"......"
The Demon Lords fell silent. My proposal must have have sounded absurd to them.
There was only one Demon Lord whose expression hadn't changed at all: Gamigin. She alone gazed at me with a steady look, because among those present, she was the only one who had actually worked on a "scenario" alongside me.
Marbas, Vassago, Sitri. The three of them had always played supporting roles in my scenarios. Not once had they ever put their heads together with me to craft a script from scratch. They had merely participated according to a scenario I had already prepared in advance……
"Dantalion. What are you saying? Are you proposing we simply stand by and let the Republic discover the Emperor's true nature?"
In other words.
Strictly speaking, this was a first for me.
Until now, I had always operated covertly, half-shrouded in Barbatos's shadow. But now—before the Demon Lords—I would have to explain all my conspiracies and plans with my own mouth, my own face, my own gestures.
"Fellow comrades, from this point forward, I ask that you listen carefully to the plan I am about to lay out, step by step."
Put differently, the actors who had always delivered their performances on stage were about to glimpse for the first time what kind of scheming went on behind the curtain. They would witness not just a finished script, but the very process of that script being crafted.
"We must put ourselves in the position of the Republic's Consul."
"The Consul's position?"
"Yes. The Consul can never easily trust my daughter. No matter how much of a traitor she may be, she is the adopted daughter of a Demon Lord. What if she is a double agent? What if her betrayal is a ruse to use me? The Consul has no choice but to suspect……"
Elisabeth regarded me as a devil incarnate.
Over twenty Republic spies had infiltrated my territory alone—and that was limited to the ones whose identities had been uncovered. If you counted operatives working in secret, the number would be double that at least. She had planted dozens of informants in a single city.
Elisabeth had always been on guard against us, ceaselessly vigilant. And yet, suddenly Dantalion's adopted daughter was seeking asylum?
There was no way she wouldn't be suspicious. No, I could say it with certainty.
—Elisabeth would never trust Daisy.
Because Elisabeth acknowledged my abilities.
There was no way she would ever believe that I, of all people, was careless enough to allow something as absurd as "the adopted daughter's rebellion." Never. Not under any circumstances. And the more proof of faith Daisy offered, the more suspicious Elisabeth would become.
I felt the same way. Let's assume, hypothetically, that one of Elisabeth's loyal followers suddenly betrayed her and came to me. There was no way I'd trust such a traitor. A monster like Elisabeth tolerating defection from her inner circle — that was simply an impossible fantasy.
In a sense, Elisabeth and I trusted each other more than anyone else in the world.
"My adopted daughter will desperately try to build up the Consul's trust. The information that Emperor Rudolf is a puppet corpse is far too enormous. At first, she'll drip-feed small bits of information one by one to gradually earn credibility."
And those small bits of information were exactly the secret passages of my Demon Lord's Castle.
I slowly scanned the faces of the Elector Demon Lords.
"......"
None of them looked particularly pleased. Understandable, of course. Here I was, speaking with absolute conviction as though I had Elisabeth and Daisy completely figured out, as though I knew their personalities and futures inside and out.
How could I be so confident? What guarantee did I have that things would unfold exactly as I described? Nobody said a word, but each of them was silently raising their own objections.
But I had no choice but to speak this way.
After all, I had been watching those two for nearly ten years.
Not that explaining just how dangerous Elisabeth was would convince anyone. From the Demon Lords' perspective, Elisabeth was nothing more than the last heir of a doomed kingdom — someone worth being wary of, perhaps, but hardly someone to fear. That was all she was to them.
The Demon Lords had no idea what an extraordinary feat it was that Elisabeth had single-handedly maintained the Republic against the entire Demon Lord army all this time.
Then again, I bore some of the blame myself. Whenever Elisabeth tried to pull even the slightest trick on the Demon Lord army, I was the one who shut it down...
Honestly, it was a little unfair. Why did I have to be the only one who worried about Elisabeth? I was always the one stuck doing the hard work, and on top of that, hardly anyone appreciated it. There was nothing to gain — only losses, one way or another.
But from another perspective, it also meant that this "chessboard" had only two players: Elisabeth and me. No need to be too pessimistic about that.
"Within two days. At most two days, the Republic's spies will storm into the secret passages of my Demon Lord's Castle."
A smile spread across my face.
"And when they do, we'll be able to deduce in one stroke where Barbatos was taken and where Consul Elisabeth is headed."
Five minutes had passed since the infiltration team breached Dantalion's Demon Lord's Castle. Consul Elisabeth was monitoring the team's situation in real time through the crystal ball.
─ This passage was built at least five years ago.
─ It wasn't thrown together in a hurry, then. So something like this was hidden here all along... truly, the darkest place is right under the lamp.
The murmuring voices of the infiltration team members carried through. The secret passage was so dark that the image projected from the crystal ball was murky beyond description. Elisabeth stared at it with an expressionless face.
Kurz Schleiermacher spoke from the seat beside her.
"Just as the girl said, there really was a secret passage."
"Hm."
Elisabeth drank from the wine in her horn cup. It was bottom-shelf wine, practically vinegar. In truth, Elisabeth had loved fine wines since childhood, but after becoming Consul, every bottle she drank privately had been swapped out for inferior goods—things only poor peasants would enjoy.
