216. Recognition
216. Recognition
- 1 -
Outside the window, rain still fell, slick as oil.
As I watched the scene, the voices of maids whispering from beyond the door brushed past my ears.
- So, what exactly happened with the results?
- What do you think happened...
The meeting between the Demon King and the Archdukes ended in just over ten minutes.
Because before the will of the Absolute One, neither objection nor debate could exist.
Only the expressions of the Archdukes as they left the council chamber hinted at what had occurred within.
The entire Demon King's castle buzzed with rumors, but the confirmed outcomes were only two.
All manner of talk went back and forth about it.
And so, amid the turmoil filling all of Pandemonium, I was outside Stella's bedchamber, listening to the sound of her breathing.
"Your Highness."
The head maid's voice reached me. It carried a strange emotion, different from her usual bluntness.
"Did you perhaps... hear about last night's events?"
I nodded my head.
The Demon King's visit was something no one had expected. Not even Stella or me.
He came immediately after the council ended, entering Stella's bedchamber alone.
- All of you, wait outside.
The Demon King's mere presence was like fate itself.
The air in the corridors he walked through grew heavy, and the mana in the spaces his footsteps touched froze completely.
All the maids had to wait outside the room.
His presence alone made one's soul tremble; receiving his direct gaze would surely melt even one's flesh.
Even I found it difficult to breathe before his presence.
The power of the Absolute One, faced directly, couldn't compare to facing only a part of him, as I had before.
- An amusing farce. Child.
When he emerged from the room a while later, he left only those words to me and vanished.
An implication that he had watched everything.
No one knew what had happened inside.
Except for one thing: the sickly pallor had completely vanished from Stella's face, and she had regained her health.
Slide.
I gently opened the door.
The room was very quiet, and only the sight of the blanket slowly rising and falling told me she was alive.
"She is still sleeping."
At my words, the head maid bowed her head.
Her face was filled with relief.
- 2 -
The Demon King had entered the Demon Queen's palace a few times before.
But I could say with confidence there had never been an encounter that terrified Stella as much as this one.
Slowly...
All the light in the room was vanishing.
The world was being encroached upon, folding inward toward the place where he stood.
She held her breath.
Even breathing felt as though it required his permission.
- ...
A black form emitting its own light.
The Demon King walked slowly. The Demon Queen was looking at his face, yet that face couldn't be properly perceived.
Absolute power and a boundary that forbade even the unworthy from scrutinizing his visage.
Unless one was an Archduke or a Demon Queen, seeing that face obscured by his power would have been difficult.
"Your Majesty..."
Stella bowed her head deeply.
For even a Demon Queen was merely a subject before the Absolute One.
"This body is yours. The power of life and death, and this very position, were all granted by Your Majesty; not for a moment..."
Her words stopped there.
A suffocating sensation swept over her entire body. The Demon King had taken control of her form.
- Be still.
The Demon King, standing before the bed, slowly reached out his hand.
Stella closed her eyes.
The moment his touch reached her forehead, every sound in the world seemed to cease.
That was when it happened.
"Ha...!"
Her mana surged.
The venom blazed, and her blood boiled.
It felt as if all the pain in the world was concentrating itself in her body.
Stella wanted to scream, but she couldn't even do that.
The judgment of the Demon King.
Darkness swept through her body and then receded.
Everything that had tormented her body vanished.
Leviathan's poison, Semira's curse, and even Libertas's magic that had been enveloping and condensing it all.
"...!"
She realized then.
The Demon King hadn't healed her.
He had merely filtered out the impurities from her body.
Just like straining impurities from murky water.
- ...
The Demon King's lips moved. A whisper reached her ears.
Stella's eyes flew wide open. What he conveyed was but a single word, yet its meaning settled heavily upon her heart.
It was both a task she must accomplish, and a reward bestowed upon her.
The bedchamber door closed, and the blackness ebbed from the space like a receding tide.
"Haa..."
Stella slowly closed her eyes.
The words the Demon King had left were deeply etched into her mind.
A command.
A blessing.
And above all, the future.
Stella slowly closed her eyes.
Her body, having directly received the Absolute One's power, still couldn't move.
But it was fine.
"Rita...?"
"Yes. Your Highness."
For the one who would realize her will was already outside the door.
