"Your Lordship! Please take us in!"

"Merciful master! Please accept us!"

The night had flown by.

I hadn't slept a wink all night.

The latest video Nova hyungnim gave me was serious stuff.

An elf noona, a chaste queen by day and a dizzying queen of the night by night...

Hot and intense.

The big full moons were as they'd always been.

I tried to quit, but the stuff was enormously addictive.

Like being a high schooler all over again.

Plenty of it was worth taking notes on.

A master is a master to the grave.

Nova hyungnim was a man—and a god—born to be loved by women.

The two of them still gave off the scent of newlyweds.

A stern god showing off his aura, and then, the moment they were alone together...

Argh! Just imagining it made me shudder.

This was cruel violence(?) disguised as education.

People massed in front of the inner castle, blocking the way.

Starting with the wandering refugees who'd followed the caravan, dozens to hundreds came to the castle every day.

Their clothes were in rags, and their faces were sallow from hunger.

To anyone's eye, these were people with no future in sight.

As time went on, their numbers swelled enormously.

The number gathered at the castle was well past several thousand.

The old came first, and women and children made up most of the rest.

Young adult men were hard to find.

If they were turned away, they were fated to become orc food.

The mercenaries standing guard all watched my expression carefully.

If the order to drive them out came from my mouth, they'd have to follow it.

Most of the mercenary band, Talman included, had promised to become soldiers of the domain.

Once their captain, Talman, agreed to serve under me, they all followed without another word.

They'd all taken a liking to me.

When there was a fight with the orcs, I led from the front.

I'd cooked with my own hands, too, and fed the mercenaries and the people of the domain, whom nobles treated like trash.

I…