203. Mask (1)
203. Mask (1)
- 1 -
The lady-in-waiting of the woman who held the highest authority in the Demon Realm.
Winning that position after besting countless rivals was, surprisingly, a simple matter.
- 2 -
The study of the Second Demon Queen, Vellastella, was bathed in crimson moonlight.
She stood by the window, gazing down at her own garden.
The very garden where she had met Libertas during the day.
The black irises, still blooming in the darkness, possessed a noble beauty befitting their reputation, yet at the same time, they remained buried in the shadows.
"This cannot go on."
She murmured quietly.
Semira's influence grew ever denser, and now even the inside of her own palace was filled with their eyes and ears.
She was now at a point where she could no longer even loosen the chains she had bound herself with.
'Power. Factions. Politics. I thought I needed none of them.'
She was the legitimate daughter of the Great Duke who bore the name of Gluttony.
And the Gluttony Duke was a man who lived up to his title.
He coveted food, coveted gold, coveted strength, and eventually coveted power and people.
[Go to the royal palace. My daughters. Once you stand beside that person, I will hold an even greater share of the darkness in my hands.]
Stella recalled the words of her biological father.
In public, he pretended to cherish his offspring, but in truth, he regarded them as just another possession.
'Dozens of wives and concubines. Countless legitimate and illegitimate children. In the end, they were all merely tools for Father's desires.'
An endless hunger for possession. It was called gluttony, or the sin of Gluttony.
The Gluttony Duke devoured everything he desired, and in the process, many things were shattered.
That was why she kept her distance from politics and power. She tried not to even look at them.
Because they were all things the Gluttony Duke wanted.
But now...
"It seems I can no longer run away."
Semira's influence was tightening its grip around her throat.
At this rate, she would end up trapped in the painting she herself had created. No, perhaps she was already trapped.
'Now... I must do something as well.'
She thought of Libertas—that small woman, her younger sister raised on the surface—and of her own situation, where she couldn't even keep her by her side freely.
"I must appoint ladies-in-waiting and attendants."
The head lady-in-waiting, who had been standing quietly, raised her head in surprise.
"Your Highness?"
"Now is the opportune time."
Stella slowly rose from her seat.
She had been withdrawn for a long time, but the time had come for things to change.
"The entire palace is filled with their eyes and ears. Yet I have none of my own people."
Her eyes glinted coldly.
She could no longer be buried in the wounds of the past. She could not remain frozen under Semira's containment.
The time had come to set her resolve. The time had come to formally step into the political arena.
"Are you saying you will personally select them, Your Highness?"
"Yes. I shall see to it myself this time. I must select as many children as possible."
However, her intent was not merely to increase her own people.
Of course, it would be even better if she could select her own people and place them by her side.
Right now, she was a powerless queen, possessed of authority but lacking even the strength to break a single chain she had bound herself with.
'That very fact will be my opportunity.'
Her enemies—and even potential allies—regarded her as a powerless entity.
That made it all the better.
Because no one would be on guard against her.
But to do that, she first had to cover the sensory organs observing her.
Except for the single head lady-in-waiting who was her foster-sister, everyone else acted as the eyes and ears of the Great Dukes and the other Demon Queens.
"Issue the proclamation. To all noble houses, regardless of rank or faction."
Stella took a slow step forward.
On her desk lay documents and a crystal orb detailing the recent movements of the high-ranking nobles of the Demon Realm.
Although she was a Demon Queen who had remained passive, it wasn't as if she had closed off all eyes and ears.
She picked up one of the items.
It was a crystal orb containing the image of a black-haired man who resembled her.
'Father will likely make his move soon too.'
It was a document containing the Gluttony Duke's recent movements.
It detailed various actions taken by the noble houses under his influence.
"It is time for me to move as well. No, it is time to break free."
Her voice was laced with firm resolve.
She could no longer remain passive. She had to expand her footing and build a new power base.
This selection process was merely the beginning.
Not even the bitterness lingering on her lips as she drank her tea could cloud her will at this moment.
- 3 -
"I see. So that's what happened."
At my reply, given with a smile, Eve bowed her head from beyond the communication crystal.
I had just been listening to the report she had relayed to me moments before.
Helping a necromancer who, facing a crisis in the southern continent and clutching at straws, had sent summoned creatures to the Demon Realm.
She had succeeded in handling the matter with incredible speed.
"You did very well."
- It was nothing special.
Though she said that, her face visible beyond the crystal orb was tinged with subtle joy.
The success or failure of the task wasn't the issue. She was deeply pleased simply to have received my praise.
- I have something to report regarding that necromancer.
"Is it urgent?"
- No. There is something peculiar in the necromancer's background... I will organize it in detail and submit a report after I return.
"Alright. I look forward to it."
If it was something my consul deemed a peculiar background, it was unlikely to be an ordinary tale.
It was only natural for my interest to be piqued.
- ...I shall await the day of your return. Master.
"I, too, wish to see you soon, Eve."
However, I deferred that pleasure for later and ended the communication for now.
After all, I was in a situation where I couldn't do anything about it even if I listened right now anyway.
"Now... please continue with what we were discussing."
After ending the communication with Eve, I turned my gaze toward the woman who had been waiting before me.
"Yes. Understood."
My invited tutor and a noble of the Demon Realm, Myur Relix.
I had been in the middle of hearing her talk about the Demon Queens.
"As I mentioned earlier, each of the Demon Queen Highnesses shares a bloodline with the Great Dukes."
