Demon King of the Royal Class-Chapter 576

If reviving a dead friend had been completely impossible, they wouldn’t have even attempted it. However, the fact that it was possible, albeit in a clumsy manner, only led to despair because perfect success was unattainable.

In this absurd world, it seemed that the one unchanging truth was this: death could not be reversed by anything.

Since they had failed to bring back Ashir, they wouldn’t have even attempted it in Delphine’s case—besides, her body had never been found.

What they’d achieved was merely a restoration that resembled resurrection. While the bodies that were reanimated had the abilities, strength, and appearance of the living, they lacked the essence of the person they once had been.

They were nothing more than a moving taxidermy.

Such a thing could be used in war, but not for establishing relationships.

It might even surpass the original in utility as a combat machine, but it was utterly worthless to anyone who truly wished for a real resurrection, and could never be used for that purpose.

The mention of Ashir created an uneasy silence, and I didn’t bring it up again.

If, by some miracle, the dead could return... Everyone had to have considered that possibility, not just Cristina and Anna. Myself, Vertus, and even Sabioleen Tana must have all thought the same.

“Reinhart.”

“Yeah?”

“You can’t justify all of this, can you?”

“I didn’t think you were the type to care about such things.”

Vertus gave a bitter smile. “I didn’t think I’d become someone who cared about such things either.”

The hierarchy that defined our relationship before was now gone. We seemed like equals now that I had become the Demon King and he, the emperor.

No, it wasn’t even that. Vertus seemed to have taken on a more humble role.

We, who had once been a prince and a beggar, were meeting again as emperor and Demon King.

“I owe you an apology,” Vertus said.

“If it’s an apology for the past, it’s unnecessary, as I said earlier.”

“No, it’s not about that. Follow me,” he said, taking the lead.

As I followed Vertus, larger vats began to appear. They were three times bigger than the others, and although I couldn’t recognize the faces of those within, it was clear that each of the bodies that were being restored were of extreme importance.

Vertus stood in front of a certain incubation vat and looked at me, as if inviting me to look inside.

Inside was the body of an old man with white hair.

“We’ve had this body all along. As expected, it was restored, but it didn’t open its eyes. In other words... The process failed. He had to be someone important to you... I’m sorry. I had to use everything I could. I wanted to tell you that I wasn’t deliberately deceiving you by not mentioning this... that I didn’t cooperate with the Black Order. I have no excuse if you resent me for this...”

“Who is this?”

‘No, what is this in the first place? Why is he apologizing for this?’

As I stood there, bewildered, both Vertus and Sabioleen Tana seemed taken aback, as if surprised that I didn’t know.

“How can I forgive you if I don’t even know who this is? Who is this perso—”

An old man.

White hair.

An apology.

“Oh, wait a minute.” I had a vague idea. “Is this person... That person? That...”

‘Who was it again?’

I couldn’t remember the name.

“It’s Sir Larken Simmernstait.” Sabioleen Tana answered for me. “The first of the Four Demon Lords of the Dark Land. He was my mentor.”

‘Right, that person.’

Sabioleen Tana seemed to recall something and slowly nodded. “Come to think of it, you said you lost all memories of being a prince of the Dark Land...”

Vertus nodded blankly as if he had just remembered. “Oh yeah, I remember as well, now that you mention it.”

In the end, I didn’t recognize the face or remember the person I was supposed to know, and Vertus had ended up apologizing unnecessarily.

But no matter how I thought about it, it was strange that I couldn’t recognize the face of a former Demon Lord.

***

Larken Simmernstait was the former leader of Shanapell and once the continent’s greatest Swordmaster, and had reached the rank of Grandmaster.

Although he retired and withdrew from active duty, after the outbreak of the Great War, he somehow became the first of the Four Demon Lords of the Demon King’s army.

As such, he was hated by humanity almost as much as the Demon King himself.

After the Great War, the Empire took possession of Larken Simmernstait’s body. There may not have been a particularly compelling reason not to take it.

When Vertus began bringing the bodies of numerous war heroes back as homunculus golems, there was no reason not to include Larken’s body among them.

Someone who had reached the pinnacle of the Grandmaster class with all their abilities intact would undoubtedly be a tremendous asset if brought back to pseudo-life.

However, just as they did not succeed in turning all bodies into golems, Larken Simmernstait’s body did not come back to life for whatever reason.

In any case, Vertus had apologized nervously, thinking he might have been an important figure to me. The fact that I didn’t remember Larken at all made the situation a little awkward.

Wasn’t it time they believed me when I said I had no memories of the Dark Land, though? It wasn’t that they distrusted me—it probably just never crossed their minds.

Honestly, I felt no resentment over their attempt to use Larken’s body.

I didn’t know that old man well enough to be angry or anything.

I couldn’t even bring myself to care about the former Demon King Baalier, so how could I possibly relate to a Demon Lord?

“Do you have the bodies of the other Demon Lords?” I asked, and Vertus shook his head.

“No. The reason we retrieved Larken’s body in the first place was to look into whether some magical means was used to make him betray humanity.”

