Volume 5 - Epilogue

Epilogue: Towards the First Trip Abroad 

1st day, 4th month, 1,547th year, Continental Calendar 

It was the day after the Lunarian Orthodoxy’s Spring Announcement Festival was held. 

The Spring Announcement Festival yesterday had been pretty lively, so the castle town would be busily cleaning up after it today. I was spending the day in the governmental affairs office, staring down a single piece of paper. 

Liscia, who had just come into the room, looked suspiciously at me and asked, “Is something the matter, Souma?” 

“Hmm? Oh, I was looking at this.” I showed Liscia the piece of paper I had been staring at. 

The piece of paper had three characters, or symbols, something that I couldn’t make sense of, lined up on it. Starting from the left there was “an arrow-like triangle pointing to the left, combined with a square;” “two vertical lines and something made with a vertical line with five horizontal lines crossing it;” and “an umbrella-shaped symbol.” 

Liscia looked sideways at the piece of paper I’d given her. “What’s this?” 

“It’s apparently a portion of the Lunalith oracle that Merula saw.” ? 

Merula Merlin had come along with Souji Lester, the bishop we’d invited as a countermeasure against the Lunarian Orthodoxy. Her research primarily focused on spirits and magic, and her long years of research had produced an incredible wealth of knowledge, so I had welcomed her with open arms. 

Now Merula was at Genia the overscientist’s laboratory where there was all sorts of equipment available. 

It seemed curse ore, which absorbed magic, was a very interesting subject of research for Merula. She and Genia were spending day after day together, engrossed in their research. 

What sort of chemical reaction would the meeting of overscientist and magic researcher have on this country? I was kind of looking forward to it, and kind of worried... 

Something had happened the first time I’d met Merula. 

The oracle she’d said had appeared on the Lunalith came up in conversation, and when I asked her for details, Merula shook her head in disappointment. 

“They call it an oracle, so I think what appeared was text; but it wasn’t in a writing system from any country in this world, so I couldn’t figure out what it said. If I’d had a little more time, I might have at least been able to figure out if they were phonographs or ideographs, but...” 

It seemed she hadn’t had the time to properly commit it to memory. Her life had been in danger, so I could hardly blame her for that. 

When I asked her if there was anything she remembered, no matter how minor, she’d said, “It really is just a small fraction, but I recall... it went like this...” 

And then she’d written these three incomprehensible characters or symbols onto a piece of paper. Merula’s memories were vague, so these probably were exactly as she’d seen them. 

In the end, the only thing we knew was that these sorts of incomprehensible characters or symbols had appeared as an oracle. 

Liscia seemed to realize something and said, “Ah...! If the writing isn’t from this world, could it be from yours?” 

“Yeah,” I said. “That was something I suspected, too, but I’ve got absolutely no idea what they are...” 

I couldn’t claim familiarity with every writing system on Earth, obviously, but I could at least say that in more than a decade of living in Japan, I had no recollection of seeing this kind of writing (?) before. The one in the middle might look a bit like the kanji for “pray” or “samurai” if you looked at it the right way, but as for what the arrow-like one that came before it, and the umbrella-like one that came after it were... I had no idea. 

I gave up and put the piece of paper away inside the governmental affairs office’s desk. “Well, even if I could read just three characters of it, it wouldn’t do me any good. I can’t neglect my duties just because I’m curious about it, after all. Let’s forget about it for now.” 

And so, Liscia and I got started on my paperwork for the day, but... I had one of the consciousnesses I had split off thinking about it. 

Events sometimes took place outside the Kingdom of Friedonia. If something bothered me, when it was a domestic matter, I could bring on new people, assign personnel to the issue, and assign a budget to get it investigated. I had my position as king, after all. 

However, when it was in another country, I couldn’t investigate. 

If it was something the relevant country had already investigated, it was possible I might acquire the information through diplomacy or espionage. However, if they hadn’t investigated it yet, I had no means of acquiring information about that matter. Because it was another country, I couldn’t dispatch a team to investigate, either. 

What if, included in that information this country couldn’t get its hands on, there was something that could decide the fate of our own nation? What if we found out about it too late? Whenever I thought about that, I felt unable to sit still. 

The world was not complete with just one country. Especially if I was staying inside the castle, it was only natural that there would be things I couldn’t find out that way. I still... had so much to learn about this world. 

I need to learn more. Much more, about many different countries... 

While swamped with government work, that was what I thought about.

It was a mysterious space. 

It was as if I were in an abyss where no light seemed to reach; or perhaps I had been thrown out into deep space, in a place where I was unable to tell up from down. 

I was floating in the middle of that space. 

I could breathe properly. But my thinking felt hazy somehow. 

Oh... This is probably a dream. I’m in a dream world. 

Sometimes while dreaming, I would realize it was a dream. 

When I was sleeping at something like a kotatsu, where it was hard to fall fully asleep, I would realize it was a dream and think that I needed to wake up quickly, see a dream of waking up, realize I was dreaming again, dream of waking up... and it went on like that. That was close to how I felt right now. 

