The Prince of Lemuse

"Father! Please reconsider! An alliance with Mūzeg is far too dangerous!"

In the eastern reaches of the continent, three countries beyond Mūzeg, there lay a small kingdom.

By that point, rumours were rolling in from the far side of those three countries — that Mūzeg had been swallowing the territories around it, harvesting the powers of one Demon Lord after another, and growing into something of frightening size.

The king of that small kingdom, gripped by what looked very much like cold feet about the wars to come, had decided to hand his country's sovereignty over to Mūzeg of his own accord.

But there was one young man who refused to let that happen.

His name: Hasim Kudo Lemuse.

The third prince of that small kingdom — the Kingdom of Lemuse.

Bright brown hair the colour of sunlight. Even, well-shaped features. Aqua-blue eyes one could fall into. He was, by any measure, a striking young man.

"Father!"

"Quiet, Hasim. I am acting in the country's interest."

A lie.

Hasim knew it well.

The man Hasim was raising his voice toward was his father — the current King of Lemuse. A body bloated in every wrong way, draped in a long, gaudy cloak too large for him. He wore it with the bearing of a man who believed it suited him — but the trailing hem was scuffed grey from being dragged along the floor, and the effect was the opposite of dignity.

This was not a man who acted in any country's interest.

He hadn't the makings of a king.

But the man had outlived two elder brothers, and through that freak chance had come to the throne.

All you ever do is fatten your own purse.

Hasim knew. The whole shape of the king's domestic policy had been about that one thing — feeding himself. Heavier taxes; favours for the men who licked his boots; punishment for everyone else — a textbook display of corruption. He was a snob in the purest, most distilled form, and the country's administration was in tatters because of it.

The capable people had been stripped of their posts, one after another, on the ground that they had not bowed to the king.

Hasim had been quietly sheltering them — the ones thrown out — but there were limits to what he could do alone.

One day, I'll make this right by you. That's what I told them.

He thought of the words now. He had not yet been able to make good on them.

These people, surely, were close to the end of their patience.

And in that very moment, the king had moved again — and bizarrely.

"Bow to Mūzeg, and they will eat us alive! It's a fool's policy, Father! What guarantee do you have that the moment we lower our heads, they will treat us with any care?!"

"Idiot. Of course it feels good to be served. Lower the head first, and there's nothing to worry about."

This man is a lost cause.

Snob. Worse than a snob.

Rotten through.

Beyond saving.

Even Hasim — his own son — could no longer pretend to defend him. The King of Lemuse had sunk far below where any defence could reach.

If you could even just maintain what was here, that would be enough.

The countries Mūzeg had absorbed had, almost without exception, been crushed.

An alliance?

No.

What they called an alliance was a method. Mūzeg was hollowing those countries out from inside, slowly, like rot. Did this man not know that key personnel, year after year, were being murdered — the killings spread thin enough not to attract notice? Anyone who would have caused trouble in opposition was being quietly removed; idiots high in title and easy to manipulate were being installed in their place. That made them infinitely usable.

The King of Mūzeg was, by any measure, a politically astute strategist for an age like this one.

And, more importantly, Mūzeg had the violence to back the politics.

The current symbol of that violence was the man who had — through sustained Demon Lord Hunting — gathered the powers of Demon Lord after Demon Lord into a single body: Mūzeg's first prince.

Serius Brad Mūzeg.

He led Mūzeg's army personally. He had earned the title 〈Hero of Mūzeg〉 with no objection from anyone. He was a tactical genius, and there were good, concrete reasons for the speed at which Mūzeg was growing.

In any case — if Lemuse were handed over to Mūzeg now, with no political muscle of its own to push back, it would be eaten alive in days.

Hasim was certain of it. And his certainty was correct.

But he was the third prince. Pleading like this, in front of his father, would change nothing.

In the king's eyes, Hasim was a curse on the family.

The king doted on the first and second princes — both of whom resembled him — but Hasim had been the brightest of the three from boyhood, and the king's jealousy reached even into his own children. Hasim had grown up under that man's particular scorn.

"Father!!"

"Quiet, Hasim! If my policy displeases you so much, then be the king yourself!!"

Hasim's last attempt at protest. The king did not even bother to take it seriously. His pig-bloated body shook; the oversized cloak swung across his shoulders; and he barked in Hasim's face. Then came the smile of a man certain his son could never possibly do it.

In that one moment, Hasim made up his mind.

Be the king yourself.

— Very well. Then I will.

The scale within him had finally tipped to the side of the country.

Or perhaps what I was missing was the resolve to cut everything else loose.

Without bowing — without even a hint of respect — Hasim turned on his heel and left.

The king, taking this as Hasim finally giving up, snorted with satisfaction and headed back to his own quarters. The line of pretty serving-women charged with his upkeep filed off after his pig's body.

---

That day, Hasim was in the basement of a small storage shed in the corner of Lemuse, in a place very few people knew existed.

A meeting room only those loyal to Hasim Kudo Lemuse could enter — the rebels' secret hideout.

Hasim dropped into a battered chair and let out a long breath.

"…Couldn't be done. Sorry."

Across a long table, ten or so men and women were seated, facing him.

A middle-aged man with a fine, well-kept beard ran a finger along it, sighed, and finally spoke.

"A pig to the very end, then."

"My own father, and yet — he's beneath a snob. He's at the bottom of the snobs."

"Ha. Hasim-sama is in particular form today."

The bearded man laughed softly.

For his part, Hasim peeled off the plain cloak he wore — modest by royal standards — without bothering to stand. A maid stepped forward and took it from his hands.

She had looked after him for years. Capable. Not strikingly beautiful — but compared with the doll-faced ornaments that served the king in the upper halls, she was a far more competent human being. Hasim valued her, and was fond of her besides.

