Chapter 2 (1/2)

To begin with, King Roy’s proposal was frankly a bolt out of the blue for the people of Déman.

Certainly, Fiiru was popular. She was cute, her personality was great, her head was good, so well, of course she would be popular. The princes from the surrounding countries were all head over heels for her.

But even so, she was just the princess of a weak rural nation. Putting it kindly, the people of Déman thought that if she did well for herself, she might be able to marry into one of the more powerful nations in the region. But the truth was that these were nothing more than needlessly large frontier nations with nothing else to boast of.

In contrast, the Kingdom of Orstoll was in the dead centre of world politics. To win over its King was just incredible.

“By all means, I would like Fiiru as my Queen.”

When the letter came, their father the King got incredibly carried away. Of all things, he made demands of a King from a much greater nation.

“We feel great joy and honour that you would have Fiiru as your Queen. However, Fiiru is incredibly popular, you see. Honestly, there are just so many marriage applications that we don’t know what to do with them! And so, you see, marrying her to you doesn’t present us with, well, many merits. You see?”

An example of the worst stereotypes of a tiny King from a tiny country, their father demanded mining rights and jewels, and not only that, he even outright demanded money.

“Insolent!” is what anybody would have expected King Roy to say, but instead he readily agreed.

And unlike everybody else who felt relief, the father of the twins was fl.u.s.tered instead.

‘Couldn’t I have demanded even more?’ he wondered. An idea truly befitting of trash.

But now that he had already made demands once, there was no pretext for a second demand. Even he lacked the gall to make baseless demands. After all, Orstoll was so great a nation that it could crush Déman with a single glare.

And so, the excuse he came up with was…

“If Fiiru is to become a bride, you must take Fii as well.”

Certainly, amongst political marriages, it wouldn’t be strange for one nation to present two brides for the sake of strengthening bonds.  To put it crudely, one was a spare in-case something went wrong with the other.

But it was a custom that very rarely saw practice.

Why then would the King bring it up now?

The first reason was that Fii was devastatingly unpopular.

She was a princess of a tiny nation, which meant that very few benefits came with her marriage. As long as some prince didn’t fall for her charms as a woman, a marriage proposal would never come.

(In other words, my value as a princess is about as much as a Zimbabwean dollar…)

And as for what the King’s aim in all this was…

“You will be marrying our nation’s few, precious princesses. If possible, a little bit of betrothal money would be much appreciated.”

While forcing another bride onto the groom, the Déman King shamelessly asked for more things. And yet King Roy readily a.s.sented.