Author's Note: Alright back to the regularly scheduled program. Happy Easter y'all, no holiday chapter this time but lets be real, would you rather a random forced egg hunt? Or the trial of the King! Those of you who haven't yet please got check out my spin off story published yesterday based on the April Fools Chapter. Please Read, Review, Favourite, Enjoy please stay safe!
Chapter 47: Trial of the King
The Four Legendary Heroes reappeared inside of the summoning room, it was too small for all of their parties so they would have to go back and get them soon enough. Setsuna already gave a pint worth of her blood, used sparingly it would be more then enough to class up the entire dog tribe into Inu-gami, which would keep Shieldfreeden off their backs, until the other countries started looking for 'blessings' too. But that was that, and this is this.
"You purified your cursed weapon?" Tatsuya stated the disbelief on his features clear as day. "Why didn't you do that a month ago!?"
"I've been trying to, but my body's ki was all messed up ever since I got that thing, so I had to wait until it wasn't doing that anymore." Thank you Tact, may you forever rot in hell.
"Does that mean you won't be able to do the same for us?" Ikki asked looking at Setsuna concerned.
"I can, but since when do you two have a cursed weapon?" Setsuna asked looking at her two associates concerned.
"I copied something in a church laboratory to figure out what it did, my mistake." Ikki admitted while he awkwardly scratched the back of his head.
"The day after the summoning ceremony." Tatsuya admitted prompting the others to stare at him horror. "Oh please. I'm the only one of us here who hasn't resorted to it's use."
"Fair." Ikki stated shrugging his shoulders.
"I'll get ready to purify everyone as soon as the trial is done." Setsuna stated as her group walked down into the castle's throne room.
The king was in chains while healing magic was being applied to his face, it looked like someone had beaten the ever loving crap out of him, Naofumi was upset he missed it.
"My apologies I started without you." The queen stated as she once again unfolded her fan while she glared contemptuously at her husband. "In any case, we may now begin the trial of Prince Consort Aultcray Melromarc the Thirty Second." The Queen stated her voice ringing throughout the room. One of those video crystal things were set up to the side in order to record the whole entire thing. "The Prince Consort stands accused of illegally summoning the Four Cardinal Heroes, participating in the framing the Hero of the Shield of the Rape of the Second Princess Malty Melromarc, and the wrongful holding and exile of several lords and ladies from their estates. Do you deny these accusations Aultcray?"
"I do not." The man they had called King stated. But King was not a word that existed in Melromarc's vocabulary, no they don't have kings, they have a Queen, everyone else was just related to her in some fashion.
"The Heroes may question the Accused at their leisure." The Queen stated, she clearly intended to get more out of this meeting than just the King confirming his guilt over the matter, nor would Naofumi or the others feel satisfied with just this much.
"I have questions, lots of them!" Naofumi snapped as he sauntered over to the Prince consort and glared him down. "Why?"
"If you are referring to the accusation of rape-" Naofumi nodded in the affirmative. "-then because it's the only decision I could have made to keep you alive." Naofumi glared at the old man mouth agape in blatant disbelief, even the queen's eyes had gone wide in surprise at the sheer audacity of the statement.
"That's bull and-!"
"Let's imagine for a moment had I done as the Queen had asked me after the four of you were summoned and saw to it you received special treatment of the four of you. Firstly, you would be engaged to marry our eldest Malty, or in the extremely likely event that she wasn't able to keep her blatant Psychopathy in check, Melty her younger sister." Naofumi muttered 'as if' to the statement having seen said younger sister. At least the mystery of why the Queen looked so young and her daughter so old was solved, if she had her when she was only 10 years old! Also explained the age gap between the 'prince' and the queen too. "Within the first day of your adventure together, both of your throats would have been ripped out in the dead of night by agents of the anti-shield faction." Aultcray stated bluntly, mercilessly, and truthfully.
"A faction you allowed to run wild." The Queen stated not letting her husband's actions off.
"Yes I did. The First wave proved the necessity of that. Of what going against the majority of the noblemen of this country will accomplish. Your best agent drown in a sea of monsters and his people enslaved. You may wish to treat that mistake as a bludgeon and beat the stubborn with it until they break. I am not so foolish. You left to ensure their would be no wars abroad while the waves loomed, I stayed to ensure there would not be a civil war while you were gone." There was truth in that statement, of what ifs and bigotry and old grudges left unchecked.
And now things had gone as he had planned, thanks to the church's mind controlled armies they could perform a 'church-ectomy' at whim, anyone spouting anti-shield or anti-demihuman propaganda was arrested as a brainwashed church agent and would not be released until the Heroes cleared them: read never. The Queen had returned to over-rule the motions dictated by a false king and release the noblemen trapped inside of their gilded cages, fresh from hashing out deals that would make the rest of the world reliant on them for the near future, and with free excuse to give those same noblemen favourable treatment.
