Chapter 681

Louise von Schwartz, a pivotal figure in the Demon King’s army, remained at the imperial palace. Though she longed to return to her homeland, her responsibilities demanded that she stay informed about all palace affairs.

Louise watched Reinhart, who sat motionless in his chair. Despite their long-standing alliance, her interactions with the Demon King had always been through Rowen; she had never met him face-to-face.

The first time she’d laid eyes on him was just before the Allied Forces disbanded, during a combined meeting at the general headquarters. Since then, she had glimpsed him a few times around the palace, but this was their first private conversation.

Though he was a vital ally, Louise felt like a stranger to the Demon King. If anyone truly understood him, it would be Heinrich.

“This is our first time meeting like this, isn’t it?” she remarked.

“Uh... yes. It is... indeed.”

Louise watched the Demon King, Reinhart, sitting there, seemingly frozen in place. She tilted her head, curiosity piqued.

“Why don’t you speak more freely?” she asked. “You’re about to become Emperor of the entire continent, and I’m here to serve you, regardless of who I am.”

Louise only said this because she thought Reinhart was perhaps seeing her as a friend’s older sister, and thus being overly cautious. Should someone destined to rule over all be so tongue-tied just because the person in front of them was slightly older?

She wondered if the stories Heinrich had told her about the Demon King had been exaggerated. For someone often labeled a thug, his restless demeanor was oddly amusing. If this was his true nature, the future of the new empire seemed uncertain.

While Rowen might have had her doubts, Louise harbored no ill will toward the Demon King. In fact, he had been the one to try to save Heinrich from the brink of death, and so she felt she owed him a debt of gratitude.

He was undeniably formidable, having ended the Gate Incident and risen to his current position. But why was he trembling so anxiously? She couldn’t fathom the reason. Was the Demon King, contrary to his fearsome reputation, actually someone so fragile? Louise wondered if she needed to reassess her judgment.

As these thoughts ran silently through her mind, the Demon King finally spoke.

“Th-the...”

“Hmm?”

“Um... Well, I have... something to say...”

Honestly, she felt like yelling at him to stop stammering and just spit it out. For someone who aspired to be Emperor, he seemed like a shrinking violet, making her worry about the future of his potential empire.

At that moment, he stammered, “Marriage... um...”

With that one word, Louise understood what was going on with him instantly. She finally realized why the Demon King was so frozen and why he was stammering. And after hearing the fragmented explanation he managed to piece together over ten or twenty minutes, the whole situation became clear.

After the Demon King finished conveying his purpose, Louise quietly looked at him.

There wasn’t much to ponder.

This embryonic empire was far from stable. To strengthen its foundation, it was crucial to forge alliances with various groups, and perhaps even resort to subduing them. Therefore, it was advantageous to establish something more concrete than just an alliance with the Schwartz royal family, the first principality.

For the heir of the Schwartz family, aligning with the new imperial family was a necessity. Not just for the sake of this new empire, but for the continuity of the royal lineage.

With this single decision, Louise would become part of the empire, distancing herself from the Schwartz royal family. This move would also pave the way for Heinrich’s succession to the Schwartz throne. She would have a clear and legitimate reason to join the empire, and similarly, with a rightful and singular justification, Heinrich would ascend as the king of Kernstadt.

Louise had always imagined this moment, though she never believed it would come so easily. It wasn’t just beneficial for her, and so it was something she felt compelled to do.

“It’s necessary. So there’s no reason not to,” she affirmed with a nod.

“Please take care of me,” she added, her tone firm yet polite.

The Demon King, still looking a bit dazed, rose and shook Louise’s hand, which she had extended in a very businesslike manner.

“Uh, th-thank you! I’ll do my best!” he stammered, his demeanor unmistakably that of someone timid and unsure.

Louise’s eyes narrowed as she briefly wondered about the kind of person he truly was, but the thought quickly passed.

She took a deep breath. Even though this union was necessary, there was something that her future partner needed to understand.

