Killing the Prince (1)
The moment I stepped into Serista's dorm room, which was serving as our makeshift war room, a peculiar awkwardness hung over the entire space — evidenced by Serista, who flinched and startled the instant our eyes met, and Agnes, who for some reason was silently staring off into the distance with nothing but the whites of her eyes to show for it.
As for Ethan, he'd been blushing whenever our gazes crossed even these days, so he didn't feel particularly different from usual.
Wondering if I was the only one sensing something off, I snuck a glance at Gehmajoshigi-gwat's expression, and sure enough, he seemed to have noticed the strange atmosphere as well.
"Did something happen? Why's everyone so awkward…."
"…More pressing matters than small talk, I think. What became of verifying the truth of what Lilith said?"
"Oh, that? It was all true. That Prince McHart attacked Lilith, and that the demonkin were actually involved."
"I see…."
"…So it was real, after all."
Serista and Agnes, who had apparently still harbored some doubt, nodded as though the Hero's words had finally settled the matter for them.
It might have seemed obvious, seeing as how they'd confidently marched me out not long ago, vowing to judge the truth with the holy sword, only to come right back — but the fact that neither Serista nor Agnes had seen through the holy sword story being a lie made it clear just how hopelessly naive the both of them were.
Or perhaps the very thought of lying to a sword imbued with divine power was too sacrilegious for them to even entertain. Of course, the Hero had shown not a shred of guilt about such things since the moment he'd summoned me on a whim.
"Honestly, she never struck me as the type to lie in the first place. Still, I insisted on checking because there's always the rare exception. Lady Lilith hardly has the look of a liar about her."
"…If you're planning to win Lilith's favor with such transparent flattery, I'd suggest you stop. Claiming you trusted her all along after the holy sword verified her words is laughable. I never once thought Lilith might be lying to begin with."
"Master Ethan?"
"…Ahem."
I couldn't quite tell, but Ethan's reaction seemed to carry even more wariness than before.
"So, what do we do now?"
"What do we do? There's only one conclusion."
"So we truly must fight Prince McHart as well…."
Serista, who had no qualms whatsoever about facing monsters or demonkin head-on, always wore a rather grim expression when it came to dealing with fellow humans.
Which made sense — in the canonical storyline as it stood, the enemies were overwhelmingly monsters or demonkin, with maybe one or two people who could even be called villains.
For someone as gentle-natured as Serista, being told she had to kill a human — an imperial prince, no less — would naturally draw exactly this kind of reaction.
Even so, the battle against McHart would likely require every able body we could muster in our current state, so I couldn't exactly leave Serista out. The plan was to put out the fire first and leave it to Gehmajoshigi-gwat to soothe her feelings later.
"From this point on, we'll need to make concrete plans, so everyone here must absolutely never breathe a word of today's conversation to anyone outside this room."
"Obviously."
"…Mm."
"I know."
"…Y-yes, ma'am!"
"Even if you believe someone could help us, nothing may reach the outside. Keep that firmly in mind."
Had we been targeting anyone else, it wouldn't have mattered — but what we were planning was, plainly and simply, the assassination of a member of the imperial family.
The moment it came to light, not only would everyone present be charged with treason, but there was a very real risk that even their families would be endangered.
Seraphin, as royalty herself, and even allies of the protagonist like Nathalie and Thomas had to be made to keep their silence.
After all, Nathalie and Seraphin were the protagonist's allies, not mine. If they got some paranoid delusion that the protagonist was being used by me, they might just jam a blade in my back for it.
People I could trust with absolute certainty and count as fighting strength — for now, that list began and ended with Agnes, Ethan, and the Hero.
"First things first — we need to lure Prince McHart out."
"Fair point. We can't exactly start swinging swords in the middle of the Academy or the imperial palace."
"Moreover, recalling the moment I was seized by Prince McHart the other day, his demonic magic did not appear well suited to facing multiple opponents."
"…What kind of magic was it?"
"He approached me, suddenly grabbed my wrist, and dragged me into some inexplicable black void. A very small circle of earth, centered on Prince McHart, glowed faintly in the darkness, and the shadows wrapping around us blocked my retreat and clutched at my ankles."
Frankly, I was itching to skip the step-by-step recitation and just explain McHart's full abilities along with the counters and workarounds.
