I Mistook The Genre And Became A Tyrant

✦  Chapter 2 – How To Make A Stubborn Woman Smile ✦

「Translator – Creator」

The handmaidens of the Pandemonium Imperial Palace were all daughters of high-ranking noble families. They were meticulously selected for their proficiency in etiquette and propriety, as they must remain close to the Emperor and attend to his needs. All of them took great pride in their position as handmaidens, a role distinctly superior to that of ordinary maids who handled menial tasks.

Among these handmaidens, those of exceptional beauty and poise were often compared to flowers. 

Lady Patricia, in particular, was undoubtedly a white rose. It was an apt comparison, as she concealed sharp thorns beneath her serene and beautiful exterior, much like a white rose. Her influence was such that she voluntarily assumed the role of disciplinarian among the other handmaidens. 

She would even go so far as to correct the gait of visiting nobles and meticulously point out flaws in their attire, causing them to break into a nervous sweat. Despite her beauty, it was said that no one had ever seen her smile, as she maintained a perpetually expressionless face.

Even the sly Dimensia, known for her cunning demeanor, said, “If possible, I’d rather not get entangled with Miss Patricia. The Count’s daughter is peculiarly fastidious,” and would discreetly avoid her presence.

‘Can I deceive Patricia?’ I wondered.

Throughout my reign as Emperor, I had regarded the palace handmaidens as non-existent shadows. Now, the gazes of these women I had previously paid no mind to felt as sharp as the spear tips of the warriors I had faced on the battlefield.

“You there, this is not a place for outsiders to wander freely.” 

A platinum-blonde woman with an expressionless face approached, her heels clicking rhythmically. Behind her stood two other handmaidens like a folding screen: a short one with yellow hair and an exceptionally tall one with blue hair.

“Hello! I’m Arnoying! Who are you?”

“This area is restricted to handmaidens only.”

“Ladies, please calm yourselves. I’ll leave here immediately.”

“Be careful with your words. Only two people in this world can address me casually, as I am both a palace handmaiden and the third daughter of Count Sabnack,” Patricia responded calmly, her face remaining impassive.

Patricia was correct. Only her father, Count Sabnack, and Emperor Bael would have the right to address her casually, given her status as both a palace handmaiden and a Count’s daughter. This moment caused me to reflect on my behavior over the past two years as Emperor, particularly my habit of speaking condescendingly to others, which had become ingrained to the point of insolence.

“Come to think of it, I think I’ve seen you somewhere before. Your physique… your gait… and your haughty tone of voice are also familiar…,” Patricia said, narrowing her eyes as she scrutinized me.

As her discerning gaze – befitting her reputation as the white rose of high society – swept over me, I felt as though I was being pierced to the bone by some sort of ray.

I had felt this way once before, during a duel with an opponent on the battlefield.

The pressure I felt as opponents sized each other up, projecting their aura and reading each other’s moves in a life-or-death struggle of advance and retreat — to think I would feel such pressure emanating from the handmaiden Patricia. 

Could it be that the flowers of high society possess the same level of discernment as the fiercest warriors on the battlefield? It’s not for nothing that the social scene is called the battleground of women.

“Where have I seen you…”

“You probably saw me at today’s banquet. I’m Daniel, the eldest son of the Dantalian family. I came from the far north to attend the celebration of the Emperor’s second anniversary of coronation today.”

I couldn’t bring myself to use honorifics.

The pride of having lived as the strongest man on earth, the emperor, was not easily broken.

“…Dantali…an? Have you all heard of it?”

“Oh! I think I’ve heard it somewhere before. Where was it?”

“Arnoying, stop pretending you know. You’re going to say you don’t know after all.”

Fortunately, Patricia and the handmaidens seemed more interested in the name I had given than in my manner of speaking. Her eyes narrowed like a fox’s, and her eyebrows arched high. I hadn’t noticed it before, but handmaiden Patricia was quite beautiful, even without smiling.

