That night, I was sleeping in the same room as Daisy, just like always.
Since taking Daisy in, I had been sharing quarters and meals with her at all times. There was nothing unusual about it—I had told everyone she was my adopted daughter, after all. When I returned to the lodging or inn after a day's work, Daisy would be sitting in a chair doing her homework. Jeremy had assigned her mostly ancient imperial language studies.
"…Nn, hah…"
Sometimes Daisy would moan softly in the room. It was obvious what was happening. Luke was masturbating with a slime onahole in his own room. The sensations were being transmitted to Daisy.
A teenage boy's libido was truly monstrous—Daisy would retreat to a corner and suppress her moans two or three times a day, sometimes as many as five. At least when it happened in the room, it was somewhat tolerable. On the rare occasion Luke started masturbating while Daisy was outside, her face would turn beet red and she'd go sprinting somewhere.
That day, Luke was especially virile. I woke up to cat-like whimpering and saw Daisy twisting on the floor beneath the bed, struggling to endure.
"Hah…nn, ha…"
The black-haired girl trembled faintly before finally exhaling in defeat. I propped myself halfway up in bed. Whether it was from just waking up or not, my head felt a little groggy.
"Six times today, was it? Tsk, tsk. Luke really is something else. Six times at his age."
"…Five times. Please do not arbitrarily add to the count. It's unpleasant."
Daisy turned her head to look my way.
Her voice was fairly fierce, but with her eyes glistening with moisture, she wasn't intimidating at all. If anything, she was only entertaining me.
"Five or six—either way, it's equally impressive. When I was his age, once every three days was a lot. As they say, the makings of a Hero are evident from the very start. They say a Hero doesn't shy away from pleasure, and I must say, his future looks truly promising."
"This is the worst."
"The worst? Thanks for the compliment. And honestly, the fact that his first experience was with a slime identical to his own little sister is just priceless. Truly a Hero. Even from the start of life, he's different from the rest of us!"
I burst out laughing.
Daisy, furious, grabbed a pillow and hurled it hard at me. Thud—right in the face. Sorry to say, it didn't hurt one bit. It only made me laugh harder.
Daisy sprang to her feet and charged at me. She snatched the pillow back and whacked me over and over. This childish display was actually the absolute limit of what Daisy could do by way of retaliation. She simply couldn't throw anything heavy or sharp at me.
A pillow. Or a ball of cotton. Maybe, what, water droplets? That was the caliber of object Daisy could use to strike me—and if you could even call that striking… The Slave Brand really was awfully convenient. Ha ha.
"Dantalion, sir, we have a serious problem!"
The door flew open with a bang and Jeremy came rushing in.
She looked our way and froze like a statue. Daisy and I were just as startled and went rigid.
A fully grown adult, tumbling around on a bed with a ten-year-old kid. In pajamas. Judging from the expression on Jeremy's face as it gradually soured, I could well imagine how this looked to a third party.
"…Ah. So Dantalion, sir, that's the sort of thing you're into. I suppose I should have expected as much. I knew you were a pervert, but I never imagined you were quite this far gone."
"Hey, Jeremy. I know exactly what you're thinking, but that's not what this is."
Jeremy looked at Daisy.
"Daisy? Is it true?"
"Teacher, with all due respect."
Daisy spoke without so much as a twitch of her eyebrow.
"If Father commands it, powerless as I am, I cannot resist."
The left shoulder of her pajamas had slipped down. Just a moment ago, she'd been fully dressed! In that brief window, she had coolly and deliberately loosened her clothes.
Jeremy nodded with the solemn gravity of a judge, then fixed me with an icy glare.
"Your Majesty the Demon Lord and pedophile pervert. Do you have any excuse?"
"You… you fresh-faced little pigs…"
I was shaking with rage. These two had been hanging around as teacher and student lately, and their chemistry was terrifyingly seamless.
"Calling me 'Your Majesty' doesn't excuse your manners!"
I hurled the pillow at Jeremy with all my might while shouting. She dodged it effortlessly, which only made my blood boil further.
