Chapter 43 - The Demon, the Royal Capital, and the Demon Lord
A small body crawled along the ground.
Blood flowing from the wound on her back soaked into her white dress, and as it rubbed against the ground, a red path was laid out where she had passed.
She desperately moved both arms, trying to advance. Dust and sand turned her reddened clothes even blacker.
Her face was wet with tears and saliva.
She took thirty seconds to move a distance equivalent to a single human step.
The shadows of demons fell over her.
Of the three demons wearing familiar robes, one lightly stepped on one of her arms. It seemed they were not applying much force. But to her, the demon's foot was a wall many times larger than herself. The demons were as large as giants. If the demon shifted its foot even slightly, it could easily crush her head.
She turned her face, peeking out from her disheveled silver hair, pale blue, and pleaded with the demon.
From the movement of her lips, it looked as though she was saying, "Stop."
The demon laughed.
Its foot—the heel of a hard leather shoe—crushed her arm.
She screamed. But no sound was heard.
Her slender arm was crushed effortlessly by the foot that ground into it.
After a while, the demon's foot lifted. The arm beneath the heel was crushed and distorted, becoming ugly.
She said nothing. Leaving her overflowing tears as they were, she bit her lip and advanced using only one arm this time.
Right beside her, the demons laughed loudly.
She, the object of their ridicule, let new blood flow from her crushed arm as she aimed for the exit. While doing so, she called out her younger sister's name just once.
――There were various patterns to such silent dreams, but when pieced together, they formed a coherent story.
Her wings were torn off, she was driven out from a safe place, captured by demons, and tormented.
His beloved had been bullied and nearly died countless times. Her younger sister always disappeared halfway through.
When he first started having these dreams, Louis had desperately tried to stop them, but now he simply watched over them.
Such a nauseating scene was surely a message from her.
She could no longer speak.
Before he knew it, she had lost her voice.
He had forgotten the taste of her tea.
He had forced pain upon her to keep her alive, but it was no longer possible.
And then, on a certain snowy day, one year after she lost her wings.
He had her body changed so that she could feel nothing, think nothing.
Even now.
She was not dead.
But she was not alive, either.
＊
"If one kills three members of an enemy's family in retaliation for having their only relative killed, which crime is heavier, I wonder?"
"Normally speaking, the one who killed three, meow."
Screams. Roars. Collapsing houses.
"But unless the sense of despair is equalized, it cannot be considered equal. If it is not equal, one cannot be satisfied that revenge has been taken."
"Hmm... So you mean there's a huge difference between having a family to support you and not having one?"
"That's right. Besides, if the first person hadn't been killed, the other three wouldn't have been killed either. ...Perhaps I don't need to use such a complicated example. I simply believe that the one who struck first is at fault."
"That's true. You can see that just by looking at this."
Flames. Black smoke. Burning street trees.
"Ahaha! Surely, the scale is too different here."
While viewing these scenes with cold eyes, he burst out laughing at his partner's reaction. He held his stomach, letting the hot wind carrying sparks play with his blonde hair.
Accompanied by a child with cat ears, he strolled leisurely down a nostalgic main street. Beside them, dog-shaped monsters with grotesque appearances and ape-like monsters were destroying the city.
After confirming that his parental home remained, he traced the path opposite to that day. If he walked straight ahead from here, he would reach the Royal Castle.
The child glanced at him with exasperation as he continued to chuckle, unable to stop laughing. For some reason, he reached out his hand to the child.
"Shall we hold hands?"
His masculine hand was clad in a white glove. The child thought that this must be what having an older brother was like. After all, a man dressed in something like a black military uniform was rarely seen even among the many monsters.
The child was fascinated by his swaying golden aiguillette, suppressing the instinct to reach out, and turned their face away with a huff.
"Don't treat me like a child... meow."
"Was it necessary to rephrase that?"
"Treating me like a child, meow!"
People groaned by the roadside, buildings collapsed somewhere, and it was a night shrouded in smoke, where not even the starry sky could be seen.
Click, clack, they advanced, stepping loudly on the cobblestones.
He, who had been continuing an indecently light conversation, suddenly stopped.
At the end of his gaze was one of the standing streetlights.
A puddle had formed at the base of that streetlight, reflecting the blazing fire. If he traced the source of the water, there was a fish shop he recognized. Perhaps the ice used for preservation had melted.
He looked at the fish shop's sign, which was burning away.
――Ha, he snorted through his nose.