“Oh... I see.”

The Empire had retrieved the body to find out if the Demon King had access to magic capable of brainwashing even a Grandmaster.

“Of course, it turns out Larken hadn’t been brainwashed.”

In the end, I learned everything I needed to know... What the Empire was doing, and what was actually going on.

Ethically, it was a completely wrong and dangerous thing to do, and it could become a significant threat to me later.

If I wanted to find a reason to make them stop this, I could. But there were just as many reasons to leave them to it.

The project had already progressed significantly, and had already reached the stage of practical application.

These golems were already operational, being used as guards to protect the magic department and this research building, as well as making up the monster subjugation squads patrolling outside the capital.

No one would suspect them because they wore helmets that made them unrecognizable.

“Reinhart, if this army is deployed, the Allied Forces might end the war sooner than planned. It could even be instantaneous.”

“Indeed.”

If countless heroes from history were revived, humanity’s power would be elevated to an unprecedented level, incomparable even to humanity’s strength at the peak of the Great War.

No matter how many monsters the Gates churned out, it would no longer be a problem. Perhaps even the dragon from the other world would be hunted down effortlessly by them.

The end of the Gate Incident felt genuinely imminent.

The sight I witnessed was both terrifying and overwhelming.

This army of the dead might truly pose a threat to Edina and to me.

For the moment, though, the final warp gate remained the top priority.

This army could ultimately be the key to preventing me from having to use Alsbringer in that final moment.

What happened afterward was a matter for later.

“Someday, we’ll have to pay the price for all of this,” Vertus said.

“...”

“Reinhart, there’s something I need to tell you,” Vertus said softly, as if he had made a decision.

***

I had a conversation with Vertus. It wasn’t a long one.

He said that someone would have to pay the price for all of this.

There were other things we talked about, but that was the gist of it.

I decided not to interfere with the Empire or this project. It wasn’t something I could have interfered with, anyway.

Regarding the connection with the Black Order, I had no choice but to accept Vertus’s assertion, regardless of the credibility of his words.

Ultimately, I had to make a choice, although at this point I did not know if it was a choice that would only leave me with regret, or if it was the lesser of two evils.

After our conversation, I left the laboratory and entered the lobby of the research building.

Sabioleen Tana looked at me. She held a great deal of anger towards Larken Simmernstait’s decision to join the Demon King’s army and hated him as a traitor to humanity. However, she would never be able to know the true reasons or circumstances behind that betrayal.

“Dame Tana, I don’t know what kind of person Larken Simmernstait was. To be honest, today was the first time I saw his face,” I said.

“...”

“But the former Demon King Baalier took Akasha from Cantus Magna in order to create a new world, and he intended to take all the demons with him to this new world.”

I had seen the message left by the former Demon King, after all.

“Perhaps Larken Simmernstait sympathized with the Demon King’s intentions,” I added.

Only the Demon King, myself in this era, and the Four Demon Lords knew the true purpose of the former Baalier.

Larken Simmernstait would certainly have tried to help complete Akasha.

“In the end,” I said, “they all must have hated fighting.”

If the demons disappeared, the conflict between demons and humans would vanish, and so would the fighting. But because Akasha itself was already too powerful a weapon, there could be no dialogue or persuasion.

Both sides had fought because they were not able to understand each other, and one side had been annihilated.

“Probably... Yes...” Sabioleen Tana lowered her head and remained silent.

In the end, everyone wanted peace.

The desires and wishes of all beings are so simple that they seem trivial.

To be happy.

Not to get hurt.

For the world to be peaceful.

These simple and intuitive desires lead to different actions.

To achieve peace, some dream of a new world, and some draw their swords.

“What happened to Akasha...?”

“It’s probably correct to say that Akasha itself became the other world. I don’t know for sure. It probably can’t be used again.”

It was impossible to know the origin of Akasha. Only the aftermath of its misuse remained.

It was up to us to confront those consequences—to piece together what fragments were left, and from them, carve out even the smallest semblance of peace.

The business here was done.

The Empire was engaged in something far more dangerous than I had imagined, but I chose to leave them be, and I had no second thoughts about that decision.

“Are you leaving?” Vertus asked.

“Yeah, I should go. What’s the point of staying here any longer?” I said.

Vertus looked somewhat regretful.

We had met and talked by chance. He wouldn’t be able to find me on his own.

I was about to turn away when he spoke.

“Wait, how can I find you if I need to?” he asked. It sounded like he thought I was leaving for good.

“The dormitory,” I replied.

Vertus seemed confused. “What?”

“I’ll be at the dormitory. Probably in Ellen’s room.”

He stared at me, uncomprehending.

“I’ll be here during the winter. If you have something to say, come by.”

When I transformed into a cat again, the expressions on Tana and Vertus’s faces were priceless.

Meow.

“...”

“...”

I had become someone who felt no embarrassment anymore. No matter what looks they gave me, I felt no change in my mental or emotional state.

Meow, meow.

“You crazy... bastard...”

Their expressions became even more amusing when I acted playfully.