"Protect me!? Is that what you did!?" Naofumi snapped snarling as viciously as a rabid dog.
"Yes I did. The defence would like to present their first piece of evidence now." The King stated and a shadow moved to provide, a stone knife, a pair of leaves twisted together with a medicinal packet in between, the seeds of the bio-plant fruit. "Do you recognise them sir Hero? What would you say if I told you every item here represented a attempt on your life one of my agents foiled?" Naofumi made a startled face as he looked through the inventory. The knife, the bloody knife that he used to cut his meat during his first meal with Raphtalia wasn't there and he never noticed it! "Oh don't get me wrong, it was only for the first few days and a few times after until you met up with the Sword Hero. You started to pick up steam around then, acquiring legitimate means of defending yourself and the forces to do so. Good call with buying the defective merchandise from the Slaver, no one took you seriously enough as a threat to warrant actually trying to kill you until after the first wave. And why would they, you need to be alive for their efforts to frame you as a monster to stick, no matter how many captive bandits they yank out of the farms and dress up with their little reproduction demon shields." The King had that smugness about him, of being correct in every word he said and every move he made and knowing it, suppressed just enough to appear to be humble.
"There is no possible way you could've known about all of this in advance!" Naofumi snapped glaring at the king in anger.
"All of it? No. I do however possess a reasonable enough understanding of the people I want gone that I can make a number of educated guesses and plan accordingly." The king admitted with true humbleness, though he sneaked in a brag as well. "You should try Speed Chess, it's a favourite pass time of my family back in Faubrey. It'll help sharpen your flash decision making skills. From what I could tell it can use some improvement." Naofumi had to be restrained from trying to beat the King to death by Setsuna, once she pulled him off of him she then spun around and nailed the King in his face with the back of her hand. It seems that it was her time to voice her complaints.
"The people of Seatto? The ones who you abandoned to the waves and then Rabier?" The self-proclaimed demon snapped.
"Patoo!" A single tooth left the Prince Consort's mouth and skipped across the ground. "And what would you propose I do to change that?"
"Send the army!" Setsuna snapped glaring at the King angrily.
"I tried!" The King snapped levelling a angered glare at the Spear Hero. It seems that he too knows the anger of being accused of not acting when when he did. "But I did not have the authority at the time! That right rested solely with Lord Seatto!" The King took a deep breath. The frustration was there, that his wife trusted a bastardised son and man who spent more time abroad merry making with enemy nations than her own husband but he needed to put a lid on it. "A fact that his rivals took full advantage of stating that no call for help had been given, even then I had to sort out the political cluster-fuck that you my wife left to brew and did not address before I gained control over the nation." Setsuna had heard the stories from Keel and Rifana and Naofumi from Raphtalia, they weren't even dry from running away from the dogs into the ocean before the 'knights' of house Rabier came for them. "By the time I could do something I realised I shouldn't."
"Oh really? And why is that?" Setsuna asked in a voice that was calm but really not at all.
"'All slaves formerly of Seatto territory are to be released immediately.' Would you like me to review what that declaration would have resulted in?" Aultcray asked looking at Setsuna suspiciously. "First: the people who had made a investment and now realised that they would not be getting that back: they would have been sold off to Zeltoble, or in the case of the ones who had bought perfectly good torture dolls and realised they would be losing them any way, kill them. Then what control I did have on them would be lost."
"Control you have abused. Seatto's daughter has been locked in this castle's very dungeons since the days after the wave, and she isn't the only one." The Queen stated looking like she wanted to beat up her husband again, she also wanted to tell him that the young lady Seatto is her god daughter but refrained, he already knew that. "I would have answers for that."
"You forget how little authority I have, just a gentle reminder you didn't give me the authority to act on your behalf. Something about being blinded to our Daughter's psychopathic tendencies?" To be fair he was blind. Initially, up until he got the report on her second or third fling. "Did you really think I've gone stupid in my old age?"
"The fact that you were blinded in the first place is reason enough to believe you've lost your touch." The Queen stated with a scowl.
"I could say the same to you. Trying to shove a radically different ideology in order to reform a country might be something to do in times of peace, but unless you stick around to follow through you just divide a country, so to avoid any more waves being ignored in the future I had to remove the people who would be ignored and put them somewhere safe!" Setsuna tightened and released her fist, processing the information. Monsters popping out of thin air, civil wars, racist bigots. For fucks sake she thought she was through with the Bullshittery of the Warring States Period.
"And now?" Setsuna asked cocking a suspicious brow.
"If they want to keep their power they will change their tune. They will either get on the carriage or be trampled by it's filolials. Church-ectomy successful." The King stated prompting Setsuna to let out a unsatisfied scowl as she returned to sit with the others, Tatsuya followed up as he looked down at the bound king.
