Ch. 15: The Tragedy of Amale

"I undid that stupid curse. Turn around, Parker." Slowly, Parker turned around to look at Arc.

"Oh my…" Seeing Arc's face, Parker went weak at the knees.

It was Grant. The classmate that she had pretended to forget about. Guilt and terror flooded her.

She hadn't even asked about what had happened to him, but she had always assumed that he had been judged too dangerous to keep alive, and then killed.

"You're dead… There's no way that they let you go free…" If Grant was alive, Parker honestly didn't know what to do. Something in his personality had always been terrifying, but it had always been restrained.

Untethered and in possession of that [Skill Creation] unique skill, she immediately understood that all of the rumors had been true. The man standing in front of her was likely at least as strong as a god, and she had wronged him.

Her first thought was to prostrate herself on the ground and apologize, but she stopped herself. Grant would never accept that. She just had to hope that he wasn't angry at her.

...

I didn't really care about Parker at all, but the terror on her face when she saw who I was still gave me a small amount of pleasure. She had never really harmed me, though, so I undid the curse that was locking her actions, since it annoyed me.

"They did blow up a forest trying to kill me, but it didn't quite take." It was the closest I'd ever come in this world to dying, though. No point in mentioning that. "After I escaped Amale, I figured interacting with people enough would make them try to pressure me into joining their war, but I didn't expect them to send their strongest fighter with a 'take him or die' curse. Guess it's time to go kill that idiot queen."

"You'll spare the innocent people, right?" She asked. No begging, huh? So Parker did remember me. I thought for a second.

"I have a condition." Parker cocked her head, puzzled, "You're gonna kill the queen yourself. Then, you're gonna take over for her. Third, you're gonna sign a truce with the demon lord. Lastly, you're gonna phase out the church." The war with the demon lord was entirely out of Amale's greed. The church backed it, mostly, but the other human countries stayed out of it.

All this world's demon lord ever did was protect his own domain. My other conditions were entirely for my benefit. Parker was a suck-up, lackey-type person, not a leader at all, but she was far smarter than that dumb queen and her father were.

If Amale was gonna survive, I'd rather it be led by Parker than someone I'll just have to kill after Kid gets his hands on, which was also my reason for the final order. Parker already feared me.

She'd never defy me so long as she understood a portion of my abilities, and she didn't have a background in this world's religion. Even if she believed in it, she'd be resistant to the idea of kowtowing to someone who she couldn't see, and Kid wasn't the type to interfere personally unless it was about me.

"The church?" Parker asked.

"Seems god is real in this world, and he's a bucket of stupid. He's directly controlling a bunch of people, starting wars and playing 'house' with entire civilizations. That's why I destroyed Uriah, so you're gonna keep him out of Amale as best you can." I explained to her, "I summoned a demon to kill all of the people whose souls he's already hollowed out and replaced with his own consciousness, but he'll do whatever he can to sink his fingers into this planet before I get strong enough to break into his subspace and rip him to shreds."

I didn't expect Parker to actually believe half of what I was saying, even though she should have known me well enough to understand that I pretty much never lied. If Parker did what I wanted, that'd be fine, but I wasn't the good guy any more than Kid was the bad guy, so I wasn't gonna push her into making that decision. I just wanted her to think about it.

Getting around my curse could possibly take me a long while, and I wanted future monarchs to understand my position while I worked on it. If I had to wipe all civilized life off of the planet to get rid of Kid's influence, I'd do it, but I didn't want to deal with rebuilding the planet from scratch if I didn't absolutely need to.

...

The next morning, I teleported Parker to the castle in the heart of the kingdom of Amale.

"Miss Hero, you're back. The queen is waiting for you and the Dragon Slayer in the audience chamber."

"And I'm guessing that she hasn't moved from that chamber since Parker left, either." I muttered.

"Sir, do not belittle our queen."

"I'm not. She's not your queen anymore. Parker is. Act accordingly." As I spoke, I dropped a curse down on the entire city.

Basically, anyone who entered the city would be unable to go against my wishes. Vague, sure, but it wouldn't be a huge restriction on most people's daily lives. It wouldn't even restrict criminals from breaking the law, they just wouldn't be able to interfere with my plans in any way.

Parker's safety was gonna be secured for the next twenty or so years, when the curse would wear off because… free will (By the way, Parker was also subjected to the curse, though it wouldn't do anything except stop her from becoming a total tyrant, since I was kind of forcing her rule onto these people).

"As you wish, Sir Arc." My curse also came with a little bit of information. My name, a description of me, and a description of Kid, both from as neutral a position as possible.

This guard was suddenly acting super respectful. With the curse, my work was pretty much done, so I just left.

This simple act on my part was remembered for hundreds of years as the Tragedy of Alame, a bloody massacre (Totally bloodless coup) that changed the country forever. (Unfortunately for me, the information that I gave them alongside the curse would not be passed down accurately to future generations, and the country's motto would eventually become "We live to resist the Archon.")