Are You the Devil of All Nations?
Even after Rai shut the door, no one inside the room moved.
The young knights who had never laid eyes on the Devil of All Nations in the kingdom's days wore faces thick with discontent, but they kept their mouths shut the way they'd been trained to. The man who had been caught slipping poison into a glass — and thoroughly mocked for it — calmly gathered the shards of the cup Rai had hurled to the floor.
Mikhail clenched and unclenched his fist, trying to settle himself. He was just about to stand when the door opened again.
"Ah, sorry. The hallway's a maze — anyone feel like showing me out?"
Rai asked it with a sunny, untroubled face, as if nothing that had just happened had happened at all.
While everyone else stared blankly, Mikhail — the only one who remained composed — called to the man picking up the glass.
"Zakubo. See him out."
"Yes, sir."
The man called Zakubo set the shards he'd collected onto the table and approached Rai.
"I'll show you the way."
"Yeah, thanks."
As Rai turned to follow Zakubo, who had already started walking, Mikhail spoke from behind.
"Why are you loyal to the Empire?"
Rai stopped. He stood still for a beat, then looked back over his shoulder and smiled.
"I'm not particularly loyal to anyone. I'm just living a retired life."
"Under the Empire that destroyed our kingdom? Doesn't that make you angry? I joined the resistance to avenge you. And yet… you forgot all of us and went to work for them…"
Mikhail frowned and turned his face away. Rai glanced at him, then turned fully around to look him in the eye.
"Hard to take that from a guy who tried to slip me poison."
"You already knew what kind of poison it was, and you're still saying that?"
Mikhail was dead serious. Rai, grinning like it was all a joke, only made him angrier, and his voice rose.
The poison in the wine had been nothing more than a temporary mana suppressant. They had found the Devil of All Nations — a man the world believed had been executed — working at an academy, looking for all the world like a loyal servant of the Empire. Mikhail had used the poison only because his subordinates, who couldn't bring themselves to fully trust that man, had insisted on it.
Someone as sharp as the Devil of All Nations would have already seen through the intent and the circumstances. That he was still picking at it made Mikhail grind his teeth.
"Do you think I would ever harm you?"
More than anything, what hurt Mikhail most was that Rai didn't trust him.
Rai looked at him — a man in whom not a trace of his old self remained — and gave a small laugh.
"Doesn't matter what the poison does. Doesn't matter that it wouldn't have killed me. What matters is that you lied to me. And… my last order."
The last order the Devil of All Nations had given his troops had been simple.
Surrender, and resist no further.
Rai had even left the door open for those who couldn't accept it, telling them to run. Some had fled and joined the resistance. Mikhail had stayed and surrendered alongside him.
"If the Empire hadn't executed you, I never would have joined the resistance."
"That so? Well, I wasn't executed, and I'm doing just fine — so I guess you can come on out now."
He had become a resistance fighter out of fury at the news of Rai's death — a loyal man. Rai treated him with cold indifference.
Rai looked at the silent Mikhail, then started to turn away. One of the young knights standing at attention near the wall stepped forward.
"You're just going to let him go?"
"Camelo, stand down."
Zakubo glared as he spoke, but the young knight named Camelo showed no intention of backing down.
"If we let him walk, he'll sell us out to the Empire."
"Camelo! Shut your mouth!"
Rai glanced at the shouting Zakubo, then turned to Camelo with a smile.
"You're more of a coward than I expected. Scared of the Empire, but not particularly scared of me?"
The moment the words left his mouth, killing intent poured from Rai's body.
The killing intent, laced with mana, froze the air around him and swallowed the room. The air crystallized in threads as fine as spider silk, spreading outward; white frost-webs bloomed across the floor beneath Rai's feet and crawled up the nearby walls.
The young knights were crushed under it, unable to so much as twitch. The more experienced knights stepped between Rai and the younger ones, trying to hold the pressure at bay — but even they were in bad shape. The killing intent was so sharp it felt like needles in the skin. They broke out in a cold sweat and trembled as if seized by a chill.
The only ones unaffected were Mikhail and Zakubo.
"Supreme Commander Elliot. My inexperience as a commander has caused you trouble. Please — withdraw your anger."
Zakubo, standing behind Rai, dropped to one knee in apology. Rai shrugged and pulled the killing intent back. The ice-webs that had been spreading like a living thing shattered with a crisp crackle and fell to the floor. The knights, released from that crushing weight, let out breaths of relief.
