Chapter 168: A Time When Many Are Weary (4)
"You're not including the magic suppression talisman?"
"You know which demon in the Demon Realm is the most perceptive and uses magic most frequently."
"......Ah."
Deon was the person who faced the Demon King more than any other, demon or human.
If he carried a talisman that blocked the use of magic, he would be discovered in no time.
"Since the Demon King has never gone out into the human world 'through the Boundary Line'... no, can't go... he wouldn't detect it if I kept it with me...."
"......It appears you do not trust His Majesty the Demon King."
"Well... that's only natural...."
"......Master?"
"......."
"Are you sleeping?"
Even without all that, it had been an exhausting day because of those mad dogs. If he could have held on with medicine, that would be one thing, but even that had been taken from him....
Deon surrendered his fading consciousness without resistance.
'......Really, this guy.'
Assigning work to others and then falling asleep without a care.
Dan watched Deon, who had at some point drifted off breathing evenly, and grumbled internally.
Yet knowing that Deon Hart's sleep had become considerably lacking since arriving in the Demon Realm, even as he grumbled, he could only approach quietly and pull a blanket over him.
* * *
Reweche declared the alliance annulled.
It was a situation they had anticipated from the moment they obtained intelligence that the quality of support sent by the Empire was poor.
He could understand both the Empire's position and Reweche's position, but the moment he heard this news, a sigh had emerged first.
The Demon Realm was strong. For some reason they weren't using their full power, but they managed this much even without going all out, so if they deployed their full force, they could probably push back the human world, which had begun to totter with its alliances crumbling, without much difficulty.
'Since there's nothing we can do from this side about an alliance already broken....'
Pol, who had now fully become the leader of the Revolutionary Army, sank deep into thought.
'I'm not inclined, but I have to help the Empire.'
The Empire had to hold for the human world to survive, and the human world had to survive for revolution to be possible.
Pol had decided to prioritize repaying Daniel, who had picked him up, properly raised him, and educated him, over his own fading personal grudges. That was why he had even argued publicly against Deon Hart before everyone.
"Are you listening to me right now!"
"......."
"Helping the Empire—is this what a leader of the Revolutionary Army should be doing, I'm asking you!"
Loud.
Awakening from his thoughts, Pol furrowed his brow almost imperceptibly.
Daniel-hyung would surely have dealt with the really empty-headed trash, so it was unbelievable that these were the kind of people who remained.
"I did not help the Empire."
"Don't make excuses! Everyone saw you defending the Emperor!"
Ah, I need to stay calm.
Bang! Unable to suppress his surging irritation, he slammed the table. His voice rose instinctively.
"It was not defending the Emperor!"
"......."
"I was protecting the human world!"
He thought he understood why Daniel-hyung had slammed the desk back then. Because there was no better way to suppress his maddening frustration and simultaneously shut their flippant mouths.
"When did I deny, in that argument, that the Emperor is trash? As if! I merely attacked by pointing out that Deon Hart is worse trash! To prevent more traitors from joining the Demon Realm. To protect the human world from the Demon Realm!"
"......."
"Our revolution begins with the existence of the human world as its fundamental premise! That means the human world must be intact for us to start a revolution! And the Demon Realm is a powerful adversary. If division arises within the human world, it's difficult to hold out against the Demon Realm. I prevented that!"
He knew why they were doing this.
They had tried to use this opportunity as a pretext to slip a leash around the neck of their young, easy mark of a leader.
But Pol, as Daniel's successor, had also learned how to deal with them. There was no chance he would be cowed by something like that.
"......."
Those who had sensed Daniel's force from Pol shut their mouths.
The certainty that this leader was no pushover either struck their heads and they swallowed their protests, but someone muttered a small protest in a voice like crawling on the ground.
"......But acting on your own without any prior word to us is...."
"There was no time to inform all of you. I apologize for that."
To be precise, there had been no time to inform them and then persuade them one by one.
The fools who accepted the apology as an admission of defeat showed signs of opening their mouths. Without giving them an opening, Pol continued speaking.
"But if the same situation arises in the future, I will do the same thing again. You are people who have even secured executive positions in this Revolutionary Army, so surely you possess vision to see far and flexible thinking. In that case, you will, of course, also understand that at that time, there was no other choice."
A few flinched and closed their mouths.
Someone else who had been silently observing the situation cautiously raised a hand.
"Alright, fine. But what about the revolution?"
"We will need to launch it when the war with the Demon Realm ends and the human world has regained some stability."
"That means...."
"It is likely that no revolution will occur in our generation."
We'll have to entrust it to the next generation.
Now, this was the key point. He had to hold onto those who would be disappointed that they would probably not see a revolution in their lifetimes, preventing them from leaving.
'What should I put forward?'
Pol recalled the argument between the Demon King and the Emperor that he had watched alongside Daniel.
'Nobility.'
Make them focus on pride in being part of something grand and magnificent, rather than the gains after the revolution. That was what he had to build.
"......Because right now we must focus on something greater than that. The role we are to assume is laying the groundwork. So that future generations can start a revolution and build a better world."
"So that's what you mean by protecting the human world."
"Yes, it's something we can take pride in as greater than revolution. We are protecting humanity itself!"
Predecessors who fought for humanity amidst adversity and ultimately left behind the embers for revolution.
How many would refuse this magnificent descriptor? Pol smiled.
"Don't you want to leave your names in history?"
* * *
In the end, things flowed as Pol intended.