But if someone like me — who'd only been ambushed once — started spouting knowledge I couldn't possibly have gained from what my own eyes had seen, suspicion was the natural result. Worse, it would cast doubt on the very claim I'd just finished making: that I'd nearly been assassinated by Prince McHart.
So the ideal approach was to describe everything in as much detail as I could, while leaving the true nature of the magic and its countermeasures for the others to work out on their own.
That way I could discuss McHart's magic and how to handle it without drawing any particular suspicion. Besides, we had a magical genius like Agnes here — she'd interpret it all on her own and fill in the gaps.
"Given that you were pulled into a black void the instant your wrist was grabbed, it does sound like demonic magic."
"And how exactly do you know that from that alone, Lady Blaze?"
"Demonkin use mysterious powers. Strange magic that operates on principles completely unlike ordinary spellcraft. I'd wager it's a system where pre-prepared magic is stored within the body. Demonkin physiology lets them store magic inside themselves and trigger it under specific conditions, or so I've heard."
"Th-the Snow Witch we fought in the north used something similar! I-if I recall, she was ranked third among the officers — one of seven elite soldiers led by one of the Four Knights beneath the Demon King…."
…At that point, was she even a rank worth introducing yourself over?
Imagining a demonkin of roughly civil-servant-grade standing politely introducing herself nearly wrung a laugh out of me. And Serista, remembering all of that, was impressive in her own… numerous ways.
"In any case, since demonkin wield special powers unlike ordinary magic, their spells come with activation conditions. The magic McHart used was most likely keyed to grabbing someone's wrist."
"Which makes it an activation condition that's practically unusable in combat. Handing your opponent your wrist mid-fight is as good as admitting defeat."
"Exactly. But it's undeniably dangerous for assassinations or one-on-one situations. A spell that lets him drag you into his personal domain from anywhere, the moment he gets his hand on your wrist."
"Ordinarily that would be a condition he could rarely meet — but a man like him, with his rank and his looks, probably gets to use it with ease."
The moment talk turned to magic, Agnes lit up with enthusiasm for her field of expertise and lectured away, while Gehmajoshigi-gwat chimed in at just the right moments to keep the conversation flowing, and so the discussion proceeded fairly smoothly.
For the record, the Hero naturally already knew McHart's abilities and how to counter them, so at the moment he was playing at having just realized things himself, dropping hints for everyone else.
After all, as he'd confessed earlier — if he really was a redemption-romance fan through and through, he'd have breezed past the McHart arc long ago.
"The real problem is proving that Prince McHart is using the demonkin's power. Even if we somehow succeed in disposing of him, if we can't establish his connection to the demonkin, the whole thing may simply end with us branded traitors."
"…I've heard there's a way to extract proof of demonkin lineage from their corpses. Would that not serve?"
"It seems he's only using the demonkin's power for now — he hasn't yet become one. The power resonates through the body at different rates depending on the person. So we have two options. One is to wait until the demonkin's power has fully resonated through his body. The other is…."
The meeting over the plan to kill McHart and expose him as a demonkin ran a bit long, and some three hours in, Ethan glanced absently in my direction and murmured quietly.
"Come to think of it… the noble daughters who've been going missing lately — it's possible they're connected to him as well."
"…Quite possibly. Perhaps once Prince McHart is dealt with, we may yet learn what became of them."
"……."
"…M-Master Ethan?"
Midway through discussing the missing noble daughters, Ethan suddenly turned to look at me with grief-stricken eyes. Then, as if overcome with emotion, he seized my hand in a tight grip and quietly began to sob.
"Thank the heavens you're safe, Lilith. Truly."
"Y-yes…."
"As for that bastard McHart, I swear I'll tear him limb from limb. And I'll drag every last piece of evidence of his connection to the demonkin into the light and grind his name into the dirt."
"I-I understand, so could you please let go of my hand…? E-everyone's watching…."
Especially that bastard Gehmajoshigi-gwat — he's right there, you know.
Watching Ethan clasp both my hands with what looked like genuine concern, tears and all, the Hero wore a crooked little smile like a man enjoying a rare spectacle.
…Honestly, if he weren't the Hero, I'd have smacked that smirk right off his face.