"Thanks, Aisha."

"You look tired, Hasim-sama. Shall I make you some tea?"

"Please."

"I'll add a little secret charm in, so you cheer up."

"Foul-tasting medicinal herbs — your charm. Quite a literal-minded sort of magic, isn't it."

"There's been a charm-shortage of late, Hasim-sama."

"My apologies."

Hasim let a small smile slip toward her, and then almost at once set his back straight and faced the table.

"I'll be plain."

That introduction was all he gave.

"I'm going to become king."

"…Oh."

There was a beat —

"A coup, then?"

"Yes. There's nothing else left. I've put up with this for years. I've spent years trying to find a way to talk him round. I haven't been able to change anything. My words don't reach him."

"Hasim-sama is not the one who lacks for eloquence. The pig simply has no head with which to understand language. Pigs do not, on the whole, understand human speech."

"Maybe so. I tried with the eldest and the second-born, too — every way I could think of. Same result. They have no objection to selling Lemuse to Mūzeg. They don't seem to even understand what that means. Standing around vacantly, applauding everything our father does — broken dolls, both of them."

"An exceptionally apt characterisation."

Hasim ran a hand into his hair and tugged it sideways. From a man as composed as Hasim, this was the limit of his temper.

"I'm going to lay hands on my own blood. I'll be on the road to hell for it."

"No. If you become king and save Lemuse, you're far more likely to end up in heaven. If you take human lives as equal in weight, then the act of saving more than you took will justify what you do."

"I don't like teleology. Justifying actions by their ends is dangerous."

"But in this age, without that much resolve, a man simply breaks."

"…That's also true."

Hasim let out a low growl at the bearded man's words.

"It's decided regardless. I am going to send my father and my brothers to whatever heaven the soul knows. — Will you come with me?"

The men and women across the table answered with firm nods.

"To wherever you go, Hasim-sama. You are the one who picked us up. If you had not bowed your own head to keep us here, we would have left for another country long ago — leaving nothing here but our regrets."

"…Yeah."

"As it stands, we were born here. We grew up here. We loved this country."

"I'm sorry. I really am."

"You are not the one at fault. The kindness — and the sweetness none of them quite managed to live up to — that the previous Kings of Lemuse persisted in was something to admire, even to a child."

"Kindness and sweetness, is it."

Hasim laughed quietly.

"It was the old Lemuse, in the end, that risked itself to shelter Demon Lords betrayed by the countries they served. The proud Lemuse of an earlier age."

"That blood is still in the people. But the country's direction belongs to the king. With that on the throne, we have nowhere to move. Lemuse was, until recently, almost laughably noble — and that may, in turn, have kept the people from rising. — And, more than anything, there was Hasim-sama himself."

"Me?"

"That's right. The people have held their revolution back because they believe Hasim-sama, somehow, will put the rot to right. That you have been quietly keeping the country's administration on its feet behind the king's back — a portion of the people knew. It spread. Slowly, but it spread. By now, there are some who pin their last hope on Hasim-sama."

The bearded man looked Hasim straight in the eye.

"That said — if the people start a revolution from below, the country will fall into chaos. The current king is in the way, but a king at all is some kind of deterrent. Without him, plenty of the people will not stay reasonable. That risk has weighed on us as well."

"I cannot lift my head before this country's people."

Hasim laughed at himself. Then a hard light came into his eyes.

"Even if I take the throne by coup, the situation will not have improved. The 〈Three Kingdoms〉 are still between us and Mūzeg, but if we do nothing, Mūzeg will eventually subjugate them too and reach for us. We can't beat Mūzeg in any sort of straight fight. Their military strength is real."

"Then what is your move?"

The bearded man asked. Hasim answered as if he'd had the answer ready for some time.

"〈Demon Lord Hunting〉 is rampant across the continent right now."

"That, yes."

"The wars escalating is part of the cause. Mūzeg's prince beginning to wield Demon Lord powers is part of it too, perhaps. Either way, if we burn through every last supply we have, we still won't catch up with how fast Mūzeg is growing. So I want to revive the sweetness of the old Lemuse."

"…You'll bring Demon Lords in?"

"…Yes."

Hasim nodded.

"To Demon Lords with nowhere to go — we offer a place. In exchange, we ask them to lend their strength to the defence of Lemuse. No coercion. — A bargain."

"Not all Demon Lords are honest men, Hasim-sama. Some, yes, are descendants of the tragic heroes — but the descendants of heroes are not necessarily heroic themselves. There remains the very real possibility of malicious Demon Lords mixed in among them."

"That judgement, I'll have to make myself."

"And if you misjudge, Lemuse will be eaten from inside."

"I know. But left alone, Lemuse will be eaten from outside. Given that — taking a radical step is a strategy in itself, the way I see it."

"That, too, is true."

"I can only ask you to trust me. — So I will lower my head once more."

He stood from his chair as he said it, and bowed his head in front of the long table.

A royal of this country, lowering his head to its people.

"Come with me. If we fail, die with me. I have no intention of failing. But it is unfair to leave that part out, so I'll say it: if we fail, die with me."

The men and women across the table looked at the figure he cut, and answered.

"Gladly, Hasim-sama. If we are to die alongside you — that is no bad way to go."

Hasim faced forward at their words.

"Thank you. — But I will not let you die. I will stake my life on Lemuse continuing to exist. And I will live, too. Dying for one's country has its romance, but until Lemuse is on its feet again, I do not die. Out of sheer stubbornness, I live."

"That, my lord, is what makes you the rarest of breeds — a self-made traitor of the royal house."

The bearded man closed it with that line.

That day, in the Kingdom of Lemuse — far from the Sacred Mountain of Lindholm where Merea and the other Demon Lords had made their escape — the curtain went up on the first act of a rebellion.