“There’s something you should know, Demon King.”

“Ah...”

“It’s about Heinrich.”

The Demon King swallowed hard, his expression tense as he nodded.

“Y-yes, I’m aware...”

“Ah... I see.”

Louise said nothing more.

***

Was this what it felt like to have one’s soul drained?

No, it felt more like being shattered.

As soon as I returned from completing the mission Charlotte had assigned to me, I told her everything that had happened. Her eyes widened, and she covered her mouth, pretending to be shocked.

“You actually did it...”

“You told me to do it...!” I protested.

“I didn’t think you’d actually go through with it. How shameless are you?” she replied.

‘Ugh...! Y-you! You little...! When you tell someone to do something and then question if they actually did it, what does that make me?

I never imagined there’d be a day when I’d have to do something this outrageous...

‘What does it mean to be an emperor? Whatever it is, I don’t want it! I’m already feeling like I’m losing my mind!!!’

“So, did she accept?”

“Well... She didn’t even hesitate.”

I was getting married. Quite a lot, actually. Even to someone I never even imagined.

Did this mean I had to keep on getting married like this? I agreed with Charlotte’s statement that marriage was a duty for someone of my station, but the thought of eventually marrying everyone was overwhelming.

I had a feeling it would happen someday, but now that it was suddenly right in front of me, I was going crazy. It was terrifying.

What would happen to me in the future? I was already restless—how much worse would it get?

“I’ll take care of the minor preparations, so don’t worry about it,” Charlotte assured me. She would handle the scheduling and other preparations.

Charlotte grinned, her face brimming with malice since morning. Somehow, she seemed to take pleasure in tormenting me.

“Well then, there’s just one last hurdle left, right?” she said.

“One last...? Who else is there...?”

“No. For now, you’ve secured marriages to everyone you need to. But, as a courtesy...”

Charlotte leaned in with a sly smile and whispered softly in my ear. “But as a courtesy, you should tell Heinrich the news yourself, right?”

“H-huh...?”

“That you’re marrying his mom. You should let him know.”

“What?!”

I bit my tongue, but unfortunately, it didn’t kill me.

***

After the disbanding of the Allied Forces, everyone from the Temple had returned to the capital, including Heinrich.

The capital was in turmoil following the aftermath of the Gate Incident and the events that followed. The entire continent felt like a boiling cauldron, and the Temple was no different.

Anxiety, despair, and fear hung in the air, joined by a flicker of hope. Everyone was trying to navigate their own path through an unstable present and into an uncertain future.

I summoned Heinrich to the imperial city. Not to my bedroom or the reception hall of the central palace, Tetra, but to a bench in the garden in front of Tetra.

It was just us two, with not even a single guard around.

Heinrich looked at me uncertainly. “Do I have to call you Your Majesty now?”

“No... Just... call me as you always have.”

“Hmm... Are you unwell? What’s wrong? Why do you look like that?” he asked, his voice tinged with curiosity, but then he nodded. “Well, I guess it’s just the beginning for you. That makes sense. I’m just a guy with supernatural powers, so I don’t think I can help much from now on. But still... is there something you need from me?”

I shook my head. “No, it’s not that I need anything. I just have something to tell you...”

My stomach churned, and I felt a wave of nausea wash over me. In that moment, I just wanted to disappear.

I wrestled with how to begin, but no solution seemed to exist. How could there possibly be a solution to something like this?

I rose from the bench and approached Heinrich.

Gripping his shoulders, I realized there was only one way forward—I had to just say it.

“I’m getting married.”

Heinrich tilted his head, clearly puzzled by my straightforward announcement.

“Oh, well... congratulations. To whom? Harriet? Or... Charlotte? The Saintess? Or is it all three...?

“...”

If someone could hypothetically die from sheer emotion, that would have been me in that moment.

***

BOOM!

“Look at that, Harriet!”

“Ugh... Wh-what do we do...?”

