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[Translator - Tangrine ]
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Chapter - 40: Political Marriage
Kanaria had turned into a dog.
Not a metaphor.
I woke up, and there was suddenly a golden retriever sitting beside my bed.
“Kana?”
“Woof woof!”
“…What.”
She’d turned into a dog.
That was the conclusion I came to after careful consideration.
She had become a real dog.
Clunk.
“You called for me?”
“Hm?”
Just then, the bedroom door opened, and Kana walked in.
I looked back and forth between Kana and the dog.
The golden retriever barked woof! Energetically.
Ah. It seemed there had been a minor misunderstanding.
“Kana. There’s some mutt in my room.”
“Oh, the head maid brought it in. She says we’ll be keeping it at the estate from now on.”
“I don’t recall hearing anything about that…”
“The head maid doesn’t have a yard at her house.”
Ah, right.
If there’s no yard, then there’s no helping it…
“Get rid of it.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Kana got down on one knee and met the dog’s eyes.
Then she started barking.
“Woof woof!”
“Ruff?”
“Bark bark!”
“Whine…”
The retriever slunk out of the room while looking utterly dejected. Its expression was the very picture of sorrow.
Kana turned to me proudly.
“I made it clear that it’s not allowed to enter the duke’s chambers again.”
“Kana… are you a druid?”
“My mother came from a bloodline attuned to nature. And my noble father met her while walking through the forest.”
“Ah, I see.”
No wonder she was so good at mimicking a dog.
Well, she was just an ordinary girl who went on to assassinate that Nosferatu, after all.
She must’ve had a few hidden talents.
“Didn’t you know?”
“Hmm.”
“I thought the duke knew everything.”
"It's reading thoughts, not memories."
Druid.
A being that mimics the lifestyle of beasts.
They transform into beasts, speak the language of beasts, act like beasts, or simply live like beasts...That’s roughly how they gain their power.
Druids are incredibly rare.
Druids living within human society are not much different from ordinary people, and druids living in nature are not much different from beasts.
Many don’t even realize they are born with druidic blood.
“I am still considered to have a strong expression of druidic lineage among the empire’s druids. After my family fell, I lived like a stray dog on the streets.”
“So that’s why you imitated a mutt?”
“No. That was just to make money.”
“Ah.”
I nodded.
“Can you transform too?”
“Transform… not exactly. I can do something similar, but you might be disappointed.”
Kanaria activated her druidic transformation ability.
And then, her hair grew fluffy enough to cover half her face, and dog ears appeared atop her head.
“By the way, I have a tail too.”
Inumimi. Commonly called the ‘puppy-eared maid’ look.
I admired it.
“You look like a dog.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
“I should bring out Maid Gigachad and compare—”
“Don’t.”
She always hated it when Maid Gigachad was brought up.
Turns out it was because their characters overlapped.
“It’s just gross.”
“I lacked respect. I’ll try not to infringe on Kanaria’s individuality going forward.”
“That’s not it.”
Kanaria’s skirt swayed.
There was a tapping sound, like a broom striking the floor.
Is that a tail wagging under there?
How interesting.
“Kana. Mind if I lift your skirt a little?”
“As you wish.”
When I lifted it, a cream-colored tail was swaying gently from side to side.
A long, thick tail that started with the glossy color of soft rice cake and faded to white at the tip.
The fur rippled like waves and looked incredibly soft.
“Can you control your tail however you want?”
“Hmm. It moves on its own so consciously controlling it is a bit difficult. Maybe with practice it would be possible… but I don’t stay in this form often. The fur sheds a lot, and it’s inconvenient for work in many ways.”
“So, it’s just dog fur.”
“Yes. Just dog fur.”
The tail drooped weakly.
I took a gold coin out of my pocket.
Kanaria’s tail shot up and wagged sharply from side to side.
“Ohh.”
“It moves like this.”
“That’s fun. Could be used instead of a broom.”
“Wouldn’t it shed even more then?”
“Ah, true.”
It certainly didn’t seem very useful.
At best, maybe some animal therapy.
“Well, no need to expect usefulness in a circus act. It’s fun.”
“Thank you.”
“If you had this talent, why didn’t you say so sooner?”
“You never asked.”
Hmm! That was true so I did not argue.
I nodded.
“But you said your father met your mother in the forest, right?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t druids who live in forests usually take the form of animals?”
“That’s correct.”
“Hm?”
“Yes?”
“Uh, really?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“Then your mother…”
“I heard that when she lived in the forest, she took the form of a red fox.”
“Ah.”
Your father had excellent taste indeed.
“My father brought my mother, who was wounded and dying in the forest, back to the estate and cared for her. It wasn’t until later, when she transformed into a human, that he realized she was a druid.”