While I was drifting along in that dozing state, a light suddenly appeared before me. 

The light gradually grew larger, eventually reaching many tens of times my own size. The light that grew to a massive size eventually began to form into something. As it took form, the once strong light gradually weakened. And then... 

What appeared before my eyes was one massive silver dragon. 

Its sense of presence was overwhelming. It had curled horns like a goat. Claws and fangs that looked like they could rend steel. Powerful wings spread wide. Its body was covered with a smooth silver fur, and its blue eyes seemed gentle somehow. It was a dragon that was masculine, and yet felt motherly. 

I had been told that wyverns and dragons were completely different before, but... now I could understand. This creature was so dazzlingly divine that it felt absurd to compare it to a wyvern. 

“Could it be that you’re... Mother Dragon?” I asked. 

It was a hunch. I had heard of this before. They said there were sentient dragons living in the Star Dragon Mountain Range, and they were ruled by a beautifully massive white dragon. The dragon before my eyes was so beautiful I would have described her as a silver dragon, not a white one, but she fit the image of Mother Dragon perfectly. 

Mother Dragon neither confirmed nor denied, but her unswerving eyes that stared into mine told me the answer was “yes.” 

Then Mother Dragon stretched that long neck of hers. Even just her head on its own was incredibly big, and if she had felt like it, she could easily have swallowed me whole right there. I panicked a little, but my body didn’t move, as if it was sewn in place. 

Fortunately, Mother Dragon’s head didn’t open its mouth as it approached, and her large nose just came up close to my chase. Then she gently inhaled through her nostrils. We stayed like that for a short while, and then Mother Dragon slowly pulled her head away from me. 

“You who have a familiar smell,” she spoke. 

Huh?! I thought, shocked. 

I heard a voice. It had the tone of a gentle elderly woman. Was this Mother Dragon’s voice, maybe? I thought that it might be, but she hadn’t opened her mouth. 

“You who have a familiar smell.” 

When I opened my eyes, I was on a bed in a dark room. 

I looked around with my mind still hazy. It was probably still night. It was dark, but the moonlight streaming in through the window allowed me to make out the inside of this neat and tidy Western-style room. 

This is... Oh, right. I’m in Liscia’s room. 

Last night... or rather, every night lately, unless I was especially busy with work... I’d gone to sleep and woken up in Liscia’s room. Of course... well... that was so we could do a lot of fooling around. 

When I looked next to me, as expected, I found Liscia’s sleeping face. It was hectic the next morning if we did it in the governmental affairs office, and when it came to my room, half of it was my doll-making workshop, and the other half was where we spent time as a family, which made it awkward; so, as a result, we were using Liscia’s room every night. 

“Nngh...” Liscia, who had been lying on her back next to me, asleep and naked, seemed to lift her head up, but then rolled onto her side. Then, slowly opening her eyes, she rubbed the sleep from them and looked at me. “Mmm... Souma?” 

“Sorry. Did I wake you?” 

“...No. It’s fine. What’s up?” 

“Oh... I just had a kind of incredible dream...” 

“A dream?” 

That was when it happened. 

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh... 

Suddenly, there was a sound like that. It was a mysterious sound, almost like a siren, or perhaps the howling of some creature. We could hear it from a considerable distance, so it must have been at a very high volume, but it didn’t make our ears ring at all. It wasn’t going to wake those who were asleep, probably. I had never heard it myself before, but I imagined it was like the singing of whales. 

I put on my shirt, and pulled on a pair of pants, then got out of bed and went over to stand by the window. When I did, I saw a large shadow in the sky flying away to the northwest. 

Liscia seemed to think it was a coincidence, but when I considered the dream I’d just had... 

It was a dream, and yet not a dream... Is that it? 

I had a premonition that something was about to happen again, and I let out a small sigh.

The next day... 

While I was still concerned by the events of last night, I was working like usual in the governmental affairs office when an exhausted Prime Minister Hakuya came in. 

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You look horribly tired.” 

Hakuya walked over, and then said to me with a tormented look, “Your Majesty... Could I ask you to get away from the castle for a while?” 

“...Come again?” 

Get away from the castle? He was telling me to get out of the castle? I was kind of the king here, you know? 

“You’re overthrowing me?” I asked. “Really, Hakuya, if you want the throne, it’s okay, I don’t mind letting you have it.” 

“Don’t talk nonsense. I don’t want that thing.” 

“‘That thing’? Now listen...” 

“It’s fine. Just listen. Just recently, you announced the date of your wedding ceremony, right?” 

When Hakuya asked me that, I nodded. 

The other day, I’d announced that I, who was still just a caretaker who had not formally ascended the throne yet, would carry out the coronation ceremony which would make me the fourteenth king, along with my wedding ceremony with Liscia and the others, at the end of this year. I had decided to do it this way because handling the big events all at once would be easier on the national treasury. 

However, Hakuya said it was causing a problem. 

“The castle is now being flooded with proposals from nobles, as well as from the kings of medium-sized and small states in the Union of Eastern Nations, all of whom want to form marital ties with you, sire. They’re hoping to slide in now, before the marriage ceremony happens.” 

