The First Emperor's Confession
"I am Rohen Paul Bertian, distant descendant of the Bertian Empire."
"My descendant, you say?"
"Using a special tool, I have summoned the soul of the First Emperor to this place."
"...So civilization has advanced far enough to create a tool capable of interfering with the netherworld?"
"No, nothing of the sort. Civilization still depends on artifacts powered by magic stones. This situation is purely the result of my own unusual ability."
The First Emperor seemed brimming with questions, but when I told him there was precious little time left to keep him here, he cooperated readily, urging me to ask whatever I needed to and quickly.
So I wasted no time and hurled my question at the matter of greatest importance right now — the Demon King's army.
The decisive battle of that era had been a great war with the very fate of the human species hanging in the balance, so it made no sense that the records were so sparse.
And when he heard my question, the First Emperor countered by asking whether the resurrection of the Demonic World Tree was perhaps drawing near, and I answered that it was.
"I apologize for rushing you, but please share the information quickly."
Perhaps reflecting my anxious heart, a hasty, scrawled hand spread across the paper.
"My distant descendant — before that, I have one more question of my own."
"Speak, Your Majesty."
"If you win this war against the Demon King, what will you do with the Demonic World Tree?"
"I intend to tear it out by the roots."
At my answer, the First Emperor showed a flicker of surprise before opening his mouth.
"Then I shall firmly believe that those words are sincere."
"How could I spout falsehoods before His Majesty the First Emperor?"
"From your position, you must be wondering why information about the Demon King's army back then is so scarce. To answer that question — it is because I deliberately expunged every record concerning the Demon King's army."
This time it was I who could not keep the shock from my face at the First Emperor's words.
Could you blame me?
Honestly speaking, no sane leader of a nation would erase the single most vital piece of information his future descendants would need.
I didn't let my inner feelings show on the surface, but I still struggled to mask my expression, and the First Emperor, seeming to understand completely, continued speaking.
"Of course, there was a justified reason for my actions."
"I am listening."
"You have probably noticed the strange course of events as well, haven't you?"
"You mean the fact that magic stones emerge when monsters and demonkin are slain."
"Just as you say. Why would slaying monsters and demonkin yield magic stones — a boon to mankind? Regrettably, this is no coincidence. When I slew the Demon King in that age, he left me with these parting words: 'Could the people of this era and the next ever bring themselves to give up convenience?'"
So my hypothesis had been right after all.
The magic stones were a sweet poisoned chalice, left behind so that the Demon King's army could rise again and again.
"That is why I expunged every detailed account of the Demon King's army. If our descendants had been able to prepare countermeasures against the future, they would have grown complacent and certainly never removed the Demonic World Tree."
So he had tried to weaponize the fear of the unknown.
But in my estimation, the comfort that artifacts provided had already grown to rival that fear of the unknown in force.
...It was only lucky that the pact built upon the power of my Lingual Magic had concluded smoothly. Had it not, this would have been the most maddening complication of all.
"Back then I did argue for removing the World Tree, but the opposition was too great and the matter was deferred for a time. I could have forced it through, but if we failed to restore the nation's foundations — rotted away at speed by magic stones — then the aftermath of the war would have destroyed the Empire and the various kingdoms outright. By the time some semblance of stability had been established and I finally moved to remove it, the World Tree, which had already reverted to a sprout, had grown once more."
"I have heard the full account, so please tell me about the Demon King himself."
I glanced to the side — the Banholhyang incense was already more than half burned away.
"The Demon King can choose the fate by which he dies."
"The fate by which he dies?"
"To be precise, he can choose the method by which he may be killed. And the Demon King can only be slain by that one method, and nothing else."
At the First Emperor's words, I dragged a rough hand down my face.
To be honest, I had held enormous pride in the power of my Lingual Magic.
Because of that, I had believed that no matter how dire the conditions, so long as I steeled myself to take him down with me, I could kill him —
But even that, it seemed, had to follow the method the Demon King himself had decreed.
