“Thank you very much, Your Majesty. I am very grateful that you have spent so much time considering someone like myself…”
Letting someone else hold this would be very dangerous, so Neia clutched it tightly to herself.
She smiled to the Sorcerer King while she nodded. While the smile was a little stiff, she had managed to skillfully conceal her thoughts.
“If others see this, tell them I lent it to you.”
Can’t I not let them see it? If possible, I’d rather wrap it up or something — but I can’t do that with a weapon His Majesty lent me to protect him… Ahh… wait, my head’s starting to hurt. So something like this is nothing to be proud of… His Majesty’s standards are just too high… Will I have to pay him back if I damage this bow? Me? Ahhh, my tummy hurts… I wish I didn’t have to think about this bow… Ah!
Neia thought of a wonderful topic she had not yet mentioned.
“Your Majesty! I saw those huge and grand statues of yourself in Your Majesty’s country!”
“—Hoh.”
He responded in a quiet voice that was tremendously different from the one he had used in the past. It made Neia uneasy about whether she had made some sort of mistake.
He had named his country after himself. Thus, Neia guessed that the Sorcerer King was eager to show himself off, which was probably why he had built those huge statues of himself to proclaim his might to those around him.
Did I not praise him enough?
“Those statues not only showed off Your Majesty’s greatness, but they also demonstrated your power as well! We don’t have any statues like that in the Holy Kingdom!”
That was most definitely not a lie. Size notwithstanding, one would need engineering techniques that had been refined down to an art in order to produce such a life-like product. There was a similarly-sized statue of a Sea Dragon at a place called Lighthouse Cape, but it was cruder, and it looked quite pathetic after being worn away by the elements.
“My subordinates often say that.”
Ahhhh, is that it? He’s heard praise like that from his subordinates, so this much is only to be expected, is that what he means?”
“My subordinates are now planning to raise statues like these in various places of my nation.”
“I see. Indeed, it would be a good way to declare the glory of Your Majesty!”
The Sorcerer King looked at Neia in what seemed like surprise.
“...Uh, mm. Still, I feel that placing statues of myself within my country is a little… how shall I put this? Even so, my subordinates built statues of myself that are over a hundred meters tall in the middle of the city in order to show me off to the world… I think they’ve gotten carried away with the concept of bigger is better.”
“But why is that?”
The Sorcerer King coughed to clear his throat, and that was when a question arose in Neia’s mind, Did the undead still have throats to clear? However, the Sorcerer King was speaking as that question echoed in her head, and she could not interrupt him.
“A king’s greatness cannot be shown with physical objects.”
“Ahhh!”
Neia was shocked, but that was only to be expected.
Neia had not only forgotten that the Sorcerer King was undead, but had come to harbor feelings of genuine respect for him.
This man was truly a King.
Suddenly, she saw the Sorcerer King clenching his fist out of the corner of her eye.
“Of course, declaring my greatness to the world by allowing my people to live without impediment is a different matter. But showing it off with statues of myself is… well. I wish to be known by the peace of my rule.”
“It is as you say!”
Neia gulped, and then asked a question.
“Your Majesty is one of the undead, but why do you spend so much time thinking of the people?”
Neia did not think the Sorcerer King’s compassion for the masses was an act. She even began to wonder if he was even undead.
“...I have not spent much time pondering that. But doing that much should be par for the course, no?”
Neia was shocked.
Were all kings such amazing people?
Could the Holy Queen and the nobles rule the people with these thoughts in their heart?
Or — was it because he was undead? Did he have this perspective because he was undead?
Neia could not answer that question.
“Also, if it really was one hundred meters high, there’d be complaints about things like not getting enough sunlight and so on.”
The Sorcerer King followed up with what sounded like a joke, which only served to drill the humility of this incredible monarch into Neia’s heart once more. This man was truly a King of Kings.
As the Sorcerer King had pointed out earlier, the Holy Kingdom Liberation Army’s base was a natural cave in a mountain.
There was an underground spring in one corner of the cave, and while the ceiling was not very high, it was very spacious, enough for a horse and carriage to enter. In addition, mushrooms, which emitted bluish-white light sprouted all around — around half the height of a man — so they did not need other sources of light.
The reason why they knew of this place was because the paladins had once been sent here to exterminate a monster which had made this location its lair.
After they fled here, they refurbished the place and divided it into several sectors, each serving a different purpose. They had even managed to make their sleeping quarters look like proper rooms. They cut down the trees around the mountain — each of them around one hundred meters tall, and made simple furnishings and furniture from them.
But ultimately, it was just a cave.
There were a total of 347 people here: 189 paladins, 71 priests — including trainees and other such personnel — as well as 87 commoners with nowhere else to go. Naturally, hoping for a private room was out of the question.
Even so, they could not let the king of another country stay with everyone else.
Of course, there was the wish to minimize contact between the undead Sorcerer King and the citizenry of the Holy Kingdom, as well as the desire to keep him from coming into contact with the secret information within their base, and other considerations on the part of the Holy Kingdom.
However, they could not say that they would like him to use teleportation magic so he could take his rest in the Sorcerous Kingdom instead.
In the end, they had to forcibly move others’ things away and create a private room for the Sorcerer King.
Under normal circumstances, they would have sent messengers to report the arrival of the Sorcerer King’s arrival and have the others make preparations to receive him, but the Holy Kingdom was now in the thrall of demihumans. They could not send out paladins, who had poor enemy detection abilities, as outriders. In addition, Neia was now in the Sorcerer King’s carriage and waiting outside the cave. The people in the cave were frantically moving personal effects and transferring beds and cabinets and the like. In addition, they had already hung up a borrowed flag of the Sorcerous Kingdom.
“...Hm.”
“What is the matter, Your Majesty?”
“...While I do not intend to insult you, I have a few questions about all of this which I hope you can answer to the best of your ability. It would seem you are not hiding your tracks; is that not a problem? Or will someone else take care of that?”
The Sorcerer King delivered his question in a flat — as though he was reading off something — tone of voice, and then Neia’s eyes went wide.
He was correct.
They would leave tracks in the process of climbing this mountain, which was untouched by human hands.