Side Story: Wishing to Stay by Your Side Someday (4)
“Bernoa. Is it possible?”
I asked Bernoa, whose body had recovered somewhat, about a way into the Demon King’s Castle.
“It wasn’t like this even when Seto dragged me here. I don’t think I can enter either.”
“Then the Holy Sword must be the condition for entry.”
There was no choice but to go in with the Holy Sword. That was why heroes existed. They said only a hero wielding the Holy Sword could slay the Demon King. Perhaps that was what this meant all along. In the end, was that the true reason the Holy Sword existed?
Years ago in the kingdom she had grasped the Holy Sword, yet she had not been chosen. And so things had come to this. There was no need to cling to regrets any longer.
“Then we abandon it.”
“My lord?”
“We cannot enter, and there is no telling when Clanis will bring her army down on us. I will not leave the soldiers here to die.”
A clean withdrawal was the better choice.
“Isn’t it too great a waste to pull back now?”
“Indeed. Better to garrison here and crush Clanis as well.”
Easy words. That was only possible when morale was high and the troops still whole.
“How bad are the losses?”
“Of the eighteen thousand, three thousand were wounded in the fighting at the Demon King’s Castle, and two thousand confirmed dead.”
Far too many dead, far too many maimed.
“Heaven, it seems, will not grant me the heart of the Demon Realm. Withdrawal is the right course now. We will raise a great wall stretching from the northern border of Ashtar all the way to Crad Castle.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Eldacrad ordered the retreat. Of the eighteen-thousand-strong expedition, more than five thousand were dead or wounded. Still, the demons they had slain after entering the Demon King’s territory numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Satisfied with that, Eldacrad crossed back out of the Demon Realm and turned toward Ashtar Territory.
And he stopped Bernoa as she prepared to leave.
“And Bernoa. You will not leave.”
“My lord?”
“Would I cast aside the one who risked her life to the end to support me?”
At Eldacrad’s words, Bernoa secretly wiped away a tear.
Somewhere in the Demon Realm lay a burning wasteland. At its heart a vast flame rose and took on human form. That being was Seto.
“Bernoa, you bitch. So everything was a trap to snare me from the start.”
He had never expected that even after falling she would still trust Eldacrad. Because of that he had lost his weapon, and Eldacrad alone had become the hero.
“Ghhk. At least I kept my heart separate. That was close.”
The damage now was too great. For a while even moving would be difficult. If things had come to this—
“Then perhaps it would be better to set the Church in motion.”
When Clanis finally reached the Demon King’s Castle, what greeted her was a ruined fortress.
“Eldacrad, you son of a bitch! If the Demon King has fallen, I’ll turn all of Ashtar Territory into a sea of fire!”
—Clanis.
Relief washed over her. The Demon King still lived within the castle, unharmed.
“My King! My King! You’re alive!”
—Fate has changed. We must prepare for what comes next.
“I will serve you!”
Fate had changed. She did not understand what that meant, yet one thing was certain: the Demon King intended to gather strength for a time. Clanis resolved to remain at his side and support him until that power returned. Until the day he walked the world again—slowly, patiently.
Eldacrad returned to Ashtar Territory. Using soldiers and laborers, he raised a great wall from Crad Castle to the northern border of Ashtar. Only by building it here could they later hold back an invasion by the Four Heavenly Kings.
Bernoa had feared that because the power had passed and she herself had fallen, Seto would become a problem if her lord claimed the kill. Yet fortunately Eldacrad remained unharmed. Even after helping win the war, half of Bernoa’s body was already that of a demon. When the work was finished she had intended to leave Eldacrad’s side.
But on the day she meant to go, Eldacrad’s wife stopped her.
“My lord is a great man. Heroes always have many wives. He is not a man I can manage alone. So become his second wife and help me support him.”
“How can you say such a thing?”
“I heard you were ready to give your life for him. I could not even be there. Please do not leave.”
“My lady…”
“His mother left him the moment she gave him life. Will you leave as well?”
Persuaded by the first wife, Bernoa stayed. She renounced her office as Saint of the kingdom, and Eldacrad took her as his second wife. The Holy Kingdom raised a modest protest, yet the kingdom itself had never intended to take Bernoa back, so they approved her resignation from the Saint’s seat.
Thus decades passed—years full of noise and trouble. A child was born between Bernoa and Eldacrad. Thankfully the child was human, rose through the imperial military, and because Eldacrad lived, Ashtar never suffered the chaos that had come in the world where Bernoa fell. Ashtar grew stronger still and held the front line against the Demon Realm.
“In the years that remain, please look after my lord.”
The first wife died twenty years after Bernoa’s marriage to Eldacrad. Yet Bernoa herself remained young—because half her body had become demon, though people around her insisted it was because she had been a true Saint. For that reason she was worshipped as a genuine Saint.
