Avoiding Women, the Eternal Emperor

【You let out an awkward laugh and put on a stern face.】

【“You still have to keep adventuring with me. As for who I’m going to promote, I already have a list.”】

【The Myriad Soul Banner immediately drooped, looking utterly dejected.】

【“Oh, come on, bro! You’re already a second-tier Star Lord. What’s the point of adventuring anymore? Why don’t we just settle down here?”】

【At this point, your influence was actually quite formidable.】

【You controlled two second-tier stars and three third-tier stars.】

【Although each of them appeared to have its own master and was managed by a different faction, you were the true power behind them all.】

【You could now say that you possessed a stellar-level faction!】

【Year Forty-Seven, age seventy-three.】

【A great number of the Heavenly Dragon Kingdom’s senior ministers and regional governors had died, yet the country as a whole did not fall into chaos.】

【Most of the ordinary people in the middle and lower classes were human. Humans had no interest in whether those alien lords lived or died.】

【The humans also understood their own position. Their strength was still weak, and they had only just secured enough food, warmth, and basic conditions for cultivation. This was not the time to stir up trouble.】

【Moreover, the Kindling Society was secretly guiding matters among the people, ensuring social stability.】

【The various alien factions stirred for a while.】

【But you swiftly appointed replacements for every vacant office. They were all trusted subordinates you had chosen long ago.】

【These people were merely average in ability, and their cultivation was nothing special. They had only one particularly outstanding quality—they loved flattering you.】

【To outsiders,】

【it looked as though a group of sycophants had risen to power through slick tongues and relentless flattery of the emperor.】

【Wasn’t it obvious who had killed Ya Dada and the others?】

【Whoever benefited from their deaths was obviously responsible!】

【The new batch of court ministers had all been carefully selected by you. They were relatively mild toward humanity—or, more accurately, they simply did not care.】

【They did not care about ancestral rules or any such nonsense. As long as the humans did not rebel, they would faithfully carry out every policy you established.】

【These flatterers would never contradict you, either. As long as you did not help humanity too openly—as long as you refrained from slapping “I’m human too” across your face—they would assist you in governing Firelight Star according to your wishes.】

【After observing them and listening to their inner thoughts for a year, you were certain that you had chosen the right people.】

【As for whether circumstances would change ten years, twenty years, or even a century from now…】

【As long as humanity could cultivate peacefully for that long, it would be difficult for the alien ruling class to cause much trouble by then.】

【After all, the Kindling Society existed among the people. They would make effective use of every available force.】

【The Ironblood Sect.】

【A second-rate sect on Firelight Star.】

【Before the war of unification began, they controlled the territory of several villages and towns. The Firewood Sect was one of their subordinate vassal forces.】

【Now that the world had been unified, the Heavenly Dragon Kingdom had established new rules: all land belonged to the Heavenly Dragon Emperor, and no sect or faction was allowed to retain territorial autonomy.】

【The Ironblood Sect had once lived fairly comfortably by exploiting the people in its territory and squeezing its subordinate forces.】

【Now, however, it had no territory left.】

【More than half of its own disciples had been dragged into the war as cannon fodder, never to return.】

【With humanity rising rapidly under the court’s support, they were no longer easy prey.】

【The remaining members of the Ironblood Sect were living from hand to mouth, miserable beyond words.】

【“Sect Master! We can’t even get a proper drink these days. If you can stand this kind of life, the rest of us can’t!”】

【Ironblood Sect Master Bull Tri-Horn sighed as he sipped the tea in the large bowl in his hands.】

【“What are you planning to do?”】

【“We’ll go rob the town at the foot of the mountain!”】

【“Wouldn’t that make us bandits?”】

【“That’s what we used to do!”】

【“Back then, it was called collecting taxes. Now only the imperial court is allowed to collect taxes. If we take even a scrap of the people’s wealth, our entire clan will be executed… Damn it, the laws hanging over our heads are harsher than those imposed on humans! What kind of race is actually ruling this country?”】

【“Heh. At any rate, it isn’t us bull-headed folk!”】

【A mastermind emerged among the bull-headed men. He pointed one hoof toward the sky, and a light bulb seemed to shine above his head.】

【“Sect Master, Sect Master! I have an idea! We can knock out some officials, put on their uniforms, and pretend to be them while collecting taxes in the town below! Then we’ll have money to buy meat and liquor!”】

【Bull Tri-Horn looked at the bland, tasteless tea in his bowl, then smashed it onto the ground.】

【“Good! That’s exactly what we’ll do!”】

【Dozens of bull-headed men grabbed their weapons. But just as they reached the mountain gate, a mass of black clouds descended from the sky. The terrifying pressure left them unable to move.】

【“Th-this…”】

【Bull Tri-Horn raised his head and took a closer look.】

【Standing atop the black clouds, lightning swirling around him and clad in a black dragon robe, was none other than the current Heavenly Dragon Emperor.】

【“Oh, gods! The emperor is here!”】

【“Long live His Majesty! Long live His Majesty! Long, long live His Majesty!”】

【“We failed to welcome Your Majesty from afar! What a terrible offense!”】

【Bull Tri-Horn and the others dropped to the ground in perfect unison.】

【You swept your gaze over them and pronounced their sentence with an impassive expression.】

【“Every member of the Ironblood Sect has committed the capital crime of impersonating officials to collect taxes. The sentence is immediate execution!”】

【Bull Tri-Horn froze.】

【“Your Majesty! We didn’t do it! We—we only intended to! We haven’t actually done anything yet! Surely that doesn’t warrant the death penalty?”】

【“Intending to do it is forbidden too! Death penalty!”】

【You raised your hand, summoning thunderclouds that filled the sky. Black lightning reduced the mountain where the Ironblood Sect stood to level ground—this was Si Duo Duo’s divine art.】

【The Ironblood Sect was no more.】

【Among the pile of charred steaks, you found a lightning-shaped horn wrapped in faint electric arcs.】

【That horn had previously been attached to Bull Tri-Horn’s forehead.】

【But it was not a natural horn. He had found it somewhere and attached it to his forehead himself, allowing him to unleash several electrical techniques.】

【“I blasted it with that much force, yet there isn’t even a mark on the horn. This thing definitely has a story. I failed to investigate it in the previous simulation. I’ll look into it this time…”】

【You put the horn away.】

【With that, everything that needed to be done on Firelight Star was finished.】

【Now, all you had to do was wait for A-Dou to be born.】

【Year Forty-Eight, age seventy-four.】

【After eliminating the old generation of powerful nobles, you no longer needed to devote yourself to political intrigue at court.】

【Your mind became much more relaxed.】

【You were surrounded by a crowd of flatterers who showered you with sweet words every day. Their work abilities were basically adequate as well, and they could help shoulder much of the burden of governing the kingdom.】

【You decreed that court would convene only once a month, when you would listen to your ministers’ reports.】

【The rest of the time, you could do whatever you wanted.】

【If you felt like doing something productive, you could simply lie atop the resources of the entire planet Firelight Star and cultivate.】

【If you wanted to relax, your subordinates would come up with all kinds of entertainment for you.】

【Being an emperor was unbelievably comfortable.】

【There was only one unpleasant thing.】

【The harem.】

【Every day, you had to look at a group of heavily made-up female dragonkin. They made your stomach turn.】

【So you never go to the imperial harem.】

【The common folk widely proclaim that the Heavenly Dragon Emperor has no interest in women and devotes himself entirely to state affairs, working thirteen double-hours a day. Truly, he is an emperor without equal throughout the ages!】