Charlotte pulled Harriet, who was reluctant to look, over to the window. They watched as a column of flame suddenly burst into life in the garden outside Tetra.

Though they couldn’t hear the words being exchanged, they could clearly see Heinrich, his face red with fury. He seemed intent on killing Reinhart.

—Die... Die, you bastard...!

Heinrich’s enraged shout was loud enough to reach them.

“Doesn’t that look a bit dangerous...?” Harriet asked, her voice tinged with worry.

“It’s fine, he won’t die from that,” Charlotte reassured her.

“You really are...” Harriet trailed off, unable to finish her thought.

Few had ever witnessed a war hero attempting to kill the emperor.

“Oh dear, the grass is going to catch fire. What should we do?” Charlotte commented.

“This isn’t the time for that!” Harriet shouted.

Charlotte laughed heartily as she watched the chaos unfold.

It seemed everyone had lost their minds lately, and Harriet had only just noticed that Charlotte was among them.

The uproar finally settled when the person at the center of it all, oblivious to the chaos, showed up and personally restrained Heinrich.

***

In the end, Louise managed to drag Heinrich away.

I still felt nauseous, the chill of fear still creeping up my neck. I realized the gravity of the situation: a guy I used to tease, calling him a mere flint, had genuinely tried to kill me.

I was sitting at the tea table on the second floor of Tetra.

Once things had calmed down, Riana, who hadn’t been aware of the earlier chaos, pulled me aside to ask what had happened. So, over a cup of tea, I recounted the whole story.

After listening, Riana nodded, her expression a mix of awkwardness and disbelief. “Ah...”

Even Riana, who would typically laugh at such a tale, couldn’t muster a smile when presented with this bizarre situation.

“But, well... if you think about whether it was necessary or not, it kind of was, so... hmm. I get it.”

There was clearly no shortage of dark humor in Charlotte’s heart, but even without it, things would have ended up the same way.

Among the powerful factions that still remained, this new Empire was the strongest, followed closely by Kernstadt. If those two powers united, the Empire would grow in strength so that few could challenge it.

Riana understood instinctively that strengthening this alliance was essential. Still, accepting it was another matter.

“Wait, does that mean you’re marrying five people at once...?” she asked.

“... Yes,” I replied.

Harriet, Charlotte, Olivia, Airi, and Louise... I was to marry all five of them.

After counting them out on her fingers, Riana suddenly pointed to herself. “What about me?”

“What?”

“Why am I not included in that list?”

‘You too?!’

“This guy marries his friend’s mom and then thinks he can just discard me after getting everything he wanted? That’s disappointing.”

“What are you trying to say...? And don’t put it like that!”

“Then what should I call it if not that?”

“Still...!”

The words felt too harsh, too raw.

“I’m already going crazy, and you’re trying to make it even worse?”

“Anyway, I wouldn’t mind if you insisted on marrying me.”

“Stop, just stop...”

“Well, I don’t want to be a concubine waiting for a husband with many wives, staring at a door that never opens,” Riana said, sipping her tea as if she were merely joking. “That would be too boring. In reality, I have nothing but this supernatural power, so I guess there’s no political gain or anything like that.”

The influence of the Granz duchy, which once spanned the entire continent, had vanished with the death of Duke Granz, Riana’s escape, and the Gate Incident. Yet, Riana remained a supernatural being capable of shaking the very foundations of the world.

Charlotte had not pushed for a marriage between Riana and I because there was no political advantage to be gained. But she seemed willing to make me go through with anything she deemed necessary if it served her purposes, which seemed like a problem.

Why was Charlotte the one deciding my marriage? And why was I just going along with it? Wasn’t this the same as being a puppet emperor? Was it really the right thing to do?

Riana sipped her tea and gazed out the window, then she grinned.

“Well, I don’t have to be your wife to help you,” she said, assuring me she’d continue to be one of my Four Demon Lords.

‘Yeah. This distance between us feels just right. There are some good things about this relationship, too.’