Demon King of the Royal Class-Chapter 574

The choice of whether or not to meet Vertus had always been mine.

Vertus knew I was aiding the Allied Forces in their advance, but he had no idea of my whereabouts, while I could always predict where Vertus might be.

He was likely moving between three locations: The central palace of the imperial capital, Tetra, the Allied command headquarters, and now...

“It’s certainly a conspicuous place, isn’t it?” I said.

“Yes... It really is,” Sarkegar replied.

Before me stood the research building of the Temple University’s magic department.

These were the three obvious places for Vertus to be. The imperial palace and the Allied headquarters were a given, and as for the Temple University's magic department’s research facility, a critical project was underway there, so it made sense that he would visit frequently to oversee its progress.

“Even the exterior is heavily guarded, so getting inside would be even more difficult,” I commented.

No matter how capable Sarkegar was, some things were just impossible.

“Still, Your Highness, rather than you taking the risk, it would be better if I...”

“No, it’s fine. I’m not a kid attending the Temple anymore. How long am I going to rely on you for everything?”

“That may be true, but...”

Possible or not, infiltrating was excessively dangerous.

While I had a faint hope that Sarkegar might manage it, knowing the Black Order was involved had long since extinguished any intention of sending him.

That didn’t mean Sarkegar had no role to play. Sarkegar would wait until Vertus appeared nearby.

“Anyway, just as Vertus wouldn’t attack me, he won’t attack you either. If Vertus shows up here and only Sabioleen Tana is with him, approach and tell him I have something to say. Then we might be able to talk separately—”

Before I could finish speaking, I saw Vertus and Sabioleen Tana exiting the research building. The fact that I managed to spot them so quickly wasn’t just a coincidence; it meant the emperor frequented that location.

“Well, that saves us some trouble,” I said.

“Your Highness... please reconsider...” said Sarkegar again.

“It’s fine.”

Even if the situation wasn’t fine, I could make it so. Leaving the worried Sarkegar behind, I approached the Temple University's magic department research building.

***

Emperor Vertus did not like to be accompanied by a large number of guards. It wasn’t that he disliked formalities, just that he had ascended to the throne during turbulent times. In such times, he couldn’t afford every formality, so they were either not observed, or their scale drastically reduced. However, not having many guards didn’t mean he completely disregarded security.

Vertus usually traveled with Sabioleen Tana, whose protection alone was more than sufficient.

Moreover, when visiting places where secrecy was essential, he couldn’t afford to bring a large entourage.

As a result, Sabioleen Tana was always responsible for his security whenever he moved.

Over time, beyond merely serving as the leader of Shanapell, she naturally assumed, to some extent, the role of the emperor’s personal secretary.

When the Allied Forces were advancing or there was a battle, others would take over from her. However, during this lull, Sabioleen Tana always shadowed Vertus.

Vertus was on his way back to the imperial palace with Tana having completed his visit to the research building.

The streets inside the Temple were almost empty, and the only ones walking down the desolate yet orderly streets were Vertus and Sabioleen Tana.

“Everything is proceeding smoothly.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“If there’s a problem, it’s that things are going too smoothly.”

Vertus gave a wry smile, and Tana couldn’t find the words to respond. Her expression remained serious.

“By the way, I didn’t expect those three to produce results so quickly...”

Vertus sighed, gazing up at the sky. “No matter how much talent we’ve gathered from across the continent, the second-year Royal Class students are truly exceptional.”

Adelia, who worked on the Titan and created the Power Cartridge.

Cristina, the inventor of Moonshine.

Then there were Louis Ankton and Anna de Gerna.

And an emperor.

A princess.

A hero.

And a Demon King.

All of the second-year Royal Class students were unusually outstanding—so outstanding, in fact, that it felt as if fate itself had placed a powerful hand upon them.

“By the way, how is Ludwig doing?”

“Ah...”

Ludwig had been assigned to the guards, and was learning from them.

At the mention of Ludwig, Sabioleen Tana’s expression darkened.

“It seems... he’s having a hard time adjusting.”

Vertus paused. “I think I made a mistake,” he said.

He belatedly realized that assigning Ludwig to the guards might have been a mistake, considering what Ludwig would face there.

Vertus had a lot on his plate, so while he cared for Ludwig, there was a limit to how meticulously he could pay attention to him.

“Perhaps it would be better for him to take on training duties.”

“I’ll ask Ludwig about his preferences.”

“Yes, Dame Tana. And about this—”

Meow.

The sound of a cat mewing interrupted Vertus, and he stopped speaking.

Both Tana and Vertus found themselves staring at a black cat, which was standing stationary in the middle of the wide, empty street.

“Hmm... what’s that?”

“It’s a cat.”

Meow.

The black cat slowly approached the emperor.

“It’s not just any cat, Dame Tana. It’s that cat.”

“When you say ‘that cat’, do you mean...?”

“It’s the cat Ellen is raising.”

“Ah...”

