Fire!
"Allow me to apologize in their stead, Sir Lethe."
The Crown Princess slipped quietly to his side, her voice laced with bitterness.
Lethe waved her off at once. The idea was absurd. Why should someone who had done nothing wrong be the one to apologize?
And for the Crown Princess herself to offer an apology? The moderate nobles would leap at the chance to celebrate it. He was neither a member of the imperial family nor a noble, yet he would be receiving an apology from the next emperor. Those who sought to keep Lethe in check could not ask for a better pretext.
But she showed no sign of withdrawing the offer.
"They are my younger brothers, after all. Clumsy and greedy as they may be, they are still my brothers. Apologizing for their rudeness is only natural."
Faced with words like that, Lethe could find nothing to say. He merely hummed under his breath.
In truth, the Second Prince's remarks were not his alone. A number of nobles—and perhaps even some of the empire's citizens—likely harbored the same vague suspicion.
The suspicion that even the war hero they so revered had once abandoned hope and considered turning his back on the empire.
From the earliest days of the war to its very end, traitors had never stopped appearing.
Men who had fought bravely only the day before would suddenly turn and drive a blade into their comrades' backs. They would throw open the gates and usher the enemy inside. Countless lives had been lost to such betrayals.
It would have been better if the traitors had simply been treated as prisoners. At least then they might have fought to the end rather than sell out. But the demons had proven far cleverer than expected.
They took excellent care of those who betrayed their own side and defected. As a result, traitors had poured out not only among the humans but among the elves and dwarves as well.
It had been a calculated judgment—they knew precisely how to bleed the opposing forces and where to drive the wedge that would crack them apart.
"I was prepared for this. A man who once slaughtered demons, who before that spared them, and who now lives on friendly terms with them—of course people will say, 'Didn't he once consider betrayal?'"
"Has anyone ever risked their life to put on an act? I have never met such a person."
So saying, the Crown Princess glanced back at the moderate nobles behind her and clicked her tongue.
The Second Prince's brazen confidence, the Crown Princess's inability to step forward openly—both stemmed from a fatal flaw: among the many traitors, a great number had been close to the moderate nobles.
Because of that, the moderates' position had never truly improved, and the hardliners had retained their voice. Even with the moderates' support, the Crown Princess's faction could not be certain of victory precisely because of that weakness.
And if they could snag Lethe's ankle as well, they could drag the entire succession struggle into an even deeper mire. They could reset the line of succession to zero. That was the calculation of those who backed the princes.
They did not even need to brand Lethe a traitor. That would be too heavy a burden for a war hero, and they knew it. Simply silencing him—or forcing him into neutrality—would be enough to satisfy the hardliners.
If they bit too hard and turned Lethe into a true enemy, their own heads would not remain on their shoulders.
"It might have been better if you had never withdrawn from the front lines."
"I am deeply sorry."
"Ah, that is not what I wished to hear. You suffered a grave injury—what else could you have done? I am merely saying that watching my brothers and those who spout nonsense makes my blood boil."
Injury. Injury, she said. Lethe glanced down at his arm.
At the height of the war he had taken something resembling a wound. The Demon King, even as he died, had insisted on taking one of Lethe's arms with him and had bitten down like a mad dog.
But it had never been an injury severe enough to hinder his movements. A little healing magic, some salve, decent meals, and fresh flesh would grow back clean. It had been an utterly ordinary wound.
Lethe had meant to use that moment. The Heroes had been fully prepared by then.
He had thought he could step back as the war hero and toss the rest to those destined to bring peace to the world. Give the Heroes their work, and grant himself an honorable retirement.
And then—ta-da. Our kids finished off every last Demon King and demon before the Heroes ever got the chance.
All the theatrics of "My wounds just won't heal, so I'll be stepping back for a while" so he could hand the work over to the Heroes had come to nothing. In the end it would have been better not to do it at all.
Somehow, everything had twisted itself into knots without mercy. He had run full tilt imagining a transmigrator's life full of refreshing payoffs, only to look back and find sweet potatoes piled high because of those very actions.
His attempt to pass the hero's seat to the Heroes had been reduced to nothing but "The war hero was wounded and retired!"
Before that, his effort to win the Heroes' hearts had, thanks to a mix-up of dates, saved the Demon Kings instead.
