Without minding my confusion, King Rofus spoke again.
"It's exactly that, Mr. Daniel. We would like, or more like - we NEED you to have children with my daughter, Princess Alicia."
The princess got red until her ears.
"Having children? No, what are you all talking about? Isn't the Hero Alex supposed to marry her?" I asked a bit perplexed.
Marrying the princess is supposed to be the role of the hero.
I have no idea how we got onto this topic. Does the hero have some kind of unique fetish as young as he is? As I tried to make sense of the situation Alex turned towards me with a serious look.
"I received many curses during the battle against the demons. Most of them could be removed with the power of Princess Alicia who accompanied me on my journey…"
"…Oh right, you said you went on a journey with the princess to defeat the demon king."
As Alex continued to answer my questions and tell me about their journey, I started to understand the situation a bit more. It seems that Princess Alicia, who had received the divine protection of Saintess, had been traveling with the hero for five years.
"So she was the healer of your party?", did he start his journey with 15?! This guy has guts.
"Yes, but not only that. The princess has healing abilities and she can cast powerful and varied enchantments, which grant special skills, it helped me a lot during the journey."
"…But even with my power, I couldn't heal the last curse, could I? That last curse left by the Demon King… no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't save the hero…"
With a sobbing voice, Princess Alicia's shoulders trembled. Judging from her way of expressing her sorrow, she must have put in a lot of effort. For her fiancée, the hero she had traveled with for a long time, to not be saved despite all her efforts, it must be gnawing her from inside.
"Speaking of that curse… does it have anything to do with your life? Like if you do the deed, you die?"
"No, it's not something as simple as life or death. The curse placed upon me is the 'discontinuation of lineage'."
'Oof.'
As the hero held Princess Alicia, who had tears in the corners of her eyes closely, he furrowed his brows. While looking at the two, who looked like a living painting, I took another sip of tea to moisten my throat - It had been filled again by the maid, thanks lady.
"The discontinuation of lineage? What does that mean exactly?", I asked as I adjusted my posture to show them I was taking this conversation seriously.
My small act seems to have pleased the King who had a grateful look on his face.
"It means that the hero's descendants won't exist. It prevents me, the hero, from having children, preventing the continuation of the lineage. It's a rather despicable method, typical of the demon race."
I clapped my hands in understanding as the hero said that. I'd seen it a lot in media over the years. The hero's child, or after hundreds of years a lost descendant of the hero would also become a hero, engaging in a battle against the Demon King over generations. In other words, it's a curse that prevents this from happening.
"…Huh? So, it means you can't have children with your beloved?"
"I can engage in sexual activity, but I can't leave an heir, nothing gets out. Moreover, when it comes to Princess Alicia, that act itself has a lot of problems…"
I thought it might not be appropriate to have this kind of conversation in front of the princess's father, the king, but it seemed more important than I had imagined. Even the King was serious about it.
"If the hero and the princess can't have a child, it's impossible to allow their marriage. She's a Saintess with the power of a goddess and a member of the royal family. I hate to put it this way, but her value is incredibly high."
"Value…? I think I understand now."
I couldn't refute the king's bitter tone. From the perspective of a person who lived in a modern world like me, it was cruel to use the word 'value' when referring to one's own daughter. But looking from their perspective, Princess Alicia's value was too great to not leave an heir.
"Well... talking hypothetically… hypothetically, okay? If the princess and I were to do that, and if, say… a child were to be born…"
"That would be considered the child of the hero. I apologize, Mr. Daniel, but it's necessary to marry the princess to the hero who saved the world, there's no other choice…"
'The child of the hero, huh.' I think I'm finally getting the picture here, let's see how much they're willing to reveal.
The overall idea appeared to be a bitter decision for both the king and the hero. If they didn't do this, Princess Alicia, who could no longer marry the hero, would have to marry a noble somewhere.
"The presence of a hero and a saint, so to speak, serves as a deterrent in this country. Allowing Princess Alicia, who possesses great healing powers, to marry anyone else would be a significant loss for the country."
"I see… with a hero and a saint in this country, other nations wouldn't dare to invade, right?"
"That's right. To protect the peace of not only our country but the world peace we gained with blood, sweat, and tears, would you be willing to lend us your strength?"
With that said, His Majesty the King bowed deeply.