"This is my bedroom. Urgent business or not, at least have the decency to knock. Your hat is good for nothing except assassination!"
"Ah!"
Jeremy snapped back to attention.
"Dantalion, sir! It's urgent! The scene was so perverse that it completely slipped my mind!"
"…We'll clear up your misunderstanding later. So, the most esteemed Sir Jeremy—what exactly is so urgent that you had to barge into the bedroom of none other than the Demon Lord himself?"
I asked with a sarcastic tone, but Jeremy answered with a grim expression.
"There's a purge—no, a massacre going on in Parisianum!"
Moments later, I was walking through the corridors wearing nothing but my pajamas and a single cloak draped over my shoulders.
The mansion where we slept had once belonged to a wealthy citizen of the city. After the commoners rose up in revolt and lovingly separated the wealthy man's head from his body, it became a billet for the mercenary company and the assassination squad.
When I descended to the ground floor, the command group had already assembled. The lobby had been set up with a situation board and military maps, and someone was delivering continuous reports through a Magic Crystal Orb. Zakri was listening with a grave expression, nodding.
"Good work, everyone. Looks like we're having a pajama party in the middle of the night."
I spoke as I descended the stairs swiftly. The Dwarves and Elves saluted crisply. I raised my right hand in a you're-welcome gesture.
"Report the situation first. Analysis of the cause can come later."
"Yes, Your Majesty. Approximately four hours ago from the present time, the city of Parisianum was swept up in unrest. It is not limited to certain districts—rioters are roaming the entire city."
Zakri reported in a booming voice.
"Most of the crowds are being led by servants of the noble houses, and they are inciting people to execute the treacherous ministers who betrayed the Emperor. According to results gathered so far, Marshal Saint-Dre—who was confined to his residence due to injuries sustained in the previous battle—has been attacked. There are also widespread rumors that Baron Cornaton, Viscount Téligny, and Viscount Rochefoucauld have been killed."
I pressed my hand to my forehead.
"They're all either key members of the Empress Dowager's faction or Republicans. This is no spontaneous riot. It's a coordinated operation. Has the analysis of how this came to be completed as well?"
"…We're not entirely certain yet."
Zakri spoke cautiously.
"It is said that the Emperor of Frank personally issued the order. And among the Royalist faction, the radicals may have taken charge of the execution force, so…"
"Insane."
I rubbed both hands over my face as if washing it.
Insane. That word lingered in my mind. I needed something to drink. I needed a stimulant to get my brain moving faster.
Just then, Daisy offered me a horn cup from the side. It was water mixed with wine vinegar. Daisy had followed me down and was also in her pajamas, silently and unobtrusively observing the council of war. I took the horn cup and drained it in one gulp. The tart vinegar water shook my brain all the way to the core.
Good. I was alert now, just as I needed to be.
Dantalion—let's figure out what the hell is going on.
"First, we need to determine whether this was the Emperor's own initiative. Zakri—are Bretagne's forces involved in the massacre? Or is it only the Royalists moving?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. So far, no rioters wearing Bretagne's uniforms have been found."
In other words, Bretagne—at least on the surface—was not involved…
"And Henrietta? Where is the Queen?"
"Henrietta and the rest of the Bretagne forces are staying at a fortress near the Imperial Capital. However, we have not been able to confirm whether the Queen was actually at the fortress tonight."
Shortly after the Bretagne army entered the Imperial Capital Parisianum, they had not garrisoned the city but instead moved to a nearby fortress.
"So at minimum, on the surface, this is entirely the work of the Emperor and the Royalists?"
"That is correct. The citizens of Parisianum are shouting the same."
"…Zakri. This is far too strange."
"Yes?"
I tapped the floor with my right foot as I spoke.
"The Emperor's authority was already sinking. And now a massacre on top of that? Stupid. It's like loading iron ingots onto a ship with a hole in the hull."
The Emperor had begun exterminating Republicans by force. Without borrowing Bretagne's military strength, he had deployed his own Imperial Guard directly.
The Royalists would cheer, certainly. But the Republicans? The other factions?
