207 Towards the Empire

Chapter 207: Towards the Empire

"Your Majesty, Elfheim, I hope to see you again soon. The elven race without you has no dream or hope." Shadow A fell into despair, anxious to find and be with her husband again.

"Aren't you expecting too much from that pitiful elf?"

Boss K, who founded the city of elves and became mayor of it at the Festival of Heroes, spent each day happily watching female human adventurers.

He showed no interest in the kingdom or marriage.

"Hero, you speak too openly in front of his wife…"

"It's your fault for reading my mind."

"Everything about His Majesty Elfheim is perfect except for his taste in females. Therefore, despite our faults and regrets, I and my kind cannot help but rely on him. His fears about spirits turned out to be true as well."

Using the teleportation magic from the tower of the Holy Kingdom, I immediately moved to the house of the "Fire Knight," one of the four great knights of the Elven Kingdom.

I found no difficulties after that.

The spirits, which had more numbers than the elves themselves in their own kingdom, revolted.

They captured cities and villages, beating up the shameless elves who enslaved them while calling the spirits their friends.

"Don't do this, my friend!"

"What's wrong with you, my friend!"

"Aren't we friends?"

Elves, whose entire bodies aside from their heads were buried on the ground, were crying out for their' friends'. I still couldn't grasp the logic behind that.

The whole point of their relationship was funny.

Allegedly, elves from birth already had a strong connection with spirits.

If spirits didn't have emotions, they would've stayed that way, but they were living beings capable of thinking.

Even pets raised at home followed whoever fed them. It was illogical to think the spirits would unconditionally follow the orders of someone who didn't take care of them properly.

Everything had a reason.

That was true of the relationship between elves and spirits too.

"Drug Hero, is your respect for me rising now?"

The First Spirit, doing nothing but declaring the liberation of her enslaved kind, swung her legs back and forth.

"What makes you think I'll respect someone who does nothing but sits on someone's head and sniffs drugs all day?"

"You did that to me!"

"What did you expect?"

I went to the king's hall.

As if to highlight my popularity, spirits gathered around me. My body would have been a marketplace for them if not for the spirit kings monopolizing me and ordering them not to come closer.

I sat on the throne above the hall.

"Leave my throne be, you bloody little man!"

The Elf King, now tied up and chained, shouted. On the other hand, the equally bound Queen was calm.

"The mother of all spirits, Fronesis, has been freed, and now we must be punished for our sins. Hero, as you can see, our king is a rather incompetent man who has nothing but royal blood. He can neither rule our country efficiently nor satisfy women. If you desire to punish our race for our crimes, I will repay all of their sins with my body."

The Elf Queen tried to take responsibility, fulfilling her duty as the mother of a country.

Was it because I saw her naked at the Demon Lord's castle every round? I guess I had prejudices about her.

"Mother, please don't cheat in front of your son and husband…"

… My prejudices were probably correct, though.

Prince Nasus, who surrendered early and embraced his parents, sighed and scolded his mother.

A voice interrupted us, however.

"What the hell are you doing, brother?"

Sylvia, who had kept her mouth shut all this time, screamed bitterly. As the future ruler of the Elf Kingdom, she had the same hot-headed temperament as the current King.

Prince Nasus ignored his little sister and continued.

"My lord, their words are not the will of all elves. These foolish kinsmen of mine don't even know the existence of Fronesis. They believe in the friendship they hold with the spirits. All responsibility falls on our royal family, who have hidden the truth from our subjects. I ask for your leniency."

The rest of the family went against his words.

"Nasus, have you lost your pride as an elven noble?"

"As my son said, I will take responsibility."

"Brother, are you crazy? He's the damn thief who stole my spirit!"

They were too noisy.

Ashamed that she was related to them, Shadow A went into my shadow.

The resurrected angel that followed me also remained quiet, apparently realizing that it wasn't something worth interfering over.

Regardless.

