The Emperor

The next several days flew by.

All Aiden really did was get a feel for how things ran inside military headquarters, and his surroundings turned out to be astonishingly quiet. He had been certain he would be hauled in and grilled about one thing or another, just like before, yet there was no reaction at all, so much so that he was the one left wondering why.

One thing, however, had clearly changed.

“…”

Aiden stole glance after sidelong glance at Noelle, who sat ahead of him working through her duties with a blank face.

Officially, the arrangement was meant to look after him, since he had been invited here only to stumble into two disgraceful incidents back to back. But.

The problem was that it meant spending most of the day together in this woman’s office.

Feels like I’m under surveillance.

Noelle kept him glued to her side so closely that it was hard to feel otherwise. The work on her desk alone made her anything but idle, and yet she stuck to him at every moment, as if to keep watch on everything he did. Nothing in particular restricted his daily life, but the awkwardness was unbearable. He could feel an ulcer coming on…

“…Um, Dame Noelle.”
“Yes.”
“When is my orderly being assigned?”

Stella had told him a while back that one would be attached to him and that he should wait.

The question was his roundabout way of saying he would go through that person for anything he needed, so could he please be left alone. Noelle’s placid answer was as merciless as ever.

“I understand you are hinting that I make you uncomfortable, but.”
“No, there’s no need to put it quite so bluntly as ‘uncomfortable’…”
“Your orderly will probably take a fair while to settle on, Aiden.”
“Pardon?”
“There is no one who meets the standard at present, you see. We are still searching.”

Was that even possible? Surely an orderly was little more than a regular adjutant in the end. It hardly seemed likely that the capital headquarters lacked anyone suited to that sort of work.

“No. Ordinary will not do. Anyone attached to you must, without fail, be special.”

“…”

“With the ability you have shown, what use would a run-of-the-mill person be? Someone who will be at your side for most of the day ought at the very least to be of matching caliber.”

She rated him far too highly, and for no good reason. Someone ordinary would have suited him perfectly. As it was, he had the feeling he had run into more than enough unusual people lately…

“You may look forward to it. I will attach someone satisfactory in a number of respects.”

…All that did was make his ulcer worse.

Aiden grimaced for a moment, then promptly came up with another excuse.

“…If an outsider’s with you the whole time you’re working, unpleasant rumors could start about—”
“There is nothing for anyone to find strange in that, is there?”

Dame Noelle let the words hang for a beat, then finished with a dazzling smile.

“After all, we are soon to be husband and wife, are we not?”

Her smile was pure white, without a single blemish, yet the blood drained from Aiden’s face as he listened.

Husband and wife.

On paper, that was true.

Whatever it meant to Noelle, though, for Aiden the phrase set off a shudder every time he heard it. And no wonder, given everything he had been through in the mere few days since getting tangled up with this woman.

…My fate’s really knotted itself up.

After trouble on that scale, she might well have rethought the marriage altogether, yet her resolve was unusually firm. And the way she had chosen to remind him of it just now was surely meant as pressure too, a warning not to get any ideas about slipping the watch she was keeping on him.

In that case, he needed something to do, if only to take his mind off the awkward atmosphere. Nothing in particular had been assigned to him, but there was certainly information he needed to sort out.

“…”

Frowning, Aiden rummaged through the documents piled on the desk. While Noelle worked, he could at least find a little time to look into the material he wanted.

Why isn’t it here?

…Except that not a single thing he was looking for was there, and that was a very big problem. Given how much hung on it, there was a good chance it heralded a catastrophe far worse than a mere ‘big problem’.

Information on the ‘protagonist’.

Information on the linchpin of the main scenario, the savior of the world.

He could find almost none.

Even now, the longing to escape the main scenario and get back to an ordinary life was overwhelming, and the protagonist was precisely his ‘express ticket’ out.

Could there… really not be one…?

