Thank You, Hero
No matter how he turned it over in his mind, the club idea had been a masterstroke. He never would have imagined it could draw out a reaction like this.
Wearing a thoroughly satisfied smile, Lethe reviewed the current situations of the four Demon Kings who had enrolled in the Academy.
Astaroth, first of all, was doing far better than expected. The Magic Club was still packed to the doors.
She still had her scatterbrained side, and every so often her demonic nature would slip out, but when it came to magic itself she was rock-solid. For students who cared more about magic than about Demon Kings, that alone was reason enough to stay.
Of course, it hadn’t been completely free of noise.
A few students either couldn’t make heads or tails of her theories, or else had expected to learn the war hero’s magic and were disappointed when that turned out not to be the case. Within a matter of days they put in requests to leave the club.
And the Demon King had roared about it.
“Ah, Ahjussi! These bastards are trying to quit after only a few days—can’t I just chop their necks clean off?! I’ll take their heads and hang them up in the club room! Those sons of bitches!!”
“Why chop them? You said it yourself! Coming in’s free, but leaving isn’t!!”
Fortunately, he managed to stop the quitters’ heads from ending up on display in the club room. Truly fortunate.
Those hardliner noble bastards. You lot should be thanking me.
At any rate, the concept of a club where people interested in magic actually discussed magic was settling in nicely. Word was that even the magic professors were extremely positive about it.
Well, of course they would be—those humans were bound to be intensely curious about the kind of magic a Demon King used.
And the other three…
Marmar first. She had joined the Reading Club exactly as she always was—quiet and composed.
At the time of joining she had apparently said, “Demons don’t often read such fine things. I offer my praise to the humans who created these books that are called food for the soul.”
Naturally the club members’ noses shot straight into the sky, and she was admitted on the spot.
Smart move. She had clearly understood that the students were still, quite literally, kids.
Who wouldn’t be thrilled when those terrifying, overwhelmingly powerful Demon Kings turned around and declared, “Wow, you guys are the absolute best!”
The ultimate bragging material had just walked in the door; there was no way they were going to turn it away.
The same held true for Sitri.
She had walked into the History Club and boldly announced, “I want to know more about the history of the humans who never yielded and fought to the very end, the elves who never bent their noble pride, and the dwarves whose grit is harder than steel!” The club members had broken into applause.
If Ashu raised her value by name-dropping me, Mar and Sitri raised theirs by lifting the students up. Honestly, whoever taught them, their heads are sharp.
If Astaroth had been standing next to him right then, she probably would have protested, “You never taught us that! We figured it out ourselves!” and promptly earned herself a light knuckle to the head.
Lastly there was El. The silver-haired Demon King was something of a special case.
Unlike the others, she had joined the Art Club with a single, utterly straightforward line.
“I want to draw.”
Perhaps that simple statement had given them a hunch. The students asked her to try drawing something.
Of course, no one expected much. How good could a Demon King who spent every day committing massacres possibly be at painting?
And yet—
“Oh my god.”
“That’s way, way too good!!”
“Uwaaah! Losing to a demon in art of all things!!”
Humans, elves, and dwarves alike clutched their heads and screamed.
The painting that came from El’s hand displayed skill superior to anyone else in the Art Club.
“Um, Demon King?”
“El.”
“Ah—El. The man standing in that painting is…”
“Instructor Lethe.”
The students knew Instructor Lethe well enough. They also knew he was a thoroughly impressive man.
But still… wasn’t that a little too idealized? He didn’t actually have a halo shining behind him, did he?
They tilted their heads for a moment, then shook the thought away. As long as she drew well, nothing else mattered.
When Lethe later saw the piece El had submitted for her club application, he laughed out loud. Honestly, how could anyone feel bad about being drawn looking that cool? Of course he was delighted.
What he didn’t know at the time was that from then on, the only subject El would ever paint while in the Art Club was him. Before long the club room would be filled with nothing but portraits of a single man.
In any case, the starting point of all of this had been Michaela’s suggestion of “clubs.”
Even though she was a Hero, she had gone against her destined role and helped the Demon Kings. How could that not be remarkable?
I should at least thank her properly.
He decided it would be good to see her once before attending the evening banquet.
As it happened, after running into Haniel and Selaphy he learned she was sitting at one of the outdoor tables by the dormitory.
“Michaela?”
When he arrived at the outdoor seating area, the red-haired Hero was indeed there.
“Hik?! L-Lord Lethe?!”
Michaela hurriedly shoved something behind her back. Fortunately, Lethe didn’t seem to have gotten a clear look at what it was. Even if he had, he had no intention of asking “What’s that?”
