three of them were out of earshot, I let out a loud groan. This was a real pain in the ass. 
“I didn’t think they’d come looking for marriage...” 
“Indeed, I am rather surprised as well...” Kousaka gently stroked at his beard as he muttered those words. Everyone seemed surprised. None of the countries we’d interacted with so far had done anything quite like that. 
“I feel like they’re trying to unify with me, rather than Brunhild...” 
“Can you blame them? You’re a gold-ranked adventurer, and you’re a renowned hero who saved this entire world. You command legions of giant metal soldiers, and you’re known to have the ability to talk peace between almost any nation. I’m sure many covet what you have.” 
Kousaka was right. This was clearly a marriage based around getting access to my abilities. If I was tied to Nokia through family, then they probably thought I’d do as they wished. 
“That’s why I find the situation strange. Nokia is an isolated country. They only do bare-minimum trade with Xenoahs, and they’ve never shown up at a conference despite our invitations. Why would a country that kept to itself even during the mutant invasion suddenly decide it wants to make a political marriage to Brunhild? What would they want Touya’s power for?” Leen folded her arms, calm and analytical as she spoke. I was surprised she wasn’t angrier. 
“We’ve seen something like this coming for a while, darling. I’m certain they’re planning to seduce you.” 
“Really...? I don’t think that’d work, though...” 
“They’ll try it later, I’m sure. Lock your bedroom door tonight, okay? Put down a few barriers in case they have magic or some kind of artifact that’ll let them bypass walls. If you actually put your hands on her, it’ll be harder for us to turn down the proposal.” 
Wait, hold on a sec?! Why are you acting like I’m gonna succumb to her?! 
“H-Hold on, Leen! I’m not putting my hands on anyone. If she comes to my room, I’ll just have her removed.” 
“Darling, you’re forgetting the most important thing here. She’s a woman. She’ll be alone in a room with you. It’ll be your word against hers in that situation. Think about it, even the ambassador won’t be able to deny the possibility of you coaxing her there in the night. It’s well-known that you can use teleportation magic, so the rumors will likely spread that you warped her to your bedroom.” 
“Whaaat?!” 
That sounded insane to me... Surely that wouldn’t happen. 
“Well, if they tried to frame the story that way, we could flip it on them. If we plant a knife on her, we could easily make her out to be an assassin.” 
“Whaaat?!” 
“To be honest, I’m sure they’re aware of those kinds of risks. I have my doubts that she’ll try and visit you in the night. But I want you to keep an eye out, just in case. It’s still possible they could make use of some kind of artifact in order to seduce you, after all.” 
...I’m divine, so I don’t think artifacts will work on me, but even thinking about the prospect is unnerving. 
I decided that setting up a [Prison] around my room would probably be fine. That way nobody would be able to enter unless they had something in the same league as my divinity. 
“By the way, darling... What did you think of her?” 
“Oh? Hm... She’s definitely beautiful, but she didn’t really seem to care much about emotional connection. I saw a fire in her eyes, but it wasn’t directed at me. She only looked at what I have and what I wield. She definitely didn’t come here out of romantic feelings, so I don’t really want to get involved with her.” 
I didn’t think the girl was solely a tool. I was sure she had many good parts to her, but I definitely hadn’t fallen for her. Nothing even close to that. In Lu and Hilde’s case, I knew off the bat how they felt for me. They didn’t yearn for my status or my strength, they just liked me. Pafia was a whole other kettle of fish. 
Also, it kind of felt like she had a lot on her shoulders. Like she was burdened by responsibility or a sense of duty that came with being a princess. I definitely didn’t think she was a bad person, just dedicated to her cause. 
“I felt the same about her. By not truly loving you, she’s failed to meet the criteria required for becoming one of your fiancees. I’ve already ruled her as completely unsuitable, and I don’t see my stance changing.” 
Leen started tapping on her smartphone as she spoke. I wondered what she was doing. 
“I have a small meeting to arrange with the others.” 
Oh boy, another meeting of the brides-to-be, huh? I remember the time when Pam wanted me to get her pregnant... Though Leen wasn’t around for that, come to think of it. 
Leen was busy with her texting, so I walked over to Tsubaki. 
“We need to gather intel. Can you get me some information on Nokia and our guests?” 
“Very well. I’ll send a few of our agents out to Nokia at once.” 
As soon as I gave Tsubaki her orders, she vanished in a flash. Our intel operatives had access to various tools, including teleportation artifacts long thought lost. With those at their disposal, I had a feeling it’d only take them two days to reach Nokia and come back. No matter how difficult Nokia’s terrain was to navigate, it couldn’t hold a candle to the harsh training that Takeru and Moroha imposed upon all our knight order members. I knew they’d come back with what we needed. Not that they actually needed to come back to relay the information, they’d be able to call us from Nokia, after all. 
It was easy to just outright refuse the proposal, but something bugged me about all this... And so, I decided it was time for a little sleuthing of my own. 
 
“Sorry, couldn’t tell you. We don’t speak much with Nokia, in all honesty. Even if a coup happened there, we wouldn’t know until the new government told us about it. Again, sorry... We’ve just kind of had no reason to take an interest in them.” 
“Right...” 
I tried asking the overlord of Xenoahs about Nokia, but his answer was about what I’d expected. They only shared a small portion of their border with Nokia, and they were both fairly isolated nations. It only made sense that the two countries wouldn’t pay much attention to each other. 
“Before the last conference, we did extend an invitation for them, but they said there was a civil matter in their country that needed to be taken care of...” 
“Huh... You think there might have actually been a coup?” 
“That sounds like more than a simple civil matter... That being said, it is true that many Yulongese citizens spread out to the surrounding nations after the country collapsed... Yulong is despised in Nokia, and they have harsh terrain like we do, but I’m sure they must have gotten at least some refugees. The immigrants might have brought trouble with them.” 
Hrm... I guess that’s possible, sad as it sounds. 
The Yulongese people liked to exaggerate stuff. They’d inflate the number one-thousand to one million, and then probably inflate that million to a billion. It was common knowledge in this world that if a Yulongese person quoted you a number, it was probably ten times smaller in reality. They were pretentious people who had the habit of licking their wounds, too. If those kinds of people moved to Nokia and started telling them strange rumors and untrue things about the outside world, it could put the country into a panic. 
“Did any refugees come to Xenoahs?” 
“Yup. Some weird rumors were going around, but they didn’t last. No demonkin trusts the words of a Yulong dog, after all.” 
Just about everyone felt that way. People from Yulong had little to no credibility. The eastern countries (Eashen excluded) had several issues that were all caused by Yulong in the past. Xenoahs, Horn, Felsen, Hannock, Lestia, and so on all had no reason to trust or believe in the words of Yulongese people. 
Nokia was a country that had been founded by those who’d escaped Yulong’s violent and cruel regime. It went without saying that they hated the Yulongese, so I couldn’t imagine them buying any cock-and-bull stories that their immigrants might have tried to start. We simply lacked enough information to work with. 
After we finished the talk about Nokia, the overlord started to ask me a ton of questions about Sakura. It was a real pain in the ass, so I gave him a few general updates then ended the call. 
Apparently, every time he tried to call Sakura, it went something like this: 
“Ah, Farnese! How are—?” 
“Fine...” 
“And what about Fiana—?” 
“My mother’s fine...” 
“Would you perhaps like to—?” 
“I’m busy. Try again later. Bye-bye...” 
And then, she’d hang up. Sakura really had no mercy for her father... That being said, the fact that she’d actually been picking up his calls was a step in the right direction. 
Sakura was working as a helper in the school along with her mother. She was in an assistant teacher role, helping kids learn about music. One of our knights, Spica the dark elf, often accompanied her there. Ordinarily, Sakura would spend her afternoons at the school along with Spica. But today was different. All the girls had gathered for their little round table conference about the current issue. 
“This is just like the Pam situation, so they definitely won’t let her into their ranks...” 
Pafia definitely didn’t have any real romantic feelings for me, I knew that much. It was obvious. In any situation with real love involved, my idiot sister would’ve appeared out of nowhere with a huge grin on her face. But she was nowhere to be found. I hoped that she wasn’t sitting in on the meeting between my fiancees. That would definitely have caused needless complications. 
I grumbled and worried for a little while until a call came in from Leen. 
“’Sup?” 
“Ah, darling? We’ve decided that we’re all meeting with Princess Pafia tomorrow. I’m the only one who’s met her in person, so we felt it unfair to judge her as a group until we’ve all met with her.” 
“You say that, but I’m pretty sure you’ve all made your minds up.” 
“Now, now, she deserves a fair chance. She’s a foreign royal, so we can’t just reject her for no good reason.” 
That made sense. Giving her a flat-out rejection would be pretty uncivil. If we didn’t care about formalities, then we’d have just turned her down at the first meeting. 
“Either way, darling. Don’t meet with the girl until we speak with her, okay? No need for any complications, after all. I think it’d be better if you had some company tonight... Eheh... Want to spend the night in one of our rooms?” 
“N-NO THANK YOU I’M OKAY.” 
Leen suddenly switched to a teasing tone of voice, causing my heart to beat out of my chest. I stammered out a reply and ended the call. It was true that staying with one of my fiancees would prevent Pafia from doing anything, though. 
“Still... I think I have a better solution to all this.” 
I started scrolling through my contact list and made a call... 
 
“And that’s pon.” I picked up the mahjong piece discarded by Emperor Regulus. 
Alright, if I hang on a little longer I’ll get chinroutou... 
“I must say, I didn’t expect you to call us to play mahjong... Not that I’m complaining, I didn’t have anything else going on.” 
The beastking of Mismede picked up a tile as he spoke. I was currently sitting around the game table with the beastking, Emperor Refreese, and Emperor Regulus. I’d invited King Belfast as well, but he said he needed to look after Yamato. Apparently, the little prince still cried through the night. 
“It’s not bad to play once in a while, right? Plus, I kind of can’t really hang at my place tonight, anyway.” 
“Oho? Did you upset Lucia and the others?” 
“You can’t do that, Touya. The most important thing in a marriage is getting stuff right at the start. If you don’t put your foot down at the very beginning, you’ll have to tiptoe around the relationship later in life.” 
C’mon, man... I’m not married yet... Still, Emperor Refreese’s statement probably came from personal experience. I’d heard he was completely powerless against his wife behind closed doors. 
I didn’t want to make Emperor Regulus worry too badly. Lu was his daughter, after all. And so, I decided to quickly explain the situation. 
“My, that is a surprise. I didn’t expect Nokia to play that kind of hand at all.” 
“Yeah, sounds suspicious to me. Especially since they’re usually so isolated.” 
“It’s not that strange for countries to try and make connections through marriage, to be fair...” 
If I recalled correctly, Princess Thea of Mismede had recently gotten engaged to Prince Redis of Refreese. That would make the beastking and the emperor of Refreese bound through those ties. Beastman discrimination was quickly becoming a thing of the past, especially in more progressive countries like Refreese. I wondered if people were more tolerant there because there was more overall happiness there compared to other countries. 
“Is it that big of a deal, Touya? What’s one more wife when you already have nine?” 
“It is a big deal, yeah. I don’t really want to get myself wrapped up in a politically-focused marriage.” 
“It might not be bad, though. Many people I know only got to know their partners after marriage.” 
Really? I can’t really see that working out so well, Beastking... But uh... different strokes for different folks, I suppose. 
“First, I just need to figure out what they’re up to... Ah, that’s pon.” 
I picked up a tile. 
“Ack, a chinroutou?!” 
Welp, that’s my cue. I’ll just take a tile... I quickly discarded one that I didn’t need. 
“Tsk tsk, you must always pay attention to the flow of the game... Ron! Suuankou tanki. Read it and weep.” 
“Agh?!” 
“No fair, Emperor!” 
“Whew, that was close... I might’ve actually lost out more if you hadn’t made that move.” 
Damn it... I should’ve focused on reading him better while I was biding my time. Well, whatever. The night’s only just getting started! 
I felt a little bit sorry for the knights who were here with their monarchs, but I needed them all here in the game room until morning. I’d cast a [Prison] around my bedroom in my absence, just in case. Plus, I had plenty of witnesses who could place me here. 
I got ready for the next game as my thoughts began to wander... The girls are meeting with Pafia tomorrow, huh...? Wonder how it’ll work out. 
I started sorting through the mahjong tiles, quietly hoping things would turn out okay. 
 
