Absolutely Do Not Touch Eldmia Egga

Chapter 725

After a brief commotion, I managed to clear up the misunderstanding between Esmu and Ashili, and now it was my turn to be surprised.

It’s been a week since I fell asleep? Every time I got involved in a big incident, I felt like I was not sleeping well, but rather on the verge of eternal sleep, so it wasn’t very pleasant.

Maybe it was because I was hungry. I wanted to go to a restaurant and grab something to eat, but Esmue strongly advised me not to and insisted on soup, so I ended up eating bland patient food. Maybe it was because I was hungry.

“You’ve skipped twenty-one meals to rob me of a week of my short mortal life. Ascension is indeed harmful.”

“···I don’t know if that’s really the right conclusion, but considering the changes that come with ascension, it’s definitely harmful.

It was a joke I made while quietly drinking soup because I was worried about people for no reason, but Esmue’s reaction when he came back was infinitely serious. It was because I had already told him about all the strangeness I felt along with the change in my emotions.

“First of all, we need to investigate past cases again based on your testimony with the help of each religious order. Perhaps we can find a clue on how to improve your current condition more quickly.”

“Does this help···?”

“That’s right. Among the stories that are almost legendary, there are often cases like ‘one day, they suddenly disappeared.’ Until now, there was no other way than to think that it was a disappearance due to a simple change of heart or skepticism. But what if, as you said, it was an emotional change that came about because they entered the realm of ascension or demigodhood?”

“···Is it possible to guess that person’s actions or process?”

“That’s right. It’s hard to understand a change of heart unless you’re a contemporary, but ‘phenomena’ aren’t like that.”

Listening to Esmu’s words, I felt a little proud because I felt like I had made a great discovery, but that was it.

The investigation was not my job, but the biggest reason was that I had to deal with the influx of visitors, as news of my regaining consciousness had already spread like wildfire while the soup was being brought in.

At first, I thought that Lagnis or Esmue would cut it off on their own as I saw so many people flocking in, some wanting to thank me, some wanting to worship me, and some just wanting to cheer in a frenzy of enthusiasm, but that wasn’t the case at all.

“You have no problem moving, so this is an opportunity.”

Rather, she quickly brought the maids along and started preparing for a full-scale parade by washing and dressing me up. I wondered if she was really the person who had just made me drink soup until just now, but I couldn’t argue with her because she had already run around here and there once to prove that she was okay with eating anything.

So, I asked them questions to find out the reason for their incomprehensible reactions, feeling like they were just pets being groomed nicely.

“opportunity?”

“A lot has happened while you were asleep. Our side suffered a lot of damage, but the Demon King’s army lost a master-level talent, and even though the Demon King himself was involved, the operation failed.”

As Lagnis, who was personally checking the uniform I was going to wear, started talking, Esmuye, who had been observing my every move from the front while ordering her personal maid to cut my hair, continued to speak.

“Siegfried has been a great help in forming positive public opinion by showing off his safety through external activities, but since you, who contributed the most to solving the case, are lying in a sickbed, you cannot attempt anything more.”

“What are you trying to do···?”

When I asked her while looking in the mirror to see if her hair, which had grown long because she had been sleeping while lying down, was neat again, Esmue nodded almost simultaneously, as if she was satisfied with me.

“Cognitive Warfare”

It is true that there are some crazy people who agree with the Demon King’s ideology, but it is also an undeniable fact that the vast majority of people simply follow the flow of the strong. That gap was what the high-ranking officials, including Esmue, were aiming for.

“As you said, his purpose was only exploration. But how many people would be able to hear that?”

Even among the special forces that are clearly followers of the Demon King, there may be a very small number of people, and perhaps no one knows about it.

The fact that even a Master-level unit could only contain a very small portion of the evil power that the unit possessed was also the same. The reason why the situation had to change frequently and the war had to be repeated for years was because of the Master-level unit power, so how many people would believe that unit if they were to use it as a throwaway word for exploration?

“It may feel a bit improvised, but that’s what makes it even more dramatic. Well, it’s fortunate that it’s not too different from the armor measurements Esmue gave me.”

People’s gazes, led by Ragnis, who was looking at me as I finished changing into my uniform in an instant while listening to the story, were filled with satisfaction. I wondered if I really had to wear the uniform, but I couldn’t grumble because this was all part of a grand plan to screw over the Demon King.

“I’ve prepared a schedule, so check it out. The rest of the day will pass by quickly, so prepare yourself.”

I received the parchment from Ragnis, who seemed to have become more sturdy after sleeping for a week, and looked at it. As she said, I had to go around the entire Levien in minutes.

“Why go all the way to a normal city? It’s not like I knew I’d wake up today, so what’s the point?”

When someone who didn’t know saw the schedule and couldn’t help but wonder about it, thinking that it was something that had been planned and prepared for months in advance, Lagnis smiled and answered as if it was fun.

“If you go out, you won’t think that way. You’ll be shocked to hear how much Levien’s population has exploded in a week.”

“There was that incident, and the population increased···?”

