Chapter 50 - Everyone Has Their Reasons

Everything slowed down.

Hillen Cargill's sword cuts through the air.

The Demon King's death cry rings out.

SLICE

A head fell.

The Demon King's head.

It plummeted.

"Ah."

Casey let out a scream.

The Demon King.

Her lord.

Was dead.

Casey, the adjutant who had served Drakson for decades, could not believe it. She did not want to believe it.

The humans' eardrum-splitting screams. Even the vitality brimming in the blood they shed.

None of it reached her.

"... My lord."

She reached out a violently trembling hand. He was too far away.

"Die!"

A human knight swung his sword. She caught it barehanded and crushed it. Then she tore off his head and threw it aside.

"My lord."

She took one step forward. A mage summoned a gale.

CRUNCH

Her muscles forced the wind apart. She destroyed the mage's heart.

"... My lord. My lord. My lord. My lord. My lord. My lord. My lord. My lord. My lord. My lord."

Drakson drew closer and closer.

Unbearable rage welled up within her.

How dare they. Mere humans. Who did they think they were facing?

How dare they do this to him.

Amid a battlefield where thousands clashed, she could clearly make out the face of the man who had killed her lord.

Hillen Cargill.

The son of a bitch who had killed the Demon King of Lust.

A hero. A fucking hero.

Die. Kill him. She would kill him.

She bared her killing intent. Unleashed her ferocity. Demonic energy burst forth.

She would kill him.

Without fail.

At that moment—

THUD

A powerful impact jolted her. She tumbled through a space littered with human and demonic creature corpses.

What vermin had...!

"Come to your senses, Lady Casey."

"... Quail?"

Quail, covered in bear fur, pulled her along.

"We must flee."

"But my lord...!"

"Our lord has already passed away."

"Then we must avenge—"

"The tower is collapsing! At this rate, we won't avenge anyone! We'll die for nothing!"

The tower was bound to its Demon King.

The Demon King's followers were bound to the tower.

Thus, when the Demon King died, the tower collapsed.

And when the tower collapsed, every demon and demonic creature lost its protection: the power that kept dimensional interference at bay.

Now that the protective shield of Demon King and tower was gone, all surviving demons and demonic creatures had to face that force, which weakened beings from other dimensions, head-on once more.

"If we don't leave now, we won't even be able to escape."

Now, while the tower still retained its shape.

"Who said you could leave?"

Heroes stood there, drenched in demonic creatures' blood.

"Who said we'd let high-ranking demons escape?"

"There are two high-ranking demons here!"

"Fuck them up! Their Demon King's dead, so they're weak as shit now!"

"They're mine!"

Their blades rained down.

"Go."

Quail blocked every attack aimed at Casey with his body.

"I'm not so weak that I'd lose to the likes of you."

Quail roared.

That day, three high-ranking demons, ten mid-ranking demons, fifty-two low-ranking demons, and 1,321 demonic creatures died.

* * *

The tower collapsed.

No, it vanished.

Created through the power of the Demon Realm, the tower simply ceased to exist once the Demon King at its core was gone.

All it left behind were the traces of a fierce battle: the corpses of demons and demonic creatures, heroes and humans.

"Ha. Was this your plan from the beginning?"

Roselle Charnt gazed forlornly at the fallen Demon King's corpse.

"Given the circumstances, I simply did my best."

"Sure you did."

Hillen Cargill answered courteously. Roselle fumed, but said nothing more.

Heroes were obsessed with killing demons and Demon Kings, because they could absorb their power and grow stronger by doing so.

But precisely because competition was so fierce, it was an unwritten rule among heroes not to start disputes afterward, regardless of who secured the kill.

Besides, Hillen Cargill and Berge had both done everything their roles demanded.

Had the two of them not held Drakson back, even briefly, Roselle's flames would never have burned him.

Had they not diverted his attention and severed his head, the battle would still be raging. Perhaps the severed head would have been Roselle Charnt's rather than Drakson's.

'I can't give someone who fought his hardest shit about being greedy just because he's already killed one Demon King, can I?'

She could, if she wanted. Some people did deliberately find fault with others and kill them.

But they also had to shoulder the risks themselves.

What hero would trust and follow a captain who prevented others from beheading demons so they could monopolize every kill?

"I'll take the corpse."

Trying to hide her disappointment, Roselle placed Drakson's body in her storage dimension.

It had been agreed from the outset that Roselle Charnt and the Kingdom of Akan would take all materials harvested from the demons and demonic creatures, so Berge did not care.

The mere fact that Drakson was dead meant he had achieved his purpose in coming here.

'Did this happen to my tower after I died, too?'

The thought of those damned heroes desecrating his corpse made him seethe.

While his thoughts wandered, the cleanup ended.

The Kingdom of Akan's troops stowed everything of value and all the demons' and demonic creatures' corpses in dimensional storage pouches, then recovered their own dead.

Then they burned the site.

"Casualties?"

"141 lightly wounded, 55 seriously wounded, and 271 dead."

Roselle Charnt's face twisted.

"... Heavy losses."

"The demons and demonic creatures were stronger than expected. And it took longer than expected for the Demon King to die..."

Within a tower, demons and demonic creatures held an overwhelming advantage. Moreover, the Demon King and his demons had surpassed their expectations.

She shot Hillen a sidelong glare.

"He was nothing like the Demon King of Lust. We'll need to reassess the other Demon Kings' strength, too."

"Yes."

But that did not change the fact that the Kingdom of Akan had suffered painful losses.

"... It can't be helped. We got everything we wanted, at least."

"There is one more thing."

"...?"

