Chapter 248: Difficult Decision

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav

The extravagant and chaotic story met with a truly miraculous and unexpected turn of events. The sudden appearance and injection of many characters both served to shock the audience as well as push the chaotic story to its climax.

The silver-haired Demon King seemed devilish and charming, the blonde prince knight was handsome and attractive, while the green-haired magic prince had a casual air of mystery and naturalness. On the stage, these three cool-to-the-max princes simultaneously proposed marriage to the young and beautiful princess. This was something only seen in fairy tales.

Below the stage, everyone had begun shrieking and screaming. Although they didn’t recognize the other two princes, everyone could clearly identify the Princess Knight, who was guest-starring in this play as the blonde prince knight. For even the respected Princess Reyne to act in this play meant that this would definitely become a hot topic of the celebration.

“I…”

Cold sweat was dripping down my back at a furious pace. My survival instinct told me that if I made the wrong decision here, I would be met with an instant death penalty.

“It was only supposed to be a play, so why am I suddenly making a life and death decision?!”

However, the laughter of a certain silly cat, which was enjoying the predicament I was in, transmitted itself to me through our soul connection.

“…Your instinct is pretty good, but you must take a closer look. This is no mere simple acting. Take a look at those girls’ resolution. At the very least, you should reply to them seriously.”

At the place where Elisa was standing, mana had started spreading across on the ground like magma, transforming into extravagant red runes and a spell array.

This was no effect for the play, nor was it any useless decoration. This was a demonic contract, and even if I was the one who taught her how to use demonic contracts, the Demon Marchioness had long since surpassed me in skill at making soul contracts.

Amelia didn’t use any spells, but her words themselves had the power of spells to begin with. The force of her words already told me that the moment I agreed to her proposal, it would become an eternal contract.

And, Reyne who seemed to be joining in just for the fun of it, didn’t use any particular magic, but judging from how her lips were so pale and how her tiny body was trembling, this young girl had worked up all of her courage. The young princess had finally worked up her courage in front of all our citizens.

“If I choose wrong…”

“…you’ll die.”

I didn’t need that silly cat to remind me that I was currently at the brink of a crossroads.

However, judging by how resolute all three beauties appeared to be, I had to make a decision now. Many thoughts flashed through my mind, but some things weren’t set from the very start. I took a deep breath and made up my mind.

“I…”

*Boom!*

Before I finished saying another word, a huge black shadow descended from the sky. The wings from that figure blocked all sunlight, and just the atmospheric pressure caused by the movement of its wings at such a low altitude caused the entire stage to collapse.

“My name is Deathwing, the heaven-sent destroyer, the ender of all. Nobody can stop me, and nobody can go against me.”

The huge red dragon was actually quite dexterous for its size, and flames could be seen burning in its eyes. The dragon’s roar scattered the clouds, and the dragon’s breath scorched the skies. Meanwhile, the red-haired knight on the dragon’s back read her lines in an exaggerated tone.

“Ah, I’m Prince Kasha from the Land of the Deep Canyons. Even though this is just our first meeting, Princess Peach’s beauty has instantly shattered my ice-cold heart! I shall use my power to steal away my love. Let’s go, Deathwing!”

Before I could react, the huge red dragon lunged towards me and grabbed me away in its claw. All that remained behind were the astonished actors and audience.

“Ahhh! A huge dragon!”

“Princess Peach has been kidnapped!”

There was yet another miraculous unexpected turn of events in the story, but since the main actor had been mysteriously kidnapped, how was the story supposed to go on?

A strange silence filled the air for several moments, causing anxiety and unrest to spread throughout the audience. Just as they were about to explode in dissatisfaction, somebody appeared to save the day.

At the same location where Princess Peach had been kidnapped, an originally rolling on the floor and laughing black cat suddenly transformed herself into an incredibly beautiful gold elf.

“Ah, the suddenly arrived prince of darkness and huge dragon have kidnapped the beautiful princess. The three princes have decided to team up and find the divine sword that can defeat that fearsome huge dragon in order to save their future fiancée.”

After a pause, the gold elf, who had an astonishing Charisma stat, clapped her hands lightly, indicating for the curtains to be slowly closed. Her alluring smile seemed to reveal that the story still hadn’t ended.

“This is the end of Princess Peach’s different dimension adventure story, and I would like to thank everyone for your passionate support! We welcome everyone to pre-purchase tickets to see the next episode: ‘The Three Princes Bravely Adventuring in the Life-Threatening Island!’”

“Ohhh! I’ll definitely come for the next episode!”

It seemed that there was already a huge fan of this play.

“I’ll come even if it isn’t free next time.”

“…So only the first part was free. Such a devious method to make money. But, for the cute Princess Peach, I’ll definitely come for the next part as well!”

Alright then, let’s not mention any more about this audience member’s motives for wanting to come to the next part. This boy adjusted his eyeglasses and had an expression that seemed to say, “There’s only one truth!” [1] 1

“My prince! Could you give me an autograph?”