If I were an ordinary man and not the Emperor, would I have blushed or stammered in front of Patricia? Perhaps I might have even asked her out on a date out of a youthful infatuation.

In that case, should I try to show my interest like an ordinary man?

“Would you mind giving me a tour of the palace? I don’t know my way around here very well.”

“Are you asking me, someone you’ve just met, to escort you?”

“Oh my! Patricia! I think he’s asking you on a date! A date! A date!”

“Arnoying, please be quiet!”

Patricia, the Count’s daughter and palace handmaiden, appeared to believe I had insulted her. Her face, which was normally as white as the white rose she was frequently compared to, flushed red.

However, this was only temporary, and she quickly returned to her usual icy expression, turning her head away sharply.

“I’ll decline. I need to fetch water with the other handmaidens.”

Come to think of it, the handmaidens each had jars that could be called water buckets in their hands. It seemed that their job was to fetch water from the palace well and fill the containers all over the palace.

“We are quite busy. It takes us a two-hour round trip to get water. That means we don’t have time to wander around the palace with men.”

I had never heard of such a thing as handmaidens in the palace having to walk two hours to get water. When I raised an eyebrow, Arnoying, the maid with yellow hair like a chick, said in a hushed voice,

“You see, last year when a severe typhoon hit, a huge boulder rolled down from the hill and blocked the palace well! It was an enormous rock! Because of that, we have to use a well outside the palace grounds, which is utterly depressing!”

⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆

The Pandemonium Imperial Palace was a place steeped in history. Built at the foot of a high mountain, the palace once had a well that provided spring water. However, a huge boulder rolled down the mountain during last year’s typhoon and destroyed the well.

When I visited, the enormous boulder indeed covered the well like a lid. The boulder, the size of a bus, was extraordinarily dense and impossible to break or move.

“It’s a pure blue stone. The densest rock in the world, no one has been able to break or move it. Even if they could, who would go to such lengths just for the handmaidens?”

Patricia’s expression remained impassive as usual, but there was a hint of bitterness in her voice. This made me even more perplexed.

“It seems Emperor Bael could easily break such a boulder. Why didn’t you ask him to shatter it? After all, it’s the well from which the Emperor drinks.”

I had been drinking cool water without a second thought, unaware of the hardship involved in fetching it. When I asked why they hadn’t spoken to the Emperor, Patricia responded—

“His Majesty is the ruler of all, dealing with numerous important matters. It would be presumptuous to trouble him with such a trivial issue.”

“His Majesty is a great and lofty person, beyond such minor concerns. Even I have only seen him from afar.”

“As much as it pains me to agree with Arnoying, the only one who can meet the Emperor face-to-face is the Barbatos’ witch. And honestly, that’s probably for the best. His Majesty is rather… intimidating, isn’t he?”

Patricia and the other handmaidens nodded in agreement. In a way, their reasoning was sound. Emperor Bael likely didn’t even know where the palace well was. Seated on the highest throne, the hardships of those in lower positions simply didn’t reach him.

“That’s why I love summer! The sun rises early, so it’s not pitch dark when we go to fetch water at dawn! But winter is the worst. It’s cold, the well outside the palace is frozen, and it’s scary because it’s so dark.”

“I agree with Arnoying on that.”

The Emperor doesn’t listen to the voices from below. But if it were a different man, Daniel of the Dantalian family…

“You’re all fools. Wasting two hours a day because of this pebble.”

“Did you just call us fools?” Patricia asked, clearly angered.

Ignoring her reaction, I looked at the boulder and clenched my fist. I thought about smashing this rock with my fist in one blow, but―I quickly changed my mind.

A man who could break with his bare hands a boulder that even the palace’s finest warriors couldn’t destroy? There was only one such person in the world.

Since that would reveal my identity, I hastily changed my mind and reached out my hand to Patricia’s waist.

“What do you think you’re doing? Pervert. Scum. You’ve shown your true colors!”

