Demon King of the Royal Class-Chapter 403

I had only been away from the Temple for two days, and I returned at night, well past curfew.

While some might know where I had gone, no one yet knew that I had encountered Death Knights in Raziern and returned. Of course, given the nature of the incident, rumors would soon start circulating in the capital.

After parting with Olivia and returning to the second-year dormitory, I found Ellen sitting idly in the lobby. I had thought this might happen.

“...”

Ellen glanced up at me when I stepped inside.

“...”

Her eyes conveyed a multitude of emotions. She had been worried, waiting for my return, but now that I had appeared, she seemed unsure of what to say. Instead, she averted her gaze and lowered her head.

My chest felt constricted, as if I was suffocating.

Were we going to end up strangers, like this? Wouldn’t it be better if that happened? Shouldn’t I be relieved that the emotions between us were starting to dull?

That way, it would be less painful for both of us later on. But I couldn’t feel at ease. Whatever I said would be deceitful. In the end, I would have to make a decision, and I had made my choice.

I had chosen Charlotte. And so, I needed to distance myself from Ellen Artorius.

As I tried to pass by...

Tug.

Ellen grabbed the sleeve of my arm as I was about to walk past.

“...”

“...”

I couldn’t tell her to let go.

It wasn’t a strong grip, more like an unconscious one. She didn’t know what to say, but she couldn’t just let me go.

She held onto my sleeve so lightly that it seemed like she would let go if I shook my arm even slightly. Not long ago, she would have held onto me tightly, as if never wanting to let go.

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But with just one word—engagement—our relationship had been shattered. That was why she did not grab my hand, just the hem of my clothes, and even then, she did it so very lightly.

Ellen seemed to think that even such an action was wrong.

“You went to a dangerous place, didn’t you?”

Ellen spoke quietly, her head still lowered.

“...”

“There’s a burnt smell...”

I had been in a place engulfed in flames, and perhaps the smell of smoke had clung to my clothes. Ellen, who was at a loss for what to say, could only use these small clues to guess where I had been and what I had experienced.

Ellen hated the idea of me being in danger. She hated it intensely, but she knew what I had to do, and so she couldn’t stop me. However, I hadn’t voluntarily gone to a dangerous place; the place itself had become dangerous.

I couldn’t shake Ellen off, and Ellen couldn’t pull me closer.

“Do you have to keep going to dangerous places like this...?”

Ellen looked up at me, her eyes brimming with tears. She knew what I had to do.

“Probably.”

“...”

“It’s okay. I won’t go anywhere extremely dangerous, and even if I want to, people won’t let me.”

It was a lie. Even in less dangerous places, sudden incidents like the one I’d just faced could occur.

Now that I knew followers of mine were emerging in places beyond my control, I couldn’t guarantee safety anywhere I went, not even in this capital.

I could feel from Ellen’s gaze that she didn’t believe my words at all. The rumor that the demon god cultists attacked the capital of Levaina, Raziern, would soon spread to the capital. The fact that Olivia and I were there, and that we had encountered Death Knights, would come to light.

Ellen seemed to want to say something. Her lips moved slightly, but in the end, she lowered her head again. Her hand, which had been holding onto my sleeve, finally let go.

***

I returned to my room in the dormitory. I couldn’t rid myself of the complicated thoughts swirling about in my mind. After washing up and just before lying down on the bed, there was a movement in the air.

Swoosh...

In one corner of the room, a white mist gathered and took on a human form.

“So, how was it?”

“Oh, hello.”

It was Lucinil, the silver-haired girl. Lucinil, like Sarkegar, could visit me without anyone knowing. Though she had been tasked to protect me, there were limitations, so she hadn’t been able to accompany me to Raziern.

“I heard it wasn’t particularly dangerous...”

Lucinil didn’t seem overly worried. Perhaps Mr. Effenhauser had filled her in.

“... But your expression doesn’t seem to match that,” Lucinil noted.

Of course, the expression I wore was more due to the encounter with Ellen than the events in Raziern.

“The demon god cultists attacked Raziern.”

Lucinil’s expression hardened. “What?”

Lucinil knew why I had gone to Raziern, and she listened as I explained only the events that followed. How the crowds in Raziern, driven mad by the fear of the Demon King, had begun witch hunts and executions, and how the real demon god cultists had suddenly attacked Raziern. I recounted encountering the Death Knights and how, as the situation seemed to worsen, I decided to leave Raziern.

However, the key issue was...

“It seems the demon god cultists are following me.”

“... What are you talking about?”

‘Right.’ The situation was bizarre and hard to understand. Even I found it absurd and infuriating.

“They acted as if I had ordered the attack on Raziern. They were calling me a prophet or something.”

“... But you weren’t the one behind the original Raziern incident in the first place.”

“Exactly.” I clicked my tongue. “But they seem to believe I had some grand reason behind destroying Raziern. So they decided to attack Raziern, claiming they were merely completing what I had failed to complete...”

