Demon King of the Royal Class

Chapter 356

The reason for Olivia’s absence from the Miss Temple Contest...

Olivia, whose demeanor had already changed from her usual self, looked down at Ellen with a chilling gaze. “What does it matter to you?” she asked.

“I’m just curious,” Ellen replied.

“And why should I tell you?”

Olivia’s tone was sharp enough to skewer Ellen, and she seemed ready to lash out if Ellen pressed her further. Ellen could sense a genuine aura of murderous intent from Olivia.

“You don’t have any reason to know. We’re not even close,” Olivia continued.

“But you told Reinhart, didn’t you?” Ellen insisted, implying that Adriana’s presence at the Rotary Club was related to Reinhart.

In response, Olivia pulled her into the room.

Click!

Ellen, who had been dragged into Olivia’s room, found herself pressed up against the closed door, looking directly at Olivia.

“Yes, Reinhart knows. But that doesn’t mean you need to know,” Olivia said.

“Leverier Lanche is dead,” Ellen stated as she continued to look into Olivia’s eyes.

“...”

“And on that day, your whereabouts were unclear.”

“So what? Are you saying I killed him?” Olivia challenged her.

“I didn’t say that,” Ellen replied.

Leverier Lanche had been killed in a demon attack.

“I’m just having an unreasonable suspicion, and you can make me believe it, or not.”

‘If you’re going to lie, make it a convincing one. Why did you return to the Royal Class dormitory late at night with Adriana, and why is Adriana staying at the Rotary Club instead of the monastery? Was it really a coincidence that Leverier Lanche died on the day no one knew where you were?

‘Why did you lie? What was the reason you had to lie? Just tell me a story that fits those pieces together convincingly.‘

However, such a lie couldn’t be made up on the spot.

Olivia looked down at Ellen, who was pinned against the wall, staring back at her fearlessly.

“If I kill you, Reinhart will never see me again,” Olivia said.

“...”

Even faced with the threat of death, there was no fear in Ellen’s expression.

Olivia’s fingertips trembled. She could make an extreme choice, but doing so would mean losing the most precious thing to her. Olivia had already lost everything else. She didn’t want to lose the last precious thing she had left.

This impudent first-year was trying to grab her by the scruff of the neck, and showed no intention of backing down. Whatever she was thinking, she seemed to be making some strange assumptions.

If this girl spoke carelessly, it could endanger not only Olivia but also Adriana and even Reinhart.

What should she do?

Ellen quietly observed Olivia, who was standing at the crossroads of the extreme choices she had to make. “I’m no different,” she said.

“...”

“I don’t like you, but if you get hurt, Reinhart will be sad,” Ellen continued, looking up at Olivia. “I won’t do anything to hurt you. I’m just curious. What happened that day? Why is everyone lying?”

They disliked each other. Yet, neither Ellen nor Olivia would do anything to hurt the other because it would make Reinhart sad.

‘So even if I find out something, I won’t use it to hurt you,’ Elen was saying.

Olivia couldn’t help but recognize the sincerity in Ellen’s words. Her junior’s words resonated strangely within her and made it difficult for her to meet Ellen’s gaze.

Nodding slightly, Olivia spoke as if she were confessing.

“Ellen.”

For the first time, Olivia had called Ellen by her name.

“... Yes?”

“Promise you’ll keep the secret.”

“I will. No matter what it is.”

Ellen did not care about Olivia’s secret. She wanted to know what secret of Reinhart’s was entangled in it. It was too difficult to feel worried and sad on her own while never knowing.

“I was there.”

Ellen was taken aback by the sudden confession.

“When the demons attacked, Adriana and I were there.”

Ellen was shocked to hear the truth that surpassed even her wildest suspicions.

***

Inside Olivia’s room, Olivia sat on a chair while Ellen sat on Olivia’s bed, and they talked. Olivia told her everything, starting from why they had been there at that time to everything that unfolded afterward.

“The Church of the Five Great Gods... they wanted independence?”

“Yes. At least, that seemed to be what they were after. My foster father wanted to use me to restore his honor, and he used Adriana’s life as bait. That’s why we were there.”

