"So you think the rumors spreading through the streets were deliberately planted?"
"What else could it be? The timing is far too convenient."
Beneath the pavilion, Samael picked up the freshly made fruit shaved ice, sprinkled it with powdered sugar and honey, then handed it to Morgan. As the two chatted, a cold smile appeared at the corner of the Ancient Serpent's mouth.
"It looks like those southern lords weren't targeting only you with that proposal at the Round Table Conference. They probably formed a coalition of shared interests before they ever entered the palace and planned together to make a move against the Nameless Forest."
"The rumors outside are just a way to stir up public sentiment and manipulate opinion. The Lion King and the Knights of the Round Table are the sword they intend to wield."
"They're only rumors. Surely Artoria and the Knights of the Round Table have enough judgment to see through something like that?"
"Fairies are the source of calamities. If one person says it, it's a 'rumor.' If enough people say it, it becomes 'fact.' Who knows? Maybe that noble King and her righteous knights are exactly the sort to fall for it."
Faced with Morgan's doubts, Samael remained perfectly calm, mockery filling his eyes.
Repeat a rumor often enough and people would eventually accept it as fact.
Throughout history, plenty of rumors had rooted themselves more deeply in people's minds than the truth.
Morgan thought back to the expressions of those nobles at the Round Table Conference as they loudly advocated sending troops into the Nameless Forest, and her brow tightened.
"The war between the Northern and Southern Realms has only just ended. What do they gain by deliberately provoking another conflict between humans and fairies?"
"A lot."
"Didn't you see how wildly those fairies were bidding at the auction? Those little things are filthy rich. Wealth has tempted people since ancient times."
"Forget the treasures accumulated in the Nameless Forest over hundreds or thousands of years. The fairies themselves are valuable assets. If the southern lords pull this off, they'll make so much money they'll barely be able to walk under the weight of it."
Samael rolled his eyes as he explained the fairies' current situation to his employer.
Some truths applied not only to capital, but to greed itself.
At fifty percent profit, there would always be people willing to take risks.
At one hundred percent, some would trample every law in existence.
At three hundred percent, some would commit any crime, even if the gallows waited at the end.
And this particular venture promised enormous returns for almost no investment.
Those lords had probably coveted the fairies' treasures for generations. They simply had never found the right opportunity.
Now, after brutal warfare had weeded out the weak, Britannia possessed no shortage of veteran soldiers and capable commanders.
And with the Usurper King Vortigern gone, there was no longer a convenient enemy drawing everyone's attention.
Naturally, the southern lords' less respectable thoughts were beginning to stir.
Why not fleece the King's sheep if you had the chance?
Samael had seen through their thinking almost completely.
There was a line in the Old Testament of the Bible: "There is nothing new under the sun."
He had spent several thousand years involved in politics. Even if he was not a born political genius, sheer experience was enough for him to guess what was going on.
Morgan's expression darkened, and she gave a cold snort.
"To drag all of Britannia back into war for their own selfish desires... They deserve to die."
"Can't be helped. In any society, a minority often decides the fate of the majority. That's politics, I suppose."
Samael shrugged helplessly.
Then the Ancient Serpent smiled faintly and added a few words of reassurance.
"Anyway, there's no need to worry too much. Not everyone in the Round Table wants war. Kay already rejected their request, didn't he?"
"And however disorganized the fairies might be, they're hardly helpless. Without the Lion King and the Round Table backing them, let those lords send their own rabble against the Six Great Clans and see what happens."
"I guarantee they'll get beaten senseless."
Besides, I barely know those fairies.
Even if the Round Table joins the fight, at most I'll send Muryan and Aurora a warning, or step in at the critical moment to keep them from getting killed.
That's already more than enough.
Everything else can go to hell.
The Ancient Serpent complained silently to himself.
This was not some world-ending crisis where everyone had to work together to survive.
He had no interest in becoming the babysitter of both humanity and the fairies.
As the unpleasant topic drew toward its end, Samael glanced toward the little ones playing in the courtyard and frowned.
"Still, just to be safe, Baobhan Sith and the others should go out less for a while. We don't want them causing trouble and giving those southern lords an excuse."
"All right. I'll remind them."
Morgan nodded.
Then the eyes beneath her veil turned toward her nominal husband across the table.
"I'm hungry."
"All right, all right, Your Majesty Morgan. You eat first. I'll go tell Freya to start preparing lunch."
Morgan's perfectly serious expression made Samael, who had been halfway through a sip of tea, raise his hands in surrender before getting up and making his escape.
Before long, lunchtime arrived.
Glowing charcoal burned beneath the pot, and the bone broth Freya had prepared in advance began to ripple as a rich aroma gradually filled the courtyard.
Everyone around the table eagerly arranged their plates of sliced lamb, beef, and vegetables, prepared their dipping sauces, then sat clutching bowls large and small while staring impatiently at the soup, waiting for it to boil.
Samael glanced at Morgan, who was still stubbornly eating her fruit shaved ice, and shook his head.
Winter was almost here.
