194
I Killed the Demon King. It Was a Mistake.
Chapter 194
Agatha had completely shed her shabby appearance like Borden's.
Her skin was glowing, and the low-cut black dress enhanced her charm even more.
Crucially, the two horns on her head were gradually turning white.
Almost half of the horns had turned white.
"How do I look?"
"It's irritating how intensely you're expressing that you're a queen."
Agatha covered her mouth with a fan and laughed softly.
Her personality seems to have changed with her improved appearance.
She seems more honest with her emotions.
Probably because her rock-bottom self-esteem has recovered.
"Still, it's 100 times better than when you looked shabby."
"That goes without saying."
Agatha walked down from the throne and stood in front of Caesar.
Then she tapped the golden eagle medal on Caesar's chest.
"So what story has Lord Caesar come to tell?"
...But Agatha.
Can you actually see Raven standing next to me?
It's getting awkward since you're completely ignoring her.
"Right now I'm a diplomat, not a knight."
"Should I call you Ambassador then?"
"No need for such grand titles, just call me Viscount El Lindger."
"Starting with title clarification... Seems you have quite a serious conversation in mind?"
"Something like that."
Caesar glanced at Raven as he spoke.
"By the way, this is Raven, as you know. And she's the second person who knows my true identity."
"True identity..."
"Yes. She found out I'm Barre."
Only then did Agatha properly look at Raven.
Raven focused on her horns rather than her alluring eyes.
She must know what those ambiguously white horns mean.
"I heard about you from Caesar... No, Barre. You owe him a debt?"
"Yes. I owe him my life."
"Then let me ask one thing. Does Barre intend to accept my proposal?"
Raven observed Agatha with all her senses.
Agatha's eyes flickered toward Caesar.
At that moment, a magic wave burst forth that was both fluffy like clouds yet infinitely heavy.
"...Well, we'll see how today goes."
Raven knows what emotion Agatha is feeling right now.
This is love, beyond gratitude, goodwill, and affection.
'This... This... Bastard!'
Now she understood why Caesar was so confident Agatha would unconditionally accept his proposal.
It would be impossible not to seduce someone after captivating their heart like this.
What made it worse was that Caesar clearly understood Agatha's feelings better than Raven did.
Yet he pretended not to know while maintaining such a friendly relationship, it was infuriating.
'Enemy of women!'
While deeply contemplating whether to tell Gloria about this, Caesar pulled out a letter from his breast pocket.
Inside Arch Duke's envelope were two letters.
One was for Caesar.
The other was for Agatha.
Caesar handed over Agatha's letter.
"What's that?"
"A letter from Arch Duke to you. It contains some requirements. Would you like a briefing?"
"I'd rather hear it directly from you. But before that..."
Agatha waved her index finger in the air.
A table and chairs rose from the ground.
"Shall we exchange information over a comfortable cup of tea?"
"That wouldn't be bad."
Afterward, succubi entered through the door and set tea in front of Caesar and Agatha.
There were no cookies, but freshly picked fruits, and the tea smelled more like boiled herbs rather than typical black tea.
Should this too be called very Agatha-like?
The spread feels full of vitality, which is nice.
Still, I should send some black tea and cookies when I return to Homigraph.
"The Black Horn clan is no longer seen in the Beast people Forest. What did you do?"
"What do you mean what did I do? Raven and I killed them all."
Agatha's eyes widened in surprise.
"How?"
"We trapped all the Geotech and Black Horn clan in the Forest of Labyrinth and killed them."
"Geotech must not have been easy..."
"Of course it was impossible alone. Raven's help was quite significant."
Agatha looked at Raven with a subtle gaze.
He wanted to read what she was thinking with psychometry, but also didn't want to.
Probably because it wouldn't be pleasant to hear.
"If I had helped, it would have been dealt with quickly... But I couldn't help because I was busy. Sorry."
"No, it's fine. I knew you were struggling too."
"So does this mean the beast people can breathe a little easier now?"
"I suppose so. But I still see Orcs entering the Beast people Forest. How are they getting in?"
