Knight's Duty
"What the hell are these things? Saintess."
"Byproducts of the Demon King."
"Byproducts...?"
"The evil energy that accumulates as the Demon King lives and breathes—it gathers like water droplets and drips down, drop by drop."
Claire was considerably shocked by the saintess's explanation. A naturally spawned monster at level 2500 like that? It was unfair. People often said the Demon King was a creature that embodied every injustice in the world... but seeing it in person left her speechless.
Is killing it really impossible? But the mission from the princess...
"We're almost there. Just reinforce the seal and get out."
"It seems the Holy Kingdom doesn't believe Claire can kill the Demon King at all?"
Riana suddenly chimed in.
"What?"
Claire jumped in surprise and shot Riana a glare.
"Stop it, Captain Riana."
"We came here to kill the Demon King, but they're not even pretending to listen?"
Claire knew it too. The kingdom's knights had come to slay the Demon King, yet the hero party's saintess consistently refused to offer faith in the crucial moments.
"Yes. At least, I think it's impossible."
Esilla said it without any intention of hiding her thoughts. Epana, caught in the middle, fidgeted uncomfortably. Riana smiled brightly, but the glances they exchanged were razor-sharp.
"Why would a Holy Kingdom like that suddenly decide to cooperate with the kingdom and tamper with the seal?"
"I wonder if it's okay to tell you all."
The saintess murmured while staring into the pitch-black path ahead.
"The seal has weakened. Suddenly, just recently."
"The seal...?"
Not only was the Demon King alive, but the seal was weakening too? It was a chilling thought that sent a chill down her spine.
"I think Eskalia has stockpiled quite a bit of power. She must have tried to break the seal on her own."
"You think that's possible?"
"I don't know. We're just here to close the lid again. To keep the demon that tore up the northern continent from breaking free once more."
"...Excuse me."
Claire cautiously raised her hand and spoke.
"We were told this was a seal that would last a hundred years."
"...The calculations weren't wrong."
A hundred years. Perhaps even longer. They had postponed killing the wounded Demon King until they found a way to slay her. The highest-tier light attribute sealing spell, Seal of Light's Deathblow, had been created with that intent. But from the way she talked, it sounded like the Demon King could burst out any moment... Of course, that wouldn't happen, and there shouldn't even be signs of it.
"We never intended to open this place again in the first place..."
Yet the Demon King had shaken the seal herself. This incident had turned the Holy Kingdom upside down and led to their urgent request for cooperation from the kingdom.
"Who would deliberately mess with the Demon King?"
"If this phenomenon is related to the new Demon King, that would be interesting."
An unexpected perspective. Esilla looked at Riana, who had mentioned the "second Demon King," and spoke in fragmented surprise.
"Uh... what... yeah...? If Demon Kings have some way of communicating with each other. Though there's no precedent..."
"Every event is unprecedented the first time it happens~."
"There was the second Demon King issue too... You all left the capital unguarded? Is that okay?"
Claire nodded.
"We left it in trustworthy hands."
"When fighting the Demon King, the trustworthy ones die first."
Esilla murmured quietly.
"That's not something the Saintess of Prophecy should say..."
"Mother..."
"We're going to reinforce the seal and leave. I'll show my daughter how to use Seal of Light's Deathblow too."
Pat, pat. Epana beamed happily at her mother's hand stroking her head.
"My daughter will teach it to my grandson. That's how we'll pass down the seal. Does that sound cowardly?"
"No."
Claire shook her head.
"I'm afraid of the Demon King too. If all I could do was seal her, I'd do the same."
"So you think you can do something else?"
"Isn't it worth testing White Flame?"
"...We're almost there."
The labyrinth suddenly widened. Everything turned pitch black. In the dizzying sense of floating where a moment's carelessness could plunge them into utter darkness, bloodshot red eyes floated up like a red sun devouring everything.
Flicker.
"Hello, Eskalia."
Gigigigik. With a grotesque sound, the entire space brightened in an instant, and swords of light stabbed into the writhing colossal body. Countless, endlessly, ceaselessly. Even in this brilliance, the Demon King's true form was submerged in a pitch-black abyss, impossible to discern clearly.
I'd only heard it was sealed, but this is...
Claire thought this system resembled primitive torture. The more it struggled, the more infinite light swords burrowed into its body. Simple, yet effective. The more it craved life, the more merciless blades sought to sever it.
Eskalia's red eyes, even amid those blades, burned with undiminished ferocious hatred. Claire forgot to breathe. Cold sweat drenched her body.
She beat something like this...?
Claire had watched the hero more closely than most, yet she had no idea of the weight he carried. The Demon King... was far more terrifying than a twenty-year-old silver-haired girl could imagine. She wasn't sure she could even stand while staring straight into those hatred-filled red eyes.
Then.
An unfamiliar hand lightly groped Claire's ass.
"Eek!"
"Tense, huh? Claire."
"Ah... Captain Riana...!"
Riana smiled slyly.
