The Death King's Secret
I activated the crystal in my pocket and arrived at the Library of Denatel.
“Welcome back.”
She studied my appearance for a moment, then smiled upon seeing that I looked almost unchanged from the morning.
“Did everything go well?”
For a moment, Hyler’s final expression flashed through my mind, and my reply came late.
“It didn’t go well, did it?”
She didn’t miss it.
“No. The original objective was completed. It may not have been the best outcome, but at least it ended the way he and I both wanted.”
“But?”
“…A rather unpleasant clown decided to interfere. I should have dealt with him as well, but he had already fled.”
“A clown?”
“Yes. And a mentally quite dangerous one at that.”
That madness had been dangerous. His skill and tactics seemed somewhat lacking compared to the top-tier assassins Bagloros had described, yet that hardly mattered. The man himself was dangerous.
I didn’t know what he was after, but one thing was certain: it wasn’t anything rational, and it wasn’t something I could simply ignore.
“So, are you going to chase after him this time?”
“I’d like to, but it seems difficult with my current abilities. Since I’ve already finished what I needed to do personally, I plan to leave it to Bagloros.”
“Good. Leave that sort of thing to the shadow. He’s good at it, after all.”
Yesterday’s events had clearly shaken her quite a bit. If I hadn’t prepared in advance, it could have been dangerous. My autonomous barriers would have been scattered in an instant by those large-scale attack spells, and even if I had endured, without Tantalos’s Key I wouldn’t have been able to summon a single proper familiar amid the mana disruption spells.
Well, in the worst case I could have escaped to the Library of Denatel through the crystal, so my life would have been safe at least.
Their mistake lay in clinging to those pointless customs—or perhaps in underestimating me somewhat. The fact that I had secured the Library of Denatel and its artifacts was something they could never have known, so it couldn’t even be called a mistake on their part.
“Then you’re going to find the shadow?”
“Yes, that’s right. By the way, Lady Rofena, you keep referring to my companions with expressions like ‘that shadow’ or ‘the one you throw into fire and pull out again.’ Did you call us that when you were with the other Demon Commanders?”
“Yes. Georges and Denatel used all sorts of titles for you, but Anubkut and I called you that.”
“Then what did you call me?”
Suddenly curious, I asked. Thanks to Georges, the title “Deceiver Summoner” had spread widely among both allies and enemies, but I wondered what else I had been called. Of course, judging from those primitive expressions, I could guess it hadn’t been anything flattering.
“Coward.”
Just as I’d suspected. It seemed those who observed me had reached similar conclusions. It was somewhat bitter, but it was what I had expected.
“Well, you were always hiding behind your companions or summoning familiars from inside your barriers to fight.”
After saying it, she seemed slightly apologetic and quickly added an excuse. But I understood completely. Orcan had said the same thing, and it was a part of myself I acknowledged to some degree.
It had simply been the best I could do.
“Well, it’s understandable that it looked that way. And in truth, that’s pretty much what I was.”
“Still, Georges held you in quite high regard. He was most concerned about that princess among your group, but he always told the other Demon Commanders that they must never underestimate you.”
Death King Georges. In many ways, he truly was a remarkable person.
“And the other Demon Commanders ignored what he said, I suppose?”
“…I told you before. We Demon Commanders didn’t get along well with each other.”
“But now that I think about it, why exactly did you not get along? I mean, the others aside, Commander Georges wasn’t someone anyone could dislike, was he?”
He had been truly radiant. Beautiful and outstanding. There was no fault to be found in either his appearance or his character. Even when we met as enemies on the battlefield, he had been gentlemanly and merciful.
Of course, his aesthetic sense had been somewhat excessive, but that was all. I could find no other flaws in him. And this was something my other companions agreed with as well.
So why had his relationship with the other Demon Commanders been so poor?
“Of course, Georges always treated us with courtesy. And I don’t think he disliked us. We felt the same way. But the other Demon Commanders believed his nature was too weak compared to the power he possessed. He was the strongest among us, yet he never actually exercised that power. He was showing consideration in his own way, but we didn’t appreciate it at all.”
So their pride had been wounded. I couldn’t fully understand the unique culture of the demon race, but it was certainly thanks to such fractures that we had been able to win.
“That was fortunate for us.”
Without those fractures, we probably wouldn’t have won. Well, the ultimate failure to properly unify his subordinates was ultimately due to Demon King Thanatos’s lack of leadership.
“But you said Commander Georges was the strongest among the Demon Commanders?”
Of course, Death King Georges’s necromantic power had been strong enough to overwhelm Lauti’s divine power. We had witnessed thousands of undead armies reviving at a single command from him, and we had seen him single-handedly break through the large-scale sealing formation Medrup had cast.
He had been a master worthy of the title Death King and the most outstanding commander among the Demon Commanders, whether his soldiers were alive or not.
But I had never felt that he was particularly stronger than the other Demon Commanders. Compared to Lady Rofena’s flames that could change the map itself, Denatel’s forbidden magic, Zeka’s magic swordsmanship that had overwhelmed Orcan and Rowell, Anubkut’s absolute defensive power, or Beast King Raiven who transformed into a massive creature, the abilities he had displayed in combat had been extremely limited.
