Primordial Villain With A Slave Harem - Chapter 1044: Gift of the Dukes

Chapter 1044: Gift of the Dukes

Kaede Fujimori stood poised. Her cold, unreadable expression never wavered as her voice carried clearly across the hall.

“Your Majesty, on behalf of the Fujimori Clan and the Duchy of Silverwind, I wish to extend my most formal congratulations. May your reign endure for another thousand years, and may your glorious realm remain unshaken beneath your hand.”

The words were impeccably measured, proper in tone and delivery, neither dripping in cloying praise nor weighed with empty pomp. It was the sort of address that fulfilled every demand of protocol, yet did so without the air of a desperate servant groveling at her liege’s feet.

A stir of murmurs spread among the guests. Such a longevity was, in truth, an impossibility for any normal human. Even the longest-lived among them rarely surpassed a millennium. Yet Alexios, already a thousand years old as of today, stood as the exception.

His hair had turned white, but his features retained the hard lines and sharpness of a man only beginning to approach the end of his middle-aged years. No tremor weakened his hand, no stoop bent his back. He was still, undeniably, a figure of immense power.

No one knew the method by which he held onto such youth. Whispers abounded: alchemy, divine favor, and many more, but whatever the truth, it was clear that, barring catastrophe, Alexios would shatter every human longevity record in history.

The king inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment.

Seeing his nod, Kaede’s voice resumed. “As Duchess and head of my clan, I wish to present Your Majesty with a gift, a token of my gratitude for your steady and equitable rule over these lands.”

Her tone remained cool and precise, flattering enough to be respectful, yet too controlled to be mistaken for pandering.

The moment her words settled, the sound of scraping chairs echoed through the hall. One by one, the other four heads of the great duchies rose to their feet.

“I, too, wish to offer a gift to His Majesty, in honor of this historical day,” the Duke of Duskmere declared. His words were followed by the others.

The five great dukes soon found themselves gathered before the royal family’s raised platform, standing in a line next to one another, their shoulders almost touching.

This was a scene that would be painted by the greatest artists of the era and placed into the history books. They immortalized the five dukes standing tall as the pillars of the realm while the thousand-year-old monarch looked down upon them from his seat of power.

Alexios’ gaze swept over them without hurry, taking in each of their faces. The four male dukes were men of proper bearing; neither soft-bellied parasites nor sly, conniving weasels, but well-built and well-dressed figures who carried themselves with the dignity their stations demanded.

And then there was Kaede.

Even among such fine company, she was impossible to overlook.

Draped in her resplendent yukata, alongside her traditional oriental makeup that only heightened the cool beauty of her porcelain features… She was simply stunning.

The fine fold of her obi cinched in her waist, emphasizing her hips and the subtle but very deliberate accentuation of her feminine curves. Where the men stood as pillars of strength, she was the blade. Slender, sharp, and commanding the eyes of the hall without ever asking for them.

Many nobles stole glances at her from their tables, some with open admiration, others with measured curiosity. The same women who were reprimanded by their husbands for drooling at Quinlan’s sight found themselves pouting with squinted eyes. Many high heels found themselves pushing down on the shoes of such men with immense force.

Yet, even when considering the thirstiest of noble boys, none watched her with the intensity of Ayame, whose gaze clung to Kaede as if trying to pierce the outer shell and find what lay beneath.

Alexios continued looking at his realm’s five most important pillars.

He was not a man to revel in being paraded with gifts. For as long as anyone could remember, he had disliked such displays. As the richest human alive and the most influential man in the human lands, there was nothing of material worth that could truly tempt him. No gemstone rare enough, no silk fine enough, no weapon sharp enough. If he wanted a thing, he could have it by the morrow.

No. He would already have it.

Still, he understood the necessity of formality.

The gift-giving was not about acquiring treasures but was a display of loyalty, of politics woven into ceremony. And so, as always, Alexios bore it without showing his true thoughts. Whatever he was handed, he accepted with the same regal grace, his presence as steady as an unshaken mountain.

The silence from the throne stretched long enough to make it clear that Alexios was not going to speak first.

As such, the four male dukes exchanged the briefest of glances, the faintest nods, and then, as if by unspoken agreement, they began. Kaede didn’t look at any of them, electing to regally stand still like a statue.

The Duke of Duskmere, Lord Issac, stepped forward.

His duchy’s lands were infamous for their perilous marshes and the ancient ruins half-sunken in their depths. From these ruins came Duskmere’s offering, a blackened, rune-carved spearhead, forged in a lost age from star-metal.

Mounted upon a ceremonial haft of swampwood lacquered to a glassy sheen, the artifact was said to pierce through the strongest armor if wielded by one worthy of it. Issac presented it with a deep bow.

“May this relic of the old world stand as a testament to Your Majesty’s strength, unyielding even in the face of time itself.”

Next was Tharion of Ravenshade.

His duchy, still bearing the scars of the recent incursion by the elf-dwarf alliance of Elvardia, had pulled its gift from the ashes of conflict.

He knelt briefly before holding out a war banner, its fabric woven from midnight silk and thread spun from mithril, bearing the crest of the alliance they had defeated.

Along its edges ran inscriptions in both elvish and dwarvish script, reworked into a declaration of Ravenshade’s fealty to the crown. “Once a mark of our enemies’ pride, now a trophy of their defeat, to stand in Your Majesty’s hall as a reminder of victory hard-won in your glorious name.”

At the sight of it, Seraphiel flinched.