Demon King of the Royal Class-Chapter 590

Ellen and Ludwig stepped out of the charred remains of the temple.

“They’ll soon realize I was inside. The holy knights can’t touch me, but they might try to silence you,” Ellen said to Ludwig.

“...”

“For now, don’t leave the Temple.”

“Okay.”

Ludwig was in a daze, and it was no wonder.

While assisting Rowen, Ludwig had found a flicker of hope that he could make a difference. But Rowen had turned out to be an inquisitor, gathering information in the refugee camp so that her order could abduct and torture heretics.

Not only that, but she had deliberately sought him out for reasons unknown. Rowen never needed Ludwig’s protection; she had intended to use him, and had succeeded.

Ludwig finally understood Rowen’s odd behavior when she saw the heretic that day. It was because she was an inquisitor. Her claim that she was focused on purifying diseases might have been a lie from the start.

“It took a while,” Louise said as the two returned.

“Yes.”

Ellen and Ludwig reunited with Heinrich and Louise, who were waiting in an alley far from the temple.

“You look like you’ve stumbled upon something you weren’t meant to know.”

Even without hearing the specifics, Louise could sense from their faces that something significant had occurred.

***

While Heinrich might not have been worried, Louise, as the commander of the Kernstadt army and heir to the throne, had a different perspective.

Ellen hesitated, unsure if she should share the information that could tarnish the reputation of the Order of the Holy Knights with someone of Louise’s stature. Yet, she found it odd that she was even debating it.

Though she had inevitably been caught up in political matters, Ellen had no interest in them. She understood that with power came responsibility, but even striving for neutrality was playing politics.

Louise, however, grasped the weight of her role more keenly than Ellen and was there not as the commander of Kernstadt’s army, but to support Ludwig.

So Ellen confided in Louise and Heinrich about what she had discovered at the temple: a hidden compound for interrogating heretics, complete with a vast underground prison and torture chamber, in which everyone inside had perished.

“The Inquisition...?”

Heinrich was taken aback by Ellen’s revelation.

“Yeah. Ludwig recognized one of the bodies in the prison as someone he had seen among the heretics just yesterday. It seems they were captured and tortured.”

Ellen also shared another critical detail: Rowen had documents with Ludwig’s photo in what seemed to be her office, which indicated she had intentionally sought him out.

“She deliberately approached Ludwig...? But why?”

“That’s still a mystery.”

Rowen was an inquisitor who had intentionally involved Ludwig for her own purposes.

Heinrich felt a pang of bitterness as he glanced at the bewildered Ludwig. He had been making progress recently, but this revelation would surely be a heavy blow.

Ludwig had been manipulated into believing that he was contributing to something meaningful, and Rowen had even captured and tortured the heretics they had encountered together in the refugee camp.

“That’s odd,” Louise said, her brow furrowing as she broke her silence. “What does interrogating heretics have to do with using Ludwig?”

None of them could make sense of it. Ludwig wasn’t a follower of the Church of the Five Great Gods, nor was he involved with the Hero Cult. He had no ties to heresy.

“Now that you mention it...” Ludwig murmured, lost in thought, “she did ask about you, Ellen.”

“About me?” Ellen asked, tilting her head in confusion.

Ludwig nodded. “She seemed to really despise the Hero Cult, which makes sense. She wanted to know what kind of person you were. And when she found out I attended the Temple, she asked about the Demon King.”

When Ludwig recounted how Rowen had suddenly brought her up, Ellen’s expression turned more serious.

“Do you think she was trying to reach Ellen through you?” Louise asked, her voice tinged with uncertainty.

“Maybe,” Ellen replied softly, nodding.

Louise bit her lip, her confusion deepening. “I don’t know what your thoughts are on the Hero Cult, but... you’re not involved in it, are you?”

“That’s right,” Ellen confirmed.

The Hero Cult had sprung up on its own, a belief system that existed without Ellen Artorius’s influence or desire.

“From an inquisitor’s point of view, they’d want to dismantle the Hero Cult. They might have tried to get to you through Ludwig to harm you,” Louise speculated.

