Two Can Play at That Game

The annex of the Librata earldom.

For the past ten years, a single elf had claimed it entirely as his own.

He refused attendants and maids, and he refused to let anyone set foot nearby.

The living quarters of Melius — a proud and solitary elf by any measure — were……

“Smells like a bachelor’s den in here.”

“What?”

“You’re not married, are you? If you were, they’d never have shipped you off somewhere like this. Remote postings go to single men first.”

“……”

Melius stared at me like I’d lost my mind, and I pressed on.

“Send a beautiful elven woman to the borderlands and every lunatic in the region starts sniffing around. It’s the same with a handsome elven man — all kinds of things latch on. Either way, elves have a hard time once they leave the forest.”

“Get to the point.”

“You should tell me to sit down first. That’s how a conversation starts.”

“……”

Melius looked genuinely taken aback.

Elven etiquette didn’t end at the door.

Being invited inside was only the beginning — you didn’t move to the matter at hand until the host told you to sit.

Humans observed a version of this too, but elves held to it with rigid exactness.

Melius gestured toward a chair in the sitting room.

“It’s rare for a human to know our customs this well…… you’re surprisingly knowledgeable. Sit, Rigen — and your companion.”

I settled into the seat without ceremony. Garul positioned himself standing just behind me.

Melius sat down across from me and looked at me steadily.

An appraising gaze.

After a long silence, he spoke first.

“I’ll skip the pleasantries. You said you can help me get back?”

“Before that — one question. Why do the elves support the twelve-house race for the throne?”

“That was decided at a level above me. I know little of the reasoning, and even what I know isn’t mine to share freely.”

Melius answered plainly.

I kept my tone as detached as I could manage.

“Emperor Sirik must have left children with each of the races. Has no one considered putting one of them on the throne?”

“……”

I — Emperor Sirik — had taken wives from among the other races and fathered children with each of them.

They had been young then, but a hundred years had passed. They would be grown by now.

Melius gave a slow nod.

“An obvious thought. And every other race had the same obvious thought. If any one of them pushed their candidate forward — the others would never concede, and it would mean all-out war over the throne. It nearly came to that, in fact.”

Melius would have received the reports from right after my death.

I pressed further, thinking it through aloud.

“But that road leads the empire straight into civil war — a bottomless swamp with no way out. So the plan was to buy time by putting the human twelve-house race out front as a placeholder?”

“Placeholder?”

Garul, who had been listening silently, couldn’t hold it in.

An escort was supposed to stay quiet, but the word had clearly landed like a blow.

I nodded.

“That’s right. The twelve-house race is almost certainly a complete fabrication. Every race wants their own representative — a child carrying the emperor’s blood — on the throne. And I doubt that’s any great secret.”

“You think like a human, human.”

Melius smiled faintly, with an edge of bitterness.

“Using you humans as a buffer is the truth of it — but it makes little difference to us whether the second emperor is human or not. Even if a human takes the throne, they’ll crumble in under a hundred years.”

“So you’ll use humans as stepping stones and set your sights on the third emperor. Or the fourth.”

“What it means is that we have nothing to lose. We can afford to be patient.”

“Of course — elves are nothing if not deliberate. I wonder if the dark elves will steal the initiative from you again this time.”

“……”

The barb landed. Melius’s expression shifted.

The humans of this era might not know the details, but I did.

When I founded the Millennial Empire, the elves had been among the last to join.

Among founding contributors, seniority mattered.

The elves had arrived late, and as a result their voice within the empire had always been weaker than the others.

They would not want to repeat that mistake.

“……You know a great deal for a human.”

“I know enough to ask questions. But who actually designed this arrangement? Someone put it together — the plan to use a human as a second emperor and a stepping stone. It’s elegant, really. And every one of the seven races agreed to it. Persuading them all at once would have been no small feat.”

“As I said, I don’t know with certainty. But……”

Melius paused, then said,

“Now will you tell me how I can go home?”

“……Not a bad negotiator.”

I smiled, and gave him his answer.

“You were posted here for one reason, and it isn’t the goodwill ambassador story. You’re here to keep watch — to make sure the humans don’t get up to anything they shouldn’t. And it’s felt like an exile from the very first day.”

“……”

“The solution is simple. Go to the elves and ask to be replaced.”

“What?”

Melius looked at me like I’d said something absurd, but I kept my voice level.

“Think it through. You can’t make that request yourself — that’s an open complaint against the elders’ orders. You could be stuck here another fifty years. A hundred.”

“……”

“But if House Librata formally requests a change of representative from the elves directly, it’s a different matter entirely. It’s not internal dissent — it’s an external petition. Do you follow?”

Melius fell into thought.

I added one more piece.

“We’ll phrase it well, of course. Something like: our dear Melius has been nothing but gracious and accommodating, and we have no complaints whatsoever — only, we’d like the experience of getting to know other elves as well.”

“Hmm……”

The implication was clear: I’d send him home with his dignity intact.

Melius said,

“But there’s no guarantee the elders will grant your request.”

“A request from Count Librata carries a different weight than one from me. And it isn’t exactly a demanding ask. The elves and House Librata are bound by goodwill, after all.”

“That’s true……”

Melius made a low sound in his throat and thought it over.

After a moment, he nodded.