Ellen listened in disbelief at the outrageous deeds of Leverier Lanche.

Ellen had only considered the possibility that Olivia might have been involved with the demon attack on the holy knights, but she hadn’t imagined that she and Adriana had actually been present at the scene. Her vague suspicion had only stemmed from the tenuous connection between the deceased commander, Olivia, and Adriana.

However, the subsequent events shocked Ellen even more.

“... You were saved?”

“Yes. I don’t know why, but a demon with wings saved Adriana and me. It took us to a distant place, dropped us off and disappeared. That’s it.”

“Why on earth...”

“That’s what I want to know most of all.”

Olivia was just as confused as Ellen about the whole situation.

“You understand why this story has to remain a secret, right?” Olivia asked.

“... Yes,” Ellen replied.

If anyone found out about this, the whole thing could become severely misconstrued. Both Olivia and Adriana could face accusations of colluding with demons, which could lead to severe punishment and even death.

“The next day, Reinhart came to us. He asked us what was going on, and after we explained the situation to him, he said he’d help Adriana,” Olivia continued.

“... I see,” Ellen said, feeling a sense of incongruity.

Reinhart had seemed to know something was going on with the two of them—she had been sure of it. After hearing the story, though, it was clear that Reinhart couldn’t have known at that point.

Was it just a misunderstanding? Perhaps she didn’t know Reinhart as well as she thought she did.

The feeling she’d gotten from Reinhart that day had to have been a misconception. This meant Reinhart’s absence from the Miss Temple Contest had nothing to do with Olivia. In reality, suspecting Reinhart of being the Demon King was far beyond the realm of normal thinking.

So, Reinhart had visited them the day after the incident, had a long conversation with them, and upon learning about the previous day’s events, decided to protect Adriana by letting her stay with the Rotary Club. Adriana hadn’t completely lied; she truly couldn’t return to the monastery.

However, something else had come up. Olivia and Adriana had been there during the demon attack, and for some reason, the demons had saved them. Why?

“Why would the demons have a reason to save you two?” Ellen asked.

“... I don’t know,” Olivia replied with a frown. “Maybe they just felt sorry for us.”

“... Sorry?”

“Do you think demons are necessarily evil and wicked?” Olivia asked.

Olivia, who had become deeply disillusioned with humans, had discarded her human-centric thinking.

“Demons could be much kinder than humans, couldn’t they? There are countless humans more wicked than demons or devils. Like my foster father, who’s already dead,” Olivia said, her voice dripping with disdain and contempt.

Her words alone were dangerous enough that they could easily be used as evidence that she held sympathy for demons.

Demons were evil. Because they were evil, they had to be eradicated.

This was a fundamental premise among humankind, an undeniable level of common sense. It was natural to make enemies into something unacceptable, to be hated. Such hatred spread and regenerated infinitely, without needing to be deliberately fostered.

Demons were the enemy.

Therefore, the common belief that all demons were evil was inevitable. Humans had an instinct to define enemies as beings that had to be eradicated, not just beings that could be killed.

While this universal belief might not have held complete sway over Olivia and Ellen, they couldn’t be entirely free of it.

However, Olivia was a unique case, since she had participated in the Great War yet still could entertain the thought that demons might actually be kind.

Olivia had become disillusioned with humans. She couldn’t see what made humans better than demons and was beginning to think that perhaps demons could be better than humans.

“Do you know what triggered the first demon attack?” Olivia asked.

“No,” Ellen replied.

“You know that they attacked the Order of the Holy Knights back then, right?”

“Yes.”

Olivia crossed her arms and looked out the window, her brow furrowed. “The Allied Forces shared out the demon prisoners of war among the different factions. Some demons were even put up for auction on the black market.”

“... Prisoners? Why?”

Ellen couldn’t grasp why prisoners would need to be distributed or auctioned off.

“To use them as slaves. Some demons resemble humans. Among them are beautiful demons like succubi and incubi. They planned to cut off their horns and destroy their mana circuits, essentially turning them into invalids, and then use them as slaves.”

“Oh...”

