Chapter 23

A few days after it was decided that Zenjiro would make his debut in society, Octavia, having left the palace, visited the Marquess Marques family's townhouse, which was located very close to the palace.

The building, with its abundant use of white marble-like stone and numerous arches, was clearly from the same era as the palace, even to the untrained eye.

The main residence, which had existed since the same era as the palace and was situated extremely close to it, clearly demonstrated the Marquess Marques family's standing in the kingdom.

"Please stop here. I'll walk the rest of the way."

Octavia, who had passed through the gate of the townhouse in a magnificent two-horse-drawn dragon carriage, called out to the servants sitting on the driver's seat.

"As you wish."

The middle-aged driver, who also served as a guard, answered briefly and stopped the dragon carriage quietly with practiced rein handling.

"Please be careful, Lady Octavia."

"Thank you, and you too."

Octavia, taking the hand of a young maid, stepped down from the dragon carriage. It was the hottest season of the year. Octavia squinted at the aggressive sunlight, but the temperature inside the gate was at least five degrees cooler than outside.

This was due to the artificial ponds filled with water placed around the garden, and the trees planted to allow the wind to flow from the water towards the house.

While this might be uncomfortable for a modern Japanese person, it was not so for Octavia, who was born and raised in the Kingdom of Carpia.

Octavia, who seemed to accept being surrounded by guards with swords at their waists and maids in a very natural way, walked quietly from the gate to the main entrance of the house.

The path from the gate to the entrance was paved with reddish-brown cobblestones to reduce the heat reflection, and on either side stood tropical trees with bright flowers. The large red and yellow flowers resembled hibiscus.

The colors of the Kingdom of Carpia were generally vibrant, not just in natural objects. The long dress Octavia was wearing was a bright blue with a glossy finish. While the shape was a modest one that did not reveal too much of her figure, the color would be considered 'flashy' by modern Japanese standards. At the very least, it was not the kind of dress a married woman in her mid-twenties like Octavia would wear in everyday life.

When Octavia finally reached the main entrance of the house, the large double doors opened slowly from the inside before she could say anything.

Standing on the other side of the door were two sturdy men who had pushed it open and a refined elderly man.

"Welcome back, Lady Octavia."

The elderly butler of the townhouse greeted Octavia with his usual calm voice, to which the young marchioness replied with a smile.

"I'm back, Celio. Is he in the usual room?"

"Yes, my lady. The master is waiting for you upstairs."

"Is that so? Please tell him I will come after I change and freshen up."

"Yes, my lady."

"Thank you."

Octavia smiled gently, as if to comfort the elderly butler who bowed respectfully, and then, with the maid in tow, walked lightly into the depths of the house.

---

About half an hour later, Octavia met her husband, Manuel Marques, the Marquess, for the first time in half a month in one of the rooms in the house.

"Welcome back, Octavia."

The Marquess, rising from a wooden chair that looked well-used, opened his arms to welcome his much younger wife.

The Marquess was a portly middle-aged nobleman. He was probably in his mid-forties to early fifties. He was not particularly tall; standing next to Zenjiro, who was 172 cm, there would probably be little difference in height. His waist was thickened with age, but his short, neatly cut hair and well-groomed mustache, which retained a lustrous black color, made him look younger than his actual age.

"It's been a while, my lord."

Octavia, showing her husband an unadorned, genuine smile, received a light embrace. After a moment, the portly husband and the slender, petite wife sat down facing each other in the seats set in the corner of the room.

The sunlight streaming in from the window was as hot as ever, but the wind blowing through the room was surprisingly cool, thanks to the moat with flowing water below the window.

The portly Marquess, after quenching his thirst with iced tea brought by a maid, began to speak with a slightly serious expression.

"You've worked hard, Octavia. I'm sorry for the sudden request."

"No, it was a great honor to be entrusted with the important task of educating a noble person. I should be the one to thank you."

"Hmm, I see. Yes, you're right."

The Marquess, as usual, let out a wry smile without hiding his expression at his wife's completely unguarded response.

Generally, women in high society are skilled at concealing their words and expressions, but this young second wife was one of the few exceptions. If her words and actions were all an act, the Marquess would likely fall into a serious distrust of women.

"So, what was Zenjiro like? I'd like to hear your candid opinion."

"Yes, he was a very pleasant person. He had a high desire to learn and seemed to be someone I could trust as a person."

"Hmm, I see."

The Marquess nodded at each of his wife's words and listened for a while to her assessment of the queen's companion.

Octavia's judgment of people, except for the flaw of being "too kind," was generally reliable. If one took her positive comments at about one-tenth their value and magnified her negative comments tenfold, one could form a rough idea of the person.

Translated into the Marquess's own terms, it seemed that Zenjiro was a man who was "too lenient with those below him," "lacked any semblance of ambition or drive," and "had enough intelligence to understand his position."

Honestly, he was not the ideal personality to serve as a foothold for meddling with the royal family. A man without ambition, conservative, and yet rational, was difficult to involve in a conspiracy.