“It’s because of that incident that it’s been increased. It’s a ‘holy land’ where warriors block the return of the evil spirit and even put the evil divinity to sleep.”

“ah·”

Oh my gosh, it’s like that again.

I nodded my head at the explanation that I understood at once and quietly looked at the schedule, then shook my head, pointing to the one schedule that caught my eye.

“This won’t do”

One part of the schedule she gave me included visiting the graves of my guards who died protecting Sanyeom-nim with Cheryl.

“These are the guys who died while following my orders. I couldn’t even visit them separately, so I can’t visit them as part of this plan.”

“Okay, I’ll leave that out of the schedule. I’d like to arrange a separate visit from there, but…”

“I know. It was a hastily arranged schedule. There’s no time for that. They probably don’t have high expectations anyway. I sent them off without even asking their names, so this is fortunate.”

I heard that the master-level guy specialized in assassination.

They say he was commissioned to assassinate the current Demon King, but then he turned his back on him… I don’t intend to ignore him, but if the Demon King hadn’t intervened, there would have been no way to kill the guards waiting while he was already discovered by Cheryl and his tail was caught.

That’s how I taught you. You can’t win or lose, but you can still survive.

I never thought I would encounter an enemy capable of launching an attack that would destroy the terrain from the start, so neither they nor I were lucky.

“Laughing bell… So, he’s my captain, so just tell him separately. I’ll visit him separately after finishing the operation to annoy the Demon King.”

People were shocked for a moment by the fact that I had dragged the guys around without even giving my name, but the noise from the crowd that started gathering because of the rumor that I had woken up in the neighborhood was getting close enough to be felt in the room I was in, so everyone put aside their surprise for a moment and decided to focus on their schedule.

“When you worked for the Ogatorp family, you often saw events like this. They just pretended to do something.”

“Like when Esmuye led his knights to visit the kingdom?”

“Did you see that?”

“I went sightseeing with Cheryl.”

If you look at the time period, it doesn’t seem like much of a memory, but it already feels like a distant memory. I really need to visit Ogwen again once things are sorted out to some extent. How is it that every time I recall a memory, a day feels like a year?

“I got the hang of it, so let’s do it.”

Just following Lagnis and Esmue through the door and out into the inner hallway, the commotion grew louder. I had already stood in front of many people when I was awarded the title of Wandering Knight and when I went out to save the demon cultists, so I thought I wouldn’t be nervous, but for some reason, my fingertips were trembling strangely.

I said it curiously, but what is this? Are you scared again? There’s no reason for you to be?

As I was folding and unfolding my poor hands because I didn’t understand myself, Esmue, who was watching me from the side, quietly opened her mouth.

“You seem nervous. Well, this is probably your first time.”

“Is this your first time? I’m used to crowds.”

“When I say leisure, I mean a situation where you have to instill confidence in others even though you are not confident in yourself. Haven’t you been walking the path for yourself up until now, not to instill confidence in others?”

Her affectionate voice was the same as usual, but her expression was extremely cold. She had already prepared to stand before the people as an iron-blooded princess, and she continued to give advice while maintaining a steady gait.

“If I go into the fire alone, I can do it if I am determined. However, it is a different story if I have to persuade people who are not my comrades and who do not know anything to jump into the fire with me. If there is someone who does that without any hesitation and without any concern, then he is a tyrant.”

We know the truth

The power of the Demon King is extraordinary. Rather, it is because even the master-level talents could not handle it, that they were unable to fully exert their power. And that this may have led to a future where a terrible tragedy would have been difficult to handle without a hero.

But we must not let it be known. We must be the ones who have blocked the powerful enemy as planned. We must be the ones that even the Demon King cannot easily penetrate.

We need to make people believe that right now.

“Planning, executing, and leading people to reach a goal despite being uncertain is, of course, not an easy task and requires a lot of thought. If you can do that and succeed, you will become a king or an emperor.”

As he spoke with a more serious face than ever, he looked absentmindedly at Esmue, who confidently raised his thumb and pointed at himself, and almost burst out laughing.

“Thank you. Thanks to you, I can understand the situation and feel less tense.”

“Of course, that’s how it should be.”

“···I can give good advice too·”

As we were talking, Lagnis, who had been quiet, pouted and expressed his displeasure, and Esmue burst out laughing and said,

“I told you earlier, Eldmia just didn’t understand it properly.”

“Ragnis? When?”

“Didn’t I just tell you to remember what you saw and pretend to do it?”

“···It seems that Ragnis has too much confidence in his own advisory abilities.

I had to get an unreasonable slap on the shoulder just because I said out loud what I should have just thought, but thanks to that, the tension that had been tickling my fingertips definitely disappeared.

Soon after, the two men took the signal to join the escorts who had been waiting in advance and began to look straight ahead with the appearance of a leader who showed no trace of playfulness. Then, with each step they took, the commotion grew louder and soon, when they could see the crowd of people gathered in the distance through the wide-open inner gate, the commotion turned into cheers.

When I came out of my introverted state like that, I was speechless when I realized that, if nothing else, what Ragnis said about Levien’s population exploding was the truth, without a single exaggeration.