And if the protagonist did not exist, the damage would not stop at Aiden losing his way back to an ordinary life.

Which is to say.

If they’re not around, who’s supposed to save the world?

The protagonist. This world’s savior.

Aiden clutched his throbbing head and followed the thought through. The main scenario, snarled like a ball of yarn, revolved around the protagonist in the end. Aiden’s own plan for the future, getting back to his family and living in peace, likewise assumed that the protagonist would play their part.

…I just haven’t found it, that’s all.

Of course, it was too early to conclude that the protagonist was missing from this world entirely. Even being generous, the information he had gathered so far was nowhere near enough.

But what if the protagonist truly did not exist?

Then Aiden, too, would have to make a ‘decision’ to match.

Firmly pushing down a thought that chilled him just to imagine, he called up the System window before his eyes. The protagonist aside, there was one more thing he had to check right now.

Aiden read slowly down the lines.

Whatever else…

Outstanding firepower would come in handy in all sorts of situations. Its output would surely fall short of Noelle’s <Heart of Pure White>, but while ki was a supernatural power with no particular attribute of its own, divinity had a markedly potent property.

As for the rest…

He had no real idea what the Rite of the Vow was supposed to be, but it sounded like some grand ceremony that could only be performed on the Holy Kingdom’s own soil. No need to worry about it yet.

Then, as he scrolled down and skimmed the rest, Aiden’s face twisted slightly. Nothing written up to that point gave him any reason to grimace. People could get used to anything, and compared with Noelle’s case, being told a skill was coming before it actually landed in his lap was by far the better deal.

The problem was this.

Something tacked onto the very bottom of the window that he had never seen before.

What on earth was this supposed to be?

He had no memory of acquiring anything of the sort, and with the information itself locked, he could not even read what it did.

…The best outcome would be a situation where I never have to use these.

Aiden smiled bitterly at his own thought. If the time ever came to use the abilities listed here, odds were he would already have been dragged into yet another dire situation. And unfortunately, those odds looked anything but low.

“…”

Even now, the longing to go back to an ordinary person’s ordinary life was overwhelming.

Ordinarily, this was about the hour he would have called his father and his little sister to the table and sat down to dinner together.

I wonder what Dad and Sicella are up to…

They were probably worried sick about him, after he had vanished without warning and left nothing but a letter. With that thought in mind, Aiden cast a sidelong glance at Noelle, who was absorbed in her work.

In fact, when it came right down to it.

It was fair to say that the woman sitting right there had robbed him of the time he should have spent with his family.

“Aiden.”
“—Yes.”

Called out of nowhere, he nearly choked on his own breath, but he managed to answer all the same.

Noelle eyed him strangely for a moment, then went on in a level voice.

“We are going to the Imperial Palace tomorrow.”

He remembered hearing about that. Stella had warned him of the appointment earlier; something about having to report his marriage arrangement with Dame Noelle to the Emperor in person, if he recalled right.

“If we’re going to the Imperial Palace, there must be more than a few things I should be careful about, right? I don’t think anyone’s taught me anything.”

His nerves were still raw from being picked apart over etiquette not long ago, but Noelle answered without the slightest concern.

“As for etiquette, you need not worry much. There is another point you will have to be careful of, though.”
“What do you mean…?”

Noelle took a sip from her teacup, rested her chin on her hand with the smile still on her face, and went on.

“The term of this ‘sham marriage’ contract is one year. When it ends, I will reward you generously without fail, so I ask that you bear with it until then.”
“Pardon?”
“I understand that being tangled up with a woman like me is distressing, but given our positions, we will have to behave somewhat more intimately than usual in official settings. I ask your indulgence in advance.”

What was there to apologize for? She had kidnapped him without a moment’s hesitation in the first place, and now she was worried about this?

“I mean that even if I suddenly touch you or act affectionate, I would like you to endure it. It will not be easy, I know.”

Aiden blinked quietly and simply listened as Noelle spoke so placidly.