“Oof...” 
My body hurt all over when I woke up, probably because I’d slept hunched over the mahjong table in my chair. I quickly cast [Refresh] and [Recovery]. 
“So, how’d it go?” 
As I walked down the corridor out of the game room, Kougyoku flew over to me and perched on my shoulder. I’d asked her to have a few of her owl allies spy on Pafia’s people through the night. 
“Nothing unusual to report. They didn’t leave their rooms or cast any unusual magic.” 
“Huh, really...? Maybe I was too paranoid, then.” 
Kougyoku’s report was disappointing, in all honesty. But I started to actually think about the situation for a moment, and kind of realized it’d have been nuts to expect a princess to do something so reckless. 
“She’s meeting with the fiancees today... I sure hope nothing weird happens.” 
I sighed slightly as I walked further down the corridor. 
“...Oh... Something weird happened.” 
I quietly mumbled to myself as I reached the training field and saw what was going on. Two girls faced each other, each wielding a wooden sword and shield. One of the girls was Princess Pafia. The other was Hilde. They had a little audience made up of my fiancees, Ambassador Jantje, and the princess’ handmaid, Lycia. Moroha and Karen also happened to be in the area. 
Hilde and Pafia faced each other in the middle of the training grounds. 
“Is this alright?” 
“Of course. If anything, it’s more than alright. I want you to use your full might against me. I don’t plan on holding back.” 
Hilde raised her concerns, but Pafia smugly grinned. She was certainly confident. Apparently, this all started because Pafia wanted to show off her martial prowess to the girls. She had the confidence, but I couldn’t help but feel that was about to be shattered. I sent a glance over to Hilde, trying to tell her not to go too hard. Hilde nodded back at me, hopefully understanding what I meant. 
“Alright, you two. Fight!” 
Moroha, who was the referee for the match, raised her hand into the air and then swung it down. In the blink of an eye, Hilde jumped in and swept her sword upward. She’d disarmed Pafia instantly. 
“Wh—?!” 
Pafia was too stunned to react as Hilde held the wooden blade to her throat. 
Ah crap, Hilde! That glance earlier was to tell you to go easy on her, not to give it everything you’ve got! 
“Hilde wins.” 
Moroha announced the results of the bout. After a few short moments, Pafia’s disarmed blade clattered to the earth. It had clearly been knocked a considerable distance upward... 
I looked over to find Ambassador Jantje and Lycia staring in absolute shock. That was a pretty reasonable reaction. The entire thing had happened over the span of a second, so I was sure they had no idea what Hilde had just done. From their perspective, Hilde’s motions were imperceptible. 
“H-Hold on! I just slipped, that’s all! Let’s go again!” Pafia yelled out, desperate not to be outdone. 
“Well, if she wants it... Do you agree, Hilde?” 
“That’s fine...” Hilde said as she walked back to her starting position. 
Moroha raised her arm again, prompting the two girls to take battle stances. Pafia’s expression was no longer smug. Instead, she looked tense and almost fearful. 
“Fight!” 
Moroha swung her arm down, and Pafia held her shield up in a flash. Hilde, however, didn’t charge in like last time. The two of them sidestepped in a circle, maintaining distance from each other. Hilde gradually closed the gap, pointing her sword towards her enemy the entire time. 
I wondered if she was planning to fight on the defensive this time around. Hilde maintained a stoic expression, but it was clear that Pafia was getting impatient with the flow of the battle. It wouldn’t be long before she... 
“Hiyah!” 
...Charged forward with her sword, thrusting at her foe. But Hilde was undeterred, simply shrugging the blow off with her shield. 
“Gh!” 
Pafia charged in with a follow-up strike, then another. She was definitely a skilled swordswoman, there was no doubt about that. I had a feeling she was stronger than Yae was when I first met her, but she was still no match for Hilde. 
Hilde kept blocking each strike with her shield, almost toying with the girl while barely exerting any energy. Pafia was the only one making large motions, which meant she was starting to run out of stamina. Hilde seized an opening, swooped in, and disarmed Pafia like it was nothing. Just like last time, she held her wooden sword to her enemy’s neck. 
“...Do you yield?” 
“...Yes, I yield.” 
Hilde’s voice was low, and Pafia quietly accepted her own defeat. Part of me wanted to tell her that she’d done well, but I had a feeling she might think I was being snide. 
“You’re powerful, Miss Hilde. I’ve never seen anyone handle the blade as well as you.” 
“Not at all. I am but a mouse when compared to Moroha, a true lion. There’s always a bigger fish.” 
Hilde’s words prompted Pafia to look at Moroha in awe. 
“Don’t beat yourself up too much, Hilde. I’d say you’re at least a kitten compared to me.” 
“A kitten, you say...?” Hilde smiled awkwardly. Personally, I thought it was pretty high praise, coming from Moroha of all people. Comparing yourself to one of my eccentric family members was never a smart idea, anyway. 
“So, now what? You said you’d show us your magic after your swordsmanship, right?” 
“That I did! I’ll show you all! I may have fallen behind in swordplay, but my magical prowess is simply uncontested.” 
“You’re gutsy, I’ll give you that.” 
Moroha gave Pafia a light compliment. The girl didn’t seem completely crushed, but that was probably because she was more confident in her magic. 
Hilde picked up Pafia’s discarded gear and walked over to me. 
“Nice work, Hilde. How was the fight?” 
“I’d never seen her fighting style before; it was interesting. She’s certainly a strong fighter, just not quite strong enough.” 
After Hilde talked a little, Elze and Yae came over with a wooden dummy. It was the target for the magic contest. The wood it had been carved from was particularly hardy stuff from Mismede. I wasn’t sure what spells Pafia had at her disposal, but breaking or even burning it would be hard. Although, if she had a slicing-style spell like [Aqua Cutter], that’d probably do the trick. 
“Alright, go for it. It’s fine to break the target.” 
“Very well.” 
Moroha gave Pafia a small pat on the back before moving back. Pafia pointed both hands at the target, magic energy swirling within her. The quality and amount of her magic was actually pretty impressive. If we talked about this in RPG terms, she had the makings of a fine Spellsword. 
Suddenly, things changed when Pafia’s right hand started emitting bright sparks, while her left conjured up a swirling gale. I almost couldn’t believe it. She was using two different types of magic at the same time. She quickly clasped both hands together and launched the combined magic forward. 
“Rage forth, Lightning and Wind! A Dazzling Cyclone: [Plasma Storm]!” 
A whirling vortex appeared around the target dummy, followed by strike after strike of lightning. I hadn’t expected that. It wasn’t immensely powerful, but it was a legitimate compound spell. She somehow knew an ancient magic spell that hadn’t fallen to the decay and downgrade of modern magical convenience. 
The charred dummy shook around a bit before collapsing to the ground and splitting into pieces. 
“How’d you like that?!” 
Pafia turned around, smugness written all over her face. But she frowned slightly when she saw that we weren’t all that shocked. It wasn’t that I wasn’t impressed or anything, it was just that I was so used to weird and over-the-top stuff at this point that the best reaction I could muster was “Neat.” 
“[Plasma Storm]... It’s a spell that fuses Light and Wind magic. Though I feel she was too heavy on the Wind.” 
“I agree. She didn’t bring out the full potential of the Light magic. I think if she gets the balance right, she could make it twice as powerful.” 
Leen and Linze exchanged opinions on the spell, prompting Pafia to adopt a startled expression. She clearly hadn’t expected anyone here to so easily identify the mechanics of her spell. 
Leen and Linze turned toward each other and started playing rock, paper, scissors. Linze lost, so she let out a little sigh and started walking toward the demonstration area. Pafia backed off as Yae and Elze hauled in a new wooden dummy. 
Much like Pafia had done, Linze brought both arms forward toward the doll. One hand produced Ice, while the other produced shimmering beams of Light. She effortlessly merged both magic elements together, making Pafia’s earlier movements look juvenile in comparison. 
“Shimmer forth, Ice and Light! Multi-Colored Ray: [Prisma Rainbow]!” 
A shining laser shot out from Linze’s hands. The upper half of the doll was vaporized in under a second, but the laser kept going until it bounced off the nearby protective barrier and scattered away into the air. The icy particles inside the beam gleamed in the sunlight, creating tiny rainbows in the sky. 
“What?!” 
“Ooh, pretty!” 
Pafia looked utterly devastated, while Sue beamed merrily. The utter contrast between their expressions made me want to laugh. 
“Princess Pafia, where did you learn your spell?” 
“Hm? Ah... It was in an old book we unearthed from a dungeon ruin in Nokia...” 
“Oh my... Nokia just got a little more interesting...” 
Linze’s interest appeared to have been piqued. In the olden days, notable mages would protect their work by keeping them stored in strongholds. Many of them had castles or towers, but most just settled on dungeons. After all, you only needed rudimentary Earth magic to dig one out of the ground. It certainly wouldn’t be odd to find powerful tomes in ancient ruins. In Doc Babylon’s case, she built the floating fortress to house all her great works. 
We returned to the small terrace, and Yumina raised her voice toward Pafia. 
“Well, we know your strengths now. But we’d like to get to know you better. Would you join us for tea?” 
Pafia just nodded quietly, apparently still in shock at her utter defeat. I was about to follow them when Leen suddenly stopped me. 
“It’s time for a girl’s talk, darling. We’d appreciate it if you stayed out. Lycia is fine to participate as well, but we’d also appreciate it if Ambassador Jantje kept his distance.” 
The ambassador seemed reluctant to leave his princess, but Lycia calmed him down. The group of girls made their way into the castle. The ambassador went off on his own, so I walked back to a different part of the castle when Tsubaki suddenly appeared from the shadows. 
“What’s the intel?” 
“Well... According to our findings, King Luhm Ladeaux Nokia is on his deathbed.” 
“Seriously? Is he sick?” 
“The cause is unknown. He’s in critical condition, however. He has two daughters. The older sister, Lefia, and the younger sister, Pafia. The protocol says Lefia will succeed the throne if their father passes.” 
Given the lack of a male heir, that made sense. 
“I can tell what you’re thinking, and it’s not that. Lefia will succeed uncontested because Pafia died three months ago.” 
“What?!” She died?! Then who’s the girl in my castle right now?! 
“...So there’s a fake here?” 
“It’s possible that this person is a fake using Nokia’s isolation to her advantage in order to win your favor... But that sounds extremely careless. Princess Pafia is confirmed as deceased. She fell into a ravine with her horse on an excursion, and her body was recovered.” 
If a body was recovered then there’s no doubt about it. This person’s a fake... Did she maybe impersonate the princess without realizing she died? This seems pretty sloppy. Complicated, too. If I had accepted her as my bride, then wouldn’t I have had to go to Nokia at some point? At that point, the people of Nokia would confirm that she’s a fake, so why even bother going to all this trouble? Or was she planning to drag out the formal meetings until I’m fully hitched...? 
“That’s only preliminary information, there’s also—” 
“My lord!” Commander Lain cut Tsubaki off. She was running full pelt down a nearby hallway, her rabbit ears swaying as she moved. I didn’t really think her frantic behavior was fitting for a commander... If it was that urgent, she could’ve just called me on the phone. 
“Please hurry, we need you in the greeting room. An ambassador from Nokia is here!” 
“Huh? But we just waved off Ambassador Jantje. Why would we go to the greeting room when we already greeted him?” 
“No, no! Not him! Another ambassador!” 
...Another? 
“This ambassador said we’re harboring someone impersonating their princess! That we need to hand them over at once!” 
So that means she has to be a fake, right? Ugh, this is too confusing... I’ll just head to the greeting area for now... 
 
“Do they have ID?” 
“Yes, I verified it with the Xenoahs overlord’s information. The medallion he presented looks legitimate... But so does the one presented by the other ambassador.” 
As I walked down the hallway, I confirmed a few details with Lain. At the very least, it seemed like these potential impostors hadn’t killed anyone for their credentials. 
“So Jantje’s medallion’s identical to the real thing?” 
“It is, sir. It’s certainly unusual for there to be more than one in circulation...” 
It wasn’t that odd for larger countries, but Nokia only did business with Xenoahs, so having multiple signifiers for foreign interaction seemed highly unusual. I also wondered how this new ambassador had learned we’d been visited by a fake one. Nokia was isolated from outside affairs, so it was a little peculiar. I wondered if they had a spell similar to [Search] or something. 
“Guess I’ll find out more by talking to them.” I entered the chamber and saw five men. They immediately took a knee and bowed their heads. One was a middle-aged man with a portly body, while the other four were fairly plain young men in leather armor. Presumably, the four were escorts. 
“Your Majesty. My name is Dryfe Chyomah, ambassador of the Kingdom of Nokia.” 
Kousaka raised his voice to begin my formal introduction, but I stopped him with a wave of my hand. 
“Let’s skip the formalities. Ambassador Dryfe, I’ve heard that you want us to hand over Princess Pafia and Ambassador Jantje, but what exactly is going on here?” 
“...Haaah, yes... That girl in your care right now is a fake. The real Princess Pafia died three months ago during an excursion.” 
Hm... That matches up with what Tsubaki told me... I looked Ambassador Dryfe up and down. He was a chubby man with a white beard. On the whole, he was quite stout, with a little smile curved at the edges of his mouth. But I could tell from the tired bags under his eyes that he probably wasn’t smiling on the inside. He had a ring on his finger and a jangly bangle on his arm, probably as a ward against magic or dark forces. 
“Ambassador Jantje has the same credentials as you, what about that?” 
“...Faro Jantje was an ambassador in the service of Nokia, that much is true. The medal he carries is legitimate. He was out conducting operations in Xenoahs and was due to come home, but for some reason, he’s now in the company of a pretender princess...” 
“So now you want him back?” 
“Indeed.” 
Hmm... So Jantje is a legitimate diplomat to Xenoahs... This is pretty weird, though. How’d they manage to track him here? 
“How did you learn about the fake princess?” 
“...This is an off-the-record admittance, but our country has recently begun to gather intelligence on the outside world beyond Xenoahs. Ever since the fall of Yulong, we have decided international trade would be a viable route.” 
“So you have spies.” 
“...If you really must put a label on it, yes. By chance, one of our agents came across Jantje and the others en route to Brunhild. We headed out via our fastest mode of transportation the moment we heard the news.” 
What he said made sense. Nokia was a country that was isolated more due to its surroundings than anything else. Now that Yulong had fallen, it was logical to reach out to other countries for support. 
“I understand the allegations against this supposed fake, but we have no way of verifying what you’re saying is true. We can base our understanding on what Xenoahs has told us, and what you’ve told us. If indeed Jantje was ambassador to Xenoahs, then that lines up with the information we’ve received from them about the legitimacy of his medal. But we still can’t take you at your word. Do you have anything from your king?” 
“...The king is currently unwell. Princess Lefia is taking care of state affairs at present. However, the princess doesn’t know about this situation. We are currently working on orders from our nation’s Marshal, Caezar Nortelis.” 
He’s unwell? Guess it makes sense they wouldn’t mention the part where he’s dying. But how does neither the king nor the current acting sovereign not know about this? 
“Princess Pafia was a beloved sister to Princess Lefia. Our marshal believed that learning about this heinous impostor would only serve to further damage her wounded heart. Ah, I should also mention that Marshal Caezar is engaged to our Princess Lefia.” 
Hmhm... I guess it makes sense. If my sister just died, my father was on his deathbed, and I had to deal with governmental affairs on top of that, then learning someone was impersonating my sister would probably be too much to bear. But, at the same time... something just doesn’t feel right here. 
Ambassador Dryfe’s eyes were darting around here and there. He seemed fairly unfocused and antsy. His responses to my questions were also surprisingly blunt. 
“There’s no real way we can pass judgment here. Both you and Jantje have the medal signifying you’re legitimate ambassadors, so we can’t really say for sure that he’s here illegitimately.” 
This was a matter for Nokia to decide, not Brunhild. Something was still unsettling me, though... Dryfe’s demeanor in general was pretty creepy and unusual. Though I did know it was unfair to judge a book by a cover. 
“...Then we will judge. Will you hand over the impostor and the others?” 
“Well, I mean, I guess I—” 
“We profusely refuse your request.” 
“Huh?” 
I turned around toward the sudden voice. Yumina was by my throne. The other girls weren’t with her. I wondered if something had happened. 
“I’ve heard the entire story from Pafia. The true story. Return to Nokia and tell your marshal this. If he’s going to run, he should do it now while he still has a chance. I hope you understand the message, Ambassador.” 
Yumina glared down at Dryfe, not mincing a single word. It was really unusual for her to be this stern... Just what had Pafia told her? 
“Touya.” 
“Y-Yes?” 
“Look him over with your divine sight.” 
“Huh? Okay...” 
Let’s see here... Divinity flowing, annnd... There we go... Wait, what?! There’s a dark substance inside his body... It’s kinda like smoke or gas, but it’s filling every bit of him. 
“What did you see?” 
“Uh... like a gassy miasma inside of him. What is it?” 
“He’s not himself. There’s something possessing his body. My mystic eye noticed it off the bat. There are two beings there instead of one.” 
In response to Yumina’s words, Ambassador Dryfe rose to his feet. His unfocused eyes, now looking far more hollow than ever, glared back at us. 
“...Wrghh... WrEtCHes... Pahhfffia... If OnLy... diED, hnn...” 
Another voice started to come from Ambassador Dryfe. Though it was more apt to say it was a second voice being overlaid upon his own. 
“The ambassador’s possessed?” 
“It seems that way, yes. My mystic eye’s showing me a dark presence inside him, but not in the man himself. I think that Dryfe himself is probably a fine man, but not whatever has a grasp on him.” 
That meant the person I’d been speaking to probably wasn’t Dryfe at all. Still, possession like that was rare. There were certainly a lot of monsters that could possess people, but they only compelled people to rampage and act out on their base instincts. From what I’d seen so far, Dryfe hadn’t done any of that. He’d come here and acted far too rationally for a traditionally possessed man. Which could only mean one thing... 
“Are you a summoned beast?” 
“M...y name... is IpTimUS... My LoRd CaEZaR... EnTRustSteD me... To KiLL thAT wReTchED... PaFiA...” 
Iptimus? This guy sure is a chatterbox... It’s pretty rare for a summoned beast to be able to hold a conversation like this. 
Usually, it took a hell of a lot of magic to keep a summon maintained for a long period of time, but by infesting Dryfe’s body, he could probably siphon off the man’s magic. It effectively turned the summon into a parasitic organism that could pretend to be the man while maintaining deep cover. 
“Well. Now we know who we should be trusting.” 
The four guardsmen from Nokia had taken up arms. Each one of them brandished their weapons at us. I looked over them with my divine sight, and sure enough, they also had some of the dark miasma in their bodies. 
Lain and the others immediately brought their weapons out. I decided to take matters into my own hands, but Linze suddenly jumped out and cast [Banish] on the group, much to my surprise. I felt a little bit disappointed, since it’d been a while since I’d gotten to use that spell. 
“Hrk... Brhgh... Blaaarghh?!” 
The men screamed as what I could only describe as black bile started flowing out of their mouths. It was disgusting... Kind of reminded me of ectoplasmic goop. 
After they were finished vomiting, all five men fell to the ground. If it was just an undead monster then that spell would’ve killed it, so that was proof this was a powerful summoned beast. 
“You... YoU yOu YouUyouYouUYoUuU!!!” 
The five misty fragments all merged into a single being, a Specter. Apparently, Iptimus had been a single entity the entire time, but it could split itself to possess multiple people at once. 
Two golden, gleaming eyes emerged from the whirling smoke. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with the Specter in front of me. 
“[Boost]!” 
Elze jumped out from behind her sister, kicked off the ground, and charged toward the Specter. She had her specialized gauntlets equipped. 
“FOol... BringiNg fiStS to a SpeCTer?! You’Ll maKE a FiNE nEw hoST!” 
“The only fool here is you.” 
Elze’s gauntlets shone with awesome power. These gauntlets represented Elze’s will, and I’d recently enchanted them both with every magical element possible. Even a Specter couldn’t avoid damage from it. 
“Divine Combat Art: Luminous Flashfist!” 

