Marius also had a time when he thought raising children would be difficult.
(I did think that.)
It’s in the past.
It is unacceptable for the King himself to raise children.
Normally, he has ample free time and acts as a playmate, but officially, a wet nurse and a dedicated tutor would be assigned.
“I want to do it.”
Marius raised his hand, but the reactions around him were not positive.
“Can you do it?”
“A tutor is someone with sufficient knowledge and childcare experience, a kind of professional.”
The wives in the bed looked at him with skeptical eyes, and Marius was hurt.
“You have to raise them equally, you know?”
“A tutor can manage with their own methods, but if you, as their father and King, show even the slightest favoritism…”
“I apologize for my selfish request.”
Marius surrendered.
He couldn’t believe he was capable of doing anything so significant himself.
What was important was to know his own limitations.
“More importantly than that,”
Emma said to Marius, in a casually harsh tone.
“What will you name them? That seems more important.”
“Names… they’re both boys, so I want to give them cool names.”
As Marius said with a softening of his cheeks, skeptical gazes pierced him.
“Your idea of ‘cool’ makes me uneasy, so could you tell us what you’re thinking?”
Lovisa told Marius that, and he frowned.
“Haven’t you all been treating me pretty badly lately?”
Barra looked at him with a puzzled expression.
“Did you think you were being treated well?”
“H-how cruel!”
“It was a joke.”
The concubines smiled, and Marius slumped.
“I object to jokes that aren’t funny.”
“Would you like me to get revenge for you instead?”
El, who had been silently watching their exchange, spoke up, and the concubines’ cheeks twitched.
Marius, not noticing, pounced on the opportunity.
“Oh, El! Do it for me!”
“Understood.”
El quietly approached the two concubines.
“It’s said that after childbirth, your body shape deteriorates and your stomach becomes flabby.”
“Nooooo!”
Lovisa cried out unintentionally.
“Many cases lose their favor quickly as other things worsen.”
“Please stop!”
Barra’s eyes welled up with tears.
Since El was whispering, Marius couldn’t hear her.
However, from the wives’ reactions, he could feel El’s awesomeness.
“Um, El, that’s enough.”
“Understood.”
El smoothly moved away from the concubines.
“So, what about the names?”
Emma confirmed with a blank expression.
Auraniess eagerly raised his hand.
“Yes!”
“Rejected.”
Marius, Barra, and Lovisa answered in unison.
“I haven’t even said anything yet!”
Sophia and Iris ushered out Auraniess, who was roaring like an enraged beast.
“Evil is vanquished.”
As Marius muttered,
“Marius, you just wait!”
Auraniess’s scream could be heard.
Even with Iris and Sophia working together, he could have broken free if he had seriously resisted. The fact that he didn’t show that they were, in their own way, good sports.
“So, what about the names?”
Emma asked Marius as if nothing had happened.
“Sieg and Fried.”
He said, drawing the concentrated gaze of the women.
“Surprisingly reasonable.”
When Emma commented,
“Indeed, they are surprisingly good names.”
“Yes. They are surprisingly wonderful.”
Lovisa and Barra also agreed.
“You’re all too surprised.”
Marius sulked.
“But they are indeed surprisingly reasonable,”
El said.
“El, is it you too?”
Marius became dejected.
El approached her dejected lord.
“You get teased like that precisely because you react that way, you know?”
Marius seemed to realize it now and was met with exasperated looks from his wives.
“It’s proof that you’re loved, but of course, I love you too.”
“Oh, uh.”
Marius flushed when faced with such direct words.
His voice wavered, and his eyes darted around.
(Did she whisper her love so subtly?)
(Damn you, El!)
The wives refrained from speaking their thoughts aloud, but inwardly, they burned with jealousy.
Not satisfied with that alone, they glared enviously at El.
Just then, Al and Zofi returned from their patrol.
“Ah, then I’ll go on patrol in your place.”
El escaped the situation with remarkable naturalness.
The concubines who witnessed this exchanged glances.
“Say, Lady Lovisa, isn’t it dangerous to let El run wild?”
“I agree, Lady Barra.”
They conferred in hushed tones.
El, who had recently begun to show a rapidly growing presence, was a threat to them as well.
“But why now?”
Lovisa questioned.
She and El had no direct interaction, but they knew each other reasonably well.
In that sense, Barra did too.
“Indeed.”
So Lovisa perfectly understood what she meant.
They debated this and that but found no answer.
Then they realized that Zofi and Al, who were knowledgeable about El, might have answers.