With the damp, bone-chilling weather of the British Isles, hotpot was obviously the better choice for warming up.
He certainly would not do something childish like eat shaved ice at this time of year.
Women really were an impossible subject to understand.
The Ancient Serpent looked down at the dipping sauce in his bowl, topped with a vivid layer of red chili oil, and felt quite pleased.
Finding chili peppers in Britannia had been an unexpected delight.
Then again, during the War of the Covenant, the Nine Ages of Gods had converged, shattered, and intertwined with one another.
Seeing seasonings from the Americas in Britannia was hardly that strange anymore.
So, Quetzalcoatl big sis, you're the best!
And hallelujah!
Samael mockingly made the sign of the cross in his mind, putting on a show of mourning his old enemy who had not even left ashes behind.
Somehow, there was actually a trace of sincerity in his expression.
To be fair, God, who had already returned gloriously to heaven, had inadvertently accomplished something very good.
That deserved at least a word of praise.
After all, the man was already thoroughly dead.
And Samael had never been stingy with compliments toward dead enemies.
Besides, chili peppers were a minor matter.
Britannia's Dark Ages had seen nearly a century of fighting.
And because the Age of Gods had never fully receded from this land, the intensity of those wars could easily be imagined.
Every faction had beaten each other half to death.
Even so, the Celts had neither gone extinct nor collapsed into a scene of universal misery.
They were still alive, lively, and continuing to develop.
The real reason was simple.
Potatoes from the Americas had found their way onto Britannia's tables and now fed more than seventy percent of the Celtic population.
Even in terrible years, when everything growing above ground was destroyed, disaster-stricken people could still dig food from the soil.
Those tubers grew stubbornly like weeds and could keep them alive until spring.
The Ancient Serpent sighed inwardly, his gaze growing distant.
The world followed a rule of destruction followed by renewal.
When the Three Storms, Seven-Day Calamity, and Dark Tide withdrew from Mesopotamia, they left the land between the rivers more fertile and brought life to the Underworld.
After Greece endured the Cataclysm of the Titans and the Trojan War, glory belonged to Athens, and greatness passed to Rome.
And during the last War of the Covenant, after three days of world-ending destruction followed by three days of creation, the Nine Realms that had once been isolated were imperceptibly anchored and opened to one another.
Greater biodiversity and cultural exchange allowed humanity to rise.
Given enough time, humanity would surely discover how to use these gifts more fully.
Their quality of life would improve at astonishing speed, and they would eventually build a civilization across the surface of the world that was no less brilliant than anything from the Age of Gods.
Samael looked up at Britannia's gloomy sky.
Then he glanced at Morgan beside him, who had repeatedly claimed she was hungry yet was still stubbornly working her way through the shaved ice.
He smiled faintly.
"So after the rain comes clear skies."
"Samael, eat this first!"
Just as the Ancient Serpent drifted into thought, three chicken wings coated in honey and sauce were thrust directly in front of him.
Messy blue hair and a small face full of expectation appeared before his eyes.
"Sure. I'll taste them and check the seasoning and doneness."
Samael gently stroked Freya's head and accepted the chicken wings with a smile.
After tasting them carefully, he showered the little girl's cooking with praise.
Freya's face immediately turned bright red, and the simple child returned to preparing side dishes with even greater enthusiasm.
Thanks to her excellent learning ability and natural talent, Freya had now been promoted to the group's full-time cook and handled almost all three meals each day.
To keep the hotpot from becoming too monotonous, she had also placed marinated poultry over the charcoal fire, turning the skewers as fat dripped into the coals.
The meat had already begun to brown at the edges, making it look extremely appetizing.
Samael had no intention whatsoever of helping.
He sat obediently beside Morgan and the others, waiting for the cook to feed them.
Samael knew his own limits.
Even by the standards of the future, his cooking was only at the level of decent home cooking.
The only reason he seemed unusually capable here was because his head was stuffed with knowledge far beyond the era, and he had spent countless years putting that knowledge into practice.
That had given him plenty of experience.
So he preferred teaching other people to cook rather than personally handling every little thing just to show off his skills.
Of course, if someone was exceptionally hopeless in the kitchen, or even lazier than he was, then he had no choice but to do it himself.
He would specifically like to criticize a certain Goddess of Winter who was terrible with fire and had frozen and ruined more than a dozen pots.
And a certain Goddess of Wisdom who could turn cooking into the periodic table and transform a kitchen stove into an alchemy laboratory.
Then there were the Goddess of Heaven and Goddess of Earth, who knew only how to eat and whose hands started trembling whenever it was time to actually cook.
Those women absolutely could not be allowed anywhere near a kitchen.
The Ancient Serpent's greatly improved cooking skills had essentially been forced out of him by that entire group.
After amusing himself with old memories, the bone broth in the pot finally began boiling vigorously.
Shiitake mushrooms, red dates, ginger slices, and other ingredients bobbed in the rolling broth.
Before Samael could say anything, the little ones exchanged a glance.
Then, as though by prior agreement, they all began shifting around to seize the best positions for lunch.
