I Didn’t Even Want to Live, But God Forced Me to Reincarnate!

“…So, my prerequisite is simple. I hope our kingdom will try to work towards a future where we can live hand-in-hand with the Onis, yes, I mean especially the Naraka empire,” Oriel closed her bizarre explanation with the prerequisite she was proposing.
Their alliance had discussed about it before. They all agreed that it’d be easier to start with Cielle kingdom as between the two, Cielle had a more lenient view. If they were to agree with this notion, any sympathisers from Naraka empire could safely seek refugee in Cielle kingdom. The emperor of the Naraka empire had a very distorted mindset that it’d be easier to revolt than to change his mind, if they wanted to change the things in Naraka empire.
Deus and the other higher-ups had been speechless the whole time they were listening to Oriel’s story with only their expressions changing as the story escalated.
But the moment they heard Oriel’s prerequisite, almost all of them changed their expressions into fury.
“Preposterous!”
“Blasphemy!”
“You’ve been corrupted!”
“She’s been brainwashed!!”
“Unacceptable!”
Voices of protests drowned the whole room, with some higher-ups—mostly the elder—bravely pointed their fingers at the younger ex-crown princess.
Deus had a frown on his face as his mouth remained shut.
“My king, do not agree to her! The princess has been corrupted by the Onis and is trying to betray us!” One of the higher-ups, sitting the closest to him, said.
Deus used his hand to gesture ‘quiet’ to that person, as he stood and finally opened his mouth.
“Nee-san… I have always known that you’re a pacifist, but don’t you think they’re just using you and your sympathy? After we welcome them warmly, then what? Have them betray us once we’re off guard?” Deus asked sternly.
“No, trust me—,” Oriel spoke, but she was quickly interrupted.
“The Onis just want us to submit under them,” another elder higher-up spoke.
“Not all of them,” Oriel said resolutely.
“Nee-san, please reconsider. For your own good,” Deus said again.
“…Deus…,” Oriel suddenly realized that there was no hope in her plan succeeding at all.
But, even so…
“My stance is still the same and nothing is going to change that,” Oriel declared.
With that, everyone went into a ruckus.
Nothing was done immediately, but Oriel knew that they were trying to isolate her and monitor her, while they were discussing about ways to help her ‘open her eyes’.
If any one of them were to go to the extreme and suggest to banish or even eradicate her, she knew fully well that Deus would disagree, so at least her life was safe.
And Deus did exactly that, as he tried to reason with the extreme elderly higher-ups who acted holier-than-thou.
But Oriel knew that she wouldn’t be able to do something from Deus’ side, so she decided to run away and change her strategy.
Oriel was disappointed that even her own younger brother wouldn’t share her sentiments, not even after she had told him everything that had happened in the other world.
They used to be close and fought together. Even during the period where everyone contested the heir to the throne, they didn’t really compete and continued to work together for the sake of the kingdom instead.
However, this time, Oriel and Deus couldn’t work together for the same cause. Deus was even opposing her cause. He tried to negotiate with her prerequisite before she was dismissed, wanting it only to play peace or tolerate their existence as long as the Naraka empire didn’t do anything, but once they did something, the elves would still fight back.
But that would mean things would stay this way, nothing would change at all, then!
What Oriel wanted was beyond that. She wanted to recreate the alliance’s harmonious way of living even in this world.
With the help of the queen’s people, Oriel managed to slip away from the castle together with her people. They decided to run back to the nameless village to report the situation and to strategize together with the rest of them.
What surprised her upon returning was how Nagare and his people were back as well.
“How’re things going?” Nagare asked her.
“…,” Oriel didn’t know where to start from.
“Things aren’t looking good, huh?” Nagare immediately understood from her expression.
“Yeah… You, too?” Oriel asked.
“Yeah, the emperor’s caught wind of our movement, so we decided to flee here first to see how it’s going on your side.”
The hopeful elves had their expectation withering the moment they saw Oriel’s gloomy expression. Still, Oriel told them everything that had happened in Cielle, including how her mother was doing. Everyone was happy to hear that the former queen was with them.
They then proceeded to discuss their next strategy.
“What, next?”
“Princess, should we try to riot and take back your throne? That way, it’d be easier for you to manage things in Cielle!” One of the elves said fiercely.
