Chapter 128: Human Rights? Does It Exist?
Chapter 128: Human Rights? Does It Exist?
In the depths of the Theocracy’s royal palace.
“N-Nora? Wait a moment, calm down! Don’t! Don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t!”
Bam!
Inside a dimly-lit spare room prepared for the banquet, a golden-haired girl met eyes with a black-haired boy.
The passing of two years had brought about some changes in their appearances.
The black-haired boy, Roel, was growing more and more similar to the villain he remembered in the game he played in his previous life. His features had grown a little firmer and more masculine, resulting in his adorable appearance being replaced with a more suave and youthful image.
What stood out the most was his height. He had grown a fair bit over the last two years, resulting in his figure becoming much taller. His shoulders had also broadened a bit too. However, he had inherited the smaller physical frame of his spellcaster ancestors, so he didn’t look particularly bulky.
However, the changes Roel had gone through could hardly compare with Nora at all. It was said that puberty transformed a girl into a woman, and this saying was best exemplified here. She still had the same long, golden hair as before, but her previously still a little raw disposition had fully matured, becoming far more graceful and domineering than before.
She had grown a little taller, and her appearance became more mature as well. Even the most subtle of gestures from her exuded her confidence and a powerful air, making her seem more and more like a true empress. Her childlike adorableness had receded to accentuate her womanly charms, especially when it came to her chest. What had once been flat as an airplane runway had begun to protrude a little.
There was no doubt that Nora was getting more and more beautiful with time. Seeing how she was getting more similar to how he remembered her to be in the game, Roel was indeed moved.
But, before considering being true to his feelings, he had to prioritize his survival first. He could sense that the golden-haired girl before him was losing control of her emotions out of excitement. Within five seconds since they locked eyes with one another, the latter’s breathing grew heavier and heavier before abruptly pouncing on him, knocking him down to the ground.
The resounding ‘Bam’ sound from earlier came from the chair Roel knocked over as he fell to the floor. He quickly turned to the doorway and stared intently for a brief moment, but fortunately, it didn’t seem like anyone was planning to investigate the ruckus.
Roel wiped the sweat off his forehead before turning to look at the reddened young lady sitting on his body.
“Are you out of your mind? There are plenty of people out there! Why did you bring me here? Aren’t you supposed to greet all of the guests at your birthday banquet?”
“It can’t be helped. We haven’t met each other for two years now. You can’t really expect me to hold myself back, right?”
“Hold yourself back? Wait a moment! You… What are you planning to… Wuuuu!”
Before Roel could finish his words, his lips had already been forcefully sealed off by a kiss. He immediately stretched his hand forth to push the girl sitting atop his body away, only to find his hands clamped down on the floor by another pair of hands.
Muffled noises from the birthday banquet could be vaguely heard through the door, and it heightened Nora’s exhilaration. The intense feeling of excitement set her body ablaze. With the final sliver of rationality left in her mind, she reminded herself to practice some self-control.
“Huu, huuu. What are you doing all of a sudden?!”
“What am I doing? Can’t you tell? Kissing.”
“Do normal people who haven’t met for two years meet in a dimly-lit room like this and kiss one another in such a posture?”
“Is there any problem with it? We already did the same thing two years ago anyway.”
Unlike the panting Roel, the golden-haired girl still had plenty of breath in her to refute his arguments. Roel tried his best to pull his hands free, but it was to no avail.
“Give up. I have already reached Origin Level 4, you won’t be able to break free from my grip.”
“Why in the world are you even holding me down like this?”
“Do you even have to ask? It’s because I like it, the feeling of forcefully sweeping you away to a place just out of the sight of those young noblewomen flocking around you. Ahh, that expression of yours is truly adorable. Really, you should stop seducing me like that.”
“Like hell I’m seducing you!”
The perverted words that were spilling from Nora’s mouth left Roel completely speechless. He continued trying to struggle free, but under Nora’s incredibly aggressive stare, he eventually resigned himself to fate.
“Say, don’t we have our weekly calls? Surely those can be considered as meetings too, no?”
“Are you referring to the several minutes’ long chat we have every week with your little sister sitting right beside you?”
Nora’s eyebrows shot up as she spoke with a tone filled with sarcasm. It was clear as day that she was infuriated just thinking about it. In contrast, Roel simply looked a little awkward about it all.
Using the ‘Crown’s Bestowment’ ability of Ascendwing, Nora was able to project a hologram to meet with Roel once a week. The time limit of the ability was around five minutes. This was the skill that she had planned to use in order to check on Roel, but as it happened, the two of them were only free in the nighttime, the period of time Roel usually spent together with Alicia.
As such, an incredibly awkward situation occurred.
How was Nora supposed to flirt with Roel when Alicia was around, especially when she only had five minutes and wasn’t physically present at the scene? This was obviously a losing battle! In the end, she could only keep warning Roel to be careful of Alicia while the latter listened with an annoyingly nonchalant smile. Then, when five minutes was finally up, she would end up disconnecting in frustration.
Such calls were so meaningless that Nora would rather not have them at all. Yet, she couldn’t help but worry that Alicia would pull some sort of trick to take advantage of Roel that she ended up projecting her hologram each time anyway. However, to her exasperation, that foolish siscon continued thinking of his little sister as kin and continued cuddling with her.
