Chapter 17 – Investiture

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When I finished eating lunch it was already time to start the preparations for the investiture ceremony. Raziel, who was still disguised, told me that a group of maids were going to come to my room to help me put on an appropriate dress in a few minutes. Which brought up a little problem: while the king, Gabriel and Lady Raphael knew about us having other people know about it wasn’t really a good idea and the bed was a mess. A real mess. A disorganized bundle of sheets was on top of it and stains could be seen everywhere.

“You don’t have time to stealthily take them to the laundry room like usual, right?”

“Ehm…I might try but I don’t think I’ll manage to.”

“I have an Idea.” I said making a big ball out of all the sheets.

“What?”

“Just open the window.”

“Are you sure it’s a good idea?”

“Yeah, yeah, trust me.”

“Fine.” She said, opening the big window.

I threw the sheets out of the window with a bit of help from air magic. When the sheets were finally far away from the palace walls they caught fire, burning away completely in a matter of seconds above the gardens.

When I turned around Raziel was staring at me with her mouth open.

“See? Problem solved.”

Raziel kept shifting her attention between me and the small line of smoke that was slowly disappearing out of the window for a while before shouting “how was that a good idea?!”

“We don’t have to deal with pussy juice stained sheets anymore.”

“You made an almost two meters wide ball of fire on top of the palace gardens! Don’t you think someone might have something to say about it?”

“Who? The citizens of the capital are already used to seeing such things from all the practice I had with Lady Raphael, and we can say the people of the palace that I was nervous for the ceremony and I was just relieving some tension.”

“Relieving some tension?”

“Yes.”

“By burning silk sheets out of the window?”

“Do you really think there is someone in this palace who would find anything I do weird at this point?”

Raziel looked at me for a few seconds and sighed before saying “yeah, you’re probably right.”

“See? No problem. Now… I think I could use some underwear before the maids arrive.” I said walking towards the wardrobe.

I took out some silk undergarments which didn’t differ too much from the ones found on Earth except for their plainness and started putting them on.

“What are you doing?”

“Putting my underwear on.”

“Don’t be stupid, I told you that you’ll have to wear a dress.” She said, taking a corset, a tight silk chemise and a pair of crotch-less pantalettes.

“Oh, right.” I said and took off the panties I already had on.

I put the pantalettes on and had Raziel tie the laces behind me.

“In my world these are considered kinky items now.” I said while putting the chemise on.

“How comes?”

“Well, people simply don’t wear them anymore on a day to day basis as even the formal dresses don’t require them.”

“Really?” She asked a bit surprised as she started tying the corset.

“Yep. The dress I had when I arrived, for example.”

“The blue and silver one?”

“Yes, that. If it was black it would be as formal as a dress gets in most countries of my world so they are usually worn with really small undergarments like the ones I was putting on.”

“Oh, I get it, it’s something similar to the elven fashion, only they consider green to be the most formal color instead of black. Wait, if you put even smaller undergarments how did corsets and pantalettes become kinky items.”

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“Simple”—I said turning around and putting some distance between us –“people don’t wear anything else over them.”

Raziel looked at me and bit her lips when her eyes met the opening on the pantalettes.

“Ok, I can kind of see why. Come here now, I still have to finish tying the strings of the corset.”

I went back to her and turned to give her my back and, as soon as she resumed tying the corset, we heard a knock on the door.

 “Come in.”

At my words three maids entered the room one after the other. Two of them were holding a long white gown with golden ornaments and a golden petticoat with a white pattern, the other one, behind them was Caethy, the maid who replaced Raziel for a few days when she was on that mission. When she saw me with only my undergarments on she became a bit nervous. I smiled at her and her face became red, to which I giggled a little.

Raziel, still behind me, said to my ear “stop teasing her” while tying the last strings a bit too tight.

“Ugh, fine, fine.” I whispered back.

The maids and Raziel helped me dress and fixed my hair for what felt like hours before I could finally say to have the same mobility of a tree.

Once ready the other maids left and I went with Raziel towards a room with a balcony over the main hall.

When I entered the room I found Duke Besalel sitting on an armchair with a butler at his side.

(What the fuck is he doing here?)

“Good evening Duke Besalel, how unusual to see you here in the palace.”

“Good evening to you Hero Fortuna. Alfred, could you please leave us?”

At the words of Besalel the butler nodded and walked out of the room but stayed there for a moment holding the door while looking at Raziel.

“She can stay.” Said Besalel

“Yes sir.”

When the butler closed the door I turned to look at Besalel who had a grin on his face.