The First Demon Queen was the cousin of the Duke of Pride, Lucifer, and also a maternal relative of the Duke of Obsession, Astaroth. The Third Demon Queen was the sister of the Duke of Lust, Asmodeus.
And the reason I was listening to this, the Second Demon Queen, Vellastella, was...
"The Gluttony Duke. She is the daughter of Beelzebub."
"The Gluttony Duke, is it?"
Mure showed me photographs of each Great Duke.
A handsome man whose platinum-blond hair was grown long like a woman's but swept back entirely without bangs.
A woman who was similarly blonde, but with more reddish tones than the man just shown.
And in the midst of them, a gauntly handsome man with jet-black hair and vivid purple eyes.
"An appearance that does not match his epithet."
"Conversely, isn't it an appearance perfectly suited to that endless possessive desire?"
After hearing her words and looking again, I thought it seemed plausible.
The sin of gluttony was not limited to mere appetite for food, but an intense possessive desire for all things.
It was a different aspect from the vice commonly called greed, which focused more on refusing to give than on possessing.
A person with such a strong possessive desire, in turn, bore an appearance that strongly displayed deficiency.
"...Perhaps so."
Nodding, I caught hold of a brief, passing thought.
'...Truly, a strange twist of fate.'
A vice that touched upon one of the fundamental desires composing my being.
Possessiveness.
To think that the Great Duke known to preside over it was the father of this body.
'Perhaps, it may not be a coincidence.'
I looked down at the papers Mure had shown me.
They were parchments found in the public archives of the Demon King's Castle, or records uncovered from all sorts of newspapers and magazines.
My gaze went to one of them.
「Gluttony Duke, Marriage Planned Again! - The new wedding of the Gluttony Duke, Beelzebub, famous for having five wives and twenty concubines, is scheduled to take place at the end of the coming month. The lucky partner is the fourth daughter of Count Holus Gusion Nurs, who belongs to the Duke of Envy, Leviathan. She is...」
The Gluttony Duke certainly possessed power and authority befitting his stature.
But it seemed what made his name more famous was the fact that he had more wives and concubines than his sovereign, the Demon King.
'Twenty, they say. That's an old record, so there might be even more by now.'
I gave a bitter smile and lowered my eyes.
Written there was an incident I guessed might be related to me.
「The Gluttony Duke's aggressive 'Bloodline Lending'... Does he support the Demon King? - The Gluttony Duke, Beelzebub, actively agreed to the 'Dungeon Lord Succession' proposed by the Demon King Guila, sending countless offspring to the surface. Is this excessive move of his driven by loyalty? Or is it personal greed?」
It was an old newspaper article.
According to this article, it wouldn't even be easy to figure out which one of the Gluttony Duke's countless children by his many wives and concubines I was.
Perhaps it was fortunate that I wasn't that interested in 'who I myself am'.
'I don't need to know everything about my family.'
I repeated that fact to myself once again.
It wasn't that I had no interest, but I didn't want to know badly enough to stake my life on it either.
Family was an entity that couldn't be freely controlled even if kept as allies, while simultaneously becoming a weakness if left unattended.
It might be better to simply not know and pass it by.
I sincerely thought so.
[Your father...]
But that connection had no intention of leaving me alone.
If that was the case, then shouldn't I steer it in a direction where I could somehow use it?
For any control, observation was the necessary first law.
Which meant I now had cause to learn about my family in this life.
'To be honest, it's not a particularly pleasant situation...'
I scattered the various useless thoughts that kept surfacing.
But it was not so easy.
I looked up at the sky to shake off the thoughts, but that crimson sky was of little help to me either.
The colors of the sky here were extreme.
Black, and red. They were stimulating colors, as if nothing existed between them.
'The Gluttony Duke.'
According to the investigation, that man was the most likely candidate for my father in this world.
The Gluttony Duke was the same way.
His desires were endless, and his direction was singular.
To devour everything. Even his children were nothing more than tools for his desires.
Ironically, that direction somewhat overlapped with my own 'Father'.
'I am different.'
I murmured. I had to.
My desires certainly resembled his ways, and those of my original Father.
But that could not become my everything. Conversely, I could not fall into becoming a tool for them either.
"Mure."
When I opened my mouth, she reacted immediately.
"Yes?"
"What happened to all the children of the Gluttony Duke?"
She hesitated for a moment. It was a genuine hesitation, unlike when she always hid her nasty personality behind a clear and gentle face.
"Most of them... were sent to the surface, they say. Some of them splendidly obtained noble titles, I've heard. But... some, they say, disappeared."
"Disappeared."
There was no need to ask what that meant.
'They were abandoned.'
I felt my head growing cold.
That could have been my future. No, perhaps my current existence itself might be under a plan he had set up.
But things would not go as he wished.
I had originally built my power by wandering through the underworld of Earth even after cutting off all my family.
Though I had cast all that aside in the process of getting my mind back on the right track.
That experience remained.
I was already sufficiently strong, and I would become even stronger now, having once lost everything.
I will become no one's tool.
'I would rather make everything my tool.'
Once the thought was decided, there was only action.
"Everyone. Prepare to return. We need to create proof that I am not in the Demon Realm."
The first thing to do was to hide my movements here.
"Yes."
"Understood. Master."
I raised my gaze and looked toward the eastern outskirts of the Demon King's Castle.
The first key to unraveling this situation was, after all, with the Second Demon Queen.