Chapter 60
Sex! Sex! Sex!
As spring drew to a close, the area in front of Rex’s mansion was filled not with birdsong, but with the panting cries of people.
Ironically, the demonstrators’ cries did not bear much fruit.
“Your Grace! Can you not hear our voices?!”
Rex, the shadowy lord who never appeared in public, did not show himself even in this situation.
Instead, to put down the protest with proper (?) force, Rex sent in the army.
“His Lordship’s orders. Disperse the demonstrators immediately. You have three warnings!”
Rex’s personal guard currently had two divisions.
The Fenrir Guard, which served as the spear sent to the battlefield,
and the Jormungandr Guard, which served as the shield protecting Rex and the citizens in the capital.
Since Peter, the leader of the demonstrators, commanded the Fenrir Guard,
it was naturally Duke’s personal guard that stood in the protest’s way.
- “What? Those are Sir Duke’s guards!”
- “Are we supposed to disperse?”
- “Who was the one who crossed the line!’
The Jormungandr Guard’s announcement threw the demonstrators into confusion.
Before the protest began, Peter had warned them again and again.
The law only protected protests so long as they did not involve violence.
So the demonstrators were not to loot shops, harass passersby, or commit any other crimes.
Because Peter had stressed this so much, the citizens followed the rules carefully.
But whenever a large crowd gathered, there were bound to be a few who broke them.
Whenever that happened, Peter or his close associates, who had blended into the crowd, dealt with them quickly, so the demonstrators’ ability to police themselves was quite remarkable.
Still, it was true that the demonstrators had occasionally come close to committing acts of violence, even if they had not gone through with them.
It was only fair for Rex to order the protest disbanded when he could no longer stand by and watch.
“Alas... So we’re the ones who’ve sullied the history of our duchy’s first protest...”
Peter lamented as he watched the approaching knights.
The duchy’s glorious early history had been sullied by foolish individuals swept up in their emotions.
This would not lower Peter’s standing, but that was not what mattered to the old man.
What mattered was that the first step had gone wrong.
Peter humbly accepted the order and prepared to disband the protest.
But then, a familiar voice reached the old man’s ears.
[Wait. Lord Rex doesn’t mean it that way.]
Peter’s shoulders gave a slight start.
The firefly spirit Rex had given his retainers was relaying Duke’s voice.
[You only need to keep facing off against the knights. Then you’ll understand Lord Rex’s intentions.]
Peter thought for a moment.
It did not take long.
Duke had been the one to tell him about the protest, and he was also the commander of the knights sent to suppress it.
He must have had a reason for saying this.
Peter calmed the agitated demonstrators and stood his ground against the knights approaching to suppress the protest.
Trusting Duke’s words, he squeezed his eyes shut, ignored all three warnings, and continued the demonstration.
Soon, a man who appeared to be a platoon leader in the personal guard shouted to the knights.
“Suppress the rioters!”
The citizens went pale.
If those knights whom Duke had personally trained drew their swords, the area in front of the mansion would be stained with blood before the citizens could even resist.
Some of them grew angry, feeling betrayed by Rex.
“So that man’s no different after a—!”
But the knights’ next actions left the people perplexed.
Instead of drawing their swords, the knights began spraying the demonstrators with water cannons.
“Huh?”
The demonstrators were taken aback.
This... is how they suppress us?
The platoon leader operating the water cannon seemed to share the demonstrators’ feelings, for he gave them an awkward smile.
“Guh. The rioters are putting up fierce resistance! Increase the pressure!”
When the platoon leader shouted as if reading from a script, Peter finally understood Rex’s intentions.
‘Ah! He means he’ll overlook our mistake!’
Though most of the demonstrators had protested peacefully, a few violent incidents had already undermined the protest’s legitimacy.
The problem was that, under the laws Rex had proclaimed, the protest had to be classified as a riot and suppressed.
If not, future protests might turn violent, so in a duchy that valued the law, it would be absurd not to punish them.
But Rex understood how hard the majority had tried, and that those few incidents were unavoidable.