“…No, that is out of question. Anything won by sheer violence won’t be good in the long run,” Oriel quickly dismissed the idea.
Perhaps it was the quickest method. But the backlash they’d get would be troublesome as well. Things such as grudge from Deus and his supporters, waiting to get back at them, and also the elves that won’t support their movement would go to Deus’ faction and… it would be an internal split.
Oriel would like to avoid that.
“Both of us should try smaller steps, then. We will slowly try to gain supporters, with our stealthy movements,” Oriel said.
“Ah… We fight the long way, is it?” Osamu nodded.
“If the majority ends up with the same mindset… It’d be easier to make those conservatives agree!” Fideline also agreed with Oriel’s idea.
“So, we Onis and you elves will do the same method for now,” Nagare said.
“Yeah,” Oriel nodded.
“Hmm… Maybe we should also try to convert this neutral area as our starting point?” Faro the elf added.
“Come to think of it… There were runaway Onis living somewhere in the neutral area, just not in this village. We can try experimenting approaches to them,” Yasha clapped her hands.
“We can do that. I think there are also some elves in this area… Yeah, let’s try it out with them too, we can also build this village while we’re at it,” Fideline also said.
Thus, they started their slow but steady movements as unified team first.
Luckily, elves and Onis had a long lifespan, so time was what they had.
As time passed by, the village grew bigger, with the addition of stray elves and Onis who agreed to live together in the village with them. The fact that there were many of their same kin helped to persuade them.
All of them were stunned when they saw how their brethren could live together with the opposing race so peacefully, and there was even a child born from their union!
At first, all of them were reluctant and only tolerated the other, but as time continued to pass by combined with the alliance’s efforts, they were able to be friendlier to the other.
Children were the purest of them all, so naturally, Oni children and elves children started to get along better than the adults at first.
Then, the younger ones with a more liberal values also joined.
Another big event happened at this point.
Oriel was assured that she had her mother’s blessing, so the burden that was chaining her was more or less gone, and she had pursued a relationship with Nagare, who was reluctant at first and kept asking Oriel if she was sure about this.
Eventually, they held a wedding in this nameless village.
This was the second unified wedding they had, and furthermore, it was their leaders’ wedding, so everyone was beaming with happiness.
Oriel managed to sneak her mother to the nameless village to actually attend and bless the wedding, much to their delight.
Of course, the queen came to the village several days before the wedding to see how the situation was like.
“My queen!!”
“Queen, you’re here!!”
All the elves were happy and welcomed their former queen warmly, surprising the Onis as they revered to their emperor with fear and would not welcome him like that.
The former queen Verbenae smiled at every one of them.
Then, she took a long and careful look at her daughter’s soon-to-be-husband.
Despite Verbenae having a kind and tender expression and wasn’t as scary as the Naraka’s emperor, Nagare actually felt nervous when her eyes were scanning him.
First impression mattered the most, especially given their situation, so Nagare was really nervous and careful as he introduced himself to the former queen and treated her during her stay here.
The main reason of her coming several days before the wedding was for Nagare to personally see the former queen and ask for her blessing in marrying her daughter.
When Nagare asked for the former queen’s blessing, with the formalities of the Onis where he knelt and bowed deeply, the former queen let out a small laugh.
“You don’t need to be this nervous. Don’t kneel and bow that deeply. Sit straight and look at me,” Queen Verbenae didn’t let Nagare kneel in a dogeza for too long.
But in her eyes, she viewed Nagare’s action as something praise-worthy. Even if they were elves, he didn’t look down on them at all and even showed formalities like he would to any Oni. As a former queen, she was well-versed in formalities even that of a different country, so that she wouldn’t make a blunder due to her ignorance.
“Please take care of my daughter well,” Queen Verbenae said as she looked at Nagare’s eyes.
“I promise I will make her happy,” Nagare bowed once more, clearly happy that Oriel’s mother acknowledged him and entrusted Oriel to him.
Seeing that the former queen of Cielle was on board with their cause, the alliance as well as the stray elves that lived in the village were more convinced of this cause.
With the knot between the two figures, their movements grew more and more.
Eventually, a child between Oriel and Nagare was born, solidifying them even more.
***
“Celeste Chiyome Naraciel is my full name.”
By the time they were done narrating the whole story, Celeste finally introduced herself with her real name.