Since I wasn’t the one who had attacked Raziern, the actions of the demon god cultists were purely unfounded. Many people had died, but it was entirely unrelated to my intentions.

“An entire city turned into a sea of flames due to the excessive loyalty of people I don’t even know...”

Lucinil crossed her arms and sighed. “What are you going to do about this?”

Lucinil had been skeptical about my talk of world peace, but this subsequent Demon God Cult attack, stemming from Vertus’s subterfuge, was driving me into a corner.

I had suspected that the Demon God Cult, which should have vanished with the Demon King’s return, was growing somewhere—but running into them firsthand was truly chilling.

“I need to find the demon god cultists and either bring them under my control or eliminate them,” I said.

Since they claimed loyalty to me, I needed to find them and either turn them into true subordinates, or eliminate them if I found their ideology too dangerous.

The first step was to locate the demon god cultists.

Lucinil tilted her head. “But how do you plan to find them?”

“That’s something I need to think about.”

Since they wouldn’t be operating openly, I could only catch them when they showed themselves. Aside from that, I couldn’t think of a way to track them down.

“Then I’ll share this information with the Council and the Black Order for now.”

“Yes. And we should also contact the imperial family. They probably know, but we need to make it clear that this wasn’t our doing.”

“Hmm, that’s true. It’s better to make things clear.”

Though our contact would be through Sarkegar, it would be good to have an exchange of opinions with the imperial family.

Oddly enough, I had ended up with a connection to the imperial family, which was practically the greatest enemy, while trying to establish ties with the Revolutionary Forces.

The imperial family might expect us to become enemies someday, but they would try to use us as long as they could, just as I was doing to them now.

Lucinil would convey my thoughts to Sarkegar.

“Anyway, while this incident was unavoidable, don’t do anything too dangerous going forward. I feel as though I’ve left a child by the riverbank.”

For someone who looked like a child to treat me as though I were a child left by the riverside... Of course, since it was out of concern, I was grateful.

I found the image of Lucinil biting her nails and fretting over the news of me going to Raziern quite endearing.

“I might secretly follow you next time, so don’t be too surprised if I suddenly appear,” Lucinil said.

“That would be great for me. But you do realize that if anyone else sees us, both you and I would have to pack our bags and leave the Temple, right?”

“Don’t worry about that, you little rascal. Anyway, I’m heading back—”

“Oh, right.”

Just as Lucinil was about to leave, I remembered something important I needed to mention.

“Well... this isn’t more important than the Demon God Cult, but...”

“What is it?”

“It seems a new religion is emerging.”

It felt ridiculous to even say it.

“A new religion? What kind of nonsense is that?”

“Something similar to a Hero Cult is spreading among the people. They are beginning to believe in the reincarnation of Ragan Artorius.”

“Uh... what?”

Lucinil’s reaction wasn’t much different from mine when I first heard it. Some people, driven by fear, suspected their neighbors of being heretics, while others, also driven by fear, sought out absurd forms of hope.

Though the cause was the same—fear—the results were vastly different.

After explaining the circumstances of this so-called Hero Cult, Lucinil stared at me with wide eyes and an open mouth.

“Wow...” she mused. “I’ve seen countless bizarre things humans do, but this is something else...”

Lucinil seemed dumbfounded by the fact that a baseless belief in the reincarnation of a dead hero was spreading due to the absence of a rival to the Demon King.

“Well, I think such beliefs will disappear once the masters of the holy relics become known. Right now, they have nothing else to believe in...”

Ultimately, their belief in the hero’s reincarnation was their form of hope that the Demon King would be defeated. If it was revealed that a rival to the Demon King, rather than a hero, had appeared in the world, the Hero Cult might naturally fade away.

Lucinil looked at me intently. “Uh... Reinhart? I don’t think that’s how it’s going to play out.”

“Huh?”

“You said you were going to announce that you’re the owner of Alsbringer because of your engagement with the princess, right?”

“Yes.”

‘What is she getting at?’

“And Alsbringer was Ragan Artorius’s sword, right?”

“Well, yes...”

“Then don’t you think people might start believing you’re the reincarnation of Ragan Artorius or something?”

‘Huh? What is she talking about?’

“No, even if Ragan Artorius had reincarnated, he wouldn’t even be a year old yet. He died just over a year ago. The timeline doesn’t match for people to believe I’m his reincarnation. It doesn’t make sense, so they wouldn’t think that—”

“Does believing in the reincarnation of Ragan Artorius make sense in the first place?”

“Oh.”

That statement made my mind go blank.

Right. If people were already believing in something that didn’t make sense, why wouldn’t they believe in something even more nonsensical?

Once the fact that I was Alsbringer’s master became known, the followers of the Hero Cult would likely treat me as either the reincarnation of Artorius or some sort of prophet just because I possessed Alsbringer.

“Wow! Our little Baalier is amazing! A prophet of both the Demon God Cult and the Hero Cult!”

