Chapter 128

The coronation was also the start of the festival.

Lyssel hadn't wanted a grand, overbearing ceremony.

He'd said it was enough if the day was remembered as a good one by everyone, and so the form of the coronation became, in effect, a festival.

Skipping all the formal procedures, Lyssel came out wearing nothing but the crown and gave the people a short greeting.

"I'll be counting on all of you from now on."

That really was the whole of it.

Behind him, Duke Cherity was waving his arms and feet — every signal he had — to indicate that the god's name had to be proclaimed, but Lyssel ignored him and just walked back inside.

In the end, it was Duke Cherity who had to step forward.

"We have recovered the lost name of the god. This is all the achievement of the great House Lecashe. Praise them, all of you!"

Cherity flung both arms high and shouted it.

"If your voices are quiet, I won't tell you. Shout as much as you believe!"

At that, the countless people who'd come to see Lyssel all flung their arms up together and yelled.

Whaaaaaa—!!!

"Once more!"

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

It was nearly cult-like behavior, but Cherity must have been having the time of his life — he repeated the routine two or three more times before saying,

"The divine name we so sorrowfully could not speak for thousands of years, having forgotten it, is — Demedeto!"

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

The reflexive scream had only just torn loose when, from out of midair, holy power came pouring down.

"Hgh, it's Lady Demedeto!"

"Kyaa, it really is Lady Demedeto!"

It was, no less, the descent of the god in person.

No words came, but a presence that filled the whole sky, in proportion to the overwhelming holy power, pressed down on everyone, and the people sank to the ground where they stood.

Cherity, who had spent his whole life searching for the god, was completely out of his mind.

It was worse than when he'd met Iberin.

He'd dropped politely to his knees and flattened himself against them, tears and snot running freely.

There was no commoner-or-noble distinction in this phenomenon.

Even Lyssel, who'd only given his short greeting and stepped back, was staring up at the sky in a daze.

What — why is that one popping out here now?

"Oh. It's Lady Demedeto."

The unrepentantly carefree Saintess Rozelia was just sunny about it, and Iberin — who, like Rozelia, had ended up with an overabundance of holy power herself — only offered a small prayer.

Just then, Demedeto, who had been looking down at her devotees for a long while with a benevolent smile on her lips, dropped a single line as if to drive in a final wedge.

"You who would be my faithful servant — come to Lecashe."

The people simply received it in rapture, but the Lecashe people, Lyssel aside, were thinking,

Looks like the god just publicly opened recruitment.

The truth was, this had come out of Rozelia's head. The more people who believed in Demedeto, the stronger her holy power would become.

The way things were right now — thousands of years on, a god who was little more than a shell — she honestly wasn't all that strong.

Call her a minority sect with a handful of devotees.

For a god like that to gather followers, the first step was to publicly invite them in — that had been Rozelia's argument.

Iberin had agreed, and so the god had made a very dramatic entrance.

Lyssel was the only one who didn't know.

In any case, she'd splashed around what little power she had left, so a stretch of recuperation was inevitable — but the effect looked solid enough.

Even just looking at Cherity, the man was already trying to lay down his ducal title and become a priest on the spot, peeling his clothes off.

There was an undignified scene of attendants trying to stop him, asking why on earth he was undressing here, but —

When the man who was supposed to reveal the divine name and handle the rest of the announcements was carrying on like this, Lyssel clicked his tongue.

In the end, Lyssel stepped forward again to put the situation in order.

"All of you, hear me. This is the will of Demedeto, and it is the will of the Aleta Empire as it goes forward. The path to becoming a priest will be measured by devout faith alone, and it will not discriminate between noble, commoner, or slave!"

Even a slave could become a priest.

That meant the moment a person became a priest, they were equal across every class.

This was nothing light, and before long, cheers erupted.

Long live Lady Demedeto!

Long live His Imperial Majesty!

---

The truth was, Lyssel didn't think he'd really done all that much.

He'd just been lucky enough to marry a good wife.

So it weighed on him to have people praising him this way.

He couldn't help it — until he'd met Iberin, Lyssel had no idea what emotions were or how a person was supposed to treat other people.

"You're going back to Lecashe?"

"……Yes. It's a little uncomfortable here."

Even the palace attendants who were always at his side weighed on him.

The way they fretted about anything and everything they could help with grated on him.

"I'll be handling my work from Lecashe."

"Yes — Lecashe is more comfortable for me too, no question."

Iberin had been thinking exactly the same as Lyssel.

Rotte and Pons were extreme in their own way, but they were nothing compared to the palace attendants.

Ordinarily, when an imperial line fell, the palace attendants were the first to be cleared out.

