The Demon's Deception
Seres: Was there such a setting?
A few hours after making contact, I sensed someone approaching the room where Ares and Niobe were. Even by the standards of two Sword Masters, it was a pretty powerful presence.
"It's been a while, Countess."
The woman who entered the room and greeted her politely was a light brown-haired mage in what looked like a shabby robe.
"I see. Has."
Ares called her name upon hearing the greeting from the light brown-haired mage. Has. She was the exclusive mage of the Huferion Count Estate and the woman who had helped bring Seres into the family as an adopted son. She looked to be in her twenties, but she was quite old. After all, she'd joined the family before Seres was adopted.
"Niobe, say hello. This is the Has you've been looking for."
Ares introduced the two, who were meeting for the first time.
"Has, you greet her too. As I mentioned in the contact just now, she's Seres's recently appointed guardian knight."
"Pleased to meet you. I'm Has…."
Has, who had been introduced, was about to greet Niobe when
"…!"
"?"
In that moment, Has looked startled for a second, and Niobe looked puzzled.
"What's wrong?"
"…Ah, sorry. For a moment, I thought I knew her, but I must have been mistaken."
"Is that so? …Come to think of it, I feel like I've seen you somewhere before too?"
As Niobe gave her a suspicious look, Has hurriedly shouted.
"Must be a mistake! Let's get to the important matter at hand. You called me here about Seres, right?"
"Ah, right."
At the mention of Seres, Niobe dismissed the strange sense of familiarity as a simple mistake and got down to business.
"You've already heard the details from the family head during contact, right?"
"Yes, it was about where you brought Seres from, correct?"
Has pondered for a moment before speaking.
"…I brought Seres from a certain village."
"What village?"
"I don't know the name. By the time I visited, all the residents had already died from a plague."
Has explained that while wandering, she'd stumbled upon the tragic state of the village and checked for survivors, only to find baby Seres at the time.
"Everyone else had died, but he alone survived. His condition looked poor, though. I thought it was aftermath from overcoming the illness."
Unable to just leave the baby, she'd brought him to the Huferion family, where Ares's late husband had seen it.
"He took interest in the baby's silver hair. He said it was like the Huferion family and just like Ares's child. He asked if we couldn't adopt him as a foster child."
"Why? No need to adopt when you could just have one."
"That's because Ares wasn't particularly thrilled about it. She found her husband annoying, so there were no children. He thought maybe adopting a similar child might change Ares's attitude…."
Has's explanation to Niobe, who hadn't known the circumstances back then, cut off there.
"Enough! I don't care about that nonsense!"
Ares, clearly displeased, interrupted the explanation.
"Just get to the point. So, you just happened to find Seres, and you don't really know his bloodline, right?"
"That's correct."
"But this one was convinced that even though Seres is adopted, his bloodline matches the Huferion family."
"Hmm."
Hearing Ares's words, Has looked at Niobe thoughtfully and let out an "Ah."
"Then perhaps there was a collateral branch of the Huferions in that village?"
"What?"
"Like your estranged younger sibling who left the family, one of the members who departed settled there, and Seres is their descendant. It makes sense. The family-specific silver hair is rare, after all."
Could such a coincidence exist? It was too contrived, so Ares briefly suspected Has's guess. But if her speculation was right, one problem would be solved.
Then Seres would be a collateral bloodline I adopted as a foster child, which is close enough to direct lineage!
It was relatively common for a noble without heirs to bring in a child from a collateral branch and make them the successor. Such a child would be treated as direct lineage, so by noble society standards, there'd be no issue.
"This could completely crush their claim that they're the only direct heir and that my lord is just an adopted son."
Niobe had the same thought.
"The backlash from what they've already done can't be stopped, but we can make sure they never pull any more stunts."
"…Yeah, what's done is done, but we can block them from doing anything more."
Ares thought of Seres, who had rejected her and gone to the Imperial Palace, her face darkening. Then Has spoke up.
"But claims alone won't suffice. Shall I prepare to prove Seres's bloodline with magic?"
"Possible?"
"Not right now, but with time, yes. If you permit, I'll prepare in my lab here."
"Do so."
