Demon King of the Royal Class-Chapter 448

A few days ago, after breakfast, Harriet was dragged to Riana’s room at Riana’s request to talk. She had no choice, and heard a shocking story.

“... Reinhart... isn’t responsible?” Harriet asked.

“Yes.”

The demon attack on Raziern, which resulted in the death of Duke Granz... Riana knew that the Demon King was not responsible for it. Therefore, it couldn’t have been Reinhart that had planned it.

“I only found out recently. No matter how much I thought about it, my mom was acting too strangely, so I kept looking into it.”

“... I see... Then... what really happened?”

“It was the empire that killed my dad.”

“... What?”

Riana’s mother, Duchess Yelena de Granz, did not have a very good relationship with her husband. However, the shock of her husband’s sudden death still affected her.

Why did the Demon King have to do such a thing?

Why did he have to kill her husband? And why at that place?

In the end, Duchess Granz, who knew her husband’s disposition better than anyone, conducted a long investigation of her own.

She found out what her husband had been doing.

What he had been doing, where, and with whom when he died.

This led her to realize that the Demon King had no reason to commit such an act.

And why was the empire so unenthusiastic about investigating the incident?

With these circumstances and by following these questions, Duchess Yelena de Granz realized that the whole attack was a fabrication by the empire.

Knowing this, she told her daughter, who was consumed by a desire for revenge against the Demon King, that the real enemy was not the Demon King, but the empire.

The empire had not only killed Duke Granz, but framed the Demon King for it.

Riana could do nothing.

The Demon King was a shadowy and powerful enemy, but the empire was a clear and overwhelming one.

The prince and princess were her classmates, and were in easy reach, but Riana didn’t want to be satisfied with just that.

She wanted to bring down the empire.

She wanted to strip away the thick facade of the empire, which had killed her father and sent representatives to his funeral with no remorse.

But first, she needed to gain strength.

While her own strength was important, she believed she needed to align herself with a powerful force that could bring down the empire.

And then, she learned that Reinhart was the Demon King.

Setting aside the shocking nature of this fact, Riana saw a possibility. If she joined forces with the Demon King, she might be able to bring down the empire.

However, Reinhart was about to die. If the Demon King died, the possibility of the empire’s collapse would disappear as well.

“I have to save Reinhart, no matter what.”

Therefore, instead of being shocked by the immediate facts, Riana focused on what she needed to do first in order to have her revenge.

“What will you do, Harriet?”

Harriet was at a loss for words.

If Reinhart had truly been the perpetrator of what had purportedly been the Demon King’s actions, then it was both incomprehensible and sad. The death of Duke Granz in the attack on Raziern... What reason could he have for killing Riana’s father? Even if there was a justifiable reason, could she understand it?

That was what Harriet had been thinking.

But, through Riana, she learned that it was a fabrication by the empire. She didn’t know what happened in the subsequent attacks by the Demon God Cult, but at least one thing was certain.

Reinhart was not involved in the death of Riana’s father, Duke Granz.

He was, in fact, being falsely accused of it.

There wasn’t much time.

They didn’t know when Reinhart would meet his death at the hands of the empire.

She wanted to believe in Reinhart, and she did not need much evidence to convince herself of it.

“I don’t know what to do, but...”

She believed simply because she wanted to believe.

She didn’t know what to do, or if it was even possible to do anything.

With just the two of them and what strength they had, she didn’t know what they could do, and if they failed, they would die.

“I’ll be with you,” Harriet said.

Knowing it was an irreversible decision, Harriet decided to save Reinhart.

***

Harriet and Riana did not have much time, but they had their own plan.

However, once a meteor shower began to rain down from the sky and the sound of unknown monsters could be heard outside the Temple, they couldn’t help but realize something unusual was happening.

They had to choose. Whether to believe that these events were happening because Reinhart was truly an evil Demon King, or whether to believe in Reinhart despite these occurrences.

Riana, driven by revenge, and Harriet, convinced of Reinhart’s innocence, both chose the latter.

Although all their plans had collapsed, Reinhart had managed to escape and join Riana and Olivia Lanche. From that point on, they would have to rely on improvisation to handle whatever situations arose.

Boom!

The meteor that hit the barrier above the Temple created a massive shockwave that shook the ground.

Their pursuers had fallen, struck by the lightning that Riana had let loose, but they weren’t dead.

The trees that had been hit by the lightning had exploded, but their pursuers were still twitching, trying to get up somehow.

Harriet reached out her hand, and chunks of earth began to rise into the air as if being torn out. These chunks rained down on the knights of Shanapell.

Rumble!

In an instant, the knights were buried under the avalanche of earth, as if covered by a rocky mountain.

