Chapter 774

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

It’s a question that has puzzled humanity for thousands of years, and to this day, no clear answer has been found.

Every time I enter Freide’s room, I can’t help but think of that conundrum.

I’ve always been curious.

“Did she develop this hobby because she had no friends, or did she have no friends because of this hobby…?”

“Are you picking a fight the moment you step in?!”

Ah, I accidentally said my thoughts out loud.

“But it’s true, isn’t it? Look at this room, just look at it. The smell of blood, the stench of organs, beastman fur flying everywhere, and it’s so dark and gloomy. Is this a slaughterhouse or a living space? Even the underground prison would be more peaceful than this.”

“I have a saw, you know?”

Freide, her face red, growled like a cat and waved the saw she was holding back and forth.

“Go ahead, try to scratch me. If you can draw even a single drop of blood, I’ll call you ‘big sister’ from today onwards.”

Of course, it wasn’t threatening at all—it was so funny that I could barely hold back my laughter. I shrugged it off and plopped down on the sofa in the corner of the room. Naturally, it was made of beastman hide.

“Ughhh…”

As I casually lit a cigarette, Freide screamed like a newborn pterosaur hatching from its egg and crying out to the world for the first time, clutching the back of her neck.

“I’m going to settle this today…!”

Freide, born without the virtue of patience, was about to embark on a final, unwinnable struggle when—

“Um… Freide, big sister? Can we come in too?”

“Freide, senior?”

Rana and Damien, who had been standing a step back since I broke the door, peeked their heads through the doorway, gauging our reactions.

“Rana? Damien? Oh. Uh. Yeah. Just give me a second. Let me clean this up.”

Finally regaining her senses, Freide hurriedly put down the saw and pulled out a large leather cloth to hastily cover the beastman corpse she had been dissecting.

Since the leather cloth was also made of beastman hide, I couldn’t see what difference it made.

“So, you *do* have some awareness that your hobby is embarrassing?”

“Shut up!”

How could I? The comedic timing was just too perfect. It’s ten times more satisfying than hitting Or-han.

—

It took about twenty seconds before Rana and Damien could finally enter the room.

During that time, I happily watched Freide frantically clean up the room while puffing on my cigarette.

And then,

“Wow…”

A sound closer to a groan of disgust than admiration.

Despite Freide’s desperate attempts to hide the beastman dissection scene, Rana took one look at the neatly arranged jars of organs on the shelf and took a step back, her face pale, effectively sending Freide’s sanity to some unreachable place.

I couldn’t help but burst out laughing at the sight.

This is too funny.

How could she not think to hide those? She must have spent so much time in this insane interior that she thought it was normal.

“Haa… haa…”

It took Freide a considerable amount of time to regain her composure, whether from shame or humiliation.

Enough time for me to finish a cigarette, playfully mess with Rana’s hair until I got bored, and then stop.

Finally calming down, Freide sat cross-legged on the leather chair across from the sofa, glaring at me like I was her mortal enemy, and let out a deep sigh.

“…So, what brings you here?”

She tried to act casual, speaking in her usual tone, but her ears were still bright red, and her shoulders trembled slightly from her heavy breathing.

Out of conscience, I decided to pretend I didn’t notice.

“Just came to see your mess. It was as entertaining as I expected.”

“Get out!”

So touchy. Can’t even take a joke.

“Just kidding. Do you really think I came all the way here in this cold just for that? Of course, I have other business.”

“Are you here to destroy something else, you barbarian who already tore down Pailoon’s walls and broke my door?”

“That’s some harsh slander. If anyone heard you, they’d think I go around smashing everything in sight. The walls collapsed because of the Mage Tower, and the door broke because you locked it, right?”

Okay, maybe I’m half responsible for the door, but the walls? Not my fault. Right?

“Do you even have a conscience? Wait, that’s a stupid question. If you had a conscience, you wouldn’t be able to walk around with your head held high.”

“Like you just did?”

I chuckled as I replied, and Freide started trembling again, looking up at the ceiling as if she was about to have a stroke.

Oh my, look at her veins popping. Her blood pressure must be at 400.

—

After taking a deep breath and returning to normal blood pressure, I explained to Freide why we had come and our plans moving forward.

I didn’t mention that we were looking for the Holy Sword, though.

