377. Toward the Throne (1)
377. Toward the Throne (1)
- 1 -
The Archbishop's Council chamber of the Holy Kingdom.
The air in the chamber slowly heated with fury.
The six archbishops, including Anselm, were seated around the table, glaring at the uninvited guest who had opened the door and entered.
The six demons who had been released from the seal along with Paimon and had left the Holy Kingdom.
One of them was the Witch of Mist, Ennasha.
"The shamelessness of returning...!"
Sebastian bolted upright and seized the witch by the collar.
A faint flame of holy power kindled in his grip, and fury erupted along with his ragged breathing.
"You deceived us and fled with your kin! And you dare set foot in this sacred place again?!"
They had already reached their own conclusion regarding Paimon's 'disappearance.'
That Paimon had broken the Ancestor's Contract and escaped through some scheme or other.
That the severing of the Life Sigil was merely a trick to evade pursuit.
To such men, Ennasha's return was bound to appear as nothing but sheer, staggering arrogance.
- L-listen to my story! Please!
Ennasha cried out urgently, but Sebastian's fury only swelled further along with the white flames wreathing his hand.
"Your story is what...! Trusting filthy demons like you was our greatest mistake! I will send you to your grave this instant!"
Just as Sebastian was about to draw his holy power to its maximum, Anselm caught his shoulder and stopped him.
"Wait a moment, Brother Sebastian. Hearing what she has to say is the proper order of things."
"...Understood, Brother Anselm."
Sebastian clicked his tongue and stepped back.
Anselm stepped forward, extended his hand directly to the trembling Ennasha, and helped her rise.
Then he showed the mercy of seating her in an empty chair and having an attendant serve her even a warm cup of tea.
'Strange.'
Her appearance was wretched.
Her once-immaculate grey robe was torn in many places, and her pale skin was covered in wounds great and small.
Even her silver hair was soiled, as though she had spent days wandering a battlefield.
This was unthinkable for the state of a demon, a being who possessed regeneration and considered herself noble.
Anselm felt a question arise.
Why had she come here alone?
Had she been abandoned by Paimon?
If so, why?
"Now, calmly. The fact you returned here risking your life means, at the very least, you have a story to tell us. Speak. What has happened?"
Yet his gentle countenance ended there.
Because the story that followed was something even he could not have anticipated.
- Paimon is dead!
"... Pardon?"
A single phrase uttered by the sheer will to live.
At that one phrase, the council chamber froze for an instant.
- No, perhaps not completely dead yet... but he will die soon.
The archbishops were unable to speak from the shock.
A teacup rattled in someone's hand, and Cassiodorus gaped, unable to finish what he was saying.
Anselm glared at Ennasha, his narrowed eyes—which the faithful always called 'ever-warm eyes'—now flung wide open.
"What do you mean? How? By whom? Why?"
At Anselm's interrogation, Ennasha glared back at him.
- Because all of you knew far too little about the enemy. Their lord...! That woman...!
Their 'enemy' encountered in Grakheizen.
It was the very moment Ennasha was about to confess that entity's identity.
The teacup in her hand fell to the floor.
Jjaenggeurang!
Mana burst from her mouth and spread blackly through the air,
and the red tea soaked into the carpet.
- Krugh! S-save... me...!
Crying out in extreme agony, Ennasha collapsed on the spot and began to convulse.
Her pale skin was staining black, blacker and blacker.
As if the being inside her was being consumed by something beneath the skin.
"What is...?! Poison?!"
Anselm instinctively moved to use a holy art of purification, but stopped his hand upon realizing the other party was a demon.
Because holy arts would only inflict even greater suffering upon her.
"Brother Sebastian! Immediately, the heretics in the underground prison...!"
It was the instant he was about to give the order to summon a dark mage.
The convulsing Ennasha seized his wrist.
- It's all right.
A voice eerily tranquil.
Her voice, her bearing, the very texture of her existence utterly different from just moments before, Ennasha wore a gentle smile on her lips.
She was already completely stained black.
Rising smoothly like a specter, she crooked a finger toward the teacup that had fallen to the floor.
Seureureu
The spilled tea upon the floor flowed back upward in reverse,
and the shattered fragments of the teacup reassembled themselves, regaining their original form.