Seeing a guy with such a heavy presence doing that... It certainly has an impact. And I'm not even Japanese. I kinda got a bit flustered, just like when the CEO asked for something in a humble way, which was rare as fuck may I say.
"Wa-wait! Could you please lift your head? If you do something like this to an unknown guy like me…"
That sincere gaze from him was giving me chills, it had been a long time since someone had asked something of me while being this sincere, and to my surprise, the hero also bowed his head.
While I was getting a sudden surge of embarrassment that I hadn't felt for years, I looked at the princess who should be panicking more than me but was sitting there calmly.
"Rather than asking me, the most affected person is the princess, right? To make her do such a thing with an older man she knows nothing about…"
The burden would be on her, not me. Princess Alicia must have deeply loved the hero. That was probably why she had tears in her eyes, unable to save her beloved through her own efforts. Even if she was willing to do this, she didn't deserve it.
"I am prepared for it. I was born as a member of the royal family and always hoped that, if possible, I could be with the hero…"
While saying this, Princess Alicia was trembling. She bit her small lips tightly and desperately tried to contain her feelings. Looking at her like that, I felt a strange feeling.
She held a very girlish wish to be with the one she loved, and at the same time, she was burdened with the responsibility of being born into the royal family.
"…Alright, I get it. But you still didn't tell me, WHY it needed to be me. Also, I'm curious about something. There were many... documents... telling of summonings in my world, in not a few of them the people summoned had slave collars or seals put on them to make them comply." If I wasn't used to interacting with high-ranking businessmen I wouldn't have caught the light shake in the King's eye when I mentioned this. "Forgive me for being blunt, for now, I don't know if this world doesn't have that kind of technology or if you truly abstained from using them on me in good faith. Could you answer me? King Rofus?"
Seeing the blank look on my face and the seriousness in my words the King pondered a bit and then started to tell me. I was surprised.
"Allow me to start by answering your last question. It's a bit of a long story so please bear with me for a bit...." He prefaced. "Our world does have a slave collar of compulsion, and we didn't use it on you for a few reasons. First, our kingdom was founded by an otherworlder just like you, a summoned Hero, our old texts say that he was from a country called Burajil..."
"Oh, you're talking about Brasil." A Brazilian Hero? That's cool.
"So that's how it was actually pronounced," King Rofus said with a happy smile before getting serious again and continuing. "After he was summoned though, they put a collar on him trying to use him as their slave."
I clenched the armrest of my chair. That's a no-no my dude.
"The Lagut Empire thought that everything was solved and started to send him to fight their wars, gaining more land a getting bigger and bigger, the problem was that they didn't take into consideration that a person coming from an entirely different world, a body without any previous contact with mana, might have different reactions to mana. That was their downfall."
He drank a bit of tea to moisten his throat.
"The Hero Carlos, found out that in a mere two weeks, he was gaining immunity to the collar effect, and not only that, as time passed and his body got more adept at handling mana he was getting stronger and started to create his own nowadays legendary techniques. Usually in our world, people need to be blessed by a god to receive skills, but a hero from another dimension doesn't follow our same rules." He paused a bit again, "He trained and met like-minded comrades who hated the Empire, after planning their escape someone told the Imperial Family what they were doing. While because of Carlos many people got to flee, he stayed back. The Imperial Family tried to show the people that even hero from another world was inferior to them and were going to whip him in a public square... That was the last day of the Lagut Empire in this world."
I gulped. Man, trying to turn a Brazilian into a slave and whip him in public square... There are less complicated ways to commit suicide.
"I do not know exactly what happened but... That day, the entire capital city of Lagut together with all who were inside evaporated, to this day there's only a desert where nothing grows. The only record says that a great explosion of light happened and created a great cloud that resembled a burning rose... Some extra-official notes from that time say that those in the closest villages to the capital heard Carlos voice say... 'EU SOU ATÔMICO, CARALHO!'"
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Author's Thoughts
Hello there~
Thank you for reading my new story. I hope you all find it interesting... I'm sorry for cutting the story at the middle part but I had to because I kinda got carried away while editing and wrote a lot more than what I had initially planned so I needed to cut it into two chapters.
I will try to keep chapters around 1500~2000 words long. That way I can keep a regular release schedule of 2 chapters a week. This first week we will have 3 chapters counting the prologue, but it will be the only time, want to read ahead? Check my site without the spaces.
patreon .com/Kanmuru
Cya'round~