Something felt a little off. It sounded less like a joke than like someone who genuinely thought little of her own worth.

Low self-esteem?

An absurd notion.

A Knight with the greatest fighting power in the Empire, a beauty every man yearned for, a soldier of such standing that even the Emperor paid her particular attention?

What he said next came from that same bafflement.

“I really don’t think someone like you needs to say things like that.”

Aiden scratched his cheek as he said it. Noelle fell silent for a moment and looked at him steadily.

“…Thank you.”

The reply came with a smile, in a voice drained of strength. Yet somehow the smile left him with the strong impression that she was not so much pleased as writing his words off as courtesy returned by rote. People with low self-esteem often did that.

“…”

Aiden tilted his head slightly.

This woman.

She truly believed that being married to a woman ‘like herself’ was a real burden on the other party. He had no idea why.

“To be honest with you, I have no experience of romance whatsoever.”

“…”

Noelle’s voice grew smaller the further she went, and the flush in her face climbed higher and higher. She cleared her throat and only just managed to go on.

“I have no way of knowing where the appropriate line lies, you see.”

“…”

“…So I may behave inappropriately at times, is what I am saying…”

Ah.

So that was why?

…Now that’s unexpected.

Come to think of it, men would surely line up for someone like her. Seen that way, it was a little strange that she had not simply found someone around her to fake a marriage with, and had kidnapped Aiden out of the blue instead.

“Ah, and if I may say just one more thing.”

Noelle added it at once.

“Once we are inside the Imperial Palace, say nothing at all. Do not draw attention to yourself needlessly.”

The warning was grave in a way he had rarely heard from her, and Aiden’s mouth fell slightly open.

“…Pardon?”
“You would do best to stay as far outside ‘that person’s’ notice as you can manage. Otherwise…”

Noelle paused. To Aiden’s eye, she seemed to be searching for a way to put it that would sound as little disrespectful as possible toward ‘that person’, whoever that might be.

“…Get tangled up with them the wrong way, and you will find it terribly wearing.”

“…”

For all that effort, of course.

The words she settled on sounded about as ominous as words could.

“Needlessly good-looking, isn’t he. Was this your taste all along?”

For all the fearsome titles attached to the word ‘Emperor’, the man puffing on a pipe in front of him looked more like the easygoing fellow next door. He was young, by the look of him only a few years older than Aiden, with striking, clean-cut features.

True to that first impression, the whole situation felt oddly out of place for an audience with an Emperor.

So the reason etiquette didn’t matter…

Had she said that because they would be meeting the Emperor face to face, with none of the elaborate procedure in between? The Holy Kingdom’s Pontiff, a close friend of the Emperor, was called an eccentric more often than any other sovereign among the great powers, but on this showing alone, the Empire’s Emperor was no less of an eccentric.

“Yes, well.”

Noelle answered curtly, with a frown, as though serving so eccentric a lord took a toll of its own. Given that she normally showed courtesy to everyone regardless of rank, it was a genuinely shocking sight. More shocking still, though, was the Emperor himself, who did not bat an eye at that attitude right in front of him.

“Child. Have I not told you over and over that a solidly built man is the best kind? Bringing in a pretty boy like this one and talking about marriage and whatnot—”
“I do not think it is a matter for Your Majesty to debate. Is he not my husband, whom I chose myself?”
“Oh-ho. Listen to how she talks to an Emperor.”
“You were the one who needled me first—”

Worse still was how childish the conversation was. It was for all the world like an adolescent little sister bringing a boyfriend home for the first time, facing off against the big brother who disapproved of him. By any measure, this was no conversation for the Empire’s greatest soldier and its Emperor to be having. Both of them seemed thoroughly used to it, as though childish squabbling of this kind were nothing new…

“…”

Even so, the scene told him two things for certain.

