Look at Me (3)

The Demon King deliberately waited until just after sunset before returning to Cariel's room.

Had she gone back right away, the sharp-eyed boy would have deduced within moments that she'd been spying on his parents.

So what happens if she broadcasts an air of not interested, don't care~ like this?

Even if he asked outright, she could simply let it slide past one ear and out the other.

"I've been thinking it over."

Cheeky brat. He cuts straight to the chase the moment I arrive.

"I need power."

You already know I won't simply hand it over — so you're asking me to make your training even more hellish than it is?

"That training has made it real to me that I can grow stronger this way. But… that would be limited to survival and the art of getting by, wouldn't it? Just as you said. Am I wrong?"

Keep at it long enough and who knows.

Whether he carved out his own breakthrough or not was entirely up to him.

If he grew sick of being beaten and reached the realm where blows no longer landed, then at that point every option but striking back would vanish.

Because the training ground's condition for clearing was simple: either eliminate all your enemies, or don't.

Those were the only two paths.

"To be precise, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what I need is the power to crush and shatter an opponent… to neutralize them. The means to actually do it."

You do love making things complicated. All you had to say was 'I want to become overwhelmingly strong.'

Well, it was a natural progression, if nothing else.

Dodging well alone would never fell an opponent.

Subduing them without force was even more out of the question.

And if he planned to do nothing but evade until they wore themselves out?

Recklessness had its limits.

But why are you telling me this? You have a father, don't you? Plenty ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of others, too. Ah, right — your fiancée is quite formidable. Why not try asking her?

"……."

His expression asked whether she was doing this maliciously, knowing full well what she was doing.

It's only been a few days since we started keeping company, and now I can read his thoughts from his face alone? Well. I was always exceptional in that particular regard, but this is something else.

After all…

…she despised the very labor of paying attention to anything.

So for her, reading someone's intent this quickly was, frankly, a little surprising.

Unforgivable, if the other party were a true enemy — but for a rival, or an adversary she could scarcely afford to ignore, perhaps it was different.

Why not use this opportunity to be reconciled with your parents, hmm?

"…Are you insane?"

Reconciliation? What reconciliation?

"What exactly would I do with the two people who insist, every time, that I'm the one with the problem?"

The Demon King laughed in genuine disbelief.

And yet he still calls them 'the two of them,' so scrupulously respectful?

With hostility that deep-rooted, he should have been cursing them behind their backs by the bucketful, venom soaking every syllable — yet he insisted on maintaining a formal, if perfunctory, courtesy.

Pitiful creature, pitifully bound.

"What did you just say?"

Such things exist, is all.

Put another way — for a child's heart to twist this badly, how much must those around him have ground him down?

Ah, my spine prickles just imagining it.

It might have been rather enjoyable in its own way, though?

Other people's curses, blackmail, and threats are, after all, the fuel that forges you harder, are they not?

And that pleasure, when the day comes to tear every last one of them apart… it would grant a rapture few could yield even to parents and siblings.

…A pity she had never experienced it herself, and so had to leave it at imagination.

What a shame, truly.

"So, I've come to a decision."

Hm? And that is?

"No need for long speeches. Make a contract with me."

A contract?

What, you really intend to go sell your soul? I told you, I don't take it.

"Grant one favor of mine. That's all."

You? Grant MY favor? What? What kind? If you asked me to kill your father and settle your grudge, would that do?

For an instant, Cariel's mouth sealed shut.

You little—! You actually stopped to think about it seriously, didn't you? Unfilial wretch! The heavens will punish you for this!

"……."

That he didn't push back even here made it clear the Saintess had done a thorough job indoctrinating him in matters of faith.

And yet the boy's defiance declared, unmistakably, that no such thing could ever constrain his will.

One look at his bloodshot eyes said everything — his rage on the subject, and the suppressed fury beneath it, were absolutely fixed.

You must have steeled yourself considerably to speak. Very well, let's hear this proposal of yours. So — what favor will you ask of me?

"That's what I'm about to find out."

I beg your pardon?

Look at this one. Disarming yourself and begging mercy from your opposite number, are you?

"I know from the historical records that you were generous to those who surrendered. And that you crushed the ones who refused — utterly, and fatally. I also understand perfectly well that all of it — every act of clemency and every slaughter — was meant to turn your enemies, to make them weigh terror against terms of compromise in advance, and capitulate of their own accord."

Anyone could work that out with a little thought. Though I don't recall ever asking you to explain it to me, or to sympathize.

Even granting that…

Whatever information about the Demon King could be gathered in this region would have been recorded in an extremely narrow and maliciously distorted form — and yet the boy had put his finger on the essence of things.

He did not judge or classify others through prejudice or fixed convention.

Not racial character or ethnic character, not the solidarity of region or nation or affiliation or creed — none of it.

Such narrowness might foster internal bonds and stability, but it would in the end breed fresh conflict, and he grasped that.

…For someone still steeped in this era's way of thinking, that should have been nearly impossible to see — and yet there he was, holding his objectivity free of prejudice.

Ah, now that I think of it — this boy wandered foreign lands as a child, didn't he?

Under the name of hostage.

But understand this: I expect nothing. Not one thing.

"You're the Demon King. Surely there's something — one thing you never managed in your lifetime, one regret — that you still want?"

That's for fools. And I am no fool.

A supremely objective self-assessment.

She had striven all her existence to become wise precisely so she would never be left with regrets — to proclaim a regret now would be the true folly.

Unless she had gone blind with desire and deaf to everything, wandering lost inside a colossal delusion.

