A few minutes later... - Back at the garden pavillion...
"Your majesty, I must admit to being somewhat offended at the fact that you would leave me without even mentioning that you have other business to attend to." Asmodeus looked genuinely insulted as he sat down opposite to me.
You see, after waiting several hours for me to return, the Grand Wizard decided to go and find me instead, only to stumble across me just as I was about to turn away from the priests and paladins of Rhothmir.
I sighed at him and then replied with an apologetic tone. "Forgive me, Asmodeus. Apart from that sudden call into the dungeon, nothing else was scheduled. I apologize for taking too much time to solve the issues pertaining to my coronation."
His eyes widened and he grimaced, muttering under his breath. "N-no. Thinking about it, I overstepped my bounds just now, your majesty. I apologize, for I seem to have forgotten about the fact that you asked the church to aid you in that matter."
Shrugging, I helped myself to some tea prepared by the servants. "Then let us simply forget these events and move on." Then I blinked in confusion and an uncharacteristic worry.
"Has Sebastian not returned yet?" Asmodeus' eyes went wide in surprise.
"Eh? No. He has not, actually... But you did send him to deal with a slaver alone and with a damaged foot." He laughed as my expression darkened and I felt an intense urge to facepalm.
"You mean to say that he legitimately left to accomplish this, alone?" Much to my chagrin, the mage nodded without remorse.
"Indeed. He is the son of the leader of the Knights faction, so such foolishness should not be anything out of the ordinary."
Quirking an eyebrow at the mage, I inquired with a tiny bit of tension in my tone. "Factions?"
He perked up instantly at my question. "Indeed!" Then he blinked and seemingly pondered on how to answer, eventually offering me a slight shrug. "They say that factions form within kingdoms of questionable unity. The greater the amount, the easier it is to destroy the realm... And if this is true, then your kingdom is always on the verge of shattering, Lord Exuperius."
He smiled as I sighed and nodded. "That, I do not find surprising in the least. I suppose you and your mages are one of those factions?"
A nod was offered to me in turn. "That I cannot deny. However, unlike those pretentious knights or the blasted church, our faction was formed solely to defend our way of life, as many cities conquered by your esteemed father have been put under unworthy hands!" His expression betrayed his emotions which gave me the impression that he wasn't lying.
With that said, I am not foolish enough to consider that a certainty in any way, shape or form. "Are you sure you're not just seething from defeat?"
"My lord!" Asmodeus rose from his seat roughly, his hip striking against the table and shaking the tea set on it. "The mages are oppressed by their unworthy lord's. I have plenty of examples to give you!"
He cleared his throat, not giving me a chance to speak. "Firstly, the lord's have a deep hatred for magic, banning it at every possible turn, even when they see it's benefits! For instance, the lands up north are hardy and inhospitable to crops, even more so than the mainland. The only way the can survive is if they're bolstered by magic, but the lord's have decidedly banned it's use, allowing only a few meagre fields to thrive and claiming that it's natural that only the strong survive."
Gritting his teeth, he continued. "They also abuse the resulting food shortages to force my people to trade what few products they can muster to their county markets at ridiculous prices, feeding the growth of their lands while causing unceasing suffering to my people!"
Hmmm... Can this much rage truly be faked?
Closing my eyes and sighing, I nodded towards the man. "I can't promise you anything specific but I shall see to it that your people are properly administered."
His eyes lit up with hope and pride. "Thank you, your majesty! I see that, unlike your father, you are at least a reasonable person."
"We assure you that the north is under proper guidance, your majesty. Please, do not let yourself be confused by the faked emotion of this... paltry charlatan." A new voice echoed from behind as a well dressed man approached us, his expression twisted into an unearthly grin.
He was thin, tall and incredibly lean. An attractive man to be sure, with simplistic, short brown hair that seemed unkempt, giving him the image of a wild man, despite his noble posture and civilised appearance.
A grimace etched itself on my expression. This guy was clearly just another hedonistic bastard, exactly the type of person to do what as Asmodeus described just now. "Oh, really. You say that but appear before me with an outfit and speak in a tone that gives the mage all the credibility he needs to convince me that his cause is just."
The man approaching us twitched visibly as his expression twisted with pure hatred and disgust, even if only for the briefest moment, while Asmodeus beamed with such joy he almost reminded me of a flamboyant puppy that just got petted.
The scene was quite funny. "And since when do you care for something as pathetic as justice, Klaus?"
He spoke with such familiarity to me that it caused a quirked eyebrow to escape me. Hmm, so he was one of my friends?
