“Are you nervous?”
In my office, inside the Debauchery Hall, Fatima asked with a thin smile.
Of course, I wasn’t nervous. With how much we’ve prepared, gaining true and solid voters, there’s no way I’d lose. Rather, I was worried something else might happen.
“After all, even back in my previous world, cheating in elections was a common occurrence.”
The method of election was slightly more complicated, however, since it was based on Yu Na’s ability. With help from Goddess Zeta, she would be connected to all the towns, where she would present a voting panel before everyone. The method of voting was easy; you just needed to press the name or image of the candidate you’re voting for.
Of course, each panel can only send one unique vote. Furthermore, nobody but the person with whom the panel appeared before can interact with it. With that, cheating was virtually impossible. .𝒎
Still, there are no absolutes.
“As long as everything proceeds as normal, I would win 10 out of 10. But…”
“Worried about Millinda Quartz?”
Fatima read my mind like a book. I smiled wryly, nodding my head to her question while I continued processing the documents before me.
“After all, she’s the only one crafty enough to brainwash others for votes. Although she’s going to be disqualified because of violating the rules, if her votes came out higher than the rest, then…”
If that happened, unrest could occur among the citizens. The one who won by a landslide ended up disqualified belatedly; such a scandal can’t be taken too lightly.
“Well, we’ve already done our part. Let’s leave the rest to Zeshion and the others.”
Fatima offered her counsel, patting my head as if I were a child.
“Also, when are you coming out of my lap? It’s comforting, yeah, but it’s hard to move…”
“Hmm… tomorrow?”
A light chuckle escaped her lips as she leaned her weight against my chest. Honestly, I was enjoying the current situation, but looking at Ember and the other’s jealous looks, I was worried that I would end up letting everyone sit on my lap for the entire day.
While we were enjoying the light exchange, suddenly, a blue panel appeared before us. On its surface, the words “Election Poll Loading…” were displayed in bold letters.
“Oh, it looks like the election’s starting.”
Igni commented, quickly sitting down on the sofa.
Everyone did the same, finding somewhere they could sit down and rest. After everyone was finished getting comfortable, a minute later, the display finally changed. Three pictures, with names beside them, appeared on top of the blue holographic panel.
“I just need to touch this, right?”
Fatima asked as she pressed on my image. As soon as she did, the panel’s display closed, showing the acknowledgment of her voted candidate’s name. The others saw what happened and quickly did the same, pressing my name.
All of us finished voting so quickly that it felt anticlimactic.
“I wonder when the results will come out…”
“Wouldn’t it be when everyone finished voting?”
“I almost clicked the wrong name!”
The girls chatted around, excited. I was getting more and more restless instead. Nothing bad would happen… right?
Just as I was praying for it to end peacefully, another blue panel appeared. This time, it was a lot wider. On it, Zeshion’s smiling face was displayed, and beside him were Yu Na and her two little tamed monster twins.
[Greetings, a citizen of the kingdom! First of all, I, Blue Zeshion, thank you all for participating promptly in this election.]
A bunch of greetings came out of his mouth, almost making me feel sleepy just listening to them. A few minutes later, he finally came to the main point.
[Unfortunately, one of the candidates has violated the rules agreed upon. Millinda Quartz!]
As he called her name, the person herself suddenly appeared beside him, her face confused. At that moment, on the screens visible to everyone, the proof of her violation was displayed one after another.
The person herself looked up at the bigger screen above, her face turning paler with each passing second.
[I, I’m innocent, God Zeshion! This must be someone’s ploy! I wouldn’t do such atrocious things as brainwashing!]
In a desperate bid, she even tried to bed Zeshion to reconsider. However, the person in question shook his head, not pardoning her.
[You broke the rules, so you are disqualified from the election. All votes under your name are now declared invalid.]
[N-No…]
I felt a little pity for her, seeing her crestfallen appearance. However, thinking about what she did, I can’t help but reconsider.
After a moment of silence, Zeshion continued the program. He treated Millinda as if she didn’t exist beside him and continued.
[Now, let’s see what the result of the election is. Here’s the graph, percentage, and total number of votes!]
A pie graph appeared, showing a circle divided into three colors. The blue color ate up more than half, while the red and green shared what was left.
“…!”
When I saw the results, I was slightly surprised. Well, I did expect it, but seeing it for real blew my mind. The red part of the graph, taking roughly 9.65%, was Karran’s vote. He had the fewest votes among the three of us.
“Master, you did it! You got 55.33% of the votes!”
Ember cried in celebration.
Yes, the blue part of the graph was mine, for a grand total of 55.33%. Even if I added Karran and Millinda’s votes, I would still win. However, if I remove the “backup” votes I called for, then the fight might’ve been a bit close.
‘After all, I took all the intelligent monsters under my wing. The other two only focused on the people living in towns, while I took to the forest and gathered all the voters I could.’
It was a pretty heavy expense since I even provided essence crystals to most, raising their level and intelligence to make them “legal” voters. Their numbers are roughly 15% of the total voter count, so if I removed their votes, then I’d only have 40.33% of votes, which was pretty close to Millinda’s 35.02%.
“Well, with this, I’m now the new king.”
I leaned back on my chair, letting the facts sink into my head. .
However, rather than happiness, I felt drained. After all, more work would be waiting for me afterward.
Updated from .𝘤𝘰