"Tell us about the summoning." Tatsuya stated arms crossed.
"My wife was taking too long, what level was the boss anyway? 20 40? On top of that we were last in a comparatively long list of people who could do the summoning." The King looked like he was about to continue but was interrupted.
"Describe comparatively." Tatsuya stated bluntly.
"We were fifth country in line, of the other four three of them hates us and only one tolerates us. That didn't speak well to our odds but we might've been able to make do, provided the summoning worked. But they didn't. Faubrey's first attempt failed, then they abused their power for a second, and a third, and a fourth! Exactly how long did you think the waves would wait for us? But then I had a thought!" The King continued to explain, there was a desperation there, of creation beating down his back, of nightmares from the sky falling like rain drops, there was only so long that he could bend before breaking. "If they won't come to us one at a time, then what if they came all at once?"
"You didn't have any consideration for the people you'd be dragging away from gods know what?" Tatsuya asked his tone still a little too cold to be neutral.
"Never been a problem before by all accounts." The King stated shrugging his shoulders.
"Whatever Hell is about to be unleashed over there hasn't happened yet." Setsuna stated as Tatsuya turned to face her. "I met someone, said he was raised by one of the Heroes. Sadly though you can't talk to him, The bastard murdered him which I took offence to. His master use to punt back and forth between her world and this one all the time apparently. On the subject of time, it apparently stops while she's over here, but while she's there time here continues as normal."
"Interesting." Quantum mechanics? Not beyond the realm of possibility. This information changes things massively. "No further questions, at least not until after I've processed this information, even then I doubt they'll be aimed at you." Thus Tatsuya returned to sit with the others.
"Does the sword Hero have nothing he'd like to add?" The Queen asked eyeing Ikki suspiciously.
"Nothing I've the right to say." Ikki had not been made to suffer like Naofumi had, and in comparison to the threat of war and extinction being held back in high school again paled in comparison. "Setsuna has alleviated all the concerns I've had about all of this. If you do intend to sentence the Prince Consort today then do please hurry along. There is a wave to prepare for." And from what he heard here today everyone would be happy about this.
"The Death penalty!" Naofumi growled doing his best snarling dog impression.
Even after all of that, especially about that. The King expected nothing less, as the leader of the conspiracy to set back the Queen's reformation efforts and summon the Heroes anything less would be seen as going soft on him.
"I'm afraid that I cannot do that." The queen stated simply. "In spite of all that he has done he still commands the fear and respect of many of our neighbours, he holds greater value as a living pawn than a dead appeasement." She was going soft on him the former king concluded.
"Don't think you can weasel his way out of this!?" Naofumi snapped glaring at the queen pointing his finger accusingly.
"I have no intention of anything of the sort. In place of death you may choose anything else. You could for example hack off his limbs, flay him alive, he could be sentence to spend the rest of his life as part of the cleaning staff and be worked to death in the most horrifically disgusting places in the kingdom." The king quickly concluded his wife wasn't going easy on him at all, she was keeping him alive as a useful deterrent while inflicting as much pain and suffering on him as humanly possible. "Do you mean to say that a mere instance of suffering is enough to alleviate all of the pain and suffering that you have been subjected to for these past couple of months?" The Queen cocked a interested brow.
The familiar light of madness entered Naofumi's eyes again as he looked down on the King, Madness that gave birth to a curse that would consume the world if he let it.
Thus it was so that a message was spread throughout these four corners of Melromarc and from there to the world overall. The former Prince Consort of Melromarc, Aultcray Melromarc the Thirty Second, Wisest King of Wisdom, Hero of the Cane, Shall be henceforth be known as Trash and his daughter, Malty Sophia Melromarc formerly the eldest daughter of the royal family, Shall hence forth become known as Bitch and her Adventurer alias, Whore.
"Naofumi-sama...!" Raphtalia just saw the video crystal making the declaration from the tavern in Shieldfreeden that she and the others had been camped out in and the only thing she could do in response was smack her head against the table drunk. She just knew that he had something to do with this.
Naofumi had been the first one sent through to Shieldfreeden to get his party members back, he had the most there after all, course that also meant that he'd have to deal with more attempts on his virginity but that was his battle to fight. Ikki on the other hand was the first person whose weapon Setsuna had been tasked to cleanse, his curse was the lightest after all. Then would be Tatsuya who in exchange for a favour from Naofumi had been tasked to repair their trailer for Filo, the bird somehow managed to use it as a battering ram to carve through Shieldfreeden all the way to the royal palace, afterwards would be Naofumi whom Setsuna estimated had the worst of the lot of them.
"Are you doing well Sir Heroes?" The Queen walked into the room where Setsuna was working to purify Ikki's Dagger of Mob Mentality. He didn't know how to remove weapon forms from his sword so this would be the next best thing, he wondered what abilities it would take on after being purified.