“Your Highness, the silver-haired prince, please look in this direction!”

“…Is there a poster for this play? I want one of the three princes! I’ll buy one no matter how expensive it is!”

It would seem that the three females acting as princes now had their own loyal fans as well.

But, after the curtains blocked everything off from sight, there were two of the princes that stood right where they were, exchanging cold glances with each other.

“…Perhaps the moment he agreed, your demonic contract would take effect. You really are Roland’s student; you’re just like he is. As long as you achieve your goal, it doesn’t matter how underhanded or lacking-limits the techniques you use are. I heard that you became Roland’s girlfriend under similar circumstances, forcing him to agree under the situation without giving Roland a chance to choose at all. Are you that afraid of Roland making a choice from the bottom of his heart?”

“Oh? So, Sister Amelia is all honest and open? I won’t even mention how you suddenly put yourself into my script like that. Could you explain just what you meant by using the highest level of truth magic? Besides, I’m his girlfriend, and with his personality, he had a 99% probability of choosing me. Why would you kill off your own chances like that?”

“That might not be the case. Under the power of my ability, he would be unable to say anything but the ‘truth’ just now. What he said could only be the choice he wanted from the bottom of his heart. Sense of responsibility, reputation, the situation, and other such factors that could influence him into making some other decision would no longer take effect, and the only thing he could say would be the truth in his heart. In that case, do you still have confidence that you would definitely win?”

“…”

Although Elisa fell silent, this was obvious evidence that she, indeed, wasn’t fully confident.

The two “princes’” conversation caused the stage workers around them to shiver in fear… so what was the third prince doing at this moment?

“He actually glared at me…”

This pitiful “third prince” was sighing in complaint about how the “princess” had looked at the other two princes in hesitation and in astonishment, while the expression for her had been the anger and threatening attitude that a parent would have towards a child. She was also considering just what punishment she would receive since she had angered Roland so much.

“…Brother Roland seems to be really angry. He wouldn’t spank me again, would he? Ahhh, I’m so pathetic! It’s so embarrassing! Why did I rush out there like that, and even say such embarrassing words out loud?”

But even if Reyne was currently hiding in a corner behind the stage, demonic temptations would always come looking at just the right time.

“Haha, oh man! I was able to watch something fun as well. That was truly amusing. Would you like to hear my recommendation? After all, I’m still his twin brother, and we actually have rather similar interests. If you listen to my advice, he probably won’t be able to resist against you, you just have to do this…”

As expected of a resident of the Chaos Abyss. The ability to take advantage of someone while they were weak was basically an instinct to Karwenz. However, judging by how Reyne kept nodding, she was obviously taking Karwenz’s words seriously. Yet if she really did follow his advice, perhaps the result wouldn’t be as simple as a butt spanking anymore.

Perhaps, only Adam, who was doing his very best to reduce his presence as he felt the tense atmosphere around him and fireworks about to explode, was truly worried about his bro.

“Roland, for the time being, you definitely can’t return! You’ll die! You’ll definitely die!”

“Ah, Little Red, Annie, thank you so much. If it weren’t for you guys, I probably would have died for sure. Come, I’ll treat you two tonight! Cheers!”

In a small bar that was quite well-known in the north of town, I was currently thanking my two saviors.

I was well aware that for Little Red, any words of thanks were meaningless, and couldn’t compare to alcohol, which was far more practical and useful for her. This was why I instantly had the bar bring us their best alcohol the moment we arrived.

“…This beer tastes pretty good, and the grape wine is nice as well. Let’s have another extra twenty barrels of each.”

Little Red wasn’t using anything as small as a wine flagon, instead downing alcohol by the barrel. Even with alcohol continuously pouring down her throat, not a single drop landed on the ground; it all was sucked down by those lusciously red lips.

Even though she clearly had the figure of a thin and beautiful woman, the “bold and forthright” manner in which she drank barrels at a time was so shocking that other customers in the bar kept cheering her on.

Meanwhile, sitting at another small table, Annie was pouting with her tiny mouth at the apple juice and milk set out before her.

“I’m not little anymore! Annie can drink alcohol as well…”

“Huh?” This was from Little Red, who had only ordered apple juice for Annie.

“What?” This was from me, who had only ordered milk for Annie.

Her two elders glanced sidelong at her and the mutual condescension that came from them without even prior arrangement caused Annie to helplessly lower her head and continue sipping on her apple juice.

It seemed that Annie still had a long way to go before she would be able to stand up tall in front of Roland and Little Red who had watched her grow up, even though she was already an incredible Underground Lord.

“Roland, I don’t wish to bring up your affairs anymore. Humans are a rare type of creature that are capable of being in heat all year round, so it seems only natural for them to have rather chaotic relationships. That seems to be a tradition of your race. Just don’t get my little Annie involved.”

The new Dragon Queen’s first sentence to me was an immediate direct cannon attack, but I was unable to deny my own wrongdoings when faced with my old friend’s mysterious dissatisfaction towards me. What else could I do besides smile wryly?

