Demon Cosplay (1)
Demon Cosplay (1)
Sweat streamed down his entire body like rain.
When had he last immersed himself in training this intensely? Kiel felt the novelty of it.
He was the empire's foremost sword, but he was still a knight with plenty of room to grow.
His growth had stagnated because his fear of death had become an Inner Demon, gnawing away at his mind.
'But not anymore.'
Terror of the unknown was no longer an issue.
— Brother...
— Lady Hilde. You must not disturb the head of the house's training.
It had already been days since Hilde began pacing in front of the Secluded Training cave. Kiel had been able to step away as he pleased only because Hilde had faithfully carried out the duties of acting head of the house.
Therefore, Hilde had every right to say a word to him.
But at least not right then.
— Who are you?
Kiel had gone as far as undertaking Secluded Training for one purpose alone.
Olivia.
To brand himself into her memory.
And to erase the anguish that constantly flared up within him.
Kiel was struck anew by just how profoundly Olivia had influenced his life.
— Your Grace!
Kiel's greatsword stopped in midair. Someone was shouting frantically from beyond the boulder that blocked the cave.
The vassals of his house did not address him as 'Your Grace.' They called him 'Head of the House.'
So that was undoubtedly an envoy sent by the emperor.
"Duke Ki—... wh-whoa!"
Crrrack.
The boulder sealing the cave tilted at an angle. At the sight of that immaculate cut, the envoy's hand flew to his own mouth.
Kiel looked at the wide-eyed envoy with an expression of mild disdain.
"Were you sent by His Majesty?"
"Y-yes, I was. The order has been given for you to enter the Imperial Palace at once."
Kiel slid his greatsword back into its scabbard.
In the past, he would have considered a situation like this an interruption, but no longer.
He had a debt to the emperor.
A debt he had failed to protect from 'that bitch.'
"Has a carriage been kept ready?"
"Y-yes."
"Then wait a moment. I will be as quick as I can."
He meant he would clean up his appearance.
"H-head of the house!"
"Head attendant. Prepare a bath at once. And the clothes for an audience with His Majesty."
"Understood!"
The attendants moved busily. The residence, which had been sunk in silence only minutes before, bustled with activity.
"Brother! Have you finished already?"
"No. The order has been given for me to enter the palace."
Hilde's brown eyes rounded.
"...You're going right away?"
"Is there a problem?"
"Um, well..."
Hilde seemed not to have adjusted to Kiel's sudden change. It was no wonder she was surprised, when Kiel, who had always prioritized training over the emperor or anyone else, had actually stopped his Secluded Training and come out.
"Head of the house, everything is ready."
"Good. I shall be back."
After a quick bath, Kiel headed straight for the dressing room. The clothes laid out for him were a dignified full-dress uniform.
"Is there no other choice?"
"...Why? Don't you like them?"
There was no way he wouldn't.
Hilde was one of the very few people to whom Kiel had opened his heart.
And this was an outfit she had given him as a gift.
But...
'...It was this outfit, wasn't it.'
If he went to the Imperial Palace like this, Hilde's coldly frozen face seemed certain to rise before him.
"Bring me something that looks composed. It seems this was not a summons for ordinary business."
Put that way, even Hilde could not throw a tantrum.
The carriage carrying Kiel moved straight for the Imperial Palace. The envoy seated across from him explained the situation briefly.
"I will come straight to the point. The reason His Majesty summoned you, Your Grace, is the negotiations with the Eastern Alliance."
He had heard something of it.
It was already well known that the Red Tower Lord had been chosen as the head of the negotiating delegation.
Though Kiel had promptly stopped paying attention amid all the worthless babble about how the standing of mages had fallen to the ground and the knights had won.
Kiel utterly could not comprehend that kind of meaningless power struggle.
He was a knight, but he did not belong to the knight faction.
"Have the negotiations run into trouble?"
"...Yes."
From the envoy's troubled look, it seemed the rest was to be heard directly from the emperor.
'...It really has changed.'
In his Past Life, negotiations with the Eastern Alliance had never happened in the first place. For reasons unknown, the Alliance had meekly given up their gains and backed off.
What had changed from his Past Life.
In this life, he had not hunted a dragon.
And in this life, Melina had lost her reason and vanished somewhere.
Therefore, the empire had neither a Dragon Slayer nor the Archmage who had acted as its guardian for hundreds of years.
That must have led the Eastern Alliance to choose 'negotiation' rather than 'flight.'
'The butterfly effect.'
Two seemingly trivial factors had turned the future on its head this drastically.
A thought suddenly occurred to Kiel.
Olivia.
In his Past Life, she had been a genius.
Though it might be too excessive a title to bestow on a mere human, at least in Kiel's eyes, Olivia had been Omniscient.