“It wasn’t just the empire’s forces or those from the principalities who were given these prisoners, but the Order of the Holy Knights and the Church of the Five Great Gods as well. They claimed it was for research, but that’s just an excuse. I don’t need to explain what they really intended to do with them, do I?”

Ellen nodded stiffly, her mind blank. Olivia’s tone was filled with disdain for the disgusting acts she did not even want to mention.

“That first demon attack wasn’t an attack on the Order of the Holy Knights; it was a mission to rescue those demon prisoners. In fact, while some suffered injuries, the demons didn’t kill any of the holy knights.”

The attack had been to rescue some demon prisoners, which had been distributed among the different factions to be used as slaves.

“Only a fraction of the demon prisoners were rescued. The royals and nobles within the empire and its principalities are likely using the remaining demon prisoners in vile ways. They talk about enemies and needing to kill them, but they’re satisfying their filthy desires in secret. Isn’t that disgusting and revolting?”

“...”

The intensity of Olivia’s words left Ellen speechless.

“Whether the Demon King was resurrected or had a successor, that Demon King couldn’t stand to see his people, who had already lost their land, suffer like that. He did what he did with a handful of demons, and yet, he didn’t harm any of the holy knights. I think the Demon King’s actions were more noble.”

Ellen gently took Olivia’s hand. “Senior, please stop.”

Olivia’s words had grown more and more extreme, and she was almost defending the forces of the Dark Land. There was no need to go this far. If Olivia crossed this line in front of others, it would be truly dangerous.

Olivia gave Ellen a look of surprise, taken aback by Ellen’s calming gesture.

“I think I understand what you’re saying,” Ellen said.

“... Okay.”

Olivia took a few deep breaths to calm her emotions.

“‘How can humans be so wicked?’ That’s what the demon who saved me said,” Olivia murmured, lost in thought.

The flying demon had said those words as it appeared, killed the holy knight holding Adriana captive, and taken both of them away from the scene. As they flew through the sky, she had seen the demons casting large-scale destructive magic on top of the abandoned monastery.

“Perhaps they did not have the intention to attack initially. Maybe they were just observing us. But they must have heard everything. They must have heard the conversations going on there. The threats to use his foster daughter as bait to restore honor, the threats against the life of someone precious to me, who was not even a priest of the order, forcing me to surrender. They might not have been able to stand it.”

Olivia, who had come to see demons in a more positive light, wanted to believe that the demons who saved her were kinder than humans.

In Olivia’s mind, she thought it possible that the demons, having witnessed the blatant injustice that the Nameless Monastery was carrying out, couldn’t stand such wickedness any further and intervened.

“Perhaps they didn’t intend to attack the Nameless Monastery. Maybe they were just spying and, upon seeing what was happening, decided to rescue Adriana and me instead. It’s a ridiculous thought, but...”

Olivia had reached the point where she was considering that perhaps demons were better than humans. Perhaps they hadn’t just saved them to avoid collateral damage, but rather, they had attacked specifically to rescue Adriana and Olivia.

In the end, while some of her reasoning might have been incorrect, Olivia’s supposition was very close to the truth.

***

What was true? Were demons good or evil?

Now that she had heard the disgusting stories about demon prisoners and the truth behind the two attacks by the remnants of the demon forces, Ellen found herself unable to discern what was true anymore.

The stories Olivia shared were so heavy that Ellen completely forgot about Reinhart’s issue.

Reinhart had only tried to help Adriana, which was why she was at the Rotary Club instead of the monastery. The two seniors had been rescued by demons. Ellen couldn’t deduce any other frightening truths from the connections between the stories. The two incidents seemed so far apart that there was nothing to tie the two of them together.

Ellen now understood why Olivia hadn’t participated in the Miss Temple Contest. In that situation, there was no way she could care about such a trivial matter. Although Olivia had shared a secret that should not be revealed to many, she felt uneasy about it. She knew Ellen would keep the secret—and Ellen had already had some suspicions beforehand—but she had just told a secret to someone who didn’t like dangerous secrets.

“You must keep this secret,” Olivia insisted.