“GRAAARGH!” 
Elze’s fist drove through the Specter, scattering it into tiny tatters of light. The monster’s misty form began evaporating into thin air. 
“LoRd CaE...ZaR... ForGIvE... mE...” 
He transmitted one final thought to his master before vanishing. I was certain that Caezar knew exactly what had just gone down. Advanced summons maintained psychic links with their contractors, after all. 
That certainly landed us in a predicament. 
“Touya, please cast [Recovery] on these men.” 
“Huh? Oh, sure thing.” 
I was too lost in thought to notice Yumina trying to get my attention, so I hopped up from my throne. Then, I cast [Recovery], [Refresh], and [Area Heal] on the fallen men. They’d be back on their feet in no time. 
“Sir Dryfe...!” 
Ambassador Jantje walked into the room alongside Nikola. Yae, Lu, and the rest of my fiancees appeared as well. Princess Pafia, along with her handmaid Lycia, was with them. The trio from Nokia looked over the five fallen men. 
“They’ll be okay. They’re just resting for now. Their bodies were possessed by a spectral creature, but they’re physically fine.” 
“To manipulate people like this... Caezar... I’ll never forgive him!” 
Princess Pafia clenched her teeth, a look of rage upon her face. There was still the matter of determining whether or not she actually was the princess, though. 
“Ambassador Dryfe... Or rather, the thing possessing his body, said you were an impostor. He said that the real Princess Pafia died in an accident three months ago.” 
“That’s untrue. I am absolutely the second princess of Nokia, I swear it. That death was a falsified incident conjured up by Marshal Caezar. The body they recovered was a double.” 
Geez... That definitely kind of makes more sense, all things considered. I’d have a hard time trusting the Caezar guy after all this, anyway. 
“So Caezar was responsible for the accident?” 
“He was. He sought to kill me, the last obstacle in his path, and take over Nokia through his engagement with my sister. I uncovered his plans by chance, so I fled Nokia. I went to the only place I knew of the outside world, Xenoahs. It was there that I met Jantje.” 
Pafia’s gaze turned to the man by her side. In response, the man awkwardly spoke up. 
“I-I was on my way home to Nokia from Xenoahs, so I had little grasp of the situation... but I trusted in the princess. I-I always had my suspicions about the marshal, if I must be honest.” 
Caezar had apparently built significant influence in Nokia over the last few years. He was seen as a rising star in the military branch by many. But others were confused about the speed of his ascent, and the strange behavior of those that got too close to him. 
“Dryfe was one of the people who suddenly started acting strange. He was such a warm and gentle man, but one day he was a completely loyal follower of Caezar. He began to make political decisions that directly benefited Caezar as well... The rumors said he acted like a man possessed. It was honestly hard to watch...” 
Well, that’s because he literally had been possessed. I don’t think anyone would act normal if they had weird ectoplasmic spectral shit inside them. 
“Princess Pafia needed a powerful ally to stand against the marshal. That’s why she came to us, Touya.” 
“...She could’ve just asked normally, then...” 
Why bother selling yourself as my wife when you could’ve just been honest? 
I sighed slightly at Yumina’s words before Pafia bowed her head to me. 
“I-I’m so sorry! I-I-I had just heard that you were a notorious lover of women, s-so I thought the fastest way to earn your favor would be to enter your harem...” 
“Gimme a break, here!” 
Why do rumors like that keep cropping up?! Has someone got it out for me or something?! 
“Touya, we talked it over and we’d like to lend Pafia our aid. We want to go to Nokia by ourselves for this.” 
“Wait, Yumina... Just you and the girls? Why do you want to do that?” 
I wondered what had prompted this. 
“Well, darling. I’m basing all of this on what we heard from Pafia and the Specter we just saw, but... I’m assuming that this Caezar fellow is a manipulation mage. He’s effectively a subtype of necromancer that uses others as puppets through Dark magic...” Leen replied in Yumina’s stead, but I wasn’t fully convinced. I wasn’t familiar with manipulation mages, but Linze suddenly cut in with more information. 
“I read about it in Babylon’s library. Manipulation mages possess those with weak wills, strong negative feelings, or just those with room in their hearts for corruption. It would make sense he’d be able to take control of a government, since they’re usually filled with either ambitious, spineless, or complacent men.” 
Oh yeah. I think I read about that, maybe? Instead of controlling corpses, this type of necromancer controls living people by exploiting them through ancient forbidden magic. 
“So this guy’s been using his magic to increase his status and power within Nokia?” 
“It doesn’t just stop there. This wretched man has also manipulated innocent women to his own ends. He’s a scumbag who cares little for morals, clearly.” 
The way Hilde spoke was downright indignant. She was a knight princess, and all about fairness, so it made sense she’d be so disgusted. I could see the spark of rage burning in her eyes. 
The power to manipulate others would inevitably lead to someone using it to their own ends. It seemed like Caezar was doing exactly that. 
“I heard that Caezar has even offered up women to nobles that support him. And that he toys with girls until he gets bored of them, and then he just discards them.” 
“We cannot allow this to happen. He’s an enemy to all women!” 
“That is right, it is. Toying with the lives of others makes you irredeemable, it does.” 
Elze, Lu, and Yae all seemed just as incensed as Hilde. I kind of felt a little awkward, since I was capable of that manipulation magic, too... That being said, it wasn’t as if I’d used that power or anything. 
“Fortunately, it seems that King Nokia and the first princess had strong enough wills to resist his control...” Leen spoke up, gesturing toward Pafia. The princess continued that train of thought. 
“Caezar has swayed the nobles, forcing my sister to become his betrothed via their influence. Most of the people in our government had their own ambitions, but they’ve all been twisted into supporting Caezar now. My father, now on his deathbed, is too ill to do anything to stop him... And if my sister didn’t manage to warn me, then I’d have been killed! My sister let me escape, saying there didn’t need to be any more sacrifices beyond her. But when I escaped with Lycia, we were chased by the marshal’s men. We ended up tumbling from a cliffside into a river...” 
So that’s why he assumed she was dead... But then, why produce the fake body? 
“...Do you think he staged a fake corpse to upset Pafia’s sister?” 
“When your emotions collapse, little holes can open up in your heart. Weaknesses can appear in your mind. These tiny gaps are the perfect places for darkness to fester...” Leen folded her arms as she replied. Paula copied Leen’s motion, folding her arms and wandering around. I kind of felt like she was glaring at me. 
Don’t get uppity with me, stuffed toy... Just because I know these spells doesn’t make me a bad guy! 
“Doesn’t that mean the first princess could already be Caezar’s puppet? Why doesn’t he just do away with her?” 
“I doubt it. My sister isn’t that weak, even in the face of grief. Even if she was told I was dead, she’d hold herself together for the sake of her nation. That’s why Caezar decided to marry her no matter what her feelings on it were. When my father passes, she’ll succeed the throne. And by right of marriage, he’ll be king. He needs her.” 
“So if she dies after she’s ascended the throne, he’ll have complete control...” 
Pafia nodded her head. This was a truly despicable plot. 
I asked Jantje why he hadn’t gone to Xenoahs for help before coming to Brunhild, but apparently, the overlord had gotten into a really bad mood the last time I’d been brought up in conversation. That was why he didn’t want to disturb the overlord, and just came straight here. It wasn’t like Brunhild had a bad relationship with Xenoahs. The overlord was just sensitive when it came to me and his daughter... Still, now we knew the truth of what was going on in Nokia. 
“But why just you guys?” 
“A monster who uses women should be judged by women... We’ll snip his thing off...” Sakura spoke coldly as she made a scissor gesture with her fingers. 
“We’re going at the behest of Princess Pafia of Nokia in order to verify the truth of this situation. In solidarity as women, we feel we have to. At the very least, Caezar’s summoned Specter ran wild in our royal palace and attacked one of us. He has to pay for that, and we’re the ones who’ll make him do so,” Hilde stated. 
...I think Elze was the one doing the attacking there, not the Specter. 
“Did you just think something bad, there?” 
“N-Nope, not at all!” 
Elze shot me a death glare. In all fairness, the Specter did say it was going to possess Elze... so she could go for a self-defense plea. 
“I still think I should go... If he manipulates people, what if one of you gets possessed? Plus, what about Sue? She’s so young!” 
“You can’t treat me like a child forever. I’m a proper lady now, I’ll have you know. So have a little faith in me, okay? Don’t you believe in me, Touya?” 
“No, I uh... I believe in you...” 
Sue narrowed her eyes at me. She’d been pretty angry as of late whenever anyone babied her. Despite my worries, I decided to trust them. 
“Worry not, dearie. I shall accompany them.” 
“Huh?” 
I heard a fluttering sound, and a kindly old voice called out from behind me. I turned and saw the goddess of space-time herself, wearing a hand-knit shawl. I wasn’t sure what to think. 
“Granny?!” 
“I would like to stretch these old bones once in a while. Plus, I will be able to provide easy transportation for everyone with my powers.” 
The old lady smiled gently, as if she was talking about dropping off a group of kids at the mall. 
“I know you care deeply about your fiancees, dearie, but protecting them is not the only way to show your love. You need to believe in their own strengths as well. There will be many situations like this in the future, so it is best to get used to them. Do you understand?” 
Granny Tokie had a point. If I was going to be the divine administrator of this entire world, then there’d be many situations where I’d want to help, but would be forbidden by the rules to directly interfere. 
Yumina and the others had the divine blessing from me, Karen, and other members of my family. With Granny Tokie by their side, what did I really have to worry about? 
“...Alright, fine. Just take care, okay? Don’t overdo it.” 
“Relax, Touya! Don’t worry so much, or you’ll turn into one of those fussy husbands.” 
Guh... You don’t have to put it like that, Elze... Isn’t it enough that I begrudgingly agreed?! 
“Don’t you worry, Princess. We’re here to help you, and we’re all in this together.” 
“Thank you... Thank you so much, everyone...!” 
Leen’s words prompted Pafia to burst into tears. She bowed her head as she sniffled. Lycia and Jantje bowed to Yumina and the other fiancees, too. 
“...Whew... If Touya saved Pafia on his own, she’d definitely be brought in as the tenth bride...” 
“Yeah, exactly. It’d just be a repeat of when he met Lu.” 
“Y-Yeah! That kind of situation should be mine alone!” 
“Is it really so bad if Touya has more wives?” 
“You’re too naive, Sue. If there are more wives, we’ll have to share him more.” 
“Yes, we should not give up our slices of pie, we should not.” 
“In the end, it’s better for everyone if we take out that scumbag ourselves.” 
I could’ve sworn I overheard some disturbing murmuring from my brides-to-be, but surely I was just hearing things. 
 
“And that’s basically how it went...” 
“Dang. You have it rough, Touya.” 
Ende greedily gulped down his juice before asking the barkeep for another. We were at a tavern named The Warmaiden’s Wing. It was bustling with people. I’d called Ende over, so we sat together at the far end of the bar so I could chat with him about recent events. 
There were a few of my knights around, so I’d changed my appearance with [Mirage]. I didn’t want them too tense in a casual environment, after all. 
“I think it’s important to give women time to talk amongst themselves, though. It’s been the same at my place, too.” 
“That right, Ende?” 
“Yeah. Melle, Ney, and Lycee all go out on their own pretty often. And, unlike a certain someone, I’m not always worrying about where they are.” 
Guh... Don’t bully me, bro. My situation’s a little more complicated than the girls just going out on a shopping trip... 
“A man needs to be secure in himself, Touya. Girls like security in a guy, you know? It’s about confidence. It’s about standing firm, too. You feel me on that, man?” 
“...I don’t know if I wanna hear that from a guy who got kicked out of his house on account of a slumber party.” 
“Ugh...” Ende groaned slightly as he leaned forward. 
Melle and the other Phrase girls had befriended Micah from the Silver Moon Inn, Fleur the waitress, Rebecca and Spica from our knight order, Sonia the adventurer, and Est from the Red Cats. They were all having a sleepover at Ende’s place today, and the poor sucker was here with me because he’d been booted out. 

“I’m glad that Melle made friends, at least... But hey, why don’t we tear up the town tonight? We could have a guy’s night.” 
“Sorry, I already had a guy’s night recently.” 
“What, why didn’t you invite me?!” 
He hadn’t really missed out. Mahjong was more an old guy’s game anyway. I made a mental note to invite him next time, though. 
Man, these potato chips are pretty good. Guess I’ll have a couple more. 
“Thanks for waiting, here’s your drinks.” 
The barkeep walked over and dropped off a cup of fruit juice by Ende. He then placed down a bottle of alcohol and three drinking glasses. I didn’t know why, since I certainly hadn’t ordered it. 
“Uh, I didn’t—” 
“Hic! Eeeheheh... I’ve been, hic, wahnting to drink this Regulus booze for a while. But I haven’t had much pocket money lately... Well, time for, hic, my first sip!” 
The annoying little gremlin herself, Suika, appeared in a nearby seat. Much to my chagrin, she reached out for a glass of booze. She inhaled the scent of the drink, then downed the whole glass in one go. 
“Did I say you could drink during work hours?” 
“Eheh... You’re, hic, just treating me to some booze! It’s a good thing!” 
“Don’t you remember the promise you made?” 
“Uhhm... I-I haven’t been drinking as much at night...” 
Suika was the goddess of alcohol, but she looked like a little kid. I didn’t want any misunderstandings, so I’d banned her from going out to drink at night. She was banned from going to taverns and bars unless she had very important business there. 
“That’s why, hic, I came here today! Because I heard you and Mr. Ende were her—” 
“You just wanted to drink, Suika.” 
“Th-That’s just a happy little coincidence! That’s all it, hic, is!” 
Suika laughed her irritating little laugh. Still, she’d already ordered the booze, so there was no helping it. 
“...Only for today, okay?” 
“Yahoo! That’s our Touya!” 
Suika took another gulp of the previously forbidden brew. 
“Phwah! That’s the stuff! I can feel it soaking through me!” 
“...You drink like an old man.” 
She seemed to be having a great time. Even Ende was laughing a bit at her antics. I wondered if this strange, warm atmosphere was part of her ability as the goddess of alcohol. Somehow, I felt like I was at home. 
“So why’d you come all the way out here? Couldn’t you have just called me on the phone?” 
“Eheheeeh... As soon as I, hic, heard you were in the tavern, I had to come running! There’s a, hic, another god coming down soon, you know?!” 
“Huh? One of the invitees is coming down early?” 
“Nope, hic! Not an invitee! He just needs to talk to you directly!” 
...You’re talking pretty casually about a literal god descending into the mortal realm... But who the hell could come down here so casually? Isn’t there a system where you need permission? 
I sipped at my fruit juice a bit more before asking. 
“Uhh... It’s the, hic, god of destruction!” 
“WHAT?!” 
“Bwaugh!” 
I sputtered, sending a mouth full of fruit juice all over Ende. 
The god of destruction, of all people?! The one that’s supposed to erase no-longer-necessary or out-of-control worlds?! Why?! 
“Wh-Wh-What?! Tell me why the god of destruction’s coming down!” 
“Huh? Hic, because they’re a good drinking buddy!” 
...That is definitely not the reason. 
“I’m being serious, Suika...” 
“Well, hic... If I had to guess... I’d say they’re coming to check on how you shape up. Because they’re also a, hic, one of Gramps’ beneficiaries.” 
Huh, really...? That’d make them a direct superior to me, then... But what’s their intent? 
“Touya, I feel like I just heard something I really shouldn’t have heard. Is the world gonna get wrecked, or something? I’d like some advance warning so I can take Melle away with me.” 
“No, it’s fine... Probably.” 
Ende had an expression equally exasperated as it was amused. 
No matter who this god of destruction is, I’m sure they won’t trash the world for no good reason... Probably... 
I wondered if this was like the new employee at the office being harassed or hazed by his seniors. Yumina and the other girls had their own struggle to face, but apparently, I had my own to deal with, too... All I could do was gulp down my juice. 
 
