The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor Vol.6, page 1
Table of Contents
Copyright
Character Page
Prologue
Chapter 1: The Married Couple’s Publicity Stunt
Chapter 2: The Dragon Consort and the Consorts
Chapter 3: The Dragon Emperor’s Unclaimed Territory
Chapter 4: Conquering the Empress’s Palace
Chapter 5: The Dragon Flower Crown Festival
Epilogue
Afterword
Other Series
The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor Vol.6
Sarasa Nagase
Translation by piyo
Illustration by Mitsuya Fuji
Title Design by Arbash Mughal
Editing by Elijah Baldwin
Proofreading by A.M. Perrone and Charis Messier
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
YARINAOSHI REIJO WA RYUTEIHEIKA O KORYAKU CHU Vol.6
©Sarasa Nagase 2023
First published in Japan in 2023 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.
English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.
English translation ©2024 Cross Infinite World
All rights reserved. In accordance with U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email below.
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Digital Edition ISBN: 979-8-88560-118-4
Print Edition ISBN: 979-8-88560-119-1
Prologue
SUNLIGHT spilled in from the small, barred window, causing the dust to glimmer in the air. There was no artificial light in the room, but it felt illuminated because the snow outside was reflecting the rays from the sun. Spring was just around the corner, but it was still a bit too early for the snow to completely melt away.
This tall and narrow storeroom existed in a corner of the Rave imperial palace that pierced the skies. Unlike the treasury, which was maintained daily, a broken clock, empty glass bottles of various sizes, an old, dirty lamp, and sun-damaged books were messily strewn about the wood shelves. A map eaten away by insects and a thick curtain were stuffed within a wooden box amid the disorderly mess.
“Please make your resolve already, Your Majesty,” a young girl’s voice echoed throughout the room. The tall ceiling carried her voice very well.
“B-But Jill, here? I c-can’t…”
“It’s gonna happen here because you keep running from me.”
She placed both hands on the floor and inched closer. Her husband scooted back from her at the same speed.
“See?! You’re running from me again!” Jill cried.
“I-I’m not,” her husband insisted. “I just think you’re a bit too close… Ack!”
He bumped the back of his head against one of the shelves that had been pulled out from a drawer and realized that he was backed into a literal corner. Jill slammed her hands down beside each side of his face, blocking his escape.
Her husband, Emperor Hadis Teos Rave, reluctantly directed his golden eyes toward her. The way he gazed up at her like a lost puppy was adorable, but she couldn’t let that distract her.
“J-Jill, let’s calm down and talk this out, okay? Come on!” Hadis pleaded.
“We did that yesterday and the day before yesterday,” Jill replied. “And every time, you try to play dumb or run away. If I leave things to you, it’ll never happen!”
“B-But my heart isn’t ready yet, and I’m in the middle of work. I can’t get in the mood,” Hadis countered in a fluster.
“Enough with your excuses! We have to do it! Come on! Let’s practice our wedding kiss!” She grabbed his face with both hands, causing Hadis to let out a girlish shriek.
“W-Wait, Jill, just wait. Let’s at least change locations, okay?!” he begged.
“It’ll be the same no matter where we do it! Come on, close your eyes!” she ordered.
“A-Are you the one initiating?! Wait! I-I’ll die! For real!”
“I’m no longer accepting your excuses,” Jill said. “You were dawdling all of yesterday and didn’t take a single step forward! I’m tired of just closing my eyes and waiting for you to man up!”
It was difficult to suppress Hadis, who was desperately flailing to escape Jill’s grip. She may have been in the midst of a do-over of her life, but she was still eleven. Her current body couldn’t compete with the physique of her twenty-year-old husband, but she had no plans of giving up here.
A year had passed since Emperor Hadis, the vessel of Dragon God Rave, chose Jill as his Dragon Consort. They were a married couple, but only in the dragon world. In the world of humans, she was still just his fiancée, but as the political situation had calmed, they were finally able to set an official wedding date.
Their long-awaited wedding ceremony was a mere six months from now.
The official wedding date would be publicly announced in the spring, and preparations would soon follow. It’d been three centuries since the last Dragon Emperor and Dragon Consort; when Jill had received a rough breakdown of the process, she grew dizzy by its complexity. It seemed more like a ritual than a wedding for her.
In truth, a Dragon Consort was whoever Dragon God Rave had selected—only his say was necessary in the matter. Unfortunately, that didn’t fly in the realm of humans. This was a special occasion and required a special ceremony. It was a formality of sorts. Since the Dragon Consort received the Sacred Treasure of the Dragon Consort in the form of a ring from the Dragon God, the wedding couldn’t host the exchange of rings, and a different process was necessary in its stead. As later generations kept adding on to that formality, a puzzling process had thus formed. Rave’s memories were a bit fuzzy, but he’d seen through this process numerous times in the past. There was little reason to doubt his words.