Which meant that conventional means — beheading him, or piercing his heart — would not work at all.
"The Demon King I fought shared his life-force with his subordinates, and because of that, unless both were destroyed at once, the two of them revived each other endlessly so long as either survived. I would rather not speak much of how many sacrifices it cost to uncover that secret."
"What about his unique ability?"
"The Demon King's unique ability is, quite simply, invincibility. It falls to us humans to rack our brains and resort to every trick we can muster. Even when I fought him in the past, aside from his choice of death, he never displayed any strange sorcery or trickery."
If that were true, then in a purely frontal battle I might actually hold the advantage.
All I would need to do was grant the power of Lingual Magic to the word Equity in my vocabulary.
But that, too, came with a time limit, and until I discovered which method of death the Demon King had chosen for himself, there was nothing I could do.
"Setting the Demon King himself aside, the real crux will be how you deal with his revived army."
"There are still many Overlords and Aura Masters left in this world."
"...My descendant, this is mere conjecture on my part, but listen carefully."
He began with an unnecessary preamble, and unease crept over me.
"Humanity's explosive progress in mana began only after the Demonic World Tree revealed itself in this world. There had always been people talented in mana since long ago, but reaching a certain definitive threshold of mastery built upon that talent was impossible."
"..."
"And yet, even amid that explosive progress, humanity could not properly counter the Demon King's legions at first. Only after learning to forge magic stones into artifacts did the quality of our armies rise, until we could contend with them on equal footing."
"What are you saying?"
"Does it not look, taken as a whole, as though a balance is being deliberately kept level? It is only my opinion, but I cannot help suspecting that a peculiar causality is at work upon the tilt of power between the two sides."
Little time remained on the Banholhyang.
Infering from the Emperor's words, this resurrection of the World Tree meant that the Demon King's army descending upon the world once more would carry power far greater than in the past.
And humanity's hope of countering it would, once again, spring from the corpses of monsters and demonkin.
Furthermore, whatever emerged from those stones would very likely contribute to human civilization as a whole yet again.
"It looks like nothing so much as a test of human desire. My descendant! I pray that you will take it upon yourself, in this life, to sever this chain for good. If you do not, the Demon King's army will scheme to revive like this forever, even after vanishing into the folds of history."
"Do not worry."
"If civilization advances by their hands until they reach a point where the tree can no longer be uprooted, humanity will never be able to break this chain! Across hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of successive great wars — could mankind truly win every single time?"
It was nothing short of an eternal death match.
No creature alive wields a reward psychology as powerful as that of human beings.
If, in this lifetime, something surpassing the magic stones were to emerge from the monsters and demonkin —
People might well band together to demand the World Tree's preservation, so thoroughly would they undo everything I had worked for.
'Even if I bring the war to a safe conclusion, what comes after will be the real problem.'
When that time came, I would have to impose a tyranny, however much I loathed it.
"Our time is up."
The First Emperor's form began to slowly disperse into the air.
"However mighty an empire may be, in the end it, too, is destined to remain only as lines in the pages of history. I could accept that, if it were simply the flow of the age — but if it is a road to self-destruction paved with desire, I can never accept it. For the sake of the Empire's future, I pray that your resolve will never waver."
"Farewell, Your Majesty."
With a deep bow, I saw the First Emperor off.
Before long the Banholhyang's allotted time ran out, and Emperor Caesar vanished without a trace into the empty air.
Releasing the summon of the Banholhyang on my desk, I drank the long-cold tea and steadied my breathing.
'The broad strokes of the information have been passed to me.'
A combat ability approaching pure invincibility, and a single, self-chosen method of attaining his death.
So long as I did not know by what means he could be killed, the Demon King was, in every sense of the word, an undying monster.
'...Sacrifices cannot be avoided, then.'
It wasn't as though I had ever entertained the notion that I could win without spilling a single drop of blood.
So, blowing away the swarm of stray thoughts in one breath, I turned my head toward the refinement of the most important divine artifact.