“Oh! So that’s how it was.”
I’m sorry, Kana’s father.
I misunderstood.
“Kana.”
“Yes.”
“You said it like that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Try turning on telepathy.”
“I invoke my right to remain silent.”
As Kana and I exchanged jokes like that—
Bang! Suddenly, the door flew open and the head maid hurried into the room.
Kanaria immediately canceled her transformation.
“My lord duke!”
“Oh. Head maid. You brought a dog into the estate without telling me—”
“A guest from the imperial court has arrived!”
·
·
·
“What?”
The Imperial Royal Family.
The worst group of reclusive shut-ins in the Endless world setting.
These atrocious shut-ins barely leave the palace even once over an entire year.
Most nobles in the empire don’t even know the emperor’s face.
“So then, how do they govern?”
“They don’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“They don’t.”
You can tell just by watching the so-called ‘execution family’ and ‘assassination family’ run wild
openly.
There’s even a family with the bizarre reputation of being the ‘traitor family’—they sold mines to
enemy nations.
“Then why do they recognize such people as an emperor?”
“Because they’re competent.”
“Isn’t that contradictory?”
“Competence is achieving maximum results with minimal effort.”
As mentioned before, the royal family rarely leaves the palace during the year.
But on rare occasions, the royal family does leave the palace.
“A single day for the royal family is worth more than a lifetime for a commoner.”
Take military power, for example.
If nobles’ soldiers and knights are conventional armies, the royal family is like a ‘nuclear bomb.’
Rarely used, but their very existence deters war, and the moment they strike, everything is
destroyed.
If any noble dares to rebel, that noble will vanish along with their entire domain.
By the way, that’s not a metaphor. It’s a recorded fact.
“That’s… terrifying.”
“Isn’t it?”
“There are those ‘traitor noble houses’ who sold mines to enemy nations despite the existence of such a royal family.”
“Oh. So that’s who you mean?”
Anyway…
In every field, the royal family is ‘out of the ordinary.’
Whenever the empire’s survival is in jeopardy, the royal family alone can save the empire.
A single day for the royal family is worth more than a lifetime for a commoner.
“For something like that, hasn’t the world been destroyed far too often?”
“Well, in some cases of destruction, it’s simply difficult to intervene from the start— and it’s not like the royal family just lets destruction happen.”
“Excuse me?”
“I told you before, right? The ‘Destruction Trigger’ in the royal family is often better left untouched.”
“Hmm. I think I heard that.”
The royal family is doing all it can.
To prevent destruction.
No, rather, preventing destruction is precisely the royal family’s primary duty.
“This world has already been destroyed once.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, the current world is a patchwork quilt sewn together by gods.”
This world has already been destroyed.
That is why this world is so easily destroyed again.
·
·
·
A self-proclaimed royal envoy.
Seeing the person who came holding a decree stamped with a golden seal, I let out a bitter laugh.
This situation felt all too familiar.
“Is it a habit of the high and mighty to visit incognito? Is there some kind of manual?”
“Pardon?”
The priestess did the same last time.
Why is this happening?
Is cross-dressing popular lately? Or did the Endless production team just recycle the setting out
of laziness?
“I never thought the princess herself would come personally.”
“Oh.”
“For someone busy taking naps in the imperial palace, why would you come in person?”
The empire’s princess.
A very noble lady had dragged her heavy body here herself.
The princess tilted her head whose identity was discovered.
She didn’t seem to care about hiding it.
“Hmm, was my disguise awkward?”
“No.”
“Ah, mind reading. How impious.”
“I’ll be more careful.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s actually more comfortable not having to explain it out loud. Talking is rather
bothersome, you see.”
The princess nodded and fell silent.
Her attitude was clear—she would speak through thoughts, expecting me to read them.
I activated telepathy.
- “Marry me.”
“Eh?”
I was taken aback.
It was difficult to grasp the context of her words.
- “How about an engagement first? I think I’m quite an attractive bride.”
Whether I was bewildered or not, the princess paid no mind and continued on her own.
- “If we get engaged now, in addition to a beautiful bride, I’ll also give you the right to inherit the
empire…?”
The princess’s eyes curved like crescent moons.
A seductive smile full of charm, hardly what one would expect from the empire’s princess.
In the end, I couldn’t help but point it out.
“Have you forgotten you’re disguised as a man right now?”
- “Ah, right.”
“What?”
The first time I met the empire’s princess, she seemed a bit scatterbrained.
- “Still, isn’t that kind of thing cute and endearing?”
“That you say it yourself is exactly why it’s neither cute nor endearing.”
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[Translator - Tangrine ]
[Proofreader - Seeker ]
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