Chapter 58: For Love and Peace, Let's Hypnotize Everyone in the Royal Capital! (Patreon)

Ferris hadn't expected Anastasia to refuse — and refuse so flatly, at that.

Now what was he supposed to do about the task Lady Crusch had given him, nya?

His mind raced. Then he noticed Anastasia had brought no guards with her, and an idea flashed through his head.

Ferris slapped the table. "Then what about Julius? He's your knight, and he was on rotation at the royal palace today too, nya."

"Daniel killed your knight — don't you want revenge for him, nya?"

Anastasia froze. She had indeed forgotten about her finest knight, but she'd simply assumed he was busy, not dead.

"Are you saying Julius died at the hands of this man called Daniel?"

"That's right, nya. Lady Crusch and I rushed in to help the moment the palace was attacked, but all we found were corpses. Everyone inside was dead."

"Only the guards who went in afterward got put under his control. I never saw Julius in there, nya."

As she listened to Ferris, Anastasia's expression slowly darkened.

Julius was her most trusted confidant, and the two of them had always gotten along well besides.

What was more, if her first knight had been killed and she simply pretended not to know, her subordinates would inevitably grow distant from her — even if none of them ever said so outright.

But asking Anastasia to personally avenge Julius simply wasn't realistic.

Someone capable of killing the Sword Saint — she didn't believe she'd stand a chance against him, even with the other candidates' help.

If the gap in strength between her and Julius's killer hadn't been so vast, she wouldn't have let the matter drop.

Anastasia thought it over for a long while before finally speaking. "I still won't join this so-called punitive campaign — not unless your side has combat power on par with the Sword Saint."

Ferris's face fell at that, his absurdly pretty, adorable features scrunching up — and somehow still managing to look cute.

It really wasn't fair, how an anime-style pretty face insisted on belonging to a man. Even knowing he was male, plenty of people would probably still find him attractive.

Daniel, of course, was not among them.

But Ferris hadn't stayed dejected for long before Anastasia continued, "That said, I can handle logistical support."

"I'm a merchant, after all. As long as you pay and I'm conducting legitimate business, surely even that new king wouldn't be unreasonable enough to interfere."

"Oh, and Ferris — if you promise to come help me with healing whenever I need it from now on, I'll give your side a fifty percent discount on whatever goods you need."

Ferris's fuzzy cat ears perked up. That didn't sound like a bad deal — better than walking away with nothing, at least.

Besides, Lady Crusch had already told him to buy up magic devices from the Hoshin Company while he was at it, so he nodded at once.

"Deal, nya!"

"We need armor, wands, magic cannons, and mind-defense magic tools!"

"Write me up a list, and I'll have my people pull it from inventory."

It was rare for Anastasia to strike a losing bargain, but this one bought her peace of mind.

I'm sorry, Julius. This is as far as I can go for you.

By the time the moon had climbed above the treetops, Ferris finally stepped out of the Hoshin Company. The deal was settled — all that remained was for Lady Crusch to pay on delivery.

Now it was time to find that Bloody Bride, Priscilla — a far more troublesome character than Anastasia.

Priscilla owned a mansion on the capital's Noble District, meant as a convenient base now that the royal selection was underway. Only she wasn't currently in the capital, having returned to her territory to handle administrative affairs.

Otherwise Ferris wouldn't have had to travel so far just to track her down.

Still, recalling the devastation on the Noble District and the nobles who'd died there, Ferris couldn't help marveling at just how lucky she'd been.

Had she stayed in the capital, this Bloody Bride might well have ended up among the nobles who never even got the chance to put up a fight.

"Traveling day and night, plus my healing magic — running the dragon carriage flat-out should get me there in about a day and a night, nya."

"Better hurry and get moving, nya!"

Ferris psyched himself up, loaded the supplies he'd just bought onto the dragon carriage, and drove it out of the capital.

And so the night passed.

While Ferris raced along the road hunting down allies on Crusch's behalf, Daniel certainly wasn't idle either.

He woke that morning, spent some time getting close with his beloved consorts, then set about getting the capital in order.

After all, this was his territory now, however you looked at it. He didn't need perfect peace and prosperity, but at the very least, things shouldn't be worse than before.

At minimum, he should make sure no thugs kept spawning in back alleys to rob people.

"Though I'm a bit short on manpower. If I'd known, I wouldn't have gone so hard on everyone in the palace."

"Maybe I should just hypnotize the whole capital's population in one big sweep."

Daniel sat on the golden throne of the newly built palace, Betty in his arms refusing to be parted from him no matter what, and said this with a slight headache.

Though put that way, he sounded more like some villain — the idealistic kind fated to get taken down by the protagonist.

Daniel looked down at Betty, who'd woken up as a clingy little kitten curled in his arms, and asked, "Betty, what do you think?"

"Hm? Betty doesn't know. But whatever you want to do is fine, Daniel — Betty supports you."

Betty lifted her head lazily toward him, then buried her face happily against his chest again, breathing in his scent with obvious contentment.

Daniel's mouth twitched. "I'm glad you support me so much, Betty, but... aren't our roles supposed to be reversed here?"

"Also, where'd the 'tsun' in your tsundere go? Seems like only the 'dere' is left."

Betty shot him a resentful look at that. "It's all your fault. Betty told you yesterday she'd break if you kept going, but you wouldn't stop. Betty ending up like this is entirely your fault."

"So Daniel needs to take proper responsibility."

As she said this, an alluring look surfaced on her small face — one utterly at odds with her childlike features.

So 'break' had been meant literally? Here he'd thought she was just flirting.

Daniel sighed. Oh well — she was his great spirit, after all. Might as well go with it.

This world already had plenty of divine beings running around anyway; one more Betty wouldn't hurt.

He suspected Betty had simply been starved for affection — after centuries of solitude, getting hit with his unfiltered love all at once, it made sense she'd end up like this.

He patted Betty's head, told her to eat something and rest up, then settled into a thinker's pose to mull things over.

With his computational power, figuring out the state of the capital and allocating resources as needed shouldn't be a problem.

The trouble was he simply didn't have enough people — too few who could actually carry out his orders.

Insufficient execution meant things would go wrong, and on top of that, the surviving nobles might well cause trouble too.

Guess it really did call for some overwhelming power after all?

Daniel mulled it over for only a moment before his world-shaking intellect handed him the answer.

Whatever — if he wanted to do it, he'd just do it. As king, his authority was absolute, after all.

A massive stream of calculations completed itself inside Daniel's mind. A fierce wind rose up beneath his feet, forming a blue-green sphere of wind several hundred meters across, hovering above the palace.

Once he'd finished encoding the human voice into it, Daniel layered his hypnotic power onto the wind sphere and snapped his fingers.

Snap!