"The King is to serve an intolerable 500 years of imprisonment. I deprive the Queen of her title and enforce five years of abstinence upon her."

"Who do you think you are?!"

"Hero, this is a punishment too harsh for a woman!"

The Fairy King and Queen protested, but I didn't listen. Instead, I went straight over to the two siblings.

"Prince Nasus, I appoint you as the prime minister who watches over the foolish elves. You will have a political marriage with a human that I choose. Finally, Princess Sylvia… You're making it hard for me to choose. No skills, no breasts. By tomorrow, you must have a reason prepared why I shouldn't have you executed brutally in public."

"Thank you for your kindness."

"I'll kill you! Just you wait!"

With that, the Elf Kingdom had been neatly conquered.

The elves that used to pass hunting, farming, foraging, and daily household chores to their 'friends' would be working from now on.

I wanted to raise the kingdom's birth rate and population by coercing a marriage law, but I tolerated it because even I couldn't take care of my son right now.

I couldn't force others to do what I couldn't.

Just like that, a day passed.

Instead of coming up with why I shouldn't execute her, Princess Sylvia spent the grace period I gave her persuading the spirits to save her because she still thought they were friends. However, when she heard about the date and procedure of the upcoming execution, she immediately began to beg for pardon.

She had completely lost her pride as a royal.

"Drug Hero, anyone who spends three days and three nights being disgraced and shamed, and then learns of their imminent death right after, will become like that."

"This is a small punishment compared to the fact that she didn't even thank me for saving her at the Black Market. If we count in compound percentages, this is nothing at all."

I gave Sylvia 30 years of hard labor.

I had a disgusting affection for her, so I didn't execute her.

"Drug Hero, I'll bet your finger that the Elf Princess won't last thirty days and will take her own life."

"Don't bet using someone else's finger."

But I was curious if Sylvia would really commit suicide just as the First Spirit predicted, so I spent 30 days in the Elf Kingdom.

I also went down to the sewers in the basement of the royal garden. There I found Elf B lying on a bed. She had stabbed herself in the chest with a dagger.

The smell of dried blood and rotting corpses told me she had been in that state for a while now. Only one word of apology was written in the will.

"According to the children, she committed suicide after I disappeared from that altar."

"What an irresponsible elf."

She passed on to her descendants the spirits' anger towards her and chose a comfortable death, leaving only a short apology.

I thought she'd know something since she was a teacher, but Shadow A shook her head.

"My eldest sister and I were the only elves who got the status of teachers by helping the wise Elf King. My second sister had a strong political spirit, but he still didn't neglect her."

"Did she have any administrative skills?"

"My eldest sister, who had been by the King's side to learn since a long time ago, was the best among us. But my second sister was also good at it. She was the younger sister of the largest tribe's chief, after all."

"What about you?"

"I was His Majesty's guard."

In other words, she couldn't do it at all. I summoned Saintess H.

In the Holy Kingdom, I hid her because of Saintess A, but there was no need to do that now.

Summoned in the air, Saintess H slowly landed with her angel's wings stretched wide open.

"Oh, my word! Such a deep faith and divinity…!"

The eyes of the angel, who had been silent all this time, opened wide. She couldn't take her eyes off her.

"Did you call, my lord?"

"Yeah, I want to revive this poor elf, both body and mind."

"I understand."

Everything that transpired after that was simple.

I ordered the resurrected Elf B five millennia worth of administrative work. Since the world would reset anyway once the Demon Lord had been defeated, that period seemed unrealistic.

But Elf B simply accepted it.

"If my labor alone can quell the wrath of the spirits, I will gladly do it."

The post-conquest process was slowly coming to an end.

The First Spirit's prediction about Sylvia didn't happen, but we found a much more interesting sight instead.

I couldn't believe Sylvia was getting married voluntarily!

Whenever Sylvia, who was tired of labor, wanted to kill herself, Elf A, a young man, comforted her. He was her fiancé.

He wasn't from a competent household, and he didn't have exceptional looks.

