(our)Naofumi's POV
The silence of the King's audience chamber was heavy, broken only by the distant chiming of a clock tower signaling midnight and my own steady breathing. I stood before the throne, not bowing, not showing deference. Just standing. The air was thick with power – his, the King's, the accumulated authority of a nation embodied in one man. And mine. The subtle, humming power of a Shield Hero from another world, operating under different rules, a power I'd taken steps to conceal behind the sound barriers I'd put up around the room the moment I materialized. Less chance of interruptions, less chance of anyone outside hearing screaming if this went south.
The King of Melromarc sat on his throne. A man, where Mirellia had been a woman in my world. His features were sharp, intelligent, etched with the weariness of leadership, but lacking Aultcray's boorishness. He had Mirellia's eyes, Mirellia's calculating stillness, a sense of keen observation that missed nothing. A gender-swapped counterpart, inheriting her political savvy, perhaps? He looked at me, a complete stranger who had just appeared out of thin air in his private chamber at midnight, with remarkable calm. No guards rushed in, no alarms sounded. Either my barriers were better than I thought, or he possessed an uncommon level of composure.
"So," he said, his voice steady, lacking the bluster I might have expected from a conventional king. He held himself with an quiet authority. "Who gave you the permission to come here without an appointment, at midnight no less?"
I met his gaze, my own expression flat. No point in pleasantries. He knew who I was, or at least, what I was. The Shield Hero. Even from another world, the title resonated. "And who gave permission," I countered, my voice equally steady, cutting to the chase, "to summon the heroes without telling all the other countries? A unilateral action that risks global war during a world-ending crisis? Pretty irresponsible."
His eyes narrowed slightly, a flicker of surprise – perhaps at my knowledge, perhaps at my bluntness. He hadn't expected that response. He recovered quickly, his expression returning to that calculating stillness. "You are here about the summoning, then?"
"I have come here for the same reason," he confirmed, acknowledging the gravity of the situation. "There is a meeting of representatives of all the countries after two days." He stated it as a fact, a fixed point on the calendar.
"It is after two days, right?" I asked, picking up on the detail. "It means you are free today and tomorrow." My days. Days I didn't want to spend dodging soldiers with a traumatized companion while waiting for this world's bureaucracy to catch up.
Internally, I reiterated why I was here. Naofumi. The Shield Hero of this world. Broken, hunted, framed. And the people who did it. The Queen of this Melromarc. And her son, Myne. The King's wife, and his heir. I had come to lay bare their actions. To force his hand.
This King knew I had appeared out of thin air. He knew I had set up barriers. He was dealing with an unknown entity with potentially hostile capabilities... and he was still very calm. Maybe he knew, instinctively, that I hadn't come here to kill him. That my quarrel wasn't with him, but with his family. Or maybe he was just that good at hiding his fear. I leaned towards the latter, but acknowledged the former as a possibility.
"What do you want from me?" he asked, cutting through the unspoken tension, getting to the point. Mirellia's practicality, again.
"It's a very long story," I said. And it was. A story of summons, betrayal, false accusations, torture, loss, dimension-hopping, divine interference, and a pragmatic need to fix a mess I'd been dropped into.
But I simplified it. I explained to him everything that the Queen, his wife, and his son, Myne, had done to their Shield Hero. I laid it out flatly. The isolation. The recruitment of Myne. The engineered betrayal in the room. The public shaming. The theft of her money. The calculated cruelty. I didn't use overly emotional language; I stated facts. The systematic destruction of a hero's standing, and a person's spirit. I included the part about Myne finding her again, killing her companion, and the final, depraved threat. His face remained impassive throughout, but I saw a subtle tightening around his eyes, a hardening of his jaw. He was listening. He was processing.
"So tell me," I finished, looking directly at the man who held the authority in this world. "Will you take any action? Or will I have to take action myself?" A direct ultimatum. From a Shield Hero to a King. Something unheard of, even in my world. But this wasn't my world's King. And I wasn't just my world's Shield Hero anymore.
He thought for a while. The silence returned, thick with the weight of my accusation and the unspoken threat of my alternative. His gaze remained steady, assessing me, assessing the truth of my words, assessing the power behind them.
"Can you tell me first," he finally said, his voice calm, "who you are?"
"As I said earlier," I replied, sticking to the script, "this is not necessary. Also, I can't tell."
Internally, I knew the real reasons were complicated. I was a Shield Hero from another universe. Two Shields couldn't coexist in the same universe, or something like that. That's why my original Shield wasn't on my wrist when I arrived here. It was... integrated differently, maybe? Or held back? I didn't have the physical Shield, but the System was still there. And in return for that (and for being dropped into this cosmic mess), the God had given me something else. Special buffs. Ones that only worked in other universes, not my own. Raw power boosts, speed, reflexes – the kind that let me dodge dragons for days and dismantle Myne effortlessly. And this. This unlimited teleportation within this universe, using the Multiversal Pass.
And this is an amazing thing. I didn't need to visit a place first, didn't need a trace, didn't need to calculate distances. Just think of the location, focus, and I could be there. Instantaneous travel. Anywhere. A damned useful ability for a hero who attracted problems and needed to be everywhere at once.
The King's eyes narrowed slightly, sensing my refusal, sensing the power I wasn't explaining. He shifted on his throne, a subtle reminder of his position. "The way you are threatening the king of a country like Melromarc," he said, his voice gaining a touch of cool steel, "I hope you have thought about its consequences." He wasn't Aultcray, but he was still a king. He had his own power, his own limits.
"It seems," I said, dismissing his subtle display of authority, "you have a lot of time to talk about useless things." My mission wasn't about power posturing with kings. It was about fixing Naofumi's life. And that required his cooperation, or his removal from the equation.
He held my gaze for another moment, then seemed to make a decision. The steel in his voice softened slightly, returning to that pragmatic tone. "Alright," he said. "I talk about important things. Listen, I am going to be very busy for a few months." His expression grew serious, acknowledging the larger crisis looming over the world. The Waves. The summoning. "And you must know the reason for it." He assumed my knowledge of the upcoming Waves, the core reason for summoning the heroes. "So," he laid out his terms, pragmatic, logical from his perspective, "if you want to prove Shield Hero's innocence in front of the whole country... in my presence... then you will have to wait." Wait until the immediate crisis passed, until he had time to deal with this internal political firestorm. Months.
Months. Naofumi couldn't wait months. Soldiers were hunting her. Myne was still out there, physically healed but mentally shattered, likely wanting revenge. She needed her name cleared now. She needed safety now.
"How about," I countered, stepping slightly forward, cutting through his timeframe, "we finish this tomorrow itself?"
He stared at me. Utter disbelief flooded his face, shattering his composure for the first time. "Are you crazy?" he sputtered, rising slightly from his throne. "Tomorrow? It will take two weeks to get to Melromarc from here!" He was here, presumably at some outlying castle or meeting point for the country representatives. Getting back to the capital, to the heart of his power base where a public declaration could be made, would take time. Conventional time.
"Don't worry," I said, my expression flat, delivering the mic drop. "I can take you there... at this instant."
The implications of that statement hung in the air. Instantaneous travel. Across the country. Bypassing all his defenses, all his preparations. His eyes widened, staring at me, then at the empty space around us where guards should have been, where walls should have been a barrier. He wasn't just dealing with a Shield Hero from another world. He was dealing with something else entirely. Something that didn't play by the rules of his reality. The negotiation had just taken a very sharp, very unexpected turn.