[V7C4] The King and The Monsters
Translated by Jodas 7: To the NorthIn the past, the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy was said to have held overwhelming influence.
Even to this day, they still held considerable sway, but it was nothing compared to a hundred years ago.
At the time, the leaders of the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy would only grant the name Krewing to those candidates for Emperor who suited their own ends.
In contrast, the Emperor now pressures the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy to grant the name Krewing to princes who he deems suitable for succession, or otherwise to princes and princess he favors… That has become the norm.
“My brother, Leonhard, did not originally have the surname Krewing.”
Sevil spoke under her breath as she glared at the map drawn on the blackboard.
Sevil’s half-brother, Leonhard. The current Emperor, known as the Black Lion Emperor — That was just about the extent of Tia’s knowledge on him.
“My brother was hated by our father, and he sent him off to the front lines in the South. No one would have expected that man to become Emperor.”
“…Piyo? Then how did Sevil’s big bro get to be Emperor? If he didn’t have the Krewing name?”
Hütter chuckled bitterly at Tia’s curious voice.
“After the previous Emperor passed away, he went around twisting legs in the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy until they gave in and let him have the Krewing name.”
“Eugh…” Wren moaned.
“Is that kind of thing even allowed…?”
“It was allowed in the end, you know? It just means the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy has declined to the point where they have to let this sort of thing slide. Now do you understand the relationship between the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy and the Krewings?”
Tia nodded vigorously.
Out of the Imperial Family, only those approved by the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy could use the name Krewing. If you don’t have the name Krewing, you can’t be Emperor — That seemed like a good amount to try and remember.
Hütter continued to speak.
“That covered, let’s return to the Kingdom of Darwock and the Monsters. The state religion of the Kingdom of Darwock is Lusterianism. To put it simple, it’s basically an offshoot of the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy… Although I think they’d be pretty mad if they heard me call it an ‘offshoot.’ Either way, just think of them as pretty similar religions.”
According to Hütter, compared to other religions like the Spirit God Faith and the Dragon Faith, the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy and Lusterianism were reasonably similar.
The identity of God, the existence of things called ‘angels,’ methods of prayer, and the teachings of God were all alike. However, there were some clear differences.
Hütter voiced one of them in a low tone.
“Lusterianism strictly forbids polygamy and divorce. As a result, children born to anyone other than your legal wife are considered illegitimate and have absolutely no right to inherit the throne.”
However, the King got along poorly with the Queen and her sons, and his suspicion that the princes were plotting to kill him ate away at him.
He wanted to remarry with his favored mistress and pass the right of inheritance to a child he birthed with her as soon as possible.
…But what could he do to make that happen?
“Then, the King of Darwock had an idea. ‘That’s right! I can just change the state religion to the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy, where divorce and polygamy are A-OK!’”
“…Really, dude?”
Wren groaned with a grimace.
As a child of a mistress himself, he must have had a lot on his mind.
“Actually, is it even possible for him to do that?”
“Well, it sure isn’t easy. The Kingdom of Darwock had a history of suppressing believers of the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy. Even then, any other religion would just be way too different. If the Kingdom of Darwock had to change its state religion, then the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy was the most straightforward option.”
Changing religions was not a simple task.
Tia didn’t really have a solid grasp on the concept of religions, but she assumed converting to a different faith was probably a little like a Harpy trying to live as a human. Just about everything around you would change in a big way. Probably.
“That said, if he just went out and said ‘I want a divorce, so I’m converting!’ everyone around him would be pissed, right? That’s when the King thought about bringing in an Imperial Princess with the Krewing name to marry one of the princes. The Krewing name was proof that someone was acknowledged by the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy, after all.”
An Imperial Princess with the Krewing name — Tia and Wren turned in sync to look at Sevil.
Sevil let out a puff of air through her nose and smirked.
“Ridiculous, isn’t it? It’s okay, you can laugh.”
“I won’t laugh.”
“How could I laugh at that?”
Tia and Wren replied immediately.
“Pevuvu… I know you don’t like being treated like that, so I won’t laugh, Sevil.”
“Isn’t the whole thing just gross and uncomfortable? I can’t believe anyone would be happy having their lives decided for the benefit of some senile geezer!”
Sevil blinked in surprise, then stretched her arms out as wide as they could go.
In one swift movement, she grabbed Tia and Wren on each side of her and pulled them into a hug, rubbing both of their cheeks.
“Aw, you lovely little rascals!”
With Sevil’s cheeks squeezing against her own, Tia let out a delighted “Pefufun!”
Wren complained “My tender pretty boy skin is going to get red!” but he made no move to push Sevil away.
Hütter watched with a strained smile as Sevil rubbed their cheeks to her heart’s content.
Once Sevil had returned to her seat, Hütter said “Back on topic—!” and continued the story.
“Since Sevil blew off the engagement and disappeared, the King of Darwock failed to accomplish his objective. Worse than that, when he heard that the Princess who the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy had acknowledged had run away, the King was infuriated. ‘I’ll never forgive the Empire or the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy!’ …Or something like that.”
As far as the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy was concerned, this whole thing was a pain in the neck.
“He wanted to convert in order to get a divorce. But he had a grudge on the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy now. Any other religion was too different so hard to convert to. Then, the King had another idea.”
