Demon King of the Royal Class-Chapter 599

It had all started with Rowen’s death, but the real issue was the robbing of the underground tomb of the Order of the Holy Knights.

Dettomorian had hinted that everything would make sense once they found Ashir. No one knew what that meant yet. However, they found themselves at the national cemetery, the only link between the two incidents.

The Tomb of the Saints had been desecrated, and there was a chance those remains had been resurrected as undead.

Dettomorian had said something else in passing, but ultimately, he’d insisted that everything would become clear once they found Ashir.

If finding Ashir meant visiting this Imperial National Cemetery, that suggested they might need to explore other cemeteries too. That was a chilling thought.

Louise quietly said, “Could it be that those who created the undead did the same thing here...?”

Did the raising of the undead happen not just at the Tomb of the Saints, but also at the national cemetery?

Ludwig looked puzzled by Louise’s suspicion.

“But... the underground tomb of the Order of the Holy Knights’ isn’t accessible to most people... This place is so open. Could such a thing be possible here...?”

Indeed, the national cemetery was a wide open space. If grave robbery or the raising of the undead had occurred here, someone would surely have noticed.

“It might be possible if it happened at night while no one was around. It could very well have been performed if a mage who could cast noise-cancelling magic and teleportation was involved.”

The underground tomb of the Order of the Holy Knights and the Imperial National Cemetery...

What if Dettomorian was suggesting that the raising of the undead had not only occurred beneath the main temple of the Order of the Holy Knights?

“But if such a thing happened, shouldn’t this place be utterly messed up, like the tomb beneath the Holy Knights’ temple? Raising the dead is not a trivial matter.”

Heinrich’s question was valid. Large scale looting if the remains or raising of the undead could not be ignored. If such a thing occurred at the national cemetery, the imperial family would have taken action. The guards would be on high alert, just like the Order of the Holy Knights.

However, the snow-covered national cemetery was calm and peaceful. It didn’t look like a place where an ominous event like the raising of undead had occurred.

“You’re right. It seems like nothing happened here,” Ludwig said.

It was unlikely that a place where such an incident had occurred would remain this quiet.

Both locations were cemeteries... What did it mean? Or were they all just speculating on non-existent clues based on Dettomorian’s nonsense? They couldn’t tell.

Amidst all the uncertainty...

“Wait a minute...” Ellen said, biting her lip.

“Did you figure something out?” Louise asked.

“We waited in line to come here, didn’t we?”

“In line?” Louise replied.

“Yes,” Ellen said as she looked at Louise. “Do you remember that we had to wait in line to enter this place?”

Louise seemed puzzled. “Yes, I certainly do.”

At the time, they hadn’t thought much of it, but now that Ellen realized the only commonality between this place and the site of the incident, what hadn’t been questioned before had now become something to question.

“Why did we line up?”

“Why line up?” Louise repeated back to her, and Ellen furrowed her brow.

“To be precise, the line wasn’t the issue; they were checking identities. The line had formed because of the identity check.”

Louise nodded. “Yes... That’s right. We didn’t undergo a thorough identity check thanks to you.”

Because the guards had recognized Ellen’s face immediately, they had allowed the other three to pass through the main gate without conducting a detailed identity check on them.

It had been over quickly, but it had only just happened. Ellen had been observing the queue.

“Access was not being restricted based on the visitors’ status,” she said.

The visitors consisted of nobles, soldiers, and even people who looked impoverished.That meant visiting wasn’t being restricted based on social status.

“There weren’t many visitors, but everyone could enter. That means this is a public place,” Ellen said.

“That’s right.”

“Why are they checking identities in a place open to the public?”

Why conduct identity checks if they were not restricting access?

“It might be so that they can track people down if a crime occurs. There are bound to be many unidentified individuals. But... I’m not sure if this is a place where crimes are likely to occur...”

Crime would only happen in places where there was potential for it. What kind of crime could possibly occur in a cemetery that warranted verifying the identity of every entrant?

None of the four knew how the national cemetery’s entry system worked. But something felt off.

“We should meet with the director. Whether something happened or not, the director would know something.”

Although they still didn’t know what was going on, Ellen’s mind moved differently than Heinrich’s.

Dettomorian wasn’t just spouting nonsense. There had to be some meaning behind what he said.

There had to be something there to discover.

***

Meeting with the director of the Imperial National Cemetery wasn’t difficult. If Ellen could summon the commander of the Order of the Holy Knights to attend to her at their main temple, securing a meeting with someone in the Imperial National Cemetery was even easier.

When Ellen appeared at the national cemetery’s administration office, which was near the main gate, the director hurriedly ushered her whole party into his office as if his feet were on fire.

Ellen’s group was composed of two Master-class individuals and one superhuman capable of Mana Reinforcement. Then there was also Heinrich—someone with supernatural abilities, but was not physically as prominent. Heinrich finally let out the breath he’d been holding, having been forced to trudge a long distance through the snowy winter streets without using his powers.