Nevertheless, Zenjiro was, in fact, the only male of the Carpia royal family. It would be a waste to leave him alone just because he was difficult to manipulate.

After a moment of contemplation, the Marquess asked for a straightforward opinion.

"Then, Octavia, if we were to assign a concubine to Lord Zenjiro, what kind of person do you think would be suitable?"

Octavia, who was born into a high-ranking noble family, should have been familiar with such topics, but to her surprise, she smiled wryly and shook her head.

"I think it would be best to hold off on that for a while. I have only seen the Emperor and Lord Zenjiro standing together a few times, but from his usual words and actions and the stories of the maids serving in the harem, I can sense that they are very much in love.

If a concubine were to be introduced into the harem now, she would probably have no place to stand, I think."

Of course, the position of a concubine is generally much lower than that of the empress. Moreover, in this case, it was not a "king, empress, and concubine" but a "queen, her companion, and a concubine."

Usually, the only advantage a concubine has over the empress is the king's affection. If there was no room for a third party to come between Zenjiro and Queen Aura, then indeed, the future of any concubine thrown into the mix would be grim.

"Hmm, is it that serious...?"

"Yes."

The Marquess, taken aback by Octavia's response, scratched his head.

The Marquess was neither dull nor inflexible, but the idea that a man could love "Queen Aura" so deeply was somewhat beyond his imagination.

As evidenced by his choice of Octavia as his second wife, the Marquess's taste in women was generally in line with that of the typical nobleman of the Kingdom of Carpia.

That is, a "good woman" was one who did not overshadow the man, supported him silently from behind, and did not make a fuss.

From the Marquess's perspective, Aura Carpia, as a queen, was a "woman of such talent that it was a shame she was born a woman," but as a woman, she was far from charming.

To confirm, the Marquess asked again.

"Does Lord Zenjiro genuinely love Queen Aura?"

"Yes. In the first place, the only reason a man without ambition or desire for power would leave the world he was born and raised in to come to this world is his love for the Empress, I think."

To be precise, the reason Zenjiro accepted his marriage to Aura was half due to his love for Aura and half due to his desire to escape from his half-black company. However, only Zenjiro himself knew the details of this.

Nevertheless, if Queen Aura was Zenjiro's type, it would be a difficult situation for the Marquess. The Kingdom of Carpia was a powerful nation in the southwestern part of the continent, but there was no one like Aura in the Marquess's network.

"Hmm. If that's the case, it might be best to support the relationship between the two emperors for the time being."

The Marquess muttered. The Marquess family was already a prestigious family with considerable power in the current regime. While it was almost instinctive for high-ranking nobles to scheme for the prosperity of their clan and the expansion of their territory, the Marquess did not need to take risks.

If the relationship between the queen and her husband was that good, it might be best to support their honeymoon for the time being to improve the queen's impression of him.

In fact, it was a clear fact that the queen having a child with her husband was a higher priority than the husband having a concubine to spread the royal blood.

"Yes, I think that's the best course of action."

Octavia nodded with a genuinely happy smile at her husband's conclusion.

As a high-ranking noble, Octavia understood that the marriages of nobles and royalty were primarily about the continuation of bloodlines and the connections between families, not romantic love.

However, on an emotional level, she still wished that loving couples could build happy families without interference.

The Marquess, who had no way of knowing his wife's inner thoughts, muttered.

"Still, I can't understand Lord Zenjiro's taste in women."

The mutter, which could be considered a crime of disrespect if it reached Aura's ears, was a genuine expression of the Marquess's thoughts.

---

At the same time, Queen Aura was visiting the royal army training ground on the outskirts of the capital for the first time in a while.

The plants in this part of the southwestern continent were known for their abnormally fast growth, and if not tended to, fields would quickly become overgrown with weeds. However, this training ground, where thousands of armed humans and hundreds of running dragons constantly ran, was a different story.

Without any special maintenance, the area was covered with bare red earth as far as the eye could see.

Today, the training ground was being used by the "Cavalry Archers," the elite of the kingdom's army.

In general, the creatures used to carry people in the southern part of the continent were called "running dragons," a large type of lizard.

While running dragons were slightly slower than the "horses" used in the northern part of the continent, they boasted a body size twice that of a horse and power far beyond that of a horse. Compared to the large horses used as military horses in the northern countries, running dragons were said to have three to five times the power.

However, as cold-blooded animals, they had the fatal weakness of becoming sluggish when the temperature dropped below a certain point. In the southern part of the continent, however, this weakness rarely surfaced.

Aura, accompanied by General Fabio Pujol, turned her gaze to the more than a hundred cavalrymen lined up before her.

Aura was dressed in military uniform. The uniform, which was based on the color red, a symbol of the Carpia royal family, was decorated with gold thread on the collar and sleeves, but was designed primarily for ease of movement and durability.

However, even the thick fabric of the uniform could not hide Aura's ample chest and large buttocks. The thick belt around her waist, necessary to hold a sword, only emphasized her slender waist.