This was not an admirable way of thinking. Even as a Harpy, Tia understood that much.
She was correct.
”‘That’s right! Why don’t I just make a new religion? All the annoying details can just be the same as Lusterianism, but divorce and polygamy are A-OK, and the god is going to be the King of Darwock! I’ll call it the Darwock Orthodoxy!’”
Tia warbled ‘piro-piro’ in confusion and voiced her thoughts as they occurred to her.
“So it’s bad to break the rules, but it’s fine to change the rules?”
Hütter’s expression looked a little surprised at her words.
Then, in a contemplative tone, he said:
“…You’ve matured, Tia.”
“Piyo, I’ve been complimented!”
“Just as you say, if he did something like that, obviously there would be resistance both inside and outside his country. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine the Kingdom of Darwock splitting in two, the country losing its influence, or other countries interfering. For him to prop himself up as a god; for him to establish the ‘Darwock Orthodoxy’; he needed an overwhelming power that was enough to keep everyone else from speaking against him.”
An overwhelming power.
At those words, Tia felt goosebumps on the back of her neck. She had a bad feeling about this.
What was happening in the Kingdom of Darwock again? What was it that the Sixth Prince had said?
As if to confirm Tia’s suspicions, Hütter concluded:
“Therefore, the King of Darwock joined hands with the Monsters. In the new Darwock Orthodoxy, Monsters would no longer be treated as evil. They would accept Monsters — that was his promise.”
Seated on the throne was an old king, large in both stature and weight.
King Valdemar of Darwock.
When he was young, he was an imposing man with a toned body. With a sword in hand, he personally led his armies, lent his ear to the voice of the people, and instituted various reforms.
A courageous and wise king. That was the popular assessment of King Valdemar… Although all of that was now in the past.
As a result of his infidelity to his queen, the princes and his retainers have grown distant, and politics have been thrown into chaos.
With every passing day, Valdemar was tormented by his paranoia.
Even now, that paranoia consumed Valdemar’s face as he observed the three people standing before him.
—Would it even be correct to refer to them as three ‘people’?
A handsome blond man wearing elegant clothes.
A man with a hood pulled over his eyes.
A strange woman with the wings and feet of a bird.
“As I hoped, palaces sure are nice~. Boy do I lo~ve the buildings those cute little humans come up with. I’d like to live in a place like this~.”
As he said that, the blond man rubbed his cheeks on the carvings in the pillars. No one dared admonish him for doing so. Everyone present knew that it would be impossible to stop this man.
The first time these three came before the throne, naturally the guards tried to arrest them.
However, this man alone fought back every last one of the guards.
The sight then would have made any who witnessed it doubt their eyes.
He bent the soldiers’ swords like licorice and sent soldiers flying into the wall with a mere flick of his wrist.
With just a light kick against the ground, his body floated all the way up to the ceiling. Without using any magecraft, no less.
It appears these people are entities known as Monsters, thought to have been eliminated back in the old era.
There were rumors that some scant few remaining Monsters might still be living in a mana-dense region far away from human settlements, but that was the extent of it.
However, according to the man in the hood, there was a place known as the Crystal Territory hidden deep in the mountains of the far-eastern Empire, and that place serves as the Monsters’ hideout.
These Monsters had circumvented the treacherous mountains on the border of the Empire and the Kingdom of Darwock by flying over the sea on their way here.
The bird-woman had flown into the throne room with the other two dangling from her feet, the blond gentleman dispatched the soldiers, then the man in the hood offered a suggestion.
“We shall grant your wish, Your Majesty.”
From that point onwards, should the newly-instituted Darwock Orthodoxy formalize relations with Monsters, then these Monsters would lend their support to the Kingdom of Darwock, or so he had said.
Just how formidable the Monsters could be had already been satisfactorily demonstrated by the blond Monster.
If he could make that power his own, he would have nothing to fear.
(…Really?)
While Valdemar was a tyrant, he was not incompetent. He had once been known as a wise king, after all.
Therefore, he understood very well the dangers inherent in this deal.
The King of Monsters had yet to show its form here.
Apparently the King of Monsters would be visiting in due time, and these three here were messengers responsible for explaining the situation in advance.
“When will your King arrive?”
In response to the words of the anxious King Valdemar, the man in the hood answered in a slow, relaxed manner.
“Soon.”
“‘Soon’ appears to be a rather imprecise word in the language of Monsters.”
“My apologies. We are a long-lived race, Your Majesty. Regardless, I pray you be at ease. We do not intend to make you wait a whole year.”
The hooded man called to the bird-woman.
“Charonlala, please inform our King. That His Majesty, King Valdemar, is willing to become our god.”
The bird-woman referred to as Charonlala glared indignantly at the hooded man.
Her piercing sharp amber eyes glowed with an unsettling light.
“…Do not give me orders, Chancellor.”
Once she spat those words, the bird-woman jumped onto the windowsill and spread her wings.
Those wings, colored in a brilliant orange hue with spots of scarlet mixed in, looked like a firework bursting into a brilliant shower of embers.
The bird-woman flapped her captivating wings and took off from the window.
Into the Southern sky — towards the Empire.