The newcomer was a man standing two meters tall, with broad shoulders and massive muscles no less impressive than those of someone at most thirty years old. However, his face showed signs of age in the form of small cracks in the mineral composing him that resembled wrinkles. Of course, the most striking thing was that he was entirely made of emerald green material.
"Eme, you have disappointed me" he said the moment he entered, recognizing his daughter by the door.
"K-King Emerald, I..." Eme stammered as she instantly lowered her head, afraid to face him.
"Please wait, Your Majesty. You're frightening the princess" said the companion standing beside the king, someone whose appearance was about seventy percent similar to the king's but looked younger and had long dark green hair.
"This is not the time to defend her, Gronn. Not only did she put herself in danger by doing this, she put the entire kingdom at risk. Imagine the political consequences of the princess of Emerald City wandering through the universe, imagine what would happen if you were kidnapped and used as a hostage against me" he said, looking directly at her as he finished.
"You would just ignore me anyway..." Eme muttered quietly with resentment.
"What?" the king asked, looking at her sternly, giving her a chance to repeat herself.
"N-nothing, King Em..."
"Enough! I don't have time to listen to your mumbling. If you have something to say, say it to my face and loudly, otherwise don't say anything" King Emerald interrupted.
"I-I understand." Eme merely clenched her fists and lowered her head, just as she was used to doing.
"Now then." The king ignored her and turned his gaze toward Yui and Run. "I understand you took care of my foolish daughter during this time. Thank you very much. If it weren't because she was under the protection of a place directly sanctioned by Deviluke, who knows the consequences of her actions."
"O-of course" Run said, trying not to sound too nervous.
"Princess Run, I didn't expect to see you here, though given your friendship with Princess Lala it is understandable. As payment, I am willing to offer a special discount to the Zielonyta sent to Memorze for an entire stellar cycle."
"R-really? Thank you very much, my father will appreciate it."
"It's nothing, just a small token of gratitude. But..." The king looked at Yui and frowned. "Is your companion alright?"
"What?" Run looked at Yui and her eyes widened as if she foresaw disaster. She was clenching her fists tightly with her head lowered, similar to Eme, but unlike her, Run knew Yui had no intention of holding back. "Yui, calm down, don't do anythi..."
"You! How can you treat a little girl like that?! Much less your own daughter?!"
"Oh no." Before Run could finish warning her, Yui had already exploded and shouted right into the face of one of the most powerful people in the universe, so Run could only sigh and smack her own forehead helplessly at her friend's personality.
"What did you say, girl? Do you think I don't know how to treat my own daughter?" Although King Emerald answered in a calm voice, his expression clearly showed how angry he truly was.
"Human, apologize before..."
"Silence, Gronn, let her speak.
Tell me, little human, where do you think I am mistaken?"
"Isn't it obvious? The moment you arrived you started criticizing her instead of worrying about her or asking why she did it, then you simply ignored her and kept talking about business as if nothing had happened."
"There are priorities, we can speak in private."
"A father's priority in this situation should be asking what he did so wrong that his daughter ran away from him."
"Eme is simply like that. She hates responsibilities and hates me for giving them to her, so she wants to run away..."
"Of course not! Ever since she arrived here Eme hasn't complained about responsibilities even once, she even helped us. The only thing she complained about was you!" Yui interrupted the king after realizing how little he actually knew his daughter.
"...I see" King Emerald sighed. "So she simply hates me."
"Are you stupid?!"
"Y-Yui, I think you should calm down" Run whispered.
"You insult His Majesty? How dare..."
"In what way am I stupid?" King Emerald interrupted him.
"Eme doesn't hate you. She only hates that you're never with her. The only reason she ran away was because she wanted you to notice her."
"E-eh? T-that's not true" Eme immediately said while waving her hands in embarrassment, though since she had already returned to her original green appearance it was barely noticeable.
"My daughter hates me, that is something I have always known. Are you suggesting you know my daughter better than I do?!" King Emerald said in his most serious voice.
"Exactly, that's precisely what I'm saying!" But Yui did not back down even a little.
