After the meeting concluded, we each headed back to our individual tents.
Paimon grabbed me and dragged me off to a corner. There were guards stationed along the outer perimeter of the camp, but Paimon waved them away with a curt gesture. Once the sound of people had faded, she turned and fixed me with a piercing glare.
"I can't accept this!"
Flames burned deep within Paimon's pupils. Oh dear, it's rather troublesome when she looks at me with such fervor. I calmly took the full weight of her stare.
"Accept what, exactly?"
"Don't play dumb. Dantalion, that was a massacre. Reckless and cruel."
"Reckless and cruel……"
I rolled the words around in my mouth. Each syllable clung to my tongue like it was stuck there.
Meanwhile, Paimon pulled a glass vial from inside her clothes and flung it to the ground. The purple liquid inside traced a magic circle all on its own—most likely a spell to seal off sound from the outside. Paimon had lost every last one of her magic circles, but she could still brew a potion or two. And with that, a private room was established.
I spoke calmly.
"It's a bit late to balk at cruelty—we've already come too far."
"The young lady said it was reckless and cruel. Don't conveniently leave that part out. If there's a just cause, I'd gladly endure even a massacre. But what just cause could there possibly be in this operation?"
Paimon shot back, her voice like ice.
"A massacre that does nothing more than corner Bretagne. A massacre to achieve nothing more than victory!"
"It's the triumph of republicanism, Paimon."
"……."
Our eyes locked. A thousand unspoken words crossed between us in silence. In that instant, I thought the conversation we needed to have had ended before it even began.
—Crack!
A sharp, satisfying sound rang out. That's what I thought.
"......"
"......"
My head had already turned to the side. I turned it back again and looked at Paimon. Her eyes were glistening with moisture.
Just as I opened my lips to speak, Paimon's palm moved again. The sound of skin striking skin rang out. My head snapped to the side once more, powerlessly. I turned it back, and Paimon's palm kept flying. She must have done it about six times.
"Hypocrite......!"
Paimon was gritting her teeth.
"To deliberately cook up the worst possible method! If you thought the girl wouldn't notice, you were sorely mistaken! Dantalion, you are a hypocrite. War is the act of killing people — an evil act with no room for justification whatsoever. But other people are still making excuses... for justice, for God, for the nation, they say."
"......"
"So you're trying to eliminate any and every excuse. What I do is undeniably evil, and there's absolutely no room for justification here... You don't ask the victims for forgiveness, you don't demand understanding from history — you just want to protect your doggone purity!"
I touched my cheek.
How long had it been since someone slapped me? No, I had never been hit like this before. At least, not that I could recall at the moment. I was simply touching my numb cheek, and yet, words were spilling from my mouth of their own accord.
"So what? Was I wrong, Paimon? As you well know, I raised the Crescent Alliance Army. Hundreds of thousands of people died. Do you understand? Hundreds of thousands."
Children, demons, humans, demi-humans — even Demon Lords. I killed them all without discrimination.
"Should I stand before those people and say this? 'I'm sorry. I had my own reasons. You had no choice but to die.' Is that what I should say? Paimon — answer me. Should they have to listen to my excuses?"
"......"
"What I'm saying is that the idea of hundreds of thousands of your lives having to die because of my reasons is absurd from the very start. Ha! Now that's one hell of a reason."
The corner of my mouth curled into a sneer.
It wasn't intentional. My voice, my tone, my expression — they had slipped beyond my control and were moving however they pleased. Fine. Go ahead, move however you like. If I couldn't muster a single retort after being slapped, that would truly be pathetic.
"Go stand in front of a hundred thousand lives and tell them. Tell them they were sacrificed for the nation, and that their deaths were therefore absolutely necessary. Forget the nation — call it justice, call it God, call it republicanism, whatever you want... It's all bullshit! Every last bit of it! Do you really think the people involved would accept that?!"
My hand seized Paimon's wrist with crushing force — as if I meant to break it.
"There is never a case where the deaths of hundreds of thousands are indispensable. Never! Go ahead and try running your mouth in front of the victims like that... I won't stand for it. I swear, I will kill every last powerful being that exists in this world!"
"……."
"Starting tomorrow, every one of Parisiorum's subsidiary cities will burn."
No distinction will be made between men and women, young and old. Neither the good nor the evil will be spared.
A meticulous operation will be carried out solely to eliminate Henrietta and Agares.
"There must be no room for excuses in my actions. No room for understanding, either! Paimon, do you understand? I killed a hundred thousand for my own sake, and that is the one and only truth — a truth that must be absolutely resolute!"
"……."
"This is not your problem to interfere with. It's between me and the hundred thousand lives I took. Don't butt in."
I yanked Paimon's wrist downward. She crumpled to the ground as though shoved, even though she was overwhelmingly superior in sheer strength.
Her entire body was screaming for the drug to be administered right now. I rummaged through my cloak and pulled out my pipe. I tried to press tobacco into the bowl but fumbled it. The pipe tumbled to the ground. I picked it up, only to drop it again.
"Damn it."
