I activated the crystal and arrived at Denatel’s study.
“Welcome.”
She glanced at me briefly, and upon seeing that I looked almost unchanged from the morning, she smiled.
“Did it go well?”
The final image of Hailer flashed through my mind, and my answer came a beat too late.
“It didn’t go well, did it?”
She didn’t miss it.
“No. The main objective was completed. Not the best outcome, but at least it ended the way he and I wanted it to.”
“And?”
“…Some unpleasant clown got involved. I should have dealt with him, but he had already escaped.”
“A clown?”
“Yes. A mentally dangerous one at that.”
His madness was dangerous.
His skill or tactics didn’t quite match the highest-ranking assassins that I’d heard of from Baglos, but that didn’t matter—he was dangerous regardless.
I didn’t know what exactly he was after, but I was certain it wasn’t anything reasonable.
It wasn’t something to be brushed aside.
“So, now you’re going after him?”
“I’d like to, but it’s probably beyond my capabilities. I’ve already done what I needed to, so I plan to leave that to Baglos.”
“Yeah, leave that to the shadow guy. He’s good at that kind of thing.”
Yesterday must’ve been a real shock to her.
If she hadn’t been prepared ahead of time, it would’ve been dangerous.
My autonomous barrier wouldn’t have lasted long against those large-scale attack spells, and even if I had survived somehow, without key, I wouldn’t have been able to summon even a single proper familiar amidst the mana disruption spells.
Well, in the worst-case scenario, I would’ve used the crystal to escape here to Denatel’s study, so at least I wouldn’t have died.
Their obsession with pointless customs or their underestimation of me had been their mistake.
And the things I’d prepared—Denatel’s study and its artifacts—were things they couldn’t have anticipated, so it wouldn’t be fair to call it their failure.
“So you’re going to find that shadow guy?”
“Yes, something like that. But Lady Ropena, you often refer to our allies with terms like ‘the shadow guy’ or ‘the one that looks like he was pulled out of fire’—did you refer to us like that in front of the other legion commanders too?”
“Yep. Georges and Denatel called you guys by various titles, but Anubkut and I referred to you that way.”
“Then what did you call me?”
Suddenly I was curious.
Thanks to Georges’ influence, the title “Deceiver of Summons” had spread widely among both allies and enemies, but I wondered how else I had been referred to.
Though, given the primitive nicknames, I had a feeling it wouldn’t be flattering.
“Coward.”
I thought so.
Of course.
So everyone had a similar view of me, huh.
It was a bit bitter, but not unexpected.
“Well, you always hid behind your teammates or stayed within your barrier and just summoned familiars to fight.”
She looked slightly guilty after saying that, and added something as if to soften it.
But I could understand.
Orcan had said the same thing, and I also acknowledged it to some extent.
It was simply the best I could do.
“Well, it certainly looked that way. And it was true, to a degree.”
“But Georges held you in high regard. He was most concerned with that princess in your party, but he always told the other legion commanders never to underestimate you.”
Lord Georges, the Undead King.
Truly a remarkable figure in many ways.
“And the other legion commanders ignored his advice, right?”
“I told you. Our legion commanders didn’t get along.”
“But why though? I mean, I can understand with the others, but Lord Georges didn’t seem like someone you could dislike.”
He truly was a radiant figure.
Beautiful and exceptional.
There was nothing to criticize about his appearance or character.
Even when we met him as an enemy on the battlefield, he was a gentleman—merciful and courteous.
Well, his sense of aesthetics was perhaps a bit excessive, but that aside, I couldn’t find a single flaw in him.
And my companions agreed.
So why did the other legion commanders have bad relations with him?
“Of course, Georges always treated us with courtesy. I don’t think he disliked us, and we didn’t dislike him either. But the other commanders thought his temperament was too soft for the power he held. He was the strongest of us all, yet he rarely exercised his strength. Maybe he thought he was being considerate, but to us, it didn’t sit well.”
So it was about pride.
I couldn’t fully understand demon culture, but clearly, those cracks had been what allowed us to win.
“Well, lucky for us.”
If not for those cracks, we probably wouldn’t have won.
Failing to unite his subordinates was ultimately Demon King Thanatos’ failure in leadership.
“Wait, Georges was the strongest among the legion commanders?”
Of course, Georges’ necromantic power had been overwhelming—even greater than Lauti’s divine power.
We had seen him resurrect an army of thousands with a single command, and we saw him break through a massive sealing field cast by Lord Medluf all by himself.
He was worthy of the title “Undead King” and was the best commander among the legion leaders.
Whether his troops were alive or dead.
But we never got the impression that he was especially powerful in direct combat.