Too bad for him. "Look, you might not know this yet, but I've forgotten pretty much everyone unimportant due to recent circumstances. You are included in that, ..." Trailing off as I turned to look at him dead in the eye. ".. so you might want to start sucking up to me if you don't want to die, pup."
A cold wind blew across the entire garden as everyone stopped whatever they were doing in order to look at the scene unfolding before them.
The younger man in front of us shivered, shaking with rage untold, but still somehow managed to calm himself. "My apologies, your majesty."
He nearly vomited as those words left his mouth, causing me to chuckle. "I am Lawrence Winterwell, son of the Grand Duke of the North and heir to the duchy. I come before you today as a messenger of the northern aristocracy."
Northern?... Shit, you're telling me they're divided not just by class but direction... Haa.. it's worse than Asmodeus made it appear.
"And what might be your message?" He grinned and seemed to almost laugh.
"As you have decided to annul your engagement to Lady Katrin, this has left your majestys hand free for marriage. As such, we have decided to invoke the right to call upon the noble ladies of marriable age to come forth as Regina's and demand that your majesty marries one of the presented ladies by the end of next year." He cleared his throat before continuing, though my patience was already slipping.
"As you may not remember, the Regina Festival is a law that allows for two ladies of noble birth to present themselves as future queen's and fight for your approval as well as that of their future subjects." A sigh escaped me.
"And why did this require you coming here to directly inform me?" I quirked an eyebrow at him as the boy coughed and replied. "Our graceful leaders have decided to grant you the right to change the event to suit your needs as a show of hope and trust."
Oh?
So they didn't dare to enforce it on me without compensation. "And what should I even change? You people decided to give two whores the chance to fight for my attention." I laughed as his expression twisted with shock and horror. "W-whores?! They are noble ladies!"
"That remains to be seen, Lawrence." I sighed and drank some tea.
"I accept your little ploy. However, I refuse to be tangled up with a woman I can't stand, so I reserve the right to kick out a contestant should there be a decent personal reason for it, allowing the spot to be filled by someone else." Lawrence's expression turned from abhorrence to a strange form of joy.
In the end, he began to laugh. "I see! You want to turn this into an amusing spectacle! They'll tear each other apart and god's only know how much drama will be born out of it!"
Quirking an eyebrow at him, I pondered his words. Hell, the boy was right, this was bound to cause some lasting wounds. Asmodeus seemed to offer me a an awkward cough. "Your majesty, while I do not consider myself to be a master of such matters, even I can see that allowing for the exchange of such a prominent role, while providing a greater level of fluidity, may cause much grief for the ladies and their families, perhaps even some unfortunate deaths."
I smiled at him. "And what makes you think that this wasn't my intention? Let the ladies play their games in their preffered environment. If nothing else, it should prove amusing to experience~."
Then my expression turned serious. "Besides, the woman that comes out of the ordeal as the victor..." I felt myself grin savagely. "Don't you think that she'd make for quite the worthy Queen~?"
Lawrence nodded with a sadistic look on his face while Asmodeus rubbed his chin in thought. "Technically, yes... The one that survives should be someone with the skills required to be Queen."
"My father should be very pleased with this news as well!" Lawrence bowed respectfully, his entire frame twisting with cruel joy.
Then he continued with a laugh. "I'm also overjoyed to see that even if you've forgotten me, you haven't changed at all, teacher!"
Now that caught my attention. "Teacher?"
He grinned and nodded. "Yep. When I was young, your father decided that I should be raised in his court with you as my guardian."
"And how old are you today?" He grinned and laughed. "I am nineteen winters old, your majesty."
Which means that the age of adulthood is likely considered to be around sixteen. I felt myself grimace.
"I'd like to add one more law to the festival: the only women who can apply are those older than twenty." He seemed to blink with confusion with a tilted head.
"Well, I don't see the problem with it but... Aren't younger women better in general?" He questioned me before seemingly understanding. "But the older they are, the greater their potential vileness! Ohh, sorry, I asked something dumb~."
... Boy.
I raised this boy wrong.
Very, wrong.
With a sigh, I asked. "Do you have anything else to say or is that the end of your message?"
"Nope, that's it. I'll be taking my leave now, your majesty~." He turned to leave, pivoting on his heel before seemingly stopping dead in his tracks.
An uncharacteristic surge of worry caught me as I spoke. "Uh, Lawrence? Is something wrong?"
He seemed to quiver and put a hand over his mouth. "B-blood! So much b-ugh! I'm gonna hurl!" With that said, he made himself scarce, revealing the limping form of Sebastian, covered in blood from head to toe and dragging a massive chain behind him, to which were tied a dozen of dwarven slaves.
Just now, I felt an immense headache coming.
