Chapter 132 - Sao’s True Identity, Tamagushi’s True Intentions

 Tamagushi?! You set me up, Tamagushi?!

I mean, I had a feeling. She offered up her body and let me have my way with her, yet she wouldn’t reveal a single thing about herself. It was obvious she was plotting something.

Still, the strength of her resolve—to use even her own body to win over a man for her hidden goal—was part of her charm. I’ll admit I got a bit too into it and spent days plowing her until she was thoroughly "re-educated"... but to think she’d play the "betrayal card" at this exact moment?!

"Do not misunderstand, Sir Sao. I am your ally," she whispered.

"Who do you think you're talking to?!" I snapped.

She was clinging to me like an octopus, legs wrapped around my waist to keep me pinned. Sure, her breasts were pressed against me, but this was hardly the time to enjoy the sensation! If the Third Prince’s [Molecular Decay] punch hits while I’m immobilized like this, I’m dead!

Was this your goal all along?! To pit me against the Prince and have us take each other out?!

"Please, calm yourself. If I truly desired your death, you would already be dust," she said calmly.

"What?"

Now that she mentioned it, while we were arguing, the Prince’s punch should have connected. In fact, it should have hit us seconds ago. Why was he hesitating? Was it a slow-motion punch? What the hell was taking him so long?

"Guh... ugh... GWAHHHHH!!"

I looked over. The Third Prince was frozen, his remaining left arm trembling violently as he tried to swing. He looked stuck. Why was he wasting this once-in-a-lifetime opening?

"Why?! My body won't move...! When I try to kill this man... it resists?!"

What was he talking about? Did his hidden conscience suddenly wake up right before a murder? ...No, that's impossible. Not for him.

"Your body is defying your will to kill this man," Tamagushi declared. "...The royal blood of Niosebuk flowing through your veins is rebelling. Surely you understand what that means?"

"Wh—?! Impossible...!"

"You declared your defeat. You said the words to Sir Sao himself. You likely meant them as hollow lies to buy time, but the words of royalty carry weight. They are not so easily discarded."

"No...! It can't be...!" The Prince’s face turned pale as he began to shiver.

I stood there, completely left behind by their exchange.

"Um... would either of you mind explaining this in a way that an outsider can understand...?"

"No, you are no outsider. You are the central figure in this drama, Sir Sao."

How can I be the central figure if I have no idea what’s going on?!

"Are you aware, Sir Sao? Among those who inherit the royal lineage of Niosebuk, there is a curse—or perhaps a law—carried in the blood. If a battle takes place between those sharing the same blood, the loser must yield absolute obedience to the winner."

Ah, I remember hearing something like that. They say the only reason the Niosebuk Kingdom, which thinks of nothing but fighting and devouring, has survived this long is because of that curse. Otherwise, every succession would turn into a bloodbath that would leave the country in ruins.

"Yes. It is a safety valve for a nation that can only settle matters through combat. This curse is absolute, even for Gangastra, the third son of the late King. Having lost to one of his own blood, he has no choice but to obey."

"I see..."

Wait. Hold on. Wait a minute.

What the hell does that imply?!

"Therefore, Gangastra, having lost to you, is now incapable of even leaving a scratch upon your person."

"Whoa, hold on! Isn't there a massive hole in that logic?!"

I am a complete outsider. Why would the royal curse trigger between me and the Third Prince?

"Sir Sao... tell me of your birth."

"My 'birth' isn't anything special. I was born to a mother in a backwater village. One big sister, one little sister. A perfectly normal, incredibly boring family. Why?"

"And your father?"

"No clue."

Seriously. For as long as I can remember, my mother raised me and my sister single-handedly. There wasn't even a shadow of a man. Later, Mom told me she’d been a mercenary traveling from battlefield to battlefield. She was captured by an enemy army and ravished as a prisoner; that’s when she conceived me and my sister.

My sister was the result of a gang rape by multiple soldiers, so her father is impossible to identify. But after she was pregnant with Sis, Mom was deemed a "high-quality find" and presented to the enemy's royalty. She was ravished again, and that’s when she conceived me.

Or so the story goes... But if that's true, my father is a royal from some country? And if the country Mom was fighting against was Niosebuk...

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. This shitty country is always at war with someone!

"The late King, Imashinunda, ravished many women to 'select' the best royal offspring," Tamagushi explained. "He focused on the royalty of conquered nations, but he also had any promising female prisoners presented to him. It is said he had hundreds of illegitimate children."

"What a monster!!"

...Wait, I'm different, okay?! I have sex because I want to get along with girls. I’m fundamentally different from a King who treats women like breeding tools!

"Your mother was likely one of the women held by our father. I’ve heard that many women who bore children for the King were either killed or exiled along with their offspring if the child wasn't born with a useful 'Divine Calling'."

Mom told me she was ordered to kill my newborn sister. She fled the country to protect her. That’s why I grew up as a normal kid in a peaceful village, but...

"However, the specifics of your birth don't matter right now. What matters is that the royal curse has activated within Gangastra because of his defeat to you. That is the ultimate proof that the blood of the Niosebuk royal line flows through you."

"Wh-whaaaaaaat?!"

"I stopped you specifically to prove this. You were so strong, Sir Sao, that you weren't even giving Gangastra a chance to resist. I was afraid you’d kill him before I could determine if the curse was taking effect..."

So she pinned me down for that? What the hell?! I got lucky that the curse actually worked; if it hadn't, I’d be a pile of molecular dust right now!

"There was no need for worry. My own 'Divine Calling' could feel clearly that you are the one meant to be the King of this land."