"The question is how far Dantalion has the situation under control. He's almost certainly already anticipated that we would infiltrate through a secret passage."
"Pardon?"
Kurz pulled the glass from his lips and looked puzzled. Even though Elisabeth—his sovereign and leader of an entire nation—was drinking bottom-shelf wine, Kurz was nonchalantly savoring the finest liquor without a care.
"Yesterday, didn't we use the Magic of Truth to interrogate him? He testified that his betrayal was never Dantalion's intention, and the truth judgment confirmed it... How could Dantalion possibly predict our actions?"
"I don't particularly trust the Magic of Truth."
Elisabeth dismissed it coldly.
"It's magic that runs on heartbeat readings and physiognomy. Its reliability is eight-tenths at best. I wouldn't be surprised even if that girl Daisy could precisely control the speed of her own heartbeat."
"Consul. Yesterday's overnight interrogation alone yielded seven hundred and eighty questions, didn't it?"
Kurz chuckled softly.
"Well, deceiving one or two questions is child's play for a trained spy. But evading fifty questions, a hundred questions, five hundred questions—that's virtually impossible."
Last night, the Republic's Intelligence Bureau had given their "guest" a truly lavish reception.
Veterans with decades of experience in espionage were mobilized en masse to collectively interrogate a sixteen-year-old girl—Daisy von Custos. No fists had flown, but the interrogation that continued without pause for over ten hours was an atrocity that far surpassed physical violence.
The seven hundred and eighty questions were not simply a collection strung together in a row. Each one was woven together with the precision and density of a net.
Although, as Consul Elisabeth had said, truth magic was hardly omnipotent, over seven hundred and eighty questions were more than enough to more than offset the spell's weaknesses. Kurz Schleiermacher spoke in a playful tone.
"Surely you don't think a sixteen-year-old brat managed to lie her way through all seven hundred questions, Your Excellency the Consul. Ha ha."
"……."
Elisabeth fell silent.
When the other party suddenly shut her mouth, Kurz found himself awkwardly at a loss. He was mulling over how to steer the conversation back when a voice came through the communication crystal.
—Goblins! At least twenty of them!
—Everyone, respond calmly. As long as we hold formation, a few goblins are nothing.
Kurz's eyes narrowed slightly. At the very least, he no longer had to wrack his brain searching for a topic.
"I see the guards are holding the line after all. Well, even for a secret passage, it's common sense to maintain a minimum level of defense. But goblins? Isn't that a bit sloppy?"
"It's over."
"I'm sorry?"
Elisabeth spoke with the same detached gaze.
"Dantalion would never have stationed goblins in a secret passage. If that route were breached, the ninth floor of the Demon Lord's Castle would fall in one stroke. If he had posted guards, he would naturally have deployed powerful demons. Those are decoys."
The corners of Elisabeth's lips curved upward ever so faintly.
That was the exact moment a frantic scream erupted from the communication crystal.
—GRAAAAH!
—What's happening!?
—Hell spiders! Dammit, there were hell spiders ambushing us from the ceiling! Everyone, switch from combat formation to square formation and defend!
The agents tried their best to stay composed, but the screams only continued and grew louder. Not only were there enormous spiders, but golems that had been disguised as rocks also appeared and surged toward them. The secret passage shown through the communication crystal descended into chaos in an instant.
Elisabeth murmured in a flat, toneless voice.
"First they show the Goblins, then ambush with hidden reserves. It's an effective tactic, but one that only works if you already anticipated the enemy would approach."
"You mean they saw through the fact that we would send a reconnaissance unit...?"
"Mm."
The screams from the communication crystal had noticeably died down.
Of the fifteen-person unit, only one remained. Dozens of Monsters surrounded the last survivor. The man dropped his axe to the cave floor.
—S-S-save me! I don't want to die! Please, spare me....
With a sickening squelch, the sound of flesh being torn apart rang out vividly.
After that, all that followed was the noise of Monsters gnawing on corpses. The sounds of flesh being ripped and bones cracking echoed horrifically through the Consul's office. Elisabeth, her expression devoid of any emotion, switched off the image from the communication crystal.
"Impressive, isn't it?"
"What do you mean, I'm afraid I'm not quite...?"
"Dantalion. Did you not notice? Dantalion just killed every single one of the intruders."
Elisabeth glanced briefly at Kurz.
"There was no need to take prisoners. You'd think they'd want to interrogate whoever discovered the secret passage and dispatched the intruders, but Dantalion casually skipped that entire process. It means he already knew our Republic was behind this."
"..."
Elisabeth slowly twirled a strand of hair beside her temple.
"I deliberately sent a unit with low combat strength. So they'd be easy to capture. But, I see. He already knew after all... I even took the trouble of selecting members who spoke Sardinian, and it was all for nothing. Well, I did get something out of it. Discovering that Dantalion is genuinely targeting us is more than worth the cost."
Elisabeth smiled.
"But for a dance invitation, this is rather aggressive, wouldn't you say? At this rate, even if I wanted to refuse, my pride won't let me. Kurz, prepare an envoy. It's time to open the second ball."
"Yes, Madam Consul."