Sebastian, for his part, simply swung his dripping sword at the air, splattering the ground in red and cleaning it off on the garb of a nearby construction worker, whom he then lifted up by his clothes and decidedly ordered. "You. These midgets are now your responsibility."
"Y-yes, your highness! I shall see to it that they are put to work, immediately!" The man stammered and fell as he was thrown down onto the ground, just as Sebastian turned his head towards us, his bloodstained hair giving much power to his glowing golden eyes and the sweat he was glistening with.
He looked incredibly pleased as well as annoyed at the same time. Looking around, I found several of my maids staring at him with an incredible amount of lust, causing me to sigh.
Well, not that I blame them. Violence is sexy, after all.
I, however, am not into that, thank you very much!
In fact, being surrounded by so many beautiful men while I am a fatass is making me fume.
With a sigh, I just nodded towards him. "You're late."
He grimaced and snorted. "Apologies, your majesty, but it sure does take a while to slaughter a hundred fools while your foot burns with demonic taint."
I laughed, already imagining what happened. He probably murdered the slavers entire entourage since he forgot to bring any proof of my orders and didn't have the patience to deal with them. "Well, you're here now and seemingly in good health."
Then I turned towards his foot and sighed. "Also I didn't use demonic magic to wound you, that's just a healers dumb excuse."
I turned towards Asmodeus. "Come to think of it, you're interested in my power, yes? Would you like to observe as I undo the damage I dealt to Sebastian?"
The both of them gave me an expression of surprise and nodded. "Yes! Most certainly, your majesty!"
"Wait, you're actually willing to heal me, asshole?! Then why'd you have to wound me this bad in the first place? This shit makes no sense!"
Sebastian exclaimed quite rudely as I shrugged towards him. "Had to teach you a lesson that you wouldn't soon forget. Besides, while I will heal you, I never said that the process wouldn't hurt. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you scream from it."
This seemed to calm him down somewhat as he snorted. "Hmph! I didn't scream when you twisted my foot. What makes you think that I'll do so now?"
That's not how I remember it, but oh well~.
With a laugh, I promptly commanded him. "Remove your shoes and your pants, then lay down on the table here."
He blinked and coughed, even Asmodeus seemed somewhat confused as well as embarrassed. "Err, can I ask why?"
"Because I'm going to need to see your other foot in order to properly heal the other one." I quirked an eyebrow at him. "What? Don't tell me that the great Sebastian is afraid to show off his body to others? Are you perhaps that insecure in your looks, young man?"
"Speak for yourself, ya damn fatso!" He angrily exclaimed as he promptly tore off his pants but thankfully not his underwear as well and then did as ordered.
Asmodeus coughed and looked away as I smirked at him. "You won't be able to properly see my power if you look away, Asmodeus~."
He coughed again before replying, his cheeks reddening. "I'll uhm.. I'll m-manage."
Oh my.
Looks like the Grand Wizard has a case of the gay~.
Snorting loudly as I focused my attention on Sebastian, I promptly checked over his foot with the crimson tendril, easily seeing how his nerves were far too twisted to send proper signals to the brain, even if the foot looked okay from the outside. Surely, even with this much, normal people would be screaming in pain.
Ripping off a branch from a nearby small tree, I promptly gave it to Sebastian. "Chomp down on this. It should help with the pain."
He looked at the stick, but nodded nonetheless.
The maids around us laughed lightly as they likely knew that using sticks this way is normal for women giving birth.
With that done, I used my magic to remove the twisted nerve strings in his foot, causing him to crack the stick and grasp the table roughly. "Get him another one."
Asmodeus, having managed to defeat his shame, promptly took the broken piece of wood out of Sebastian's mouth and gave him another one.
Then I copied the nerves of his other foot, creating a preliminary design out of mana, before inversing and modifying the design to fit the wounded one.
Wasting no more time, I applied the new nerves, causing his body to rapidly regrow them and allow the boy to feel his foot properly for the first time in days.
The new stick was shattered within an instant as Sebastian's expression twisted with pain untold... And yet, he still didn't scream. He just gritted his teeth hard enough to visibly crack them, causing me to cringe hard from the sight and sound of it alone.
"Uh.. it's done. I'm done." I muttered out with a blink as Asmodeus quickly cast a spell on Sebastian, seemingly healing his teeth and soothing his pain just before the lad leaped off of our improvised operating table and started to run, half naked, through the entire castle courtyard. "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK OW FUCK AHHHHHHH!"
I ... turned my head away and calmly sipped on my tea. "Well.. I'd say that surgery was a success, right?"
Asmodeus, as well as everyone else present, gave me a look of utter disbelief and shock, eventually offering a slow nod in response, nevertheless.