"As well as can be expected I suppose." The dagger lost it's sinister green colour after Setsuna was finished. However when Ikki went to examine it...
'?. Equip Bonus ? Main Ability ? 7Hours'
"Oh great. One of those days." Ikki stated as he let out a sigh.
"What is it?" The Queen asked looking at Ikki suspiciously.
"Setsuna might've broken my sword." Ikki stated as he went off to feed something to his sword to figure out what is going on.
"I trust you have no intention of going on anymore rampages?" The queen asked looking at Setsuna as she took the seat Ikki had been occupying a moment ago.
"For the moment? No. And it was justified since the bastard murdered my friend!" Setsuna has repeatedly stated this over and over again and she was starting to feel increasingly annoyed and enraged by the fact that people kept asking her this same question over and over again.
"Yes Nero the Claw Hero and Griffin King." Setsuna was admittedly momentarily dumbstruck by the Queen's statement. "Do not look so surprised. Nero is well known to me: he helped to broker the peace arrangements between our two countries. Whatever his species may have been: he was a good man. You aren't alone in your rage, despite the destructive battle you had with the Whip Hero we have been able to obtain plenty of evidence about Nero's claws in his possession. It would be one thing if the claws had chosen to give themselves over to him, but the fact that he also had the Axe, Hammer, Projectiles and still retained his whip? Then there was his attempt to steal your Spear. Never in the histories of our nations has one of the Four Legendaries jumped ownership from it's summoned hero, the brief period of time in which he wielded your spear before you purified and reclaimed it doesn't count. Such a brazen act can only be interpreted as a prelude from Faubrey to declare war on the rest of the world at long last, as many of us have feared he would for over a century now."
"Exactly how old is this guy?" Setsuna asked cocking a suspicious brow.
"130 years." The Queen stated as something screeched to a halt inside of Setsuna's brain. "Thank you. That was the reaction I was hoping for. While you were in Siltvelt you described a tradition employed by the Kings of your world in which they legitimise their conquering of neighbouring territories by taking the women of the royal and noble families and enslaving them as sex toys and reproductive partners. The exact term you used is a Harem I believe, though the term is used differently in this world, meant to refer to willing partners in a relationship that is either mutually beneficial, romantic, or both. Either way the King's intentions have far less to do with any pragmatic plan for ruling and vastly more to do with sating his personal desires."
"Do I want to know?" Setsuna asked cocking a suspicious brow.
"Short answer: No." The way the Queen said the word said everything, whatever twisted desires this triple digit geezer indulged in, it was way worst then anything Setsuna could think up, and she was a bonafide demon.
"Isn't he really hated?" Setsuna asked wondering how this situation came about.
"Yes. By all the Legendary Weapons, the Seven stars and the gods of your world: yes. But that is not unusual in his country. Faubrey has a habit of marrying the legendary Heroes and their families into the royal bloodline." A deeply disturbing chain of thought for Setsuna, considering she was the only female among the four. "They create our version of Harems, mass produce children, they in turn get into power struggles with one another, do everything that they can to one up each other. Faubrey's royal family was born out of that power struggle."
"So if everyone already wants you dead, why not do whatever you like?" Setsuna guessed and the Queen nodded.
"It doesn't help any that the Faubrey royal family has gone out of it's way to ensure that only the 'pure blood' of other worlders remains in their family." The Queen stated somewhat amused by the implications of inbreeding, lots of inbreeding. "So basically, just going off of the four of us, their royal family potentially has a combination of Blazer, Demon, genetically engineered magician and whatever the hell Naofumi is in their veins? Is that how this is?" The Queen snapped her fingers in the affirmative.
"Well that's good to know..." After all, Setsuna would probably have to kill him one of these days. "Anything else about their not so lovely country I should know about?"
"Various details about their army, might be somewhat good to know since theirs is the wave that comes after ours. I have an offer in mind for the other three, one that should bring them up to the eighties, but you? You already exceed that don't you?" The Queen stated letting the implications sink in.
"Ah fuck I'm going to have to deal with them aren't I?"
Review Section: So then, posting responses for 46 here, responses for my spin off chapter has been posted for the new story that was posted yesterday.
RonaldM40196867: True. There have been controversy, so yes. The false rape accusation has garnered rage but it also carries a more important lesson, just because someone has been accused does not mean they are guilty, that is a lesson many people need to remember in this day and age.
Xenvic: The staff will soon be making a reappearance, but not until the spirit turtle.
superpierce: Thank you for saying so.
Necrogod: Takt is what you get when you mix together Motoyasu's horny womanising attitude, Ren's childish antics and Itsuki's self righteous bigotry with a obsession with power. Your welcome.
Azure-Star-Dragon: That does seem to be the case now don't it?