- 3 -
A spire crumbled.
The golden spire that had once been the most brilliant in the Demon King's castle.
The centuries-old authority built by the bloodline of the Duke of Pride collapsed like a sandcastle.
「To Semiraniel.
I express my regret for the foolish act you have committed this time. It saddens me greatly that I cannot help you now...
... But what you have done has brought great harm to the family. We are no longer of the same blood...」
The letter from her cousin and long-reliable political ally, Duke of Pride Lucifer, slipped from her hand.
"WHY?!!"
Semira's scream, as she clutched her head, rang out more desperately even than the sound of the crumbling spire.
Semira felt her fingertips trembling.
Slumped in her chair, she picked up another document from the table, then set it down again, repeating the motion.
Her dark crimson eyes deepened further each time she read the first line of the document.
An imperial edict of the Demon King.
For the first time, fear flickered across the face of the most arrogant woman in the Demon King's castle.
There were all sorts of flowery phrases written by a scribe, but to summarize, the content was one thing.
「The name of Ishtar is hereby stripped from the First Demon Queen, Semiraniel Ishtar.」
A single line of text.
But its weight denied five hundred years of history.
The ancient demon name granted only to those of rank Count or higher.
Losing it signified the immediate loss of all the authority she held.
In other words.
She was now a deposed queen.
"Ha... haha."
An empty laugh escaped her lips.
Her pupils lost focus and wavered.
Even at this moment, she couldn't fully grasp the meaning of her situation.
But one thing was clear.
This edict was not a direct judgment from the Demon King.
She could tell that someone had intervened in the process.
"How... could this...!"
Her gaze turned toward the door.
Toward the citadel that soared skyward in Pandemonium as if to pierce the heavens. Toward Leviathan's citadel.
- 4 -
On another spire, a massive chain had been hung.
This was not a mere metaphor, but an actual phenomenon.
Above Leviathan's citadel, adorned with green magic stones, a black chain emitting a white glow was draped.
This chain, giving an impression similar to a solar eclipse, was both proof and manifestation that the Demon King's power was sealing the power of Archduke Leviathan.
"So in the end."
Eyes of green, from which the spark had vanished, turned to the empty air.
He already seemed to have accepted everything.
"... It was a failure."
The Demon King's edict had reached him as well.
However, unlike Semira's, his contained several stipulations.
「The treatment of Archduke Leviathan shall be decided as follows.
0. The name of Leviathan shall be maintained. However, its use shall not be permitted for the next fifty years. This applies even after the current Archduke's death.」
A temporary freeze of his Archduke status.
This was the core of everything that followed.
「1. Residence shall be restricted to the Duchy of Envy's citadel within Pandemonium. Return to the Archdukedom is prohibited.」
Restriction of rights as a territorial lord.
He could designate a proxy, but that proxy would receive orders from the Demon King's castle, not from him personally.
「2. Support for Dungeon Lords is prohibited.」
Prohibition against interference in the Demon King's successor candidates.
This would be thunderous news for the Surface Demon Territory Archduke he supported, but there would be nothing he could do about it.
「3. Voting rights in the Archduke Council shall be restricted, and this right shall be exercised by a proxy appointed by the Demon King's castle.」
Restriction of the most crucial right of an Archduke: the right to political participation in the Demon King's domain.
Particularly, he was cautioned never to even mention matters related to the Demon King's bloodline.
「4. Management of his bloodline shall be restricted, and all events must receive permission from the Demon King's castle. This permission shall be processed by Lilith's Court.」
A bitter grimace twisted Leviathan's lips as he read the final clause.
His green eyes turned to the empty air, then returned to the document.
"Hoo..."
Resignation, deeper than anger, was laced in the voice that slipped out with his sigh.
This part alone made it difficult for even him to maintain his composure.
After all, it was no different from saying that the daughter he had wanted to make Demon Queen would now become a mere maid to the Demon Queen.
'Will that delicate child even be able to adapt...?'
Of course, this was just the Archduke's biased view of his daughter.
If she were truly so delicate, he wouldn't have even considered putting her forward as a Demon Queen candidate in the first place.
But there was nothing he could do now.
This Archduke had committed this act to raise his daughter to the position of Demon Queen.
He was a man who would dare to choose to attack the existing Demon Queen for that goal.