“It’s a bit late to ask, but what kind of person is El?”
“What do you mean? As you can see, she’s completely dark-hearted.”
“Her personality was so bad that Lady Zofi had no choice but to make her an accomplice.”
Zofi and Al gave answers that were no answers at all.
“Well, even so, she’s loyal, so you don’t need to worry.”
“Otherwise, we’d have been stabbed in the back.”
The succubus duo, who said something unfunny with laughter, made even Marius and Emma’s faces twitch, not to mention Lovisa and Barra.
“Indeed, the thought of El not being loyal is unbearable…”
Marius’s words echoed everyone’s sentiments.
The continent rejoiced at the birth of Marius’s children.
“Lord Sieg and Lord Fried? Those are good names.”
“I heard Marius-sama named them.”
“Oh, no offense, but that’s surprising.”
“It truly is surprising.”
Marius’s naming sense was considered surprising even by the commoners.
All of Marius wept.
Unfazed, the public’s attention narrowed to a single point.
“Who will inherit the throne?”
This was the question.
While Marius was known to possess the power of the gods, surprisingly few people believed he would remain on the throne forever.
“If the King were the same forever, the country and its people would suffer.”
Marius said this without hesitation.
Currently, few citizens were dissatisfied with his reign, but in reality, all the administrative tasks were delegated to the civil officials and his wives.
He was practicing “reigning but not ruling.”
It worked while it lasted, but the question was how long it would continue to work.
When stagnation occurred, power would be needed to break through it.
It was hoped that Lovisa’s son, Sieg, and Barra’s son, Fried, would become the standard-bearers for this.
Furthermore, Marius stated that he would not decide immediately.
This further fueled the expectations (or rather, fantasies) of those around him.
On the Taliant Continent, it was common to decide based on age order or the mother’s status.
However, Sieg and Fried were born at the same time, and both mothers were princesses from important countries.
In terms of status, Barra, the first queen, had an advantage, but in terms of the national power of their homeland, Lovisa’s Filat was a tier or two above.
In other words, they were evenly matched.
“If El’s plan hadn’t worked, things might have become complicated by now.”
If all else were equal, the one born earlier would have the advantage.
To overturn that, even Marius would have had to make an extraordinary effort.
In the first place, Marius’s idea was that deciding everything at birth was problematic.
“Good job, El.”
As Marius said this and petted her head, El, unusually for her, became quite pleased.
“Hehehe. I’m glad it worked out.”
Even El could not completely control the exact timing of birth.
Luck was inevitably involved.
In that sense, El and Marius were both lucky.
“However, isn’t this just postponing the problem?”
Zofi’s question was understandable.
It only avoided the issue of deciding at the moment of birth.
Perhaps a larger storm could arise.
“It’s fine. We’ll teach the two brothers to help each other from now on.”
Marius was optimistic in that regard.
He believed that environment and education played a significant role in a child’s character formation.
If they were taught imperial studies or their position as subordinates before they could even form coherent thoughts, it wouldn’t work.
However, if they were taught that helping each other was natural, perhaps their fights wouldn’t lead to irreparable rifts.
“I don’t think humans are that simple, though.”
Marius took El’s statement as advice.
“Indeed, if there were a method to raise children successfully, no one would fail at parenting. Children wouldn’t go astray either.”
He said this to convince himself.
“Go astray…?”
The succubus trio tilted their heads in unison, as the word didn’t seem to exist in their world.
“It means something like that. In any case, you three seem like bad influences for education.”
At their lord’s frank words, Zofi and Al were indignant.
“How dare you!”
“That’s right! If you want, we can even handle the first writing practice for Sieg and Fried.”
“Don’t you dare, you fool!”
Marius dropped a knuckle onto Al’s head.
“Ouch.”
Al’s eyes welled up with tears.
“That means Al is out.”
“You’re out.”
El and Zofi laughed with joy.
“Huh? Wait, I didn’t mean it that way…”
Al panicked.
He thought his words, meant only to show his loyalty, were being misinterpreted.
“Is that so, Al?”
Marius said with feigned disappointment.
“Huh? Huh? M-Master? N-no, that’s not it, I belong to Master, so Sieg and Fried too… what?”
Al began to panic, on the verge of tears.
“Okay, I get it, calm down.”
Marius, seeing he couldn’t stand it, tried to pacify him.
He managed to persuade Al by agreeing to have him all to himself for one night.
If it had been El, he would have had to consider the possibility of fake tears.