“Hmph. So Iptimus failed... Pathetic. Defeated by a woman, of all things? I’ve no room for trash like that in my employ...” 
The man cursed the failure of his summoned beast. He stood on a balcony, overlooking a great city as a cold wind blew from the mountains. Shembhala, the capital city of Nokia, was a rugged city nestled between several rocky peaks. The yellow triangle flag, a symbol of the nation, fluttered here and there around the castle town. 
This man was the country’s marshal, leader of all its armies. He wore a jet-black robe and had a fine jade necklace around his neck. The other pieces of jewelry adorning his body were coral, agate, gold, and silver. All of this gaudy equipment served to highlight his affluence. He was a tall man in his mid-thirties, with copper-red hair and a small mustache. His gloomy eyes shone with a faint light as they looked down upon the castle. 
A ratcheting sound came from behind him as a door was opened. He found himself joined by another man. This man had a hunched back, but the blue robe he wore signified his status as a military officer. A direct underling to the dark-robed man. 
“You called, Lord Caezar...?” 
“Iptimus has fallen. Pafia seems to have sided with Brunhild. That filthy little cretin... She should have just been a good little dog and obeyed me...” 
“Fret not, my lord... Brunhild is no match for you. You hold in your hands the proud Elks legacy, do you not?” 
“That is correct.” 
The hunched man in the blue robe spoke without moving his lips. That was because it wasn’t him speaking at all, it was the Specter that inhabited his body. The man himself had long been placed into a dormant state. He was little more than a puppet for Caezar’s whims. 
“You’ll take over where Iptimus failed, Zebeta. Go and infest Pafia’s body. If you can’t do that, then kill her.” 
“As you command.” 
“Ah, and take care of the bitch in my bed. Have her clasped in irons and sold to our usual broker.” 
The small man, infested with the Specter named Zebeta, glanced over at the naked woman sprawled out on Caezar’s bed. She wasn’t sleeping, she’d been rendered unconscious. The whites of her rolled back eyes were visible. She was the daughter of an influential count who had fallen so deeply into Caezar’s debt that he had committed suicide. Upon learning of the count’s death, Caezar simply took the girl as a substitute for what had been owed to him. 
“Are you sure? It must have taken great effort to get your hands on this one.” 
“I’ve no use for women that refuse to submit. She was worth a single night of pleasure, nothing more...” Caezar waved off his subordinate’s question and left on more important business. 
Zebeta, now alone in the room, took a closer glance at the girl. Her body was bruised and lacerated, evidence of whip strikes upon her supple flesh. She must have resisted Caezar until she passed out from the pain. 
Caezar’s methods were shockingly brutal. The girl may have been given over to pay her father’s debt, but her will hadn’t been broken. Her current sorry state was the result of her unyielding spirit. 
“You are far too brutish, my lord... If you only learned how to better exploit mental weaknesses, you’d become an expert manipulator...” Zebeta muttered a few small criticisms of his master’s tactics as he hoisted the woman over his hunched back. From the look of things, her injuries would leave lasting scars. 
The Specter sighed quietly. Former noble or not, she wouldn’t sell for much with such nasty-looking wounds. 
 
“Hohoh... So this is the Nokia capital, it is...” Yae glanced around her immediate surroundings, eyes brimming with curiosity. 
Shembhala, Nokia’s capital city, was pretty similar to Mismede’s, in that it had no walls and was an open environment. But the housing structure was more like Eashen’s in style, featuring many wooden buildings with pillars and white plaster walls. Many of these buildings flew yellow, triangular flags from their rooftops. 
Yumina, Lu, Elze, Linze, Yae, Hilde, Sakura, Sue, Leen, Princess Pafia, her handmaid Lycia, and a small stuffed bear took a few steps into the city streets. Thanks to the goddess of space-time, Tokie (who was also with them), they’d gotten there in an instant. 
Pafia was wearing a hooded cloak for obvious reasons, but the others did not need disguises. Nokia was an isolated country, so it didn’t have much diversity when it came to ethnic groups or multiculturalism. The girls definitely stood out based on their clothing alone, so their first mission was to acquire native Nokian outfits. 
Pafia only had a few pieces of clothing with her in Brunhild, and they didn’t fit any of the other girls. Therefore, they just decided to buy some in Shembhala. 
“Let’s shop here.” 
The store they’d chosen was quite large, and Lycia was quick to guide the girls toward suitable outfits. There were various articles of clothing on the walls and shelves. There were also various accessories, hats, and scarves. 
“Nokia’s clothes are so vibrant!” 
“Yeah... Looks like the fashion here is about wearing lots of different colors, rather than just one...” 
Lu and Linze murmured to each other as they looked at the clothing. Obviously, they didn’t want to go for random colors, though. They still needed to match up nicely. 
“There are lots of accessories here, too. I dunno if I like jangly, bangly stuff...” Sue grumbled slightly as she looked at the armbands and necklaces on display. 
“Different jewels mean different things here. For example, in the case of men and women, agate means you’re single, while jade means you’re married. There are also gender-specific ones. The tiger’s eye gemstone means you’re the firstborn son, for example, while this amethyst would mark you as the firstborn daughter.” 
“Interesting. So you can learn a little bit about someone by the jewelry they wear...” Yumina seemed enthralled by Lycia’s explanation. 
Princess Pafia’s outfit didn’t have any particular meaning to it, though. She hadn’t exactly been dressed for friendly territory. 
They spent a long time mixing and matching fabrics, outfit pieces, hats, and so on. If Touya were there, he’d have surely become exasperated long before they were finished. 
After deciding on her own clothing, Tokie moved in to assist Sue, who seemed to be struggling. 
“This should suit you, sweetheart.” 
“Thanks, Granny!” Sue exclaimed as she gave Tokie a big hug. 
The elderly woman had a very sweet and caring temperament, so Sue had immediately come to adore her. She was even thinking of learning how to knit just like Linze and Melle could. 
Eventually, everyone finished picking out their clothes. Princess Pafia and Lycia opted to remain in their hooded robes. She still wore her regal outfit underneath, but she didn’t want to be identified as the princess. After all, there was no telling how far Caezar’s sight stretched. Lycia kept her hood up for similar reasons. 
If Touya had been there, he’d have been able to solve the problem of possible recognition via his [Mirage] spell. There was also [Invisible], but that would’ve made coordination difficulty for the group. It also wasn’t a great spell to use in crowded areas. 
Yumina and the others paid for their clothing and left the store. Even in the busy street, the size of their group stood out a little bit. Thankfully they didn’t turn too many heads, however. 
“Guess we got our destination, then...” Elze fiddled with her collar slightly as she glanced over to Nokia’s royal castle. 
Nokia’s royal castle was a majestic structure with towering walls of white plaster. It looked like it was built into the mountain itself. The foundation was apparently built on the site of some ancient ruins, and according to Pafia, there were several unexplored dungeon depths beneath the castle itself. One of these dungeons had housed the magic tome that had information about the [Plasma Storm] spell inside. 
“We need to find a way to contact my father and sister first...” 
“But we can’t do that, can we? Doesn’t that marshal have everyone under his thumb?” 
“The people in there are his puppets, they are. The castle itself is a den of vice now, it is.” 
Hilde and Yae gave less-than-hopeful responses to Pafia’s concern. The people in the castle would surely recognize Pafia at a glance. They had to be careful, or Caezar would discover them and unrelated individuals could end up getting hurt. Those under his control weren’t necessarily bad people, after all. 
“If Touya were here we could just teleport inside, but...” Linze muttered slightly, casting a gaze over to Tokie. The kindly old goddess opened her own mouth in response. 
“It’s true that I could send you all into the castle if I wished it, my dears... But would that be a victory well-earned? You told Touya that you could take care of it yourselves, so you should try and do it without relying on me too much.” 
“...Yes, it’d be a little bit pathetic of us to take that option.” 
“Indeed. Let’s do this without Grandmother Tokie’s help, girls. I’m sure we can do this.” 
Everyone nodded in agreement with Lu. After a few moments, Sakura raised her hand. 
“...I could use my [Teleport] to get us inside... It’s way more handy than [Gate] in this situation, anyway...” 
“That’s true, you don’t need to have already been somewhere to teleport in... But can you take multiple people at once like our darling?” 
“...Mm... One or two at a time, maybe...” 
“We don’t know where we’ll land, right? What if we appear right in front of Caezar...” 
“Mmh...” 
[Teleport] was a spell that depended on its caster’s senses to determine placement. To use an analogy, you could think of the destination as a trash can located far away. You could try throwing some trash at it, but your chance of hitting the mark exactly wouldn’t be high. You could still wind up near it, though. If you got lucky you’d make it to the right spot, but there was always a chance of missing. Obviously, you could refine the accuracy with repeated practice, but since Sakura didn’t know the layout of the place she was basically firing blind. 
[Teleport] wasn’t useful for longer distance travel precisely because it relied on a sense of distance and spatial awareness. That didn’t make it useless, though. If you didn’t care about getting exposed or landing in the wrong place, it was a very useful spell. 
“We don’t want to come out in the wrong place and heighten their security measures.” 
“Could Yumina or Sakura summon a creature to scout the place out in advance?” 
“...I have magic power from the grand duke in my ring, and that’s directly connected to Mr. Mittens... If I summoned something else, it might cause him to be un-summoned, so I can’t... Mr. Mittens isn’t good at being sneaky, either... He’s a very noisy cat...” 
“I also don’t have any contracted summons that can be used for covert operations... It’d take a while if I tried to randomly summon something, too...” 
“Oh, I see. Sorry, Touya always summons exactly what we need. I thought it was easy...” 
“Yeah... Touya can summon whatever he needs to, but for most normal people, it’s a randomized process.” 
“Hmhm... Then we are at an impasse, we are.” 
“Oh, uhm...” Princess Pafia hesitantly raised a hand. She was actually outside the brainstorming circle, so her sudden intrusion caused Touya’s fiancees to raise their eyebrows. 
“Erm... There’s actually a secret passage that leads to the castle. We could use it to sneak into the castle undetected... I-I’m really sorry I didn’t mention it sooner! I just couldn’t find a chance to get a word in...” 
Pafia immediately felt scrutinized by nine silent stares. 
“...Ahem. Could you tell us more?” Lu cleared her throat and spoke up. 
“It’s an emergency escape passage in case of enemy attack. I don’t know all that much about it, I don’t even think it’s been used before...” 
Nokia had been an isolated kingdom since the very first day it was founded. The mountains gave it near-perfect protection. Even though Yulong had attacked Nokia several times in the past, those attacks had never penetrated as far as the capital. It was no wonder that they’d never had to use their escape route. After all, such methods were only last-resort options for when a country was about to fall. 
Just about every castle in the world had an escape route built into it somewhere. Belfast’s castle had one, as did Brunhild’s. Brunhild’s castle was inspired by Belfast’s, so the escape route was in a similar location. 
Either way, Princess Pafia proposed that the girls use this route to sneak into the castle. 
“It is a royal escape route, it is... Is it okay for us to use, is it?” 
“We don’t really have other options at this point. The passage is part of an old dungeon, anyway. It probably isn’t the safest exit. Once this is all over, I’d like to have a better one built.” 
In an ideal situation, they’d have been able to consult with Nokia’s king, but as things stood, the country was infiltrated by an opposing force. Pafia believed that if they sat around worrying about trivial matters, then they wouldn’t make any progress. If they sat around doing nothing, then Caezar would win by default. The most important thing they had to do was secure the safety of the king and the first princess. 
“So where do we enter this passage?” 
“There’s a mine owned by my family. It’s just north of town. That’s where we’ll be able to access it.” 
“Cool! Let’s get going, then!” 
“Hold your horses, Sue. Princess Pafia, did you say it was owned by your family? That means it’ll have guards. We should wait until nightfall.” 
“Yumina’s right. It’d be too suspicious if we went as a group in the middle of the day. Plus, the castle will probably be emptier at night.” 
Sue was raring to go, but she was quickly shot down by Yumina and Lu. The little lass wasn’t exactly happy about it, but she understood the gravity of the situation. 
“So, where to now?” 
“We should find a place to sleep until nightfall...” 
Elze’s question was immediately met with a response from Sakura. She definitely had a point. They needed to conserve their strength for the conflict ahead. 
“Why don’t we eat first? I’d love to try some of Nokia’s cuisine!” 
“I agree with Lu-dono, I do! You cannot fight on an empty stomach, you cannot! Hunger is the enemy, it is!” Yae excitedly bounced up and down at the mere mention of food. She and Lu were a deadly combo whenever the subject of cooking came up. 
Yae had tried many of Lu’s experimental dishes back in Brunhild. Lu loved to cook, but she hated the idea of wasting ingredients purely for her own curiosity. That was why Yae was the perfect complement to her cookery skills. The ravenous samurai was willing to eat just about anything. She was also a very honest critic, which Lu greatly appreciated. 
It was only natural that the two of them would take an interest in Nokian cuisine, even if for different reasons. None of the girls disagreed, so they decided to head toward a restaurant. 
“Perhaps you’d like to try our mutton. We have a dish here that features spiced lamb wrapped up with vegetables in a thin skin, almost like a cloth bundle. There are quite a few lamb-based dishes in our country. I know a good restaurant that serves them...” Lycia suggested some food. 
Pafia had been born and raised in the capital city, but she’d never visited any of its restaurants. Lycia, on the other hand, had a keen eye for the best eateries in the area. She’d dined in the capital often during her days as a trainee. She was still from a noble family, however, and didn’t have comprehensive knowledge of the city. 
They all decided on a restaurant and enjoyed a tasty dinner together. Once they finished, they found temporary lodging where they could rest incognito until nightfall. 
After that... Their long night would begin. 
 