But the unprecedented, sweeping measures had kept coming one after another — the empress and crown prince had been made commoners, and the palace attendants had been allowed to keep living in the palace.

Naturally, they regarded Lyssel and Iberin as their lifesavers, and what they were doing came straight from the heart.

"I didn't think it was something that called for them to go this far, but from their side it seems otherwise."

"It does seem that way. It was the same with the empress and Yelberk."

When they'd left the palace and were headed for Lecashe, the empress had bowed before the two of them.

It had been startling, but looked at differently, becoming a commoner also meant setting down everything she'd held until now.

"Let's go back. If something truly urgent comes up, they'll come find us."

Once they'd made up their minds to go back, everything moved at speed.

Cherity was the first to object, but he was the easiest to talk down.

"Lady Demedeto is in the Forest of the World Tree. This is your chance to serve her from somewhere closer."

"…With luck, perhaps she'll descend in person at least once more."

"Let's go this instant. While we're at it, we should move the capital to Lecashe!"

And so Lyssel, now emperor, ended up carrying on his daily life not in the imperial palace but in Lecashe.

---

The Lecashe estate had an old-fashioned charm to it, but there were worn patches here and there.

To use it as the imperial palace was a bit of a stretch.

Of course, Lyssel had no intention of building a new palace in Lecashe either.

The moment they started building, the costs would balloon, and he didn't see why that was necessary.

"Leave the palace where it is, in the capital, and I'll go there when I need to."

Lyssel was as stubborn as ever about everything except Iberin, so in the end the nobles had to throw up both hands and feet and agree.

If they ever found out later that the one person whose word Lyssel always listened to was Iberin, who knew how it would go — but for now, that was that.

In any case, apart from the fact that Lyssel was now emperor, the start of the day looked no different.

"Good morning."

"Mm."

Lyssel had named Pons as his personal aide.

Pons was Lecashe's house retainer, and they'd known each other long enough that it was easy — that was his reasoning.

Pons was from a noble house himself, so there was no cause to object.

"This morning's pilgrims numbered around a thousand."

"Anything out of the ordinary?"

"No. Everyone is keeping to good order."

With its imperial line changed, Aleta was, in effect, reborn.

The Forest of the World Tree, which had once seethed with demonic energy, was filling with holy power, and people were making their way to Lecashe.

One after another, what had started as people coming for a look around had grown into something where the phrase to set out on pilgrimage had actually entered the language.

These days, thousands of people a day were coming and going.

That naturally led to a rise in visitors who would tour the south after coming to Lecashe, and the tourism industry was booming.

A restaurant had even opened on Lecashe territory itself.

The main ingredient was egg, and the spicy seasoning, cheongyang pepper, was getting plenty of attention too.

"And Iberin?"

"She's at the temple with Rozelia."

"Then Ether and Kal will be there too."

"They are."

The temple inside the forest had been lightly repaired and put back into use.

Once every part of the temple had been opened up so anyone could enter, Demedeto had recovered most of her divine power in no time at all.

Maybe — if the priests hadn't kept the temple locked down all that time to hold on to their own power — Demedeto might have purified this forest long ago.

"I'm going too."

When Lyssel sprang up from his seat, Pons firmly pressed down on his shoulder and sat him back.

"You have to work."

"But my wife is at the temple, so I'll work from there."

"Yesterday, the day before, the day before that — you said exactly that. And what came of it?"

"I worked."

"You pretended to work!"

Pons raised his voice.

He didn't want to be like this, but keeping a leash on Lyssel — whose doting was getting worse by the day — was getting harder.

The moment Lyssel was next to Iberin, work or anything else, he was too busy beaming at her face to think.

"A few days is fine, isn't it."

"Yes. You've had a few days, so today you should be working — yes?"

"……."

He wanted to ask for today to be counted among the few days, but Pons looked downright lethal, and in the end Lyssel had to concede.

By his own reckoning, he had been goofing off a little under the pretext of seeing Iberin.

Aleta was effectively a country starting over from scratch, so the work piled high.

If he slacked off for even a single day, the next day the work was stacked into a mountain, and the people below him were crying out that they were going to die.

"All right."

Lyssel sat down at his desk obediently.

Only then did Pons smile and bring over the work he'd been holding back.

He'd played for a few days, and the work was….

"At this rate, I'm going to drop dead from overwork."

"If you'd work in the hours you spend going to see Lady Iberin, that wouldn't happen."

"That's off the table."

"You see her in the afternoon anyway."

"Why eat again a meal you'd be eating anyway, and sleep again a sleep you'd be sleeping anyway?"

"……Work. I'll see what I can do about the afternoon."

It was Pons who raised the white flag first.

---

People accepted Lecashe more quickly than expected.

