My Harem of Dangerous and Crazy Women as a Reincarnated Necromancer

Chapter 248: A White Lie

"Now," Luna said with conviction in her voice. "It’s time to speak with my father..."

"Alright, then let’s go," Mark replied, straightening up and pulling his hands from his pockets. "The sooner we talk to him, the sooner we can—"

"Wait," Luna interrupted, extending a hand toward him. "About that... it would be best if I go alone."

"Alone?" he asked, confused.

"Yeah..."

"But wasn’t the whole point of coming all the way here exactly for this? I thought you wanted me to back your position in front of your father."

Luna looked down for a moment, and when she spoke again, her tone had lost much of its usual lightness.

"That was the original plan, yes," she admitted. "But that was before I knew the state my father is in... The old man is at death’s door, so sick he can barely move from his bed."

She let out a heavy sigh.

"And knowing him, if I walk into his room with a human at my side and tell him the whole truth... he’ll most likely have a heart attack right then and there."

"...And what do you plan to tell him instead?"

"The simple version..." Luna replied. "That my siblings and I joined together to bring Jack down on our own."

Ely, who had been listening with her arms crossed, frowned slightly.

"And you don’t think that’ll cause you problems down the line?" she asked, clearly not in agreement. "Lies have a nasty habit of coming to light at the worst possible moment... What will you do if your father finds out what really happened here?"

Luna stayed quiet for an instant.

"Being honest... I don’t think my father will live long enough to find out the truth," she said finally, her voice quieter.

"Hmmmm."

"While he never made us feel loved, at least not the way a father should... and as much as that weighs on me, he’s still my father," Luna said, looking toward the room where she knew her father was dying.

Then she paused, and something in her expression softened as she recalled something that hadn’t surfaced in her mind for a very long time.

Many years ago...

The throne room was the same, though back then it felt much larger.

Or perhaps she was just much smaller.

Her father, the Grand Beast Lord, was seated on his throne, one hand resting on his temple and his gaze lost on some distant point.

He was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he didn’t even notice the small figure shuffling toward him down the hall’s long corridor.

A girl of barely nine or ten years old, with her wolf ears drooping and her tail tucked between her legs.

She had her knees and hands stained with mud and a couple of scrapes on her arms, while tears ran down her face.

The king was still so absorbed he didn’t even see her approach.

He only reacted when he felt a small tug at his pants and looked down.

And there was little Luna, her tiny fist clutching his clothing, looking up at him with eyes full of tears.

"Father..." she sobbed, hiccupping between words. "My... my brothers... pushed me into the mud... and when I fell... they laughed at me... and they wouldn’t let me get up..."

The king looked at her for a moment in silence and then let out a tired sigh.

Without a word, he leaned toward her, took her under the arms with his enormous hands, and lifted her as if she weighed nothing, settling her on his lap.

"Luna..." he said in that deep voice that always seemed on the verge of scolding someone. "What have I told you about getting into fights with your brothers?"

The girl rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, trying to hold back her tears with little success.

"That... that I shouldn’t pick fights... with anyone stronger than me..." she answered, her voice broken by hiccups.

"Exactly," her father said. "And your brothers are bigger and heavier. If you face them head on, what do you think is going to happen?"

"That... that I’m going to lose..." Luna replied, lowering her head.

The king looked at her, and something in his hardened expression softened just slightly.

Then he raised a hand and, with a clumsiness that betrayed how unused to such gestures he was, wiped a tear away with his thumb.

"Listen carefully, little one," he said softly. "Because what I’m about to tell you is important, and I want you to remember it for the rest of your life."

Luna looked up at him with her eyes full of tears.

"Strength isn’t everything," the king continued, meeting his daughter’s eyes. "I know that in this kingdom it seems like all that matters is who hits hardest. And yes, strength matters, I won’t lie to you... But it’s not everything."

"It isn’t?"

"Nope," he said, shaking his head. "And the thing is, no matter how much you train, no matter how hard you work, there’s a reality you can’t change, and that’s that you will never surpass your brothers in raw strength."

"..."

"They will always be stronger than you... and if that’s the only game you choose to play, you’ll always lose."

Luna looked down again, discouraged by her father’s words.

"But that doesn’t mean you’re doomed to lose forever," he added, and something in his tone made the girl look back up at him. "It just means you have to play a different game."

"A different game?"