The twelve women moved under cover of darkness, each one doing their best to muffle their steps. The night wasn’t pitch black, so the moonlight above still provided some visibility. That was why they were taking extra caution. The moment they were caught would be the end of their advantage. 
They’d managed to sneak into the mine area with little difficulty. Apparently the area had long since been mined of any valuable ore, and thus security was sparse. 
“This way. There’ll be an entryway to the ruins beneath the castle...” 
The girls, following Princess Pafia’s lead, made their way to a corner of the cliff face. It looked slightly different from the natural outcroppings, suggesting Earth magic had been used. As they came closer, they noticed a small tunnel that was almost impossible to see. It was only around three meters high, and stretched downwards into the pitch-black cave. 
Linze was quick to remedy that problem, conjuring up a small beacon with her [Light Orb] spell. The girls used the little guiding light to see as they began their descent. Eventually, they came to a wider area and a small pathway. 
The pathway led toward a fork in the road. One left path, and one right path. Pafia stopped at the intersection. 
“Should be here... There’s a secret passage straight ahead. I don’t know if it can be opened from this side, though...” 
“There is a passage here, there is? It looks like an ordinary wall, it does...” Yae murmured to herself as she ran a hand along the wall in front of them. Leen also touched the wall, tapping a finger against the surface at different parts. 
“It’s certainly a rock wall. No [Mirage]-like tricks to be had here... I wonder how it’s supposed to be bypassed.” 
“There’s a spellstone behind the wall that reacts to a trigger from the royal family. It should activate a mechanism to open the door.” 
“Aha, that makes sense. It’s Earth magic.” 
Leen nodded at Pafia. Gimmicky traps and mechanisms that used Earth magic had been used by many countries since ancient times, so it made sense that this was one, too. 
“What should we do? Smash it up?” 
“Shall I cast [Explosion]?” 
Elze clenched her fists, while Linze readied a spell. It was only natural that the twins would come to similar conclusions. 
“I don’t think destroying anything would be a wise idea. We don’t want to leave evidence of our entry, after all...” Yumina chimed in as the voice of reason, as Sakura picked up a small stone and began rapping it against the rock wall. Sue, curious about her intentions, spoke up. 
“What’re you doing?” 
“Hitting the wall with a rock...” 
“I... That’s not what I meant!” 
“I’m finding out the depth of the wall based on the echo. It’s barely fifty centimeters thick... I can definitely get through here, hold on... [Teleport]...” 
Sakura vanished without any warning. 
“Ah!” 
Everyone other than Tokie was surprised when Sakura reappeared after a few seconds. 
“It’s okay... There’s a passage through the other side... There aren’t any monsters, either. I can take us two at a time...” 
“Wh—?! S-Sakura-dono?!” 
“Sakura?!” 
“[Teleport]...” 
Without even giving them any time to process the decision, Sakura grabbed Yae and Hilde before vanishing with them. She decided to take the two swordswomen first, just in case of any screw-ups on the first try. 
Sakura came back in a flash, this time taking Leen and Lu. She then took Lycia and Pafia, Yumina and Sue, then Elze and Linze. Tokie simply teleported herself. 
“...That was exhausting...” 
Despite her declaration, Sakura wasn’t all that worn out. [Teleport] consumed more magical power depending on the distance you covered. It was true that increasing the number of people taken with you took a toll on the cost of the spell, but it was basically negligible given how short a distance they’d traveled. Sakura’s exhaustion was likely more of a mental one, brought on by the constant focus she needed to keep on her target coordinates. 
“Hmhm... Yep, these are dungeon ruins, alright!” Sue looked around, just to confirm their surroundings. 
Now they were on the other side, they could see the spellstone contraption that would open the way with enough magic power. 
The underground passage looked remarkably similar to the dungeons on Brunhild’s remote islands. The walls and flooring were made of shaped stone, clearly the product of Earth magic. Even without Linze’s [Light Orb], there was a faint light emanating from their surroundings. 
“Did they compound Light magic into the Earth magic constructions...?” 
“Yes, this is definitely a compound construction. It must date back to the ancient civilizations.” 
Linze and Leen were quick to marvel at the craftsmanship. They all continued walking down the passageway. 
Yae and Hilde took vanguard positions, leading the gradual walk. The passage was about four meters high and four meters wide, so they had room to swing a weapon around if need be. 
Yumina started chatting with Pafia along the way. 
“You said this was an ancient ruin?” 
“That’s right. It’s an ancient dungeon, to be precise. The main entrance is right beneath our castle.” 
“It’s rare to have a castle linked to a dungeon like that... Is it okay? Has there ever been an issue with monsters making their way up from the depths?” 
“We’ve never had a problem. There are several barriers and wards in place to keep monsters at bay. There may be a few monsters down here, though, but they’d only be weak ones like Slimes.” 
Yumina, Elze, Linze, and Yae stopped in their tracks. They began to look around uneasily, jittery expressions on their faces. Pafia was confused by the reaction. 
“...Crush any and all Slimes you see...” 
“Right. Maybe we should hunt down each and every one of them, just in case...” 
“Kill every last one of them, I say...” 
“This is a kill-or-be-killed situation, it is...” 
The four girls had a look in their eyes, it was one that spelled dread, discomfort, and indignation. After all, they’d had a particularly bad incident involving a few Slimes a long time ago. Princess Pafia, unaware of that sealed, slimy past, backed off a little. She was more than a little confused. 

“A Slime, get it!” 
The moment Sue noticed a small green Slime, Linze cast [Ice Needle] without a second thought. The little Slime was turned into a pincushion, dying almost instantly. 
“Scary...” 
“Green Slimes are an enemy to all women. They’re just as bad as Caezar.” 
“They are?” 
“Green Slimes eat fabric. That includes clothing. That makes them an enemy to any woman’s decency.” 
Sue was a little confused, but Leen quickly set her straight. Confident in her new understanding, Sue kept on walking with the group. 
There were a few forks in the road here and there, a few stairways to clear, but the group marched on. Princess Pafia had a great understanding of the right route, so they made little to no wrong turns. It wasn’t a matter of if they’d make it, it was simply a matter of when. It was a little amusing to Pafia, though. She’d always imagined using these halls to escape her castle, not invade it. 
“Another fork...” 
“Uhhm... We need to take a left here.” 
Hilde asked for directions, but it took Pafia a few moments to reply. After all, she had to follow her memorized path backward. 
“We’ve been going a while... I think we have to be nearly there, right?” 
“Yes, we’re almost there. I’m sure we’re by the castle basement.” 
“I see... Then we’d better proceed with caution.” 
Linze, who wasn’t very physically fit, seemed pleased to learn that they didn’t have much dungeon diving ahead of them. They hadn’t seen any Slimes or monsters for a while, which was proof they’d entered the protective vicinity of the castle’s barriers and wards. 
After a short while, Yae and Hilde stopped. Everyone behind them stopped as well. 
“What’s up?” Lu took a few steps forward to see what was ahead. There was a small flight of stairs ahead, but it didn’t lead anywhere. There was a roof above them. 
“Have we reached our destination, have we?” Yae walked up a few of the stairs and tapped on the ceiling. 
“There’s an echo. That’s a thin roof...” Sakura’s comment caused Yae to investigate the ceiling a little more closely. She found a thin seam running along the middle. 
“It should lead to the old royal audience room...” Pafia suddenly spoke up. 
“I see, I do... Then I just need to do this, I do! Hup...!” Yae placed both hands flat on the ceiling and pushed upward. It actually budged slightly and rose. But, thin or not, it was still a massive stone slab. Try as she might, Yae could only heave against it. Her face turned bright red. 
“HNNNNNNGH!” 
“Y-Yae? You look like you’ll pop a blood vessel!” 
“HAAAUGH!” 
Hilde’s concerns caused Yae’s concentration to break, and she fell to her knees. Sensing a chance to show off, Elze stepped forward. 
“Don’t worry, Yae. I got this. I’ll lift it up in one good go!” 
“Gwuh... That was too difficult, it was...” 
Yae rose to her feet, passing Elze and letting her take a shot. Much like Yae had done, Elze put her hands flat against the surface of the ceiling. 
“[Boost]!” 
A massive rumbling sound rang out as the stone was shifted. Elze had succeeded in lifting it over her head. Elze saw a dimly-lit room through the now-opened exit. She shifted the slab to the side, creating a full opening for the others. It wasn’t until she’d turned around that she realized she’d crawled out of the fireplace. The room was certainly unused; it was barely even furnished. Not even the fireplace she’d come out of had anything decorating it. 
Elze took a few glances around to check if anyone else was there, then turned around. 
“Coast is clear, girls. You can come on up.” 
“Muffle us, o Wind. A Silencing Force: [Mute].” 
Leen responded to Elze’s words by casting a spell around them all. It would block any noise from the room they were in. It was a similar spell to Touya’s [Silence]. Leen had learned it in Babylon’s Library. 
Everyone clambered out of the fireplace, one after the other. Except for Sakura and Tokie, who simply teleported upward. 
“Alright, so we broke in.” 
“Woo! What next, guys?” 
“We’ll find my father and Lefia. We must get them to safety. And then we’ll take Caezar on...!” Pafia clenched her fists together as she spoke. There was a raging fire in her eyes. 
“Then... where’s the king?” 
“He should be on the third floor, at the end of the corridor. Uhhm...” 
As Pafia answered Elze, she walked over to a nearby window, just barely opening the curtains. 
“Look over there. The furthest room from here, on the third floor.” 
Pafia pointed toward the castle wing left of the courtyard. 
“That’s not that far.” 
“I could use [Teleport] to get there, it’s in range...” 
Sakura could glance enough through the far-off window that she had a good idea of how to land there. Unlike [Gate], [Teleport] was a spell that couldn’t be blocked by barriers or warding talismans. The only issue was not knowing whether or not the king was alone. 
“It should be okay. Even my father’s close confidants and personal maids weren’t allowed in. Caezar decreed that only me, my sister, and our royal physician could see him. The physician was one of Caezar’s puppets, though...” 
The doctor might have been possessed to kill the king at any point, to effectively keep him as a hostage. Or Caezar might have been holding out for the king’s heart to weaken to the point of being a manipulation candidate. 
“Then, Sakura... you should take Pafia. Ah, and take Leen as well. She can cast that [Mute] spell over there.” 
“Okay... Got it...” 
Sakura took Pafia and Leen by the hand. Paula, intent on tagging along, grabbed on to Leen’s leg. Sakura focused her vision on the distant window. 
“[Teleport].” 
In the blink of an eye, the trio (and Paula) were moved toward the king’s quarters. The room was just as dimly lit as the one they’d been in before. It had a large canopy bed up against the far wall. 
“Muffle us, o Wind. A Silencing Force: [Mute].” 
Leen immediately activated the spell, but her voice alerted someone in their vicinity. 
“Who’s there?!” 
A clattering sound alerted the girls, and they turned to find an individual standing by the bedside. It wasn’t the king. The voice belonged to a girl. The king was still laying down in his bed; this was someone who’d been sitting by him. Before Leen could begin to cast a spell at the mystery person, Pafia ran over to them. 
“Lefia!” 
“P-Pafia...? You’re safe?! Y-You’re alive?!” 
Leen couldn’t fully make out who the person was in the darkness, but she could infer that it was Pafia’s sister. The two sisters pulled each other into a tight embrace. It was, after all, the first time they’d seen each other in three months. 
Caezar had fabricated a story about Pafia being dead and even produced a fake corpse. But Lefia refused to allow herself to falter. Despite the fake evidence presented to her, she refused to believe it. Even though the fake corpse looked much like Pafia, Lefia knew it couldn’t have been her. She cradled her sister like a long-lost treasure, finally returned to her arms. 
As she stepped into the moonlight, Lefia’s form was revealed. She looked much like her sister. She was clearly in her twenties and wore a traditional white Nokian dress. Her hair was the same color as Pafia’s, but it was long enough to reach down to her waist. Though her eyes didn’t burn with the same ferocity as her sister’s, it was clear that she had a strong will. 
“I’m good, Sakura. You head back.” 
“Right...” 
Sakura nodded at Leen and teleported away. Less than thirty seconds later, she reappeared with Elze and Linze in tow. She vanished again, bringing the rest of the girls two at a time. Lefia was bewildered at the sight. 
“Pafia... J-Just who are they?” 
“They’re here to help us. They’re all betrothed to the grand duke of Brunhild.” 
“R-Really?! Even that elderly woman?!” 
“A-Ah, no. That’s his grandmother...” 
Tokie had appeared out of thin air, much to Lefia’s amazement. Pafia was quick to dispel her sister’s misunderstanding. Perhaps the girl was a bit of a natural airhead. Lefia looked at the nine fiancees, almost speechless. 
Ever since Yulong’s destruction, there’d been more stories from the outside world. But most of these stories were about the enigmatic grand duke of Brunhild, who had allegedly brought Yulong down himself. There were far too many stories to list. 
Some rumors said he’d single-handedly taken down an ancient evil. One rumor said he’d led an army against a horde of Dragons. Another said he’d kidnapped a princess from Xenoahs, and destroyed an entire army in the recently-discovered western continent. It was hard to tell which rumors were true, and which were false. 
But the most prominent rumor of all was that he was a notorious womanizer. Lefia’s impression of Brunhild had largely been negative as a result of these rumors. After all, Caezar was a womanizer as well... And he was truly scum. 
But apparently, she’d thought wrong. Apparently, this grand duke was a man who was welcoming to women of all kinds. These brides-to-be certainly looked happier than the women Caezar had gotten involved with. 
“You must be Princess Lefia.” 
“Ah, yes.” 
“Your marshal, Caezar, used a summoned beast in our territory in an attempt to target us, along with our fiance. As such, we are here to bring him to justice. That’s our ostensible reason, at least. We’re actually here because your sister seemed like she needed help, I hope that’s alright...” Yumina spoke in a surprisingly cheeky manner, offering the princess a smile. 
In response, Lefia bowed her head. After all, this was their best chance at defeating Caezar. There was no great ally she could’ve asked for. 
“Thank you so much! As the first princess of Nokia, I pledge my truest thanks to the Duchy of Brunhild!” 
“BrUnhiLd... BRuNhILD... DeSpiCAbLe... DesPiCaBLe...!” 
A voice suddenly reverberated around the room. But the room had been soundproofed with [Mute], meaning it had to have come from someplace within. 
“Over there!” Yumina screamed and pointed at the king’s bed. A white, hazy substance was floating up from the bedridden man’s mouth. 
The white blur grew larger and larger until two golden eyes appeared in the mist. The spectral form looked almost identical to the one they’d seen back in Brunhild. 
 