Please! That young lass is also at Origin Level 4, but she still puts on that frail damsel act before you. Pretty much the whole world knows that she’s a prodigy except for you!
As soon as those thoughts came to her mind, she shot Roel a piercing, indignant glare. She really couldn’t understand how Alicia managed to brainwash him so thoroughly. Back then, when she told him that Alicia was likely to have already reached Origin Level 4, he even dared to shrug it off with a laugh!
Roel didn’t believe her at all! He thought that she was saying all of this due to her rivalry with Alicia. It made her so angry that she ended up ignoring him for half a month!
There’s really something wrong with that lass! I must save him from the clutches of that evil silver demon!
After Nora finally cooled down from that incident, she swiftly realized how severe the problem was. Due to the incident, she stood against all opposition and insisted on returning from the eastern border to hold a birthday banquet just so that she could meet Roel. However, when she finally saw him, she realized that the problematic one wasn’t just Alicia now.
There was a huge cluster of annoying bees that had started pestering him in the two years she was gone.
So far, Roel had already served as the proxy fief lord of the Ascart Fiefdom for two and a half years. During this period of time, he had made huge accomplishments. Most notably of all, he had established roads between all villages, towns, and cities, thus laying down the groundwork required for a swift expansion in commercial activities within the fief.
In the past, trade was mostly limited to the municipality that one lived in. No matter how many goods a business could produce, there was only so much they could earn in a single municipality due to limited demand.
However, now that it had become much more viable to ship goods out to other municipalities, the market had been increased from just one municipality to hundreds of municipalities all over the Ascart Fiefdom.
Due to that, the citizens of the territory were now more enthusiastic than ever in their work, and many businessmen had appeared amongst the people.
Be it agriculture, textiles, or most other industries, they grew swiftly within the past two and a half years. The growth in economic activities created a virtuous cycle, as the positive business environment encouraged more merchants outside to put their investments into the fiefdom. In fact, the local Sorofya Merchant Association even approached Roel to learn from him and build friendly relations.
‘A once-in-a-century prodigy in fiefdom administration’, this was the evaluation that the manager of the local Sorofyas’ branch had of Roel, as recorded in one of the investigation reports of the Xeclydes.
The swift growth of the Ascart Fiefdom brought Roel to the limelight, and more and more people were starting to notice this young man. Naturally, this included a particular group of people whom Nora would label as ‘vixens’.
Take those women from the Lucerne Ducal House for example, they were all so much older than Roel, and yet they tried to flaunt their charms before him, hoping to catch his attention. Nora was at the forefront of the banquet hall, greeting all of the noble guests one after another, but she had been discreetly keeping an eye out for this.
It was out of fury that she decided to drag Roel away and vent her anger a little.
“What were you talking about with those women earlier?”
“Those women?”
“The young misses from the Lucerne Ducal House.”
“Ah, them. They asked me for the key to the Ascart Fiefdom’s success, so I told them that it’s the construction of roads, but they simply wouldn’t believe it.”
Roel could understand why they would think this way though. He knew of the importance of establishing roads from his previous life, but the other nobles weren’t so privileged as him as to have witnessed the amazing prowess of globalization.
In fact, most nobles rarely visited those not very accessible smaller towns and villages as they were, obviously, not very accessible. On top of that, most people who were worthy of seeking an audience with the influential nobles were important people based in large cities, resulting in a lack of representation for those living in smaller villages and towns.
As such, it never occurred to them that there was untapped potential in smaller villages and towns that they could utilize to spur the growth of their lands.
To be honest, Roel was also a little uncertain about this since he was no expert on this—he was basically pulling out things he knew from his previous life and putting them into practice—but fortunately, things turned out fine in the end.
Also, the Ascart Fiefdom had not exactly been stagnant too. It was true that its economic growth had been lagging behind, but that was mostly due to a lack of supporting policies and infrastructure. Truthfully, many businesses in their respective municipalities had been refining their operations for a long while, which allowed them to swiftly scale up their operations as soon as the markets opened up. It was the accumulation of hard work over the past few centuries that brought about this swift, massive growth.
I’m standing on the shoulders of a giant.
That was what Roel often said, though most people hardly understood what he was talking about.
Maybe except for Grandar, though his interpretation was very different from Roel’s own. He would always giggle whenever Roel said that phrase before humbly expressing that it really had nothing to do with him at all.
Roel thought that his reaction was pretty interesting, so he didn’t bother explaining the real meaning behind the phrase.
“Is that so? Hmph, those frivolous bimbos. This won’t do, I need to rid the smell of them from you.”
Nora’s breathing began to hasten amidst her words, and she began to tug at Roel’s clothes. This left him aghast.
“W-wait a moment! Nora? What are you doing? S-stop it… Grandar!”
“Stop shouting. Mister Grandar is no longer around from the moment I saw you. Be obedient. I shall give you a small strawberry.”
“C-can you not do this? What if others were to see it?”
“I’m doing this for the very purpose of having others see.”
After a short struggle, Roel was pressed back down onto the floor, and an exquisite handcuff made out of golden mana bound his hands. Victory had been decided.
Time for me to have a bite of my dessert.