And when he tried to keep those Demon Kings from becoming Demon Kings, they had become Demon Kings anyway and come to the academy.
He wanted to bury his face in his hands and sigh. If he could have spoken honestly, he would have. "Actually, I mixed up the dates and saved the Demon Kings instead of the Heroes! Haha!"
…Would they believe me?
He asked himself the question and immediately shook his head. Not a chance. Would they simply accept it? He would be lucky if they didn't call him a madman.
"…"
While Lethe once again felt the full weight of his mistakes as a transmigrator, the Crown Princess saw only a war hero depressed by his old injury. She seemed to regret bringing it up. Better to change the subject at once.
"Ah. Come to think of it, I have heard the news from the academy through Marquis Anes."
In the midst of the uneasy political climate, the academy was one of the few places that still brought the Crown Princess glad tidings.
She still remembered how astonished she had been at first. Imagine it: those once-terrifying Demon Kings arriving out of nowhere and announcing, "We want to enroll." And smiling so brightly, as if nothing could please them more.
She had imagined every possible disaster they might cause inside. There had even been talk of stationing a knight order at the academy solely to keep watch over them.
The empire, ravaged by war, had to be rebuilt. The wounded had to be cared for.
But that was only possible when peace was certain. When the hardliners declared, "Demons can never be trusted," the Crown Princess and the moderates had thought the same.
Until they heard that those four had slaughtered every last one of their warmongering kin.
She had decided to trust them. She had chosen to believe, because of the strange sense of reliability she felt from the four Demon Kings.
She might go down in imperial history as a Crown Princess who had lost her mind, yet she had trusted her judgment in that fleeting moment.
And the result was proving even more remarkable than she had expected.
"Clubs. Clubs, of all things. Tell me, Sir Lethe—I truly never imagined it. That those Demon Kings would genuinely want to live among the students at the academy."
"Indeed. It is a good thing."
Actually, that whole thing started because Ashu fired off the Hell Decapitating Sword and we needed a smokescreen. I never expected the reaction to be this positive. I suppose clubs really are the truth of academy life.
Lethe swallowed the words he wanted to say and simply laughed.
"A good thing. Yes, a good thing. If the Demon Kings show their sincerity that way, the students will open their hearts first, and from there the next step will follow. I understand the hostility and rage toward the demons. Wanting to keep them at a distance is only natural. But we cannot continue this war any longer."
"Your words are most wise."
Of course there could be no more war. The logic was simple and required no distant examples.
The empire, the elves, and the dwarves had all struggled and failed to properly deal with the Demon Kings—yet those four Demon Kings had cheerfully wiped them all out. So could anyone catch those four? Absolutely impossible.
And Lethe himself had taught them. Their skills would only have grown stronger than before.
Moreover, even Lethe was no longer certain. If war truly resumed, could he still stand on the empire's side?
The thought of having to cut down Astaroth, Marmar, Sitri, and El just so he could enjoy that academy life he had wanted… he probably, almost certainly, would not be able to do it.
"For the sake of our descendants, for the sake of our future, we must yield and step back. And those Demon Kings, when you think about it, have already retreated a full ten paces. Can we not at least give them one pace in return?"
The Crown Princess believed the Demon Kings had truly stepped back those ten paces "for the sake of peace."
In reality they had done it solely for Lethe—and without him, they would have ignored peace entirely.
"Looking at it that way, Sir Lethe, I find myself rather relieved that you once saved those Demon Kings—"
"Your Highness."
A lady-in-waiting suddenly interrupted. The Crown Princess frowned for the briefest moment at the intrusion, then smoothed her expression and looked at the woman.
"Why such a fuss?"
"Y-Your Highness. A moment…"
The lady-in-waiting glanced at Lethe, who stood before the Crown Princess. It seemed to be a matter that needed to be spoken in private, but the Crown Princess shook her head.
"It is fine. Speak. What is it?"
"W-well, news has just arrived… A massive fire has broken out at the academy!"
"…What?"
At the sudden report, the Crown Princess turned to Lethe without thinking.
And under that gaze, Lethe—
…Kids? No. Please. Tell me it wasn't you. Please!!
—was forcibly restraining the urge to clutch his head.