Thirsty, and so drinking seawater by the mouthful.

In reality, such errors repeated endlessly across every race and species — but that was not a standard to be applied to herself, the Demon King.

Did they think she chose the epithet of Wisdom out of mere boredom, and held it for nothing?

"Then, being so illustrious, show some magnanimity."

What did you say?

Would you look at this brazen, presumptuous brat?

"If you possess more than you can hold, then you can afford to give some of it away. You are a king, after all."

Do you know what that is, in the tongue you people use for my kind? It's the same filth as 'since you're already eating shit, lap up the dirt with it — and if that's not enough, drink our piss for free.'

Generosity.

Mercy.

Altruism.

The very worst virtues — the ones demons most properly shunned and spurned.

And yet.

…….

It wasn't as though no such demon had ever existed.

So, what you're saying is: hand over alms, now. Uphold the dignity of a king. What a brazen little whelp you are.

A king, is it?

The insolence — and he isn't even my vassal.

"In name, it's possible. If I became your vassal — would you be willing to bestow something then?"

…Ah, how I detest clinging things.

In the past —

At the first display of such contemptible behavior, she would have taken his head, or else personally made him experience the worst catastrophe of his life, one that would have ranked among the very worst he could have known.

Were you truly that desperate?

"Even what you've already given me is more than I deserve. For that, I'm grateful. But… with that alone, I can neither persuade my father, nor bring him down… so."

Hah.

If he died a hundred times in dreams, a thousand, ten thousand —

He would more than earn the right to become a warrior the likes of which the surface world would never see again.

If he could endure that hell.

But enduring hell and contending with the Hero were two entirely different matters.

And defeating him? Crushing him?

Even further beyond reason.

Suppose he acquired skill enough to sweep, overturn, and dominate that nightmarish imaginary battlefield entirely — a single gesture from the Demon King herself would reduce even Cariel, reborn as an exceptional warrior, back into a mere 'thing.'

And it was Rueld who had defeated such a Demon King.

Therefore Cariel was not nursing some rash, childish fantasy — some naïve, half-baked hope that he might somehow, just possibly, win.

Tangled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠up in every direction, this one.

Had he been guided to grow rightly, he was timber fit for a hero beyond compare.

But that was a matter of character and disposition —

Of willpower and strength of mind.

Without substantive power, he could never be a Hero, hardly even a hero.

And yet he was no ordinary talent, either.

Extraordinary — that much remained true.

Only…

…such things rarely showed on the surface.

So that's why you never knew satisfaction.

Even while aware, all along, that he was growing.

Endlessly, endlessly he had felt himself diminished, raged at his own insufficiency, defied it, and defied it again —

Standing unbroken against absurd trial after absurd trial.

He had accepted even conditions that grew more outrageous by the day with a steadiness that seemed almost unnatural — and every ounce of that resolve had had its reason.

And what exactly do you intend to do by defeating your father, Rueld?

"I intend to win. What comes after — is that what matters right now?"

After, was it.

With the reality before his eyes already hopeless, he was thinking of what came after?

She was not the sort to affirm the lunacy that big dreams, fervently dreamed, come true.

To be supremely cynical and supremely cold — only thus could intellect be conquered.

Let yourself be swayed by emotion?

Let your opinions tilt toward the voices around you?

Let doubt corrode your own choices?

intoxicated by condemnation and blame, seduced by praise and flattery —

Mistaking your own judgment and choice for a free choice, the best of all possible judgments?

Or distrusting the outcome and the process alike, shifting the blame onto others, evading even the responsibility at hand —

That is how one becomes a mixed spirit, neither one thing nor the other. Truly, nothing more than a mongrel ghost of a being.

And so, as she was now —

Even lying at death's door, able to laugh and chatter without a trace of regret or remorse —

It all followed reason.

It was the result she had foreseen, too.

And even so.

Presented with the choice — was it the right answer, or the wrong one?

Well…

She would have answered: it is neither.

Had not the Great Demon King Himself spoken thus?

An unchanging truth, is it.

"??"

Fine. Then we do it this way.

At the snap of her fingers, a contract drawn in light took shape in the empty air, just as before.

The terms were utterly concise.

If you accept, press your mark. As before.

The contents went beyond the ominous — they were outright terrifying.

Conditions no one could so much as contemplate without resolve of the very highest order.

And yet —

Provided that resolve was made, the terms were, conversely, ones on which the Demon King stood to lose ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠endlessly.

Or don't press it. Accept reality as it is and conform, spend your life in flight—

Before she had even finished speaking, he pressed it.

Not only did the boy's fingertips tremble violently — his face had drained a deathly blue.

And still, look at him: he chose.

Naïve. Half-baked.

Almost pitiable, even.

But that, too, is his own choice.

She, of course, did not pity him.

Nor did she scorn him — she had no reason even to laugh.

Anyone can make a resolve.

But carrying it forward is harder than anything, and seeing it through is another matter entirely.

Therefore —

Whether this resolve was special or extraordinary, she would not so much as blink.

She would not receive it with memorable awe, would not marvel at how well he'd done, and certainly would not secretly praise it as growth, feeling proud on his behalf.

Naturally — such a thing was impossible.

Countless multitudes had sworn oaths before her.

But how many ever kept them to the end, and saw them fulfilled?

If the day ever comes when I truly respect you —

It will be this day.

The very day you carry this contract through, in full.

Strive with all your strength, then — that you may at least serve as an interlude.

Let it not come to pass that this small flicker of expectation rots, and rots again, and putrefies into the ugly regret of wasted time.