"Not a single drop of blood shed? Too sweet for its own good."
"Great King. Life is a tragedy up close, but a comedy from a distance."
This was originally a famous quote by Charlie Chaplin, but in this world, naturally, there was no *The Great Dictator*. The copyright belonged to me.
Great King Batory paused for a moment, drawing his eyebrows together. He seemed to be savoring what I had said.
"There is a thread of wisdom in that. You mean to say that everything must be viewed from a distance?"
"To view things from a distance, one must be willing to give something up. Isn't that so?"
"Indeed."
The corners of Great King Batory's mouth curled upward.
"He who abandons gravity can mock gravity itself. To one who has renounced struggle, the bloody struggles of others are nothing but absurd, laughable farce. Watchdog of the Empire! But he who lets go is not weighed down by the letting go — he is made lighter!"
The giant raised his voice to a roar.
"A king is a heavy being. And so he must be. On these shoulders rest the lives of ten million subjects and six hundred years of the kingdom's history. Beware that weight."
"Great Batory. No one knows the weight of it better than I."
I smiled faintly.
"Between us, Great King, there are two paths. The first is the path where neither side gives up anything. We each start from opposite ends and meet somewhere in the middle. In the end, both of us will have walked only half the distance before stopping in our tracks."
"Do you think my armies cannot win?"
Great King Batory growled like a bear.
"I will kill you all and reclaim my territory. Defeat is your fate."
"A total war, then. That wouldn't be so bad!"
I stared straight into his pupils.
"Every herd and every tree on the plains of Polithunia will burn to ash. The subjects Your Greatness is so proud of will not even find a day's meal for their children and horses, and will collapse from starvation. Necromancers will spread plague, and skulls and corpses will roam the grasslands!"
Great King Batory looked at me as though he would devour me whole. This was the crucial moment. If I lost ground here, it would all be for nothing.
I let a cold, undisguised sneer show on my face.
"Every night, cheers of cannibalism will ring out from that wretched graveyard. The demonkin will amuse themselves by blinding tens of thousands of humans and setting them upon each other in a grand festival. Do not expect humanity's morality from us, Stephen Batory."
"..."
"I am Dantalion. I am the one who mocks the living and spreads pestilence. O mortal sovereign! Do not trifle with the name of the Demon Lord."
A deadly silence fell.
Soon, a voice emerged from beneath the black beard.
"What is the second way?"
I calmed my searingly hot heart. Good. I had cleared the most dangerous hurdle.
"Both sides leave the path be together."
"...Abandon territory at the same time?"
Great King Batory furrowed his brow. He was weighing my intentions.
"Half of the territory will be offered to the Grand Temple of Ares. The other half will be dedicated to the Grand Temple of Athena. This land will remain as proof that your nation and ours have forged a peaceful covenant."
The Great King's gaze deepened.
Ares represented the Kingdom of Polithunia, while Athena represented the Kingdom of Bretagne. However, the Temple of Athena had recently been openly declaring its pro-Habsburg Empire sympathies.
In short, the Kingdom of Polithunia and we would split the territory fifty-fifty. It was a sleight of hand. Like laundering dirty money back and forth, we would launder the origin of the territory through the instrument of the temples.
"You want me to gift land for free to already well-fed priests?"
"What matters most to the temples is their prestige above all. This would position them as having stepped forward for the peace of both nations — indeed, for the peace of the entire continent. Their noses will grow quite lofty. As for which priest to dispatch, the decision will rest with Your Greatness."
The Great King clicked his tongue.
"Not a bad scheme, but I cannot say I welcome it. It amounts to creating debts to the temples — to two temples, no less. I have no desire to feel indebted to them."
"On the contrary."
"The contrary?"
I smiled.
"Some time ago, the Grand Temple of Ares, together with the Grand Temples of Poseidon and Hestia, condemned the Empire. Out of the twelve grand temples, only three did so. By now, must they not be feeling quite isolated?"
"...!"
Great King Batory sucked in a breath.
"I see. So it would appear that we are graciously helping the temples reconcile with each other..."
"Furthermore, nominally, we are donating fiefdoms to the temples."
From the temples' perspective, there were three benefits.
The pretext of having worked toward continental peace, the natural recovery of strained relationships, and the nominal expansion of temple lands. They would snatch up our offer, thinking, *What a windfall.*
"Would it not be better for Your Greatness to place the temples in your debt while the opportunity presents itself?"
"..."
Great King Batory sank into deep thought.
"Hmph."
Suddenly, he lifted his gaze high to the sky and let out a long sigh. Unconsciously, my eyes followed his. An annoyingly clear sky stretched overhead.
"You are a terrifying man."
The overwhelming presence that had enshrouded Great King Batory's entire being suddenly seemed to settle somewhere, receding.
Once the charisma of the sovereign had evaporated, the figure remaining was no longer the great monarch who commanded the continent's steppes. It was simply a middle-aged man who had climbed into a saddle.
Only his dark eyes remained unusually deep — a depth born of innate intuition and countless experiences. The wrinkles on his face bore the rough imprint of years of hardship.
"I heard from the younger sister of the Emperor you serve. That a venomous spider dwells at the heart of the Empire..."