“All right. I’ll take you at your word.”

“There’s a condition on my end as well, of course. The Round Table coming up in the capital — you’ll be traveling with us.”

“……You want me to accompany humans?”

“Think of it as part of the groundwork for getting the elders to approve the transfer. Now — sign here.”

I produced the contract I had prepared in advance and held it out.

Melius looked down at the document and went still.

“This is written in Elven script?”

“You lot use your long lifespans as an excuse to pull all kinds of interesting tricks. So I took special precautions.”

“……”

Dealing with elves in any kind of agreement was notoriously tedious.

They had a habit of exploiting their longevity.

Lend an elf money? They won’t cheat you.

They’ll pay it back.

To your great-grandchildren.

They had a talent for slipping through contract clauses in exactly this fashion, which made them an absolute headache to deal with.

So I had taken care with every provision — and written the whole thing in Elven to begin with.

“Mmm……”

Elves honored contracts written in their own language to the letter. Any elf who failed to do so was treated as a fool by his own kind.

Melius knew this, and bit his lip.

“You really do know elves thoroughly. Who taught you?”

“Get swindled in a marriage deal and you learn fast. Could happen to you.”

“……”

I meant every word of it, but Melius seemed to take it as a joke.

After another moment of deliberation, he nodded.

“Fine. I’ll sign. But the promise must be kept.”

“What would I gain from breaking it?”

Swish.

Once Melius had finished signing, I folded the contract and put it away.

Now all I had to do was show this to the count and collect my mana potion.

Melius watched me as I rose.

“Rigen, was it? Rigen Librata. We’ve only just met, but you’re no ordinary human. Your words carry the scent of wisdom, and your manner has the cleverness of the wind.”

“We’ve been neighbors for ten years and you’re only noticing now.”

“As a gesture of thanks — let me tell you something. About why the elves agreed to support a human as the next emperor.”

I had been about to close out the visit. I stopped and listened.

Melius said quietly,

“The reason the twelve-house race came to pass is said to be because of Emperor Sirik Karakas’s dying wish.”

I walked for a long stretch after leaving the annex.

Far enough that Melius could no longer hear.

On the gravel path, I clenched my fist.

“Someone pulled a con.”

I had died suddenly and violently. There had been no time for last words.

A will? I hadn’t left one.

“Melius might have the details wrong…… but the logic holds.”

Use a human as the second emperor. A stepping stone.

For races measured in centuries, it wasn’t a bad offer.

But right after my death, there would have been factions convinced they could take the throne by force.

“The reason even those ones stayed quiet……”

Was because it was framed as my dying wish.

A dying wish that was a complete fabrication. A forgery.

“Remarkable.”

My name had been borrowed without permission, and that irritated me — but by the time I had walked for a while, the irritation had settled.

Infuriating as it was, it had probably been the best option at the time.

Better than a civil war breaking out, at any rate.

“Young Master.”

Garul, trailing behind me, called out with a note of worry.

“What?”

“Was it all right to make that promise? There’s no guarantee the elven elders will actually grant the request.”

“That’s not my problem to worry about.”

I said it with a smile, and Garul blinked.

I held up the contract and gave it a light wave.

“This is just a document saying Melius will travel with us to the capital. Nothing else is written in it.”

“Then that’s a……”

“It’s not a con. I’ll make the request. If the elders ignore it, there’s nothing more I can do.”

I said it pleasantly.

“I tried my best but it didn’t work out — sorry about that. Something like that.”

“……Won’t the elf be furious?”

“Elves are slow to decide on things. I could send the request today and the reply wouldn’t come until next year. If they agree, great. If not, I send another letter. Back and forth like that — five years slip by before you know it.”

Garul looked flustered.

“……Isn’t that still a con?”

“I told you, I tried my best and it didn’t pan out. And by the time those letters are going back and forth, I’ll have already left this house.”

I made my case earnestly.

“You keep calling me a swindler — that’s hurtful, honestly. Did I take his money? Did I lay a hand on him? All I asked was for him to come along to the capital once. That’s it. I’m taking a shut-in who’s been stuck in one room for ten years on a little outing. What more do you want from me?”

“Well…… when you put it that way……”

Garul nodded with genuine innocence.

I clapped him on the shoulder.

“Of course, there’s no reason to make an enemy of Melius. I’ll do what I can to see it through. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work — but that’s not my fault.”

“I understand. That makes sense.”

Well. There are people out there forging a dead emperor’s final wishes — compared to that, what I did was practically saintly.

“While I’m making the request and the elves take their time mulling it over, Melius gets to spend those years with hope. That’s a good thing for both of us, isn’t it?”

“……Actually, yes? Young Master, that’s quite admirable of you.”

Garul listened and nodded along.

This one would be easy to swindle.

I looked at him with something close to pity and turned to go.

“We’ve got the contract. Let’s report in tonight.”

“Yes! The count will be overjoyed! An elf accompanying House Librata to the capital — things will be completely different from last year. The other houses won’t take us lightly anymore!”

“Like bringing a middle schooler to an elementary school playground.”

To someone who had once wanted to quit being emperor, the sight of people scrambling for that same seat was genuinely baffling.

But none of that was my concern.

All I needed was my mana potion.

It was finally time to fix this wreck of a body.