Inevitably, her slender waist highlighted the fullness of her chest and buttocks.

If Zenjiro were here, he would have surely exclaimed, "What a feast for the eyes!"

Of course, the well-trained kingdom knights would not cast lecherous glances at the queen during training.

The vast training ground was as silent as if water had been poured over it.

"..."

The silence itself spoke of the knights' level of training. If they were only humans, it might be different, but all the knights before her were mounted on running dragons.

For over a hundred running dragons to gather in one place, not disrupt the formation, and not let the dragons neigh in excitement was no small feat.

Satisfied with the result, Aura nodded and lightly tapped her left hand with the short whip in her right hand, giving the order.

"Begin."

"Yes. Then, let the training begin!"

Receiving Aura's words, General Pujol, standing next to her, barked orders to the cavalrymen in a loud voice befitting his impressive physique.

"Ou!"

The cavalrymen, raising their voices like battle cries, spurred their dragons to show the fruits of their daily training.

The cavalrymen displayed their skills with enthusiasm, showing the queen and the general the results of their daily training.

Some held long spears and charged, others skillfully navigated through mud and fallen trees set up to create rough terrain, and others, the highlight, demonstrated mounted archery, shooting arrows from the backs of their dragons at distant targets.

Aura, who did not mind getting her face and hair dirty from the rising dust, spoke to General Pujol standing beside her.

"Quite impressive. You've done a good job training them."

The ambitious general bowed his head respectfully in response to the queen's words.

"Yes, thank you. Currently, the cavalry's strength is just over eighty percent. I hope to reach the planned number this year or next."

"Eighty percent in five years. Well done, General."

The cavalry was the backbone of the national army and suffered the most severe damage in the last great war.

Replenishing the cavalry required a tremendous amount of money and time. It was necessary to raise and train the dragons while also training the people who would ride them.

If it was possible to return to full strength in six or seven years, it could indeed be considered an achievement. However, the new knights being replenished were young and lacked combat experience. While the numbers were returning, the quality was far from that of the wartime cavalry.

In response to the queen's praise, General Pujol shook his head without breaking his stern expression.

"Those words should be directed to the dragon stable caretakers. They are the ones who deserve the most credit."

"You're right, I'll do that."

Aura nodded sincerely in response to General Pujol's words.

If there was one point where running dragons, as riding animals raised by humans, were significantly inferior to horses, it was their lifespan.

While the average lifespan of a horse was twenty to thirty years, the lifespan of a running dragon was about fifty years.

A longer lifespan meant a longer period of active service on the battlefield, but it also meant a longer time to raise a dragon from birth to practical use.

While a horse could be trained as a military horse in about four or five years after birth, a running dragon took at least ten years.

In other words, all the running dragons that had been added to the military in the past five years had hatched from eggs during the war.

During the war, when the budget was drastically cut, the caretakers had to secure food for the much larger dragons than horses and raise them without letting them die, which must have been a tremendous effort.

In any case, the strengthening of the cavalry, which was the backbone of national defense, was a significant piece of good news for Aura.

"By the way, it seems we can increase the military budget somewhat next year. Think about how to use it in advance."

Aura informed General Pujol as if she had just remembered.

The additional military budget was none other than the tax evasion by local nobles that was discovered by Zenjiro's recalculation.

After several days of intense negotiations with the local nobles, Aura succeeded in increasing the tax revenue to the national treasury. She decided to allocate most of it to the military budget.

Originally, the local nobles had used the money for the military budget of the local armies. Using such funds for anything other than the military budget would, in simple terms, result in a reduction in the country's military power.

While the relationship with neighboring countries was currently stable, it was not a time to confidently reduce military spending.

In response to Aura's words, General Pujol smiled slightly for the first time that day.

"Really? Understood. Once I confirm the amount, I will gather opinions from the main personnel and compile the military's requests."

"Yes, I'll leave it to you."

Aura nodded in response, keeping her gaze on the training cavalry.

"Understood. Fortunately, most of the main military personnel are gathered in the capital to attend the cocktail party the day after tomorrow. I should be able to submit a report without taking too much time."

In response to General Pujol's words, Aura's right hand, holding the whip, twitched.

The cocktail party the day after tomorrow, of course, referred to Zenjiro's debut in society.

While she had known this, it seemed that this ambitious general was actively seeking a connection with the queen's husband.

(Well, how will it turn out?)

The ambitious general and the husband, who lacked any trace of ambition, seemed like oil and water at first glance, but it was interesting how such people could become close friends.

(I don't want him to be influenced in a strange way by this ambitious person, but it would be overstepping my bounds as a 'wife' to interfere in male friendships.)

For Aura, it was a matter of watching and waiting, but the fact that she was not particularly worried was a sign that she was beginning to trust Zenjiro.

"My sister is also looking forward to it. I would like to introduce her to Lord Zenjiro if possible."

"Understood. I will also convey that to my husband."

In response to General Pujol's usual display of unhidden ambition, Aura returned his words with a calm voice, her heart not wavering much.