“It’s a last minute rush of suitors, then?” I said. “Can’t you just refuse them?” 

“We could, but... these are all houses whose position makes it hard to refuse when they say, ‘Even if you are going to refuse, we would like to meet with you at least once before you do.’ Recently, the number of marriage proposals brought to the castle has been on a rising trend, and the section responsible for them is about ready to burst at the seams.” 

“...There are that many people sending me marriage proposals?” I asked trepidatiously. 

“No, they aren’t just for you, sire. The single men at your side who are seen as having promising futures, every one of them, have been receiving a fairly large number of marriage proposals, too.” 

So if they couldn’t marry into the royal family, they at least wanted to marry a retainer with a promising future. That was probably an easier challenge for them to clear than becoming a member of the royal family, after all. Honestly... if you were to say that this was all nobles ever did, it would be true, but... still, it was impressive that they could keep it up like this. 

“Incidentally, the most popular of your retainers is Sir Poncho,” Hakuya said. 

Poncho? Now there was a surprise. 

“Not Ludwin, the handsome captain of the Royal Guard?” 

“It’s true, Sir Ludwin is incredibly popular, but the House of Arcs is a great house, and the only people who can propose to him are of the nobility and the knightly class,” said Hakuya. “On that point, Sir Poncho is of low birth, and so even common mercantile families send marriage proposals to him. Furthermore, while Sir Ludwin feels out of reach, many women seem to think they could easily seduce Sir Poncho.” 

“...He’s being taken lightly, huh.” 

If the marriage proposals were piling up for Poncho, that meant he was popular, too. Though he was pudgy and rotund, he was also a gentle and considerate young man. More than that, his food was delicious. On top of that, he had led the country to a solution for its food crisis; and if you considered the way he was almost worshiped as a god of food in the Amidonia Region, there had to be a lot of women who would want to marry him. 

Poncho was known for giving ground when pushed, which they had seen from his appearances on the broadcast programs. For any woman even slightly confident in her appearance, it might not have been unreasonable that they thought they could push past his defenses with sheer momentum. In point of fact, Poncho was not very good at fending off those sorts of advances. 

Hmm... I was happy to hear that a good retainer like Poncho was a hit with the ladies, but I was hoping he would continue doing good work for me in future, so I didn’t want anyone too weird catching him. 

“Have you taken countermeasures?” I asked. 

“Yes. I have already asked Madam Serina to act as Sir Poncho’s assistant. She attends arranged marriage meetings with him, and drives off women who approach him purely out of personal ambition.” 

Oh... No need to worry, then. If Serina was there as Poncho’s assistant, it would probably be fine. 

There were some issues with Serina’s personality, but she was extremely graceful and beautiful. If she was at his side, the women who were only a little confident in their appearance, and who thought they could seduce him, would back down. 

I had often asked her to serve as Poncho’s assistant before this, but Serina always said things like, “When I go to such efforts on a gentleman’s behalf, I hope he will get his act together a little more. I am working very hard, so please, treat me to a meal again sometime.” 

Though she complained, and it was obvious she was only doing it because she wanted his food, she seemed to be proactive about looking after Poncho. Poncho loved both to eat and to cook, and Serina was hooked on the junk food from Earth that he and I were developing together. 

Serina seemed unaware of it because she had let her sadistic tendency to bully cute girls get out of hand, but it felt like he had completely tamed her with food. He was a timid man you couldn’t leave alone, and she was a strong-willed woman who tended to meddle, so they got along well and... Wait, huh? 

“Serina attends Poncho’s marriage meetings, right?” I asked. 

“Yes. I hear that many women excuse themselves when they see what the woman standing next to him looks like.” 

“Isn’t that like... Serina’s unconsciously ‘sheltering’ Poncho?” 

“...” 

... 

We looked at one another, awkward looks on the faces of liege and vassal alike. 

...Yeah, it was best we not get involved in this matter. It would be uncouth for us to butt in and say anything. For the moment, I decided to change the subject. 

“Ahem... Anyway, I’ll bet it’s not just Ludwin and Poncho, is it? You must have a significant number of proposals coming your way, too, don’t you?” 

Hakuya was handsome, and he was the closest of all the men close to me. I couldn’t imagine the ladies and nobles of the world would let him get away. When I brought it up, Hakuya got a look on his face like he had bitten into something unpleasant. 

“I... have no intention of taking a wife just yet.” 

“It’s not that you aren’t interested in women, though, right? Are you one of those guys who thinks marriage is too much of a hassle?” 

“...So, there you have it, it’s been decided I’m going to the Star Dragon Mountain Range.” 

It was a few hours later. I had gathered my companions in the conference room for the announcement. 

Present were my four fiancées, Liscia, Aisha, Juna, and Roroa, as well as Prime Minister Hakuya, Captain of the Royal Guard Ludwin, Finance Minister Colbert, my honorary little sister Tomoe, and the maids Serina and Carla, for a total of eleven people, including myself.