"I'll watch your back, Claire. Go kill the Demon King."
"...Thank you."
Her comrade's light teasing loosened her stiffened body.
...With White Flame, she could kill it. That's what Claire had thought until she saw it. Even if White Flame burned life force like the Dragon King's fire... it couldn't compare to the original at all.
Esilla was right. Who could dare imitate the flames of the creation goddess Nimyuel?
Claire had seriously pondered why such power was given to her. She could never figure it out... but if it was to kill the Demon King, shouldn't she use it properly? Before she knew it, she had come to believe that was her duty.
"Here I go."
Everyone turned to Claire. The silver-haired, blue-eyed knight drew her ivory-like, exquisitely beautiful white dragon sword and prepared a single, all-out strike infused with her full power.
I can kill the Demon King with my own hands.
Bloodshot veins surged in Eskalia's red eyes. She could only plunge her full-powered White Flame into an opponent she couldn't resist.
Esilla extended her hand, casting every buff she could on Claire. Riana did the same. Pale starlight swirled around the White Flame.
"Haaaaah!"
Claire swung her sword.
*
On the way back with the saintess's group to the Rune Kingdom.
Claire kept her mouth shut the whole time.
"Claire~ Don't be so down."
"......"
"The captain did her best... um..."
The result was frustratingly a failure. Eskalia didn't die. But she let out an agonizing scream that suggested she was in death's throes, writhing to extinguish the white flames clinging to her body. Then the Seal of Light's Deathblow tore her body to shreds... and the cycle repeated infinitely.
But Claire's heart was heavy. They hadn't gone to torture the Demon King—they went to kill her. Why did it feel so disappointing and infuriating?
Because she failed to meet the princess's expectations? Reporting "In the end, I couldn't kill her" didn't seem that hard.
But what she truly couldn't forgive was...
"It was like all the pieces of a puzzle fit perfectly, right?"
"......"
Esilla the saintess's words stabbed at Claire's chest.
"Because the kingdom doesn't have your dissatisfying attack skill. It wouldn't be strange if it looked like the final puzzle piece to kill the Demon King."
"...Yes."
Looking back...
Her vague belief that she was going to save the world had been pure arrogance. Even as one of the kingdom's top powerhouses, there would be stronger ones across the world, with the hero at the pinnacle. To think she could overturn what even the hero couldn't with mere skill matchup.
From Esilla's perspective... it wasn't strange to see an untested newbie acting cocky without ever fighting the Demon King.
"I don't think it's that pessimistic~ That high-level Demon King Majesty didn't even flinch when I shot my Divine Bow right into her eyeball?"
"Heh, yeah. In that sense, it was quite amusing. Your White Flame seemed to hurt like hell."
"......"
"Thinking she'll suffer in agony burning away her remaining life... it's delightful."
"I... failed to fulfill my duty."
"Duty?"
Esilla blinked.
"...I thought it was something only White Flame could do. Because it's sacred white fire... the Dragon King's fire."
"That doesn't matter."
Rattle, rattle. The carriage wheels shook as it carried the four.
Esilla spoke with uncharacteristic seriousness.
"Killing the Demon King is the hero's job. A knight's duty is to protect people in the meantime."
"Doesn't protecting people connect to killing the Demon King?"
"No, protecting and going out to kill are different. You heard about you from Ethan, right? Your hometown really was destroyed because of the Demon King?"
Claire was at a loss for words. The Demon King had provided the cause, but what wiped out Claire's village was... the former Demon King's legion commander, called the Horrific Luther. The hero defeated the Demon King, but couldn't prevent the secondary damage... Nearby villages fell helplessly to the Demon King's army's retaliatory strikes. No survivors.
Except one place. Nora Village, where the girl who killed Luther with white flames appeared.
"You're definitely strong, but Ethan didn't take you along. You should understand why now."
"...The reason the hero didn't take me... you mean?"
"You don't know?"
Claire recalled her childhood. Back then, she thought the hero hadn't taken her because he couldn't add a mere twelve-year-old girl to his party. But was that really it? Had the hero been unaware of the anger and hatred in the eyes of the girl whose home was gone? The pain of a human with nowhere to return...
Her eyes had captured it so vividly.
「White Flame Knight Captain. You still don't know what you're carrying on your shoulders. That's why you can't.」
...Carrying on her shoulders?
「Fulfill your duty first.」
Duty...
"Is killing the Demon King your duty?"
The carriage came to a stop. Claire's eyes showed she knew where to go.
"I'll head out first!"
Riana smiled wryly as her comrade dashed off like the wind.
"We have no choice but to do what the princess orders. Isn't that our duty?"
"How would a romance-less girl like you feel anything from this conversation?"
"Hmm~ Romance~?"
The eyes of the woman who followed Seongyul sparkled with life, yet sometimes felt profoundly empty. Like there was nothing there at all. Her mouth smiled, but her eyes always saw the cold side of the world.
"The only thing I can say from experience is this: The nobler the ideal, the easier it is to defile. Saintess."
