Filled with Anguish
“…Nothing has been tallied yet.”
Among the throng encircling me, a man dressed as a mage—someone I had never seen before—spoke those words. His gaze fixed precisely on my eyes, so transparent it left me with the strangest sensation.
As if I were meeting his eyes not as the Demon Knight, but as my true self.
“I did not ask for an exact count.”
“Even so, the answer I can give remains the same.”
But that could not be. I half-lowered my eyelids. Nothing has been tallied. The answer remains the same. The two replies I had just heard weighed heavily on my heart.
I had expected as much, yet the realization that I truly had gone berserk settled over me.
“Why did you not kill me?”
“Who knows. Because a proper execution had not yet been prepared?”
A proper execution? I mulled over the meaning, then roughly decided it must mean they had been too busy containing the situation to ready one.
Still, all it would take was a single stroke across the neck of an unconscious man—why they had left me untouched remained a question… Perhaps they had wanted to set the stage properly before ending me. Or my companions… my companions had stood in the way.
“How much do you remember?”
In the meantime, the mage who had answered every one of my questions now turned the tables, as if it were his turn to ask. I closed my mouth for a moment, weighing my reply.
“…Up to the moment I fired the signal flare.”
“The signal flare, is it.”
This time the other fell silent. Eyes of pure blue, without whites or pupils, looked quietly down at me.
“Did you know it would come to this?”
Fortunately the lingering stare was withdrawn soon enough. In its place came a question that omitted a great many things.
Asking so abruptly with the context stripped bare—what exactly was I supposed to do… I knit my brows slightly, trying to gauge an answer.
He had asked whether I had known it would turn out like this. Did that mean I could interpret it as asking whether I had fought even knowing I would lose control? Yes, that seemed fair.
But was that question even important right now?
“If I answer that I knew, do I die?”
I admit that when my Rage erupts I become extremely dangerous. Even if I cannot remember it myself, the traces left behind make the threat level clear enough.
But in this incident, had there truly been a situation that would trigger my Rage? Something that would push me until my reason grew unclear?
“Or if I answer that I did not know, do I live?”
What had the situation been at the time? Had it been so leisurely that they could pull a valuable asset like me to the rear simply because of the possibility that I might run wild? Could they have managed without me?
“Do not waste time on worthless questions.”
I still do not know what damage the aftermath of my Rage inflicted. Yet I believe that for me in that moment, it had been the best choice.
I knew the dangers of Rage, yet through the events of the Great Forest I had been certain I could control it—and even until the instant I collapsed, the thought that it would erupt had never once crossed my mind.
So in the end this was an accident. An accident in which misfortune overcame goodwill.
“Nothing will change by coming to me now.”
The damage was far too great to simply wrap it up as goodwill; it was an accident for which someone, in the end, would have to take responsibility.
“…So each of you, do what you must.”
Suddenly, once the thought reached that far, the strength drained from my entire body. If I had to put it into words, it was a sensation close to complete exhaustion.
“I will refuse nothing.”
Yet no one could truly fault this. Even if the result had been poor, I had truly given everything I had.
Truly, everything.
“Is it really all right to leave him like that?”
“If it weren’t, he wouldn’t still be there. At least he isn’t trying to get out.”
“Still… what do you think, Sir Sergei?”
“What? Me? Well… I do think we should just execute him right now—”
Meister twisted his lips while watching the soldiers chattering as they stood guard in front of the iron bars.
Today’s watch was Sergei, the thin-eared and loose-lipped one. His eyes were calm, yet carried a certain sharp edge.
“Discipline’s a complete mess.”
“Huk!”
“…Grandmaster Craftsman.”
“Ah, that wasn’t directed at Sir Sergei. Or at the soldiers over there, either.”
Meister recalled the moment he had forged Sergei’s sword and felt a fresh wave of regret.
Regret over the way the man had meddled in the crafting process—constantly saying so-and-so prefers this, so-and-so prefers that.
“Separately… don’t you think the soldiers’ discipline needs tightening? I understand they’ve had a rough few days, but they were raised to protect this city… spewing every complaint under the sun about why they have to guard a demon, spreading baseless rumors and dividing the civilians—that’s a bit much, don’t you think? There’s a reason things are being handled this way.”
With that, he grabbed the shoulder of the soldier standing beside Sergei and squeezed.
Even a Grandmaster Craftsman had no right to treat a knight however he pleased—and the reverse was equally true—so he had settled for the more convenient soldier as a substitute.
The soldier who had been dragged into this out of nowhere went rigid, but Meister could not have cared less.
He pretended to massage the shoulder while deliberately applying pressure with his fingers. Unable to cry out, the soldier bit down hard and shot desperate glances at his superior for help.
