The World Is Mine For The Taking

He wanted to talk to me about something important, which honestly caught me a little off guard.

Honestly, I hadn’t expected him to approach me like this after everything that had happened between us recently.

Since I wasn’t particularly busy with anything at the moment anyway, I figured I had more than enough time to hear whatever he wanted to say.

I stepped out of the room for a moment before following him to a quieter place where we could talk without anyone interrupting us.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" I asked him once we had stopped walking.

"I just wanted to thank you," he replied with complete sincerity.

I blinked several times, genuinely confused by what he had just said.

"For what exactly?" I asked while tilting my head slightly in confusion.

"Well, you granted our wish," he said. "You spoke with Queen Titania and convinced her that she doesn’t have to take the throne immediately."

He was the one who had originally suggested that I talk to her about it in the first place. He believed Titania didn’t need to sit on the throne just yet. According to him, she deserved more time before taking on such an overwhelming responsibility. He wanted her to spend a little longer enjoying her life with me in Milham instead of immediately carrying the weight of an entire kingdom on her shoulders.

"Pushing her into a responsibility this enormous right now would feel like forcing her to carry something far too heavy before she’s truly ready," he explained. "I honestly think she would break if she stayed here under that kind of pressure. That’s why so many of us, myself included, want Her Majesty to have more time to prepare herself properly before taking the throne. While she’s away, we’ll handle the affairs of the kingdom ourselves. Of course, a monarch is necessary to govern the country, but I don’t believe her temporary absence will make everything collapse overnight. We’ll simply treat it as the Queen taking a short vacation, which isn’t exactly uncommon for monarchs in the first place. So you don’t need to worry too much about the kingdom itself. If any serious problem does arise, we’ll do everything we can to contact you."

After saying all of that, he quietly fell silent for a while and simply looked at me without saying another word.

"I think I had the wrong impression of you," he finally admitted after letting the silence linger between us.

I looked back at him, honestly surprised to hear those words come out of his mouth.

Or perhaps calling it a reevaluation would be a more accurate way to describe what he meant.

"What makes you say that?" I asked him with genuine curiosity.

"When you first appeared, you were just some man who suddenly barged into the Queen’s life," he answered honestly without trying to sugarcoat his opinion. "To make matters worse, you always seemed... dangerous. We spent quite a bit of time trying to understand who you really were. We observed you, evaluated your actions, and talked among ourselves about what kind of person you actually might be. Honestly, you always wore the kind of expression that made it seem like you were constantly plotting something behind everyone’s backs."

Well, I supposed I really did have one of those faces that naturally gave people the wrong impression.

Apparently, I wasn’t nearly as unreadable as I had always assumed myself to be.

"Now, though," he continued calmly, "I honestly believe you truly love the Queen. I can’t really explain why I feel that way, and I don’t know what I’d even tell myself if I somehow turned out to be wrong, but I’m about ninety percent certain that my judgment is correct."

I couldn’t help letting out a small laugh after hearing him phrase it like that.

"You’re pretty meticulous if you’re even assigning percentages to your own evaluation," I replied with a faint smile.

A small smile appeared on his face after hearing my response.

"I suppose that’s true," he admitted without sounding embarrassed in the slightest.

His expression gradually became serious again only a moment later, replacing that brief smile almost immediately.

"But regardless," he continued in a steady voice, "if I ever discover that I was wrong... if you ever make the Queen cry..."

His tone remained calm throughout the entire sentence.

Somehow, that calmness made his warning sound even more intimidating than if he had shouted it.

"We’ll hunt you to the ends of the world," he said without the slightest hesitation.

His eyes never once left mine while he spoke those words.

"I know we probably won’t be able to defeat someone like you."

His gaze remained steady and unwavering from beginning to end.

"I also know we probably won’t even be able to kill you."

He paused briefly before finishing the rest of what he wanted to say.

"But I promise you this. Even if you kill every single one of us, I’ll make sure our final words stay with you for the rest of your life."

He wasn’t joking around just to sound intimidating.

There wasn’t even the slightest trace of humor in his voice anywhere.

He meant every single word that came out of his mouth without any exaggeration whatsoever.

"I’ll take that to heart," I replied honestly.

After hearing my answer, a gentle smile slowly appeared on his face.

It was the very first genuine smile I had ever seen him give me since we first met.

"Alright then," he said warmly. "Please take good care of the Queen for all of us."

"I will," I answered without any hesitation whatsoever.

He quietly nodded once before slowly turning around to leave.

After that, he walked away without saying another word to me.

I simply remained where I was, quietly watching his back as he gradually disappeared farther and farther into the distance.

Once he had completely disappeared from view, I made my way back toward my room.

When I opened the door, I found Beelzebub still completely absorbed in using my phone like it belonged to her.

"Wrap that up in another minute," I told her with a small sigh. "We’re heading back now."

"Alright. Just one more thing..." she replied without taking her eyes off the screen for even a second.

After saying that to her, I walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed for a little while.

I couldn’t help thinking about just how deeply the people of the Bethlan Kingdom genuinely cared about their Queen.

Even after losing her father and suddenly finding herself burdened with the responsibility of ruling an entire kingdom, the people around her chose to think about her well-being before anything else. Instead of forcing her onto the throne immediately, they believed she deserved enough time to prepare herself mentally and emotionally. They willingly chose to shoulder the kingdom’s responsibilities themselves so she could continue living a little longer without being crushed beneath a burden that would have been far too heavy for anyone in her position.

Honestly, I found that genuinely admirable, and I couldn’t help respecting them a little more because of it.

Moments like that reminded me that a kingdom wasn’t only built by its ruler.

Sometimes, the people standing quietly behind that ruler mattered just as much, even if they never asked for any recognition.

After resting for a little while longer and making sure everything was ready, Titania, Beelzebub, and I finally left the Bethlan Kingdom together before making our way back to the Milham Kingdom.