"I must beg for mercy."
A bitter smile crossed his lips.
He had expected that things might turn out this way.
He had been aware that his actions were a challenge to the highest and deepest authority.
But it hadn't been without possibility.
"So, the problem is, who it really was that ruined my plans..."
It was rather late, but now he knew too.
The one who ruined this was not Semira. If it had been, the preparation for the fallout had been far too lacking.
If she had truly prepared something, even if the plan failed, she wouldn't have met the end of being deposed to commoner status.
If one was going to undertake a scheme against the Absolute One, wouldn't preparing an exit strategy be the most natural first step?
For the Archduke himself, the very title of Archduke had been that 'preparation.' A shield, yes.
But being a Demon Queen was different.
At the same time, there was something strange about this punishment itself.
The Demon King's punishments were usually simple.
Deposition, exile, or execution. Cases where such detailed restrictions were placed were rare.
"This is almost as if..."
Leviathan's eyes narrowed.
It felt as if someone had 'borrowed' the Demon King's judgment to restrict him.
And all those restrictions were designed to be advantageous to Stella.
"This is no coincidence born of chance."
Leviathan slowly organized his thoughts.
Events from this time began fitting together in his mind, like a giant puzzle.
The 'gifts' sent by Semira, his 'purification agents,' Stella's excessively long period of seclusion, and finally, the timing...
Everything had flowed according to someone's intent.
"Was it truly her? She planned all of this?"
The gaze of the one who must now use the name Hayden Invidia for the foreseeable future turned, full of suspicion, toward the palace where black irises bloomed in fullness.
Stella's spire shone brightly against the backdrop of the crimson sky.
- 5 -
Stella opened her eyes just as I entered the bedchamber, my arms full of documents she needed to review.
"Who is it...?"
As I was placing the documents I'd brought onto her table, her voice came from behind me.
"Your Highness."
"Ah, it's Rita..."
I approached and took her hand, and Stella confirmed who I was and smiled.
That smile and voice lacked strength, but her eyes were clear, and her entire being was brimming with mana.
Far more than before she fell ill.
It was the Demon King's power.
"How did things turn out?"
"Would you like to see for yourself?"
I showed her the documents.
They detailed the rights newly granted to her.
One. The right to act as the Demon King's castle's proxy in managing the bloodline of the Duke of Envy.
Two. The authority to distribute the assets and interests arising from Semira's royal palace.
Three. A directive to serve as the Director of the Royal Academy.
And finally, a forenotice of an official decree that would soon be delivered to her.
"This is..."
She opened her eyes wide and looked at me, and I smiled.
"Congratulations, Your Highness. On becoming the First Demon Queen, not just in title, but with real, substantive power."
"Rita...!"
The smile she gave me.
The next moment, I felt the scent of iris fill my nostrils.
A warmth that enclosed my entire body.
She had pulled me into her arms.
"This is all thanks to you. Truly...!"
"Your Highness..."
The bright, radiant smile I saw as we parted. I lost my words for a moment, but quickly managed to compose myself.
I calmly suppressed the heat rising to my face.
"No. If Your Highness had not endured, all of this would have been meaningless. It is what Your Highness accomplished alone."
"No."
Shaking her head vigorously, she brought her face close to mine again.
Peck.
While I froze for a moment, a warm, moist sensation brushed my forehead.
She smiled at me.
"Everything is thanks to you. Sincerely. For without you, I would have had no reason to make that resolve."
Watching that smile, I decided to stop suppressing the feeling that rose unbidden.
I gave shape to that emotion blooming warmly from a corner of my heart, and named it.
An emotion forged by mingling irreverence and taboo.
"I am relieved to have been of help."
I had denied this feeling all this time. I told myself her trust was necessary, that winning her heart was simply helpful for achieving my goals.
But no longer.
Now, her joy was my joy, and her pain was my pain.
Just as it was with my subordinates.
The enemies' schemes were all crushed.
At last, she had grasped power.
And Dungeon Lord Libertas had secured a demon-realm faction that would be founded upon her.
And 'I'.
"Unnie."
I would deny it no more.
Facing her, looking at me with the greatest joy, I acknowledged it.
"Rita...!"
Toward this noble woman.
My affection and possessiveness for my older sister.
Not as a simple calculation or ambition, but sincerely.