Episode 212
After escaping from Isollet's house, I spent several surprisingly peaceful days.
Of course, there were a few incidents.
[System updating... (Affection System reorganization in progress)]
[System functions unavailable until update complete.]
- Estimated time required [7 days]
"What?"
Like a system update window appearing with a message about reorganizing the 'Affection System' just a few hours after escaping Isollet's house.
"F-Frey! You! What do you mean by time-limited..."
"...Call the guards."
Or Roswin pounding on the front door and shouting something while I was resting at the mansion.
"W-weakling. Sick again today?"
"........"
"H-hurt a lot? Are you really sick?"
"...Cough, cough."
"A-ah, so you are sick. Th-then... I'll come... next time."
Or Aisy coming all the way to my house because I kept refusing her requests since my resistance to the 'curse' hadn't returned yet.
- Frey, I know it's fake. Tell me it's fake.
Or Isollet, with her usually neat handwriting, sending a letter scribbled like someone on drugs.
For reference, I naturally explained to Isollet with fake evidence that it was 'faking illness' for my own benefit.
It was also an attempt to lower her favorability somehow, even though she had already been fully conquered.
And I was afraid of how Isollet might react if I told her it was real.
"Lord Frey! Please say a word!"
"Is it true that physical evidence of slave law violations was discovered?"
"You dismissed the time-limited claim, but according to our information..."
"Will you respond to the hero party summons as a torture target?"
Additionally, reporters who packed the mansion courtyard made noise for days trying to get interviews before eventually giving up and leaving.
Well, at this point it feels far from peaceful days... but for me, these were quite decent days.
A life of resting peacefully at the mansion without risking my life wandering somewhere or fighting someone was incredibly satisfying.
-Ding dong, ding dong!
-Knock, knock, knock...!
However, thanks to the incident this morning, those days were cracked.
I was having breakfast with Lulu and Irina in the mansion's dining room for the first time in a while, when suddenly the doorbell and knocking sounds came from the entrance.
"...Hah!"
When I tilted my head wondering what was going on, Lulu, who had been eating rice from me with her eyes gently closed, opened her eyes wide and gasped.
"I sense battle aura..."
At the same time, Irina began to take on the expression and atmosphere of the battlefield, unlike her usual dazed appearance.
"W-what's going on that you're..."
Tense at their reactions, I picked up the cane I had placed beside my chair and quietly activated its surveillance function.
"Ha."
I immediately grasped the situation.
"Royal Knights, Holy Knights, and investigators. Their intent is obvious."
The entrance of the mansion was filled with two knight orders representing the Empire and investigators. Standing in line with serious expressions, they looked ready to pounce the moment the door opened.
"Hmm... what to do?"
As there was no response, the knocking became increasingly intense, and because of that, I was holding my head and muttering at that time.
"I wasn't prepared..."
Since the search order came down much faster than expected, I hadn't finished making the mansion into an evil space.
I was planning to disguise the Demon King's Army succubi as sex slaves and stuff them in the basement. If that had succeeded, points would have rolled in like mountains.
'If they search the mansion now, not even a speck of dust would come out... no wait, thinking about it, there are things that would get caught.'
Thinking for a while, I recalled that I had hidden illegal documents and black magic tools here and there in the mansion in preparation for surprise searches, and I was somewhat relieved.
Of course, since they were spare supplies, they felt a bit lacking... but originally they came to make me a criminal, so I thought those would be sufficient.
"Lord Frey, we ask for your cooperation."
"It is a royal command."
Thinking that, I opened the front door with a calm expression, and the vice-captains of the Royal Knights and Holy Knights entered the mansion with fierce expressions.
"The Royal side will take the basement, we will proceed with questioning the servants. Investigators, please search the mansion overall."
At the same time, the investigation team rushed into my mansion in an orderly manner.
Watching that blankly, I quietly shook my head at Lulu who was glowing her magic eye behind me, and then began to look up at the vice-captains blocking my way.
"...I'm sorry! I can't overlook this properly!"
Then, the chief investigator standing beside them passed by me saying that in a cheerful voice.
Thinking about it now, that guy is really consistent. I'll have to throw him in prison somehow later.
"Excuse us."
"Please cooperate."
While thinking that, the vice-captains who had been looking down at me grabbed both my arms.
"Why did you come instead of the captains?"
"...There is a classified mission. We cannot explain anything else."
I hoped the captains I had bribed heavily would come, but unfortunately, this search was handled by the vice-captains.
"By the way, you guys are quite pretty? How old are you?"
In the Empire's mixed knight orders, it is customary for a man to become the captain and a woman to become the vice-captain.
Of course, someone with overwhelming skill like Isollet would be different.
Anyway, the fact that the vice-captains are women means I can mess with them.
Seeing what the chief investigator guy said earlier, I judged that since the Royal family and the Church were involved, no matter how much I bribed them, it would be useless.
So, thinking I should just get on their bad side as much as possible and earn some points, I went along with their handling.
"......"
I should have observed their eyes more carefully at that time.
.
The Royal Knights have been the Royal family's dogs since ancient times.
And the Holy Knights have recently transformed into the Pope's private military group, so I wasn't expecting them to go easy on me.
However, the investigators whom I had carefully bribed all this time, almost like my own private soldiers, searching my mansion with serious expressions was quite a pitiful sight.
Still, there were some quite fun things.
"There's only cheese and wine in the basement, though?"
