Chapter 5 – It Seems to Be the Unveiling
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And then the day of the unveiling was at the horizon. Due to them having rushed through the schedule at a neck-breaking pace, Renya and the others feared that no one might come to the induction even after being invited, but officially the ceremony was held without a hitch, based on a strong-arm policy of denying any problems and the slogan that everyone should band together to fight the demon king, the source of all danger on this planet.
“Are you okay? I mean, in various ways…”
“What are you worried about, Master ~nano? The human relationships with the leaders of the different countries? The funds needed to prepare the ceremony? The workmanship of the battleships? Or the clothing and script for the engagement announcement?”
“Somehow I feel like an inappropriate statement had found its way into your remark towards the end?”
“Master, for a girl, this is the big occasion on a grand stage happening only once in a lifetime ~nano. The man should stoically endure the whole procedure ~nano.”
“Sometimes folks do this several times in their lifetime, you know?”
“Master…just how many fights do you intend to pick ~nano? Frau won’t be able to follow up on everything either ~no.”
They were having such a master-servant conversation, but at any rate, the ceremony had been announced to all powers among the continents and thus was set to take place.
“Umm, Shion? All powers among the continents…does that even include the demons?”
“Oh, Ro, welcome back. Wouldn’t it be way too pitiful to only exclude my partner, Emil, and her friends for our gathering? Of course, I’ll invite them as well.”
“Will it be alright to invite demons to a ceremony surrounding the subjugation of the demon king?”
“I’m sure some people will complain about it, but in the worst case, we’ll make the disappear physically, so it’s fine.”
“You won’t describe that as fine. Ah, Shion, congratulations on your engagement.”
“Thanks, Rona. It’d be great if you could quickly find a nice partner as well.”
“Suddenly treating me like a stranger…moreover, did you just implicitly tell me to stay away from you?”
“I mean, I want to be allowed to immerse myself in a newly-wed feeling for a while.”
They seemed to be having such a master-servant conversation, but Renya decided to cast his eyes down and plug up his ears so that he couldn’t hear anything.
Just like that, the days flew by, and at last the big day of the unveiling arrived.
The guests, who had gathered in a hurry, were led in groups into the underground venue through an elevator which Frau had explicitly built for this occasion. Beforehand, in preparation of this event, all the curtains hiding the surface facility had been removed.
Of course some people had the opinion that it might be better to unveil the ships after flying them out on the surface, but because of the labor and resources it would consume, and above all, because of Frau’s plain comment that there was no place to land those ships on the surface, the three warships remained underground while the guests were taken to them for the unveiling.
As the location was located deep underground and since they were guided to a workplace that had just recently been dominated by dust and loud noise, a part of the guests became somewhat offended by this whole arrangement, but seeing that the archduchess, emperor, queen, and their retinue silently let themselves being led around, no one could really voice their complaints strongly.
Furthermore, the sight at the destination was so stunning that the guests, who had reluctantly kept their mouth shut, completely forgot about their complaints. What they were allowed to see was such a vast space that they doubted whether they were truly underground, and three warships that were moored in this cave. Those ships, which were too gigantic to be fully perceived at a glance, immediately overwhelmed all those looking at them, wiping any memory of complaints away.
Next to those ships was the official venue for the ceremony. The huge variety of dishes densely crowding the tables had been carefully selected by Frau who was single-handedly managing the housework in the Kunugi Earldom which was highly evaluated for all its food being extremely tasty.
The maids, who weaved their ways through the tables to wait on people had also been handpicked by Frau, and even the various types of decorations and furnitures prettying up the venue knocked the guests out of their wits as all of the items were so valuable that a simple noble should never be able to gather all the items present here.
“Just when did you collect all of these items?” Renya asked Frau next to him while looking at the array of ridiculously expensive items, ranging from bigger items such as lighting equipment which illuminated the venue to smaller items such as the knives placed next to the dishes.
Currently he was standing in a corner of the venue, overlooking the whole event while smacking his lips at the dishes.
“Frau is a hard worker ~nano. She has laboriously and steadily collected all these whenever possible ~no.”
“Ah, I see… By the way, I feel like quite a few people are missing.”
Renya’s friends, who were living in Klinge, were supposed to join the occasion. However, the only ones of Renya’s usual party present were Keith, who Renya had invited over telling him that he probably wouldn’t get another chance to participate in a ceremony with so much sweet stuff being served, and Mayria. Everyone else was nowhere to be seen.
“The hero team has naturally assembled in the central part of the venue ~no.”
If the three warships played the leading role as means to invade the demon king’s castle, the heroes played the leading part when it came to killing the demon king. As if only logical, the debut of the five heroes had also been inserted in this time’s ceremonial program. Including Kurz, all heroes had dedicated seats prepared for them.
“The saint team should be nearby as well ~nano.”
“Saint team?” Renya asked about a group he hadn’t heard of before.
“It’s a group of four women with each having been chosen from one race, who had been taken somewhere by that Kilie woman. Rona is part of that group,” Mayria answered in Frau’s stead.
“What do you plan to have them do?”
“During the battle against the demon king, they’ll go back to their respective races and continue offering prayers for the subjugation of the demon king at their altars.”
By surrounding the demon’s domain from four sides through prayers of pure maidens, the heroes’ powers will be boosted while the demon king’s will be weakened, according to Mayria.
After thinking about the meaning behind that explanation for a while, Renya eventually muttered, “So they’re the homestaying team, huh?”
“You could describe it as such as well.”
“Who was chosen from the elves again?”
“Croire-san, the little sister of the elven hero, was chosen.”
It automatically meant that Rona and Croire wouldn’t be able to come with them to the demon king’s castle. The remaining two were Kaede for the beastmen and Charlotte for the dragonoids.
———- End of Part 1 ———-
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