“Eek! A handmaiden is being assaulted! Scouty! Look! Patricia is being attacked!”

“Arnoying! Don’t just scream, call the guards!”

“Wait a minute, just stay still.”

All noble ladies wore a beautifully decorated dagger at their waist to protect their chastity and virtue. The handmaidens, being of noble birth, were no exception, and this was what I was after.

Swish—

With a swift motion, I drew the dagger.

“What are you going to do with my dagger? Only a betrothed or husband may touch the dagger of chastity. Return it at once!” Patricia demanded, reaching out to reclaim her dagger.

As she did so, I took a short breath and unsheathed the blade. Then, with a light downward stroke, I delivered a single, weighted cut.

A single decisive stroke.

Snick, saaak—

With a sharp sound, the massive boulder split, revealing the damaged well beneath.

As the air, which had momentarily trembled as if struck by lightning, settled down, the handmaidens gaped like ducklings receiving food from their mother.

Wow! That’s amazing! A huge boulder the size of a house has split in two! Scouty! Look at that boulder! The boulder has split open and a well has appeared! Wow! Oh my! Wow!”

“It would take a master at the level of the Five Swords of the Empire to split a blue stone… My father is a swordsman, so I have some knowledge about swordsmanship.”

‘If it takes the level of the Empire’s Five Swords, at least a Sword Master, to cut blue stone, perhaps I should have controlled my strength more,’ I thought, reflecting on what just happened.

As I was considering this, Patricia, looking slightly bewildered, asked me, “Who exactly are you? I didn’t think anyone could do something like this so effortlessly.”

“I am Daniel, eldest son of the Dantalian family. That’s my name. I guess the boulder looked intact on the outside, but it was probably broken on the inside. Probably due to the efforts of mages and swordsmen who tried before me.”

“I see! To split that blue stone with a single stroke, even I, Arnoying, thought it was strange!”

“Is that so? Well, indeed, masters at the level of the Empire’s Five Swords aren’t common. I’ve never heard the name Daniel before… but still, to split blue stone…”

Suspicion began to creep into the handmaidens’ eyes. Realizing my incognito status might be at risk, I decided to change the subject.

“Now you won’t have to waste two hours of your youth every day just for water, right? I’ll return the dagger. And since I don’t want to cause a fuss, let’s keep this a secret. Patricia, if word gets out that your chastity dagger was touched by a man, it could cause trouble for you, don’t you think?”

Clank—

As I held out the chastity protection dagger, Patricia’s expression finally returned to normal, though her face remained flushed. Was she angry? If I were the Emperor, I would have ignored such emotions, but…

“Are you upset that I touched your dagger without permission?”

“…I’m surprised. Until now, no one has ever listened to us. Though we work as palace handmaidens, in truth, we’re hostages held by His Majesty on behalf of our families…”

The Emperor’s employment of noble daughters as handmaidens was also a way to use them as hostages to blackmail the nobles. It was a plot by the Barbatos family.

“I haven’t had any particular inconvenience lately, except for fetching water, but some of my friends cry every day because they miss their mothers!”

“Arnoying, you too said you wanted to go home every day until last year.”

“Well, it’s been two years since I’ve been home!”

So even the handmaidens, referred to as the flowers of the palace, had their hardships. It was something I didn’t know when I was wearing the emperor’s armor.

“If you have any complaints or difficulties while working in the palace, tell me. I can quickly resolve what I can easily handle, like today.”

I was considering giving the handmaidens who hadn’t been home for a long time a reward vacation if this situation resolved well and I returned to being the Emperor. As I pondered this, Patricia looked at me with a slightly suspicious gaze.

“What’s your price for helping us? I don’t believe in  ‘goodwill without reward’. In this imperial capital, the word ‘charity’ is meaningless.”

Price? I don’t need one.

It didn’t seem likely that a palace handmaiden could offer anything significant to me, the most powerful Emperor.

Then suddenly I had a good idea.

“If you insist on giving something in return…”

— End of Chapter —

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