"Your... 'Divine Calling'...?" I asked, but since I knew nothing about her other than how she felt in bed, I didn't know how to respond.

"[Valkyrie]...!"

The person who answered for me was, surprisingly, Prince Gangastra. He was still clutching the stump of his right arm, which was bleeding profusely.

"[Valkyrie]. The battle goddess of legend. Clad in a robe of feathers, she soars through the heavens and scatters ten thousand soldiers. That is the 'Divine Calling' of Tamagushi, the Eighth Princess of Niosebuk...!"

"The Eighth Princess...!"

So she was part of the Niosebuk royalty. And a Princess, no less. I stared at her, and she looked back with a trace of awkwardness.

"My father and my brothers... they only cared about direct combat 'Divine Calling'. Anything else was 'trash' to them. That is why they viewed the [Valkyrie] as nothing more than a class with high annihilation power modeled after a goddess. For my 'Job,' that is merely one facet."

She admitted it. She was a Princess of Niosebuk. The King was her father, the Prince her brother...

"In the legends, the [Valkyrie] is a handmaiden who serves heroes. Carrying the orders of the Great God, she finds the souls of the brave who have achieved great feats on earth and leads them to the heavens, providing them with service befitting their accomplishments. She serves them feasts, pours their wine... and offers her own body. As someone who manifests that goddess's essence as a 'Divine Calling', I can instinctively sniff out those destined to be heroes."

And the one Tamagushi sniffed out was... me? No way... wait, seriously?

"How cruel, Sir Sao. If that weren't the case, I would never have offered my body to a stranger on our first meeting! That, too, was the instinct of the [Valkyrie] commanding me to 'offer everything and serve the hero'."

"Offer... your body...?" Why was the Prince looking so aghast at that specific phrase?

"My mother was royalty from one of the nations Niosebuk destroyed... a priestess-princess who governed the sacred rites. Even as her country fell, she refused to let the traditions die. She taught the ancient wisdom and legends to me—the child she bore after being ravished by Imashinunda. And my nature as a [Valkyrie]... commands me. It tells me to serve Sir Sao. To lead and assist the chosen hero so that he may return this land to its proper form and rule it with peace."

"Tamagushi! You... you BITCH!!"

For some reason, the Prince was glaring at Tamagushi with the face of a demon. Given he’s royalty from a military nation, that look alone could make a normal person faint, but Tamagushi just looked back with a cool, unbothered expression.

"Why didn't you choose ME?! I am the one who will rule this land and build the strongest kingdom with absolute authority! Your value would be greatest by serving me...!"

"You've always been incapable of understanding anything, Gangastra. You do not have the caliber of a hero. You are merely a thug with a temper. If you stood at the top, the world would fall into chaos and tragedy. To prevent that, I had no choice but to serve Sir Sao. So that he could save this land."

"No! ME! IT'S MEEEEEEE!!" He let out a pained scream. They were brother and sister, though likely with different mothers. I wonder if there was more to their relationship?

"Sir Sao... forgive me for not revealing my identity until now." Tamagushi bowed her head humbly. "I only wished to serve you according to my 'Job.' I felt that if I revealed I was a Princess of Niosebuk from the start, that wish would never be granted. I thought it best to stay hidden until I had won your trust."

To be fair, hiding your identity makes you just as suspicious. Normally, I'd never keep someone so shady by my side. I was just easily won over by the sex...

"As long as you don't cause trouble for innocent people, I won't complain. My policy is to never hurt women."

"As expected of Sir Sao. Your broad-mindedness is truly that of a hero. I shall continue to serve you with all my heart and soul... ❤️❤️"

Well, as long as she keeps letting me have sex with her, I don't mind much.

But man, what a shocking truth. My father... was the King of Niosebuk?

"So, without knowing it, I killed my own father...?"

Actually, whatever. No matter how you look at it, he was a total scumbag through and through. In fact, if he was the one who ordered my sister to be killed as a baby, I should have tortured him even more before I finished him.

"You're saying... you're the one who killed our father?!" the Prince shouted, still clutching his bleeding arm.

"You were there when the King died, weren't you? Can't you connect the dots?" I asked. The similarity between the King's fatal wounds and the attack that just blew your arm off should be pretty obvious.

"It's true... Father's head and chest were blown apart by something faster than the eye could see...! Just like my arm...! So it really was you?! Even if you were a bastard son, you killed your own biological father?!"

In a "Tiger-Wolf Nation," I’d think killing your father would be something to brag about. Don't start appealing to "family sentiment" only when it's convenient for you.

"He inherited the King's blood and slew the King with his own strength... Surely you, who have been a Prince of Niosebuk since birth, understand how perfectly that qualifies him to be the new King," Tamagushi noted.

"Ngh...!"

"Furthermore, you have suffered a total defeat at Sir Sao's hands. You have lost all right to the throne. Stop your pathetic struggling and surrender everything you hold as a royal to Sir Sao."

"Not yet...! I am not finished yet...!"

Gangastra reacted exactly as you’d expect to Tamagushi’s negotiation.

"I am a Prince! I am the one who will be King! I will not hand the glorious throne of Niosebuk to some random illegitimate brat who came out of nowhere! ...GUARDS! GUARDS!!"

With the Prince's roar, a wave of bloodlust surged from the surroundings. Is this that famous "I don't care if you're the King's son!" pattern?

"That's right, I am a Prince of Niosebuk! Even if I lose in a duel, I still have the military power and authority of a great army! The curse doesn't apply to the soldiers who follow me! I'll surround and kill this bastard born of some bitch—and you too, Tamagushi! Then I'll return to my place as the successor to the throne!!"

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