Harriet dashed out from the alley and ran to Reinhart, who was still baffled by the sudden appearance of Riana and Harriet, before grabbing his hand.

“I don’t know what’s going on...” Harriet said, “I don’t know, but...”

The situation had become uncontrollable, and they were in the midst of a living hell. Harriet was on the verge of tears.

However, she believed in Reinhart. And from that moment on, she had to say goodbye to everyone except the ones who were there in front of her.

Her father.

Her mother.

Her brothers.

Her classmates.

She had to give up everything, including her status as the Grand Duchess of Saint-Ouen.

Abandoning everything she had, everything she was supposed to have, and everything she knew.

She was betting everything on her belief in Reinhart.

“I... I will believe in you...”

Harriet didn’t know if it was worth it or if it was the right thing to do, but...

“Because you tried to save everyone. This wasn’t what you intended... I’ll believe that...”

She decided to believe Reinhart’s words that he wanted to save everyone.

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At that moment, when so many people were turning away from Reinhart, Harriet hoped she could be Reinhart’s strength. She would stand by him.

“Let’s go, Reinhart.”

Olivia led the way.

Behind them, they could hear the sound of Shanapell’s Swordmasters breaking through the rocks that had buried them.

Humans were the real monsters. Even after this Gate Incident, in which the world seemed destined to end, humans would ultimately conquer the monsters and rebuild civilization.

Weren’t these humans the ones truly deserving to be called monsters?

Boom! Boom!

Humans were strong. Stronger than anything else in this world. Stronger than any other race.

Humans were the most terrifying, and humans were the strongest.

***

Compared to the rest of the capital, the situation in the Temple was not as dire.

“Hey! What the hell is going on?” asked Riana as she stared at the meteors raining down from the broken sky. “We had our own plans, but with the situation like this, I don’t know what the heck is happening...!”

“Later! We’ll talk later!” I replied.

This was no time for conversation.

Although the meteors were raining down, the barrier above the Temple was blocking most of them, and while students were screaming and running away, there weren’t monsters rampaging about, unlike outside the Temple.

The knights of Shanapell who had somehow escaped from beneath the mountain of rocks were still pursuing us.

“Unnie! Carry me!”

“Damn it! Alright!”

Riana was the most exhausted, even more so than Harriet, who could enhance her stamina with magic. Therefore, despite her grumbling, Olivia still carried Riana on her back and ran on.

Bang! Bang!

Several mages from the Imperial Mage Corps targeted us with offensive magic, but Harriet was handling them one by one.

‘If we’re to escape, where to? Where should we go and what should we do? I’m the Demon King, but Olivia, Riana, and Harriet will no longer be able to return to the human world.’

Even though it wasn’t the time to think about the future, I couldn’t help but think about it.

‘How am I supposed to take responsibility for them?’

The only fortunate thing was that the Temple guards and all other personnel capable of combat inside the Temple seemed to have been deployed outside to fight the monsters.

Since we couldn’t climb over the buildings that had collapsed from the effects of the meteor shower, we had to find alternate routes in real-time, with Riana doing her best to delay the pursuing Swordmasters and Harriet setting up barriers here and there to block them off.

“Huff... Huff...”

Harriet seemed to be reaching her physical limits, and her body began to show signs of strain.

We just needed to get past the Temple gate.

Once outside, we had to teleport somewhere to escape.

If we could meet up with any of the Vampire Lords of the Council outside the Temple, we could all escape the capital via Mass Teleportation.

‘Would Sarkegar, Lucinil, Loyar, and Effenhauser be safe?’

Surely, this Gate Incident had to have been Eleris’s doing.

‘Would Eleris be alright? What was she thinking when she activated Akasha, and how is she feeling now?’

My mind was only filled with thoughts of devastating events.

We somehow managed to reach the main gate of the Temple while holding off our pursuers.

We just needed to make it through that gate... But in front of it, I could see Ellen standing there, wearing a cloak of flames and wielding a jet-black sword.

“...”

Ellen Artorius was blocking our path. It seemed she intended to be the gatekeeper.

Ellen was standing in our way.

I didn’t know how she had managed to get ahead of us, but there she was, blocking our path.

Above all though... That sword. It seemed like Lament, but the sword looked entirely different from before. It was giving off an ominous aura.

“Move. Are you trying to be an obstacle until the end?” Olivia said through gritted her teeth as she glared at Ellen.

Riana bit her lip and stared at Ellen.

At that moment, we all felt it.

No matter what we did, we would not be able to get past Ellen Artorius.

It was intuition, almost instinct.

The Mana Reinforcement surrounding Ellen’s body felt entirely different from before.

