abcnovels
Chapter 19 part1
Chapter 19 part1
The Taste of Betrayal
There was no 'Hero' to Fight With the World's Darkness so I Went Searching for One (In Exasperation)
Part 1
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The fifth planet of the Gokuyo system, Midorikyuu. On this planet covered in vegetation, there are a number of different countries. One of them is the kingdom of Alves. Their ruler, Queen Ronalia Linalia Baba-nyan, had ruled for over seven hundred years, and was growing sick of how peaceful everything was.
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In regards to her physical appearance, Baba-nyan looked similar to the young children of other races. Her beautiful, long silver hair was plaited into four braids, with a thin branch of the world's oldest tree woven into it. This branch exemplified her status as the rightful sovereign. Her long ears, which were said to be able to hear even the voice of God, would move all over the place and stand upright with a "Pin!", and her lustrous green eyes were the color of a dense forest. A thin garment, made of water and wind, wrapped her small body in a relaxed manner.
Baba-nyan was sitting on a window frame in the royal place, which was within the trunk of a huge tree in the forest. She gazed up at the starry sky, and gave a melancholy sigh while playing with her silver hair that sparkled in the moonlight.
"It's so peaceful…"
Baba-nyan’s long ears moved swiftly, picking up the peaceful conversations of the people living in the forest. "This year's fruit harvest was good"; "It seems that Dandol, my next-door neighbor, won first place in the tournament"; "My childhood friend just proposed to me", and etc.
It was so peaceful. This was partly due to Baba-nyan's long reign, and also due to all the nations of the world agreeing to be at peace with each other. There has been no conflict in this world for more than 120 years. As the ruler of Alves, Baba-nyan took great pride in this, but, at the same time, she found it incredibly annoying.
"I want to fight the demon king…"
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Baba-nyan is nine hundred years old this year. Ever since she took the throne at two hundred years old, she had dreamed of a hero coming to Alves in order to ask to borrow her power, and then going off on an adventure and helping them to defeat the evil demon king that wants to rule the world. There had once been a demon king who caused a world-wide disaster, but that had been a long time ago. Baba-Nyan had grown up listening to the story of how the hero had gone on a dangerous adventure to defeat the demon king, and how, when he returned, he had given his magic sword to her mother, the previous queen. The story always made her heart beat outside her chest.
However, as time went on, and as magic, science, and military technology further developed, the demon king went from being viewed as a major calamity to just a calamity, and then from a calamity, it became viewed as an incident, and then it became viewed as a simple pest, and now, currently, it's nothing more than a pitiful existence that's hunted by the wealthy for entertainment. Especially since the spread of death insurance. With death insurance, if you die in an accident, you're guaranteed to be revived (so long as you pay your insurance premiums), so the damage caused by the demon king has been reduced to almost zero.
Today, the demon king is an endangered species. The few surviving individuals are carefully protected and bred at the zoo and are not a threat to the world. Even if you defeat the demon king, you won't save anyone, and you will be subjected to tremendous criticism from various humanitarian organizations.
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The world was at peace. There was so much peace that Baba-nyan thought she might die from it.
"Oh my, you look quite upset, Your Majesty."
"Ugh, leave me alone. All of the important affairs of state are over for the day anyway."
Baba-nyan sharply retorted to her younger cousin, who was passing around the fruit bowl at their evening meal. And although her cousin, Sorana, was only 750 years old and also had an Alvian's slow growth rate, she actually looked like an adult woman. In fact, she looked exactly like a grown-up version of Baba-nyan. The only difference was that Sorana's hair was in three braids instead of four, and the sticks woven into Sorana's hair were made of regular wood.
Sorana tossed a piece of fruit from the basket to Baba-nyan, then took one for herself as she sat next to her.
"Isn't peace a good thing? Thanks to peace, you can eat these delicious fruits every year. What are you complaining about? I don't understand you at all."
"And I don't understand you, Sorana. When you read adventure stories or listen to the old folklore, don't you dream about doing something like that, a least a little? …Never mind, it's obvious you don't. Haa."