Lucinil burst into a mischievous laugh and hugged me tightly.

Squeeze!

“This, this damn...”

“Our little one is the best!”

“Why am I your little one?!” I cried out, shoving Lucinil aside roughly.

She gave me a mischievous smile. “Hmm... Wow, but seriously, you have a lot of titles, don’t you?”

Lucinil began counting on her fingers.

“The rightful last heir of the Dark Land.

“King of all demons.

“Ally of the Vampire Council.

“Collaborator of the Black Order.

“Master of Tiamata and Apostle of Ouen.

“Master of Alsbringer and Apostle of Alse.

“Prophet of all demon god cultists.

“And the prophet of the Hero Cult...”

Lucinil grinned widely.

“And, the imperial son-in-law of the Gradium empire?”

Even hearing it myself made me dizzy.

“Isn’t your very existence a contradiction at this point?”

‘Indeed... What am I, really?’

***

As Lucinil said, if the followers of the Hero Cult discovered my existence, they would still see me as a prophet and revere me, even if they didn’t believe I was the reincarnation of Ragan Artorius.

Meanwhile, the demon god cultists were proclaiming themselves to be followers of the Demon King.

A prophet for two groups with entirely different attributes...

For the moment, I decided to leave the task of finding the demon god cultists to the Council. The demon god cultists would want to contact the Demon King, so once contact was made, it was a given that they would fall under my control. The problem was not knowing which direction to approach them from.

The next day, Olivia and I were summoned by Sabioleen Tana.

“It has been confirmed that those who appeared in Raziern were demon god cultists.”

“...”

“As expected...”

“At present, it is presumed that the powers of the Demon Gods Kier and Talad were used.”

The God of Corruption, Kier, and the God of Terror, Talad... It seemed that priests of the Demon God Cult, who were the antithesis of Ouen and the Sun God, had been involved. That meant the demon god cultists were cooperating with each other, just like the Church of the Five Great Gods.

I had thought the ones setting fires were using something akin to magic, but it turned out to be Divine Power in the form bestowed upon by the Demon Gods.

“What is the situation now?” Olivia asked, and Tana’s expression darkened.

“We only managed to deal with the resurrected corpses. We captured a few demon god cultists, but they all committed suicide, and the key figures... We lost them all. We are pursuing them, but the outcome is uncertain.”

Despite what she said, she seemed to believe that the pursuit would likely result in failure.

As she updated us on the situation, Tana’s expression revealed a deep sense of guilt. Shanapell and the imperial family would surely understand that the demon god cultists had no direct connection with the Demon King.

It didn’t make sense for the demon god cultists to appear and try to complete the Raziern incident, since it hadn’t even been an attack by the Demon King in the first place. The empire’s staged incident had inadvertently attracted the wrong kind of attention.

Sabioleen Tana couldn’t help but feel guilty, knowing that the empire’s fabricated incident and the resulting misunderstanding by the demon god cultists had led to significant civilian casualties in Raziern.

She had to be feeling a heavy sense of responsibility. The attack by the demon god cultists had happened, and the dead could not be brought back. She was surely thinking about finding and eradicating the demon god cultists who had orchestrated this incident.

Sabioleen Tana then looked at Olivia, as if expecting her to say something.

It must have sounded strange when she’d heard from Scotla Kelton that he had clearly seen Olivia wielding Tiamata—a weapon that was undoubtedly mine.

“Olivia and I have shared mastery over Tiamata,” I answered instead of Olivia.

“Shared... you say?”

Naturally, Tana was bewildered, as there was no way she could know that such a concept was possible.

“I mentioned it before, didn’t I? That Tiamata was in a corrupted state, and after that, Olivia purified the sword...”

“Yes, you did.”

I had drawn Tiamata while fighting Charlotte while she was possessed by the Demon King’s soul, and I had mentioned Olivia when I explained how I’d acquired Tiamata. While I said that Olivia purified the corrupted Tiamata, allowing me to become its owner, I hadn’t mentioned that Olivia and I had a shared mastery over Tiamata.

“Since then, both Olivia and I have been able to wield Tiamata.”

“Such a thing... is it truly possible...?”

It was an unusual situation, so Sabioleen Tana seemed understandably surprised. Regardless of how improbable it seemed, though, it was a fact that had already occurred.

“Alright. I understand why you wanted to keep that a secret.”

Given the circumstances around Olivia deciding to abandon her faith and the struggles she faced because of it, Sabioleen Tana did not see secrecy as an issue.

“If you want this to remain a secret, I can certainly keep it that way. However, you must understand that I can’t control the rumors that will spread from those who saw you both in Raziern.”

“No,” Olivia said, shaking her head at Tana’s offer. “I’m thinking of returning to the Church of the Five Great Gods.”

It was just as she had told me.

Knowing that fame could put my life at risk, Olivia had resolved to become even more famous than I was.

Sabioleen Tana’s eyes widened at Olivia’s decision.