Tana had only heard that Ellen had picked up a cat somewhere and brought it to the Temple, but she had never seen what it looked like until this moment.

“While having it roam around was unavoidable in the Allied camp, I’m not sure if it’s right to let it roam freely, even at the Temple. I understand not wanting to confine it...”

“Well... I’ve never raised a cat, so I’m not sure what’s right either...”

It would be strange if Sabioleen Tana, who had spent her life wielding a sword, knew how to raise a cat.

“By the way, it seems to have come quite a distance from the dormitory. I wonder if it knows the way back?”

This cat they had encountered had wandered into an unexpected place.

Did cats roam so widely? Vertus didn’t know for sure, but the black cat continued to approach Vertus.

The last time he had seen it, it had struggled and tried to escape him. Vertus found this really odd.

Vertus crouched down as he watched the approaching cat. It might have gotten lost, and Ellen could be worried.

“It seems right to take it back to the dormitory...”

Just as Vertus reached out to pick up the cat, the cat’s body suddenly began to change.

Crackle... Crackle...

“Your Majesty! It’s dangerous!”

Sabioleen Tana grabbed Vertus roughly and pulled him away, creating distance between him and the strange phenomenon.

The cat was transforming into something. It quickly grew in size and took shape, leaving both Vertus and Sabioleen Tana stunned.

“Well... It hasn’t exactly been a very long time, but it’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?” Reinhart said.

The Demon King Reinhart had appeared.

***

The cat Ellen had been raising suddenly transformed into Reinhart. There was no way to know the reason or his purpose.

There was no reasonable explanation for it, but what was in front of them was the truth.

Sabioleen Tana, whose face had turned pale, drew her sword, Tempest, as she pushed Vertus behind her to shield him.

“Wait. Don’t... Don’t come any closer,” Tana said.

Sabioleen Tana’s expression was wary, and filled with fear rather than hostility. It wasn’t just Sabioleen Tana who was taken aback by the unexpected situation.

“Re—Reinhart...?” Vertus swallowed quietly, shocked by the situation unfolding before him.

“I know you’re shocked, but you know I didn’t come here to fight. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have shown up like this, right?”

If Reinhart intended to kill, there were far better ways. There was a reason for openly revealing that he was disguised as Ellen’s black cat.

“I’d like to have a quiet conversation somewhere,” Reinhart said.

Just as time had changed many things, Reinhart had changed too.

“If I stay out here in this form for too long, it’ll cause problems. You know that, right?” he added.

Even though there wasn’t a single person on the street, wandering around the Temple in Reinhart’s student form would be madness.

Vertus looked serious.

Sabioleen Tana looked over at the emperor with a confused expression. “Your Majesty...”

“Alright. Let’s go inside somewhere. Anywhere,” Vertus said.

It wasn’t beneficial for anyone if someone saw the Demon King appearing in the Temple.

***

Vertus and Tana knew better than anyone that the Demon King was aiding humanity, so they naturally understood that his sudden appearance wasn’t an act of aggression.

Still, the unexpectedness of his visit was enough to startle them.

Most of the buildings in the Temple were abandoned, including the various school buildings and shops. They chose the second floor of a nearby vacant commercial building—an old café. The door was locked, but none of them were troubled by that. Slicing through the lock with an Aura Blade, they entered the building.

Inside, the tables and chairs were covered in dust from years of disuse, but none of them minded. As long as they had a quiet place to talk, it was enough.

They each took a seat without a word.

“One thing I want to say is, let’s not bring up the cat. It’s not important, and I don’t want to talk about it,” Reinhart said first. It was clear he wouldn’t discuss why he had been in the form of a cat, what he had been doing while Ellen was taking care of him, or any such matters.

Naturally, despite the situation, that was what Tana and Vertus were most curious about.

Vertus kept his gaze on Reinhart’s nonchalant face. He realized that whatever else had changed about Reinhart over time, one thing was clear: he had become more shameless.

“Alright... let’s leave it aside for now. I think I can more or less understand why, anyway,” Vertus said.

It would have been crazy to even suspect that the cat Ellen had suddenly picked up was the Demon King. But now that he knew it, Vertus could understand why Reinhart had done such a thing.

He must have wanted to watch over Ellen.

Vertus also understood why the cat had panicked when Ellen tried to entrust it to the emperor.

Reinhart crossed his arms “Let’s not talk about the past either,” he murmured softly. “Who did what wrong, where things went wrong, those kinds of things.”

Discussing right and wrong was meaningless. The reality they had to face was right in front of them, and bringing up each party’s responsibility or parceling out the blame would only cause friction.

The Demon King had warned Vertus that if he wasn’t released, his subordinates would trigger the calamity known as the Gate Incident, but even so, the emperor hadn’t released him. Thus, the Gate Incident had been triggered. However, discussing past grievances was pointless. There were problems to solve and tasks to be carried out in th represent. Focusing on those was the only thing that mattered.

Vertus nodded.

