Every Morning, My Mirror Saves the World - Chapter 57

In Light Calendar Year 388, Prince Juvina of the Sunan Empire and Lars, the War God’s Envoy, led the Allied Forces to war. Dragon Knight Galahad commanded the cavalry, while Dark Elf Queen Tio oversaw intelligence and assassination.

This marked humanity’s first offensive in the war against the Orcs. The atmosphere on the day of departure was solemn and stirring.

And every one of the leaders was… far less reliable than the historians writing centuries later could ever have imagined.

Ruiyin finally kicked the crying, clinging Vigia out the door and stood atop the wall, waving farewell to the departing troops. She bit her lip and struggled to suppress the thought that if this bunch was going to save the world, perhaps Orc King Kandaru was the real hero.

Taking a deep breath, she turned around.

Life was not easy for the woman left at home.

Juvina, Lars, and Tio had all departed. They left her with a city garrison that would never obey her, imperial officials who did not obey her yet, and an endless stream of documents—human and Dark Elf alike.

Come to think of it, Ruiyin had personally watched Tio finish processing her documents. Why were there still so many?

Mixed among imperial reports was one that read, *Your Majesty, Landatini refused to join your harem and beat me up too.* Ruiyin felt the same irritation as someone discovering her roommate had secretly stuffed stinking socks into her washbasin.

“Yo. Everyone’s gone, huh?”

The sudden voice behind her sent a bolt of lightning through the storm clouds surrounding Ruiyin.

She spun around in alarm. At some point, the farewell hall—packed moments before—had emptied. It was now quiet enough to hear a coin strike the floor.

Only one person remained.

A bearded middle-aged man stood shading his eyes with one hand as he watched the army recede. He seemed delighted by Ruiyin’s fright. Raising his other hand in greeting, he moved his beard aside to reveal a sliver of white teeth.

“Who are you?” Ruiyin asked warily.

“Me? I’m Juvina’s father,” the man said as though it were obvious.

“…Juvina’s father? Then you’re…”

“The king of the Sunan Empire.” The man smilingly completed her sentence.

Ruiyin gazed back across the previous chapters and discovered that, through all of them, not one reader had questioned why there was a prince but no king.

Like everyone else, she had simply assumed His Majesty was dead.

Yet now he had been abruptly dispatched into the story.

“Your Majesty?” Ruiyin looked up with a thread of hope. “Did His Highness deliberately leave you here? Does that mean you’ve come to…”

“Watch you process documents.” The man smiled as he shattered her dreams. “My son says you’re remarkable. No matter how much irritating work people give you, you’ll complain the whole time and still finish it properly. I haven’t encountered such a rare specimen in years, so I specially emerged from legend to observe you.”

“…”

That personality—the kind that made people want to slap him the instant he opened his mouth—truly was identical to His Highness’s.

“The documents delivered this morning include military secrets, affairs of state, and confidential matters of the royal family.” Clinging to her last hope, Ruiyin made one final, desperate struggle. “Are you comfortable entrusting such vital secrets of the Sunan Empire to a stranger?”

His Majesty looked at her in silence.

His eyes resembled Juvina’s, but those azure depths were more like the deepest sea. Even if whirlpools already raged far below, not a trace appeared on the surface.

“Will you seize Juvina’s position… or mine?” the king suddenly asked with cutting sharpness.

“What if I will?” Ruiyin said slowly.

“…Then hurry up!!! Do you have any idea how fucking annoying this position is?! Every day, countless balding middle-aged men ask me all sorts of bizarre questions! If I knew the answers, I’d have been put on display in the Temple of the God of War already, okay?! Juvina is perfectly capable of standing on his own, but that rotten brat insists on clinging to the prince’s seat instead of becoming king! Hurry up and overthrow him so I can hand the throne to you!!!”

His Majesty clasped Ruiyin’s hands with passionate devotion, tears glimmering in his eyes.

“Do you need an army? The treasury? Bald ministers? Or me?”

…She needed none of them!

To tell the truth, Ruiyin had stopped expecting anyone to help with the paperwork from the very beginning.

But she had not expected a certain someone to send her a brand-new lunatic as a study companion while she pulled an all-nighter.

Malevolence of the universe, could you occasionally fuck off and die somewhere far away…?

The palace lost many things when it lost its prince.

No girls chased butterflies through the garden of eternal roses. The misty harem held no sweets, queen, or troupe of male consorts. The vicious Dark Elves napping along the open-air corridors vanished without a trace. Nor could anyone find the idiotic Silver Knight and spherical pink dragon at the training ground.

All that remained was the endless stream of documents entering the study, middle-aged men with every possible configuration of baldness, and His Majesty the King, who insisted on sincerely cheering for the usurper.

His Majesty carried a little stool to the doorway and sat there, watching in amazement as the human document-processing machine behind the teetering mountain of paper worked with seemingly inexhaustible energy.

“Lady Ruiyin, Latuso City has suffered a surprise Orc attack. The lord requests troops from the front as reinforcements…”

“Ask how many invaders there are. Fewer than fifty, send Galahad. Fifty to a hundred, notify Juvina. More than a hundred, tell him to surrender first and wait until Lars has time to help.” Ruiyin deployed forces without looking up.

