Chapter 106
Unlike Kim Yul, who was pondering how to take down the First Prince despite being a hero, Roselin was faithfully living the life of a saintess.
“There we are. All done.”
“Th-thank youuu……!”
“Hehe, don't get hurt from now on, okay?”
A saintess was, by nature, someone who rescued those in the lowest places—the people suffering the most.
Today as well, she went around the slums using her divine power for the poor, who couldn't afford so much as a potion, let alone a single medicinal herb to apply to their wounds.
The goddess still hadn't answered her prayers, but if she had been watching, she surely would have smiled with satisfaction.
After making one round through the slums from dawn, it would normally have been time to return to the cathedral and pray, but.
Her footsteps instead lightly bounced toward a mansion on the western street.
According to her calculations──
“Kim Yul, you're diligent as always.”
“Good morning, Roselin.”
His main job was writing novels, and his side job was being a prospective hero.
She arrived to coincide with the time Kim Yul was leaving the mansion to deliver his manuscript.
At first glance, it looked like stalking, but Roselin was unashamed.
“Hero, you have to study your faith today, right?”
“…….”
Sadly, her hero was close to an unbeliever.
Of course, she had no intention of forcing her faith on him, but he still needed to learn firsthand how to accept the goddess's power.
Roselin periodically kidnapped Kim Yul, beat him this way and that, and conditioned his body so he could receive divine power more efficiently.
Of course, Kim Yul recoiled and whined like a girl each time, but it was necessary.
That way, she could produce greater effects with less divine power.
Watching Kim Yul's once fairly lively gait go all limp like a mollusk, Roselin giggled.
.
.
.
After forming a duo and strolling through the streets, Roselin and Kim Yul arrived at Novelpia headquarters—the president's office.
“I'm here…….”
“How are you, Chloe?”
Kim Yul, who entered looking like he was on death's door,
and Roselin, who entered bright and cheerful,
were both momentarily rendered speechless by the sight before them.
“I am…… not…… well…… desuwa…….”
Chloe's completely limp form, draped over the desk, was one thing.
But today, Chloe had equipped a new fashion item.
It was none other than.
“Why are you wearing bandages around your ears……?”
Bandages wound around both tips of Chloe's ears.
At Kim Yul's question, Chloe's eyes briefly sharpened into axe-shaped slits.
But.
- Coax it out of him!
If she revealed who had tormented her, next time it might not be her ears but somewhere else that got bitten……!
That was something she absolutely, absolutely did not want!
So Chloe's eyes returned to their gentle, round, docile state, and she merely slumped over the desk.
Elven secret technique.
Pretend to be weak and win sympathy!
“Hmm……”
Had her little scheme worked?
Kim Yul approached Chloe, who was sprawled over the desk, making an unnecessarily sympathetic face.
And fiddled, fiddled with the bandage.
“Hyaak!”
“What? Since you didn't go ‘Agyagyak,’ I guess it wasn't fake.”
The utterly heartless and evil Hero Kim Yul had mistaken it for Chloe pretending to be sick because the noble elf didn't want him fiddling with her ears……!
But Chloe was the one at a disadvantage, so she couldn't bring herself to resist and merely endured the pain gathering at the tips of her ears.
Instead.
“Kim Yul, have you perhaps run into some sort of problem lately?”
“Hmm? All of a sudden?”
Chloe began interrogating Kim Yul about his troubles.
Naturally, Kim Yul wasn't about to openly badmouth the First Prince in front of the daughter of a ducal family.
“Nothing in particular.”
“Isn't someone around you bullying you? Or bothering you? Stressing you out? Is there anywhere that hurts, desuwa?”
“Why are you acting like this today? What about you—why are your ears like that?”
“I slipped on the stairs!”
“……? Can slipping on the stairs break your ears?”
“Elves are such delicate and sensitive people…… Anyway, is Kim Yul really all right?”
Kim Yul had by now become addicted to kneading Chloe's ears and watching her reactions.
Having been bitten by an indescribable absolute entity, Chloe was desperately determined to find out what Kim Yul was hiding.
The two people's conversation began to run in parallel lines.
Roselin quietly watched the whole scene.
Unaware of what was in the two people's hearts, from her perspective,
it felt like a man and woman in the early stages of romance, gazing at each other tenderly and worrying over each other.
As a hopeless romantic through and through, Roselin could only call it a truly delightful sight, one that seemed certain to boost the birth rate before long, but.
“Hmm……”
Roselin felt that something, though she couldn't explain what,
was tickling at a subtle discomfort in a corner of her heart.
* * *
Due to their hostile diplomatic relations, the Empire and Kingdom had almost completely severed their exchanges, but people naturally felt even more intense curiosity about things they were told not to do.
According to a sufficiently developed smuggling mechanism,
the first edition of Novelpia published in the imperial capital in the morning could be smuggled into the Kingdom by afternoon,
and if the printing press worked hard, it could be republished by evening under the name ‘Novel Heaven.’
Naturally, copyright was never going to be respected.
But what place did copyright have in a revolution?
Rather, with the sole aim of spreading the spirit of Napoleon,
and under the noble cause of carrying out economic retaliation against the filthy, corrupt Empire, ‘Novel Heaven’ was gradually spreading throughout the Kingdom.
