Chapter 14: Rampage

“Good morning, Milady! Are you excited for the party tonight?”

“You have got to be freaking kidding me!” I roared as I jumped out of bed.

“Is something wrong, milady?”

“Give me something I can use to smash stuff,” I ordered while reaching out a hand. Sally hesitated, for perhaps the first time in my life, so I yelled, “That’s an order!”

My words were harsher than I intended, and a look of worry crossed her normally neutral expression, but with a nod, she pulled out a spiked mace from seemingly nowhere. I didn’t bother asking where it came from and just happily accepted it. It was lighter than I expected, but still destructive enough that a nearby chair shattered into pieces when I swung at it. Alas, that alone was not enough to satiate my rage.

“She’s pregnant!” I growled, while continuing to smash everything around me. “He’s known her less than a year. He hasn’t even graduated. He’s still engaged to me, and she’s pregnant! Does that idiot have any idea what he’s done? Does he think the nobility will just accept this? He’s done it. He’s actually destroyed this freaking country.”

By the time my rant was done, I was left panting on the floor, surrounded on all sides by destruction. I had smashed my windows, mirror, desk, chairs, dressers, bed, couch, and table. Now I just wanted to take that mace and beat him over the head with it, even though I knew it was impossible.

“Are you okay, milady?” Sally asked once I had finally stopped smashing everything around me. “We seem to be out of furniture, but I can fetch you more if you desire.”

I laughed. What else could I do? Sally had responded to my utterly unhinged rampage by offering to help. How was she that loyal? What had I ever done to earn that loyalty? I still hadn’t even told her what was happening.

“The prince is cheating on me with Holly, and she’s pregnant, and he’s gonna annul the engagement and kill me tonight, and I keep repeating this same stupid day over and over, and I just don’t know what to do anymore. What do I do, Sally?”

My words exploded out of me in a rambling mass as I tried to explain the absolute nightmare I had been living for the past few weeks. I doubted it made any sense, and I half-expected her to have me committed, but instead, she took a knee before me.

“Order and I shall obey, milady. Simply say the word, and I shall eliminate all those who would threaten your happiness.”

“Even the prince?” I hesitantly asked as I began to sit up.

“If that is what you desire.”

I stared in shock at Sally’s words. What she was suggesting wasn’t just dangerous. It was suicidal. There was a reason why, even in my darkest moments, I had never considered killing the prince. His divine magic allowed him to destroy anyone he wanted and nullify any type of magic. However, that alone wasn’t enough to stop Sally or even me if I had enough loops to practice. If I could have tricked Atlas into leaving again, I could probably have even killed him with the mace that very loop, but I wouldn’t because I was terrified of the consequences.

Over the kingdom’s long history, only seven true royals have ever been successfully killed, and every one of their killers is still alive to this day. They don’t really have a choice. Death won’t come for them, no matter how much they beg. Their families were a bit luckier. Their deaths weren’t pleasant, but at least they were quick. Meanwhile, the actual killers have been reduced to nothing more than a writhing mass of flesh capable of nothing but endless screaming. They’re horrifying to witness.

I saw them myself when I first visited the capital. They’re kept on display by the royal family as a reminder of what happens to those who, "betray the goddess". It’s pretty effective, too. I still have nightmares about those screaming chunks of flesh, and now Sally was offering to become one of them. She had been there with me that day. She’d seen them too, and yet, she did not hesitate to join their numbers. Her loyalty truly was a terrifying thing, and I was disgusted by the fact that I had even for a second considered accepting her offer, so I instead flicked her on the nose.

“Are you trying to get me killed?”

“Milady?”

“Don’t be stupid, Sally. You know that curse won’t just harm you, and I’m not looking to die here.”

Sally looked up in confusion for a few moments before grasping the implication of my words and beginning to tear up. She was family. That I was certain of.

“Then what shall we do, milady?”

“I don’t know,” I said with a deep sigh. “If Holly really is pregnant with the crown prince’s child, that kid would be next in line for the throne.”

According to Roman, this was the goddess’s way of ensuring a peaceful line of succession. Only the first child born to the king had divine magic and thus a claim to the throne. Likewise, only the first child of that first child would be born with divine magic and could be considered a true royal. Supposedly, the power would transfer to a sibling if that royal died. However, that newly-crowned sibling’s children would have no claim to the throne if the fallen royal already had children of his own before passing. As a result, the crown prince and his father were the only ones who possessed divine magic and could be considered true royals.

“Might this be a good thing? Surely the four dukes will not look kindly upon such a low-ranking noble taking the role of queen.”

“You’re not wrong. Nobody spoke up when the prince first condemned me, likely because they thought this was an opportunity for some other high-ranking noble to take my place once he grew bored of Holly or was forced by his parents to choose someone more appropriate. However, her pregnancy changes things. Even if the prince needs to replace her, the new queen will be stuck raising another woman’s child to be king. That certainly sounds like it’d be a lot less appealing to those bloodline-obsessed nobles.”

“Does that mean they will support you?”

“Do they have a reason to?” I asked with a shrug. “Siding with me would mean angering the church and the future king. Sure, they’re probably gonna be mad at him, but I don’t think it’ll be enough.”

Of course, it’s not like those ticked-off nobles would remain quiet either. They would object in their own way. Requests from the royal family would not be answered or delayed, tax revenue would be skimmed, and Holly would likely be assassinated shortly after giving birth (not that I really cared about any of that). That’s how nobles fought. They destroyed you without ever leaving enough evidence to trace back to themselves. They only acted in the light of day when they were sure they had a winning hand, and right now I had little more than a pair of threes.