Shota's Isekai NTR Adventure

"Your majesty, thank you for taking the time to meet us before the ceremony."

The tone of voice of the priest that led this group was polite, which completely caught both me and King Nergiante off guard.

After all, neither of us expected this since we thought that the Holy Empire group had come with ill intentions. We thought that the Holy Empire group had come to cause trouble.

Only looking at them now, it seemed like they didn't have any intentions of doing so.

But we didn't let our guard down since it was possible that they were just acting.

After a moment of silence, King Nergiante went forward to say with a smile, "Thank you for coming to our ceremony. It would mean a lot to us to have a delegation from the Holy Empire at our kingdom establishment ceremony."

Though there was a smile on his face, King Nergiante's eyes were on guard since he didn't know what this Holy Empire group was here for.

The priest gave a simple nod before saying, "Of course. You're the one that ended the monster waves in this area, so naturally it's your right to lay claims on these lands."

Then after a pause, he said in a meaningful manner, "Just like the empires have done."

Both me and King Nergiante were surprised again to hear this.

After all, neither of us had expected the priest to admit something like this.

This was something that was regarded as a secret that everyone glossed over because there was nothing to gain from acknowledging and confronting the empires about this.

So for the priest from the Holy Empire to actually admit this...

Just what was his plan?

While both me and King Nergiante were caught off guard, the priest continued by saying, "The Holy Empire wishes to present our blessings and congratulations during the kingdom establishment ceremony. I hope that your majesty will not mind this."

Once again, both me and King Nergiante were caught off guard.

Our thoughts were that the Holy Empire would try to do something to stop the Nergiante Kingdom from being formed or they would try to raise the matter of the zombies.

We never thought that they would actually accept the Nergiante Dukedom taking over the Antwerp Kingdom like this.

Especially since the Antwerp Kingdom was supposed to go to them.

Of course, it wasn't as if they were doing this for free.

"Our Holy Empire is also planning on opening a few more branch churches in your majesty's kingdom in the future. I hope that we will be able to have your majesty's cooperation on this matter when the time comes."

For the Holy Empire, the most important thing was their believers.

After all, they were an empire that was based on religions, so the most important thing to increase their power was to increase their number of believers.

It didn't seem like a harmful request on the surface, but...

There were religions where their believers would go quite far for that religion.

As such, letting these churches into the territory of the new Nergiante Kingdom was without a doubt letting a snake into one's house.

It was just that there was nothing that they could do about it when the alternative was going to war with the Holy Empire. It could be said that this was a compromise that the Holy Empire was offering the Nergiante Kingdom to settle this matter.

King Nergiante looked over at me as if he was confirming something and I just gave a slight nod in response.

With a sigh, King Nergiante said, "We're still trying to stabilize our new Nergiante Kingdom, so I hope that you won't mind if the locations and resources are a bit lacking."

The way that he said this made it clear that he was trying to ask for a little bit back.

Namely, he was trying to either get the Holy Empire to give some resources or to take a step back and accept a few more smaller locations.

This wasn't the kind of request that a newly crowned king should make, but he made it without any hesitation.

The surprising thing was that the priest wasn't actually offended by this.

Instead, he just said with a smile, "Alright, that's not a problem. We'll be sure to help your Nergiante Kingdom when the time comes."

Both me and King Nergiante immediately knitted our brows after hearing this.

I had King Nergiante make this proposal to see what the response of the Holy Empire would

be, but this certainly wasn't the response that was expected from them.

It was almost as if they were conceding to all requests from King Nergiante...

It was almost as if they were being too cooperative that it became suspicious.

Which was why the next words from the priest weren't surprising.

The priest finally turned over to look at me and said, "Your majesty, I hope that we can talk in private now."

We had been sitting down, but King Nergiante stood up and moved in front of me after hearing this. The way that he stood there, it was as if he was determined to protect me if anything happened.

Even though the priest had spoken in a voice that was almost as if he was telling King Nergiante to leave, King Nergiante didn't seem to falter as he moved in front of me.

It seemed that all the time and effort that I spent on him really had paid off.

It seemed that he was quite the loyal person.

But this wasn't something that he could get involved in.

Or rather, this was something that he couldn't do anything about since this was a matter between me and the Holy Empire.

I had already expected something like this to happen since they had been so conceding, I just wasn't certain how they would do it.

But being direct like this was also a good thing.

I stood up and put a hand on King Nergiante's shoulder before saying, "It's fine, I'll talk to

them."

He looked at me with a worried look, but he still nodded in agreement in the end before leaving the room.