"Your wits, Luna," he said, giving her a gentle tap on the forehead with his finger. "That’s your real weapon... Your brothers’ strength is in their bodies, and that has a limit. But cunning has none."

"Hmm," little Luna looked at him, not entirely convinced.

"A sharp mind can defeat a hundred strong warriors if it knows how to use itself," her father continued with a smile. "It can turn your enemies’ strength into their own weakness, make them fight each other, and win without even lifting a finger."

Luna listened with wide eyes, forgetting her tears for a moment.

"One day, while your brothers are still solving everything with their fists like the fools they are, you’ll be ten steps ahead of all of them," he continued, stroking his daughter’s head. "Not because you’re stronger. But because you’ll be smarter. Understood?"

Little Luna nodded slowly, memorizing every word.

"Yes, father."

"Good," he said, getting to his feet, lifting her in one arm against his side. "Now come. Those scrapes will get infected if we don’t clean them."

Luna, her eyes still damp but no longer crying, wrapped her arms around her father’s neck and buried her face in his shoulder.

"I love you very much, dad..." she murmured with warmth.

"I... I love you too..."

And so, the Grand Beast Lord took his little daughter in his arms and carried her down the throne room’s long corridor, not suspecting that many years later, it would be that very lesson that would guide her back to that same place.

Princess Luna came back to herself and continued.

"I don’t want his last days, however few he has left, to be spent upset, worried, or feeling like everything he built went to hell because of me."

"..."

"I’d rather he go believing that his children, for once in their lives, were able to come together and sort things out on their own... Even if it’s a lie." She shrugged with a sad smile. "I suppose that, as much as I’d like to deny it, deep down I still love him... Foolish, isn’t it?"

Mark stayed quiet, looking at her steadily.

While he still wasn’t entirely convinced, he could understand why Luna thought that way.

And to a certain extent he could understand that kind of complicated feeling, loving someone who had never given you a reason to, more than he would have liked to admit.

"...Alright," he said finally. "We’ll do it your way."

Luna’s face lit up.

"Really?"

"Yeah," Mark replied with a shrug. "If you think this is the best way to handle it, I trust your judgment... We’ll stay out of it."

"Thank you, darling," Luna said, and without warning, she lunged toward him and wrapped him in a hug, planting a quick but intense kiss on his lips. "Truly... I owe you a big one."

And before Mark could respond, she had already turned and run toward her brothers, who by that point had finally finished venting years of resentment on Jack’s beaten body.

Mark watched her go.

"Are you sure about this, Master?" Ely asked, coming to stand beside him and also looking in the princess’s direction. "About letting her handle everything her own way, I mean... We came all this way for exactly this, and now we’re going to stay in the shadows."

"Yes, I’m sure," Mark replied without looking away from Luna. "In fact, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that it’s the best option for everyone."

"Why do you say that?"

"Think about it for a moment, Ely," he explained. "In the elven kingdom it worked for me to take power directly because elves are a naturally submissive and passive race."

"I see..."

"They’re used to blindly obeying whoever has the strength. You just have to look at how quickly they adapted to the new regime."

Then he nodded his head toward where Luna and her siblings were.

"But these people are the complete opposite... Do you really think a people like this would accept a human as their ruler without a civil war breaking out the next day?"

"...No," she admitted after thinking it through carefully for a few moments. "They’d probably rise up en masse before kneeling to a human... and that would be one hell of a headache."

"And that’s exactly why the smartest move is not to try to govern them directly," Mark explained. "Instead, our best option is to rely on a local ruler, someone they would actually accept."

"I see," Ely said, nodding slowly. "That way we get the kingdom’s backing without having to dirty our hands or shoulder the burden of administering it directly."

But then a third voice joined the conversation.

"I also agree with the Master," Yuki said, appearing suddenly beside them. "His decision is, by far, the smartest option."

"See?" Mark said with a half smile. "Even Yuki agrees."

All three watched the scene at the far end of the hall.

Luna had reached her brothers, and after a brief exchange of words, the four of them prepared to move.

Two of them grabbed Jack, who was barely still conscious, groaning weakly, and began dragging him without the slightest delicacy across the floor, leaving a trail of blood behind them, in the direction of the corridors leading to the king’s room.

Luna walked at the front, back straight and head high.

"Though I’m not sure showing up at your dying father’s bedside dragging one of your half-dead brothers is exactly the definition of delicacy," Yuki murmured.

Mark let out a short laugh.

"That’s exactly what I was thinking..."