“Lady Ruiyin, Grand Duke Fedlan previously requested an increase to the taxes on his fief…”

“His tax categories and rates are a complete mess. Income and distribution are grossly unequal, and his territorial records are a disaster. Tell him to resubmit the request, and suggest he reread *The Four Basic Operations for Toddlers*.” She cut the official off without mercy and issued her order.

“Lady Ruiyin, the candidates for His Highness’s future princess are waiting in the outer hall. May I ask…”

“Tell them His Highness is still a virgin, then introduce His Majesty to whichever candidates remain. If anyone persists after that, write Juvina and congratulate him on finally finding true love.” She delivered divine instruction impatiently.

Ruiyin sat with tremendous overreach in what had once been Juvina’s secretary’s seat. Her long hair stuck out in a wild mess behind her as she processed balding officials of every variety without changing expression.

His Majesty watched the entire thing in stunned fascination, utterly unashamed of being used as a public pillar of humiliation.

“So this is possible.” His Majesty clasped his hands to his chest, eyes sparkling as he gazed worshipfully at the human document processor. “How did you devise such a rapid, effective, shameless, and vicious method?”

Amid her overwhelming workload, Ruiyin spared him one impatient glance.

“When you’re surrounded by a team of lunatics, necessity forces you to become self-taught. Next.”

“Lady Ruiyin, the eighty-third report from the front.”

A man whose entire head was bald stood respectfully before her and offered a new document with both hands.

His Majesty waited a long time, but the usual sarcasm never came.

To his astonishment, the human document-processing machine whose reactions had always been lightning-fast was staring into space.

The She-Demon who could spray aqua regia whenever she opened her mouth was actually frozen over a battered, dust-covered scrap of paper!

His Majesty immediately developed intense interest. He coughed softly, rose from his stool, approached the messenger, and spoke with royal authority.

“Since this is an important message from the front, hurry and read every word—”

Ruiyin shot to her feet.

Before the king could finish, the She-Demon snatched the paper from the messenger with far greater speed. Turning around, she waved it in the air and said the words that plunged His Majesty into an icy abyss.

“I’ll handle this. Everything here is yours.”

“Hey, wait—”

His Majesty barely began extending a melodramatic hand before Ruiyin raced away with the battle report, vanishing in a cloud of dust.

He slowly turned.

The bald ministers he had not seen in many years remained dutifully lined outside the door. For some reason, each pair of eyes now seemed to carry the strange unspoken question, *Why His Majesty?*

…Something had definitely been wrong from the very beginning!

Ruiyin flew through the council hall, living quarters, and chapel. She ran all the way to the palace’s most secluded rear garden and looked around carefully before stopping.

Some things could not be seen even by His Majesty.

She exhaled, took out the front-line report she had been clutching, and gave it another complicated look. Then she sat beside the pond and slowly unfolded the confidential document.

“Front-Line Report No. 83—

“Ruiyin!!!!!!! It’s Lars! I miss you so much, so much, so much I’m dying QAQ! Kisses!!! Three whole hours have passed since I wrote my last letter. It’s been so long since we contacted each other! Did you miss me, Ruiyin? Of course you did!

“I think of you every time I kill an Orc. I think of you every time I swing my sword. I keep the thing Ruiyin likes together with my most important thing all the time, so it feels as though Ruiyin is right beside me!

“Juvina made some magic scrolls for me that let the recipient see the sender. I’m writing this letter with one of them. That means when Ruiyin replies, I’ll get to see you!

“Wh-what do I do?! I’m suddenly so nervous! I… I’ve been eating every meal properly. I brush my teeth and bathe carefully too. I’ll greet Ruiyin’s image looking my very best!

“Galahad and Vigia are both doing well, though neither of them seems to miss Ruiyin the way I do. So I just sent Galahad and Landatini to scout Kandaru’s lair together. If he comes back alive, I’ll make him write to you.

“By Lars, who loves Ruiyin most (crossed out) (I promised not to say I like you anymore, but I wrote it again by accident! Sorry QAQ!)”

Some things could not be seen even by His Majesty.

Because they were just too fucking embarrassing…

Ruiyin hurriedly picked up her pen and scribbled a perfunctory *Heh-heh* at the end. Glancing around like a thief, she swiftly hid the confidential document inside her clothes.

The Allied Forces had been gone for five days.

She had received eighty-three urgent reports.

After voluntarily eliminating ninety-five percent of the nonsense, analysis indicated the current situation was broadly a stalemate.

The Orc Legion, which had previously caused trouble everywhere, seemed to evaporate overnight. Aside from small groups harassing towns, the main force could no longer be found.

Even the Dark Elves, the finest trackers among them, struggled to locate any trace. The planned rapid sweep had ground to a halt.

Kandaru…

What was he plotting?

Ruiyin stroked her chin with one hand and sank into thought.

The palace’s rear garden was exceptionally quiet. Dense green trees covered the sky and sliced the sunlight into golden fragments. A murmuring stream followed an artificial channel, carrying floating petals into the central pond.

Ruiyin’s unfocused gaze rested on the water. She watched the bobbing petals, drifting weeds, and something else floating toward her with the ripples…

…A human corpse?

“…”

You are relaxing in the garden when you happen to discover a body floating on the water.

At that moment, should you run away, run away immediately, or run away at the speed of light…?

Author’s Note:

Ruiyin: New document-processing method acquired √

But how am I supposed to mark up Lars’s letter? Someone help me reply!