Dragon’s Bloodline Chapter 84

The Queen’s Marriage

“So you’re Maal’s groom!”

Due to being glared at by Ria’s Dragon Eyes, the cat beastkin solidified completely.

And his name was Niko.

They were at Maal’s new house.

It was completely cleaned out and had the minimum required furnishings. Maal seemed to have prepared it all with money she’d received from Ria.

Ria was saying mean stuff, but she knew that herself.

“Well whatever, let’s hear how you two fell in love.”

She sat down on a chair with a thump. Since it was for a beastkin to use, it was a bit small.

Though she’d said she wanted to know how they fell in love, they were childhood friends to start with.

However, he gained experience in that following year during his travels out to find Maal’s whereabouts.

Hearing Ria’s most repeated propaganda of releasing beastkin during the war against Cordova, he joined in. It looked as though he’d earned himself a few achievements in attacking their supply lines.

During all that, he appeared to have found Maal after searching for so long.

When he returned to the village after the war with Maal, he learned that she came back after being released from slavery.

Getting her consent, they held a wedding and now there they were.

Even when she’d asked Irina—who had participated in it—about what happened, she only really remembered that the food was luxurious.

“I see. Got it.”

Ria’s Dragon Eyes vanished, finally releasing Niko.

“Eeh!? Ria-chan’s getting married!?”

“Yeah, Carla and Shizuna are already my wives, and Fio talked to her parents.”

Niko’s reaction was natural, too.

“Heeh, congratulations.”

The couple had that sort of reaction.

*

Once she had them promise to come to hers, Ria and the rest returned to Manesh.

It was simple for Ria since she’d be wearing men’s clothing, but Carla and Shizuna each had to prepare dresses. In particular, Carla had to pick a dress that didn’t constrict her abdomen, so she decided to pick a style that had lace for decoration.

It was a place where not many humans would be allowed to enter, but since Irina wasn’t a human anyways, she basically had a free pass to anywhere she wanted to go.

“D-does it suit me?”

“Un, super pretty~”

Since Irina said that, Shizuna was a bit happy.

The time from the announcement to the date of was just a single month.

Thanks to that, it was even more difficult for Guinevere who was responsible for coordinating it, but her duties matched her hobbies, so she willingly performed her work.

That person was none of than Ria.

Were ryuujin hermaphrodites or asexual? At any rate, since they’d made it public that she could have children even with another woman, there were many, many female candidates sent over.

“And so, please swing the swords one thousand times. If you are unable, Her Majesty is not interested.”

Even so, there were uncharacteristically muscular, brave woman among them who were among the knight orders, but once they were interviewed by Carla, most of them also fled in dejection.

How were they supposed to compete against such a beauty?

But even among those, some made their way past the walls of muscle and beauty.

At this point, it was practically the same thing as a presidential interview. Some of the people interviewed had the disposition of only loving women in the first place and were introduced to others that were the same as them… even though it wasn’t a matchmaking place.

Guinevere made the proposal with a laugh, but Ria wasn’t fine with just any girl.

Shizuna was amazing cute when teased despite being strong-willed and she’d felt destined to be with Carla from the get-go. Fo fio, she wanted to answer her pure feelings with goodwill.

“Let’s finish with the Millennium first. If we make it through that, maybe we’ll do a harem or something.”

“The first in line for the throne is Guinevere’s son, so even if they give me more wives, wouldn’t it just be for me? No matter how you look at it, how many women would be happy being married to a woman?”

But even so, there were many nobles sending their daughters to be Ria’s wife.

When she’d asked Guinevere because she was in the same room handling government affairs, that was the response she received.

“All of the blooming young women are coming to be either your wife or your mistress, do you know how many surplus noble males of suitable age there are?”

Accordingly, Ria made a place for noble men and women to meet up and started a matchmaking party.

“And there’s a report from a Cornada count. It says that another small revolt appeared, so they would like for you to make another appearance soon.”

“Guaah! Why’s there another revolt already!?”

“Um, I’ve been thinking about that…”

“What if you promote the Cornada earl to regional earl? That way, he would have the ability to mobilize the surrounding nobles.” [2]

“No, that’s good! Good! That guy doesn’t feel like the kind of person who’d rebel, so let’s give him more stuff he can do!”

Like that, she threw another problem onto someone else.

*

The day of the ceremony finally arrived.

Representing all of the vassals, Guinevere praised Ria’s militaristic exploits and rule, praying that her reign be a long one.

It was only one of the purposes they were gathered that day, but it was given a large portion of time.

In addition, she issued a decree.

This decree was famous for releasing Cao Cao from China’s Three Kingdom’s Period (220-280 CE), but it was a declaration that would use every person with the ability to help, no questions asked.

The reason for that was because if she didn’t do it, she would be buried in documents.

In truth, a certain marquis who was supposed to be retiring would be working once again.

So he would make a fringe anti-Guinevere faction for the current Ogress, but since the fundamentally required Cordova was no longer there, it was irrelevant.

Leaving the man who was able to do the paperwork to be secretary of state in name only by putting him under Guinevere’s watch as prime minister, even though there were a lot of nobles who had opposed the former Manesh returning to court, everything was going as Ria planned.

It’s a story for later, but on this day, Ria formally proclaimed Uslan Marquess Carla as her queen and Baroness Shizuna as her consort.

Even if the Millennium was approaching, she overthrew Cordova and brought peace to the land.

(Ah, I also have to go through the legal reforms huh. Well, maybe I can just pick up some street-side scholar and leave it to them?)

Many unplanned things happened throughout, but at any rate, with this event, the Ogress Archduchy had shown its might.

*

More than five hundred thousand citizens benefited from the temporary stalls and free gladiator competitions that were held in Manesh.

In the corner of a noisy dining room, Halt and Ferna were sipping some stew.

Ferna ended up sticking with Halt quite forcibly, but she didn’t have any vision for what they should do from here on.

As for what Halt was thinking, it was probably something that would clash with the Black Cats…

“We’re going to Casalia, followed by Lemdria after that.”

That was where Black Cats’ base was located.

“It’s dangerous!”

Saying that, Halt put on his usual radiant smile.

“Meanwhile, I want you to defend this country. To be precise, the Manesh duke and the Uslan marquess.”

Those two were dragonslayers.

“Mmm… they may or may not be attacked by some demon or some organization’s assassins. Particularly the pregnant Uslan marquess.”

And so, how would the Black Cats make their move? They should be on the side of humans, but since there was a possibility that Ogress was working together with the demon tribe, Ferna couldn’t tell what sort of decision Yamato would make.

In the and, that was all.

“Yes. I’m a coward, after all. I’ll run away as soon as I think it’s dangerous.”

Things like that were the pitfalls of being in love.

“Understood.”

For right now, for Ferna, that was enough.

Footnotes:

Briefly explained this in one of the first chapters, but an inner palace is a place for woman to live “within” the palace proper. Think of it as a no-guys-allowed area.

I don’t get these noble ranks. Looking up stuff on google, “regional earl” is meant to be something like a Marquis… but Marquis (the word for it at least) is used in this chapter as something different. Blah.