In the eleventh year after the Hero Himmel's passing.
"The free city of Gaderia — someday, I really would like to go see it."
A handsome man with short, deep purple hair set down the black-and-white newspaper in his hands, his eyes settling on the woman seated across from him, a gentle, warm smile spreading across his face.
Her hands resting lightly on her swollen belly, the long-haired woman furrowed her brow slightly, her voice cool and clear.
"You... there's quite a gap between rumor and reality. If you've got time for ideas like that, you'd do better thinking up a good name for our child."
"Still as strict as ever, aren't you? Well! You'll definitely make a wonderful, attentive mother!"
The smile on the man's face deepened. No wonder she was his wife.
"You..."
The woman pursed her lips. She never really had a way to deal with this husband of hers.
Clatter, clatter—
Outside on the street, the hurried sound of hoofbeats rose again, the wheels juddering over the road in an unbroken tremor, shattering the peaceful, warm afternoon in an instant.
Feeling the stirring within her womb, the woman's hands moved back and forth over her swollen belly, soothing it.
"The chaos that witch caused only just ended not long ago — what's it going to be this time? Tch, that old fossil of a lord."
From the otherwise composed, dignified woman, a chilling cold now radiated.
"Calm down, calm down. Getting angry isn't good for your body, or for the baby."
The man looked every bit the henpecked husband. "We got through the Demon Race's disaster, and the witch's disaster too — I'm sure this time will be fine as well."
"Now you're turning into a spineless fool with no opinions of his own."
Faced with his wife's teasing, the man gave an apologetic smile and didn't argue.
After a brief silence—
"A name for the child, huh. This is really hard to decide."
"Mm."
Sunlight streamed through the window onto the two soon-to-be parents, illuminating the newspaper lying on the table.
The Demon Race's Triangle
Kinton Territory,
"Alice! Alice! Nothing happened while I was away, did it?"
"The despot of Kinton Territory, ruler of mercenaries, the city's saving goddess, one of the Demon Race's Seven Sages of Destruction, one of God's Twelve Apostles, the merciful Lady Aura — welcome back."
A girl with short pale-gold hair, dressed in a black-and-white maid outfit, one hand resting on a sheathed sword, bent her knee in a bow. Her makeup was delicate, and in her pair of jade-green eyes, that shade of purple was reflected, as if she were a doll out of a fairy tale.
"Everything's fine."
"Mm, good."
The Scales of Obedience sat like a mere ornament, casually occupying one corner of the desk.
Sunk into the sofa seat, Aura nodded.
She thoroughly enjoyed a life of ruling over Humans.
Freedom meant Nanoda wasn't around.
Aura had already made Kinton her vacation lair. Nominally she was the lord here, but in truth she'd handed all authority over to the Humans.
Alice now handled not only the duties of the lord, but also served as the head of the mercenary city's mercenary guild.
What Aura didn't know was that this delegation of power carried, to some degree, a trace of Nanoda's influence.
Without quite meaning to, Aura's gaze fell on the quill pen standing beside the writing case.
"Hermet — what a fragile slave he was."
Almost devoid of feeling.
As an arrogant Great Demon with a long lifespan, Aura rarely remembered Humans' names. Cut off their heads, and they all looked the same to her.
It wasn't that he'd left much of an impression — it was simply that after thirty or forty years together, being ordered around so often, she'd unconsciously come to remember it.
Fortunately, Hermet and that other human named Hend had raised a successor together, which was what had kept Aura — who'd been about to turn Kinton into a puppet state — in check.
Of course, if Kinton were truly turned into a puppet state, Nanoda would be the first to act.
That would be no different from how badly Macht had once turned Weise into the Golden Land.
Alice said nothing, only recalling the scene of that old man who'd given everything for his homeland, passing peacefully.
Lady Aura had said just one thing to Lord Hermet, lying dead on the bed, breath already gone.
[Stand up!]
Just as Hermet's corpse was about to stir, driven by the powerful Magic of Obedience and Mana, it was Lady Nanoda who stopped Lady Aura.
[The dead deserve their rest.]
"Alice! Praise me more, your great lord! You're so much better at flattery than Hermet ever was."
"Yes! Eternal sovereign..."
Aura quite enjoyed flattery these days. Amid her smile, she picked up the quill pen, turning it over in her hand — but for all the curl of her lips, her eyes held no ripple of feeling at all.
That quill was the only gift she'd ever received from a human — and also his memento.
The fortress city, Weise.
"Macht, don't you resent Denken for handing the lord's seat off to you?"
The woman had already grown old, a few strands of silver threading through her golden hair.
"No, if you ask me, it's rather interesting. I get to see more this way."
Dressed in a military uniform, Macht sat in the lord's seat, going through official documents with practiced ease.
If not for those horns, one might easily mistake him for some stern, hard-bitten lord.
"Besides, this was also the promise between me and my 'bad influence of a friend.'"
"Pfft — 'bad influence'? In this whole world, I think Macht might be the only one who could call my father that."
The old woman laughed, laughing just like the girl she'd once been.
"How's your health lately? It's gotten cold — remember to dress warmly."
Macht didn't look at Lektire, his voice carrying no trace of feeling.
"Macht's getting more and more like a human."
"Is that so?"
"Mm. Though, only like one."
Lektire thought she caught a faint shadow of Glück in Macht.
"I just want to understand a little more about humans — human feelings, that's all."
Demons could never become humans. That was a truth Macht had come to accept over his long life.
Gaderia,
"Lady Solitär, you smiling at me like that is putting quite a bit of pressure on me."
Lügner took a small sip of his tea.
If it weren't for the fact that he couldn't win against her, he'd have already "shown her the door."
"I've got time on my hands. Shall we chat?"
Solitär hadn't withdrawn her Mana at all — she simply kept smiling as always.
"I've got a lot on my plate here. Why don't you go find Lady Nanoda instead? Or Lord Qual, if that doesn't work."
Solitär just smiled, "Chat?" she repeated, echoing her earlier words.
Ever since she'd been forcibly fitted with Aura's Magic of Obedience and bound by its three conditions, she'd truly felt uncomfortable in her own skin.
Living under another's roof, treated like meat on a chopping board.
Several times, humiliation had driven Solitär to think of destroying herself, but she'd never been able to go through with it.
For the first time, Solitär had come into contact with an emotion hidden within her — something called cowardice.
She'd already braced herself to die, moved by Schlacht's words, only to be thrown into confusion by his follow-up words to survive, and had lost her sense of direction completely.
"So then, Lady Solitär, given how things stand now, why not try something — resist, run away? Like General Hafleet did before, briefly breaking free of Lady Aura?"
"There's nothing I can do."
"In that case, why not just enjoy the moment, then?"
"?"
As though she'd suddenly discovered some new species, Solitär found herself, for no clear reason, taking an interest in Lügner.
____
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