"Well, you're right. Personally, I think we're lucky that we weren't born in such a dangerous time period. The people probably feel the same way. That's why we have peace."
Sorana's leisurely words were unable to stop Baba-nyan's sigh. Baba-nyan is the queen of the kingdom of Alves. As queen, her main priority is to ensure that her people live happy, peaceful lives. No effort must be spared in doing so. But, at the same time, Baba-nyan, deep in her heart, has never stopped longing to go on a dangerous, world-changing adventure.
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Baba-nyan was fully aware of the fact that the peace she had was like a crystal, and that a huge amount of effort had been spent on building it up. Her parents, grandparents, and ancestors – as many as the number of stars – had resolutely struggled, and shed blood and tears over it. The peace her country had was a very precious thing. Nevertheless, Baba-nyan still wanted to stand up and fight against a darkness that threatens the whole world. But since it was way too peaceful, no matter how hard she searched, she couldn't find any darkness anywhere. At best, there were fights between couples, and rare cases of sudden murder.
And the previous queen of Alves, who, along with the hero, defeated the demon king and saved the world, was currently obsessed with fishing, and was either out on the ocean on a deep-sea fishing boat, or hanging around some fishing village somewhere. When she did return home, which she did once every few years, all she would do was boast about how tan she had gotten. "The hero" has also become an honorary title that was granted to the winner of a tournament where strong competitors from all over the world gather.
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Baba-nyan spent many years waiting for some sort of darkness that threatens the whole world to come, while at the same time, as the ruler of Alves, she also desired peace. These two conflicting desires caused her heart and mind to accumulate a large amount of stress.
Nothing happens out of the blue. It keeps building up, until, finally, one day, all it takes is a tiny push for everything to collapse. When Baba-nyan heard the words, "The current Alves no longer needs a hero to save them or defeat the demon king," from Sorana, she heard the sound of blood vessels in her brain breaking. She angrily crushed her fruit and shouted,
"SHUUUUT UUUUP! That's enough! You're pissing me off! Why should I have to put up with living in such a boring world?! If there's no demon king to fight here, then I'll just go find another one in a different world!"
"Umm… that came out of nowhere. But, Your Majesty, you are the queen, you know? If you go off to a different world, who will rule over Alves?"
"I guess you'll have to do it, Sorana! You're first in line to inherit the throne, after all. Besides, you've been working side-by-side with me for many years, so you should already know all about our politics. I find living in this peaceful world unpleasant, so much so I want to cry! I would much rather go off on an adventure in a dangerous world! Please let me do this!"
"I won't stop you. Well, looks like I'm the queen now."
Baba-nyan wasn't expecting Sorana to agree so easily, so she was caught off-guard. She asked timidly,
"Are you sure?"
"You've been queen for seven hundred years, so isn't it fine to stop now? If you say you want to retire, the people will surely support you. Also, I've always wanted to try wearing the branch of the ancient tree in my hair at least once. I think all women of Alves have dreamed of it at some point."
"Really?! Thank you, Sorana!"
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What Baba-nyan had said in her outburst had been mostly out of impulse, but now, thanks to Sorana, her eyes had suddenly been opened. She was on the verge of tears as she grasped her cousin's hand. Sorana smiled softly and said,
"Please don't cry, Your Majesty. After all, in order to go to another world, you'll first have to get your inter-dimensional travel license, acquire a permit from the World Monitoring Bureau, spend at least one thousand days under surveillance in quarantine to prevent the spread of diseases, train for at least eighty days with the Inter-dimensional Travel Bureau, and swear a formal oath before a god at an altar. There's still a long way to go."
"…That makes me want to cry even more."
As a sidenote, the fruit that Baba-nyan crushed was fed to her pet dragon, who thought it was delicious.
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Footnotes:
If you have any suggestions for changing the spellings of places/names, let me know. I may go back and change them once vol.2 of the LN comes out in English in January.