That was why Rex had ordered a ‘suppression for appearances’ sake.
- I certainly put down this riot, but the rioters were so powerful that I failed. I don’t know how I’ll deal with any future riots, though. Go ahead and try it if you can.
It was as if he were saying just that.
Now there would be no problem at all.
The protest could continue, and if another demonstration turned into a riot, there would still be grounds to suppress it.
At most, this protest would be recorded as a riot, but anyone who could read even a little would know it wasn’t truly one.
A peaceful protest that was a riot in name only.
‘What a perfect solution!’
Amazed by Rex’s wisdom, Peter renewed his resolve.
‘This wisdom must not die out with this generation!’
The blind old man of Tier Seven took the water cannon head-on and shouted with resolute conviction.
“Your Grace! What matters in the union of man and woman is the man’s semen, and what determines that is his diet! Please take care of your health!”
““Please take care of your health!!””
As the water cannons struck them, the citizens bowed.
***
Meanwhile, Rex was in his office.
‘No! Why are they taking water cannon blasts like they’re at a water park?!’
The truth was different from Peter’s misunderstanding.
Rex had genuinely ordered the protest to be suppressed.
Taking advantage of the fact that a tiny fraction of the demonstrators had resorted to violence, he had labeled the shameful protest a riot.
However, even he knew how embarrassing the grounds for calling it a riot were, so he had ordered them to suppress it without killing anyone.
- “Water cannons... Yeah. Just use water cannons.”
There had been protests even in the year 2124, when Rex had lived in his previous life.
Protests demanding that AI be recognized as human, or that the system of 48 genders be abolished and reduced to men and women.
When that happened, the government would use either tear gas or water cannons.
And if things went south, they would sometimes turn the demonstrators into electric roast meat with Taser rifles.
Drawing on that government’s riot-control know-how, Rex gathered knights who could use water magic and ordered them to fire water cannons.
- ‘Well, water cannons should be more than enough to suppress them.’
The force of water pressure was enough to send even a sturdy adult man flying ten meters.
Since it would only leave people a little injured, there was no better way to suppress a protest.
But Rex was mistaken.
His standards were still rooted in his previous life.
In that frail world where grown men could be knocked over by nothing more than the pressure from a fire truck.
In this world, Rex’s water-cannon crackdown felt more like a tap from a toy mallet.
Not all the demonstrators were tough enough to withstand the water cannons, but half of them could treat one like a shower.
The average Tier of the people had risen under Rex’s rule,
some were naturally strong races, like dwarves and beastfolk,
and more than anything, water cannons without any killing intent were nothing more than a WWE match to Peter and the knights.
““Your Grace! This is a book called the Kama Sutra, written by the Incubus King! If you refer to it...””
“Aaaah!”
In the end, the suppression attempt failed.
If anything, some kind of misunderstanding seemed to have arisen, and the demonstrators praised Rex even more fervently as they panted and cried out.
Unable to take the stress, Rex slammed his head against his desk.
And while Rex was suffering in real time, Duke, the one in charge of the suppression, watched the protest from the office window.
‘What a spectacle.’
He was quite pleased with the chaos he had created.
‘Maybe I have a knack for behind-the-scenes schemes?’
When Rex ordered the water-cannon crackdown, Duke had given the platoon leader and the knights some instructions.
Never fire at ordinary citizens—only at knights, Peter, or sturdy demi-humans.
Naturally, the reason was that this protest, staged to mess with Rex, could not end so pointlessly.
Thanks to that, the water-cannon crackdown turned into a full-on water festival.
Seeing the chronicler’s eyes glittering in the distance, Duke figured the incident must have been interpreted favorably.
By and large, it could be called a successful riot (?).
As Duke leisurely admired his handiwork, his shadow stirred.
After Hana joined Rex’s service, she too had been given a special assignment.
The secret intelligence agency, Hell.
Her shadow magic was weaker in sheer firepower than other forms of magic, but when it came to espionage, no one could match it.
Thanks to that, she and her retainers were assigned to intelligence gathering and courier work.