"There's a cave in the Red Mountains that connects the Orc Wasteland and Beast people Forest in a straight line. It's called the Bat Cave, and they seem to mainly come through there."
Caesar nodded as if he had expected this.
"So it was there after all?"
"What, you knew about it too?"
"I roughly knew there was a Bat Cave there. So if we destroy that, the Orcs won't be able to cross into the Beast people Forest?"
"They'll be limited to coming through the Eagle valley and the narrow coast at the southern end of the demon realm. Simply climbing over the Red Mountains would be almost impossible. The naturally weak goblins and impatient ogres would either die trying or give up."
Caesar had watched with his own eyes as Geotech's soldiers turned into devils while climbing the Red Mountains.
Unless a master strategist on the level of Hannibal was born among the Orcs, no one would come over the Red Mountains.
"How do you plan to tackle the Bat Cave?"
"That's for the beast people to figure out. They could bring the mountain tigers to the cave entrance and collapse it with earthquake magic, or just block it with rocks."
"That seems surprisingly simple. Why haven't they done it until now?"
"Because collapsing the cave means collapsing part of the mountain, and that would hurt the trees. But I told them to block the Bat Cave somehow regardless of whether trees get hurt, so they'll find a way to do it."
As expected of tree lovers.
They left the Bat Cave alone because they couldn't bear to see even one tree get hurt.
If I were Agatha, I would have knocked some sense into them.
"More importantly, you should think about what you should get from the beast people. Honestly speaking, aren't you their savior, Caesar? What are you planning to get?"
"I don't really know exactly what they can give me. Is there anything worth getting?"
"There should be at least some elixirs. The beast people have traditionally offered elixirs from the Beast people Forest and Red Mountains to the Demon King. Even if they don't have any now, they should be able to find them quickly."
"Oh, that would be perfect. I've been having trouble finding effective elixirs."
Now that Caesar has reached a certain level, ordinary elixirs don't satisfy him anymore.
Without consuming something like the Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng, he wouldn't feel like he's growing.
Otherwise, it would just be absorbed as surplus aura in his dantian.
"By the way, I should also get a lot from the beast people."
"Why?"
"When the Bat Cave is blocked, the Orcs will flood toward the Eagle valley. That will cause a lot of troublesome situations."
"Since you became the Demon King, wouldn't the Orcs not dare to attack recklessly? Can't you just order them to submit?"
"That would be problematic in its own way. If they take my orders, it means they've become my people, right? Then I couldn't keep draining their energy and blood."
"Then what do you plan to do with the Orcs?"
Agatha let out a small sigh.
"I don't know. Part of me wants to wipe them all out. They did betray us after all."
"But?"
"I can handle defending against those who attack like now. But honestly, I'm not confident about conquering the vast Orc Wasteland."
Well, orcs reproduce and multiply extremely quickly.
There's no way the roughly 10,000 succubi and vampires could eliminate them all.
When the uncomfortable contemplation stopped the conversation, Agatha smiled and pointed to the fruits on the table.
"More importantly, try some fruit. The beast people have agreed to regularly offer all of these as tribute."
"Oh really? Who came as the beast people representative?"
"Someone called Arang. From what I could tell, he seems likely to become the beast people's Great Chieftain."
"Great Chieftain? Is that like a king?"
"Something similar. It's an almost forgotten rule among the beast people, but apparently in emergencies like now, they appoint a leader with power over life and death. Anyway, that's Arang. Thanks to that, the negotiations ended easily."
In Earth terms, it seems similar to a Roman dictator.
I thought they just lived by instinct since they're a tribal society, but surprisingly they have a political system.
"Looks like it ended more smoothly than expected."
"Well, yes. He bowed his head and apologized profusely to me. When I think about what happened at Shipwreck Island, I want to kill them all, but..."
Agatha imagined old and young beast people bowing their heads before her.
It was clearly Arang's strategy to appeal to sympathy, but the sight reminded Agatha of the young succubi trembling and dying on the shipwrecked island.
"...What sin could the little ones have?"
Agatha put the fruit in her mouth.
