In a World of Reversed Chastity, I Strive to Become an Honorable Male Knight, but Lustful Women Keep Targeting My Body - 271

Chapter 271: The Kukkoro Male Knight and the Complaint Session

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After breakfast, there was another meeting. In sharp contrast to the exchange gathering, which had progressed relatively smoothly, this one became an absolute mess. There were those who wanted to get out of this civil war even one second sooner, and those who wanted to annihilate the other side even if it meant their own destruction. There was no way that the gap between these two camps could be bridged so easily.

Starting a war was easy, but ending one was many times harder.

In the end, around the time the sixth person stormed out, the meeting was adjourned. If the discussions had continued any longer, it felt like a brawl was about to break out. Honestly, the fact that not a single person had resorted to violence yet was surprising in itself. Perhaps both Elfenias were at least giving some face to us mediators.

“Those damned blockheads…!”

In a hut set a short distance away from the Senate Hall, Lady Dalaiya was venting her fury. She clutched a bottle of liquor under her arm, poured wine into her cup herself, and then downed it in one go. Because Lady Dalaiya looked like nothing more than a little girl, the sight was fairly immoral.

“At this rate, the elves will go extinct! Even those fools should understand that much!”

“Aren’t you drinking a bit too much? The meeting is supposed to resume after a short break. If you get completely smashed, we won’t be able to have a proper discussion at all.”

The one gently reining in Lady Dalaiya as she complained with alcohol-reeking breath was Lady Orphan. Given that they had once been in a lord–vassal and teacher–student relationship, his tone sounded relaxed and kind, like he was speaking to an old friend. At the moment, we were holding what was officially called a goodwill gathering, but was in reality closer to a gripe session than a summit. The participants were myself, Bishop Fiorenza, Lady Dalaiya and Uru, and Lady Orphan—five people in total. Sonia was standing guard outside the hut in case of an attack by Lady Vanka and her radical faction.

“How could I not drink?!”

Shouting that, Lady Dalaiya gulped down more wine. A completely dissolute bratty granny. It was expensive wine, so I wished she’d savor it a bit more. Well, I understood how she felt, though.

“How about we ditch those idiots and just defect to Liseben by ourselves, Great Granny?”

Ul said that with a sigh, making both Lady Orphan and me flinch, but Lady Dalaiya tossed aside the now-empty bottle and cup and started rolling around on the ground.

“I wanna!”

“Uh…”

The top leader herself wanted to defect, that was beyond terminal… though, to begin with, Elfenia was already in a post-apocalyptic level of terminal condition.

“Hey, Blondin-dono, I’m actually pretty serious about throwing everything away and defecting over to your side. Can’t you do something about it?”

“If you abandon the ‘New’ faction, they’ll all turn into an uncontrollable band of lawless thugs… There’s no way that’d work.”

“Exactly!! Gah, what rotten luck!”

Shouting that, Lady Dalaiya rolled over toward a wooden crate set against the wall, pulled out another bottle of wine, then rolled right back over to sit next to me. A rolling loli-granny. This wasn’t even flooring, just bare packed earth. It was filthy, so she should really walk properly.

“Once this is all over, I’m going to retire and spend the rest of my life flirting with men! Blondin-dono, I’ll be counting on you when that time comes!”

“Me?!”

“Who else?! If I stay in a country full of nothing but desperate, bottomed-out women like this, I’ll be a virgin forever! Me taking care of those idiots is generating a fair amount of benefit for Liseben too, you know! As compensation, wouldn’t it be reasonable for you to take care of that sort of thing for me?!”

So she wanted a pension and a man… Honestly, it was true that she was the final stopper keeping New Elfenia from going completely off the rails, so maybe that kind of reward wouldn’t be unreasonable. …A pension aside, a man, huh. Somehow that really bothered me. Wouldn’t I do? Yeah, probably not…

“When I was young and she was teaching me, she was always saying she wanted to retire, over and over… She hasn’t changed at all, that Dalaiya.”

With half-lidded eyes, Lady Orphan looked at her former instructor, the loli-granny, and sighed. She slowly savored some herbal tea in a plain teacup, then sighed again. …Surprisingly enough, Lady Orphan hadn’t touched a single drop of alcohol yet. Given that elves were the kind of people who’d guzzle booze even during diplomatic conferences, that was genuinely shocking. He really was serious by nature.

“But unless we solve this problem, retirement is out of the question. How we suppress the pro-war faction, that’s the real issue.”

After setting her cup on the low table, Lady Orphan folded her arms and spoke. …In the end, she was right. Both Lady Dalaiya and Lady Orphan wanted to end the war as soon as possible. The reason that shared will at the top still hadn’t borne fruit was because so many of their subordinates were pushing to continue the war.

In fact, the lower the rank, the more people seemed to reject peace outright. Well, that made sense. The people on the ground had been fighting for nearly a hundred years. Reconciling now with an enemy they’d crossed spears with for generations would be emotionally difficult.

“In reality… while their claims aren’t as extreme as Dalaiya-san’s side, there do seem to be those among Orphan-san’s subordinates who aren’t satisfied with this peace conference either.”

That was said by Bishop Fiorenza, who had been quietly drinking until then. At her words, Lady Orphan frowned and looked away. She must have had some idea who she meant. In fact, of the six people who had left the meeting earlier, two were members of the ‘Legitimate’ delegation.

“…It may be a rather forceful approach, but perhaps purging those who oppose peace outright could be an option. There just happens to be someone who could serve as a banner for the opposition.”

“Vanka.”

Lady Dalaiya puffed out her cheeks and shook her head from side to side. …Hearing such a radical opinion from the usually gentle Bishop Fiorenza was quite a shock. She must have had her own frustrations with that drawn-out meeting earlier.

“If killing her were enough to improve things, I’d have done it long ago. I’m a woman who assassinated the previous empress and usurped the throne, you know? I’ve already considered something like that.”

The expression on the loli-granny’s face as she spoke was deeply complex. Apparently Lady Dalaiya and Lady Vanka had once been friends… The fact that she now had to consider killing him was a grim story indeed.

“In the end, the real problem is the masses. They’re a collective, not individuals, so even if you swap out the head, their direction won’t change. To deal with it, you’d have to wipe them out at the root… but are you telling me to reduce the elves even further, when there are already so few left? If we did that, we’d truly go extinct…”

“Hmm…”

With her mouth twisted into a frown, Bishop Fiorenza groaned. I let out a small breath and turned my gaze toward the hearth in the center of the hut, smoke rising from it. Watching the flickering flames, I took a sip of wine. …No matter how much I thought about it, no brilliant idea came to mind.

“In the end… we’ll just have to be careful to prevent the radicals from exploding, while steadily converting the lower-ranking elves to the conciliatory side. It’s a dull and troublesome process, but it’s a hundred times better than letting things go to hell and producing meaningless corpses.”

At my words, Lady Dalaiya and Lady Orphan nodded. Fortunately, we knew that even elves who were practically barbarians would calm down somewhat as long as their bellies were full. This was a civil war that had lasted over a century. It wasn’t something that could be resolved overnight. For now, the only option was to improve the situation step by step, patiently and steadily.

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