Chapter 5

All right, I’ll admit it honestly.

There’s something seriously strange about the Hero.

No, not just strange. Really strange!

The Hero Dietrich, who fought alongside me five hundred years ago, could wield the Holy Sword, but other than that, he was just an ordinary boy, you know?

But the Hero of this era, Licht…

How should I put this?

He treats me as though I’m more precious than anything else in the world, devoting every bit of time he has to taking care of me.

Of course, the Princess of Victory is the hero who saved the world, so I suppose it would be understandable if a Hero from a later generation worshipped me.

But there has to be a limit to worship and respect!

The imperial maids also treated me with shining eyes and the utmost courtesy, but they didn’t go so far as Licht did—doing every little thing for me and even feeding me so I wouldn’t have to lift a finger!

Whenever I had a fever and lay there groaning in misery, I would open my eyes and find the Hero beside me.

Not once did he leave my side whenever I regained consciousness.

Even at night, when everyone else was asleep, he stayed awake, watching over my condition and placing a cool cloth on my forehead.

The imperial maids seemed to think it was only natural for the Hero to devote himself so completely to caring for the Princess of Victory.

But it wasn’t.

The Goddess only grants the Hero the Holy Sword and several abilities meant for defeating the Demon King.

His emotions and behavior remain exactly as they were before becoming the Hero.

Which meant that everything Licht was doing for me, the Princess, was entirely of his own volition.

My doubts only grew after I learned that he was a member of the imperial family.

Because if you spend even a few hours with Licht, it’s immediately obvious that he was someone who had been served devotedly by his inferiors from the moment he was born.

In other words, he had spent his entire life in an environment befitting someone of noble blood.

So why did he lower himself only for me and, well…

The expression was unpleasant, but why did he act like my personal footstool?

I simply couldn’t understand it.

After gulping down some cold tea, I turned my head and looked at the Hero sitting beside me.

I had dismissed all the attendants, so there were only four people in the room now:

The Emperor, the Pope, the Princess of Victory, and the Hero.

If there was ever a chance to ask the question I had been suppressing, this was it.

“Hero, you’re hiding something from me, aren’t you?”

He answered with remarkable composure.

“I haven’t hidden anything. There are simply a few things I haven’t had the chance to explain yet. They weren’t particularly important, so I put them off.”

There was no way they weren’t important.

Just looking at the expressions of the people sitting across from me told me that this was an incredibly serious matter.

Apparently, they had all kept their mouths shut about it!

I narrowed my eyes and pressed him to confess everything immediately.

Then the Hero dropped another enormous bombshell, as though it were nothing.

“The Princess and I are currently bound by a Subordination Contract. You are the master, Princess, and I am the subordinate.”

“A-A Subordination Contract? That’s forbidden magic! Who on earth used forbidden magic on the Hero? Was it the Demon King?”

“The first person to establish the Subordination Contract was Hero Dietrich. He staked his soul, and afterward, the Heroes of subsequent generations…”

“Dietrich, that crazy bastard! What the hell did he do while I was gone?! Aaaaaah!”

“Princess, calm down! No, please, compose yourself! I completely understand that you have every reason to be furious enough to lose your mind, but please!”

“Your Holiness, explain it to me. Quickly, before I explode!”

Managing forbidden magic had traditionally been one of the Pope’s duties.

There was no point asking the Hero. I probably wouldn’t get a proper answer from him.

So I asked someone who could give me an objective explanation.

“Sigh. So, as for what happened…”

This was the story that came out of the Pope’s sweat-covered mouth.

After the Holy Sword was destroyed, Hero Dietrich found himself in a situation where he had to fight the Demon King alone.

He desperately searched for a way to increase his strength.

And eventually, with the tacit approval of the Pope at the time, that idiot even turned to forbidden magic.

“The Subordination Contract was a means for the Hero to gain tremendous power. Hero Dietrich designated Your Highness as his master and offered up his soul.”

“And he became stronger.”

“The effects of the forbidden magic were extraordinary. After entering into the contract, attacks targeting the mind, such as illusions and hallucinations, had absolutely no effect on Dietrich.”

It would have been wonderful if he had managed to save me.

Unfortunately, Dietrich failed to defeat the Demon King and died in his fifties.

The enormous responsibility was passed on to the next Hero.

“For convenience, let’s call him the Second Hero. The previous Hero died while still bound by the contract. Therefore, the Second Hero was already bound to Your Highness’s soul from the moment he was born. He had Your Highness’s mark on his body.”

“A mark? If it was the mark of the Princess of Victory, do you mean the wings?”

“Yes. There was a wing-shaped mark on the baby’s back.”

Normally, the way to find the Hero was to have candidates draw the Holy Sword one by one.

But there was no Holy Sword anymore, so…

Ah!

“Dietrich deliberately staked his soul. So that the reincarnated Hero could be identified.”

“Precisely. It was a strategic decision. The Goddess also delivered an oracle stating that a baby born with a wing-shaped mark on his back would be the Hero.”

I had been one of the stronger Princesses of Victory throughout history.

Part of that was because I possessed an enormous amount of divine power, but the Princess candidate training I had received since childhood had truly proven its worth on the battlefield.