“You know we’ve been clearing the way ahead of the Allied Forces, right?” said Reinhart.

“Yes, I know that,” Vertus said. “Can you really manipulate the weather?”

“To a limited extent.”

Reinhart didn’t specifically mention that it was Riana de Granz’s supernatural power.

Weather manipulation... The idea that he had the power to do something that was impossible for any mage made both Vertus’s and Tana’s expressions harden.

“It’s okay. If we intended to use that power to destroy humanity, you know what would have happened long ago, right?”

Both humans remained silent.

The fate of humanity had long been in the hands of the Demon King, and they were surviving because of his mercy. That was true even before they could manipulate the weather.

If the Demon King decided to wreak havoc in the heart of the imperial city without its army around, Gradium would be devastated. But knowing that it could happen and hearing the Demon King confirm that he could do it if he wanted to were different matters.

Truly, humanity would have been destroyed long ago if not for the Demon King’s mercy. Yet most people, unaware of this fact, continued to hate the Demon King.

If they considered for a moment that the Demon King could annihilate humanity in a single day, they would realize this as well, but no one considered it.

If the Demon King were to threaten the emperor, with the fate of humanity at stake, the emperor and all of humanity would have no choice but to comply.

However, the Demon King had never made such a demand of humanity.

“Anyway, I didn’t come here suddenly to make threats or demands. I just came because I have something to ask you about,” Reinhart said quietly.

“Death Knights are a large part of my military power,” he continued. “During the Battle of Serandia, we lost quite a few of them, so we tried to replenish them recently.”

Both Tana and Vertus remained silent.

“So, we tried to resurrect the corpses in the Hall of Heroes in the imperial mausoleum as Death Knights.”

“What?!” 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Both Vertus and Tana were taken aback. Hearing that they had attempted to infiltrate the imperial mausoleum shocked them. Their reaction was even stronger than Charlotte’s when she had first heard of their plan.

“How we pulled it off is a secret, but we managed to get in.”

Even more shocking was that the Demon King’s forces had already breached it without their knowledge.

Vertus listened in a daze, his face pale.

“But as you already know... All the coffins were empty. And it was not just the imperial mausoleum. We’ve confirmed that the bodies of fallen soldiers in the Allied Forces were being swapped out before being buried in the national cemetery as well.

“It seems the Empire is doing something strange with the corpses, just like how we were trying to raise them into Death Knights, but... we don’t know exactly what you’re up to. We fully intended to investigate this matter quietly, but it seems we’ve reached the limit of what we can do, so I’ve come to you directly.”

Reinhart looked Vertus in the eyes. “I’m not going to say you shouldn’t be doing such things, since I’m doing similar things myself. But we need to know what’s going on. Both my people and I are very uneasy, since we might be working with those who could one day become our enemies.

“I have just two questions for you. What are you doing at the Temple University's magic department, and are you really working with the Black Order?”

The Demon King wanted to know two things: the nature of their project and this suspicious alliance.

“You need to explain yourself,” he concluded.

A silent pause followed.

Tana would not speak before the emperor did, so the Demon King kept his gaze on Vertus.

If the Demon King had approached them earlier, things might have been different, but now that he was openly asking about confidential matters, silence was not an option.

Vertus nodded slowly, as if denying it or lying would be meaningless.

“I knew you were watching us, but... It’s rather surprising that you managed to find out,” he said with a wry smile. “Yes, we’re doing something with the corpses of the fallen and the heroes of the past. But I don’t know what you mean about the Black Order,” he added.

“Really?”

The Demon King quietly observed the emperor’s expression. Just as with Charlotte, it was difficult to discern the truth from Vertus’s expression alone. He could not tell if he was feigning ignorance or telling the truth just by looking at his face.

The emperor shrugged. “At least as far as I know, I haven’t collaborated with the Black Order. And there’s no need for you to doubt that. You know that, right?”

“Know what?”

“We’re already meddling with corpses to try to bring the Gate Incident to an end, so what’s stopping us from working with the Black Order, even if they were the ones who once tried to kill you? At this point, drawing a line between what’s acceptable and what’s not seems meaningless—we’ve already crossed it.”

Since they were already committing horrific acts, drawing a line between what was acceptable and what wasn’t was simply absurd.

“Are you saying you would have allied with the Black Order if they approached you?”

“Yes. But that hasn’t happened. And if we had allied with them, there would be no benefit in deceiving you.”

“Hmm...”

As Vertus said, once the Empire started grasping at anything that might help, there was no reason not to have allied with the Black Order if the opportunity arose.

Vertus gave a bitter smile as he observed the Demon King’s uncertain expression.

“The liar’s dilemma, huh? When I tell the truth, people don’t believe me.”

Because of his reputation for deceit, even his words of truth were being doubted.

Vertus laughed bitterly.

“Well, alright. I’ll show you what we’ve been working on,” he said.

The Demon King looked slightly surprised, as if he hadn’t expected that.