Some processes couldn’t be replicated, and some adjustments had to be made, shortening this weird wedding ritual, but the one thing that was clear was that the married couple couldn’t just stand around in their wedding clothes. Jill, who was reaching her growth spurt, needed to have her clothes adjusted, and she needed to sew the gloves for the ceremony. The kiss was only the cherry on top of her anxiety sundae.
But it was something that she had to do. She had no intention of messing up her wedding vows.
The neighboring Kingdom of Kratos, Jill’s homeland, was currently acting to place a queen on the throne—an unprecedented event. It’d been over a millennium since Goddess Kratos, the goddess of love and the earth, had split ways with the Dragon God Rave of logic and the skies. The Dragon Emperor, the vessel of the Dragon God and Jill’s husband, became the primary target of the Goddess Kratos. And her vessel was currently ascending the throne in Kratos. Everyone was certain that some sort of incident was bound to occur.
Prince Risteard, the emperor’s older brother, was currently in the floating city of Beilburg. Elentzia, Hadis’s older sister, was patrolling the borders and strengthening their defenses; both were away from the imperial capital. Information was being gathered, but everyone was restlessly waiting for Kratos to make their move.
At the very least, Jill wanted to remove as many worries as possible so that she could handle anything coming her way accordingly. For example, she was eager to train the mind of her husband, who possessed a frail heart and body because of how powerful the Dragon God’s magical energy was, so that he wouldn’t faint simply from being suggested the idea of practicing kissing for the wedding.
“Please don’t resist anymore, Your Majesty!” she demanded. “Do you really think we can pull it off at the real thing without any practice?! Are you sure you can do it? There’s no way you can!”
“I-I can!” Hadis insisted. “The atmosphere and all that will just whisk me away in the moment, I think…”
He was resisting with all his might from below her, but his words were unsteady and feeble. His cheeks grew flushed as he glanced around the room nervously. Indeed, he looked like an embarrassed maiden who had just been pushed down by the man she loved. Jill strongly believed that he couldn’t possibly kiss her at the wedding in this state. Worst case, she’d be the bride forever waiting for a kiss from her fidgeting groom at the altar.
“It sure doesn’t look that way!” she shouted. “Come on, close your eyes! Here I go! If we get used to it like the kisses we give in greeting, we should be fine, I think!”
“Th-This is totally different!” Hadis cried. “Calm your horses! Let’s at least find a more romantic spot! I want to treasure you, you know!”
“Huh?!” Jill snorted. “Y
“W-Well, I wanted you to fall in love with me, and I was anxious and a bit hasty about our relationship. I didn’t have the mental capacity to care about your— Okay! I was wrong! It was all my fault! I’m sorry!”
“You’re sorry?! Don’t mess with me! Hurry up and close your damn eyes!”
“Stop! This is weird! Come on! Rave, help me! Don’t ignore me!” Hadis called.
As Jill held him down, she slowly leaned down toward her resisting husband. Just before she could seal the deal, something fell on top of her head. With her distracted, Hadis used that opportunity to swiftly wriggle away from her grasp. Jill tried to call out to him, but it was too late.
“I-I’ve got work!” he said. “I finally get to have a meeting with the Three Dukes, so I might be a bit late. I’ve already got your lunch prepared, though! See you tonight!”
Hadis left the room in a flash. As usual, he was quick to flee. Jill pouted and slumped her shoulders. She thought that it’d all work out if she pushed him down, but things weren’t so easy.
“You’re a big dummy, Your Majesty…” Jill grumbled. As she went to push herself off the floor, her hand bumped into an envelope. “Huh?”
This letter must’ve fallen on my head earlier, Jill thought. She tilted her head to one side as she picked it up. The shelves lining the walls in front of her were low, and it was impossible for anything to have fallen from above. There was nothing else to her side. The tall shelves behind her formed a small corridor, and it was difficult for anything to have fallen onto her head unless it flew out energetically. Jill looked up. The only other place she could think of was the small window with sunlight spilling through that was high above her head.
Had someone thrown the letter inside? There was no sender. It likely hadn’t been lost there either; the envelope was pristine and new. It didn’t look sun-damaged, and it was properly sealed with some wax.
When she casually turned it over, she couldn’t hide her shock at the words: “To my beloved Dragon Consort.”
It was clear that another problem had just been added to her list before the wedding.
Chapter 1: The Married Couple’s Publicity Stunt
HIS cheeks still felt warm, and even his sighs felt hot. It was all his wife’s fault for being too cute.
“Jill’s so aggressive these days…” Hadis muttered.
He wanted her to think about his position and feelings more. He had just been dragged into a storeroom as though they were having a secret lovers’ rendezvous. The situation was embarrassing enough, and merely remembering it made him fidget. He was aware that Jill was annoyed by his dilly-dallying. -B-B-But to practice kissing?! I know that practicing is important, but still! Hadis thought, covering his red face with his hands.