Ludwig’s eyes widened in shock at the idea that Rowen might have used him to get to Ellen with deadly intent.

“No... that can’t be...”

“The Hero Cult isn’t connected to me, but if I were to die, it would crumble. Perhaps that’s what they’re after,” Ellen explained.

Ludwig’s face turned even paler.

If Ellen, the figure at the heart of the Hero Cult’s faith, were to die, the order would inevitably fall apart. Though it had emerged on its own, it would dissolve without Ellen.

The followers would seek solace elsewhere, perhaps returning to the Five Great Gods or finding a new source of hope.

They didn’t love Ellen; they loved the hope she represented, and anyone or anything could represent that hope.

“Now that I think about it, she did say something like that,” Ludwig muttered under his breath.

“What did she say?”

Ludwig had admitted that he didn’t know much about the Demon King, and also assumed Ellen was a victim.

“When I mentioned that Ellen seemed like a victim in all this, she asked if that’s what I really thought...” he recalled.

She had said that with a strange, inexplicable smile. It wasn’t that she was clueless; it was as if she knew something he did not.

“It felt like she was either mocking or pitying me, as if the truth I believed in was far from reality...”

Ellen was left speechless by Ludwig’s words. Louise quietly watched Ellen, who seemed as if she’d just heard something earth-shattering.

***

While the others remained oblivious, Ellen had grasped a hidden truth from the brief exchange between Ludwig and Rowen.

“She understood exactly why and how the Gate Incident unfolded.”

That’s why she couldn’t help but mock Ludwig for claiming that Ellen was a victim.

Ellen had never seen Rowen’s face, yet Ludwig, who was close to Ellen and could see her whenever he wanted, was oblivious to the truth that even Rowen knew. It was both laughable and pitiful, which was why she’d reacted that way.

“It seems likely she wanted to get close to Ellen in order to dismantle the Hero Cult.”

Ellen felt a sharp urge to bite her tongue.

‘No... that’s not it.’

Though she couldn’t voice it, Ellen felt like she knew Rowen’s true intentions.

‘She wanted revenge... on me.’

Despite being partly responsible for the Gate Incident, Ellen had shifted all the blame onto the Demon King, and was celebrated as a hero by many.

The followers of the Hero Cult condemned those faithful to the Five Great Gods as sinners and exalted only Ellen. How revolting and infuriating that must have been! Ellen’s death would have been secondary.

Rowen had also inquired about the Demon King.

If Rowen knew the truth, she might have sided with the Demon King instead.

She was a priestess of Ouen. If she had known that the Demon King, the master of Tiamata, had not wanted the Gate Incident to occur and had warned against it, she would naturally have supported him. She would have despised Ellen, who was his opposite.

Ellen was paralyzed by this revelation, unable to speak carelessly.

Ludwig, too, was even more stunned to realize that Rowen had been trying to reach Ellen through him.

Being close to someone special made him feel important, but it also meant he could be exploited, regardless of his own worth, and he had no choice but to come to terms with that.

“All the inquisitors, including Rowen, are dead,” he said. “So whatever their purpose was, it’s impossible for them to achieve it now... But that doesn’t mean everything is resolved.”

Louise turned to Ellen. “Shouldn’t we find out who attacked that temple?”

Rowen’s death left too many unsettling questions to simply consider the matter closed. The idea that Rowen might have tried to kill Ellen was still just speculation.

“Even if the inquisitor was trying to kill you, there’s something off about it,” Louise continued.

“Something off...?” Ellen echoed.

“What does kidnapping and torturing followers of the Hero Cult have to do with you?”

“Ah...”

Only then did Ellen realize that she had been so shocked by the possibility that Rowen knew the truth that she hadn’t considered what the events truly meant.

“Not all fanatics or madmen are fools. They must have realized that the rise of the Hero Cult had nothing to do with you. Did you see any signs of torture?”

“Yes, there was a torture chamber, and all the bodies showed evidence of it.”