"Damn human, how dare you..." Ignoring his king's orders, Gronn advanced toward Yui, furious at the disrespect. His heavy footsteps shook the floor as he reached the weak little human and raised an arm.
"Stop! Don't hurt my friend!"
Yui didn't even have time to react to Gronn before Eme jumped in front of her to protect her.
"Eme, stay out of this" the king urged.
"I don't want to! You're never with me! You don't love me! Don't hurt the people who actually are!"
"...Eme, could it be..."
The king's expression changed upon hearing her, realizing that Yui might be right.
"I don't want to go back home, there's never anyone there, I'm always alone. I want to stay here with my friends. If you're not even going to be there then why do you want me to stay?!"
"Perhaps... I haven't been the best father to you, Eme."
"You haven't! You're the worst! Awful! Stupid! Idiot! I hate you!"
"...I see. So you do hate me."
"Are you stupid?!... ah." Even Run couldn't help blurting it out after witnessing the king's density, immediately covering her mouth when every gaze suddenly turned toward her.
"Eme." Yui, who was standing behind Eme with the girl holding her arms out to protect her, crouched beside her. "If you don't say what you really feel, you'll only create more misunderstandings."
"B-but I don't know what you're talking about." Eme looked away, pretending ignorance.
"Eme."
"...Fine." Eme sighed before walking toward the king.
She took a deep breath before raising her head and speaking.
"You're stupid! The worst! Idiot! I hate you! You're never with me! All my classmates get to spend time with their parents except me! I can't even see you if I go to your office because of your stupid guards! They wouldn't even let me give you your birthday present! I worked really hard on it, you know? But you... sniff... sniff... You didn't even care. You don't love me... waaahhh!"
Halfway through her speech, Eme suddenly burst into tears, making the king nervous as he had no idea what to do.
In the end, he simply knelt down and hugged her.
"...Eme" he said after a while. "I truly am a bad father, but you must know that there is nothing I love more than you."
"...sniff... Liar."
"...Do you know why I gave you that name?"
"Because you're lazy?"
"That's not it. I spent a long time searching for the perfect name for you.
Tell me, do you know what my name is?" King Emerald asked.
"The Emerald King's name is the Emerald King. He lives for the Emerald Kingdom and nothing else, so every trace of his former identity is erased when he ascends the throne."
"Good, it seems you paid attention in class" the king smiled. "The truth is that a king must have no identity, he must have no personality. He must have no likes because his likes are the Emerald Kingdom, he must have no hates because what he hates are the enemies of the Emerald Kingdom, he must have no aspirations because his aspirations are to lead the Emerald Kingdom forward, and he must have no worries because his only worries should be the Emerald Kingdom.
I lived my entire life believing that was correct, but... there were two people who made me break that rule.
The first was your mother, Lila, and the second is you, Eme.
That is why, to make sure I would never forget my love for you, I gave you the name of the one thing the Emerald King must never forget.
You are the first and only princess of the Emerald Kingdom, you are my daughter, Emerald, the person I love most in the entire universe. Never forget that."
"...sniff... I still don't believe you..."
"..."
Meanwhile, on Yui and Run's side.
"That somehow turned out well" Run said in relief. "But please don't ever do that again. Even Lala can't bring people back to life."
"Yes, but the important thing is that they managed to resolve their differences" Yui said, equally relieved, though for reasons completely different from Run's.
"Even though all of this would have been solved if both of them had just spoken honestly instead of hiding their feelings" Run sighed once more before smiling faintly. "After all, they're the densest beings in the galaxy."
"...Didn't you say hardest before?" Yui asked, confused.
"...It was just a joke, you don't have to think about it so much" Run replied awkwardly.
"But hard and dense aren't the same thing, you know?"
"Either way, Zielonytas are both, so it doesn't matter! More importantly, tell me why you got so involved in all this." Run quickly changed the subject.
"Eh. I don't mind but... do you really think this is the right moment?" Yui said while scratching her cheek.
"I'm sure they're going to take quite a while" Run replied with her arms crossed, pointing at the father and daughter duo where the king was still trying to convince the sulking princess without success.