"...They already hid it away."
The Royal Knights mistook the complex ancient magic to protect the hero's equipment for defense mechanisms to hide sex slaves, searched the basement all day, and came out covered in dust looking dejected.
"Grrr..."
"Th-this is strange. No signs of mental manipulation are visible at a... ouch!"
Or Lulu, who has become fanatically loyal to me since receiving the oath of death a few days ago, biting the Holy Knight investigator who was examining her, mistaking her for a mentally manipulated sex slave.
"So you are... Frey's 'sex slave'?"
"Yes."
"And that is clearly your own will? Not forced?"
"...Yes, I feel happiness in being owned by Lord Frey."
"Uh, um. What should we do?"
Or the investigators looking at Aris with strange eyes, unable to detect her 'Subordination Curse,' while she says lewd words contrary to her personality with a shameful expression.
"Um, about this... I won't report it, so can you give it to me? I've really wanted one..."
"Sigh."
Or the chief investigator, who found the black magic tool I had hidden, quietly whispering to me, since it would be troublesome if no irregularities were found.
I couldn't tell if I was being investigated or watching a comedy play.
However, such pleasantness didn't last long.
"...Phew."
Investigators going in and out of the room my mother used and my father's room.
Carelessly looking through their portraits, recklessly rummaging through their belongings and items.
Completely changing the furniture arrangements that the mansion servants I had been so close with in childhood, whom I won't be able to see for a while, had touched...
Seeing that, I felt like a lead weight was pressing down on my chest.
Now, it's starting in earnest, I thought.
The signal that the entire Empire, the entire world except the 5 main heroines, Lulu, and Isollet had started driving blades into me was silently fired.
Truly for the first time in a while, my heart felt heavy and stifling enough to make me go crazy. To be precise, should I say my chronic anxiety disorder flared up?
"Please follow us."
"...Just a moment will do."
"Hm?"
And 'that incident' happened right at that moment.
"What? Where are you taking me?"
The vice-captains who had been standing like statues holding both my arms in the living room started walking somewhere simultaneously.
"What's wrong? Do you like me? Or are you planning to lock me up somewhere?"
I had been constantly making a fool of myself and messing with them, so thinking it was finally happening, I quietly followed them.
"...Hngh."
I was prepared to be beaten up until the two female knights arrived at my room and roughly sat me in a chair.
-Swish...
"Hm?"
But then, they suddenly took out a blindfold and rope from their bosoms.
"W-what?"
Looking at them in bewilderment.
In an instant, a blindfold was put on me and rope wrapped around my body.
"......?"
I was suddenly in a situation where I was tied to a chair.
"...Do we really have to go this far?"
"I-it's an order. We have no choice."
"You're definitely promoting me, right? You're not going to pretend you don't know me, right?"
"...Gulp."
Soon their whispers were heard.
"W-what? What are you doing!"
'Are they planning to torture me?'
Of course, I could untie this level of binding whenever I wanted, so I pretended to be unable to move and decided to observe the situation.
"Stay still, Frey."
"Just think of it as stepping in shit."
'Come to think of it... this is an opportunity?'
And, as the situation took a serious turn, I was sitting with great expectation, thinking I could turn the tables and subdue them at the decisive moment and make a deal with the knight orders.
-Swish...
They started taking off my clothes.
".....!?"
Because of that, I momentarily froze.
-Swish...!
"Don't resist."
At the cold remark of the female knight pointing a dagger at my neck, I frowned and tried to put strength in my body, but.
-Rustle...!
"...What is that?"
"Seems like someone is outside. We need to check."
At a sound suddenly coming from somewhere, they went outside, so I stopped putting strength in my body and started listening carefully.
"............"
And, quite a long silence began.
'What is it?'
That day was unusually cold, so I was shivering and wondering whether to untie the rope or not.
-Creeeak...
Someone entered the room.
-Thud, thud.
Soon the unidentified figure started walking toward me, and realizing there was no killing intent, I relaxed my body and quietly observed the situation.
-Thud...
Soon, that unidentified figure approached right in front of my nose.
-Thump.
After a moment, they grabbed my shoulder.
"Mmh..."
And then, suddenly letting out a moan and starting to tremble.
'First of all, it's a woman...'
Judging by the moaning sound, it was definitely a woman.
Then, did the vice-captain who threatened me earlier come back?
-Rub, rub...
While thinking that, she slowly rubbed her body against my side.
-Swish...
Then she grabbed the rope binding me with trembling hands and started untying it.
"What is this..."
Because of that, I let out a hollow laugh and whispered.
"It's Lulu, right?"
Rubbing her body against mine, and at the same time, the only one who would save me was Lulu.
-Lick.
Soon she carefully licked my face, so I was certain.
'It is Lulu.'
As expected, it was Lulu.
.
"Lulu, that tickles. Stop licking."
Frey was laughing with a silly smile.
"........."
Watching that smile of Frey.
'U-ugh...'
Thanks to the status of the hero party's commander.
Isollet, who had run to his house faster than lightning right after obtaining information about the Royal family and the Church's operation against Frey just moments ago.
'W-what did I just...'
Licking Frey's face on impulse after he called her Lulu.
"Did you use your magic eye? Are you hurt?"
Swallowing dry saliva, she quietly looked down at Frey who was tied to the chair and smiling innocently.
"...Gulp."
Soon, her eyes began to shake wildly.