1. Evade the Hero and Flee! 183 #21. The Stories of Others (2)>

#2 Their circumstance: the circumstance of a man aiming for the demon king’s position

“My lord, we’ve finished taking over the demon king’s castle.”

Despite receiving the subordinate’s report, the man with a massive physique didn’t even bother to nod once.

“Lord Aggreahrt?”

Feeling something was off from that behaviour, the subordinate walked up to his lord, only for Aggreahrt to finally reply with a quick nod. “Good. Finish dealing with the remnants hiding out in the surroundings, then prepare for a potential counteroffensive.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Aggreahrt watched the departing back of his subordinate before sighing out once more.

“..Something is making me anxious.”

For some reason, he’d been feeling uneasy for a while. Just when this uneasiness began taking hold of his heart?

Was it back when he heard those curse-like words from Mekel’s lips? No, it must’ve been before that. Way, way earlier than that. Aggreahrt realised just then that he had been feeling uneasy about something for a long time now.

“Right, it started from then, huh.”

Aggreahrt combed through his memories to trace the origin of his anxiety and eventually reached the destination he’d been looking for.

“It began when all contact from the four dispatched to locate the descendant of the Succubus race was lost. Yes, that’s it.”

His plans began going out of whack ever so slightly from that moment on, resulting in his forces attacking Belegrea’s faction.

“The situation hasn’t been good since then, too.”

Not good. That’s how Aggreahrt summarised his current situation. Whatever the justification was, the party attacking first would always find themselves in a politically disadvantageous position.

It’d been less of an issue if the previous demon king happened to be a tyrant or incompetent fool, but he was one of the great demon kings ever to grace the throne. So good was he that some even rated him among the top five in history.

That’s why the majority of the demon tribes that supported Aggreahrt still held favourable impressions of Belegrea, the daughter of the former demon king. The only reason why they chose to side with Aggreahrt was simply that their intentions didn’t match up with Belegrea’s.

“Not good. Not good at all.”

The demon continent was mired in deep confusion and chaos right now. To occupy the currently-empty throne of the demon king, the demon race’s great general attacked the former demon king’s daughter, resulting in her going missing without a trace.

Some quarters were even saying that Aggreahrt had the princess stashed somewhere and that he was simply pretending to be none the wiser to fool everyone. That’s how hostile the public perception in the demon continent was toward Aggreahrt at the moment.

“You can use power to make everyone submit, but you can never be their king without them willingly choosing you..”

Aggreahrt closed his eyes while muttering what the former demon king used to say.

‘The number of tribal chiefs complaining about me attacking Belegrea’s camp, ten. And the number of elders grilling me for the missing Four Devas, thirteen. How troublesome.’

The electoral process to select the next demon king would remain valid once it got going until a confirmable irregularity stops it.

*

#3 Their circumstance: a certain princess’s circumstance

She was feeling anxious; in too much of a hurry, in fact. It felt like crimson lights were constantly flickering disorientingly inside her head.

If she had her way, she dearly wanted to turn away the guest coming to visit the kingdom today. Too bad, she knew that such a thing was an unrealistic wish.

That’s how much of a bigshot today’s visitor to the Neidon Kingdom was.

“Please wait for me, dear sir hero.”

Princess Vera Ric Neidon muttered that to herself as hints of tears formed on the edges of her eyes, her mind still thinking about the dear hero. The hero who rescued her from the clutches of an evil dragon.

Just how desperately would he be waiting for her right now!

If it weren’t for that detestable fox-like woman appearing out of nowhere, Vera and the hero would’ve been enjoying their together-time by now!

With her brain 100% filled with her very subjective point of view regarding this situation, Princess Vera headed to the room with ladies-in-waiting to prepare herself to welcome the incoming guest.

“You look as beautiful as ever, Your Highness.”

“Thank you, Serel.”

When the lady-in-waiting smiled brightly at her, Princess Vera responded with a warm smile of her own, but her inner thoughts at that moment were somewhat different.

‘Ah, aaah.. Sir hero should be the one to whisper those words to my ears..’

The princess thought about the hero one more time. With more hints of tears in her eyes, she steeled her resolve once more.

‘I shall definitely rescue you, my dear hero!’

The last memory of the hero in Vera’s mind was him getting kidnapped by an evil wench. Sure, that assessment was quite far removed from the truth, but Vera firmly believed in her heart that sir hero would never willingly run away from her side.

“We still haven’t found their traces, I presume?”

“I’m sorry, Your Highness.”

“No, no need to apologise. It’s the fault of that evil wench. You and your colleagues haven’t done anything wrong.”

Princess Vera smiled as if she was fine with it, but Serel had been serving her since their childhood. She could easily read the true intent behind that smiling face.

“It’s all because we’re not good enough, Your Highness. None of us imagined that we’d lose sir hero to a lone individual.”

Sadness. Serel had never seen Princess Vera so sad in all of their time together. That only reaffirmed Serel’s resolve to locate sir hero no matter the cost.

“Thank you, Serel.” Princess Vera seemed to have understood what was in Serel’s mind because she returned a blindingly bright smile. “Well, then. It’s time that I get ready, yes? How much time do we have left?”

“About three hours still remain, Your Highness.”

“I see.”

Three hours. Depending on one’s mindset, that could be seen as either too long or too short. As the princess of a kingdom, that length of time seemed a bit excessive just to get ready for a visitor, but today’s situation was different.

“We can’t afford to lower our guard and give the Karuan Empire a pretext, now can we?”

The guest coming to see her today was someone in an even loftier position than Princess Vera.

The sole hegemony of the continent possessing the mightiest army on the land! The only nation deserving of the label ’empire’ on this vast continent! And a visitor hailing from such a nation was coming to the Neidon Kingdom, a small kingdom found in the northern part of the continent. Unsurprisingly, the royal court and the nobles were in a panicked uproar.