Melusine even spread her dragon wings and shot forward first, landing directly in Samael's arms and sitting on her caretaker's lap.
Baobhan Sith took advantage of her hooves and rammed straight into Morgan's embrace, then raised an eyebrow triumphantly.
Habetrot, Barghest, and Freya had been too slow.
The three could only sit off to the side, looking enviously at the victors who had successfully claimed the humans.
Samael and Morgan were already accustomed to such displays of affection.
They simply let the little ones do as they pleased, like parents coaxing children through a meal.
Then again...
Barghest, Baobhan Sith, and Melusine, the three Fairy Knights born in response to the calamities, were technically all less than a year old.
So describing this as parents coaxing their children was actually perfectly accurate.
Less than a year old...
Samael glanced toward a certain "child" beside him who stood nearly 1.9 meters tall and had a dramatically mature figure.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
That appearance was far too mature.
Seriously arrest-worthy.
After silently complaining for a while, Samael was just about to start eating when a figure suddenly vaulted over the wall and landed in front of them.
"What smells so good? Hurry, I'm starving! Little Freya, right? Could you get me a set of utensils?"
Kay pulled over a stone stool with practiced ease and sat down, grinning brightly as he made his request to the fairy cook beside him.
"W-what kind of sauce do you want?"
"The same as his. And add extra minced garlic and chopped parsley."
Freya instinctively stood and asked, while Kay answered casually.
"You're a Knight of the Round Table and the Lion King's foster brother, yet you're climbing over people's walls. Have you ever heard of knocking?"
Looking at the bastard who had arrived precisely at mealtime, Samael's face darkened as he ground his teeth.
"I did knock. Nobody answered."
"So I got worried about you and came in to check. Fortunately, everyone seems perfectly fine."
Kay blinked and looked at Samael with sincere concern.
He performed the entire progression from anxiety to relief so naturally that it might almost have been convincing.
Almost.
By now, the Ancient Serpent knew him too well.
He sneered.
"Keep making things up. Go on."
"So even a locked gate can't stop you from coming over to freeload, huh?"
"Oh, come on. Don't make it sound so bad. I brought gifts."
Caught red-handed, Kay showed absolutely no shame.
He cheerfully placed a rather old bottle of wine on the table, then handed out several pastries to the little girls in the courtyard.
After going through that entire routine, Samael could hardly throw him out.
Even the little fairies who had been glaring at him gradually softened.
"You've really developed a whole routine for freeloading."
"Doesn't Camelot have a kitchen? If things are really that bad, go bother your old man, Sir Ector. Why are you always coming here to eat my food?"
Samael rolled his eyes at the shameless Kay.
Kay's expression turned miserable.
He looked at Samael with deep resentment.
"Gawain's been on kitchen duty lately..."
"..."
Samael remembered the nightmare that had been the palace banquet.
He fell silent.
Then he took the utensils from Freya and handed them to Kay, while silently mourning the Knights of the Round Table who were eating at the palace today.
One had to admit that Kay, who was generally well-liked throughout the Round Table, possessed an almost natural talent for socializing.
With a few jokes and casual remarks, he quickly warmed up the atmosphere and could even chat comfortably with the troublesome little fairies.
Even Morgan, despite standing on a different political side, held no particular dislike or hostility toward Artoria's foster brother.
For Samael, sitting around drinking and talking nonsense with Kay almost felt like returning to the old days with his drinking companions.
The Ancient Serpent could even see a faint resemblance to Jason in him.
There were, however, clear differences.
Kay looked lazy and sharp-tongued on the surface, but he was actually steady, mild-tempered, considerate, and extremely good at dealing with people.
Jason, meanwhile, was the type who instinctively knew how to liven up a room.
But he tended to follow his mood and preferences, and if nobody kept an eye on him, he could easily get carried away and take things too far.
The results were correspondingly extreme.
People who liked Jason tended to like him a great deal.
People who hated him tended to hate him just as strongly.
Both had their strengths and weaknesses.
But for ordinary day-to-day interaction, Samael had to admit he found Kay easier to get along with.
And this freeloading half-friend had indeed come purely to freeload.
He did not mention the unpleasantness of the Round Table Conference even once.
Instead, while stuffing himself, he loudly complained about the torment inflicted on him by that gorilla Gawain and praised little Freya's cooking endlessly.
The fairy cook, despite being the one bustling around serving everyone, became increasingly embarrassed by all the praise.
...
While everyone in the courtyard happily enjoyed their hotpot feast, the Lion King sat in the royal palace staring at a huge bowl of bizarre eyeball mashed potatoes placed before her.
She fell into a long silence.
Finally, the goddess raised her eyes toward an empty seat at the table and slowly spoke.
"Where is Kay?"
"Sir Kay said he had some thoughts regarding one of the proposals from this morning's Round Table Conference, so he went to ask about the situation."
Bedivere, who had been focused on eating, stood up and answered.
At Elder Sister's residence?
As the thought passed through her mind, the flame within Artoria's golden-green eyes flickered softly, melting through a layer of stubborn ice.
***
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