A teacup restored as though time itself had reversed.
A black 'shadow' held it up respectfully and offered it back to Ennasha,
and she drank the tea with elegance.
But that too was only brief.
- How vulgar. You'd do well to use somewhat better tea leaves.
Ennasha... no.
The existence that had forcibly taken over Ennasha's shell said that while faintly narrowing its brow, then poured the tea water it had drawn back by its own power onto the floor beside it.
From that arrogant gesture wafted a strangely refined elegance.
- Pleased to meet you. Anselm Mel Heidelberg.
She addressed Anselm in greeting, as though nothing had happened.
"Who are you."
Anselm asked, revealing his wariness.
The overwhelming presence of existence, and the ability just displayed.
This being was most certainly not Ennasha.
- You're quick on the uptake.
At those words, the unknown being smiled faintly and introduced itself.
- I am called Libertas. I came to offer you my thanks.
"Libertas...? Thanks, you say?"
- You see, thanks to the exceedingly precious gift you sent me, I obtained a new opportunity.
What could it mean to use the death of a grand duke as an opportunity?
While Anselm was bewildered, Ennasha summoned a blade of pitch-black shadow in her remaining hand.
"Brother, danger...!"
- Let's see each other again if the opportunity arises.
Though Sebastian and Cassiodorus rushed forward urgently, she merely smiled and spoke softly.
And right after.
Puuk!!
The blade pierced her own head without a moment's hesitation.
The shadow blade precisely penetrated her core, destroying it utterly without leaving even the possibility of regeneration.
A scene of suicide far too familiar.
The three archbishops could do nothing but stand aghast.
Seuseuseu...
Before their eyes, Ennasha's corpse evaporated into a handful of ash.
The council chamber was ruled by silence.
That she had been their opportunity—that was something they would never be able to know.
- 2 -
At the same moment, the sea at the far eastern end of the continent.
Astaroth's aerial palace, the 'Sky Net Palace,' floating above the vast ocean.
Inside the lavish black palace, Astaroth and Dantalion were seated across from one another, conversing.
The topic was, naturally, the 'Archduke of Binding' whom the Holy Kingdom had released.
"The Holy Kingdom has committed something truly mad this time. Was this also something you directed, Astaroth?"
When Dantalion asked, Astaroth crossed her legs provocatively and answered.
"Oh my. How many times must I say it before you believe me? I never gave those pitiful humans orders, much less a request, darling."
Astaroth shrugged, putting on an expression of grievance, but Dantalion still looked at her with eyes filled with distrust.
"You're saying that their releasing the Archduke of Binding was purely something they did by their own will...?"
"That's right."
At that, she deliberately flashed him a leisurely smile.
But her inner thoughts were different.
'Those damnably incompetent and foolish wretches...!'
Those seals were meant to be released all at once when the time was right later, plunging the world into chaos—and now one of them had vanished pointlessly this time.
The Holy Kingdom scum, blinded by greed and acting rashly, had ruined one of her own plans.
Although Dantalion noticed her fury, he pretended not to and nodded.
"Fine, let's say it's so. So, what will you do now?"
"Hmm... Since it's no longer a perfect plan... how about this? Let's make them release the other two grand dukes as well, and then we swallow them up."
"...Them?"
Dantalion fell into brief contemplation, but soon shook his head.
"Too dangerous. The Archduke of Binding and the other two are of a different order."
"Oh my, are you frightened?"
At Astaroth's provocation, Dantalion merely stared at her with cold eyes.
Previously there might have been some trace of flinching, but now he was different.
"They are 'Revered Dukes.' Although they are purely surface monsters, their power is so overwhelming that even in the Demon Realm they are accorded the title of Grand Duke and called that out of reverence. Do you know why that is?"
"I don't. Nor am I interested."
"... Haah."
At Astaroth's airy tilt of her head, Dantalion pressed his temple beside his mask as if he had a headache and slowly laid out the details.
"It's simple. Because they are powerful on a different dimension. The Archduke of Binding only became a grand duke two hundred years ago, but the other two are different. They are genuine ancient monsters, at least a thousand years old."