For some, it might look nothing more than a simple act of kindness, but for Sylvia, who was both physically and mentally tired, it probably was different.

And this had happened everywhere.

Far from giving birth, elves who were stingy with marriage began to marry one after another in the past 30 days.

In the stead of spirits that, for them, only existed to provide comfort when they were sad and generously help them with labor, they chose partnership.

I felt a little humanity from the elves.

This phenomenon also happened on Earth, after all.

In underdeveloped and developing countries, birth rates were high, but in more developed countries, birth rates decreased, and divorce rates became higher.

It was okay to live alone in such places, after all.

Their low libido and weak bodies also contributed to the chronic low birth rate of the elven race.

They preferred spirits over lifelong partners. It was like loving a perfect 2D character while ignoring realistic 3D people.

That was an interesting discovery.

"Drug Hero, where to next? Holy Empire or the Merchant Republic?"

"Before that, we must merge the countries first. Now that the Dumpling Kingdom's throne is empty, I have to go back there. Someone's already waiting there for my return."

Dumpling Kingdom, Elf Kingdom, Holy Kingdom.

If the territories of those three countries had been combined, it would be equivalent to the Holy Empire. This would achieve the minimum conditions for the next political step.

I went straight to the Dumpling Kingdom using teleportation magic.

***

"The true king has returned!"

"Step aside, you rotten-dumpling-looking false king!"

"Praise the Hero chosen by God!"

I could hear the citizens' woes even inside the tower.

The capital of the Dumpling Kingdom was already ready to welcome a new king since the five heroes summoned before me turned the Dumpling Kingdom upside down and laid the foundation for me.

They had dug up and punished royal and aristocratic corruption.

As a result, it had seemingly become a better country to live in than before, but it couldn't be fully controlled as the credibility of the people in power had fallen to the ground.

What made matters worse was that the state coffers were running out of money as they gave generous compensation to the victims, and they also lowered the taxes to compensate for their crimes.

It was the beginning of a vicious circle.

If the state coffers were empty, military power couldn't be developed. Here in the Fantasy Continent, where monsters ceaselessly pillaged and killed, countries with weak military power were shunned by their people.

A man who lost his family to a monster would blame his country.

They would stop paying taxes, and in extreme cases, they would even turn into criminals or rebels.

"Cool."

Meanwhile, I provided embers through the Queen.

The MAX-Class Hero carried the blood of the true king, and their current ruler was a fake.

In the past 30 days, rumors that I conquered the Holy Kingdom and the Fairy Kingdom one after another spread throughout the Central Continent through merchants.

What was the final blow?

The King's beloved Queen served as my hands and feet!

Realizing the seriousness of the problem, the Dumpling King asked for advice with his face buried in his wife's soft chest, and the Queen, who heard it, further aggravated the situation with wrong advice.

The outcome of this fight had already been decided before it could even start.

"What the hell is going on? The blood of a true king? What's your purpose for pretending to be royalty?!"

King Dumpling, deprived of his throne and crown, shouted with a quivering chin.

A beautiful Queen approached me with a bright smile with elegant steps and put a crown over my head.

I replied, sitting on his throne.

"My purpose is the people, False King."

Bloodline wasn't important. There had to be subjects for there to be a King. Even absolute force was nothing more than a tool for gathering said subjects.

Agitation (SS)→ Agitation (SSS)

… I only told the truth, but an unrelated skill's rank had gone up. I didn't even know why!

Having undressed the princess to her underwear and leaving on her only panties with a bear, I sent her to Prince Nasus as a concubine. The king and princes who had lost their throne and positions were sent to the guillotine.

The Queen became my regent.

"Your Majesty, have you decided on our nation's name?"

In the Central Continent of Fantasy, second only to the Holy Empire, three countries with large and powerful territories merged. This couldn't be called a kingdom anymore.

I said the name that I'd already chosen before.

"Holy Mollan Empire."

All paths lead to Mollan.