“I can supply a suggestion or two, but can I discuss a few things with you beforehand?”
“Hm? What is it? Go ahead and tell me.”
“Ah…” Gustav continued in a more subdued tone. “Actually, things have gotten quite bad. Some of the people want to know if the Sorcerer King will be taking part in the fighting.”
The Sorcerer King would not be fighting in this battle. This was both to recover the mana he had expended until now, and and to account for the case that Jaldabaoth’s plan was to make him expend mana here.
Remedios had difficulty accepting the first reason, since her little sister Kelart could restore her mana within a day. However, everybody else felt that the Sorcerer King could not be held to the same standards as human beings, given that he had taken back the city single-handedly, and so Remedios said nothing more. Come to think of it, there had been priests present as well, and they too had agreed with him.
However, even Remedios could accept the second reason.
Who could tell if Jaldabaoth was hiding within the enemy ranks?
In the first place, they had brought the Sorcerer King here to fight Jaldabaoth. While it would be best if both of them ended up killing each other, she had no wish to see the Sorcerer King defeated. Therefore, it was only natural for her to work as closely as she could with the Sorcerer King so that he could fight to the fullest of his ability, even if she intensely despised the undead.
Even so, there had still been some who wanted the Sorcerer King to take the field. Some of the nobles who had remained in the city had offered huge sums of money ― which had made even Remedios’s eyes go so wide that they looked like they might fall out of her head ― to induce him to fight, but the Sorcerer King had rejected their offers.
“What’s wrong with that? The Sorcerer King won’t be fighting in this battle. You should know that too, right? Just tell them and be done with it.”
“Captain. We can’t tell them about this. If things go badly ― no, even if all goes well, it’ll cause a huge uproar.”
“Why is that?”
She could not understand it. What was wrong with the Sorcerer King not fighting?
After seeing the doubt written all over Remedios’s face, Gustav frowned and replied:
“That’s because the people who watched us take back the city know that there are things which we paladins can’t do, but which the Sorcerer King can accomplish with only two people.”
She still could not understand what Gustav was trying to say.
“That may upset some people, but that’s how things are. What’s wrong with that?”
“No, what I’m trying to say is, they trust the Sorcerer King more than us paladins. If the people of this city learn that the Sorcerer King ― the most reliable and powerful asset we have ― is not fighting, morale will plunge to rock bottom.”
“Trust?…You do realize the Sorcerer King is undead, don’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter that he’s undead. The Sorcerer King freed the city and rescued prisoners. So to them, the Sorcerer King is a hero.”
“A hero?”
Remedios rolled her eyes as she repeated Gustav’s words back to him.
“The people think he’s a hero? But he’s undead, no? They hate the living and love death. He abandoned the hostages ― no, he killed them off without any hesitation, didn’t he?”
“It’s all the same to them. Also… it would be one thing if they simply regarded him as a hero. If this goes on, people will start thinking of the Sorcerer King as their savior. If things go wrong, it might affect the Holy King’s―”
“The Holy Queen’s, you mean,” Remedios’s face twisted into a frown. “I’ve said this many times already, but Calca-sama must be locked up somewhere. There were paladins and priests collapsed everywhere after that battle with Jaldabaoth, but we couldn’t find Calca-sama and Kelart anywhere. He wouldn’t need to move her if she was dead. I’m sure she must have been taken hostage.”
“I misspoke, Captain. I feel that it might be a problem that could cause problems for Her Majesty’s reign.”
“Her reign?”
“Yes…Our fortress line has been smashed and nobody can stop the demihumans from invading. There will start to be people who want to flock to the side of a supreme being who can protect them.”
“But he’s undead… you know?”
“I say again, it doesn’t matter if he’s undead. He saved them in their hour of need, didn’t he?”
Remedios still could not understand that point.
“But the Sorcerer King wasn’t the only one fighting, was he? We fought too, under the Holy Queen’s flag.”
“Yes. You’re right. We all fought, even the common folk. But even with all that taken into consideration, if the Sorcerer King does more than us, then there might be people who would value him over the Holy Queen and seek to make him their new ruler.”
“Hah!?” Remedios unconsciously raised her voice. “How did that happen? Not only is he a hero, that undead creature’s being placed above the Holy Queen? Do you even know what you’re saying?”
“No, the people―”
“―It doesn’t matter, he’s still undead! How much suffering and effort do you think Her Majesty had to go through for the sake of the people? How could the people―”
“―Please wait, Captain!”
“What do you mean, wait!? What the hell are you talking about, Gustav? No, is that what you truly believe?”
In the grip of her powerful emotions, Remedios slammed her fist down on the table. As someone who had entered the realm of heroes, that blow crushed the area of the table beneath it and gouged a chunk out, which fell to the ground. The bizarre damage pattern looked like some giant had pressed out the edge of the table, and it spoke of the extent of her anger.
“Please calm down, Captain! We all know the greatness and kindness of Her Majesty as a matter of course. There’s no way the Sorcerer King or any other undead creature could compare to the great Holy Queen. But we only know that because we stood by the Holy Queen’s side.”
“Are you out of your mind? Even if they’ve never had an audience with her before, there’s no way anyone would respect the undead of another country more than the ruler of their own nation! You’re delusional!”
“Captain!” Gustav exclaimed, his voice close to a wail. “Even if the Sorcerer King is undead and the king of another nation, he was still the one who freed them from torment! And that is something… something that Her Majesty, that we could not do!”
Gustav spewed those words out in one big burst, and the room echoed with the sound of him trying to calm his flustered breathing.
“…What do you all think?”
The paladins who had previously been in the room all looked at each other as they heard Remedios’s quiet voice. After that, one of them spoke up, a look of mortal determination on his face.
“Naturally, we paladins do not consider the Sorcerer King a hero. However, we also know that the common folk might feel that way.”
After that, another person spoke.
“Most of the people know that the Sorcerer King conquered this city with the strength of just two ― no, one person. Those who have not seen the Sorcerer King’s power in turn exaggerate these rumors, further deifying him.”
The last one added:
“It is a fact that the Sorcerer King stepped forward by himself to offer aid to a country which was neither an ally nor one that was friendly to him. If we disregard the fact that he is undead… those actions would qualify as heroic.”
It would seem Remedios was the only one who could not accept this state of affairs. In that case, how could she respond to Gustav’s question after all this had sunk in?
It was true that not having their hero take part in the fighting would cause morale to drop, and thinking about the reasons for that would lead to a commotion. After all, the enemy outnumbered them four to one. Anyone would be in that frame of mind when they thought about having to fight something like that.