Eris's outburst silenced the entire throne room.
Most of them were confused about why she would refuse such an honour while others were obviously furious that Eris had the audacity to refuse a gift that the king has given to her like this.
The prince himself also looked stunned by Eris's rejection, no doubt he had thought Eris would have leapt at the chance to marry him and not just reject him like that.
Needless to say, his reputation would definitely receive a hit after this. I could already hear some of the nobles whispering about whether Eris rejected him because of something he did where it slowly progressed into questioning whether he was sexually incapable.
The king raised his hand and the whispers in the audience hall quietened down.
"Hero Eris, I believe my son is a splendid young man with great prospects. He has never wronged you, has he?"
Eris tilted her head, "That may be true and he certainly has not."
"In that case, may I know why you are not willing to accept marriage with him?"
"Because my heart already belongs to someone else, of course! Why would I marry someone who I have not even got to know personally? Of course I would rather spend my life with someone whom I have spent time with and trust my life with, right?"
She turned back to look at me and everyone immediately realised who exactly she was talking about.
The king narrowed his eyes at me, silently asking if this was true and I simply shrugged my shoulders. It wasn't a shrug that said I did not know, but rather a noncommittal shrug that told him it was true and I already knew that from the start.
The king's brows furrowed for a split second before his expression shifted back to one of a dignified ruler's, "I see. It seems like I have meddled unnecessarily in this. In that case, please allow this old man to apologise and congratulate the two of you."
Without waiting for a reply from either of us, he turned to his son, "As you might have heard, my son. It seems like you will have to find your future queen somewhere else as she is taken."
It was quite obvious that he was trying to subtly hint to Eris about what she was giving up on but she obviously did not care.
The prince bowed to the king, "I do not mind father. I am not someone who would come in between two people who were genuinely in love with each other."
Ahahahaha!
Oh, don't praise him yet, he's only saying that for show. His inner thoughts right now were all focused on coming up with a way to steal Eris from me. If he manages to seduce her away from me, it would make it look like I was an unsuitable partner and that Eris was the one who made a mistake by choosing me.
All of that just so that he could recover his reputation that Eris supposedly ruined in this event.
If things went according to the original events of this World, Eris would actually be wedded to the prince and that would be her 'happily ever after'. Because in this World, she was actually not supposed to be attached to me.
But now that the hero has strayed from the path, the story would no longer be that straight forward anymore.
This is what happens when you take a diverging path instead of the one laid out for you, which suits Eris's domain just fine.
The rest of the audience with the king proceeded normally with the king congratulating and thanking us for defeating the great evil of this World once again before we were guided to a banquet that was prepared in the grand hall.
The banquet was done in a standing buffet style which really just meant that everyone attending it approached each of us to give their own congratulations and thanks for our work.
In other words, it was a prime place for these nobles to do some political advances on us.
A few of the nobles were quite transparent about the fact that they wanted to get close to us for their own benefits while others were obviously playing the long game by just making themselves known to us first.
Slowly, the nobles started to separate the five of us until we were each crowded with our own group of people that wanted to speak with us.
One of the nobles passed by me and discreetly pushed a note into my hand which I received equally discreetly.
"Apologies my good sirs, but could someone point me to the wash closet?" I asked, which was my excuse to leave.
One of them helpfully pointed it out to me and I thanked him before excusing myself from the group.
I already knew what was on the note without reading it so I made my way in the direction of the washroom until I was out of sight before taking a detour to head deeper into the palace.
Taking a few more turns to make sure the people who were following me lost sight of me, I ended up in front of a side room where a single guard stood watch.
He made no motion to stop me as I walked past him to open the door myself, swinging the door inwards to step into the sitting room.
"Saint Lin," The only person in the room greeted me, unsurprised by my presence.
I closed the door behind me and inclined my head, "You summoned me, mister Prime Minister?"
He motioned to the couch in front of him and I sat down slowly, acting as though I did not know what this was about.
"So it seems the hero has taken a liking to you, Saint Lin?" He asked as soon as I sat down.
"Mmm… I guess so. She confessed to me during the journey as she was worried that we might not make it back alive, so she wanted to at least be in a relationship before we fought the demon lord," I lied.
"I see, so I take it that you accepted to allow her to concentrate on the task at hand. In that case, I shall be frank with you. Twenty thousand gold and my written guarantee that you will be promoted to a Duke in the next five years if you were to break up with the hero. We're not unreasonable so you can just make the breakup occur naturally in the next two months. You can also pick four women that you would like to be part of your harem and I shall make it so. Once you do so, we shall--"
"Yeah, no thanks," I interrupted before standing up. "Are we done here? Because if that's all you called me for then we really are done here."
It took him a moment to recover from my instantaneous rejection, "You… Do you realise what kind of mistake you're making?"
I shrugged, "I should be asking you this question, really. We're the party that literally killed the supposedly strongest being in this World, which means we're stronger than the demon lord. Yet you think it's a great idea to antagonise us. So… Good luck I guess."
Without a second glance back, I walked out of the room, leaving the shocked prime minister behind.
Now I wonder how the rest of them would react to their own backdoor deals?