“My NaMe is GaLaVeLLuM... LoRd CaEZaR’s mOSt faITHfuL seRvaNT...” 
“Impossible... How could Father have been possessed?!” 
“It taKeS liTTlE to hIJaCk a BodY... I inHaBit THiS oNe on CaeZaR’s coMManD... ReaDy tO snUff it ouT aT aNy moMEnT...” 
The Specter mocked Lefia, who looked horrified. This monster was clearly another of Caezar’s summons. 
In order to control various summoned beasts of a specific species, you needed to make a contract with a more powerful monster that served as their leader. Specters like these often had their own factions and groups, so Caezar had likely contracted with the leader of one such group, and thus had access to a great number of them. 
“Well, let’s drag you all the way out...” 
Leen glared at the spectral mass before casting [Banish] on it. 
“GuWeEh?!” 
The light emanating from Leen’s palm reached the Specter, exorcizing it from the king’s body. It fully emerged from the bedridden man’s mouth, drifting closer to the center of the room. 
“WrETch... A mEre liTtle GiRL daREs caST suCh A tHiNg on mE?!” 
“I’m no little girl, you monster. I’m probably older than you, to be honest.” 
Leen began chanting another magical incantation as the Specter floated upwards towards the ceiling. She wasn’t about to let him go that easily. She held a hand forward, and five orbs of light concentrated at each of her fingertips. 
“Come forth, o Light! Shining Duet: [Light Arrow]!” 
“GrAuGh?!” 
The beams of light shot out in the form of beaming arrows, piercing the Specter’s misty form and shredding it apart. To Leen, killing something so weak was as trivial as crushing a bug. 
“Hmph. All you could do was hide. Don’t act so high and mighty if you’re going to die so easily.” 
Seeing Galavellum obliterated prompted the two sisters to snap out of their terrified stupor. They immediately rushed towards the bed. 
“Father! Can you hear me?!” 
“Now now, dears. Don’t jostle him. The Specter was sapping his energy, so he’s quite powerless right now.” 
Tokie gently separated the girls from their father’s arms. She then walked forward and placed two fingers atop the old man’s head. 
“I’m not sure how much he has been weakened, but he seems stable. He’ll surely recover within a few days.” 
“Oh, thank goodness...” 
While the two princesses heaved sighs of relief, Yumina and the others turned toward the door in concern. Thankfully, they had Sakura, who was able to hear further than the rest of them. She’d noticed that things had gotten noisier within the main area of the castle. [Mute] blocked all sounds that came from the room, but it still allowed the people inside to hear things going on outside of it. 
“If that Specter was one of Caezar’s summons...” 
“Then he must know we are here, he must.” 
“There’s probably a whole group of them on their way, huh...?” 
They’d lost the element of surprise. They were stuck in a room with Lefia, Pafia, and Lycia to worry about. Not to mention the king himself. It’d be a bit difficult to fight without the risk of collateral damage. 
“I suppose there isn’t any helping it, dearies. I will take care of the non-combatants here. Please, go and fight to your heart’s content...” Tokie suddenly spoke up, as if she’d read everyone’s minds. She was the goddess of space-time, and barriers were intrinsically linked to spatial force. If she really wanted to, she could create a barrier even more powerful than Touya’s [Prison]. 
“I don’t feel good relying on Granny like that, though...” 
“We don’t have any other option, Sue. Let’s just take these guys out.” 
“There are lots of footsteps coming this way... Let’s brace...” 
The noises outside were now loud enough for everyone to hear. Their enemies were close by. Yae and Hilde stepped up closest to the door, unsheathing their blades. Elze took the gauntlets from her waist and quickly put them on. 
Tokie murmured something, and the area around the king’s bed suddenly shimmered in a pale light, almost like Touya’s [Prison] spell. It was likely some kind of highly-advanced barrier. 
“I’ll just obscure their forms while I’m at it...” Tokie waved her hands, causing herself, the king of Nokia, Lefia, Pafia, and Lycia to disappear. Even the blanket the king had been under was now flattened as if he wasn’t there at all. This was a form of magic far beyond simple illusion. It was as if space itself had been compressed and superimposed. 
“That’s incredible!” 
“Ahaha... Flattery will get you nowhere, my dear...” Tokie’s disembodied voice rang out to answer Linze’s amazement. 
At that moment, several armed men came barging into the room. 
“Let’s get to a better fighting position! Yae, Hilde, Elze, push them back!” 
“Very well, Yumina-dono!” 
“You can count on us!” 
“Chaaarge!” 
On Yumina’s command, the close-combat trio charged toward the incoming foes. Yae and Hilde had blades that were powerful enough to slice through steel like butter. But the real benefit came from Touya’s [Modeling] spell, which allowed them to make their blades dull or sharp on command. In other words, they could pinpoint manipulate just how lethal their strikes were. 
Obviously, it would’ve been bad if they killed Nokian soldiers in their own castle, self-defense or not. That was why Hilde and Yae chose to dull their blades. At worst, they’d break some bones, but it was better than the alternative. 
“Guhgh?!” 
“Gwaugh?!” 
“Hngh!” 
The three girls beat down their enemies one after another until they made it outside the room. 
The corridor outside the king’s quarters was a narrow one. More and more soldiers came down the hallway to their right, while there was only a solid wall to their left. Yae and Hilde clashed with the incoming soldiers while Elze turned to face the wall. 
“Elze-dono!” 
“I’m on it! [Boost]!” 
Elze swung back her fist and punched the wall. It didn’t stand a chance. As the obstacle crumbled, a cold breeze rolled into the corridor. The courtyard became visible below. It was nice and spacious. 
Linze suddenly burst out of the bedroom, unleashing her magic at the hole where the wall had been. She cast [Ice Wall], creating a huge chunk of ice. Truly capable mages were capable of manipulating the shape of their conjured ice, so Linze expertly crafted the wall into a slide. 
Elze was quick to acknowledge the gift her sister had just provided and promptly slid down to the courtyard. Linze, Yumina, Sakura, Sue, Leen (with Paula), and Lu then slid down to the courtyard. Hilde and Yae, who had been holding the soldiers back, came down last. 
Their pursuers attempted to charge out toward the icy slide. However, Yumina began chanting a spell just in the nick of time. 
“Come forth, Earth! Barrier of the Mother Soil: [Earthwall]!” 
A massive hunk of rock jutted out of the courtyard’s ground, smashing the icy slide and covering up the hole in the wall before any soldiers could make it through. The men quickly realized that they couldn’t break through, so they doubled back and headed down toward the courtyard. 
“Looks like we don’t need to worry about fighting space here.” Lu drew her twin blades as she spoke. 
The girls could see the soldiers through the castle windows. There was another group running across the courtyard. Upon seeing them, Yumina was struck by a strange sensation. The Nokian soldiers they’d encountered in the castle wore light leather armor, while the ones headed toward them in the courtyard were clad in full armor one might expect from a cavalry trooper. 
The design of the armor was unlike any Yumina had ever seen before. It was jet black all over. They had the visors of their helmets raised so their faces were visible, but they were completely devoid of expression or emotion. 
“They are possessed, they are! Linze-dono, we need you!” 
“Roger that. Come forth, Light! Shining Exile: [Banish]!” 
A magic circle appeared on the ground beneath the incoming soldiers, but they were completely unaffected. Their dark armor almost pulsed with wicked energy as it repelled Linze’s Light magic. 
“It didn’t work?!” 
“That’s no ordinary armor. They must be lost artifacts from the past...” 
“Correct. These sets of armor are remnants of an ancient civilization. They’re known as the Antimagic Suits. Try all you like, but your spells will be ineffective!” 
Leen’s postulating was confirmed by the man standing behind the black knights. He was a tall man with red hair and various pieces of jewelry on his body. A jet black robe covered him from neck to toe. The man was none other than Caezar Nortelis, marshal of Nokia’s military. 
“I’m surprised to see so many of Brunhild’s bitches here, but no matter. Where is Pafia? You will tell me at once.” 
To Caezar, women were entities that belonged on their knees. He didn’t care for such things as equality between sexes. His warped mind simply demanded subservience from those he viewed as naturally lesser. 
“Heh. So you’re Caezar? Man, I knew you weren’t gonna be much of a charmer, but I didn’t expect you to have an ass for a face.” 
“Sis... I agree with you, but you shouldn’t say it so brazenly... Besides, I think his personality’s probably worse than his appearance.” 
Elze started belittling Caezar the moment she saw him, while Linze made a perfectly backhanded comment. It was clear that the twins shared opinions when it came to him. 
Caezar, apparently unprepared for that kind of backtalk, glared at them with fire burning in his eyes. 
“You sluts! Who are you to insult my venerable self, hm?!” 
“Venerable?! Ahah... He said he was venerable, he did! Hilde-dono, did you hear that?” 
“Yae, you shouldn’t kick a man when he’s down. Especially when he looks so meek... Pff...” 
Yae burst out laughing, barely unable to contain herself. Hilde attempted to keep her composure as the samurai boisterously patted her on the back. The display made Caezar’s blood boil. 
“..Tk... Ghhh.... Very well, then. If you will not tell me where Pafia is, then I will take you by force and make you tell me! I’ll lay punishment and disgrace upon you all until you beg for me to kill you!” 
“...You’re really lucky, Caezar. If Touya was here, he’d have thrust his fist into your face halfway through that sentence.” 
“Mm... He definitely would’ve done that. Thankfully, we’re more patient, and we can handle a little bit of chittering now and then. Though it is nice when he fights for us.” 
“You’re right about that...” 
Yumina and Sakura nodded along with Lu’s assessment, fondly thinking about their fiance. 
Veins started bulging on Caezar’s forehead. He’d never been so relentlessly disregarded or mocked before. By nature, he was a man with a short fuse. He’d always looked down on women, and no woman had ever treated him with contempt. But in the face of all this mockery, he was like a volcano on the verge of violent eruption. The only reason he hadn’t exploded at them yet was due to his sense of pride. He didn’t want them to know that they’d gotten to him. Unfortunately for him, it was already showing on his face. 
Caezar looked over the group of girls, eyes focusing on the smallest one. She would make an easy target, surely. But the smallest of the girls, Sue, simply tilted her head when he looked her way. “You look kind of mad, Mister,” she said. That was the last straw. 
“ENOUGH OF THIS! SEIZE THEM!” 
On Caezar’s frenzied command, the black knights advanced towards Yumina and the other girls. 
“Alright, then. Let’s take out the trash.” 
Elze grinned before kicking off the ground and charging into the fray. She caught one of the knights on the jaw with a brutal uppercut. The knight she struck fell backward and slumped to the ground. Even if they were possessed by Specters, their bodies were still human. Taking damage would make it harder for their bodies to move, and concussive blows would end up rattling them. After all, a mounted soldier was made less efficient if he was knocked off his horse. 
The Specter didn’t directly manipulate the body like a puppet. It was more like they commanded the person to move their body by force. 
“YoU...” 
“Not that smart, are you? Guess the summons take after their summoner.” 
The fallen man’s mouth leaked ectoplasm as the Specter escaped, but Elze was quick to jab a light-infused fist straight through it. 
“GraAuuRgH?!” 
“Looks like trashing you’s easy once we get you away from that armor, huh?” 
The Specter split apart, destroyed by the strike. 
Another knight came up from behind Elze, ready to strike. But, just as he was about to leap... He found that both of his feet had been fused to the ground with ice. Linze had used [Icebind] to trap him in place. Unfortunately for Caezar and his soldiers, the girls knew how to deal with enemies that could resist direct attacks. 
“Get him, Sis!” 
“Thanks for the assist, Linze!” 
Elze spun back around with a half-turn and kicked the knight square in the chest. It was a move that Touya had shown her in the past. 
The black knight, with his armor kicked in, fell flat on his face. No ectoplasm leaked out this time, though. The cowardly Specter inside must have seen what happened to the last one that tried escaping. 
“They are not any different to regular soldiers, they are not.” 
“Yeah, at least they don’t fire beams like the Phrase did...” 
“They can’t regenerate, either!” 
Yae, Lu, and Hilde started knocking down more knights, not wanting Elze to have all the fun. 
“Strike forth, Earth! The Fool’s Abyss: [Pitfall]]!” 
“Come forth, Water! Cleansing Downpour: [Waterfall]!” 
“Come forth, Lightning! Pure Sparking Javelin: [Thunder Spear]!” 
Yumina used Earth magic to create a large pit beneath a group of knights. Sakura then filled it up with her Water magic. After that, Leen launched a volley of Lightning magic that struck not at the knights, but the water itself. 
Direct magical attacks were a no-go, but indirect electrocution was more than acceptable as an alternative. The frazzled knights, unable to even move after such a horrible shock, simply slumped backward in the pit. 
Some of them leaked out of their host bodies in a desperate attempt to escape, but every single one was wiped out by Sue’s [Shining Javelin] spell. The more men that fell, the angrier Caezar became. 
“Zebeta!” 
“You rang, my lord?” 
Caezar yelled out. A hunched, robed man suddenly appeared by his side. 
“What is the meaning of this?! You told me those armor sets would give us an advantage!” 
“They do, sir. They give us the advantage of having our conventional weaknesses nullified. It doesn’t improve physical strength... Though, a Specter-infested human actually has twice the muscle output compared to a standard human...” 
“Enough excuses! Do something about this!” 
“Very well. Let us use #8.” 
Zebeta’s suggestion made Caezar reach into his pocket to produce a small box-like container. He opened up the lid and removed a small sphere, about four centimeters in diameter. It had ‘#8’ written on it. 
“This should do it...” 
Caezar, in the throes of his angry tantrum, smashed the little sphere against the ground as hard as he could. The sphere was a container that employed storage magic, so shattering it was the only way to release what was inside. The tiny orb shattered against the floor, and an enormous Dragon appeared in its place. 
“Wh-What in the...?!” 
“It’s a Steelhusk Dragon, my lord.” 
The Dragon before them was unlike any found in the wild. Its entire body was outfitted with armor plating, wiring, and circuitry. In short, it was a cyborg. To the people there, it just looked like an armored Dragon, though. 
It was around fifteen meters long. It had no wings, which meant it was probably an Earth Dragon once. It had four bulky legs, and its feet were tipped with steel claws. Its back was lined with spikes from head to tail, but even they weren’t as menacing as the cyber-beast’s fearsome fangs. Its eyes glowed a faint red, suggesting that they were actually camera lenses. 
“Now, if you’ll excuse me...” 
The hunchbacked man opened his mouth, and an ectoplasmic goop rose from his insides. Now released by his parasite, he fell to the ground in a heap. The hazy substance that had squirmed its way out of the man then entered the Cyber-Dragon’s body. 
A fan mounted on its back began to slowly whir, and the enormous creature began moving. Apparently, it was absorbing mana from the atmosphere. 
The Dragon craned its neck upward and let out a hideous roar. Its camera-eyes glowed a bright and piercing red. A plume of smoke, or perhaps steam, spewed from its mouth. This unholy fusion of biology and technology somewhat reminded Yumina of Babylon’s gynoids. 
“Now then, young ladies! Which of you wishes to spar with me first?!” 
A voice came from the Dragon, almost carried by the steam it was exhaling. It was a similar voice to the one that had come from the hunched man. 
The Steelhusk Dragon was originally created by a master craftswoman. It was considered an upgrade on her original creation, the Dominant Resonance Needle. Instead of hijacking a Dragon’s mind, she had cyborgified an entire living specimen. Deborah Elks, the original inventor of this hybrid creation, had hoped that someday it would be used to defeat the Phrase invasion. 
 