My fingers were trembling. I couldn't tell if it was withdrawal or rage. All I knew for certain was that I felt like absolute shit. I picked the pipe up and dropped it about five times. Pathetic. No, seriously pathetic... All I could do was laugh.
I crushed the pipe under my heel. It was a luxury piece, custom-made by a ceramicist in Saxony. It didn't break easily. It just sank into the ground. Rather than relieving my irritation, it only piled on more anger.
"Haaah."
I must not lose my mind. Going mad is just another excuse. I know that... Hold back the anger.
Close your eyes and breathe. Think simply. I can control my trembling hands easily enough. A finale where the slaughterer of hundreds of thousands turns out to be a madman — as if I'd ever accept that ending. Losing one's mind is also a right. But I don't have that kind of right...
I calmed down a little. I turned my back on Paimon and walked out.
Something grabbed my cloak. Probably Paimon's fingertips. But I didn't stop — I kept walking. Then, with a snap, the tugging at my cloak fell away behind me.
After that, I don't remember much. At some point I had already entered my private tent. Daisy was reading inside. He took one look at me and made an odd face. I ignored him and flopped down onto the cot.
"Did you go and lose your drugs like some incompetent, Father?"
Daisy spoke. Since I had my back turned to Daisy and was hunched over, the voice came from behind me.
I murmured with my eyes still closed.
"I'm done with drugs."
"If my memory serves me correctly, this is the forty-sixth time you've sworn to quit. Even a dog learns its lesson after three mistakes, and even resolutions to quit should have some limit…"
"I know you're smart, so shut up."
It grew quiet.
The soft rustle of Daisy turning pages occasionally drifted through the tent. I lay under the blanket, but sleep wouldn't come. At times like these, I resented the constitution of a Demon Lord who barely needed sleep. If I could just sprawl out and sleep, my mood might have lightened. Instead, my chest only grew tighter.
I groaned and muttered.
"…Alcohol."
A sigh.
I didn't even have the energy to be angry at that.
Daisy spoke.
"Father. Your strategy has certainly been effective. But was it truly necessary to create a divide between the republican and royalist factions? The demons are slaughtering humans indiscriminately. That alone should be enough to put pressure on Bretagne's ruler, burdening him with the responsibility of protecting the cities."
"…Fool. Wouldn't that just invite foreign intervention?"
Pressuring the Bretagne army isn't the only goal. The ultimate objective is to isolate Queen Henrietta.
"If the republicans take revenge on the royalists, there has to be a justification—that reduces the likelihood of neighboring countries intervening. If it simply becomes a massacre by demons, all that happens is another anti-Crescent Alliance Army gets formed…"
"I see. But setting aside Venetia and the Kingdom of Sardinia, what about the Kingdom of Castile?"
"It doesn't matter. If Castile intervenes, this war officially becomes an international conflict. We request reinforcements from Sardinia and Venetia and drag all of Frank into the chaos…not bad…"
Of course, that's not the ideal scenario. If that happens, the war slips out of my grasp. The Kingdom of Castile, the Kingdom of Venetia, the Kingdom of Sardinia—none of them have any connection to me whatsoever. The Batavia Republic entering the war right about now is just right…
"To that end, it would be better to get the Empress Dowager or the Emperor under our control…secure the justification firmly…"
"Then, Father, which of the two……."
Daisy kept asking me questions. I answered each one dutifully, but my consciousness was growing increasingly hazy. Even though my eyes were already closed, it was darkening further, as though another pair of eyelids was descending. Voices reached my ears, but I could no longer make out what they were saying.
That night, for the first time in a long while, I didn't dream at all.
The very next day after the plan was decided, the massacre disguised as pillaging was carried out.
In this era, pillaging was an everyday occurrence. But our forces took it to another level. Adult males were killed, of course, but depending on the situation, women and children were slaughtered too. The humans screamed and begged for mercy, but our answer was unwavering.
"Four years ago, the ones you killed begged just the same."
No further words were necessary.
The people from the villages and towns around Parisiorum were transported in bonds. They were all tied to trees and placed before the southern gate of Parisiorum. On the ramparts above, the soldiers of Bretagne were staring down at the scene, their faces clearly showing bewilderment.
"These are war criminals who slaughtered innocent people four years ago on nothing more than the charge of being republicans. There can be no dispute that it was the Queen of Bretagne who instigated those crimes."
I spoke aloud through a voice-amplifying magical device.
"Sovereign of Bretagne! If you possess even a shred of conscience, if you have even a sliver of courage to admit and accept the guilt on their behalf — open the gates and surrender at once. If there is no response within five hours, I will hold these people accountable for the crime of massacre."
As one might expect, after five hours there was no response. Soldiers bustled along the top of the wall, but Queen Henrietta never appeared.
"……So that is your answer, Your Majesty."
I slowly scanned the fifty humans hanging from wooden posts.
Those consumed by despair, those who kept their eyes shut and endlessly recited prayers, those who had screamed themselves hoarse and now hung their heads in exhaustion — dozens of different faces were there. I issued my orders to the allied soldiers standing by beside them.
"Carry out the executions."