“Phew...”

As Heinrich entered the room, Louise noticed his hands and nose looked almost frozen.

“Oh... were you cold?” she muttered softly.

“Ah, no, sister... I’m fine.”

Louise couldn’t help but feel guilty after belatedly realizing that she had neglected an issue she should have been concerned about but had not thought about because it didn’t affect her much.

Heinrich, who had warmed up slightly inside the office, was no longer in the habit of whining, so he did his best to pretend he was fine.

The group successfully found themselves inside the director’s office.

“I-it’s an honor to meet you, Hero!”

“Hello.”

The director of the national cemetery—whether noble or commoner, they did not know—couldn’t hide his awe upon seeing Ellen. This was the typical reaction she received. It had been the same with the guards at the main gate.

Although she sometimes felt a chill at such a reaction, Ellen had no choice but to get used to this kind of treatment.

The four of them sat idly while the director busily prepared tea.

What could they say was the purpose of their visit? It was hard to tell if he was just surprised to see Ellen or if he had something shady to hide. If this place were somehow related to the incident they were investigating, the director would know something, whether or not he was involved.

The director bustled around and prepared five cups of tea, one each for his guests and himself. Ellen took a sip out of courtesy.

Ellen wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about tea, but she sensed sincerity and excitement from the way the director bustled about, as if he had encountered a once-in-a-lifetime fortune.

Whenever someone who met Ellen treated her this way, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of unease and guilt that she could never get used to.

‘Who am I to deserve this treatment? I’m not someone who should be treated like this...’

Struggling to suppress such thoughts from taking over her mind, Ellen spoke. “Actually... We had to line up when we came in.”

“Oh, no... My apologies, Hero. If you had told the guards, you could have come straight in...”

“No, no. That’s not what I meant,” Ellen corrected him quickly.

The director’s complexion turned pale as he misunderstood Ellen’s statement. Ellen thought that if she misspoke, the middle-aged man in front of her might have a heart attack.

If you looked at it that way, it would seem absurd—a hero of humanity showing up in his office simply because she hadn’t been allowed to cut in line. But Ellen wasn’t thinking about that at all.

“They were checking the identities of the visitors,” she said.

“Yes, that’s correct,” the director replied.

“Are there people who can’t enter the national cemetery?” Ellen asked.

“Sorry? Oh...” The director scratched his head, looking apologetic. “Well... people who do not have a clear place of residence or who are unregistered... They’re restricted from entering the cemetery, yes.”

Unidentified individuals and those with no clear place of residence... Such people were not common before, but now, they were as common as pebbles in the imperial capital.

“You mean refugees, right?” Ellen pressed.

“Well... To be precise, yes. Of course, not all refugees are banned. If they have a registered identity and a definite place of residence...”

But most didn’t even have proper shanties, and even those who did were not sure if they would be able to keep them for long, which made it impossible for the refugees living in these shanties to have proper identification. This meant they couldn’t enter the national cemetery.

However, this wasn’t just about status or wealth.

“You mean those who can be tracked down... right?” Ellen asked.

“Yes...” the director confirmed.

Those who could be tracked down were allowed entry, and those who couldn’t were not.

The reason for this was simple: crime.

The Order of the Holy Knights likely suspected heretics or demon god cultists among the refugees to be the culprits for the grave-robbing incident.

Was it the same in this cemetery? If that were the case, the reasoning wasn’t entirely unconvincing. After all, refugees might commit crimes in the national cemetery—sneaking into buildings to escape the cold, stealing things, or looting graves. Controlling access to the place wasn’t entirely strange.

Ellen furrowed her brow, pondering her next question, but the director took it as a sign of displeasure.

“H-Hero, of course, the refugees have the right to mourn. Surely... they’re all pitiful and unfortunate people, I understand that.”

When he noticed Ellen’s thoughtful frown after hearing about refugees being restricted from entering, the director couldn’t help but think that Ellen found the restrictions unfair.

“Yes, that’s right,” Ellen answered absentmindedly. She wasn’t curious about it, nor was she there to argue about it.

The nervous director began to babble. “Naturally, until recently, the national cemetery was completely open to the public. Refugees, of course, and anyone else could enter. Yes, indeed...”

“Sorry?”

Ellen couldn’t help but react to the warden’s sudden excuse, and neither could the other three.

“Are you saying the restrictions were only put in place recently?” Louise asked.

The director nodded vigorously, even though he didn’t know who Louise was.

“Yes, yes, exactly. It’s very inconvenient for mourners, so why would we do this unless necessary? There hadn’t been any issues before...”

“Anyone could enter, but now they can’t...?” Ellen wondered aloud.

Something had to have happened for them to have implemented such an inefficient system.

“Did something happen?” Ellen asked.