The words that followed were something Astaroth, as a Grand Duke of the Demon Realm, found hard to believe.
Beings against whom even the Demon Realm's grand dukes could not guarantee victory.
The story was that such beings were sealed in the Holy Kingdom.
"...How could mere humans have managed to capture such things?"
"Because at that time, the Goddess paid somewhat closer attention to the surface. She's vanished now... but in those days, there were many beings called 'heroes.' You've heard the name, haven't you?"
"Of course. Naturally. Those 'ideal beings' that appear among humans."
Astaroth caressed her own lips and smiled bewitchingly.
Within that smile was a powerful possessiveness toward 'the treasures of the past.'
"Correct. Hero refers to a being possessing overwhelming talent in all things. Those 'Revered Dukes' are what several hundred such beings gathered together and barely managed to seal."
"But wasn't that a term used not only for humans, darling?"
"It was."
Dantalion sank into reminiscence for a moment.
The most perfect Dungeon Lord. The fallen crown prince.
The one and only being who had made him choose to merely remain, never daring to even covet the position of successor.
"Then the other two would be difficult for us to eat even if they were released, wouldn't they?"
"It would turn out that way. So unless the Holy Kingdom scum are fools, the thought of releasing them..."
At Dantalion's words, Astaroth wickedly pulled up the corners of her mouth.
As if proving her very bloodline.
"A storm would rage across the continent, but there's no need for us to go out of our way to get caught up in it, is there? We need only take the profits that remain at the end of a natural disaster. Ah, I'm looking forward to it. Will those foolish humans really release them? Sleep well, darling. I must think on future matters."
Astaroth rose from her seat at will and vanished.
Dantalion, who had been watching her retreating figure, let his avatar disperse.
Returning to his ice palace, the 'Ebon Ice Palace,' Dantalion leaned back against his throne.
Tadak, tak...
At his fingertips, gazing at the ice hearth upon the wall, white flame and black ice crystals twirled in circles.
'Will the archbishops truly commit that foolish act? If so, what move do you intend to make next, Libertas?'
A smile graced his lips.
A player on the chessboard who always exceeded the bounds of expectation, unconventional.
Once he stepped out of the position of a grand game-master, there was no material quite so entertaining.
- 3 -
"Hoo."
"Are you all right? Master."
Once the possession of Ennasha concluded, a brief dizziness arose.
Evangeline immediately supported me and escorted me.
"Yes. Do not worry."
"It was an overly distant possession. What's more, to pierce the Holy Kingdom's barrier in that state. Although you, Master, bear an 'essence,' you greatly overexerted yourself."
Words that bordered on scolding.
I met her eyes.
She was looking at me with worry-filled eyes, the ends of her eyebrows drooping into a sad slant.
Suddenly, a playful impulse arose.
"... Master, are you hurt somewhe...?!"
"I really am fine now."
Watching Evangeline cover her mouth, her face bright red, I smiled faintly.
'She's always like this.'
Though she was the one who normally adopted the most 'aggressive' attitude toward me, she was also the one who became most flustered whenever I approached first.
This reaction that she showed from time to time was something I found irresistibly dear.
"Let's go."
"Yes, Master."
When I rose from my seat, she naturally put strength into her own hand even in the midst of her embarrassment.
The loyal figure who never forgot to escort me no matter the situation.
Before my eyes, the gate leading to the Demon Realm swirled, emitting a black light.
It was a path opened by Vellastella's invitation, leading directly to the Demon King's palace.
'How curious.'
Curiosity welled up.
What in the world would the Demon King look like?
I had caught a glimpse when I came to see Vellastella, but that had been something like an avatar, not his true body.
A god, an absolute one, is like a sun.
From afar, when it shines, those who receive its light gain grace, but if one comes too close, one burns.
That was why the Goddess was 'heavenly' and the Demon King was the 'Black Sun.'
Moving about as an avatar was, in a sense, an unavoidable act because such a sun could not move about directly.
But the current me would likely be able to meet him face to face.
Though it would not be for a very long time.
Ttogak.
Holding that curiosity in my heart, I crossed through the gate to the Demon Realm.
It had been exactly one hundred days since my previous visit.