That the Lionhearted and the Emperor were on far more intimate terms than the world knew. Informality like this did not come from a relationship of a day or two; whatever else, the two of them clearly went back a long way.

And.

“—Which is to say, as things stand, it is a decision I absolutely cannot grant.”

That, close as they were, the Emperor was actively opposed to this marriage of Noelle’s, firmly enough to hold that line to the very end.

“Noelle.”
“…Yes.”

His voice had settled into something far heavier, and Noelle, too, set aside her curtness and answered in earnest.

“It is not as though you are ignorant of the Empire’s internal situation, child. Noble society right now is a den of hungry ghosts, every one of them out for their own gain. Everyone is straining every nerve over where you will land, backed as you are by the people’s great support, and even if I sit still, the other factions will not.”
“Whomever I marry, the scales tip, Your Majesty. The best case is civil war, and at worst it spreads into another Coalition War. Would bringing in a third party not be the more reasonable course?”
“A stopgap. There is not a soul who will fail to see it for covering your eyes and crying boo¹. Starting with my own son, they will not sit still.”

After that came another long stretch of talk Aiden could make nothing of. Something about the disarray of noble society after the war, something about imperial authority being so badly weakened that the nobles could no longer be reined in, and so on. The weighty business of exalted personages.

If anything stuck in his memory, it was the Emperor’s attitude whenever the Prince came up. He spoke of his son much as a man speaks of a total stranger; it went beyond bad terms, as though the two were mortal enemies.

Aiden’s brows drew together slightly.

Bad blood inside the family?

This.

It felt subtly different from the shape of the ‘original’ he knew. In his memory, the Prince was unmistakably one of the good guys, a man of nearly flawless character, and not one to fall out with his father, as far as Aiden recalled.

“Then there is only one way left.”

He was still chewing that over when the Emperor’s voice abruptly cut across the room.

“In the end, the biggest problem is that the others will object that this fellow is not fit to be your groom. If they come to see the two of you as a well-matched pair, then most of the objections, if not all of them, will die down.”
“…I do not wish to lay a further burden on Aiden. And is it not the side digging so deeply into my personal affairs that is strange in the first place?”
“True enough in principle, but the political arena is that kind of rubbish heap by nature.”

As the argument went back and forth, Aiden’s expression grew grave along with it. From what he could hear, His Majesty the Emperor was firmly set against this engagement, which was no welcome news from where Aiden stood either.

If the marriage falls through…

If the sham marriage fell apart, that meant ‘quest failure’, the one outcome Aiden absolutely did not want. Which made what he had to do right now perfectly clear.

“I’ll do it.”

The Emperor and Noelle turned to him at the same moment.

“I’ll do it. Prove my worth. If that’s what it takes to get the engagement through.”

Silence spread through the room at his words. Noelle’s eyes, especially, had gone wide; she plainly had never expected Aiden to step forward on his own.

And then.

“—Not bad, that spirit.”

The Emperor knocked his pipe against the ashtray, a smile hanging on his face.

That smile, for all the world.

Like a brat who had just hit on a bright idea.

“You said you would do it, yes?”

“…”

“…Get tangled up with them the wrong way, and you will find it terribly wearing.”

The words he had heard only yesterday flitted through his head.

“…Your Majesty. Anything too dangerous—”

Noelle cut in, her voice tight. She had gone slightly pale, like someone who had suffered more than once or twice at the hands of an Emperor wearing this exact expression. The Emperor ignored her with perfect ease and turned to Aiden.

“You there. Aiden, was it?”

He carried straight on without waiting for an answer.

“Prove to everyone just how devoted a married couple you two are.”
“…Forgive me for presuming to ask, but I don’t quite follow—”
“For the hidebound nobles of the Empire, there is no means of persuasion as effective as fighting strength. Especially in turbulent times like these.”

“…”

“Fight together, the two of you.”

The Emperor grinned, cutting Aiden off mid-answer.

“As it happens, I have a good opponent on hand.”