“Well... It might not be a big deal, depending on the case... But something more serious than theft occurred... so we had no choice...”

“What happened?”

The director, looking apologetic but ultimately resigned, began to sweat. “One of the mourners vandalized the cemetery.”

At that single sentence, the expressions of the four simultaneously hardened.

***

One of the visiting mourners had vandalized the cemetery. If they had heard that without knowing anything, they might not have thought much about it. Such things happened, after all.

However, given what they knew, all of them couldn’t help but feel it was too coincidental.

Grave robbery in one cemetery and vandalism in another... It was too similar for it to be just a coincidence.

“What do you mean by vandalism?” Ellen asked. Her expression grew more serious, and the director couldn’t help but sweat nervously.

“It seemed like someone attempted to rob one of the graves in the cemetery... They failed to dig it up, but... just the attempt was a big deal for us...”

“Did you catch the culprit?”

“Well... at that time, we didn’t have any restrictions on entry...”

They had discovered signs of an attempted grave robbery, but had not been able to track down and apprehend the culprit because the national cemetery had been fully open to the public without any restrictions at that time.

The administrators of the national cemetery had been shocked that someone had attempted such looting, and since then, they had only allowed those whose identities could be verified to enter.

If it had been a simple theft, or if it had happened somewhere else, it might have been different, but attempting to loot a grave in the national cemetery, one of the most important cemeteries in the Empire, made such measures understandable.

“Are you sure they failed in their attempt?” Ellen asked.

“Sorry? Ah, well... The grass above the grave was damaged, but that was all... We suspect they failed because the ground was frozen and the shovel couldn’t penetrate it...”

It seemed the looting attempt had failed, so even if the timing was coincidental, it wasn’t impossible that different groups of people were responsible for the two incidents.

Louise focused on something more intuitive. “Even if looters came and dug up the graves... is there anything worth taking in the first place?”

Was there anything valuable enough in the coffins for looters to risk entering the national cemetery?

“Well, we don’t know what those crazy looters were thinking... so we don’t know either.”

“You don’t know?”

At the sudden claim of ignorance, both Louise and Ellen couldn’t help but stare at the director.

Information on whether there were valuable treasures buried with the deceased was of utmost importance. If there were, then this could be explained as the actions of simple looters, but if not, it would arouse more suspicion.

The director, who had been briefly excited by the unexpected appearance of the Hero, now felt like he was being interrogated, and it was clearly draining him.

“Well... Recently, we’ve been burying coffins sent to us from the Allied camp according to the usual procedures. The funerals for the deceased had already been conducted by priests with the Allied Forces, so... we don’t know if there were any valuable burial items.”

“Ah... I see,” Louise nodded slowly in understanding.

“Burial items...?” Ludwig, who didn’t understand, asked.

“They are items that are buried with the deceased. They can be something the deceased cherished in life, or something that the bereaved wanted to be buried with them. Naturally, when a high-ranking noble dies, these items can be very valuable, and attractive pickings for grave robbers,” Louise answered.

“Ah... I see.” 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Normally, funeral rites were held by the officials at the national cemetery, but the remains of the fallen soldiers had been transported to the national cemetery after their funerals, which had been held at the battlefield.

Naturally, the director couldn’t be certain if there were any items of value placed within the coffins that might attract grave robbers, and he admitted as much.

If he was telling the truth, then it seemed grave robbers had recently broken into the national cemetery, but their exact intentions—whether to steal these burial items or something else—remained unclear. However, their attempt had failed.

In response, the administration had decided to restrict entry only to those whose identities could be verified. After all, if a grave-robbing incident were to actually occur, the administrative staff would face serious consequences.

These precautions seemed reasonable, given the potential presence of valuables among the burial items.

The idea of treasures in the coffins wasn’t far-fetched, and so the presence of grave-robbers wasn’t entirely surprising. It was plausible enough, and it seemed the robbers had failed this time. And yet, it all felt too coincidental.

Ellen quietly watched the director, sensing that the truth was just out of reach.

She had one final question.

“The date,” she asked. “When did the looting incident happen?”

“Ah, yes... I’ll find out right away.”

The director hurried to his desk, rifling through papers.

Unlike the casual attitude of the commander of the Order of the Holy Knights, the director seemed genuinely afraid of and respectful toward Ellen, and was eager to assist.

His demeanor suggested he wasn’t involved in the incident and wasn’t hiding anything, but even that could have been an act.

Soon, he had an answer.

“Um... I’m not sure if this was the exact day it happened. The cemetery grounds are vast, and our manpower is limited, so it might have occurred a few days earlier...”

“It’s fine. When was it discovered?”

“It was discovered on the evening of December 3rd.”

At this, Ellen turned to Louise.

“It’s that day,” Louise said.

“Yes.”

December 3rd—the same day the Tomb of the Saints had been ransacked.

This was beyond coincidence; the suspicion had grown too strong to be dismissed as mere chance.