A Happy Occasion and an Unlucky Affair

"I did it…"

What Serge saw when he opened his eyes on the bed was Chris' sleeping face.

Her still-innocent face was lovely, so he spent some time staring at it. However…

Picking up his clothes that had been tossed aside onto the floor, he put them on quietly so as to not make any noise.

But he failed.

"Serge…?"

Glasses were magical things to the last. Sitting up, Chris covered her chest and looked in Serge's direction.

"Is your body alright?"

"Yeah, I'm alright now. Ah, but…"

Noticing the stain on the bed, Chris blushed, so Serge cleaned it up in a way that only a mage could.

"I'll be heading back to my room for a few minutes, let's talk in the dining hall."

"Yeah, Serge…"

Still blushing and hiding her chest, Chris spoke.

"Last night… made me happy."

She just got more and more cute!

"Oh come on, she's just too cute, gaaah!"

Back in his room, Serge was writhing on his bed.

Yesterday was his first time, so he did it normally. But what about the next time?

(I wonder if I could do that? That'd probably be a bit bad, yeah, it's impossible physically. Doing that might get her angry…)

Thinking over his memories of the previous night caused a reaction, so he wasn't able to leave for a while.

Eventually heading out to the dining room, he saw Chris, who'd put herself in order.

And for some reason, Guinevere was with her.

She would've normally been in her office at this hour, but she was looking though documents there for some reason.

And Chris' face was bright red.

"I hear you two enjoyed yourselves last night?"

"Gofu—"

Serge received 34 Points of damage.

And so it was decided that the two would receive Guinevere's assistance.

 

*

 

Having returned to Jaeburg, Ria and Carla were visiting the demon town during the day.

There were many races like goblins and orcs, but there were also races like dark elves and people with a snake tail for a lower half. There were a lot of humans, too.

At first, the demons were bewildered when the two flew down from the sky, but began to act as though nothing had happened soon after.

This was a town. It felt a bit rural, but to the two of them, it felt even cleaner than human cities.

Then they stopped and asked a passing demon, they found out that the government-ish building was the place Asuka lived.

As a vampire, she was obviously asleep at the time, so they decided to meet her after sun fall.

And so the two accompanied each other as they strolled through the demon town.

"Impressive."

That was their impression.

First off, it felt like it was a countryside that was still under development. There were quite a number of buildings in the government and shopping districts a bit away from the government office that were bigger than those in Manesh.

Rather, it was to the point that if this were a human city rather than a demon one, wouldn't it cause Jaeburg to fall into decline?

Most of all, the various races were all on good relations.

There were differences in body size and what their lower halves were of course, but their living habitats had been divided up properly. Compared to that, human towns were unified with just one race in mind as the norm, so everyone getting along in them would've been difficult.

"It'll be evening soon. Guess it's time to head there?"

Carla agreed, so after the two finished eating a light meal, they headed to the government building.

Same as the one in Manesh, it was made out of brick.

Asuka appeared in front of the two shortly after they entered.

Unusual for her, she looked rather exhausted.

"Welcome to our temporary office."

"This is temporary? It's plenty imposing already though."

Carla truly admired it, but for demons, even this wasn't enough to be considered satisfactory.

The two were guided to a place that looked like a terrace. They could see the town's citizens moving about in the evening from where they stood.

"There are lots of nocturnal races among demons after all. Our Nul Jaeburg is a city that never sleeps."

"So, what do you want to talk about?"

Drinking blood she'd poured into a wine glass, Asuka asked them a question.

"I want to see the Demon King."

"Impossible. Even we don't know where he is."

Incidentally, it felt like Ria had been told that before.

"But it feels like he's close by. I have that sort of feeling."

The Demon King had actually returned to the demon territory to maintain his robots after using them in that tussle in Falsas though.

"The Black Cats' leader came to pay us a visit."

"Geh, he didn't say anything weird right? Those people and His Majesty are like cats and dogs."

It wasn't actually that bad, but she couldn't help but say it.

Carla explained everything that had happened.

Asuka sighed.

They hadn't found out anything new in the end. Even when they told her about the humans' victory at Falsas, she didn't look like it was much of a shock to her. Perhaps she already knew? There was a possibility that the humans would become more bullish from winning the Battle at Falsas, so when she informed the residents of the city to not leave for a while, they easily accepted the order.

Although they didn't learn anything new from their trip, they did get a big harvest in that they were able to see the city with their own eyes.

It made them all the more certain that demons and humans shouldn't fight one another.

 

*

 

The two returned to Manesh once again after paying a quick visit to Vargas in Jaeburg.

They were told about a rather happy occasion by Serge.

He would be marrying Chris.

Although it could like they were currently in an emergency, it was exactly because of that emergency that it would happen.

In fact, the number of marriage applications skyrocketed after the Millennium began.

People didn't know when they might die, so they didn't want to ignore the ones they loved.

"I see~, mmhmm, I see~"

After nodding like she was just wanting to nod for the sake of it, Ria started asking questions with a big smile on her face.

How did he propose? When and where did it happen? Would it turn into a public event?—Those kinds of questions.

Contrasting the ever-blushing Chris, Serge responded with a sulky expression.

"You know, I hate to bring it up right now, but…"

As Guinevere was there as well, she brought something up.

"Chris' father is still alive, so we have to get permission from him too."

For this world's nobility, the family's patriarch had to approve of the marriage. It'd be called eloping if they didn't get it.

"Umm, actually, Otou-sama told me to give myself to Serge…"

What a formidable man, that Earl.

"You have the queen's approval though, isn't that alright? Queen-sama."

"Don't wanna don't wanna! I wanna invoke the Lord's Right!"

Ria was throwing a tantrum about something that no one in this world would understand in the least.

"What in the world are you dissatisfied about?"

Shocked, Carla spoke up. Accordingly, Ria stopped waving her arms about.

"I hate humans that get to be happy when I'm so busy."

"Is that something a person with three wives can say?"

"But that girl's so cute!"

With that, Chris looked surprised.

"How about it, Chris? When Serge cheats on you, come on over to me. We're both girls, it wouldn't be cheating."

When. Like it was a certainty or something.

"N-no, that's… well, it's normal for aristocrats to have several concubines… I think?"

"Eh!? I can!?"

Everyone immediately gave Serge a cold glare.

During the time they'd originally scheduled Serge's peerage ceremony, this time, they were told of the allied forces' defeat at Falsas.

And that as a result, the allied troops would disperse, returning to their respective countries.

And that the northern part of the empire had become demon territory.

And that with this, the northern part of the empire would be revived from its ruin. That in itself was a good thing, but it frightened humans that demons would flourish and prosper.

"We have to be the mediators between demons and humans."

Carla muttered indifferently.

However, the ditch separating humans and demons would not be so easily filled. It surely wouldn't be filled through war.

In the winter of the Continental Year 3003, reserve troops came from the demon territory along with noncombatants.

A minor collision occurred even in the vicinity of Jaeburg.

It was about hunting.

There were many races among the demons whose staple food was meat, so they required as much prey as possible. They'd collided with human hunting areas.

Any major disputes that could've happened from that were avoided by the demons backing down, but due to them going with that attitude, the humans started to think something humans never would have thought.

That is, they thought that demons weren't that scary.

That the nearby monsters were more of a threat than demons. This thought started to spread.

But finally, a certain day arrived.

A group of human hunters killed a small group of kobolds.

The cause of it was them scrambling for the same prey, but it could also be said that it was their arrogance as humans desiring too much.

Ria couldn't leave this problem to be handled by Jaeburg's self-governing body. She had to lay down the punishment personally.