Louise nodded thoughtfully. “Torture is often used to inflict pain, but its main purpose is to extract information. But what could they possibly learn about you from people who had never met you or only seen you from a distance?”

It was indeed puzzling.

If Rowen had approached Ludwig with the intent to kill Ellen, perhaps torturing the Hero Cult followers might have been part of that scheme. But no matter how much they tortured them, they wouldn’t uncover anything about Ellen. The inquisitors had to have known that.

“Maybe they were trying to convert them...”

“Little one, you can’t convert all the Hero Cult followers through torture.”

“That’s true...”

There were simply too many followers, and converting them through torture would require an impossible number of inquisitors.

“Who knows? Maybe they also thought it was pointless and believed killing the Hero was the only way to dismantle the Hero Cult. But surely they realized that attempting to kill the Hero in the current situation is sheer madness... I just don’t know.”

Whether it was just the actions of a fanatic or if it was driven by some other motive remained a mystery. While one could guess at Rowen’s intentions from the clues, the truth was elusive.

This had seemed like Ludwig’s problem at first, but as they dug deeper, it appeared more likely that it involved Ellen instead.

Rowen’s true purpose was still a mystery, and the identity of the temple’s attacker was unclear. If Ellen pursued this further, it would undoubtedly become dangerous.

“The Order of the Holy Knights or the Church of the Five Great Gods—either way, they must be aware of this. The priestess couldn’t have been acting alone. And we can’t be certain if she truly intended to kill me. It’s just a possibility.”

“That’s true. The biggest danger is to jump to conclusions before we know all the facts,” Louise replied.

“From here on, I’ll handle it alone,” Ellen declared with calm resolve. “It’s my problem.”

This was a perilous matter of politics. She couldn’t rely on Louise, Heinrich, or Ludwig for help. Louise observed Ellen’s determined expression in silence.

Here was someone so young, yet she was willing to shoulder so much weight without hesitation.

Ludwig had called her a victim of everything, and her resolve to face it all alone, whether she wanted to or not, was evident.

Louise knew it was better not to get any more involved, but she couldn’t help feeling a pang of sympathy for Ellen and her determination to bear it all by herself.

A deeply personal issue...

Louise reflected on Ellen’s somber words.

“A personal problem, you say.”

She offered a wry smile.

For someone who carried so many burdens, even the smallest issues seemed tied to them.

What did it matter if she was royalty or an heir? If the Hero died, humanity might be doomed, and the Hero was about to face something perilous.

“Your problem is humanity’s problem.”

“...”

If Ellen’s death meant the end of everything, then Louise’s burdens paled in comparison to the weight of Ellen’s life.

Ellen felt overwhelmed by Louise’s unwavering support.

***

As an inquisitor, Rowen was part of the Order of the Holy Knights and the Church of the Five Great Gods. Thus, there was one place that Ellen needed to visit to learn more about Rowen: the headquarters of the Order of the Holy Knights.

Louise, Heinrich, and Ludwig accompanied her. Ludwig had initially asked Ellen to uncover the truth about Rowen’s unjust death, but it turned out instead that Rowen was the one responsible for countless unjust deaths.

In this light, the attackers who had killed Rowen might have been justified.

Rowen wasn’t innocent, and Ludwig had never questioned Rowen’s facade up to this point. He had noticed suspicious behavior, but his hope of achieving something meaningful by staying with Rowen had kept him from doubting her.

Ludwig was desperate to see this matter through, unsure of his next steps but eager to quell his growing frustration. He needed to understand the full extent of the situation, to uncover its origins and grasp what was truly unfolding.

Like Ellen, he craved answers, even if they might only deepen his frustration rather than bring relief.

Had Rowen really intended to kill Ellen? Why had she tortured the followers of the Hero Cult? Were the Order of the Holy Knights aware of any of this?

Ellen had boldly entered the temple despite it being under heavy guard, and entering the headquarters of the Order of the Holy Knights felt equally daunting.

“I want to meet the commander of the Order of the Holy Knights,” she declared.

That single sentence was enough.