"Anyway, the matter has been settled for now. We need to treat these wounds..."
Sitri approached me, fidgeting anxiously.
Sitri pulled a glass bottle from inside her clothing, but her fingers trembled so badly that she dropped it. The bottle struck the ground and a wine-colored liquid splashed out. Sitri stammered in alarm. She pulled another potion bottle from inside her clothes, but it fell to the floor as well.
"Ah. Um, so... I mean..."
"Step aside."
Gamigin sighed and squeezed through the gap between Sitri and me.
"This is exactly why someone like you is useless in a pinch. I don't know how you ever led any soldiers with a nerve like that."
Gamigin knelt down and, with a tearing sound, ripped the skirt of her dress. Dousing the fabric generously with potion, she clearly intended to use it as a bandage. With an indifferent gaze, she bound my severed thigh with the cloth.
"Hold still."
The expensive dress she had so carefully dressed up in was now stained with blood. Gamigin didn't seem to care at all. Only weariness and boredom over this whole affair flickered in her eyes.
Gamigin pulled the bandage tight. Then she raised her head and stared blankly at my face. The gentle smile that always seemed to linger on her expression had vanished without a trace.
"Why should I have to worry more about your body than you do?"
"Thank you for your concern."
"I'm saying, if you won't worry about your own body, who will... No, forget it. You'd just brush it off anyway. Fine. Go live the rest of your life as a cripple. That's probably perfect for you."
Gamigin stood up.
"I've suddenly grown tired. I came here to watch what a pathetic end Barbatos would meet, but she ran off somewhere, and someone else goes and surrenders their leg without anyone lifting a finger. What's the point of living earnestly in this world. You all sort things out yourselves. I'm going to get some sleep at the imperial palace."
Gamigin walked off the dais. Her torn skirt swayed, exposing the pale skin of her thigh. The two unaffiliated female Demon Lords who trailed after Gamigin followed her out. The atmosphere strongly suggested the court session was about to adjourn.
"It does seem there is precious little we can discuss at this point," Marbas sighed.
"I propose we adjourn for today. The pursuit squad for Barbatos will be handled by our side. Should anything arise, we must convene immediately, so I ask that you all remain on standby at the imperial palace."
And so we dispersed.
I waited for the anti-magic to dissipate, then made my way to the Habsburg imperial palace with Sitri supporting me. The amusing thing was that both Sitri and I were practically incapacitated.
"I'll do it. All of you, step back."
Servants rushed over offering to help, but Sitri stubbornly insisted she would be the one to support me. I managed a bitter smile. A patient who had nearly died just days ago, trying to help someone else.
The truth was, she wasn't much help. Sitri's right arm hadn't recovered yet, and I'd lost my left foot. From Sitri's perspective, trying to support me meant she couldn't even position herself properly to give effective assistance.
"I'm fine. Just find me a cane from somewhere."
"B-but..."
"Look. The bleeding has already stopped. There's no problem."
After much coaxing, Sitri finally brought a cane. It was made of wood, lacquered thickly in black. No matter how you looked at it, it was far too luxurious for something casually procured, which made me tilt my head in puzzlement.
"Where did you get this?"
"Someone happened to be walking with one, so I asked them to part with it. Heh heh."
"...Well, when the bloodshot eyes of Demon Lord Sitri ask for your cane, even the bravest Demonkin would have no choice but to hand it over immediately. My sympathies to the anonymous Demonkin who suddenly lost a prized luxury item."
Thanks to the cane, I could walk at a reasonable pace. My body's balance was quite foreign to me, so I still limped noticeably. Each time, Sitri fussed over me and held me up, her expression looking as though she might burst into tears at any moment.
"Hah... hoo, hah..."
Midway, I stopped once to catch my breath. It wasn't so much the leg as the massive amount of blood I'd lost all at once that had left me drained. My skull felt like it was being squeezed tight, and I was starting to get a headache. With each step forward, the corridor itself seemed to sway, making it impossible to go any further.
"Just a moment... is it alright if we rest for just a little while?"
"Yes, Dantalion. Let's rest. Let's rest right away."
Sitri answered in a panic.
I leaned my back against the corridor wall and slid down to the floor. I had absolutely no strength left in my body. If Sitri hadn't grabbed my arm, I would have collapsed on the spot.
"Huff, hah... hoo..."
My breathing was ragged. It was as though only my chest belonged to me anymore, thrashing about wildly on its own. My throat hurt just the same. For some reason, it felt as though my esophagus itself had been rawed. I wanted to cough up phlegm, but without saliva, only a dry, unpleasant rasping came out.
My vision went slightly white, as if the lights were flickering and blinking.
"D-Dantalion. Are you alright? Are you really alright?"
"Just a little... dizzy. It's fine. Just a mild spell of dizziness."
I groped inside my breast pocket and pulled out the potion bottle. A faint scent of rosemary drifted from it. A top-grade potion infused with herbal fragrance and honey moistened the inside of my mouth. It also contained a measure of alcohol.
I took small sips of the potion. Not just a portion of my tongue — the sweetness spread across the whole of it.