The Steelhusk Dragon was a magic weapon created five-thousand years ago by Deborah Elks. To be more accurate, it was a biological weapon. The result of a Dragon that had been brainwashed until it no longer had a will of its own, then fitted with cybernetic augments. It was supposed to be deployed against the Phrase invaders, so it went without saying it was at least strong enough to shatter them. 
Caezar had now deployed it against Touya’s fiancees, and his spectral servant Zebeta inhabited its body. 
“Now...” 
As it spoke through steaming breath, Zebeta had the Dragon extend its left foreleg. The ankle, or wrist, depending on how you looked at it, split off and fired the Dragon’s foot toward a nearby castle wall. It smashed the building apart in seconds. 
“Ooh!” Caezar cheered, clearly amazed, as the left paw was pulled back via a wire rope and reattached to its limb. 
“It seems my motor controls are all attuned properly... Well, then...” 
Zebeta looked down through the Dragon’s camera eyes, keen to pick out its first target. Reducing their numbers one by one was the intelligent, tactical choice. Eliminating the weakest of them with the ‘strike claw’ function would weaken the group as a whole, and significantly damage their collective morale. 
With that in mind, Zebeta had the Dragon’s pointed foot launch right out at Sue. But, just before the Dragon’s fearsome claws could pierce Sue’s body, she deftly twirled out of the way without a single care in the world. 
“What?!” Zebeta unintentionally cried out in confusion. It hadn’t expected someone so young to have such dexterity. 
“You’re too slow! Moroha’s way faster than that! You couldn’t even swat a fly.” 
All the other girls agreed, but they didn’t bother speaking out. They all saw the Dragon’s claw as it flew out toward Sue, and from their perspective, it was easily avoidable. 
“Tch... Then how about this?!” 
The Dragon rose upward and began firing out projectiles shaped like crescent moons from its shoulders. The cutters, apparently formed of mithril, danced around the air as they closed in on the girls. But Hilde and Yae were quick to block them, taking care to use dulled blades so that they could knock the incoming projectiles to the ground. After all, if they’d sliced the cutters in half they’d just have twice the problem to deal with. 
“It certainly has a lot of features, it does.” 
“Yeah. I wonder if Doctor Babylon would be interested in it...” 
Hilde laughed softly in response to Yae’s comment, but neither of them knew that Babylon had actually seen this thing before. She most certainly wouldn’t have been interested in it, as her only comment on it five-thousand years ago was “This is a half-baked piece of crap, Deborah. I hate it.” 
One of the main reasons Babylon gave for her criticism was that it wasn’t easily mass-produced. You needed an entire Dragon to create the foundation for the damn thing, so making a whole army of them would be incredibly difficult. Not to mention the fact that brainwashing and forcibly cyborgifying a whole bunch of Dragons would probably piss off most of their species, and could even end up causing a major conflict between humanity and dragonkind. 
Babylon figured that the Dragons would kill humanity before the Phrase could if they got angry enough about it. True enough to the good doctor’s fears, Deborah abandoned the project precisely due to fear of retaliation from dragonkind as a whole. This Dragon was the last remaining relic of that early attempt. 
“Come forth, Water! Ballistic Bubbles: [Bubble Bomb]!” 
Linze’s spell summoned forth soapy bubbles that impacted against the Zebeta-infested Dragon. They burst against the metal plating, rocking its body. 
“Ghh! You little...” 
Zebeta had the Dragon fire out spines from its back, popping the surrounding bubbles before they could explode. 
At the same moment, the Dragon’s body swiveled around to strike Yumina and the other girls with its tail. A direct blow from such a thick, armored appendage could surely kill a human on impact. But unfortunately for Zebeta, that wasn’t going to happen. The tail swipe was effortlessly blocked by a gauntlet-clad girl. 
“Wh-What?!” 
“Y’know, I really have noticed that I can take a lot of punishment lately... Maybe that’s the trait I ended up manifesting. I’ve got a real sturdy body!” 
Elze grinned slightly as she kept a tight hold on the tail, which was thicker than a log. There were special abilities that manifested in those who served as beneficiaries of the divine. In Yumina this had manifested as foresight, in Sakura it had manifested as enhanced hearing, and in Lu it had manifested as an unparalleled sense of taste. 
It wasn’t fully accurate to just call Elze’s body sturdy. It was more that her body could infuse itself with residual divinity. This enhancement was strong enough to be considered a lesser version of the Apotheosis ability that Touya and the other gods could unleash. For the sake of simplicity, it would be easier to call it her battlegarb, as she basically ‘wore’ the divinity she’d been blessed with in battle. 
“Oh my... That is quite fitting for Elze-dono, it is.” 
“It’s somethin’ alright... I gotta say it feels pretty similar to [Boost], so I can go in hard with it!” 
“Gaugh?!” 
Without missing a beat, Elze bent the tail in her grip and began twisting it. The appendage snapped off and was promptly kicked into the distance by the brawler. 
The Dragon’s sudden loss of its tail caused Zebeta to lose balance and stumble. 
“What is the meaning of this, Zebeta?! Do something! You can’t seriously be losing to women, can you?!” Caezar was fuming, steam practically shooting out of his ears. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. 
However, before Zebeta could try to attack again, Hilde kicked off the ground, leaped up high, and brought her sword down on the Dragon’s neck. 
“Lestian Sacred Sword: Third Shear!” 
“Wh—” 
 

Before anyone could even blink, the Steelhusk Dragon was decapitated. Its head rolled around on the ground. Its body slumped downward, sparking and hissing at the neck-stump. Zebeta clearly had no control over it anymore. 
“Wow! Good job, Dragonslayer!” 
“I think it’s offensive to dragonkind to call that thing a Dragon, personally...” 
Sue and Sakura offered their own thoughts on Hilde’s feat. Sakura had a point, though. This creature didn’t even bleed. It might have been a Dragon once, but it definitely wasn’t at this point. 
“GhHh...” 
A blurry shadow emerged from the Dragon’s body. It quickly moved toward Caezar and floated by his side. 
“You idiot! How did you lose?! You useless dullard! How could you lose to a bunch of little girls?!” 
“...#3...” 
“What?!” 
“Produce #3 from Elks’ Legacy! Do it now...” 
“H-Huh? Okay...” 
Caezar panicked in response to Zebeta’s urging, and quickly produced a little crystal orb engraved with ‘#3.’ He threw it to the ground, and a set of armor similar to the black knights’ equipment appeared. This set was transparent and crystalline, however. 
“Hm?” 
“Is that...” 
Yae and the others stopped in their tracks. They all recognized the armor... or at least the material it was made out of. The crystal armor floated in the air before affixing itself to Caezar’s body. It wrapped itself around his arms, his chest, his belly, his lower body, his legs, his neck, and then his head. Caezar’s body was outfitted, head to toe, in phrasium armor. 
“O-Ooh...! This is phenomenal!” 
“This is an armor crafted from a Phrase lifeform, Lord Caezar. It is impervious to magic and harder than any blade. Truly it is the perfect equipment for you, my lord.” 
Zebeta explained the situation. Caezar looked less like a traditional knight and more like a sci-fi warrior in power armor. Despite the heavy look and defensive nature of the gear, it was incredibly easy to move around in. The armor had seemingly been enchanted with weight-reducing magic. Even the shield on his back and the sword at his waist felt lighter than air. 
“Ooh! Incredible!” 
Caezar drew the blade at his waist and swung it against a nearby wall. The blade effortlessly cut through the hardy construct as if it were butter. 
“Muhaha... Muhahahaha! Incredible! Now there’s nobody in this world who could possibly stop me!” 
Caezar was originally a simple soldier in Nokia’s army, so there had to have been a reason for his quick rise to the rank of marshal. And, indeed, that reason was the Elks Legacy. Caezar had stumbled upon it quite by chance in a northern Nokian ruin. He accidentally dropped and destroyed one of the little orbs inside, the one marked with a ‘#1’ symbol. After that, everything changed. 
From within the little crystal ball came a Specter that called itself Zebeta, a summoned beast who’d been sealed for five thousand years. Its purpose was to teach whoever discovered Deborah Elks’ inventions exactly how to use them. 
Caezar wasted no time. He learned the arts of possession from Zebeta, freely taking advantage of individuals higher in status than he was. 
Before long, the power went to his head. He viewed himself as a chosen inheritor, the only one in the world capable of leading the babbling masses. 
His ultimate goal was to rule Nokia, destroy its neighboring countries, and then move to conquer the entire world. Even though he could only turn others into puppets, he truly believed himself a capable, inspiring leader. He thought it would be easy to win the hearts and minds of all mankind, that ruling over the world would be a simple feat. And so, he couldn’t afford to fall here. He needed to properly punish these insolent girls for daring to disrespect such a magnificent man as himself. 
Caezar turned toward the girls, brandishing his phrasium sword and shield. 
“I will ask you one final time. Where is Pafia? If you tell me, I’ll let you escape with your lives. You’ll live comfortably as my slaves.” 
“You should really look at yourself in a mirror before you try to act intimidating. You look like a clown.” 
Leen’s scathing comment didn’t go over too well with Caezar, but even Touya had decided to make the Brunhild knight armor out of mithril instead of phrasium. In terms of raw aesthetics, having a see-through armor just made you look ridiculous. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the armor made people completely invisible, but it didn’t, so it just looked goofy as hell, like they were encased in a block of ice. 
“What’s with that creepy look on your face, anyway? You look like you could strangle a puppy.” 
“He’s definitely the type to lose sight of his surroundings when he gets angry, isn’t he?” 
“I don’t think men like that should get involved in politics.” 
“He is getting ahead of himself, he is.” 
“Of course he is, he’s an idiot...” 
“Don’t kick him while he’s down, Sakura.” 
Each disparaging word from the girls only caused Caezar’s frustration to intensify. 
“Fine, then! I’ll just carve some sense into you whores!” Caezar snarled, charging forward and flailing his sword around. 
“He really is short-sighted, he is.” 
“I agree. If he paid any attention to our weapons he’d have noticed by now.” 
Yae and Hilde brandished their blades, their crystal material reflecting the sunlight. It would be obvious at a glance that they were crafted from phrasium, but Caezar was in such a delusional state that he could barely tell. 
The raging man charged in with his sword, but Hilde’s sword effortlessly blocked it. Blocking wasn’t exactly the right word, though... Caezar’s blade had been sliced cleanly in half. 
“Wh—?!” 
Without missing a beat, Yae leaped upward and flaunted her beloved katana. 
“Kokonoe Secret Style: Flying Swallow Rend!” 
Caezar could only look up in despair as Yae’s blade caught the light. In mere moments, he found his crystal armor sliced apart and on the ground. Yae had effortlessly disrobed him, not leaving a scratch on his actual body. 
Despite the fact that they both had phrasium equipment, the amount of magic energy strengthening Yae and Hilde’s weapons was far higher. Unlike Caezar’s blade, theirs could truly cut through just about anything. 
“H-How can...? How can this be?!” 
Caezar, now completely defenseless, dropped the broken blade he was holding. Elze took this opportunity to charge in with a brutal uppercut, ramming her fist into Caezar’s chest. 
“Buzz off, freak!” 
“HAUGH?!” 
Elze held back enough to stop her blow from shredding Caezar’s body, but the strike was still fierce enough to knock him over ten meters into the air. The beaten man’s face contorted in agony, but from the corner of his eye, he saw someone standing on the third-floor balcony outside the king’s bedroom. 
“This is for everyone you’ve hurt and manipulated, you monster!” 
“Pa...fia...?!” 
“Rage forth, Lightning and Wind! A Dazzling Cyclone: [Plasma Storm]!” 
Princess Pafia unleashed her compound magic upon the airborne man. As it closed in, Caezar screamed out in desperation. 
“Z-Zebeta! Do something! Help me!” 
“I’m afraid I must decline that request, my lord.” 
“Wha—?!” 
Caezar was dumbstruck, he hadn’t expected his obedient servant to say no. But he had no more time to process those feelings, as he was struck by a storm of lightning right after. 
“AUUUUUUGHHH!!” 
After the initial blast, he crashed down hard into a nearby wall. Thus, a man who once gripped an entire nation fell down to the ground like a hammer. His unconscious but still-breathing body lay twitching in a small crater. The little box he carried was broken, and its crystalline spheres scattered around him. 
“Great job, Pafia. Thank you, Grandmother Tokie.” 
Yumina smiled as she ended the call on her smartphone. Yumina’s foresight had given her a vision of Elze launching Caezar into the sky. That was why she’d had enough time to call Tokie and have her position Pafia for the final blow. She thought it was only appropriate for him to be taken down by a fellow Nokian. 
“I am sure you will be executed for this, I am...” 
Yae looked down on Caezar, his unconscious form still smoldering, before she turned her blade toward Zebeta. 
“I am not impressed by cowards who forsake their masters, I am not.” 
“Now, now, madam. He was never truly my master at all.” 
“Hm?” 
Summoned beasts were typically enslaved to those that called them forth. They were duty-bound to obey their masters unless the terms of their contract were broken. The girls had assumed this was the case for Caezar and Zebeta, but they all seemed shocked by the Specter’s sudden denouncement. 
“My one and only master is Mistress Deborah Elks. I served this fool only at her behest...” 
“Deborah Elks? Don’t we know that name...?” 
“She was the craftswoman who created that mind-controlling needle that was being used on those Dragons, no? But wasn’t she over five thousand years old?” 
Leen raised a brow in surprise as she recalled the information Cesca and the other gynoids had given her. 
“I was ordered to serve whoever found her legacy, though it seems he has proven unworthy...” 
The shimmering Specter displayed no physical signs of emotion, but its voice came out as one of frustration and general weariness. 
“You should remove the golden bangle on his arm. The possessed should be freed after that...” 
Paula toddled over to the fallen man and began prodding and poking at his bangle until it fell off. At that moment, all the fallen black knights let out a loud wheezing sound. Spectral mist flowed out of their mouths and vanished into thin air. 
Paula shivered in fright, jumped up, and quickly clung to Leen’s leg. Leen crouched down and took the bangle from Paula, she squinted. It was an ancient magic tool, that much was certain. Just by handling it, Leen intuitively knew what kind of artifact it was. 
Many of her fellow fairies had a keen eye for magical equipment like this, but recently Leen had felt her understanding of magic tools had become far more acute than normal. This new ability of hers, her appraising gaze, was the manifestation of the divine blessings she’d been receiving. 
“I see... So this is the source of the magic power that kept all those Specters maintained. Now that it’s disconnected from him, he can’t keep them around anymore.” 
“Indeed... That man had little talent for magic, and even less so for manipulation. That’s why I had him make use of the artifact, to make up for his natural shortcomings.” 
That meant that every Specter that Caezar had ever summoned had been sent back to wherever it was they’d come from. Zebeta was maintained by the box containing the Elks legacy, so it was unaffected. Unfortunately, the box had shattered when Caezar fell to the ground. It was only a matter of time before Zebeta faded from the world as well. 
Zebeta, however, considered this a mercy. For five thousand years, it had been bound to that box, like a genie confined to a lamp. After finally awakening, it had no option but to serve a vile and childish man. Zebeta did not relish being ordered around like a servant. It wanted to complain to Deborah for creating such a burdensome duty, but she was long dead. 
“Women are being held in Caezar’s home and the castle basement... Free them, if you would. I’ll be taking my leave now, thank you...” 
Zebeta, no longer able to maintain its existence, blew away like dust in the wind. The Specter was finally free... 
When the evening breeze died down, nothing remained of Zebeta. 
“...I’m not sure how to feel about that.” 
“I’m just glad it wasn’t hostile...” 
“No point worrying. We got the baddie and dealt with the real trouble, right?” 
Elze grinned down at Caezar’s unconscious body. He was completely powerless now. The nobles he’d been controlling had been freed, and the king woke up since the spectral parasite had been dealt with. He’d likely be sentenced to life imprisonment or executed for his crimes against the state. But before any of that, he needed to pay for his crimes against women. 
 
When Caezar awoke, he was in a dimly-lit room. To be more precise, he was in a dingy underground prison cell. He had none of his ceremonial jewelry, which immediately signified that his political status had been stripped from him. 
“Zebeta! Come out! Do you hear me, Zebeta?!” 
Nobody answered him. He clicked his tongue in irritation and attempted to call out a summoning circle. His magic didn’t work. That should’ve been obvious. He was in a prison, so there were countermeasures against that. 
“Damn it...! Those Brunhild sluts did this, didn’t they?! Just wait until I get my hands on them... I’ll torture them to death!” 
Caezar immediately devolved into a self-gratifying toxic tirade. He’d completely lost himself to his frustrations... Or maybe he’d just always been that way. 
In the midst of his raging, Caezar suddenly heard a sound from inside the cell. He stiffened up out of fear. He could distinctly make out the sound of breathing... There was an animal in the cell with him. 
Caezar narrowed his eyes, noticing a vague silhouette in the corner of the chamber. 
“A... horse...?” 
It certainly appeared to be a horse. But there was something different about this one. It had a horn jutting out of its head. It was a Unicorn. 
“Why is there a Unicorn here?!” 
Caezar was utterly terrified. He knew that Unicorns were docile and calm around virgin maidens, but had heard stories of how terrifyingly violent they were towards men. But, for some reason, this Unicorn didn’t move to attack Caezar. It simply stared at him in a manner that made the man very uncomfortable. 
The Unicorn slowly started walking toward Caezar, who desperately tried to scurry back. Unfortunately, the cell wasn’t that large, so he found himself backed up against the wall. 
“E-Eep!” 
With a loud thud, the Unicorn slammed its hoof against the wall next to Caezar’s face. He was trapped. You certainly never saw Unicorns in the wild do this kind of thing. Something was clearly off. 
“Mmm... I prefer my men with a little more muscle definition... I’m not all that picky, though... Let’s get a better look!” 
“Wh-What are you—?!” 
The Unicorn bowed its head down, catching Caezar’s clothing with its horn. In one fell swoop, it ripped off half of the man’s outfit, exposing his upper body. 
“Ohmygosh! You have a pretty good bod, now that I see it better. I guess you’ve got more of an otter build going on? That’s pretty nice. It’s kind of a turn-on...” 
“Wh-Wha...? E-Eek?!” 
The Unicorn licked Caezar’s bare chest. There was clearly something wrong with this creature. It wasn’t right in the head. Before Caezar could even ask what the hell was going on, the bottom half of his clothing was torn off, along with his underwear. For the first time in his life, he felt vulnerable. 
“G-Get away! D-Don’t touch me! Stop!!” 
“It’s okay, sweetie. It won’t hurt. I’ll be real gentle, okay?” 
“Wh-What’s that supposed to mean?!” 
Caezar, now completely nude, scrambled to his feet and ran to the other side of the cell. The Unicorn gave chase, resulting in them both running around in circles. Caezar screamed out for dear life, but his resistance only made the Unicorn more excited. 
“Zebeta?! Zebetaaa! Please come back, Zebetaaaaaa!” 
“Geez... Calling out for your ex while we’re fooling around? I’ll make you forget that Ze-beta, and show you what a real alpha stud is like...” 
“NOOOOOO!!” 
That day, everyone in Nokia castle ignored the screams that rose up from the dungeons. 
 