‘Has Ellen become a Swordmaster? When? How?’

If Ellen, wielding a Lament that had somehow turned jet-black, intended to stop us, it was clear that none of us could face her.

Ellen’s sword was stronger than Olivia’s, the cloak of the Sun God would block Riana’s lightning, and Harriet’s magic would not be able to penetrate Ellen’s defenses.

Moreover, Ellen had resistance to supernatural powers, so my Incantation wouldn’t work on her.

Ellen was looking at me calmly. She stood there, holding the cloak of the Sun God and a dark sword that seemed to have stolen a piece of the night, and said, “Reinhart. Just answer me one thing.”

“... What is it?”

“Why didn’t you accept it?” she asked.

I felt a shiver run down my spine.

“You should have accepted it,” she continued.

The others didn’t know what she was talking about.

Only I knew.

The cloak of the Sun God, Lapelt... Why hadn’t I accepted it?

“You should have accepted it. Surely.”

That seemed to be the final question that Ellen had. Since I was the Demon King, and if I had been using her all this time, why didn’t I seize the opportunity to possess three holy relics?

Surrounded by this hellscape, where my subordinates were trying to destroy the world to save me and meteors were falling on the Temple, Ellen seemed to be trying one last time to believe in me, even though it was clear that my subordinates were responsible for this chaos.

The four of us had to leave the Temple, and we probably wouldn’t return.

My eyes fell on the newly-transformed Lament. A sword that was meant to be forged in tears... In sorrow, Lament had come to possess an unknown power.

It was a sword that seemed capable of cutting through anything.

If sorrow made Ellen stronger, if that was what it took to survive this hell of a disaster that had come too soon, then wasn’t it better for Ellen to continue to feel sorrowful?

No. Beyond that sorrow, shouldn’t she grow to hate me, to hate me so much that she could use the true power of the Sun God’s cloak, which manifested through hatred?

If so, would it be better for me to deliberately lie to Ellen?

“I...”

“No.”

As I tried to say something, Ellen shook her head, her eyes still locked on me.

“I’m not going to listen to you,” she said. “It seems like you’re going to lie again. If it’s like that, I don’t want to listen.”

It seemed Ellen did not want to listen to any words she felt would be too painful to hear. Her gaze was still on me. No, her gaze had drifted a bit further away.

Looking behind us, I saw Shanapell’s Swordmasters approaching.

“Go, Reinhart.”

A turning point in history... I now clearly understood why my rejection of Lapelt had been classified as a turning point.

This was the moment in which I should have died.

If I had accepted Lapelt from Ellen back when she’d offered it to me, I would have died right then, by her hand.

The fact that I hadn’t accepted Lapelt was the last remaining doubt in Ellen’s heart. It was the last hope she had within her.

That was what was leading Ellen to make a different choice, not to kill me, but to save me instead, even though it was clear my subordinates had triggered this world-ending disaster.

Ellen walked past me and planted herself in front of the Shanapell knights that were pursuing me.

“What are you going to do...?”

“It’s okay.”

Ellen stood in the way of the approaching knights, gripping her sword.

“I won’t kill anyone,” Ellen said as she faced Shanapell’s Swordmasters.

She said that she wouldn’t kill anyone. She seemed to believe she could subdue all of them.

“So, go.”

‘Would we be able to meet again? Is that even possible? If we meet again, could things be the same as before?’

“From beginning to end, it’s all been my fault,” Ellen said.

‘Is she regretting it? If she had believed in me, if we had talked a little earlier, or before everything turned out this way, would this have happened?

‘Is she thinking that none of this would have happened if she had just believed in me?’

Just as I thought that this Gate Incident wouldn’t have occurred if I had just done nothing, Ellen seemed to think that if she had done nothing, if she had believed in me instead, none of this would have happened.

Ellen looked back at me one last time. Not just me, but Olivia, Riana, and Harriet as well.

She looked at each of us.

She looked at those who wanted to follow me because they believed in me, even in this situation.

She looked at the others who were doing what she couldn’t.

“I... don’t deserve to like you.”

She had not been able to believe in me when it had mattered most, and that was why things turned out this way.

Because of that, Ellen seemed to have resolved that it was not right to allow herself to have any feelings for me.

Leaving those words behind, Ellen sprinted towards the approaching Shanapell knights.

Ellen was staying behind to hold off my pursuers, so that we could all leave.

‘We have to survive. Both you and I.’

We didn’t know when, where, or in what situation we would meet again.

We didn’t know what that situation would be like. But even if the only future left for us was one in which we pointed swords at each other...

Until then, holding onto the hope that neither of us would die...

I ran towards the entrance of the Temple.