“…It’s such a rare chance that we get to drink together; why don’t we talk about something happy?”

“Alright, I’ve brought all the resources and people that you wanted, but you can’t give me even one less gold piece than what you promised. You have to pay up first. Even if we’re friends, you have to pay and be in the clear first. Nobody is allowed to owe a dragon money.”

Even though Little Red’s tone was filled with dissatisfaction and even seemed to be complaining, I was still delighted to hear what she just said.

“Of course, I know about your difficulties. Even if you are the Dragon Queen, it’s astonishing that you were able to do so much. As for the agreed upon price? Is gold fine? But if the quantity’s too large, won’t it be difficult to take with you?”

“Not at all. I brought many laborers with me, and they’ll take it back for me.”

She pointed at the group of black-clothed red and black dragons, which were silently sitting in their human forms. Dragons had sharp hearing, and if they heard anyone else describing the venerable dragon race as laborers, it would definitely be a huge insult, but when they heard their master saying this, they all could only smile helplessly.

“…Forget it. I still have a few secret treasure vaults in the Underground World, accumulated from the previous generations. I’ll give them to you and you can have others dig them up. If it’s worth less than what I promised you, I’ll give the difference to you next time. If it’s worth more than what I promised you, just treat it as a free present. How about it?”

My request for her had been somewhat ridiculous to begin with, and it was already difficult for the dragons to not treat my request as an insult. Without Little Red applying pressure, this ridiculous request could never have been realized no matter how much of a price in gold I paid. I owed her significantly for this.

“That’s more like it. Come, cheers.”

Little Red finally nodded in satisfaction after she heard me say this and followed this up by continually trying to get me to drink along with her.

For people with bodies like ours, unless we purposefully inhibited our own body’s functions, it was quite difficult to become drunk. However, as I watched the forty barrels being delivered to us, I felt that before considering how much it would take to get drunk, we should first consider how much our stomachs were capable of holding.

There was a saying that meeting an old friend over drinks would make even a thousand cups seem short, and we were old drinking friends to being with. When Little Red went all out with drinking, she ended only when she finished off all the alcohol reserves in this entire bar.

And, when we walked out of the bar, the moon and stars had already come out and were shining brightly. Little Red was in a great mood and even revealed her dragon wings and began dancing in the streets, while I had to take on the responsibility of the troubles she stirred up from this and try to look for a new bar for her.

Finally, after she finished all the alcohol reserves of the fourth bar we went to, Little Red was satisfied, and she seemingly casually mentioned her own objective as well.

“Do you still remember Molly?”

“Of course. She’s the previous Dragon Queen. I heard that she’s already come to the surface, and even caused a bunch of trouble, getting onto that messy and random Calamity Rankings or something.”

“Two days ago, I received a letter that actually came from her. Can you believe it? She, the Ancient Red Dragon Molly, actually asked me, the current Dragon Queen who drove her out, for help. It’s probably because she’s truly been forced to the brink.”

“…It wouldn’t be a trap, would it?”

I couldn’t help but begin worrying as I remembered that sly red dragon.

“This is where you’re wrong because you don’t know her well enough. Although she doesn’t care at all about what tactics she’ll stoop to, she was the one who taught me about the pride of dragons. For her to lower her head to me, that’s even more difficult to accomplish than killing her.”

“Where is she right now?”

“The Kasomali area. Oh, I think you humans call it the Bar-something—right—the Bardi Empire.”

…

When I returned, the first thing I did was deal with a certain naughty child who would demolish the house if not spanked for three days. However, when I took off her skirt and began spanking her butt, I noticed that something was wrong about the situation.

Yep, this was our family’s tradition, an especially effective punishment for naughty children—spanking the butt, which would give a sufficient amount of punishment without truly hurting them.

However, something was obviously different this time. Not only did I instantly catch Reyne so easily, her past wailing and crying and pretending to be pitiful were all gone, and the sounds of her reaction to the spanking became stranger and stranger, sounding more and more like the sounds that one would hear in a certain type of “artistic video.”

Her watery and beautiful eyes kept looking back at me, and her breathing kept getting deeper and deeper instead of screaming about how much it hurt. Not only that, with her reddening all the way to the tips of her ears, as well as the strange sensation on my hand, I was unable to take it anymore before I even finished punishing her and had to stop early.

“…Do you still dare to play jokes on adults anymore?”

“I don’t. I definitely won’t do it again!”

A naughty child’s promise was never trustworthy. Their promises were only good for as long as their butt hurt, but I was quite satisfied when I received her answer. However, when I asked about the others, I received an unexpected reply.

“Sister Amelia? She just left. She returned to the Mage Country. Apparently, the Cloud Tower was looking for her, saying it’s an emergency. Originally, she had been ignoring them, but it seems like it can’t wait anymore. Right, Sister Lilith went with her as well, and it seems to have something to do with the Bardi Empire.”

Note:

1. This is a Detective Conan reference.

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