Had Elisabeth already forged a connection with Great King Batory?
Rebuilding a nation on the brink of ruin while secretly coordinating with neighboring countries at the same time — that was a feat only Elisabeth could pull off. And the reason for seeking that coordination was probably a single one: to surround me on all sides...
I let out a bitter smile. This time, it was genuine, not an act.
"If I am the venomous spider, then she is the flood dragon. She simply has not yet found her moment to ascend. She possesses the talent to bring the entire continent under her dominion."
"I know."
Batory nodded readily. It was unexpected.
Batory wore a strangely gentle smile as he spoke.
"In my youth, I too wished to encompass the whole continent. It was the fire of a young man's blood."
"But I lacked heavenly fortune and talent. All I could manage was to keep alive the single kingdom given to me. That is precisely why I wanted to see it — someone conquering the continent, even if it was not I. That dazzling talent..."
So that was it.
In *Dungeon Attack*, the Kingdom of Polithunia had simply supported the Hero after completing a single quest. I had assumed they were allies of the Empire from the start, but it seemed Stephen Batory's personal yearning had been hiding behind that.
"Call it a fool's wish if you must. Demon Lord, can you understand? I merely wanted it proven. That the vision I dreamed of as a boy could actually come to pass. I wanted proof that it was never impossible."
I cannot understand. But that, I suppose, was your life.
I willingly affirm your life.
"Then — would you be willing to cooperate with me?"
I half-jokingly raised the corners of my lips.
"I am the one who will obstruct Consul Elisabeth's future. If you accept my proposal now, the plans she has devised will crumble, and the one who was meant to inherit your dream will be thwarted."
"Mmm."
Great King Batory grimaced and turned his chin away.
"Would a heroine who aims to become the sovereign of the continent be thwarted merely because of me? If she is thwarted, then that simply means she had that little capacity. It is a problem she will have to solve on her own."
I burst out laughing.
"I, Dantalion, am truly awed by Your Greatness's boundless magnanimity. Indeed, this is the sort of audacity befitting the bearer of ten million lives and six hundred years of history."
"I hear such compliments often."
Great King Batory replied without so much as twitching an eyebrow. This man was the real deal.
I found myself liking Great King Batory. In the game, he was often depicted as a great ruler, so I had assumed that was all there was to it, but seeing him in person — there was something more than just an amusing old man. This man's arrogance and shamelessness were irresistibly endearing.
What was the point of hiding it? I loved shamelessness. Because only the shameless could truly savor the beauty of life.
Watching someone else revel in what I could not enjoy was always a delight. Such people were precisely the kind worth deceiving, betraying, and insulting. They were the sort who made our lives infinitely more interesting.
Very well. Let me give you a surprise gift.
I spoke as though singing, drunk on excitement.
"Great Batory. I am given to understand that Your Greatness has a younger sister."
"Alas. She passed away while I was still a boy."
Great King Batory wore a sorrowful expression.
In truth, this man had shared a love with his younger sister during his youth. Not a physical love, but a spiritual one. Amid the rigid confines of court life, they had been each other's sole pillar of support.
The beautiful princess died at the blossoming age of fifteen. At least, that was what the world believed.
"I know that the princess is alive."
"..."
The air changed.
The easygoing man vanished, and in his place appeared a beast driven by the instinct to protect what was his. The trace of fondness in his eyes vanished in an instant. His gaze turned ferocious, as though he might lunge at any moment and sink his teeth into the back of my neck.
"You. How..."
"The princess contracted leprosy when she was young. A cruel misfortune. The fact that the princess had leprosy was, in itself, a grave blow to the prestige of the Polithunian royal house. Your Greatness staged your beloved sister's death and hid her in a remote villa far away."
This was one of the quests that pulled the Kingdom of Polithunia to the Hero's side.
"Thanks to specially selected healing mages from the royal court, she has survived until now, but what a wretched and cursed life it must be. Consider it my gift. I will send a physician from the Demon Realm to Your Greatness."
"Surely not..."
I gave a light nod.
"Yes. It can be cured."
"Impossible!"
Great King Batory shouted abruptly.
"We exhausted every remedy and prescription in vain!"
"The Human Realm is, regrettably, still unversed in dark magic. But the Demon Realm is different."
"Dark magic..."
Great King Batory wore a stunned expression.
"The illness your sister contracted is not simple leprosy. A cunning and insidious curse of dark magic has taken root. Well, do not blame the mages and priests too harshly. Has it not been nearly a thousand years since dark magic fell out of practical use in the Human Realm?"
"How could you possibly know that..."
"Have I not told you?"
I held a gentle smile.
"I am Dantalion. Do not trifle with the name of the Demon Lord."
The other party fell silent at the implicit threat to ask no further questions.
I extended my right hand.
"Great King. May I count on your nation's eternal friendship?"
"..."
I waited in leisure.
Great King Batory clasped my hand with his right. There was a faint but unmistakable tremor in his grip. It felt immensely satisfying. This was the right amount of fear a human should carry when living alongside a Demon Lord.
It was the moment another of Elisabeth's allies disappeared.