It was hard to believe that not so long ago, it had been famous as the cursed house.

Probably one of the reasons people felt no resistance to it was Demedeto.

A whole god had, after all, given the imperial seat her stamp.

But that wasn't the whole of it.

What they'd done back on Lecashe territory was also among the deeds being praised.

The way Habil's family, once slaves, had been freed.

The way they'd taken in subjects who'd fled from other territories with no conditions attached.

The way they'd quietly helped the slum children of the neighboring territory without anyone knowing.

Even the fact that the children they'd adopted were all orphans who'd had it rough.

All of it had spread little by little, by word of mouth.

Now and then they'd come out of the estate to talk with the village folk, carrying on the way they always had.

But even that spread as a heartwarming tale.

The current emperor doesn't sit only on his high seat. He's always ready to listen to the hearts of the people.

There were that many who held Lecashe in high regard and respected the family.

"Before, no matter what I did, all I got was curses, and now no matter what I do, all I get is praise — and this isn't exactly a good thing either."

Lyssel murmured it, looking down out the window with Iberin.

Outside, a bustling crowd was moving about lively.

"Anything in excess is hard to take."

"Even so, thanks to it, I do want to be a better person."

Watching the people, most of them smiling, somehow made Lyssel feel happy too.

It was startling to think how he'd lived all that time before, not even knowing this kind of feeling.

"Just that is enough. There are plenty in the world who aren't even that."

Iberin meant it from the heart.

"It's good of you to say so. Then again — the reason I want to be a better person is all because of you, so you've gone past enough into overflowing."

Iberin had learned by now to brush off Lyssel's intermittent fits of being a complete sap.

"More importantly, I hear you have to head to the capital again soon."

"Yes. It seems I'll have to."

"Should I come with you?"

"Of course you should."

"Is that how it is?"

"Yes. Without Iberin, I don't want to go anywhere."

They'd been living on Lecashe territory for about a month now, and various issues had cropped up.

Most of the nobles lived in the capital, which meant that to get anything done, they had to come all the way to Lecashe for approvals.

If push came to shove it could be managed, but the problem was matters that could only be handled by speaking face to face.

Because of this, Lyssel had decided to spend one week a month at the palace.

"Honestly, where in the world is there an emperor who won't live at the palace because his wife isn't there."

"Here."

Iberin burst out laughing as if she couldn't help him.

"How did the Lyssel who used to be so cold end up like this?"

"Because of Iberin."

"You never get tired of it. Whatever it is, it's all thanks to me."

"Do I seem like I'll get tired of it?"

"No."

"Correct."

Lyssel reached out both arms and caged Iberin against his chest.

Settled comfortably in his arms, Iberin lay still for a moment, then tilted her head up slightly toward Lyssel.

Lyssel naturally bent down, pressed his lips briefly against hers, and pulled back.

His gaze still didn't know how to come away from her.

It was an eye with tenderness soaked into it.

It made her think, all over again, of when they'd first met.

He'd been nothing but cold, a man who couldn't put a feeling into words — when had he come to look at her like this?

She was the same, herself.

She'd thought she needed Lyssel just to keep her favorite, Ether, alive at any cost — and somewhere along the way she'd come to genuinely care for Lyssel and worry about him.

He'd become a presence she felt she'd die without.

Come to think of it, she didn't think she'd ever once told him this plainly.

By the time she'd come to her senses, his being beside her was simply the natural state of things.

So Iberin decided to try saying it.

"I love you."

"……."

"It just occurred to me I'd never said it before."

Lyssel had a blank expression at the abrupt confession.

For a long moment he just sat there frozen, and Iberin, watching, gave him a light tap when he showed no sign of coming loose.

Only then did he react and look at her.

"You're completely out of it."

"…It's the most ordinary confession there is, and yet it never occurred to me that I should say it to you, Iberin. But it really is a very good thing to hear. I'm sorry I didn't realize until now, and I'm glad you said it. I want to keep hearing it."

"Mm?"

Iberin blinked.

He'd asked her to say it again in such a natural way, hadn't he.

That was when Lyssel said,

"I love you."

"……."

"This is the first time I've said it too."

"Oh…."

Now that she'd heard it, she felt she understood what kind of feeling Lyssel must have had.

It made her chest go soft and warm, and she just felt good.

It was nothing more than one of the most ordinary confessions in the world, but coming from Lyssel, it felt like something special.

As if under a spell, Iberin and Lyssel held each other and looked at each other for a long while.

"I love you."

"I love you."

The end of their gazes was a confession, with neither knowing who'd gone first.

It was the beginning of days overflowing with love — not the curse and gloom that had tormented Lecashe for a lifetime.

(End)