"Your skills have declined since the old days."
"Well, I have been on a pretty long break. We done here? I'm leaving. Get up, you. The thing you should be apologizing for is ruining an expensive bottle of wine."
Rai gave the kneeling Zakubo a couple of light kicks and started to go. Mikhail spoke from behind.
"The resistance is being led by His Highness the Third Prince."
At Mikhail's words, Rai's footsteps stopped. He stood frozen for a moment, then his feet moved again. Without answering, he left.
"This is as far as I can escort you. Once again, please forgive my failure to manage my subordinates."
"I told you to apologize for the wine, and you still won't do it. Anyway, thanks. Let's never see each other again. Hang in there with the revolution."
Rai gave Zakubo, now standing at a distance, a smile, then opened the door and stepped outside.
The stench of the back alley was foul, but it still beat the stale bachelor-reek inside that building. Rai walked on.
Ermene, huh. That's unexpected.
He pictured the face of the Third Prince of the Keilen Kingdom and slightly furrowed his brow.
Third Prince Ermene had been the hope of the Keilen Kingdom. While those worthless central nobles and the deranged royal family ran the place into the ground, he had been the only sane one among them. "Sane" didn't even do him justice. Young as he was, he had been wise and deep-hearted — a fine child who thought of the kingdom's future. Even Rai had placed his hopes in him during the Era of Strife.
Now it was all a hollow dream.
Ermene and Mikhail. Neither of them belonged in a resistance, and yet, absurdly, the two of them were the ones leading it. If this, too, was one of God's little jokes of fate, it was a pretty nasty one. Rai raised his middle finger toward the sky.
A vagrant sitting haphazardly on the ground stared at him strangely. Rai paid it no mind and headed back to the tavern.
"Where have you been?"
When Rai returned, Philia was sitting at the table with her arms crossed. Aslan was there too, but he was shoveling food and drink into his mouth with such gusto that he didn't seem to care about Rai at all.
"Went to take a dump."
Philia's face crumpled. Apparently pleased with her expression, Rai snickered as he sat down, ordered a beer from the waiter, and asked,
"Did you fight with Cesset? What brings Your Highness all the way over here?"
"I have something I wanted to ask you, Instructor."
"Go ahead."
Rai waited, but Philia couldn't bring herself to speak. There was plenty she wanted to ask, but it wouldn't organize itself in her head. And with Aslan sitting right there, it was an awkward conversation to start.
Watching her glance sideways at Aslan, Rai reached for the food on the table.
"What's got our little Miss Prim so curious?"
"…And what is 'Miss Prim' supposed to mean?"
"Just made it up. Aria's Miss Priss, you're Miss Prim. And this guy's just an idiot."
"I'n nuh an idyit?!"
"Yes, thank you for demonstrating your idiocy with your entire body. So. What did you want to ask?"
After answering Aslan, who was protesting with his mouth full of food, Rai propped his chin on his hand and looked at Philia. It was a smile that got under her skin the same way a painting by Triyanus did, she thought — and she was just about to speak when a voice exploded behind her.
"You said you'd be right back — what are you doing here?!"
Cesset latched onto Philia's back and shouted.
"What's this, Raikkang?! You guys are over here eating all the good stuff and we don't even get a bite?"
"I gave you money."
"Cash and goods in kind are two different things! Sometimes the real thing is better, you know!"
Cesset sat down and ordered food from the waiter. Zeroa and Mia took their seats with awkward smiles. With the whole group reunited, it became even harder for Philia to speak, and she closed her mouth.
"Phili-Phili, they say this one comes piled with cheese! Doesn't that sound amazing?! Miss, two of these — no, three! And this one and this one too. Ooh, this looks good too. You know what, just give me everything from here to here."
Philia gave Cesset, who was holding the menu board and ordering a mountain of food, a halfhearted reply and looked away. As the gathered group chattered noisily, Rai continued to watch Philia with a meaningful gaze.
By the time they'd filled their stomachs at the tavern and stepped outside, the sun had already set and night had fallen. The lights filling the streets created an atmosphere entirely different from daytime. Mia's eyes sparkled with excitement, her mouth falling open.
"Legandia the Paradise! Cesset Eliza has come to conquer!"
Cesset threw her hands in the air and shouted, and passersby laughed and cheered her on.
"Is this where the betting starts? You've got the ink ready, right?"