"Not everyone in the Empress Dowager's faction or the Republican camp is automatically opposed to the Emperor. Many of them are neutral, and many more try their best to obey imperial decrees. What happens when a massacre of this scale occurs?"
To survive, they would band together.
Of course they would. Any ruler who began slaughtering his own subjects at will would leave the Republicans no choice but to take up arms.
The massacre would end up uniting the anti-Emperor faction. No matter how much of a fool Henri III was… or rather, since he had already invited foreign powers in, he was already beyond repair. Let's just ignore him.
The problem was Henrietta de Bretagne. It was hard to imagine she would stand by and watch.
Since the Emperor had allied with the Queen, he would have shared information about the massacre with her at the very least. Henrietta would have immediately grasped the counter-reaction the massacre would provoke. Why hadn't she stopped the Emperor? Why…
"I can't make sense of it. Hmm, I simply can't."
I muttered to myself. I could feel the Dwarves and Elves watching me.
"Could the Emperor be such a colossal fool—far beyond what we imagined—that he carried out this operation without even consulting the Queen?"
"…The fact that this cannot be denied is terrifying."
Zakri said with a furrowed brow.
But there was no way the Queen hadn't planted at least one spy near the Emperor. She would have found out somehow. And yet, why…
It would unite the enemies… not just the Republic's army, but numerous Empress Dowager faction nobles as well… Ah, I see. That's it!
"Zakri. A decisive battle. The Queen of Bretagne is angling for a grand battle."
"Your Majesty? A decisive battle?"
The command group stared at me with confused expressions. Had I jumped too far ahead?
I continued in an anxious tone.
"Until now, the forces that opposed the Emperor were not large. But if a massacre of this magnitude takes place, an anti-Emperor army will coalesce in an instant. A force of thirty thousand would be formed lightly."
Among them would be great nobles lined up like stars. Their power would far exceed that of the few northern lords who had called in the Republican army.
"When they grow strong enough, how do you think they'll treat the Republican forces?"
"…"
Zakri pondered for a moment, then his eyes went wide.
"Your Majesty—the command would be split!"
I nodded.
"If the anti-Emperor forces don't coalesce as one, the Republic will seize command."
By convention, the faction with the most troops holds command. The Batavia Republic's army was far larger than Frank's northern lords. So under normal circumstances, the Republic would monopolize command…
"But if the domestic nobles of Frank can muster even more troops, the story changes."
The Republican army numbered twenty-two thousand. If the nobles assembled roughly thirty thousand, Frank's nobles would hold the numerical advantage. The Republic could no longer monopolize command.
But the noble army wasn't so overwhelmingly superior that they could simply subsume the Republican forces under their banner. In that case…
"Frank's commander and the Republic's commander would each have their own chain of command. That's certain!"
"Yes."
I nodded at Zakri's words.
And it didn't stop there. Not all of Frank's nobles were Republicans. They were only a fraction. The majority belonged to the Empress Dowager's faction or the Neutral Faction.
"The nobles would be wary of too much military authority falling into Batavia's hands, and to avoid internal interference they would prefer to act independently. Bretagne's forces number only ten thousand."
Even adding the Emperor's Imperial Guard and mercenaries, the total would be twenty thousand at most. That was more than enough to annihilate the Republican forces without reaching out to them. That was how the Empress Dowager's faction nobles would see it.
By splitting the command structure on their side, what was Queen Henrietta after? There was no prey more tempting than an army with a divided brain—that is, a decisive battle. Annihilate them in one stroke.
Boldly, Queen Henrietta was attempting to cut through an army of some fifty thousand—the northern Frank lords, the Empress Dowager's faction, and the Batavia Republic—with forces numbering only about ten thousand.
What manner of confidence was this?
A chill ran down my spine.
The fundamentals of warfare were to concentrate your own forces while scattering the enemy's. Henrietta was doing the exact opposite—concentrating the enemy. She was deliberately encouraging the creation of a massive army with two separate heads.
She was certain of it. An army of forty or fifty thousand—what did it matter? She could crush them all.