Marquis Raeven, the most powerful noble in the Kingdom of Re-Estize—without question.
He was now also the kingdom's foremost royalist, placing the interests of the royal family above all else. Other nobles privately called him "the king's lapdog."
Yet the new king regarded Marquis Raeven as a friend. Without the noble faction under Raeven's command, the king, having only just ascended the throne, would have had to go to great lengths to bring the country under his control.
What the new king did not realize was that the nobles' resistance had been so feeble entirely because the Golden Princess had made sacrifices to the Demon Lord.
Other than Princess Lana, Kurumi, and those nobles who had already died, the new king still believed that his own kingly aura had cowed the realm...
The Kingdom of Re-Estize bordered the sea, the Council Nation, the Holy Kingdom, the Siren Theocracy, and the Bahamut Empire. Aside from minor annual clashes with the Empire, it got along quite well with the other nations. Trade flowed freely, seafood was abundant, and its geographical position was exceptionally favorable.
Even when the nobles levied additional taxes, the people could still fill their stomachs.
Under the new king's "wise leadership," all the nobles who had secretly collected taxes were finished. Even the great noble houses no longer dared overreach, and from then on, the kingdom's national strength flourished.
With the kingdom's prosperity as support, the new king even considered upgrading the army's equipment.
Inside the palace.
The new king was a short, fat, ugly man with freckles on his face. If not for his royal robes, nothing about his bearing made him look like the ruler of a nation.
Come to think of it, the old king had probably not looked too bad when he was young. He