Duke straightened his back, aware that an agent was about to emerge from the shadows.
“What is it?”
“Sir, urgent news. Elder Clambel appears to be near his final moments.”
“...”
Duke’s excitement from just a moment ago settled into calm.
Clambel.
His former adjutant, a gnome elder who had accepted his allotted lifespan.
‘He still refuses to advance his Tier to the very end.’
The old man had been eligible to advance one Tier.
He had accumulated enough insight to break through the wall, and there were even elixirs that could help him reach a higher realm.
But the old man had refused all of it.
- “Because there are things set in stone, I have been able to live with such dignity.”
The old man was a staunch philosopher.
He believed that, because he was an ordinary old man, only he could establish a philosophy from the perspective of ordinary people.
That was why he had refused to advance his Tier.
He said it was his duty, with the little life he had left, to complete the philosophy Rex’s people would learn from and live by in the future.
- “Sir. Thank you. You were the one who gave me this mission.”
Those were the words the old man had spoken to Duke when he stepped down from his post as adjutant.
Seeing Duke teach the knights and raise so many of them into superhumans while Rex ruled, the old man had once again realized the importance of education.
That was why he wanted to spend the rest of his life establishing a philosophy for ordinary citizens.
He sought to reject the specter of the Empire, which had raised its Tier by exploiting and killing people, as well as the selfishness of heroes,
and to create a world where noble knights like Duke could become the norm.
Duke, who had received the old man’s convictions, grew solemn.
He was only playing the part of such a person for amusement and self-satisfaction, while this old man truly held such noble ideals in his heart.
In front of him, Duke was too ashamed even to speak of chivalry.
The end was gradually approaching for this admirable old man.
“Let’s go. Show me the way.”
Without hesitation, Duke took leave and headed for the old man’s home.
At this moment, he was mindful not of the final boss, but of the perfect knight the old man had longed to see.
***
The old man’s house was modest.
The only things that had changed in the past ten years were the roof tiles and the plants in the vegetable garden.
Otherwise, little had changed.
As soon as Duke stepped into the entrance, he saw the old man’s children.
They were children with no family ties whom the old man had taken in long before the Providence Domain was founded, back when the knights had been going around freeing slaves.
Not a drop of blood was shared between them, but they were bound together by spirit and ideals.
Some were officials in the duchy, some were mayors of other cities, and some were educators who wandered the land, enlightening people.
One thing was certain: not one of them had gone astray. The old man had raised them well.
As Duke recalled each of the children in turn, the second son, an elf, approached with a solemn expression.
“Thank you for coming, Sir Duke.”
“I don’t see the eldest. Is he in his room?”
“My elder brother can’t come today.”
“I see.”
The eldest son was not an unfilial son.
He was a rabbit beastman, and he could not leave Rex’s side even for a moment.
Just as his father wished to pass his ideals down to future generations, the eldest son was there to pass down the true history, without leaving anything out.
Clambel, his father, had also urged him to do this when passing on the post of chronicler, so the eldest son was suppressing his emotions and diligently performing his duties as the chronicler.
“Father is waiting for you.”
Duke quietly followed the second son to the main room.
Creak, creak.
Whenever his boots stepped on the wooden floor, the old boards creaked.
- “A wooden floor is supposed to creak like this. It helps weed out mediocre assassins.”
The old man had said that once, but no one believed him.
Hana alone could turn into a shadow and reach the back of the old man’s head without making a sound, so what good was a floor like this?
The second son knew that the old man had saved even the money that could have gone toward the floor and spent it on his children’s education, and his expression grew more downcast with every step.
“It’s here, Sir Duke.”
When they opened the door, whose hinges shrieked as loudly as the old floorboards, they saw the old man in bed, breathing evenly.
103 years old.
Considering that he was a Tier Zero old man who had never trained, it was an age at which he had lived out his natural lifespan and then some—indeed, defied the heavens.
But his children felt differently.
‘It’s only been ten years...’
He had spent his whole life as a slave, an unrecognized philosopher, and a test subject, enduring every kind of hardship before he met Rex.