That was why we had thought he was a person specialized in command, management, and troop production rather than direct combat. Unlike the other Demon Commanders who had been waiting for us at the Demon King’s castle during the final battle with the Demon King, he had been commanding from the front lines where the allied forces were attempting their all-out assault.
“We never got that impression at all.”
At my words, she smiled bitterly.
“That was one of the reasons we didn’t like him much. He almost never revealed his power. We never fought him directly, but if he were to go all out, even if Anubkut, Zeka, and I combined our strength, we probably wouldn’t be able to defeat him.”
“……!”
It was shocking. The idea that three Demon Commanders combined couldn’t defeat him was hard to believe. If that were true, he was practically on the level of the Demon King!
“Then why wasn’t he at the Demon King’s castle during the final battle? If he had been, we would have been completely annihilated! Moreover, the allied forces that faced his Death Army at that time didn’t suffer particularly heavy casualties either!”
My voice trembled with shock and excitement. On top of that, the question itself was flawed.
“…No, that was the wrong question.”
After all, there was no way she, who had been sealed here before the final battle, would know such things.
“If he had that level of ability, why didn’t he deal with us much earlier? I can understand in the beginning, but we had already destroyed several of his strongholds and fortresses, and after that we became the greatest threat to the Demon King’s army.”
Clearly, in the early stages he had shown us respect and withdrawn several times on his own. But that didn’t mean there had never been situations where we fought him with everything we had. There had been times when Rowell’s sword and Medrup’s magic had dealt him critical blows.
Yet that hadn’t been his full power, and it had all been an act? It was hard to believe.
“Well, I don’t know exactly either, but he probably just liked you all. Besides, he had always been skeptical about the destruction of the surface world. Maybe he secretly hoped you would succeed.”
Yes. The favors he had shown us had certainly contained abnormal elements. Moreover, unlike other demons, the regions he governed had been genuinely peaceful. As I had said before, I had always thought that if he weren’t a demon, he would have been the hero who saved the world.
“No, then why did he follow Thanatos in the first place?”
“That’s the law of the demon race. Obey the Demon King’s commands. It’s the only duty the great Demon Gods bestowed upon us demons. Among the many Demon Gods, one designates the Demon King, and we demons obey that person. Thanatos became the Demon King according to the will of the goddess Nyx, and we obey him. At least on the surface, that is.”
The law of the demon race. Yes, I had heard about it from Medrup, and I had also heard fragments of it when learning about summoning in the past. The ancient pact that existed between the Demon Gods, the Demon King, and the demon race.
“But according to what you said, Commander Georges wasn’t properly following it, was he? The Demon King couldn’t have been unaware of that. So why did the Demon King just leave someone like Commander Georges alone?”
Using repeated failures as an excuse, the Demon King had stripped her of her position as Magic Flame Commander and confined her here. But if Georges had been deliberately leaving us alone, then why had the Demon King simply watched without saying anything?
“I don’t know that either. But the Demon King’s attitude toward Georges was always different from how he treated the other Demon Commanders. He certainly treated him as a subordinate, but somehow… more respectfully.”
For a moment, my head spun with these newly discovered shocking facts. Though I couldn’t know for certain, the existence of such secrets we had never known about made me realize once again how close to a miracle our saving the world had been.
“By the way, you’ve been adding ‘Commander’ to Georges’s name this whole time?”
Her playful complaint pulled me back from wandering in the past to the present.
“Then shall I add it for you as well, Lady Rofena?”
We looked at each other and laughed. Well, what did it matter now? If he had shown us kindness, then all we needed to do was continue being grateful as we had until now.
After that, I spent some time sharing various old stories with her before going to bed.
* * *
When morning came, I left the Library of Denatel and summoned Erill through a summoning spell. Soon she appeared in the sky and slowly descended to the ground.
“Did you have fun?”
She seemed satisfied. I couldn’t tell exactly what she had done, but the consciousness, emotions, and sense of fullness transmitted from her told me as much.
“Ogres?”
She gave an ambiguous affirmation.
“Two ogre colonies?”
That was correct. She spread her wings and displayed a dignified posture.
Two ogre colonies in a single night. As expected of the ruler of the Loxian Mountains. Well, those ogres were rather pitiful. From their perspective, it must have been nothing short of a sudden calamity.
“Now then, let’s go.”
I climbed onto her back, and we soared into the sky. After that, a rather boring stretch of time passed until we reached the Mereka Mountains. I had occasional conversations with Erill, but nothing particularly noteworthy.
When afternoon arrived, the Ancient Forest that covered the area around the Mereka Mountains finally came into view, and wyverns began appearing one or two at a time in the sky as well.
The Mereka Mountains were famous for their large-scale wyvern nests. Unlike dragons, these massive lizards with no arms and only two legs and wings were considered far more dangerous than dragons by ordinary people—creatures one would never encounter in a lifetime, thanks to the deadly poison in their tails and their ferocious nature.