“So, you’re planning to rest at the mansion for a day or two?”

“Yeah. Rana will stay there, and Damien and I will come and go as needed, or maybe camp out in the Sky Mountain Range.”

We had set a rough deadline of about two weeks, but until we found the Holy Sword, it was hard to say how long it would actually take.

We had a general idea of where the Holy Sword might be, but we wouldn’t know for sure until we got there. Plus, moving around based on a game map and actually finding the place in real life are two very different things.

“Just the two of you? Camping? Milia actually allowed that?”

“We have Cascador, so it’s fine. The unicorn will vouch for my purity.”

If I couldn’t ride the unicorn, things would get a bit serious, but as long as Cascador wasn’t crazy, that wouldn’t happen.

“Honestly, you’re worrying for nothing. Even if the world ended and only Damien and I were left, I wouldn’t even think about doing anything like that with him.”

If it came to that, we’d just have to accept that the world was doomed, right?

“Of course!”

Rana chimed in enthusiastically, agreeing with me.

It was the obvious response. Damien, who was practically in a common-law marriage with Milia, doing something like that with me would be an unforgivable sin in Rana’s eyes as a priest.

“Well, whatever you do there is none of my business.”

Freide snorted softly, brushing her long silver hair back and shrugging lightly.

“I don’t know what you’re looking for, but if you happen to come across any beastmen while you’re at it, take care of them.”

“Are they coming down often these days?”

“Lately, they’ve been showing up quite a bit. Not in large groups like before, just three or four at a time… but they keep attacking the Northern Wall reconstruction site, and it’s really annoying.”

Freide clicked her tongue in irritation, her face scrunching up.

Beastmen interfering with the reconstruction of the Northern Wall… That wasn’t good news.

With Ryu-rik dead, the throne of Baraykruz must have passed to Oleg. If his underlings were disrupting the wall’s reconstruction, it was a clear sign that Oleg, like in the original story, had his sights set on the Empire.

The fact that they were only sending small groups suggested that they were still far from rebuilding their full strength.

But without soldiers, what could they do? They’d just get surrounded and hunted down by larger forces.

With the warriors of Baraykruz wiped out in the last invasion, it would take them a considerable amount of time to recover their losses.

—

After that, we chatted about various things that had happened recently.

Though, for Freide, it was just her usual idyllic days of hunting and dissecting, so most of the stories were about the battles I had been through.

Things like what happened in the east, the situation with Dane, and how I might end up becoming a queen against all odds.

Freide’s eyes widened when she heard I had lost my left arm, and she tapped on the prosthetic hidden under my sleeve. When I mentioned the possibility of becoming a queen, she made the blasphemous comment that Leopold must have finally lost his mind.

“Did he go crazy after losing his hair…?”

If all the bald people in the world heard that, they’d probably rip out Freide’s lush silver hair.

How can she say something so harsh? Bald people just chose the wrong race at birth; they’re not insane lunatics.

“So, from now on, you must address me as Her Majesty, Queen of Ha-shal-leur!”

“Give it a year, and you’ll probably be overthrown.”

“……”

…As if I’d be overthrown in just a year.

Even if I don’t know, the bureaucrats under me are quite capable.

“Oh, and recently…”

I also told her about the great battle that had taken place west of the Sky Mountain Range.

The story of the fairies and dragonkin who fought each other to mutual destruction. Freide laughed so hard she clutched her stomach, calling them idiots.

When I mentioned that we had captured two of them as prisoners, she showed as much interest as her father had.

Since I had asked Grand Duke Valdemar to handle the interrogation, she couldn’t get involved herself… but she did mention that if they were sentenced to execution, she might try her hand at taxidermy with them.

Dragonkin might look decent as taxidermy, but fairies? That’s a bit… you know… kind of like a mad scientist, don’t you think?

—

As we chatted about all sorts of things, the sun had already set.

“Ugh…”

Rana, who had been yawning for a while, eventually lay down on my thigh and fell asleep, mumbling in her sleep and fidgeting with my waist or thigh.

“Hmm… Oh, so that’s how it’s built.”

Damien, seemingly intrigued by the weapons Freide had decorated the room with, kept taking them down to examine them and then hanging them back up.

I don’t know why he’s bothering, since he only uses a greatsword anyway.