Volume 11 - Prologue

Prologue: The Night Before New Days 

“...I feel kind of uneasy,” I mumbled to myself, alone in a dark room. 

It had happened just today. We held the coronation and wedding ceremonies, making me officially the King of Friedonia, and Liscia, Aisha, Juna, Roroa, and Naden into my wives and real family. With all of the ceremonies complete and the unveiling event for the general public over, there was now a great feast underway celebrating my rise to the throne and marriage. 

It was a large-scale event, but it was fundamentally a celebration being hosted by the royal family. My vassals who had been attending weddings throughout the city joined us, and it made for quite a lively event. ...Actually, even as we were now heading into the second day of it, it was still ongoing. 

This room was distant from the great hall where the event was being held, but I could still faintly hear the riotous good time being had by all. I had been there myself not long ago, but Hakuya approached me and requested I take my leave before midnight. It might seem strange that I, the host, was being driven out, but he said that was how these things worked. 

“It is also your duty to increase the number of royals, sire,” he’d told me with an over-serious look on his face. 

I guess that meant he wanted me to make the most of our first night of married life. My partner for the night, Aisha, had been thrown out of the party along with me. I was never going to forget the smirking faces, or desperately-trying-not-to-smirk faces, of my retainers as the two of us left together. I wish I could just crawl into a hole. 

It seemed it was traditional to make a show of, “We’re going to go work hard on the baby-making now,” and have the retainers pledge their loyalty to the royal family and all of our progeny. 

“R-Really?” Aisha stuttered, looking down at her robe. “Before, when the princess and I tried to approach you in these outfits, you only slept next to us. I worried that perhaps Your Majesty thought it looked unseemly...” 

Worried...? How could she be? How silly. She was more than attractive enough. I was already feeling a bit lightheaded. Honestly, I’m amazed I managed to restrain myself after seeing Aisha like this last time. 

“It’s alluring. It’s a wonder that I was able to keep a level head last time.” 

“You were awfully depressed at the time, sire.”