Compared to Ropena’s cataclysmic flames, Denatel’s forbidden magic, Jeka’s swordsmanship that overwhelmed Orcan and Lowell, Anubkut’s impenetrable defense, and the Beast King Raiven’s monstrous transformations, Georges’ combat abilities seemed relatively limited.
So we believed he specialized in command, management, and troop production.
Even in the final battle with the Demon King, unlike the other commanders who waited in the Demon King’s castle, Georges was on the front lines, where the allied forces were mounting a full-scale assault.
“We never got that impression.”
At my words, she smiled bitterly.
“That’s part of why we didn’t like him. He never revealed his full strength. We never fought him directly, but I’m pretty sure that even if Anubkut, Jeka, and I teamed up, we still wouldn’t be able to beat him.”
“…!”
I was stunned.
To say that three legion commanders together couldn’t defeat him… was he practically on the Demon King’s level?
“Then why wasn’t he at the Demon King’s castle during the final battle? If he had been, we would’ve been annihilated! And the allied forces who faced the necromancer legion didn’t even suffer that many casualties!”
My voice trembled with shock and outrage.
And I realized I had asked the wrong question.
“…No, that was the wrong question.”
She wouldn’t have known any of this before the final battle.
She had been trapped here all along.
“If he had that level of power, why didn’t he deal with us earlier? Maybe in the beginning, sure, but we destroyed several of his strongholds and fortresses. After that, we must have been the greatest threat to the Demon King’s army.”
Indeed, in the beginning, he showed us respect and even withdrew on his own several times.
But that doesn’t mean there were no occasions where we fought him with all our strength.
Lowell’s sword and Medluf’s magic once inflicted critical damage on him.
And now you’re telling me that wasn’t his full power?
That he was just acting?
It was hard to believe.
“Well, I don’t know exactly either, but maybe he liked you guys. And honestly, he was always skeptical about destroying the surface world. Maybe, deep down, he wanted you to succeed.”
Yeah, thinking back, some of the kindness he showed us really was strange.
And unlike other demons, the regions he ruled were peaceful.
I’ve said it before, but if he hadn’t been a demon, I always believed he could’ve been the hero who saved the world.
“Then why did he follow Thanatos in the first place?”
“Because that’s the law of the demons. Obey the Demon King. That’s the one and only commandment given to us by the great gods. One of the gods chooses a Demon King, and the demons must obey them. Thanatos became Demon King by the will of the goddess Nyx, and so we obey him—at least outwardly.”
The law of the demons.
Yeah, Medluf once told me about that.
I’d heard fragments of it when learning summoning magic.
The ancient pact among the gods, Demon Kings, and the demon race.
“But if that’s the case, then Lord Georges didn’t really obey, did he? The Demon King couldn’t have not known that. So why did he let Georges do as he pleased?”
The Demon King had stripped her of the title of Flame Legion Commander and confined her here due to repeated failures.
But if Georges had intentionally let us go, then why did the Demon King stay silent?
“I don’t really know. But the way the Demon King treated Georges was always… different from how he treated other commanders. He did treat him as a subordinate, but it was—how should I put it—more respectful.”
All this new and shocking information made my head spin.
I couldn’t know for sure, but there were clearly secrets we weren’t aware of.
It made me realize again how much of a miracle it was that we managed to save the world.
“…By the way, you keep calling him ‘Lord Georges’?”
Her playful tone pulled me back from the flood of memories.
“Well, should I start calling you Lady Ropena too?”
We looked at each other and laughed.
Honestly, what did it matter at this point?
If he had shown us kindness, then we should just be grateful, like we always were.
After that, we reminisced about old times for a while, then went to sleep.
When morning came, I left Denatel’s library and summoned Eril with an incantation.
She soon appeared in the sky and descended slowly.
“Had fun?”
She looked very pleased.
I didn’t know exactly what she’d done, but I could feel satisfaction, fullness, and something akin to pride radiating from her.
“Ogres?”
She gave a vague nod.
“Two ogre settlements?”
Bingo.
She spread her wings proudly.
Two ogre colonies in one night…
As expected of the ruler of the Lokshan Mountains.
Honestly, I felt a bit bad for the ogres.
From their perspective, it must have been like a sudden, natural disaster.
“All right, let’s go.”
I climbed onto her back, and we soared into the sky.
The journey to the Mereka Mountains was long and rather uneventful.
I had a few brief chats with Eril, but nothing particularly special.
By afternoon, the ancient forest surrounding the Mereka Mountains came into view, and we began to see wyverns soaring through the skies.
The Mereka Mountains are famous for housing a large wyvern nest.
Unlike dragons, wyverns don’t have hands.
They have two legs and wings, and with their poisonous tails and ferocious temperament, they’re considered far more dangerous than dragons—creatures most people never see in a lifetime.