Has bowed politely and left the room, unaware that Niobe was watching her back with a strange gaze.
….
Has's lab was located in the basement of the Huferion estate. Once inside, no one outside could know what was happening—a structure Has herself had requested from Ares because she didn't want interruptions during magic research.
"…No one's around, right?"
Once in the underground lab, Has looked around to confirm no one was nearby to hear her.
And then, "Damn it, why does everything have to go wrong like this?!"
She vented her rage by kicking and smashing lab equipment.
"Why is the Holy Kingdom's Knight Commander here? I heard rumors she became a Death Knight, but why of all people is she Seres's guardian knight?!"
Has accurately named Niobe's identity, which Ares hadn't mentioned, and kept raging.
"And what's with these bastards coming to expose that Seres is adopted? We've already got the hero, the high priestess, the emperor! All sorts of crazies obsessed with Seres making things difficult, and now even these ridiculous ones are interfering!"
Has had heard while wandering that Seres was loved by powerful women. With Niobe suddenly showing up and Nemeth too, it was all very inconvenient for her.
Because, "Then I can't whisk Seres away?!"
The more people and variables around Seres, the harder it became to abduct him and pull him to her side.
"Sudden incidents piling up, forcing me to make up stupid excuses. Bringing Seres from a village wiped out by plague—it's what I said, but it's laughable even to me."
Has recalled her own words from earlier and let out a hollow chuckle. She continued muttering to herself.
"Seres couldn't possibly have real parents or ancestors. …Because we made him with magic."
It was a statement that would shock Seres himself and everyone who knew him. Making a person with magic was possible, but birthing Seres that way? Why? And if made by magic, what about his Divine Power or Huferion bloodline? If Seres were here, he'd deny it was in the original story and throttle her for answers.
It all began a thousand years ago.
A thousand years ago. When the Maou destroyed the Holy Kingdom and nearly wiped out the Huferion royal family. The divine relic they guarded fell into the Maou's hands.
The relic 'Feather of the Heavenly God'—its truth unknown, but legendary as a feather fallen from the Heavenly God's wings, a sacred plume. Even if authenticity was uncertain, seeing it grant the Huferion royals the ability to wield holy power and Divine Power sparked a curious thought in the Maou.
What if I use the whole thing to create a person?
This curiosity nearly became reality but halted midway—because the empire's first emperor and her followers succeeded in overthrowing the Maou himself.
Thus, the Maou died, and the Feather was thought to be in the empire's hands, but 'I swiped it first.'
Has recalled what she'd done a thousand years ago. She wasn't human. A demon hiding her identity, a subordinate who followed the Maou back then. A Maou follower. One of those still occasionally appearing and treated as an imperial criminal.
At the time, with the Maou dead and the dragon-blooded emperor closing in, Has had fled in desperation with the Feather and blood or items harvested from the dead Huferion royals. She had something she had to do with them.
In a hellish chase nearly worldwide, she desperately built a force. Gathering other escapees, persuading other demons, preparing to resume the Maou's interrupted plan with the Feather.
And just over twenty years ago, after a thousand years, she succeeded in the Maou's conceived plan: creating a person using the Feather of the Heavenly God.
Using the feather and Huferion royal bloodline, she created a person—Seres.
'What a long journey it was.'
Has reminisced on the arduous past. It had been truly grueling, but the real kicker was that creating Seres wasn't the end.
She'd immediately approached Ares's late husband and persuaded him to adopt Seres. There were several reasons for deliberately having this precious being, made from an irreplaceable item, adopted into the Huferions.
First, it was too dangerous for Has to keep Seres with her. Honestly, she could be caught and killed by imperial forces anytime; she couldn't wander with an infant.
Second, she was confident Seres would win Ares's favor. Though diluted, Seres's blood was essentially the origin of the Huferion line, so Ares the Huferion would show goodwill. At best, Seres could claim everything in the family regardless of adoption status. At worst, they could learn the location of Black Pain from Ares.
'No matter what, we had to get Black Pain.'
This was the most crucial reason for sending Seres as an adopted child to the Huferions.
"Seres must use Black Pain to revive Maou-sama and become his consort. That's why he was created."