Chapter 242: After 9 years (2)
Mr. Gardner was the attending physician of the girl, Aila. He was a kind doctor who examined her once a day, always careful not to scare her and gently stroking her.
Aila took a step back, then two more steps back.
Aila’s mother sighed quietly and calmly revealed the truth.
“Back then, I worried so much that I even got a fever. I thought if I told your father the truth, it would disrupt his journey, but I couldn’t keep it a secret forever. My belly was slowly growing, and my body was getting heavier, but this man didn’t notice. I was worried a lot about whether we should settle down and prepare for childbirth. Oh my, dear?”
“I, I, I don’t want to hear it―! Waaaaah!”
The desperate cry of a young girl, who didn’t want to hear anything about the events before her birth, filled the hallway she ran down…… and echoed back…… and faded away again.
The woman tilted her head, then nodded as she saw a man entering through the door. The young man mentioned in the story tilted his head.
“Ibi, what’s wrong with Aila? She suddenly ran away when she saw me. Hmm. I’m hurt.”
The woman, Levidian, shrugged. It seemed she believed in raising a child with a strong hand.
“Anyone would react that way if they knew the harsh truth.”
“Huh?”
The man tilted his head again. Then, seeing the middle-aged man with graying brown hair collapsed on the floor, he spoke in a bewildered tone.
“Lucy? Why are you sleeping there again?”
“Does this look like sleeping to you…… Ouch. Your Majesty the Empress, your slap’s power is increasing day by day.”
“Again? Seriously, you’re married now, so control yourself.”
“It’s the joy of life. Ouch.”
The middle-aged man, with the name Kersilla Creon and the nickname Lucy, stroked his chin. And the man, named Arisein and nicknamed Risel, the current Emperor of the Empire, shook his head.
“You always tell old stories that shatter the children’s illusions about their parents. You’ll ruin her personality like that.”
“Hmph. Who’s the one putting nonsense into my wife’s head?”
“Hey, at least I didn’t exaggerate.”
Like husband, like wife, Levidian strongly agreed with Risel’s words.
“That’s right. I was perfectly conscious at the time, and it wasn’t a rainy night. It was a bright sunny day, and we went to the doctor hand in hand and were congratulated. Well, it’s true that I had a stress-induced fever, but it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t move.”
“No, but I think Ibi was clenching her teeth a bit too hard back then.”
Risel recalled the memory of that day.
He remembered being almost dragged along because he wanted to save Levidian’s money and insisted on walking even though her condition was questionable for horseback riding. They say women become tenacious when they’re expecting a child, and it seems to be true.
“What’s wrong with that?”
Levidian put her hands on her hips with a sullen expression. She boasted the same figure even after giving birth, making it a mystery among noblewomen how to manage postpartum care like the Empress.
The noblewoman who bravely asked her never told anyone the answer, which was:
‘It’s in the family.’
No wonder she wouldn’t tell. If she did, she’d be accused of lying. Curse you, bloodline.
Risel shook his head and threatened Lucy.
“Anyway, Lucy, if you keep doing this, I’ll visit ‘Len’ more often, with Levidian.”
“My friend, I was wrong. Why don’t we cover up our past mistakes with friendship and forge a new future?”
‘Len’ is Lucy’s wife. A Grenoian woman who married Lucy five years ago, she was one of the young women who proposed to him when he was teaching basic magic theory there.
She was the only woman who heard Lucy’s jokingly said, ‘I’ll come back for you,’ and she had persevered despite the dishonor of being an old maid among the Guard.
It’s customary for Grenoian residents, the Guard, to marry before the age of 18 and have at least two children by the age of 20. So, she was half-ostracized by her family for not being married past 20.
In such a situation, Lucy decided to marry her, thinking that he wouldn’t be a man if he didn’t even keep that small promise. Of course, the fact that she possessed the Guard’s characteristic of ‘remaining beautiful even after childbirth’ played a part in his decision.
However, unfortunately, as you can see now, Lucy is under his wife’s thumb. To what extent? Even more so than the Emperor of the Herduke Empire, who is publicly and privately acknowledged as the continent’s greatest henpecked husband.
What Lucy overlooked was none other than one of the reasons he decided to marry her: the Guard’s characteristics.
They used to live by defeating a tremendous number of monsters, a number that seems impossible to survive against now.
‘Shireumeupeosananhasahanasoi Len,’ who became Lucy’s wife, is also a warrior who has defeated over fifty monsters.
To Len, who has lived fighting against those terrifying monsters, Lucy was just (?) a human man. Moreover, she is a Grenoian woman who controls the strong Guard warriors, known to hunt over a thousand monsters in their lifetime, day and night.
In the end, Lucy is living a paradoxical married life, suffering from lunch to dinner but enjoying himself from night to morning.
Right now, it was between lunch and dinner, the time he was suffering.
“Sob, sob! What sin did I commit in my past life! As the Imperial Mage, how can I live under the pressure of my wife!”
“You seem to show up every morning with a very happy expression, though.”
“That’s because the nights are enjoyable. After all, nightlife is quite important between a married couple!”
“Ah, yes. I see. Well, it would be a shame if there wasn’t any.”
“Sigh, listen to these old men talk. You’ve all become old men.”
Levidian sighed and shook her head. She looked as if she hadn’t aged at all, making one wonder where her age went. Now, Risel looked older than her.
Risel actually said to his wife, who was ten years older than him:
“You’re in your 40s.”
“Would you please not talk about age?”
Levidian frowned. Age is a woman’s complex, no matter who she is. However, Lucy said with a very frustrated expression:
“How can she be in her 40s with that face and body? She doesn’t even have wrinkles on her neck or hands! Damn it. Lately, Len has been determined to find out the secret to the Empress’s youth.”