'...Perhaps.'
Had all of that been because Olivia had regressed?
Of course, it was nothing more than a possibility.
An exceedingly slim possibility.
When the world shifted so easily from a trivial butterfly effect like this, how could anyone know everything with just one Regression?
It would be a different story if it were hundreds or thousands of times...
He had gotten that far in his thoughts when he suddenly found it laughable.
"We have arrived, Your Grace. His Majesty awaits you in the garden."
Such a thing was impossible.
"..."
Kiel glanced to the north for a moment, then headed for the garden without hesitation.
It was not yet time.
'Not yet.'
"You summoned me, Your Majesty."
"Duke Kiel. Read this."
The paper the emperor handed him had the following written in crude Common Language.
[We cannot negotiate with magic-tricksters.]
Not even mages, but magic-tricksters.
As far as Kiel knew, there was only one man who referred to mages that way.
"It seems the barbarian of Mikavel has grown bold."
The emperor spoke in a sharp voice.
"I must ask you to go to the east."
*****
Olivia laid the unconscious Rebekah gently on the floor. Better, she thought, to put her on the floor where it was safe, even if it was a little dirty, than on a worn-out chair that might break at any moment.
"...Hoo."
Olivia sighed in relief only after confirming the notification that Rebekah had been successfully subdued.
Honestly speaking, of all the regressors she had met so far, Rebekah was the easiest to subdue.
Of course, the reason it was possible to subdue her as easily as this was that Rebekah had a fundamentally affectionate personality.
Divine Power was fundamentally based on the user's faith. Through Confession, Olivia had methodically shaken Rebekah's faith.
Once the shaken Rebekah showed signs of losing her grip on the Holy Spear, Olivia had immediately shot a current of electricity into her and knocked her out.
Among regressors who each had a screw loose somewhere, Rebekah was one of the few sane people.
How else would the players have called Rebekah a 'Natural Monument'?
Of course, even this kindhearted Rebekah had a category of beings she would not tolerate, and that was demons.
Demons.
They were high-level monsters that did not appear until the middle-to-late story.
The cancerous presences of the world who deceived pure-hearted humans with cunning tongues, and spread all manner of plagues while hiding among them.
As if everything up to that point had been a mere taste, the game's difficulty spiked vertically from the moment demons appeared.
Trusted comrades stabbed you in the back. Lords offered their own domain folk as sacrifices to demons.
So much so that even within the Order of Light, the corrupted emerged.
Even then, thinking of that time...
'My blood still runs cold. Runs cold, I tell you.'
Olivia shuddered.
Anyway, from then on she needed to devise a plan for how to overwrite Rebekah's memories.
Rebekah fell on the side of people whose Favorability was very easy to raise. But that did not mean overwriting her memories would be easy.
That was because of the 'Lie Detection' Skill.
The Saintess's unique Skill that allowed her to see through falsehoods.
Because of that one Skill, the difficulty of overwriting Rebekah's memories increased tremendously.
Perhaps even more so than with Melina.
If she made a single slip of the tongue, her lie would be seen through instantly and she would be driven out of the Holy Kingdom.
If that happened...
'I'd be screwed.'
She could probably get the prohibition on approaching her lifted by bowing on her knees and begging for forgiveness, but if she did that, she would be treated as 'a soul parasitizing Olivia's body.'
'...I might even be forcibly Released to the Afterlife.'
A different approach than before was necessary.
A completely new approach.
[You have acquired 3 Clues. A reward will be granted!]
[Do you wish to confirm the reward?]
'...Let's check the reward first and then think.'
Her course of action inside the Clues would change depending on what kind of reward came out.
[Reward for acquiring 3 Clues.]
[From now on, you may switch into 'Spectator' mode up to 5 times maximum per memory!]
- Spectator Mode can be deactivated at any time.
...Something completely unexpected had come out.
The Spectator state must mean the state she had been in when she skipped earlier.
The note that she could deactivate it at will meant she could freely switch between the Possession state and the Spectator state.
Though it was limited to 5 times per memory.
'That means if I assume I enter a memory ten times, I can spectate up to a maximum of 50 times... but is there even a use for this?'
She could use it to avoid questions that were hard to answer, but if she used it that way, Rebekah would quickly sense something was off.
'...Wait.'
What if she turned that sense of wrongness around to her advantage?
Olivia sank into thought for a moment.
Then she reached a conclusion.
'This has potential.'
Olivia immediately placed her hand atop Rebekah's head.
[Use Clue #3?]
[Memory of January, Imperial Year 993]
This time, she would switch the role.
If she had been playing the victim until then.
This time, in reverse, she intended to act as the perpetrator.
Boldly, openly.