Jill’s face from the night prior, her eyes closed, patiently waiting for a kiss, filled his mind. He couldn’t do it. His heart was beating a million times a second, and he forgot how to breathe. Cold sweat ran down his back and he wasn’t sure what he could do in that situation. Had he reached for her…
“I’m not confident that I could stop myself!” Hadis cried.
“That’s what you’re worried about?!” Dragon God Rave roared, slapping the back of Hadis’s head with his tail. A loud smack rang out, but no one else could hear it.
“Look, I know Missy’s turning twelve in the spring, but she’s still a child,” Rave scolded. “If you can’t keep yourself in check, who will?! I thought you’ve matured enough to tell right from wrong.”
“Ack! You’re right! We need to celebrate her birthday this year!” Hadis screamed.
“Listen to me, you numbskull! Wait, no, remember where you are right now! You’re in the middle of a meeting! The people who’ve gathered are all looking at you with troubled faces!” Rave reminded him.
Hadis looked up and saw that everyone was staring straight at him. He was seated at the emperor’s seat, and no one else could see or hear Rave.
“Does Dragon God Rave have an opinion he’d like to share?” asked Chancellor Vissel, Hadis’s older brother, in a clear voice. He was seated closest to the emperor, on the leftmost side of the rectangular meeting table.
Beside him, a middle-aged man with thin eyes chuckled. “A meeting where we get to hear the opinions of a god? Indeed, this is the real draw of being in an empire with a Dragon Emperor.”
“Ah, so you have accepted the existence of a Dragon God and a Dragon Emperor, Duke Verrat?” Vissel replied sarcastically.
“Of course,” Duke Morgan de Verrat replied kindly. “I always have from the start. Only my cousins have refused to accept this truth.”
The cousins he was referring to were the previous emperor, Meruonis, and his younger brother, George. Duke Verrat had likely referred to the latter. Half of the people in the room looked astonished by his comment, but the duke was as calm as ever.
George had been the mastermind behind the Riot of the False Emperor. His late mother was Duke Verrat’s aunt, and the duke’s dispatch of his personal army when hunting for Hadis had made others suspicious of his possible revolt. Duke Verrat, however, had very easily cut George off from his family. His excuse was that he was overcome with a sense of duty to find and protect the Dragon Emperor as soon as possible, and there wasn’t enough proof to deny those claims. In addition, he was the one who sheltered Vissel, who had been against George’s dispatch of troops and was chased out of the imperial castle. When the duke insisted upon his loyalty, going so far as to shelter Vissel, there wasn’t much others could say.
“It’s unwise to dwell upon the past,” a burly man said carefreely, his arms crossed in front of him. “If the point of gathering the Three Dukes in the imperial capital is to probe each other’s intentions, I’d like to get back to training. Of course, I’m prepared to settle things with an arm-wrestling match.”
The man had the intimidating face of a battle-hardened warrior. He was the uncle of Elentzia, Duke Bruno de Neutrahl. Along with Elentzia siding with George during the Riot of the False Emperor, the previous Duke Neutrahl had also been indirectly responsible for restraining Risteard. Using old age as his reason, the previous duke retired and gave the title to his eldest son, Bruno. It hadn’t yet been a year since he became a duke, but he looked undaunted. Duke Verrat, who sat in front of him, couldn’t hide his scorn.
“Ah, I expect no less from Duke Neutrahl,” Verrat said cynically. “You’re just as optimistic as your predecessor. Arm wrestling, you say?”
“Violence resolves a majority of matters, Mo,” Bruno replied.
“Does that nickname come from your predecessor? I’m most displeased,” Verrat said flatly. “I shall be leaving.”
“Then I’ll take that as a surrender, Mo,” Bruno said.
“Why do you still call me by that name?!”
“To be more friendly. My predecessor has told me that the most effective ways of handling you are to use violence, neglect you and let you do as you please, or to call you by a nickname,” Bruno explained.
“You Neutrahls are all muscle-brained idiots!” Verrat cried. “Then what did he say about Duke Lehrsatz?!”
“Violence, turn defiant and say that we don’t have any money, or call him by the beloved nickname, Ig,” Bruno replied.
“I cannot possibly understand how and why you are among our ranks as a descendant of the Dragon God, Duke Neutrahl!” Verrat spat.
“Calm down, Duke Verrat,” a husky-voiced man said, stopping this rambunctious quarrel. “The same goes for you, Duke Neutrahl. We three dukes are all subjects of His Majesty, and we equally support him.” His voice rang out clearly.
Across from Vissel and the duke seated closest to Hadis was Duke Igor de Lehrsatz, the grandfather of Risteard and Frida. Duke Lehrsatz didn’t move a muscle during the Riot of the False Emperor. During the strife in Radia, he’d welcomed the King of South Kratos, scoped out the movements of Radia, and saved Risteard. The man was unlike Duke Verrat, who feigned loyalty on the outside, or Duke Neutrahl, who had no interest in the battle over power. Duke Lehrsatz was the most cryptic of the three, and it was difficult to gauge his true intentions.