Once my mouth was filled with the refreshing liquid, I finally felt my skull clear. I gulped the potion down. After a moment, the dizziness subsided as well.
"..."
When I came to my senses, I realized Sitri had buried her face in my chest and was crying.
"Sob... hic... waaah..."
Sitri's shoulders trembled. The sound of her weeping came soft and low. I still had a lingering fog in my head, so I stared at Sitri for a while. Slowly, I realized what I needed to do.
I raised my right hand. And I stroked the head of Sitri, who was bowed down.
"It's alright, Sitri. I'm not going anywhere."
"If even Dantalion disappears... if even Dantalion is gone, then I..."
"Everything will really be alright. Everything is going to be fine."
Sitri could not form a proper sentence and simply cried. I stroked Sitri and pressed her face firmly against my chest. And so the hem of my clothes grew damp with her tears.
How could I ever tell Sitri the truth?
That I had killed Paimon — the one most precious to her — and that even now, Paimon clung to my side as a phantom, digging her nails into my hem just as Sitri was doing.
Besides "it's alright," there was nothing I could say to Sitri.
Perhaps I could never tell Sitri the truth for all eternity.
...Wait.
I noticed something strange.
If Daisy had revealed the truth behind Paimon's assassination at the execution ceremony earlier, I would have suffered an irreversible blow. Sitri and the Mountain Faction Demon Lords would have fallen into confusion, and the chaos would have only deepened. But why hadn't Daisy pointed me out as the assassin?
...It must be because Daisy's goal wasn't simply my destruction.
Let's suppose it was proven beyond a doubt that I was the assassin. I would not be able to escape execution. But, from another perspective, that would be the kind of death I'd actually want.
Taking responsibility for Paimon, accepting Sitri's wrath, and being put to death as an incarnation of evil in everyone's eyes — I had no complaints about such a death. If the one exposing me was Daisy, that would be even better. In all likelihood, Daisy understood my true feelings well.
That was precisely why Daisy wasn't aiming for simple destruction — she wanted to deliver a thorough, absolute defeat. "You cannot live the way you want to live, and you cannot even die the way you want to die. This is your defeat." That was, I believed, what Daisy intended to declare.
"..."
I see.
I knew where Daisy had fled.
She had undoubtedly sought asylum with Consul Elisabeth. I believed Consul Elisabeth possessed more than sufficient qualification and capability to kill me. In other words, she was an excellent candidate for delivering the death befitting me.
Daisy would pretend to enter Elisabeth's service, then assassinate her. Because that was the only way to eliminate "the possibility of dying in the manner Father wished for."
Daisy had once said:
— Count Versi, Consul Elisabeth, Luke. Did you truly believe they would be permitted to kill Father?
— What could they possibly know about Father? Did you truly believe they were capable of killing Father in any meaningful sense?
— I would call that a wildly misguided notion.
In other words, Daisy had been planning to eliminate those candidates by any means necessary.
The corner of my mouth twisted in an odd fashion.
Fine. The rough outline was taking shape.
I now understood why she had abducted Barbatos as well. It would serve as a sort of bribe for Consul Elisabeth. And if she also passed along the intelligence that the current Habsburg Emperor, Rudolf von Habsburg, was in fact a corpse reanimated through dark magic by Barbatos — that would be the crowning touch.
Daisy would win Elisabeth's trust in a single stroke. Then, the moment Elisabeth let her guard down, she would kill her in one decisive strike. Could this be Daisy's grand scheme?
A naive little girl harboring quite the grandiose plan. Impressive, indeed. But just how far will things actually go the way you want them to...?
"Dantalion. You're not really going to live like this forever, are you? That thing about being a cripple for life — you were just trying to lighten the mood, right?"
Suddenly, Sitri's tearful voice broke through my thoughts. I hadn't realized I'd fallen so deep into contemplation. I offered a faint smile.
"I think we should discuss that a little later. Right now, we have to deal with what's directly in front of us. We can't let Barbatos slip away like this. Right?"
"Well... that's true."
"I have a request."
I cut Sitri off. My mind was already running through the scenarios of what would happen next if Daisy sought asylum with Elisabeth.
"Ivar should be waiting in my chambers right now."
"Ivar?"
"She's a maid. A small-framed, blonde maid. Could you call her here?"
Elisabeth was not the type of person who trusted others easily. Simply offering Barbatos would not be enough to earn her trust. Daisy would need to prove that she was a "loyal traitor."
Since ancient times, the most efficient method for a traitor to earn the trust of a new lord had been well established: revealing one's former side's military intelligence.
Daisy knew the secret passages of my Demon Lord's Castle. She would tell Elisabeth about them. Elisabeth, to determine whether Daisy's words were true or false, would dispatch an assassination squad through those secret passages...
Elisabeth and Daisy. If history ran its natural course, these two were fated to be entangled as Empress and Hero.
There wasn't much time. I needed to set up defenses at the Demon Lord's Castle.
But being too obvious about having anticipated everything would be rather undignified. Perhaps I should play a little game...