But after ninety years of suffering, he had enjoyed only ten years of happiness. His children could not help but feel it was unfair.
The second son let Duke into the room and then left.
- Hic... sob.
- “Brother, calm down. Sniff. Sir Knight is right there.”
The children’s voices came from outside the room.
Pretending not to hear them, Duke called out to the old man.
“Adjutant.”
“...”
“You’re getting up late today.”
“Ah, Sir Duke... It’s you.”
The old man struggled to speak.
Duke continued the conversation with him calmly.
“Why didn’t you call for Lord Rex?”
“He’ll be here soon... Soon...”
“Was there something you wanted to tell me?”
“Heh-heh. In my final years... I resorted to a bit of... trickery.”
Clambel pulled his left hand out from beneath the blanket and pointed to the drawer.
“I finished it. Actually... a year ago.”
“Then why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Because the ideas of the dead cannot be refuted.”
The old man formed a smile on his wrinkled face.
“My strength had faded... and I no longer had the confidence to outargue the other company commanders. I couldn’t ask my children to take on that role, either. So I tried this little trick.”
Duke thought of the company commanders Clambel had mentioned.
The First Company commander, who despised democracy and revered the rule of philosopher-kings.
The Second Company commander, who valued personal growth through hardship, more hardship, and even more hardship.
The cynic who advocated a cold, pragmatic political system, the Third Company commander.
‘Mm. True.’
Those lunatics respected the gnome adjutant’s ideas only because they shared a goal and were colleagues; they had never agreed with his philosophy.
If those nutjobs got the chance, they would badger the old man on the verge of death until they had somehow secured proof that they had refuted him.
The old man knew their personalities well, so he had chosen to close his eyes without leaving them any evidence.
“As a philosopher... it’s a shameful little trick.”
Of course, the ideas of the dead could be refuted.
But the ideas of the dead held far greater persuasive power than those of the living, and countless others were bound to speak on their behalf, so they did have an advantage in any argument.
Still, Duke had one question.
“Then why tell me?”
“Someone has to find the book written by a dead old man, don’t they?”
“Isn’t Lord Rex there?”
“I don’t want to add the departing old man’s lie to the back of a boy already being whipped by fate.”
“You knew?”
“Heh-heh. My eyes haven’t grown dim just yet. Though I only realized it recently.”
Most of Rex’s retainers and officials thought he was a perfect superhuman.
The three company commanders each believed Rex had achieved their respective philosophical ideals,
Ari thought he was a capable lord who was a little shy around people,
and Peter believed he was an unquestionably worthy lord who lacked nothing in terms of ability.
But Clambel thought differently.
The old man had seen through Rex’s true nature.
A boy gradually growing through a life full of luck and misunderstandings.
(Though he looked like a boy, his age was nearly fifty.)
“Lies are a burden. For someone who lives for eternity, there can be no harsher burden. I’d like you to carry a little of this burden for me, Sir Knight.”
Duke nodded without hesitation.
He locked the drawer containing the book and, as always, played the part of the noble knight.
“I’ll open that drawer after you’ve passed on.”
“Thank you, Sir Duke.”
Lying was second nature to him.
He was confident he could keep it up for the rest of his life.
There was no one more suited to this task than Duke, whose triangle of conscience had rounded into a circle and then crumbled into dust.
“Thank you... Sir Knight...”
Clambel murmured in a small, sleepy voice.
As if saving his last conversation with his lord for later, the old man rested for a while.
Duke gave the old man some time to close his eyes and left the room.
‘Did he see through me, too?’
As he left the room, Duke wondered for a moment, but soon dismissed the thought.
What did it matter, anyway?
He did not feel the slightest need to silence the old man.
Either way, to the old man, Duke was a noble knight.
“Though your body may fail, your spirit will live forever.”
He said it to the old man, who might still be listening, then left the room to wait for Rex.
Two hours later.
Rex arrived at the house and had a long conversation with one of the founders,
One hour later.
A black flag was raised in front of the great sage’s home.