"There is virtually no money or anything of value."

"How is that possible?"

"I found it strange myself and searched several times, but there is nothing."

"... The kingdom will be in an uproar. Well, Akan has money to spare."

Roselle Charnt dismissed the matter. Wealth held little interest for her.

Only the Demon King's body mattered. That was all she could gain from the Beast Demon King, who was known to have no expertise in magic.

It was then that a cry rang out.

"There's a prison here!"

Finally, the underground prison vanished, revealing the princes and princesses held inside.

Two princes and two princesses.

Both princes were from Ormus. One princess was the First Princess of a tiny country with next to no national power. And the last was...

"...!"

Why was that bitch here?

Berge froze. Those who recognized the princess's face were astonished.

"Your Highness!"

"My God, Princess!"

"Why is the princess here?"

Akan's knights and mages prostrated themselves as one.

"... Hmm."

Slowly, her bored red eyes swept over them. Greasy, matted purple hair fluttered in the wind.

"... The tower."

She tilted her head. Her long robe hung limply, trailing over the ground.

"The Demon King's dead?"

"Yes, Princess. We defeated the Demon King!"

"Who are... you?"

"Hokel, captain of the Golden Lion Knights."

"Ah, I think I've heard of you..."

The princess, chewing on something, spotted Roselle Charnt and waved.

"A familiar face..."

"Princess. What on earth are you doing here?"

Roselle let out a long sigh.

"Getting materials."

"Getting materials?"

"Demonic creature bodies..."

"You came all the way into a Demon King's territory for demonic creature bodies?"

The princess nodded vacantly.

"And the Beast Demon King didn't hurt you?"

"Gave him money. He gave me demonic creatures."

"You paid him, and he tossed you a few low-ranking demonic creatures?"

'She really is a crazy bitch.'

Listening closely to their conversation, Berge could not help marveling.

She had gone in alone and struck a deal with a Demon King?

For chimera research?

He could not tell whether she was out of her mind or missing something in her head.

'Drakson must have taken money from the princess to pay for my demonic energy.'

But seriously, what was wrong with the bastard taking it and the bitch giving it?

'And all the while, he threw fits because I wasn't following the Guide.'

Of course, the Guide contained no rule forbidding cooperation with humans.

Naturally. Such a thing never happened. No Demon King had ever cooperated with humans before.

At most, they turned humans into dark mages or dark knights and forced them into service.

But Arain's Demon Kings were different.

'If even Drakson went this far, Jason Cockmundo definitely does it.'

Perhaps Ugar Belbek did, too. Reina Sordein might be the only one not colluding with humans.

"Does His Majesty know you're here?"

"Left a letter. Said I was leaving."

"You left only a letter and came all this way? Honestly, you foolish princess."

Roselle pressed a hand to her forehead.

"Let's go back to the palace first. All right?"

"Not yet..."

"Not yet, my ass. What else can you possibly do now that the Demon King's dead? We've collected all the demonic creature corpses, so let's go."

"... Lots?"

"An enormous number."

"Okay."

The princess nodded.

"Finish up and withdraw! We need to leave as quietly as possible, so keep that in mind!"

"Yes!"

"Escort the princess."

"Yes."

Having handed the princess over to the knights, Roselle wrapped things up.

Akan's elite troops began their covert withdrawal.

And so, the Beast Demon King died.

And the Beast's Tower fell.

* * *

Jetoson.

He had no surname. An orphan, he had been fortunate enough to be taken in by an old man who ran a small magic shop.

He began his life as a merchant working as a shop assistant, and discovered his talent.

His mouth.

He had a knack for reading people's emotions and persuading them.

When the old man died and he inherited the shop, that talent truly shone.

He stocked cheap goods and sold them at inflated prices. Give them plausible benefits and plausible names, and people were tempted into buying them.

He made a great deal of money that way.

But then, for the first time, trouble arose.

"Just my luck."

The dwarven princess, Louise Berft.

Of all people, the woman he had swindled had turned out to be a princess.

He had not realized she had caught on to his scam.

As compensation, Louise cleaned out every item in his shop.

'If only that had been all!'

That would have been a relief, but her vindictiveness did not end there.

["You dare swindle me? I'll make sure you never work in this business again."]

Using her authority as a princess, she spread malicious rumors—malicious from his perspective, at least—about Jetoson among the kingdom's nobles.

The whole world learned that he had swindled a dwarven princess, an important diplomatic partner. When he protested that he had been wronged, other victims of his scams began stepping forward as though they had been waiting for their chance.

"What kind of fucking bastard does that?"

"He's disgraced the whole kingdom."

"And this piece of shit calls himself a merchant."

The city watch stormed in, forcibly closed his shop, and stripped him of his right to trade. His savings were confiscated as well and transferred to the royal treasury.

The only reason he escaped prison was Louise's less-than-kind consideration: she insisted he should not be given free food and lodging in a cell.

'Damn it! I'm not the only one running scams!'

Time passed.

He tried to find work, but word had already spread everywhere. No one would take him in.

In the end, he had no choice but to leave the capital.

'Where should I go?'

Perhaps the Traparta Union, where commerce was most developed?

Then he suddenly remembered the man who had tossed him one gold coin.

'Come to think of it, the Golden Moon Trading Company has been doing well...'

He had heard that the hero Hillen Cargill was acquainted with the company's heir, and that the company had secured a huge investment on the strength of that connection...

'Let's go.'

Surely someone who had thrown down the substantial sum of one gold coin would not go back on his word.

Jetoson knocked on the Golden Moon Trading Company's door.

Unaware that he was walking into a dragon's maw.