“I’m not the kind of person who uses secrets against others,” Ellen replied.

Ellen didn’t like Olivia, but she didn’t hate her enough to want her dead. If this got out, the repercussions would be severe, and Olivia and Adriana could be accused of colluding with demons and executed. Even if Reinhart wasn’t implicated, Ellen had no intention of using this secret.

Olivia’s brow furrowed. “What? Are you saying I’m that kind of person then?”

“I didn’t say that. Why? Did it hit a nerve?”

“No! I’m not that kind of person either!”

“It seems like you are.”

“I’m not!”

Olivia’s face turned red with embarrassment, and she huffed in frustration, crossing her arms and sulking.

“Anyway, you should be grateful. If I had showed up, you wouldn’t have become Miss Temple,” Olivia said.

“...”

If Olivia had participated in the Miss Temple Contest, the outcome might have been different. However, to Ellen, being Miss Temple didn’t matter much.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a particularly good memory for Ellen. She hadn’t even been able to show off to the one person she’d wanted to impress.

“So, was it good?” Olivia asked.

“What was?”

“Winning the Miss Temple Contest. Was it good?” Olivia’s question made Ellen look at her intently.

Was she teasing her? What was the point of asking about her feelings about winning the Miss Temple Contest when Reinhart hadn’t been there?

“What did Reinhart say?” Olivia continued.

Olivia didn’t seem to be teasing her; there was envy in her eyes. She was curious and perhaps jealous about Reinhart’s reaction to seeing Ellen all dressed up and winning the Miss Temple title.

Olivia had been through a rough time, and hadn’t had the chance to wonder about such things until this moment, when she was having an honest conversation with Ellen.

Ellen saw all of this in Olivia’s expression.

“He didn’t come,” she said.

“What?”

Olivia hadn’t known that Reinhart hadn’t attended the Miss Temple Contest.

“Reinhart wasn’t there,” Ellen repeated.

“... Huh?”

Olivia was taken aback by Ellen’s blunt statement. She had assumed Reinhart would have gone to the Miss Temple Contest. After all, he had told her to wait in her room, as if he had some sort of plan to help her out, before she’d had to rush out after receiving Leverier Lanche’s letter.

“Why not?”

“How should I know?” Ellen responded irritably.

Just as Olivia hadn’t been able to attend the contest, neither had Reinhart.

“Why wasn’t he able to go?”

“... I don’t know.”

Olivia found Ellen’s answer strange.

‘She doesn’t know?’ wondered Olivia. ‘Is that it? Isn’t she even the least bit curious?’

“You didn’t ask him?”

“... No.”

It was a perfectly natural question. It made sense to ask why he hadn’t turned up. It was something she could have asked. But Ellen hadn’t asked Reinhart why he hadn’t shown up because she knew he wouldn’t answer, and she had forgiven him for it without asking.

She still wasn’t sure whether there was something to forgive, but nevertheless, she just let it go.

Olivia looked at Ellen with her mouth slightly open. “Wow, you’re either really kind or really naive...”

“What?”

Reinhart hadn’t attended the Miss Temple Contest, and Ellen hadn’t asked him why.

Olivia now knew that Reinhart was connected to the strange organization known as the Rotary Club. Reinhart had his own secrets, and sometimes, unavoidable things happened. Olivia could only surmise that his absence had been related to that.

What frustrated her was that Ellen knew more about Reinhart than Olivia did. The fact that they shared a relationship in which they could let unspoken secrets slide was rather displeasing to Olivia. Despite that, Ellen seemed downcast, perhaps thinking about the Miss Temple Contest.

Olivia gave Ellen a lukewarm smile. “I don’t know about anything else... but...”

Thinking about Ellen waiting for someone who did not show up made Olivia feel sad, amused, and sympathetic all at once. A mix of complicated emotions swirled within her.

“You really got what you deserved,” Olivia concluded.

“Shut up.”

“Can I cry for you? No, wait, did you cry at all? In that situation, I’d have been so sad and upset that I would have bawled my eyes out.”

Ellen glared at Olivia, gritting her teeth. “I said shut up.”

She really didn’t like this person.