The leadership agreed that protecting the human world took priority over revolution, and further agreed to regard the protection of the human world as the highest priority.
With this, they could no longer nitpick even if Pol helped the Empire. Because if it was for the human world, they would have nothing left to say.
'Since it's already surfaced due to the debate anyway, I decided to act openly.'
Pol's face was known. Those with decent intelligence networks would already be guessing his identity. Like this, he'd only be used as a weapon by those in the know. In that case, it was better to reveal everything.
So the start would be revealing that the person who argued against Deon Hart was the leader of the Revolutionary Army.
'In the past, the Demon King and the Emperor clashed. This time, Deon Hart, the 'representative of the Demon Realm,' and I clashed.'
Someone from the human world who confronted the representative of the Demon Realm.
It was, in a way, inevitable that this figure became associated with the 'representative of the human world.'
Though unintended, Pol—the leader of the Revolutionary Army—had taken on the role the Emperor should have played. The leader of the Revolutionary Army had become the representative of the human world.
'Thanks to that, the Revolutionary Army will become known.'
Though it meant he was now in a situation where he constantly had to watch his life.
The Revolutionary Army, a group representing the human world.
Returning to his office with light steps, Pol faced the person waiting inside and smiled brightly.
"Iram-ssi, you were waiting. I did say I had something to tell you, but you didn't have to wait in advance like this."
"......."
"Ah, the reason I called for you, Iram-ssi, is nothing other than that I think we need to establish a successor in advance. The current period is a chaotic time where it wouldn't be strange for anyone to die at any moment, and from our position of entrusting the revolution to future generations, it is paramount that the lineage not be severed. So...."
"Pol."
"Yes?"
Pol's face, which had faced Iram full of questions, slowly hardened.
The sight of him unable to easily open his mouth after being called. He had assumed the odd expression was just due to fatigue, but it seemed something serious had indeed happened.
After opening and closing his mouth several times, Iram let out a deep sigh and pressed his temples.
"Stay calm and listen."
"Yes? Why so scarily...."
"Siia has gone missing."
"......."
Pol shut his mouth. As his pupils shook finely as if in an earthquake, Iram sighed again.
Knowing that to Pol, Siia was an existence akin to Daniel's mother, he had been so careful, yet it seemed she had vanished the moment the watchers took their eyes off her. He could understand them letting their guard down since she always huddled in the same spot as if dead, but....
The target was the leader's Achilles' heel. Unable to imagine what reaction would come, Iram observed Pol with uneasy eyes.
After a dreadful silence, Pol slowly opened his mouth.
"......I, see."
A calm voice, as if he had collected his reason.
At the reaction, completely outside his expectations, Iram's eyes widened. Even in that moment, Pol was rapidly regaining his composure.
"Given the situation... we can't search loudly."
"......."
"As quietly as possible, so they don't discover that we are looking for someone... find that child."
Pol had learned many things from Daniel.
He was a great teacher in the purest sense, and he also served as a proper example of what not to do.
What to absorb, and what to treat as a lesson of what not to do. At the very least, Pol learned that it was not right for the leader of the Revolutionary Army to lose reason when a precious person was in danger.
"Then I'll ask you to do as I've said... and now, could you leave?"
"......Alright. Don't overdo it today, and get plenty of rest."
Iram, who had been looking back at him with worry until the very end, finally left the room.
The door closed, and as he listened to the footsteps recede, Pol buried his face in his hands. Deep despair dripped heavily from the two eyes revealed between his fingers.
A voice like a sigh echoed emptily in the room.
"Just where did you go, Siia......."
* * *
"It turned out as expected."
A while after news spread that Reweche had annulled the alliance, Deon, who heard the news that the stubbornly holding Paras territory had collapsed, leaned indifferently against a wall in the corner of the training ground and spoke. A cold sneer lingered at his lips.
"Just in case, I should put out word again not to touch Reweche, which has broken off from the alliance, under any circumstances."
Reweche was an example for everyone. Depending on how the Demon Realm treated Reweche, which had broken the alliance, the reactions of other kingdoms that were watching and gauging the situation would change.
The Demon King also knew this and would have ordered them not to touch Reweche, but it would be good to hammer the point home once more to each Legion Commander, just in case.
"Anyway, thanks to that, it's become easier to deal with the Empire."
Strong military force is only demonstrated when supplies are provided on time. With Reweche, which had been in charge of supplies, gone, the Empire's pride—its formidable military might—would lose its steam a bit.
Watching the mad dogs snarling at the 0th Legion members wearing epaulets in the 0th Legion's exclusive training ground, Deon exhaled smoke lightly, as if sighing.
Drunk on drowsiness, he blinked a few times, and before the mad dogs' gazes could land, he stubbed out what was in his hand against his thigh and turned to Ed.
"I'll return to my room now...."
"Deon-nim."
Ed's expression was stiff.
"I asked you not to stub out the fire on your thigh."
"Ah, right. It ruins my clothes. In the future, I'll extinguish it on my neck or hand instead, so let it slide this once."
"......The clothes are not the issue. It's already a situation where small wounds don't send a signal to Ben's necklace, and yet you do such things to your precious body."
"Precious, my ass."
A deep contempt flickered through his red eyes.
But as if nothing had happened, his steeled eyes glanced briefly at Ed's hand holding a communication stone before meeting his gaze. An elegant smile appeared on his lips.
"That's an undeserved compliment for me."