At least, ever since the king walked through that door, they finally looked like a real father and daughter.
"Well, the reason is, until not too long ago I always thought my mother hated me and didn't care about me."
"Really? You didn't seem very affected."
"Well, my mother has always been like that, you know? So I got used to it. Back when it could have affected me, I didn't interact with other people enough to realize something was wrong.
But if my mother's attitude had always been cold, then once my father abandoned us it became even worse.
She started ignoring me completely and was always at work, she even avoided me whenever she was home.
I was sure she hated me."
"You 'was'?"
"Yes." Yui spoke nostalgically. "One of the happiest moments of my life was when I joined the school's Public Morals Committee and my mother smiled at me. Back then I thought it was because it was similar enough to her job as a lawyer for her to be proud of me. It's also one of the reasons I worked so hard at it.
But the truth is that smile was never for me... it was for herself.
When my father left, the reason he gave was that she was too cold. But my mother wasn't actually cold, she simply didn't know how to express her feelings. When my father left, she not only realized how cold she was and how bad her personality was, she became convinced that everyone hated her because of it, me included, so she started avoiding me.
Looking back on it though, that was pretty irresponsible, wasn't it?
Well, the point is that when I joined the Public Morals Committee she realized that wasn't the case and apparently she was very happy.
Apparently, not long ago she realized I resemble her by hiding my emotions, so she told me because she doesn't want me to end up like her... why are you looking at me like that?"
"I... thought it would be a normal story" Run said while looking at Yui with pity. "I didn't know it was a sad one. I'm sorry."
"It's okay. My mother loves me, so everything turned out fine."
"You're a very strong girl" Run said while hugging her.
'Am I?' Yui thought in confusion.
"Wait! If they told you to show more emotions, then why didn't you laugh at my joke?"
"...Because it was really bad" Yui answered honestly.
"It wasn't. You're just too serious."
"Well then, Princess Run and Kotegawa Yui, we will be taking our leave now." As they were talking, the king addressed them again, interrupting their discussion and announcing his departure.
Yui looked at the happy Eme holding her father's hand and felt happy for her as well.
But just before they left, she suddenly remembered something and spoke again.
"One more thing!" she said, stopping them.
"...Is something wrong?" the king asked with a frown, sensing another lecture coming.
"No, Your Majesty, not with you. It's about him." Yui pointed at the king's companion. "Mr. Gronn, although I think it's good that you treated Eme kindly, I think giving her the means to run away from her planet was wrong. You should have tried to mediate between father and daughter."
"Gronn, is what she's saying true? You gave my daughter a way to run away? Now that I think about it, you're in charge of the guards throughout the entire castle, aren't you?
I thought I had ordered them to let Eme through and report anything related to her."
"M-my king, she's a human, she's obviously lying. How could I?"
"Yui doesn't lie!" Eme interrupted.
"Gronn, we'll talk later" King Emerald said, looking suspiciously at his subordinate.
In truth, he hadn't been suspicious at first, it had merely been a reminder, but Gronn's reaction was far too suspicious.
"I-I..."
"Could we have stumbled onto a conspiracy by accident?" Yui whispered to Run beside her.
"H-hey, is your idea of 'showing emotions' just saying whatever comes to mind? Don't say that in front of them!" Run immediately tried to silence her.
But it was already too late. With the stress and anger of being exposed out of nowhere and unable to vent his frustration, Gronn directed his rage toward the black-haired girl.
In half a second he was already in front of her, a punch carrying the force of at least two hundred tons about to smash into her face.
Swing!
Thump! Thump!
He failed. Before he could land the blow, his body had already been cleanly cut in half, both halves falling lifelessly to the ground.
"Yui!" Eme shouted in shock. "Are you okay?!"
"Y-yes, I just..." Yui looked at the golden-haired girl who had just appeared and cut Gronn in half with a single slash. "Yami, how long have you been here?"
"Since yesterday" Yami replied naturally. "Mikado sent me to provide security."
"...I see. I'll thank her for that later" Yui sighed.
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(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)