More decades slipped by. When Eldacrad was growing old, trouble struck his granddaughter Olivia. The current head of House Ashtar had sired a bastard, and from the day that bastard was entered into the family register he began using a succubus to ruin Olivia.
So Olivia had a past like this…
Of all times, Bernoa and Eldacrad had accepted an invitation from the kingdom to help train priests and royal troops for the coming war with the Demon King’s army, and so she could not intervene. By the time she hurried back to Ashtar Territory the matter was already over. Olivia had slapped the Crown Prince Aslan across the face and broken the engagement. It turned out that Noah, the mage of the Hero Party, had appeared midway and helped her.
For reasons of his own the Emperor forgave Olivia for striking his son and even accepted the broken engagement. The real problem came next.
“I’m going to marry this man! Right after we graduate from the Academy!”
Olivia appeared with Noah in tow and made that declaration. At those words Bernoa and her daughter-in-law Katrina nearly dislocated their jaws. Their precious granddaughter and daughter had dumped the Crown Prince—that was one thing—but then she had brought home a man, claiming he had stolen her heart.
“Hey, I just exposed it because a girl who’s a grand duchess of a major nation getting reeled in by a succubus would be a threat to Ashtar, which sits on the front line against the Demon Realm.”
Noah, the mage of the Hero Party, insisted desperately that he had done nothing of the sort. Whatever the cause, Bernoa was not pleased that Noah had seduced Olivia.
“Oh? The man who charmed the daughter of the Assassin Guild and the young lady of Ashtar now wants to slip away? Do you want assassins hounding you for the rest of your life?”
She even threatened him. Had Olivia always been this sharp when Noah was not mixed into her? The thought rose unbidden, and Bernoa found herself smiling. She did not know what had happened before her regression, but it seemed Noah had failed to help Olivia in time. That was why Olivia had died, and why the two of them had somehow fused.
“Wow. You’re even more vicious than that fallen bitch pretending to be a Saint or the whore elf of the Great Forest.”
“His Majesty the Emperor already agreed to overlook Aslan’s matter and accept the broken engagement on the condition that you stay in the Empire! Even Father has given his permission!”
“No, you little—ah, fine.”
Bernoa felt a bitter twist of emotion. Before her regression the two had been one—more precisely, their souls had fused into a single being. Now they loved each other. In the end, was this not simply one destiny?
So they were fated to be joined somehow.
The future might change, yet bonds found a way to continue. Bernoa understood that now. That was why the Demon King had not been eliminated and Seto had returned. Preparing for the future would be wise. After all, Noah was strong enough to defeat the Demon King. Unlike before the regression, they still had to prepare for the Demon King who continued to bide his time in silence.
“Mother?”
“Katrina. What do you think of allowing those two?”
“Haaa… I only asked the Hero Party to save my precious child, not this.”
In the end Katrina also consented, on the condition that Olivia inherit the Assassin Guild. In truth it was a kind of revenge. She had made Noah into the Saint of the Imperial Church—that rootless, corrupt, greedy institution crawling with monsters.
You look like the type who hates settling in one place. Let’s see how you like it.
Noah did not seem entirely opposed either. It was a strange fate. The Hero Party that still contained the living Noah now faced anti-imperialists colluding with demons, or cultists who worshipped the Demon King.
“Too many damn anti-imperialists these days.”
“Can’t be helped. Still easier than dealing with demons, right?”
“Fuck, the first bastard who runs when the cultists show up—”
There were none inside Ashtar Territory, yet cultists thrived throughout the Empire and the various kingdoms. They used black magic to sow chaos, corrupt people, or summon mains. Bernoa took on the task of aiding the Hero Party in suppressing them. A new enemy had appeared, yet the overall situation was better than before. Above all, Bernoa was happy.
The Imperial Church
In this world where fate had changed, the Imperial Church had altered a great deal as well. Unlike the original world, Olivia was not the Empire’s Saint, she trained no battle nuns, and money did not flow in endless circles. Instead the mage Noah had handed the Pope a succubus named Nora—who had been forced into unpaid labor by the Ashtar bastard Lily—and made her the Saint.
And the Pope…
Crack!
A thick-bodied man sat naked astride a wooden horse, eyes blindfolded, a strange device filling his mouth, both arms bound. Behind him a woman in an obscenely cut nun’s habit brought a whip down across the Pope’s back.
“How do you find this Saint’s touch? Heh-heh.”
“Mphhh! S-Saint! Stop this at once! You are the Saint and I am the Pope!”
The Pope managed to spit out the gag and protest, yet it did him no good.
“What kind of mad Pope waves his lower half at married women? Noble ladies among them, I hear? Today I’ll thoroughly educate you so you can never wave it at any other woman again.”
Crack! Crack!
“Gyaaaaaah!”
Every time the Pope brought in a middle-aged woman or tried to make one a nun, Nora mercilessly trained him. Only the positions had been swapped. In truth, nothing much had changed from before.