“Apologies for lying before. I was born with the name Fideline Vernette Xyrfiel,” Fideline added as she bowed respectfully.
“Celeste Chiyome Naraciel… That’s a beautiful name,” Altaire casually said, and that earned him a sharp glare from the former great general Nagare.
He seemed to have a father’s instinct as he had felt that the way Altaire looked at his daughter was… not what a normal friend would have.
Altaire noticed this and just smiled through it all.
“Then, what happened after that?” Yuzuru questioned.
“After that…,” Celeste’s face turned gloomy upon recounting the past.
“Does that mean Sen is also with you and Fideline-san?” Lyra was most intrigued by this, so she casually asked.
The first child that inherited the pureblood Oni and pureblood elf’s bloodline. Of course it’d arouse her curiosity.
“…That…,” Fideline’s calm face quickly soured.
“…Ah…”
Lyra was sensitive to people’s expressions as in her past life, she had to observe her own mother and father’s expressions, so she knew fully well that she had spoken the wrong thing.
“Older brother Sen is…,” Celeste opened her mouth, but didn’t continue.
“…After that, things were going smoothly for a while. Seeing our harmonious life caused even the conservative Onis and elves in the nameless village to finally soften and they liked Celeste and Sen so much. Our stealthy movements were flourishing as well… But good times never last forever, and it became rough at some point,” Nagare was the one who continued.
“Osamu was fooled by his own family who seemed to accept our cause and wanted to see his son, too. We lost them both,” Nagare said regretfully.
“…I’m sorry to hear that,” Lyra and the others quickly said.
“It’s okay… They are here with me,” Fideline clasped her necklace’s pendant tightly.
The pendant was a small bottle filled with some kind of dark powder, and there was a miniature horn circling over the bottle.
Looking at Fideline’s expression as she tightly clasped the pendant and said those words, realizing what the miniature horn and the dark powder actually was, Lyra felt like tears were welling up her eyes.
“Again, I am sorry for not being able to protect them both…,” Nagare said to Fideline.
“It’s fine. I have accepted it already. Thank you for bringing them back… Though I am still broken-hearted that all that’s left from my child was this broken horn… How could they do that to a child like him…?!” Fideline’s body trembled.
“…That’s awful,” Yuzuru gritted her teeth.
“…The emperor of Naraka and his people are known for their ruthlessness, after all…,” King Titus shook his head.
“Losing a child is more painful than losing your own life…,” Queen Shaula approached and comforted Fideline, who was clearly emotional.
When Fideline had calmed down, she continued narrating.
“At some point, the elves’ movement managed to have a large influence, enough that we managed to have another formal audience with King Deus. Me, Oriel-sama, and Celeste came together to the elven kingdom’s castle along with some other representatives as we’re certain we will sign a cooperation with Cielle kingdom this time.”
“At that time, I was having difficulty with the Oni’s movement in Naraka empire and was discovered. I was imprisoned all this time as the emperor deemed me too valuable of a pawn to dispose of, and tried to doctrine me with his views all this while. Until not too long ago when he suddenly changed his mind or simply gave up on changing my views and wanted to dispose me, to which I escaped,” Nagare inserted.
“That’s why Nagare-sama didn’t know anything about it. But… During our stay there, a big incident happened. Oriel-sama disappeared during that incident. We were framed and had to run away… We agreed that it’d be dangerous for Celeste to remain in Cielle kingdom, so she was also on the run with us…,” Fideline said sheepishly.
“What incident is it? Why hadn’t we heard of it?” King Titus asked.
“Only the ones involved knew about it, as the royal declared the incident as an accident… Perhaps you only know the incident as an accidental fire in Cielle kingdom’s castle,” Fideline said.
“Ah... I remember about it. Luckily there was little casualties, or so what I heard,” Queen Shaula said.
“Oriel…,” Nagare looked defeated when he heard that his wife’s life and death was uncertain.
“That is the full story of what has happened. And so, I hereby submit another request—one that can also help your country out of this situation,” Celeste suddenly turned to King Titus and said.
“Speak,” King Titus answered.
Celeste took a deep breath before she resolutely said, “I believe my mother is still alive. I would like to be included in the team of delegate sent from Riviera to Cielle in order to find my mother. I believe that her presence is the key to solving this escalating problem between Cielle and Naraka—at least we can calm the Cielle kingdom.”