The Immortal Queen Cannot Escape the Lies and Obsession of the Demon — Not That She Wants To - Chapter 03

“Lady Ariana. It is morning. How are you feeling?”

Ariana opened her eyes at Nala’s voice.

Though she’d been told it was morning, the curtains remained drawn, leaving the room dim.

“Good morning, Nala. I’m sorry to have worried you. I’m fine now.”

“Yes, you are clearly not fine. Of course, I understand that.”

Nala asserted this in a sharp, firm tone.

This was strange. The usual Nala would never interrupt Ariana or pretend not to hear her protests.

Ariana glanced up to observe her.

Nala’s reddish-brown hair was pulled back tightly, and her sharp, upturned golden eyes were narrowed. She looked just like her usual self—beautiful and strong, reminiscent of a wolf.

“…I’m really fine, you know?”

“You seem to have enough energy for a bath, which is most fortunate. I have received word from the butler that all of today’s schedule has been canceled. I intend to do everything in my power to ensure Your Majesty rests thoroughly.”

“I see. So, I understand I have no veto power over today’s arrangements.”

Even if she developed a fever from pain or internal abnormalities, any fatal wounds would heal after a night’s sleep. Ariana knew this from her own experience, but Nala, unable to do the same, must be worrying herself sick.

Of course, half the reason was Ariana’s usual tendency to overexert herself, unrelated to her near-immortality.

Hearing Ariana’s sigh-laden surrender, Nala finally stopped her interference of pulling the covers back over her every time she tried to get up.

“If Butler Anthony says so, then he must have already discussed it with Prime Minister William. Nala, could you arrange for some fruit? Something to reward the excellent subordinates who have to deal with their king’s mistakes.”

“Understood. However, Your Majesty, please allow me one correction.”

Butler Anthony reliably provided melons, though they were slightly past their peak season, and for Prime Minister William, should it be Muscat or Pione grapes?

Before Ariana could ponder, Nala showed consideration and spoke up.

“We all take joy in being able to serve as Your Majesty’s strength.”

“……..Yes, I suppose.”

Ariana understood the unspoken message “You can rely on us more” and regretted showing her weaker side.

She couldn’t say it aloud. A proper king does not make mistakes. A king must not apologize.

(That wasn’t kingly of me.)

Even if she herself was unworthy of being king.

Right now, she was the only king they had.

To repay her subjects’ respect, she must become a king they could rely on enough to entrust themselves to with peace of mind. Picturing this in her mind’s eye, Ariana straightened her back, striving to be sincere.

“…In my absence, I expect everyone to perform their duties well. Work hard.”

After that, the only thing Ariana could do to lighten the servants’ burden was to avoid making them worry or giving them additional tasks.

In other words, she went back to sleep.

——Once, there was a foreigner known as the Hero.

Bearing divine blessings, this young man appeared at a certain royal family’s doorstep and demonstrated astonishing strength.

Seeing potential in his power, the princess of that royal family embarked on a journey with him to defeat the Demon King.

At the journey’s end, they succeeded in slaying the Demon King—a dream of all humankind.

The young man was called the Hero, the princess the Saint, and together they carved their names into history as saviors of the nation.

They married and, as royalty of a single kingdom, built the one and only kingdom that had driven out the demonic beasts.

Thanks to these two heroes, the Kingdom of Fenizard was now hailed as the world’s most peaceful nation.

——Or so it seemed on the surface.

While peace had come to Fenizard alone, other nations continued to suffer under the Demon King’s threat.

If Fenizard had been saved, then surely our country would be next.

Hoping for salvation was a natural assumption, especially for nations bordering Fenizard.

The two heroes dangled the promise of defeating the Demon King and forced other nations into terrifyingly unequal treaties.

That alone would have been bad enough.

After marrying, the two heroes declared, “Without both of us, the Demon King cannot be defeated,” and used the Saint’s pregnancies as reasons to postpone their campaigns.

The Saint was blessed with five children and experienced two miscarriages.

For each instance, they delayed for roughly a year before and after childbirth.

As a result, two already weakened small nations could not hold back the demonic beast invasions and were destroyed.

Fenizard moved in to slay the demonic beasts that had overrun the now-uninhabited lands, purified the tainted territories, and absorbed them into their own kingdom.

It was easy to imagine the hostility this drew from other nations.

Yet, for the survival of humanity, they had no choice but to cling to these two, who alone had achieved the still-unmatched feat of slaying the Demon King.

Then, about ten years after the news of the Demon King’s defeat spread across the world.

A Demon King appeared once more in a nation Fenizard had previously saved.

It became clear that even after a Demon King was destroyed within a country, demonic beasts would spawn from lands left corrupted, and from among them, new Demon Kings could emerge.

The only one with the power to purify the land was Fenizard’s Saint.

When it was discovered that the children born to the Saint possessed the same power, the royal family began refusing marriage alliances with other nations to monopolize the purification ability.

Thus, nations that had once driven out a Demon King would again face the threat of another emerging.

Even if they humbled themselves before Fenizard and offered vast resources and sacrifices, nations other than Fenizard were guaranteed only temporary peace, a brutally harsh reality.

Even after this truth came to light, surface-level peace was maintained.

However, the situation changed drastically ten years ago, when the only one capable of slaying the Demon King is Ariana’s grandfather, the Hero—passed away.

People lamenting that they would never be saved abandoned their homelands and migrated to Fenizard.

Fenizard welcomed the influx of people, but after about five years, the atmosphere began to turn ominous.

The Hero died, followed by Ariana’s grandmother, the Saint, who succumbed to illness. Then Ariana’s uncle, the former king; her aunt; her father; her older brother; her younger brother; her cousins—one after another, they met suspicious deaths.

Nobles involved; citizens implicated. Many, many people were executed.

And so, the only one left with the right to inherit the throne, bearing the Saint’s bloodline, was Ariana, who had been away from the royal capital recuperating.