"It's very sweet. You should each try one too."
Caesar and Raven each ate a fruit.
It was quite sweet, as Agatha had said.
"This has a texture like melon but it's delicious."
"It's called Kayaka, a fruit that grows in the beast people forest. It doesn't taste good when eaten right away, but after ripening for about a week to two weeks after picking, it becomes sweet like this."
"Can I take some later?"
"Of course. I'll make sure to pack some for you when you leave."
Agatha reached out with her wooden fork to pick up a Kayaka.
However, there were no Kayaka left on the plate.
"...?"
Caesar and Agatha stared blankly at Raven.
Raven's cheeks were stuffed full of Kayaka.
"...?"
Raven belatedly realized what she had done.
Her face turned bright red as she carefully put down the Kayaka that was on her fork.
"Our magician seems to have quite a cute side. Is Kayaka that delicious?"
Munch! Munch!
Raven wanted to make some excuse but couldn't speak because her mouth was full of Kayaka.
"Magicians generally can't resist sweets. They go crazy especially for things like chocolate or candy."
"To the point of eating so mindlessly?"
"She gets irritable when she doesn't have any. Once I secretly ate her candy, you know? After that she was sulky and wouldn't talk to me all day."
Raven glared at Caesar and said:
"That was the only candy I had left. Besides, it's natural to crave sweets when doing high-intelligence activities like magic. When you don't even know..."
"Okay, I'm sorry. Would you like some of these raspberries too?"
"...No. I won't eat them."
"There's no chocolate left when we get back. That bastard Elijah blew up the food storage first before running away."
"What? Why are you telling me this only now?"
"I'm telling you now, aren't I?"
When Raven made an expression like she had lost everything, Agatha pushed the fruits in front of her towards Raven as if finding her cute.
"I'll pack more fruits for our cute magician. We have quite a lot of fruit."
"I don't need it."
"But wouldn't other magicians need it? I think there might be quite a few magicians who crave sweets like you?"
"That's true, but..."
"Though I may not know human etiquette well, constantly refusing my gift wouldn't be polite, would it? Go ahead and accept it."
After hesitating, Raven finally put the fruit in her mouth.
"...Thank you for the food."
While Raven was falling into fruit-holicism, Caesar finished his tea.
Agatha personally poured tea into Caesar's cup.
"Don't you crave sweets?"
"Not particularly? I'm the type who doesn't care as long as I'm full. I prefer meat if anything."
"So quantity matters more than quality?"
"Something like that. How about you? What do you like?"
"I like lemon candy. Come to think of it, I guess I like sweets too."
Agatha ate a fruit while looking out the window.
Raven sensed both melancholy and joy in Agatha's gaze and quietly stopped eating fruit.
She felt like she should give up some fruit to Agatha.
Caesar also noticed that subtle atmosphere and carefully asked:
"Agatha, are you okay?"
"Huh? Oh, just... I was thinking about how long it's been since I had such useless conversations..."
Agatha barely remembered having such small talk either during the shipwreck incident or after returning to the demon realm.
Especially after rumors spread that she would become the demon king, most demons found her intimidating, so they took even small jokes seriously.
So she felt somewhat lonely...
"Caesar, I'm curious about something."
"What is it?"
"How do you feel when you look at me?"
Caesar used psychometry to understand Agatha's thoughts.
-Does Caesar find me difficult to approach?
-From what I've seen so far, he doesn't seem to think that way.
-Why is Caesar different from the others?
-Even though he's the same doppelganger.
Caesar could notice that Agatha was feeling more lonely than expected.
Well, the throne is always a lonely place.
It must be quite difficult for an emotional person like Agatha to sit in that lonely place for so long.
"How do I feel about you..."
Caesar recalled Agatha crying while hugging Maya at the vampire castle.
"You seem a bit pitiful sometimes."
And he recalled Agatha attacking ships with mermaids in the middle of the Imperial territory to save the demons.
"You seem amazing sometimes."
Finally, he looked at Agatha sitting proudly before him now.
"And you seem quite admirable."