‘Honestly, it’s adorable, isn’t it? Even I find myself cute when I look in the mirror in this form.’

***

Ludwig had been given a special mission—something beyond the regular duties of a guard.

His task was to escort a priestess carrying out purification rites in a plague-ridden section of the refugee zone.

As they made their way toward the afflicted area, Ludwig and Rowen conversed about a variety of topics, their quiet dialogue a small comfort amid the looming shadow of disease and despair.

“Aren’t you all being escorted by the Order of the Holy Knights...?” Ludwig asked. It seemed safer for priests and priestesses to be escorted by holy knights in disguise, given the dangerous locations they had to go to.

Rowen shook her head.

“If we had that sort of manpower, we would be able to send priests to more places,” she replied.

Ludwig nodded “I see.”

The Holy Orders just did not have the manpower. On top of that, most priests and holy knights were dispatched to the battlefield, which caused an even greater shortage of personnel.

“If it’s not too much to ask, how did you lose your arm...?”

“I was bitten by a snake.”

“A snake...?”

“It was a snake with petrifying venom. It wasn’t a big snake, but monsters aren’t less dangerous just because they’re small...”

“I see...” Rowen couldn’t hide her sadness as she looked at Ludwig’s empty sleeve.

“It’s okay,” Ludwig replied. “It’s better than losing my life.”

Was it better to survive with a missing arm than to die and never return? Ludwig didn’t know if that was truly the case, but he thought it was the right thing to say.

His lost arm wasn’t important. It was painful to think about the other things he had lost. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

“By the way, how serious is this epidemic?” Ludwig asked, forcibly changing the subject.

“The cause of each individual epidemic isn’t severe. Not every epidemic necessarily leads to widespread death. Most are minor illnesses, like a cold.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, but the important thing is that a cold can mean completely different things for a healthy person versus someone who is weak.”

“Oh... I see.”

A healthy person might recover from a cold in a few days, but for someone who was weakened, a cold could be a life-threatening illness.

“Even if we treat and purify the illness itself, the basic living conditions are just too poor. Even if these people manage to recover from the illness, we cannot prevent a severely-weakened body from dying.”

Since death from physical weakness wasn’t a disease, it couldn’t be cured.

Even if people were saved from the disease, those who were already too weakened would still die. That was something no one could prevent.

“If those bodies are left to decay, it might cause another plague to break out. It’s a chain reaction.”

Rowen’s words caused Ludwig’s complexion to darken even more.

“Right now, it’s winter, so the rate of decay is slower. That means this current epidemic is less severe than last summer. Of course, we can hardly call that fortunate.”

The cold was preventing dead and abandoned bodies from decaying, but the cold itself killed people, so it couldn’t necessarily be called fortunate.

The epidemic was a problem, but the greater issue was the poor living conditions. People were dying from illnesses that shouldn’t have been fatal.

Even if they purified the cause behind this current epidemic, another one would inevitably follow.

Rowen was saying that the work she was doing was just a temporary measure.

Rowen was someone forced to pour water into a bottomless pit, fully aware of its futility.

“Above all, there are just too few of us around. Most of the priests and holy knights have been deployed on the front lines, and the number of priests of Ouen has decreased drastically. Some have died, but more have converted or... abandoned their faith altogether.”

“Oh... I see.”

“Yes... Because of the Demon King issue...”

It wasn’t just the general public who resented Ouen; there was great confusion among the Order’s priests as well.

Countless believers felt betrayed by their god who had chosen the Demon King, and it was the same for his priests.

Ouen and Alse had not only lost followers, but the ranks of the clergy had also thinned.

Not only had their numbers decreased, but most of the remaining priests and holy knights were being deployed on the front lines. Because of this, it was only natural that there were always too few priests from the Ouen order to deal with such epidemics.

Moreover, for the priests and priestesses of Ouen, the refugee camps—and even the entire capital—could be more dangerous than the battlefield.

Ludwig began to think that Rowen’s work of purifying the epidemic spreading in the capital was more dangerous and noble than participating in the war.

Rowen wandered the city, quietly doing the work that needed to be done in places where no one praised her and most despised her. Yet, she never gave up her faith in Ouen.

“Still, as a human, I sometimes wonder,” Rowen said quietly as she walked, eyes fixed on the ground, “what kind of being the Demon King truly is...”

The Demon King.

To most, the name alone was like a stone lodged in the throat—a symbol of hatred, a harbinger of despair. No one really knew what kind of being he was; there were only rumors.

But Ludwig wasn’t like most people. He hadn’t just heard the stories—he had lived close to the truth.

And that was why he hated the Demon King even more, because he had once lived close to him, without even knowing.

“He was a classmate of mine.”

“Pardon?” Rowen turned to Ludwig, a look of confusion spreading across her face.

“The Demon King... That is... I lived with him. At the Temple.”

Rowen stared at Ludwig, mouth slightly open, stunned into silence.

It was only then that Ludwig realized—whether he liked it or not—that having been close to someone as significant as the Demon King meant others would inevitably see him as someone significant as well.