But Dietrich…

Well, because he had grown up in an environment where even learning to read properly had been difficult, he had gone through absolute hell.

Having seen me as a successful example, it was obvious what had gone through that idiot’s mind.

“The Second Hero was the second son of a merchant family. Hero Dietrich left dozens of pages of instructions in his will, emphasizing the importance of early education. With his parents’ consent, his education began at the age of five.”

“He became stronger quickly, then.”

“The greatest teachers on the continent were instructing him.”

And when the Second Hero turned fifteen, the Pope revealed the secret to him.

The Hero’s soul was bound by a Subordination Contract.

And the only way to break it was to defeat the Demon King and rescue the Princess of Victory.

“Only the master can terminate a Subordination Contract. And since it is forbidden magic for a reason, a special ritual is required to dissolve the contract without complications.”

Apparently, the Second Hero also discovered that if he staked parts of his body in addition to his soul, those body parts would become stronger as well.

“He staked more?”

“Yes. His head, which is one of his vital points…”

“Phew. This Hero and that Hero. What on earth were they thinking, doing things this recklessly without considering what would happen later?”

In any case, he had achieved exactly what he was aiming for.

The Second Hero became the owner of the toughest head in the world.

The problem was that even after preparing so thoroughly, he still couldn’t defeat the Demon King.

“Eventually, as the generations progressed, the number of body parts the Heroes offered to Your Highness increased. The more they placed under the contract, the stronger they could become.”

All right.

I had a rough understanding of the situation now.

The only thing left was to find out how much of his body the current Hero, Licht, had placed under the Subordination Contract.

The answer came not from the Hero, but from Emperor Payton.

“Everything.”

“Everything? Surely you don’t mean…”

“Yes. From the top of his head to the tips of his toes. That fellow belongs to the Princess of Victory. His soul as well, of course.”

I turned toward Licht sitting beside me and met his gaze.

His golden hair shimmered beneath the light, while his clear blue eyes were as vivid as the sky.

He was such a handsome man that people walking down the street would turn around to look at him.

He took my right hand and elegantly bowed.

I felt his lips lightly touch the back of my hand before pulling away.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Goddess.

Isn’t this a little too much?

If the Goddess felt sorry for the Princess of Victory who would suddenly be dropped into the world five hundred years in the future, She could have just given me a few purses of money.

Why, of all things, did She have to throw a Hero at me who was both the Emperor’s cousin and a Grand Duke?!

And then there was the Emperor, who was his family.

Why hadn’t he stopped this reckless Hero?

Surely he knew how dangerous forbidden magic was!

Aaaargh!

Earlier, His Holiness Celestia had subtly tried to defend himself by saying that he had opposed it.

Which meant the Emperor had known about it and still hadn’t stopped his younger cousin.

Under my intense gaze demanding that he explain himself immediately, he clasped his hands together and began to speak.

“Princess, I was the youngest among the late Emperor’s children. I had five older imperial siblings in total—both brothers and sisters.”

Emperor Payton spoke calmly.

All of his older brothers and sisters had died on the battlefield.

Those born during periods when there was no Hero found it difficult to avoid participating in the war, even if they belonged to the highest ranks of society.

Moreover, after five hundred years of fighting the Demon King, certain regulations had been established.

“To become the heir of a noble family, one must either have contributed to the Demon King’s subjugation or have experience fighting on the front lines.”

“What exactly counts as contributing to the subjugation?”

“There are many possibilities. Developing and supplying a new weapon, for example, or donating funds for the subjugation army’s expeditions. If the main industry of your territory is agriculture, you could even sell wheat or rice for military rations at close to cost.”

There were various ways to contribute.

But Emperor Payton’s brothers and sisters had chosen to fight on the front lines.

And because they feared their bloodline would die out, the Empress, who became pregnant in her mid-forties, gave birth to a late-born prince.

Payton was the only one who survived and eventually became Emperor.

“I held funerals so many times that I grew sick of them. I didn’t think I could bear it if my cousin Licht died as well. Then I heard that he could become stronger simply by entering into a Subordination Contract. So I staked everything on the method that would lower the chances of my Heroic younger brother dying.”

The gamble made by the Hero and the Emperor had actually succeeded.

They had defeated the Demon King and safely rescued the Princess of Victory.

The problem was that one more task had now been added to my list.

Breaking the Subordination Contract placed on Licht.

As quickly as possible.

The sooner, the better!

Every form of forbidden magic came with restrictions and side effects.

And generally speaking, the greater the benefit the caster gained from forbidden magic, the more severe the restrictions and side effects were.

Until now, the subordinate’s highest priority had been to rescue the master, so perhaps the restrictions and side effects had been relatively mild.

But now that I had returned, things were different.

Honestly, I had no idea how the Subordination Contract would affect us from this point onward.

One thing was certain: the subordinate would act even without the master ordering him to do anything.

But somehow, I had a feeling that wasn’t all there was to it.

So first things first.

I needed to terminate the contract.

And, of course, I was the only person who could do it because I was the Hero’s master.

I was seriously going to start swearing.