“You’re probably wondering why the fuck I’m here, right?”

“Yep.”

“Well, almost everyone is already in the main hall for the ceremony and I had to tell you a couple of things, so I volunteered to keep you company before your speech.”

“Well then, I’m all ears.”

He took a deep breath and said “are you stupid?”

“What?!”

“I’m asking if you’re stupid.”

He turned to Raziel, who was still disguised as Lucilla, and said “I’m asking this to you too, Milady.”

“No need to be formal while questioning my intelligence, Besalel. Explain yourself, now.” She said, glaring at him.

He gulped and went further into his chair but still tried to maintain a certain composure.

“V-very well. Rumors started circulating about you two, while they are still easy to silence it won’t last forever. I suggest you stop with this ridiculous game of yours before those rumors get to the ear of the Church.”

Raziel was at his throat before I could even notice; her disguise now undone, her red eyes filled with anger fixed on his.

“I have no reason to fear the Church and I will make you eat only soup for the rest of your life if you call our relationship a game even one more time.”

“You might consider yourself untouchable but the same doesn’t apply to her. While the war is still going it might be easy for the crown to protect her and the inquisition might not even bother with the matter. But when we’ll win, if we’ll win, she will just be a woman with a fancy title and a high level. Do I have to remember you how the Church happened to find out about Viscount Heidrich hobbies a week after he lost his men and a leg to the demons? I’m warning you Lady Raziel, it won’t end well if it keeps going like this.”

Raziel was immobile like a statue, anger was still in her eyes but she wasn’t able to say anything back to the duke. I put a hand on her shoulder and she let go of Besalel. She turned to look at me and said “I won’t let that happen.” as a tear fell from her eye.

I hugged her tight, let her rest her head on my shoulder and said to her “don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

“He’s right though. I knew and still-“

“I said you don’t have to worry”

I took her head between my hands and kissed her while I wiped her tear off.

“This is really unsettling.”

I lifted my lips from Raziel’s and glared at Besalel.

“Got a problem with two women kissing?”

“Generally no, I’m no fanatic after all, but when I have what looks like a really “artistic” representation of the conflict with Leliah in front of me it’s kind of-“

“Is your goal pissing off as many women as possible in a single day? We can go call Lady Raphael and your sister and see if we can get you a new world record.”

“I think there are a lot of men who managed to anger more than four women in a day.”

“They don’t hold the record for fastest dismembered body in history though.”

Besalel gulped and I heard a small laugh coming from Raziel.

“Now that everything is set I should really give a speech from that balcony, shouldn’t I?”

“Y-yes, go ahead, we should be on schedule.”

“Perfect.”

I gave a light kiss to Raziel and walked towards the balcony. When I got to the railing the crowd just outside of the palace burst in shouts and cheers.

I waved my hand to the crowd and waited for the cheers to quiet down a bit before speaking on the magic stone mounted on the railing.

“People of the Holy Olivedias Kingdom. It was on a day of nen that I answered the call for help of His Majesty, King August Lucian Olivie, and traveled here from a different world. On that day I swore to protect this kingdom from the threat of the demons. Now, after many months, as Sel shines again, I want to make that oath again. Here, in front of all of you, I, Fortuna, as Hero of Humanity, swear to fight the demons and protect the Holy Kingdom until victory or death.”

I raised a fist and the crowd burst again in cheers as I left the balcony.

When I entered the room again Duke Besalel was already gone. Raziel, who turned back to her Lucilla appearance, walked up to me and said “shall we go to the main hall?”

“Yes of course.”

When I got to the main hall I saw that, unlike the day before, it was full of people in formal attire, probably all nobles and rich merchants of the Holy Kingdom. In the crowd I could recognize some of the faces I saw during the party on the first day I arrived.

I slowly walked on the red carpet towards the closed doors of the throne room. In front of them was the king, alone, with a sword in his hand. Lady Raphael, Gabriel, the queen and Prince Alexander were on the first row, along with Duke Besalel and some other nobles, a few meters from the second row.

Once I arrived in front of the king I kneeled in front of him on a wooden kneeler with a cushion on top of it.

“Hero Fortuna, do you swear loyalty to the Holy Olivedias Kingdom, the crown and the faith?”

“I swear.”

“The peers of Olivedias have witnessed your oath. I now declare you Baroness Fortuna Tullius.” Saying so he tapped on my shoulders with the sword.

“You may rise.”

I got up from the kneeler and the king appointed a badge on my chest. The king made a light nod and I turned around as a composed applause filled the hall.