“Are you jealous? Mwahahaha!”
“All men are children……”
Levidian also grumbled with a smile, as if she didn’t dislike hearing it.
As if she had genes that maintained the youth of her 20s, she looked like a freshman noblewoman who had come to the wrong place when attending gatherings of noblewomen of the same age.
Thanks to this, she never felt inferior in terms of beauty to any noblewoman she met, and she is receiving a somewhat off-focus evaluation of ‘As expected, the Empress is amazing.’
Arisein ‘Pireum’ Herduke, the eccentric Emperor who had been on the run for four months immediately after receiving the throne, stroked his chin.
“Thanks to that, I receive envious glances when I attend official events. It’s all thanks to Ibi. The Emperor is said to be different. Well, there are some scandals thanks to Lucy, though. Honestly, it’s a funny story. That this beauty is created by magic.”
“It’s slander. I’m easily countering that much. Even when I was the Sword King, my specialty was counterattacks.”
Risel smiled at her words.
Although counterattacks and all kinds of hand-to-hand combat tactics were her real specialties, a husband must agree with his wife to have a happy married life.
Lucy sat down where he had told Aila the story and said:
“But these days, it’s the Eight Strongest of the Continent, right? Ibi retired after getting married and having a child, and Lea succeeded her. But what’s she doing?”
“I heard from her recently. She’s in ‘Mopum,’ I think?”
“Wow. In that enormous city? Why there?”
“Why else would she go there? To find strong people.”
Grenoian became a territory directly under the Emperor. Its center was, of course, the city of ‘Mopum,’ where the largest clan lived.
It is now one of the three major cities of Grenoian, along with the city of ‘Griseian,’ which is closest to the former ‘Barrier’ location within Grenoian.
Risel crossed his arms and said:
“Come to think of it, talented people are gathered there. Al and Baius are there too, right? They went there to find disciples because the kids there have such good combat sense.”
“Silvan is there too. He’s said to be in the middle of perfecting and passing on the ultimate Shadow Manipulation technique.”
“Ugh. That old geezer is still alive? He’s tough. He didn’t seem like a dying old man when we traveled together.”
Lucy smiled bitterly.
Just six years ago, he had traveled with the Shadow Manipulator Silvan Harcian, chasing after Referndi, the Red Mage of Destruction, who was the main culprit behind the attempt to destroy the world.
The journey ended with them finding Referndi, who hadn’t changed his mind and was trying to do the same thing again, and putting an end to him. It’s a story that’s not widely known.
He’s quite regretful that his greatest achievement isn’t known, but he accumulated quite a few achievements on that journey and is now in the position of one of the Eight Strongest of the Continent. So, these days, Lucy was only ‘slightly’ regretful.
After Levidian’s retirement, the landscape of the continent’s strongest has changed so much that it can be said to have been reorganized.
Among the five who were there from the beginning, only the Spear King, Redbane, remains.
Of the eight who have become the new strongest of the continent, Lucy, the ‘Ruler of Space,’ and Al, the ‘Fighting King (鬪王),’ are friends and are said to praise each other wherever they go.
Levidian’s disciple, Virean Orcanto, smoothly defeated the world’s strongest and took over Levidian’s position as the Sword King.
And now, the Fighting King (激王) Baius and the Shadow King (影王) Silvan Harcian, both well-known as Al’s companions, are all acquainted with Risel.
Levidian, the former Sword King, smiled and said:
“Six out of the Eight Strongest of the Continent know each other.”
“That’s right. And there’s Joey too. It’s a little strange for a Shrine Knight to be included among the strongest……”
Risel nodded at Lucy’s words. Jounin Yuse, nicknamed Joey, a Shrine Knight of the God of Light, Lynin, is also one of the Eight Strongest of the Continent.
He is over 2.5 meters tall with incredible muscles and wields a 2-meter greatsword with ease. Thus, he earned the nickname Strength King (力王).
Even now, Joey is said to be devoted to spreading the gospel of light throughout the world with Benamijan, the High Priestess of Lynin, nicknamed Namia.
In particular, thanks to the sacred artifact of the God of Light, ‘Essential Light,’ which only Namia can use, the number of Lynin’s believers in the Empire has increased considerably. A temple of Lynin was also built in the Imperial Capital.
The Lynin religion, currently the most popular religion, had some friction with Achuni, the old state religion of the Empire, but after a few years of implementing the freedom of religion policy, religious disputes have ceased.
Risel, who had a lot of headaches in the early days of the policy’s implementation, nodded at the current desirable situation.
“It’s a relief that religious disputes have decreased. The biggest religious dispute recently was when two men who were having a doctrinal debate decided to settle the matter with a drinking contest, and then they were escorted back to their respective temples in a drunken stupor.”
“That’s desirable. It was really tough at first. The noblewomen, perhaps instigated by their husbands, sometimes tried so hard to harass me.”
“Ah, I’ve heard that story too. I heard that Ibi went on a rampage with her sword as an excuse for being bored? She even smashed a vase as a demonstration.”
“I was just performing a sword dance. I didn’t smash the vase; I just sliced it horizontally. Honestly, if someone was the Sword King, they should acknowledge her strength. But they compare me to some insignificant knight or some Cheonbyeongdae First Sword, such trivial figures.”
“Heh, they dared to compare you to Ibi?”
“No, to Risel. So, as their former teacher, I showed them firsthand that my teachings were not easy.”
Lucy sighed, saying, “Well, that’s true.” Levidian is much more likely to get angry when the insult is directed at her husband, Risel, rather than herself.
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