“I see. So everything’s fine, then?” 
“It is. The king of Nokia’s being extra mindful of his health, though. They’re going to have Princess Lefia formally succeed him, with Pafia serving as her administrative aide.” 
I was pretty relieved to hear Yumina’s story. Apparently, Caezar had been sentenced to death for his treasonous designs, and the people he’d manipulated had gone back to normal. As for the remaining crystal orbs that contained Deborah Elks’ legacy... Princess Pafia had them all destroyed in a controlled explosion. I thought maybe that was a little extreme, but she probably feared a second or third Caezar could arise if that kind of ancient technology went unchecked. 
“I’m just glad you’re all safe.” 
“Oh, were you worried?” 
Leen grinned at me. 
“No way, I wasn’t worried in the least. I knew it’d all be fine.” 
“My liege, were you not constantly checking your phone out of anxiety for the last day or so?” 
“Shut up, Kohaku!” 
Kohaku was sitting on Yumina’s lap, and she really needed to learn when to keep quiet... It was true I was wondering why I hadn’t heard from any of the girls, but I wasn’t super worried or anything... 
We were all sat around the balcony table. The girls had just finished telling me what happened. Suddenly, Elze turned toward me with a wry smile on her face. 
“Don’t be such a worrywart. I told you we’d be fine.” 
“No, I know... It’s just a little hard to explain. Having you all away from the castle just felt... unsettling, I guess?” I never felt that way when I went off to adventure alone, so it was probably just uneasiness related to the girls not being home. I didn’t want to sleep knowing they could be in the middle of a fight, and I had to actively resist the urge to call them. 
Though honestly, it was a bit of a wakeup call for me. I realized that I’d probably made the girls feel that way whenever I went on my solo missions. 
“Either way, good job, girls. Looks like Nokia’s gonna be a bit more open to the outside world.” 
“We tried our best, we did. Ah, Touya-dono... There is something I have been wondering about, there is.” 
Yae glanced over toward the person facing Granny Tokie, who was sitting on the couch. I understood her curiosity... 
“You’re looking mighty healthy, ya space-time hag.” 
“Ohoho... Call me that again, you little rascal, and I might split your skull open. Or perhaps you would settle for having your mouth sewn shut?” 
The two of them jabbed at each other, but they seemed to be doing it in a friendly way. This was probably just their usual way of interacting with each other. Granny Tokie called the guy a little rascal, but he didn’t look little. Far from it. He actually looked about the same age as Tokie herself, but his body was huge and beefy. He was layered with muscle. He’d give Baba more than a run for his money. He had black eyes, shaggy hair, and a bushy beard. For the most part, he resembled a Japanese man. Even his clothes were Japanese in style. He had geta sandals on. 
“Is this another god, perhaps?” 
“Yeah... I guess... Didn’t expect him to arrive so soon, though.” 
I answered Linze’s question with a weary smile. 
“What god is he, exactly?” 
“Well... he’s uh... the god of destruction, hahaha...” 
“What?!” 
My response to Hilde’s question caused all the girls to freeze up in shock. It’s not like I couldn’t understand why. Lu shakily set her teacup down before rigidly turning her head and opening her mouth. 
“G-G-God of, um... d-destruction... you said? What’s he here for?” 
“How am I supposed to know? He just showed up, asked for a drink, and now he’s here.” 
A large flagon of ale sat on the table in front of the god of destruction. He merrily gulped from it as Suika, everyone’s favorite gremlin from hell, snickered obnoxiously by his side. 
“H-He’s not going to be taking the role of Touya’s father, is he...?” 
“Heavens... The god of destruction as our father-in-law...?” 
“Gotta admit the guy looks pretty tough.” 
“C’mon, girls. I don’t think that’s what’s happening here.” 
That definitely wasn’t the case, or at least I hadn’t wanted it to be. The guy’s role in my extended family was just another uncle. Though it was pretty hard to imagine him playing the role of Uncle Kousuke’s brother, given how peaceful and gentle he was. The two of them looked pretty far apart in age, too. 
Oh, Granny Tokie’s calling me over. 
“I’m gonna go talk to him.” 
“Good luck, Touya-dono...” 
“I won’t need luck, it’s just a conversation!” 
I laughed off Yae’s foreboding comment before heading over to the god table. 
“Please take a seat, dearie.” 
Granny Tokie insisted, so I took the seat by her side. The god of destruction sat across from me, taking a big ol’ sip from his flagon. 
“Want a drink, laddie?” 
“Ah, no. I’m not much of a drinker.” 
“Gotcha.” 
The god of destruction simply shrugged, then gulped down more booze. 
“So, let’s get down ta brass tacks. Wanna follow in my footsteps, lad?” 
“Uh?” 
Follow in your what, now? 
“I’m askin’ if you wanna be the new god of destruction.” 
“What?! Huh?! No! Wh-Why me?!” 
What the hell, man? I only just enrolled in the company! Why’re you trying to put me on the fast track to a senior position I don’t even want? 
“I don’t mean right now. Just when I retire from active duty, aye? Ya gotta think about yer future, kid. You got the makin’ of a destructor about you. The way I see it, yer definitely the kinda person who could keep his cool while puttin’ an end to an entire race or whatnot.” 
A little quick to judge, aren’t you? I wouldn’t say I’m destruction material... I’m definitely not the type who’d merrily trash an entire planet! You’d have to be a real monster, and that’s definitely not me. 
“Y’get a lotta perks as the destruction god, kid. Y’can do whatever ya want if it’s within the means’ve your job, and ain’t nobody gonna boss you around. Plus, the job lets ya have a little wiggle room on destruction excuses, so you can extinguish any planet y’might find distasteful.” 
“Uh... that sounds a little bit wrong?!” 
Oh crap. This guy’s definitely not a good god... Almost sounds like he’s been abusing his position... 
“Don’t misunderstand him, dearie. The god of destruction is a highly important post. Worlds far removed from divine jurisdiction always go awry, they become monstrous places that could threaten other worlds down the line. Thus, it is necessary to end those worlds, and create new ones from their ashes.” 
Tokie elaborated a little. I’d never really considered the idea of creation from destruction. 
“Well, y’can dwell on it a while. We can wait til this world ends, aye?” 
“...Don’t say that!” 
This world isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, buddy. We worked hard to avoid it coming to that. 
The god of destruction finished off his booze, then slowly stood up. 
“Right-o, then. Business is over, so I’m goin’ down to the tavern. Booze goddess, let’s hustle.” 
“Woohoo! Hey, hic, Touya! Gimme money!” 
“What?! When’d I become your personal piggy bank?” 
I personally found the idea of the god of destruction getting wasted in my town to be unpleasant. But I ended up folding after he told me that he’d go home in the morning... He also told me if I didn’t fork over the cash, he’d do everything within his power to obtain cash through alternative means. So basically, I was extorted... 
I sighed quietly as I handed over the money to Suika, reminding her to call me if any trouble came up. Hopefully, I’d actually be able to solve any issues those two could cause. 
The optimist in me believes that the god of destruction will follow the rules... Unless he gets drunk and forgets where he is... Still, saying “But I was drunk!” is never an excuse! Getting wasted and swearing or being violent isn’t the alcohol’s fault. You shouldn’t ever drink so much that you become that way, honestly. Know your limits. 
You tended to find that people who used that kind of excuse just wanted to shift the blame. Personally, my sympathy in those cases only went to the people who brewed the alcohol, as their labor was wasted on idiots. Still, for all her flaws, I had a feeling Suika wouldn’t let anything bad happen. 
The drinking buddies merrily skipped out of the room. Seemed like they were headed straight for the tavern by the guild. 
Wait, didn’t I say I’d meet Ende there...? Ah, whatever, I’ll just skip. It’s not like we haven’t hung out together lately. I’m sure he’ll be able to drink with Uncle Takeru or something... It’ll be fine. 
As fate would have it, that’s exactly what happened. Kind of. It wasn’t just Uncle Takeru there. Karen, Moroha, Uncle Kousuke, Karina, and Sousuke were there, too. Ende was thrown into a terrifying divine sea of drink and merrymaking. But, apparently, he was physically incapable of getting drunk, so he didn’t exactly have a good time. 
“I tried to call you, Touya! Did you turn your phone off on purpose?!” 
“Only one sacrifice was necessary, Ende...” 
“You’re the worst!” 
What can I say, I’m a busy man. I don’t have time to entertain the fickle whims of the gods. 
 
“Hrmm...” I groaned slightly as I scrolled through the website on my phone. 
I’d been researching the necessary planning for the wedding, but apparently there were a lot of things I had underestimated... It wasn’t like I had to abide by Earth’s cultural norms, but there were still a lot of things that made me sigh. I’d distilled all the necessary things down to a single list: 
Propose. (This one’s obvious). 
Inform the fiancee’s parents and receive their blessing. 
Choose a venue and a date for the wedding. 
Acquire a wedding ring. 
Determine where you’ll be living together. 
Decide on your honeymoon destination. 
Figure out what’s happening at the wedding. 
Figure out who you’re inviting to the wedding. 
Report your marriage to your place of employment. 
Pick out a wedding dress. 
Decide on the souvenirs for your wedding. 
Draw up the wedding invitations. 
Arrange photography and video for the wedding. 
Figure out the wedding reception venue. 
Choose the menu for the wedding reception. 
Arrange the bouquet. 
Figure out seating. 
Figure out who’ll be giving the speeches. 
Ensure the wedding ring is properly sized. 
Do a hair and makeup rehearsal. 
Take pre-wedding photos. 
Prepare the bride’s letter to her parents. 
And so on... 
I understood that this was a once-in-a-lifetime event, but it was still a lot of work... Fortunately, we already had the venue sorted, along with where we were living. Didn’t need to worry about informing work, either. Plus, Kousaka and Lain were handling most of the actual legwork, so it wasn’t too bad for me. 
That being said, I still had a few things to deal with. 
“Gotta sort a wedding ring... I’ve already given them engagement rings, so the wedding bands need to be simpler... Hrm... Orichalcum is a little too flashy... Maybe mithril’s silvery finish is elegant enough?” 
Apparently, this world’s standard was mithril wedding bands for royalty and nobility. Some nations separated by sex, though. The groom’s band was orichalcum, while the bride’s was mithril. It was difficult to think about, so I decided to put it off a bit. 
“Gotta think about the honeymoon...” 
I actually had an idea about that one. I wanted all my fiancees to meet my parents. Obviously, I was dead back there, so I was going to have them meet my folks in a dream. I also wanted to show the girls my homeworld. I could use my divinity to move to other worlds, and my former world was no exception. 
Honestly, that was one of the biggest perks of joining the pantheon. I never thought I’d be able to go back to the place I was born... 
“Then there’s the wedding ceremony itself...” 
It wasn’t just any old wedding. This was going to be a huge gathering of world leaders. I needed to take several safety measures to keep them all in good health, but I also needed to maintain a good public image. 
I didn’t know if it was too dramatic to say or not, but Brunhild’s honor was basically on the line. I didn’t care so much if it was just my image, but I couldn’t have Yumina and the others besmirched. The day had to go perfectly. That was why we couldn’t afford to cut corners. Kousaka was handling most of the guest list, but I had my own special guests to deal with as well. 
“The god of strength... Uh... let’s just say he’s an uncle who loves bodybuilding. And, uh... the god of glasses... Let’s just say he’s an uncle who loves glasses...” 
I absentmindedly typed down my ideas on my smartphone. I didn’t really know how to go about this at all... I didn’t feel confident enough to just decide their roles off the bat... That wasn’t an excuse, either! 
“Oh!” 
My phone suddenly started vibrating. It was an incoming call from Lapis. 
“’Sup.” 
“Your Highness, Mr. Zanac is here to see you. The dresses appear to be ready.” 
“Oh, gotcha. I’ll be right over.” 
I quickly answered then ended the call. Just to be clear, I hadn’t ordered any dresses for me. It was my fiancees’ wedding dresses. I quickly sent out a group text to the girls, it was easier to do that than send out individual messages. 
I finished up my business at my desk and left my room. By the time I made it to the fitting room, everyone was already staring at their dresses. The maids were on standby to help the girls into them. They sure were fast... The girls all looked spectacular in their dresses, though. 
“Can I touch?” 
“Are your hands clean?” 
“They are.” 
I gently touched the hem of Elze’s dress. It was smooth and had a mesh-like texture, quite different to Linze’s. 
“Are they made of different stuff?” 
“But of course! Each have their own unique properties incorporated into the design. They’re crafted with impeccable precision and care. Fashion King Zanac never cuts corners!” 
Zanac proudly puffed out his chest as he spoke. His brand had become pretty big since the first time we’d met. There were even store branches in Refreese and Regulus. 
Yumina and the others wore Fashion King Zanac branded clothing quite a bit. They’d become pretty popular around the world... Though nobody knew that the designs were taken from other fashion lines back in my world. When the other world leaders saw the outfits at the league of nations meetings, they immediately ordered some for themselves. From there, it had a knock-on effect, and the various noble families of the world started wearing those outfits as well. 
“We’ll need to make final sizing adjustments. That means you gentlemen need to leave.” 
“R-Right...” 
Lapis, our head maid, ushered Zanac and I out of the room. I didn’t bother questioning it. 
I sat with Zanac and discussed a few things, learning that he’d begun to incorporate zippers into his clothing. That certainly took me by surprise. 
“Where’d you learn that kind of technology?” 
“Ahaha. Whatever do you mean? The contraption was on the first outfit you ever sold to me.” 
Oh... Right! My uniform’s pants. Heh... Kind of funny that the basis for zippers in this world are from one of my old outfit’s crotch, though... 
Apparently, they’d been working hard with the dwarves to forge zippers en masse. I was impressed. Just as we were discussing more details about the zippers, the doors opened and the girls began to file out. 
“Huh? Can’t I see you girls in the dresses?” 
“You’ll have to wait until the rehearsal, Touya. Best to keep you on your toes, no?” 
Yumina grinned a little after saying that. 
Hrmm... I’d rather not be kept in too much suspense... 
“Your Hiiighneeesss... It’s time to taaake your measuremeeents...” 
Cecile, our maid, called out to me from within the fitting room. I’d almost forgotten that I needed to sort out my outfit, too. I asked them to keep it as plain as humanly possible, but I wasn’t sure how it’d come out. Hopefully it wasn’t as gaudy as the first outfit Zanac had proposed... I didn’t really appreciate lamé fabric, it was much too flashy for my tastes. 
Still, there was no helping it... Brides were the stars of their weddings, after all. The groom was just an accessory. I sighed softly, walking into the fitting room to meet my fate.