He pointed his fingertip at the single lamp he had targeted, and wind swirled around it. Making a squeaking sound as if squeezing something tight, the wind became harder, stronger, and accelerated. The streetlight caught in the tornado became a twisted iron rod like a screw.
The things he had done for people in the past.
All of it had been a mistake.
The various achievements he had left behind here in the Royal Capital Grenole now cast a heavy shadow on his heart as a history of mistakes congealed in gray.
He and the child headed toward the Royal Palace.
The gently spreading high walls surrounded the grounds of the Royal Castle. The main gate was open, still accepting the scattered refugees rushing in.
Looking up at the sky, a transparent wall was spread in a hemispherical shape. And even higher, a large-scale one surrounding the Royal Capital itself was visible.
"...Heh."
"What is it?"
"Everything is just as it was on that day."
As they approached the main gate, the Barrier rejected them as expected.
When he reached out his hand to the main gate, it repelled him with a crack.
"What is this?"
"It is a Monster Barrier. It seems I am also recognized as something demonic. ...However,"
He made eye contact with the mage on the other side of the main gate. A deep look of joy appeared on the face of that young male mage. He tried to run over to him, who was standing stubbornly at the main gate. With a bright expression as if he had found hope, and perhaps due to a sense of relief, on the verge of tears, the mage gradually closed the distance to the main gate.
Ten steps away, the mage suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.
"Ugh..."
It was shock.
In a complete reversal from before, the Chief Court Mage, astonished as if he had seen a monster, retreated step by step.
He—Louis—acknowledged the fact that he had been repelled by the Barrier.
The people around them, noticing the state of the Chief Court Mage, likewise looked in the direction of the main gate.
And the transition from joy to fear was the same for them.
Louis smiled gently and knocked on the Barrier.
"Pardon the intrusion."
――Crack.
With a light sound, the Barrier was broken. Several Chief Court Mages who had been concentrating on maintaining the Barrier fell to their knees from fatigue. And when they noticed Louis, who had broken through the main gate from the front, they lost color in their faces once again.
"...Chief...?"
Someone whispered. He, picking up on it, answered calmly.
"Isn't the current Chief Ars?"
His well-proportioned features, as always, exuded charm even within a gentle smile. The boy who had originally been beautiful was now in his youth, the period when he shone the brightest.
However, it was eerie.
Behind his soft smile, everything was roaring—burning. Everything. People's lives, or perhaps people themselves, were burning.
He must have walked through that hell.
Yet, as if he had made even those flames his ally, the former Chief Court Mage stood there dignified. Framed by the heat-colored light enveloping the city, he even looked divine.
And above all, he was ominous.
"Louis-sama did this... such a thing...?"
"Yes, I gave the instructions. It resembles that day well, doesn't it? I even matched the monsters and the season. Although the scale is different. You don't need to forcibly add '-sama,' you know? I am aware that I am no longer an existence worthy of your respect."
About ninety percent of the black-clad group that had stepped forward to protect the citizens were faces Louis knew.
One of his former subordinates shouted at Louis.
"Would you allow Elenoa-san and your younger sister to be treated like this!?"
"Eh? ...Well, it seems they wouldn't forgive it. Lumina, certainly, would not."
Louis replied as if continuing a casual conversation.
"Those gentle girls, who would likely scold me saying 'I won't forgive you,' were killed by the people here. ...Thinking about that, everything else became foolish."
And besides, one of them was tormented severely, slowly and gradually becoming an invalid. I truly bow my head to the residents of this city—or so I would say.
Someone complained as if groaning, "But even if you say that...!" This was unreasonable. There was no productivity, no salvation. No meaning. If this was meant to be revenge, it was excessive.
It was a general opinion whispered from all sides, regardless of age or gender. As those voices grew louder, the faces of Louis's former subordinates paled pitifully.
Louis himself clearly understood that his actions were far removed from the norm.
But there is nothing more malicious than a person who has thrown caution to the wind.
"Unreasonable? Yes, perhaps so. You hate me, don't you? Please come and kill me. No matter who kills me now, they will not be charged with a crime."
Behind him, Bis yawned largely, looking bored.
Louis seemed to remember something and clapped his hands. Without minding the mages who flinched at the sound, he cut off his words with, "However—"
And then, Louis disappeared.
As the mages anxiously looked around, the crowd that had been keeping Louis and Bis at a distance parted with a rush. An unnatural blank space appeared. In the center stood Louis and a man whose face was twisted in fear.
"Hic..."
"I wouldn't even grant you the right to kill me."
The man was the first one who had taken Elenoa's wings.