Aslan, equally fired up by the change in atmosphere, spun his arms around, clearly thrilled. Rai, Cesset, and Aslan had agreed to play the stall games, with the lowest scorer getting their face drawn on.
The first game was ball-throwing — a festival staple. Throw balls at a pile of leftover furniture scraps, knock down as many as you can, win a prize.
"Absolutely no mana. For you Academy folks, only the targets all the way in the back count."
"I'm a Pure Mage, you know?!"
If Academy-trained people played the same games as ordinary folks, the students would clean the stalls out. So every stall had a separate Academy-only version. Cesset protested as if it were a grave injustice, but the merchant just shook his head — nothing he could do.
"Raikkang! This doesn't count! It's way too unfair!"
"Yeah, too late."
Rai had already thrown a ball at the scrap pile. Half the scraps — which had stones embedded at the base for the Academy version — collapsed. He threw his remaining two balls and knocked down the rest.
Cesset kept complaining about how unfair it was, but Rai and Aslan, both confident of victory, weren't about to listen. She had no choice but to throw. She managed to knock down a measly two pieces and slumped to the ground, deflated.
"Weren't you supposed to be a game master? You're terrible."
"Discriminating against Academy students is so mean… On my tombstone, write: Here lies Game Master Lionel, slain by a biased ruling."
"The idiot might not even hit a single one."
"If Aslan throws, they'll all collapse from a graze. He's got three chances — there's no way he misses."
Aslan tilted his head with supreme confidence and gripped the ball. Veins bulged in his forearm as he threw with everything he had.
CRACK!
"…"
"Sir, please don't destroy the stall."
The ball left Aslan's hand and dropped like a stone, smashing into the floor. The shockwave toppled the poorly stacked pillars, and the stall became a wreck. A vein stood out on the merchant's forehead as he forced a smile. Aslan bowed his head in apology.
"Khahahaha, that bastard actually did it."
"That's a forfeit! Forfeit!"
Rai and Cesset howled with laughter behind him. Aslan trembled with rage.
"Alright, hold still."
"Hey, this isn't fair. I only got to throw one ball."
"Not very manly of you. I had to pay real money because of you."
Rai had compensated the stall owner, so Aslan had nothing to say. He shut his mouth.
"It's one stroke! Why is it so long?!"
"It is one stroke. I haven't lifted the brush yet."
Rai wrote idiot across his forehead, then Cesset painted circles around his eyes, transforming his fierce expression into something oddly gentle.
"…"
Seeing Philia and Mia biting their lips, holding back laughter, Aslan realized the state of his face. He glared at the two culprits, but they were completely unapologetic.
"If you've got a problem, win next time."
"Fine! Next one's mine!"
"Cheap — picking another physical game."
Cesset complained at the sight of the darts, but Aslan was determined to win somehow. They agreed to one throw each. Rai hit dead center — a bullseye. Then Cesset landed a triple for sixty points. Aslan, going last, stood there with his mouth hanging open. Rai was one thing, but he clearly hadn't expected Cesset to score that high either. His dismay was written all over his face.
"Who am I? Game Master Lionel, Cesset Eliza."
Cesset pointed at herself with her thumb, chin tilted up arrogantly after taking the high score. Aslan stared at her, took a deep breath, and threw the dart.
CRASH!
Having learned absolutely nothing from last time, he threw with all his strength. The dart knocked the entire board over backward.
"Sir… if you break…"
"Yes. I'm sorry."
Aslan apologized before the merchant could even finish his sentence. Watching the three of them bicker, the other three behind them laughed as well.
As their time enjoying the festival stretched on, Philia sat down near a fountain to rest for a moment. She could hear her companions making noise in the distance. She sipped a drink she'd bought from a stall and idly watched the faces of people enjoying the festival. A child on a wooden horse was laughing with pure, innocent joy.
While her gaze was captured by a happy family, Rai approached and sat down beside her.
"So. What did you want to talk about?"
At Rai's voice, Philia let out a small breath, steeled herself, and turned to look at him.
"I was wondering if— pffft—!!"
Philia took one look at Rai's face and sprayed her drink in shock.
"That damn Cesset 'accidentally' dumped ink all over my face."
Half of Rai's face was black. He smiled bitterly as he spoke. Philia, who'd choked, coughed and gasped for a long while to compose herself before lifting her head. With a serious expression, she looked at Rai and asked: