Chapter 314: “I’ve Been Watching You.”
T/N: Well, I've been translating this novel for nearly a year now at a consistent rate of a chapter every day, but at this point, I'm finally going to have to start slowing down. Part of this is due to my new job restricting the amount of time I have to spend on it, and part of it is because, for a while now, the chapters have become nearly double the lengths that they used to be in the beginning. I've been contemplating slowing down my release rate for some time now, and at this point, I'm just going to have to do it.
So, from now on, I'm going to instead settle on a rate of 3 chapters/week. Further adjustments may come in the future depending on how things go, but I do still intend to continue translating this novel until it's done at least, so have no worries on that.
Chapter 314: “I’ve Been Watching You.”
A bit later, Shien left his room all on his own.
“I’m going to go take a bath. Want to join me?”
Shien tossed out such a question at Lucy while he was inside the room. Right after that, he was then chased out by Lucy wielding a pillow.
He didn’t get depressed by that though. Instead, he just headed out toward the baths while in a great mood.
After all, Lucy is already here, and she was even planning on staying the night. Shien doesn’t plan on doing nothing given all that.
That’s right!
Tonight, he will absolutely take Lucy!
It was already mentioned before, but Shien had been lusting after Lucy ever since his kiss with her. He had even ended up wasting quite a bit of tissues because of that.
Add in the fact that his will to escape his single status being particularly strong, Shien already nearly couldn’t wait to take that girl.
“The Treasure of the Kingdom huh?”
Every time he thinks about the fact that the idol in the hearts of millions being in his room and the fact that so many young noblemen all hate him so much because of this, he not only did not feel mad at all, but rather, he only got more excited.
It was basically still repeating the same words from before. He had mentioned it before, after all. At this point, since he has already earned the undying enmity of all those young noblemen and even ended up getting into several troublesome situations because of that, then there’s no reason for him to not take the corresponding rewards as well, right?
In the past, he indeed had no real relationship with Lucy, which is why Shien felt like having all those noblemen's attention on him was troublesome and attempted to avoid it with all his might.
But if he really did have that kind of relationship, then so what if it is troublesome?
He’ll take them all on!
The more he thinks about it, the more excited Shien got, and the faster he walked toward the baths.
However, before he reached the baths, Shien remembered a certain existence in his home. Thus his movement stopped and he suddenly changed directions toward another direction.
As for Lucy, she stayed in Shien’s room, sitting on his bed, hugging a pillow with a blushing face while deeply struggling inside her mind.
“It can’t be that that guy’s really planning on doing that kind of thing to me, right?”
How’s that possible?
She’s the Treasure of the Kingdom, a princess of the royal family!
Normally speaking, no one else would dare to put a hand on her no matter how much guts they have, right?
Even discounting her personal might, there’s still no one who would dare to use force against a princess. That’s an offense against the royalty, right?
Privately attempting to have a relationship with a princess will result in a terrible ending everyone involved. Not only will the princess herself be considered the shame of the royal family, the other person would also definitely end up silently purged.
Therefore, logically speaking, there’s normally no noble who would be so suicidal as to walk down this road to a dead end.
However, can Shien be considered someone normal?
“With the Dragon Demon supporting him from behind, even if the one who was laid a hand on was me, the Kingdom would still not necessarily be able to do anything to him, right?”
If it was a normal princess, then by Shien’s capabilities, it would have been fine even if he laid a hand on said princess. Not only would the royal family not do anything to him, they may even instead request that he take responsibility, make him into a royal son-in-law, and use that to trap him and make him completely into someone belonging to the Kingdom.
Lucy is not a normal princess but instead the Treasure of the Kingdom, the most prided descendant of the royal family in a thousand years. If someone were to lay a hand on her, then there’s no way that the Kingdom would let the matter go no matter the status of the other party is. However, things are different if the opponent in question is a Demon Lord.
As the nation built by the Hero who subjugated the Demon King, even if the Mitra Kingdom isn’t necessarily the strongest in the mortal world, they would still not fear any other major country.
When it comes to military might, the neighboring Ragna Empire is the one known as the strongest nation in the mortal world. However, faced with the Mitra Kingdom’s Royal Knights and Wyvern squads, not even the Empire would think themselves capable of casually bullying the Kingdom. Why else did they cause the incident ten years ago?
Besides that, there’s also the fact that the Mitra Kingdom has the one known as the greatest legendary knight of all humanity – Aldia Arbin.
Thus, even though nearly half of the National Knights were exterminated, there’s still no other country who dares to underestimate the Mitra Kingdom.
The only thing that the Kingdom truly needs to fear are basically the gods and demons then.
However, the gods will generally never interfere in wars between mortal nations. They will only equally grant their blessings to all mortals. Only when someone does something extremely evil that goes against the very meaning of the gods’ existences to the point where the blessing disappears will the gods consider the opposing party as an enemy. Otherwise, normally speaking, unless humanity end up at a state of near extinction due to war, there’s no way that the gods will care.
Add in the fact that the gods hold a great deal of gratitude and respect toward the Hero who subjugated the Demon King, they also tend to grant a great deal of care to the Mitra Kingdom. So long as the Mitra Kingdom doesn’t do anything unimaginably terrible, the gods will basically stay extremely generous to the Kingdom.
This is also one of the reasons why the Kingdom is so special in the mortal world, and why the Capital is considered the center of the world.
However, even so, the Kingdom still can’t afford to provoke a Demon Lord.
It’s because the entire demon world is the Six Great Demon Lords’ territory. Add in the fact that the Six Great Demon Lords are extremely tight-knit, provoking one Demon Lord was basically equivalent to provoking the entire demon world, the entire demon race.
In addition to that, the Demon Lords themselves are on a completely other dimension when it comes to power. Not only have they all reached the limits of life, their personal unique skills also have the terrible powers that can break through that limit. They weren’t opponents that normal living beings can win against just by relying on numbers.
To put it bluntly, Aldia is considered the strongest legendary knight of the mortal world, with his level having reached as high as 98. However, faced with a Demon Lord, he may not even be able to last several minutes.
Even the nearly invincible king of demonic beast that is Yulin would likely not be able to last more than a few seconds against a Demon Lord.
After all, while Yulin’s level is high, demonic beasts don’t have unique skills.
Unique skills are a power that can reverse all the advantages, including from levels. Some might be very weak, but it’s also possible for them to be as strong as the Demon Lords’, making them capable of even exceeding the limits of life itself. Faced with an opponent with a powerful unique skill, just levels without a similar unique skill is completely worthless.
Thus, Yulin might be invincible among demonic beasts, but in actual battle, she may not even be able to beat Jacinta.
It’s also for that reason that all the demons wanted so much for Yulin to go to the demon world and humanize. It’s only when she awakens her unique skill then that she will finally step into the path of true invincibility.
However, even should Yulin gets that far, she would still only be recognized as someone “only below the Six Great Demon Lords.”
It’s because the Demon Lords are on a completely different dimension compared to all other life forms. One can’t judge their strength or weakness via common sense.
From the start, they’re life forms that exceeds the demon race, being close to the Demon King herself. Just that point point is enough to illustrate how different they are.
Right now, everyone, including the Kingdom itself, wants to figure out a way to understand just what the relationship between Shien and Airi are.
And the moment they confirm that Shien and Airi’s relationships really is close, and that Airi will in fact actually protect Shien, then the Kingdom would probably not dare to do anything to Shien no matter how angry they are, right?
Therefore…
“I really am in danger tonight then?”
Hmm. Her bad feeling is getting stronger and stronger.
The blessing from the Goddess of Fate was telling Lucy that she may have really encountered a major danger to her purity.
“M-maybe I should run away while there’s still time…”
Lucy finally surrendered, so she immediately got ready to run away.
But did Shien really not expect that?
He had long since prepared for that already.
Just as Lucy opened a window and got ready to escape through it she suddenly noticed an enormous figure right outside.
The pitch black dragon was standing out in the garden, staring at Lucy with a pair of enormous draconic eyes.
“…”
Lucy went silent.
That bastard. He actually set the dragon here to keep watch over her?
Lucy’s current mood can only be described with the following words.
“I’ll break apart right here and now.”
…
On the other side, Shein had arrived before a certain room and knocked on the door.
The door was quickly opened up, letting a beauty of ruinous proportions appear before Shien.
“What are you doing here with me instead of taking care of that oh so beautiful princess of yours?”
Sara greeted Shien with a teasing grin.
At this moment, this sovereign of the demon world was only wearing a partially transparent nightdress. Her belly was left bare, and her shoulders were only covered by thin straps. Even her back was left uncovered. Her skirt only reached up to her knee, exposing her smooth and unblemished lower legs. It fully shows off her voluptuous figure to the maximum, inflaming the desires of anyone who sees her.
Shien unconsciously took a few steps back and held his nose closed before speaking like he was at a loss for words.
“Dressed like this in the middle of the night. Who are you trying to seduce here?”
Those words made Sara roller her eyes at Shien in a beautiful manner.
“I’ve always been dressed like this in my own room. Besides, as you said it’s already middle of the night, around the time I go to bed, so is there anything wrong with me being dressed a bit more comfortably and thinly?” Sara chuckled happily, “Besides, even if I did plan on seducing anyone, who would even dare to come into my room?”
The moment she said that, Shien had already slipped past the gap next to Sara and entered her room.
“…”
Sara’s smile froze on her face.
Holy shit! He seriously dared?
Daring to lay his hands on the Treasure of the Kingdom is one thing. After all, her own sister is backing him up. But for him to dare to even get ideas about he sovereign of the demon race and the head of the Six Great Demons as well?
Did he think that he’s the bastard son of the Highest God or something?
Sara turned around and started looked at Shien with an unkindly gaze.
Shien not only did not back away in fear, but instead met her gaze head on and stared right back at her.
She had to admit it. Shien was probably the only man in all three worlds who could stare at Sara like that without any concerns.
Of course, if it was just staring at her body, then there was plenty of people. After all, Sara knew full well that her body was practically cheating, so no man would be able to help staring at her.
But faced with Shien, who wasn’t staring at her body but right in her eyes, that was something completely new to her.
“… Just what do you want?”
At that moment, even Sara was a bit confused, so she could only ask in a resigned tone.
Actually, Shien’s reason for coming here was quite simple.
“Since you know that Lucy is in my room, that means that you really have been monitoring me, right?” Shien grinned and spoke with fake kindliness, “In that case, you wouldn’t happen to try to watch some things that you shouldn’t be tonight, would you?”
Those words made Sara instantly understand why Shien came for her.
It looks like he’s here to give her a warning?
“Who the heck would want to see you guys do that kind of thing?”
Sara was grinding her teeth in anger.
“Alright then. Don’t blame me for not warning you then.”
Shien nodded before happily leaving.
Seeing Shien act in such a way, Sara was both pissed off and frustrated.
“What kind of Hero is he anyways?”
As she said that, Sara then ended up unconsciously smiling.
“That said, he is far more interesting than those past Heroes who act with fake propriety.”
…
“Hmm hmm humm~~~”
After leaving Sara’s room, Shien headed off in an extremely good mood toward the baths.
Shien was excited as he walked.
“I’m going to finally bid farewell to my single status.”
Shien really was so excited that he was about to start running.
All things are prepared, just waiting for the trigger.
Shien opened up the door to the baths, ready to quickly take his bath before heading back to his own room.
Unfortunately for him…
“You wouldn’t happened to have forgotten that I’ve been watching you too, right?”
Following a warp, another half amused voice entered Shien’s ears.
Shien’s excited expression froze on his face as if a stampede of horses ran through his heart.