“Am I wrong, Sir Knight?”
“…You are correct, Grandmaster Craftsman. I will look into the matter.”
Yet Sergei himself already felt ready to die. Ever since that day, every time he crossed paths with Meister he had been chewed out with words.
No—only with words? Whenever he visited the workshop over weapon issues, being pushed to the back of the line was standard, and he often got overcharged as well. He only kept bringing work because the skill was overwhelming and deadlines were never missed—crying while eating mustard, so to speak.
“But… why have you come here…….”
“If you had a head on your shoulders you would already know……. You’re not seriously thinking I came just to admire Sir Knight’s vacant face, are you?”
Right. Of course not. Sergei swallowed tears as he watched the Grandmaster Craftsman casually trash his intelligence yet again.
If he could go back in time he would never have talked big. The regret that seized him every single time.
“Then you came to see the criminal……?”
“Strange. Was there a criminal here……? I simply came to visit my guest.”
“Pardon? Why a gue—?”
But Sergei did not know. Even if he had not made that mistake back then, he would still have earned Meister’s dislike through sheer lack of tact and insufficient intelligence.
“Isn’t it truly strange? Everyone walks around with the same thing stuck to their necks called a head, yet the performance difference can be this severe……. If you still don’t get it, fine. Just move aside.”
“…Y-you shouldn’t approach carelessly.”
“Well now… I had no idea Sir Sergei was so fond of proper procedure. I’ll have to keep that in mind every time I take an order from you going forward.”
“…It’s not allowed, but there’s no need to be that strict with the Grandmaster Craftsman.”
Meister frowned at the knight who was going to step aside anyway yet had wasted more than a full minute of his time.
He was already exhausted from spending the past week barely sleeping while crafting; this only made him more irritated. How very kind of him.
“Honestly, muscle-headed idiots who lead with their bodies…”
Still, at least even an idiot like that had some flexibility—that was a relief.
He thought of Dietrich and Franz, who were reasonable yet far too rigid about principles, and was grateful neither of them was on duty today. With them he truly would have had to go see the lord for permission.
Clang.
Anyway, after making this much noise one would expect a reaction, yet the person inside the bars still gave no sign.
He struck the bars once.
Swoosh. Only then did the figure inside turn his head slightly. Even that was just a brief glance before he looked away again.
“Why did you agree?”
But if he was listening, that was enough. Meister sat as if leaning against the bars and asked.
“You’ll actually die at this rate.”
The words that slipped out came straight from the stifling frustration inside him.
“You really could be executed.”
This kind of feeling was something he had only ever known when his research hit a wall and he was wandering lost. Meister rummaged inside his coat in irritation.
He found what he wanted—a cigarette—yet he could not light it. There was no fire here.
“Refuse.”
He let out a deep sigh over that fact. The frustration only doubled.
“You didn’t kill anyone. Well, not completely none… but far fewer than the number you saved.”
Clang. His head rested against the bars.
“This isn’t sympathy talking. It’s an objective statement.”
He of course held no optimistic belief that no one had died after being caught in an attack range that erased entire buildings. Even if people had already evacuated, someone could have been left behind.
But he did not believe the number was high either. Especially when he thought of the streets he had walked with that damn green-haired one.
For any civilians left behind to survive amid those tenacious demons and the flowing lava was nearly impossible. The odds were high that whatever few remained had already died.
“You saved people. More people—perhaps every last person who survived in this place.”
Compared to that, what had he done?
Even if it had not been him but the troublesome thing inside him, the fact that the most dangerous demon had been eliminated did not vanish.
The same went for the merman nest that had supposedly been established along the coast at the time.
If the adventurer’s testimony that the mermen had been trying to nest there was true, that too would have become a powerful threat later on. Destroying it in advance had also been that knight’s doing.
Killing the turtle that had stopped at the shore, driving off the demons that flew around harassing people—all of it!
“It’ll be the same from now on. Your power can help even more people. It’ll need a little control, sure, but still. So why are you already trying to give up?”
And none of this was coincidence. The fact that the lord and the other humans had not died in that final moment proved it.
In the end, when every testimony and circumstance was gathered and weighed, the reason the people of Bemyurhen had been able to survive even this much was the Demon Knight’s efforts.
So he had no reason to die. No need to die simply for being a potential threat.
Those who had been saved had no right to fear his danger.
He deserved to live.
“So…….”
“Uncontrolled power is worse than no power at all.”
At least that was his opinion. Someone else thought differently.
“Well, is that really true? We now know how strong the Great Demons are. We’ve also learned that the Hero alone cannot handle every moment. In that situation, is it truly right to casually execute someone who might face a Great Demon alone?”