And the man at the forefront of it all.
Having discovered the newfangled phenomenon called revolution,
the man who actively ‘imported’ it into the Kingdom by roundabout means.
That was why even his nickname was ‘Napoleon of the Kingdom.’
“This…… isn't a revolution……!”
The revolutionary Reganor threw down the newspaper in righteous fury.
What did the author think his character was, anyway?
Napoleon had to be an utterly flawless being!
This sort of human side and.
Human failure must not be depicted……!
“Couldn't there be something wrong with the edition?”
Reganor asked his adjutant, desperately wanting to deny reality, but.
“It is definitely the Novelpia published in the imperial capital this morning, General.”
The answer only drove him to greater despair.
“Ulysses, was even he ultimately a dog of the Empire……!”
His misplaced fury struck the original author instead.
How much had Reganor looked forward to this ‘Egypt’ arc?
- Soldiers! Thousands of years of history are watching us!
The justification Napoleon used for deciding to set out was, ‘I will save the people of Egypt suffering under the violent rule of the Mamluks.’
As those words suggested, he nobly set out for oppressed Egypt and performed a miracle, annihilating the enemy forces with an overwhelmingly favorable kill ratio.
How stirring that sight had been.
Reganor had been positively bursting with pride, as though he were looking at himself after successfully completing a revolution.
But what was this parade of frustrating developments that followed?
The British fleet he had left behind in the homeland eventually chased after them, annihilated the French fleet, and left them isolated.
A massive rebellion broke out in occupied Cairo, and Napoleon even crushed it with extreme brutality.
How could a man who was supposed to be the people's hope and beacon treat them so cruelly……!
Well, that could happen.
But Napoleon shouldn't have done it.
“At this rate, won't it tarnish the image I'd painstakingly built as the Napoleon of the Kingdom……!”
“Regrettably, General, there is ample room for such an interpretation.”
Reganor despaired.
If he could only gain a little, just a little more popularity with the masses, he could have overturned this rotten Kingdom entirely.
And this disaster had to happen now……!
“Adjutant, can we send a message through the Empire's ‘import route’?”
“It is possible, General.”
“Then…… send the author a polite message of protest. Use whatever method you deem appropriate.”
For the cause of the revolution.
Napoleon had to be a perfect hero.
If he showed the proper sincerity, surely the author would sympathize with the cause, apologize for the erroneous developments, and publish a revised edition.
.
.
.
Two days later.
“Yes, this is exactly it……!”
Whether his ‘sincerity’ had reached its target or not,
perhaps because the author had also received a great many complaints in the homeland, Ulysses had prepared a truly perfect development.
He had planned a new expedition to show the Ottoman Empire, which had dared to declare war on revolutionary France, a lesson, and scored victory after victory at El Arish, Gaza, and Jaffa.
And against the epidemic that began spreading there……
Alongside a heroic depiction of Napoleon personally going out to meet and encourage the soldiers, heedless even of the possibility of infection,
there was even an illustration that captured the scene in exquisite detail.
At this rate.
It should be possible to resume the serialization of ‘The Great Revolutionary Napoleon’ in ‘Novel Heaven,’ which had been on hiatus for three days.
Since all the parts that might make Napoleon look like trash had been completely revised in the meantime, the flame of revolution would never go out.
And one ought to make active use of an opportunity like this.
“Where's the nearest hospital? I ought to pay a visit and offer some encouragement. Prepare everything.”
Reganor smiled in satisfaction.
But.
He never got the chance to go to the hospital and spread the flame of revolution.
“Krrrang!”
Before he lost consciousness, the only thing he managed to see was.
A gigantic tail covered in waves of gold.
* * *
“I've more or less grasped the level of this continent now…… It's so dull I could die…….”
To think that people who illegally translated and sold my work would suddenly show up and threaten me to revise the story.
If Nureongi hadn't been around, it would have been my first opportunity to wield the Hero's power,
but Nureongi growled first and flapped away.
Well……
Considering the Legend of the Mad Dragon,
those illegal-edition producers probably wouldn't be in one piece.
Anyway.
As expected, inserting illustrations had an incredible effect.
It had successfully salvaged Napoleon's reputation, which had been plummeting due to his complicity in the massacre of civilians, by making people reassess him with, ‘Still, he really cared for his subordinates!’
Originally, I had planned to include the scene where he suggested feeding the wounded soldiers opium—nom nom nom—and euthanizing them…… but perhaps I should leave that one out.
All that remained on the Egyptian front was Napoleon's withdrawal.
……I'm sorry, General Kléber.
I simply can't bring myself to include the line, ‘That damned little runt abandoned us like a discarded shoe!’ in the actual text of the novel…….
And once Napoleon returned to his homeland…….
the event that would truly put Napoleon at the center of the international stage.
The Coup of 18 Brumaire awaited him.
Before that.
“I never knew Kim Yul was so interested in charity work among the poor……! I look forward to working with you today!”
“……Yep.”
Together with Roselin, who had been moved by the illustration titled ‘Napoleon Visiting Plague Victims in Jaffa,’ it was time to begin an incredibly exciting and rewarding volunteer outing in the slums.
Right.
People ought to live good lives…….