“W-what brings you here?!”
“I wanted to say thank you.”
“W-what?! Thank you? T-to me?”
“About the clubs. The students’ reactions have been far more positive than I expected.”
“A-ah… is that so. That’s a relief.”
“Thanks to you, our kids are getting a little less hate and can actually get closer to the other students. It feels like we made a good start. So… really, thank you.”
With that, Lethe gave her a light bow. Naturally Michaela waved both hands in flustered protest, but he didn’t feel the slightest awkwardness about having lowered his head.
Pride was something you had to know when to keep and when to set aside. And when it came to expressing gratitude, it was unquestionably the latter. Lethe had learned that lesson thoroughly through several betrayals and brushes with death.
As a bonus, he had also seen plenty of elves get factored into pieces by demons while chasing after their pride.
Above all else, a Hero had stepped forward to help the Demon Kings—defying the fate the world itself had laid down. That alone was more than enough reason for Lethe to offer her his thanks.
Making that decision must have been incredibly hard. She had to ignore the voice deep inside that kept whispering, You don’t have to do this. That alone made it extraordinary.
…
Watching him, Michaela barely managed to stop the corners of her mouth from lifting.
Thank you. Lethe—the war hero she had admired so deeply, the man she had once wished she could fight alongside on the battlefield—was bowing his head and thanking her.
Was this a dream or reality? If it was a dream it would be a little sad; if it was real, it was a life achievement.
Ah.
Michaela hastily crumpled the single sheet of paper she had been hiding behind her back.
For some reason an inexplicable sense of rivalry had kept bubbling up, and even while wondering what on earth she was doing, she had still pulled out a form and been about to fill it in.
New Club Establishment Application
Lively music announced the start of the banquet.
It was the sort of event that had been almost impossible during the war years. How long the nobles must have been holding themselves back.
There was even a joke that one of the reasons they hated the demons was “because they made it impossible to hold banquets.” That pretty much said it all.
Tonight, members of the imperial family would be in attendance. The Crown Princess, the First Prince, and the Second Prince were the main attractions.
Because of that, the moderates and the hardliners alike had poured into the banquet hall, each painting whatever picture they most desired.
The atmosphere between the two groups, however, could not have been more different.
“Hahaha. Now that every road is finally stable again, our income should climb even higher.”
“I was so worried too many of our soldiers would come back broken, but they’re returning in one piece. What a relief.”
“Surely it is because the gods themselves watch over this Empire and His Majesty the Emperor.”
The ones laughing freely—hahaha, hohoho—were of course the moderate nobles.
They were the ones who insisted that now the war with the demons was over, everything should return to the way it had been before. The ones who argued that every special privilege seized under the pretext of war ought to be laid down. Most of them were imperial nobles who had been loyal to the Empire from the very beginning, and they formed the Crown Princess’s strongest base of support.
“The mercenaries we were keeping on retainer are citing unpaid wages and…”
“I still don’t understand what we’re supposed to do with all the weapons we went into debt to buy.”
“Have you heard the news from the Academy? Apparently the Demon Kings are getting along just fine with the students.”
On the other side, the hardliner nobles forced smiles onto their faces but could not manage a single genuine laugh.
They were nobles from the former nations that had surrendered or been absorbed as the Empire expanded, or else local power holders. They had swollen their influence even further by exploiting the period when the imperial family’s power had weakened during the war with the demons.
Then, all of a sudden, the war had ended and they found themselves forced to spit out everything they had seized.
If it had wound down slowly, with clear signs that the end was approaching, things would have been better. They would have had the time and the money to clean up the messes they had made.
But everything had happened in an instant, leaving them no leeway at all.
As a result, they had decided to throw their weight behind the princes in order to check the Crown Princess.
With the Emperor’s health failing, the only path to survival was to somehow overturn the line of succession. The princes also wanted a strong imperial authority, but at least with them one could hang a “debt” around their necks—something that was impossible with the Crown Princess.
“His Highness the Second Prince enters.”
“His Highness the First Prince has arrived.”
“Her Highness the Crown Princess has graced us with her presence.”
The Crown Princess and the princes—the very axes of each faction’s ambitions—arrived one after another.
Just like the moderates and hardliners, they too smiled on the surface while concealing daggers and ropes with which to bind one another.
In the midst of that bone-chilling silent war, a new wind rose.
“Your Highness. That man…”
To the hardliners, he was the one they had carefully raised only to have a knife plunged into their backs.
“Your Highness, Crown Princess.”
To the moderates, he was the man who had gifted them the perfect moment to pressure the hardliners.
“Lord Lethe has arrived.”