Meister groped through his own past and voiced his opinion in a cracked voice.
‘His Lordship will never grant a request to let him live. He’s already sunk deep into the emotion that every demon must be killed for revenge. He’s emotional enough already, so an emotional appeal won’t even register.’
The words the green-haired one had spoken before he came briefly brushed through his mind.
‘But… if you have a solid justification and rational logic, maybe. That’s why I came to you. I… I’m too stupid to think of anything to say.’
Words from someone who had wanted to stay until the end, yet after realizing with bone-deep clarity that there was nothing he could do, had asked Meister to speak in his place.
“You may not know this, but the acid the mermen spit corrodes iron and burns human flesh. Meanwhile the Yomgitan I developed melts their skin itself. Both are fucking poison to people.”
He recalled that and squeezed his dry throat.
“But mix the two together and they become something that does no damage to the surroundings at all—exactly the same as water. Poison meets poison and instead of becoming worse poison, they neutralize each other and turn safe. Just like you using that dangerous power of yours to wreck even more dangerous demon bastards.”
Would this work? He wasn’t sure. But it was certainly the only logic he could put forward.
“So for fuck’s sake, if you’re going to die just because your own power is dangerous, then at least try controlling it instead. You’re humanity’s… the second card given to humanity.”
A logic he himself found rather disgusting—one that did not treat people as people and only pursued efficiency and rationality.
Meister’s hand roughly tousled his own hair. ‘This is a sacrifice for everyone.’ He had never imagined he would end up speaking something so similar to the words he hated most. The feeling was truly awful.
“You flipped a coin and it came up heads twice.”
Whether it had gotten through or not—while that hung in the air, the other who had seemed ready to refuse conversation answered once more.
The dry tone sounded like that of a deeply exhausted man.
“So do you think it will come up heads the next time as well?”
Separately, the content of the words was not much to his liking. Did that guy think he was stupid enough to fall for a random error he had created by chance?
“Do I look dumb enough to commit the gambler’s fallacy? I know the odds are fifty-fifty.”
His urging him to refuse the execution had not come from blind faith in coincidence. It was an act he had concluded was ‘possible’ after a week of steady thought, sparked by a little sympathy and a little empathy.
“But this isn’t an independent event like a coin toss. The result of the previous round affects the next one.”
Of course, the principle of fighting poison with poison only worked when everything aligned perfectly. Yet were all the people of the world gamblers who chased only profit? They were not. To persuade them, a proper justification had to be prepared as well.
“Especially that wager of yours—isn’t it more than enough to treat as a variable?”
And he had come to make this proposal precisely because that justification was ready. If he had not found a justification, he would never have told him to live on the basis of mere sympathy.
“I did wonder whether the demon had only said what it needed to say because it needed time to store power, but by the point you woke up, that wager was probably real.”
Of course, one small problem was that this justification was not yet perfect… but that could be solved if the Demon Knight cooperated.
“Then can’t it be used again next time?”
If the Demon Knight reached the conclusion that ‘a wager itself can be used to control the demon,’ then from that point others could put their heads together and figure out the rest.
“…What are you talking about.”
“Or was this the last wager, or are there other restrictions?”
Until he arrived here, Meister had been confident. If he could just learn how the wager was established and under what conditions it was conceived, the methods for exploiting it would be endless.
But if the wager itself was limited to this one time, or if something was required for it to form… that would be troublesome. Meister frowned at the worst-case scenario he had considered yet hoped against.
“Then persuasion gets a little harder…….”
In truth Meister himself was the sort of person who believed the Demon Knight had no reason to die even without any of these practicalities and justifications. Of course not—after taking a debt of a life, how could one say, You’re dangerous so would you please die?
But those frozen by fear who had stopped thinking were a different story.
He was so endlessly frustrated that he sometimes felt the urge to smash their heads with a hammer… yet he could not go around smashing the heads of ninety percent of the survivors, so Meister possessed at least that much patience.
“Tch. Why do I have to use my head trying to persuade idiots who won’t listen? Anyone can see this is the right thing to do, isn’t it?”
Yes, only that much.
He clenched his fist as he thought of the humans who, because of the useless emotion called fear, were taking losses in efficiency, productivity, and morality all at once.
In times like this, weren’t fists and hammers the real answer after all? It was a weak temptation.
“…Anyway, is it certain the wager won’t work?”
Still, he had to endure. He shook off the temptation again and returned to the main topic.
“…I do not understand what you are saying. What wager are you referring to?”
Yet what awaited him was the Demon Knight expressing confusion, as if he himself understood even less.
Meister narrowed his brows.
Something was wrong.
The same chill that ran down his spine when he added the wrong reagent during research began to crawl slowly up Meister’s back.