"Now, let's cross off the next possibility… but first, how about we wet our throats?"
Dantalion took a sip of wine. He was excited at the thought that he'd cleared the first hurdle. Barbatos watched him with a look of discontent.
"Your argument does sound plausible. But there are still holes in it—big, gaping ones, like Swiss cheese. What if some Mountain Faction bastard just snapped? Couldn't care less about factional interests, didn't shy away from irrational behavior, and just pulled off this elaborate prank for the sole purpose of messing with you, Dantalion?"
Dantalion nodded.
"You're right—I am assuming, at least to some degree, that the suspects are rational actors."
"Exactly. It doesn't make sense from the start. Half the Demon Lords are crazy bastards. Let's be honest—there's also the possibility that Belial was just too stupid or completely lost his mind and left a mark on Leaf's corpse…"
"So in short, Barbatos, you want to fall back on 'coincidence.'"
She shut her mouth.
Dantalion swirled the wine glass back and forth. The red wine sloshed around inside.
"Did he really nail me as the culprit based purely on deduction? Or did he just get lucky and pick the culprit by chance? Was the 505th Valerignon vintage just a bluff—something he pulled out because he wasn't confident in his deduction and wanted to verify whether he'd guessed right or wrong?…To verify that, Barbatos, you proposed a contest to me. And now you're trying to refute me by appealing to irrationality."
He looked straight at Barbatos.
"You're right. Some madman could have acted completely irrationally. A mark might have been left on Leaf's corpse through some sheer coincidence. But how about this—Amon, ranked seventh, possesses the ability of clairvoyance. He didn't attend the Walpurgis Night, but maybe he watched the hearing through clairvoyance. Don't you think?"
"That's…"
"We should add Amon to the suspect pool and consider thirty-three Demon Lords instead of thirty-two. We have no idea why Amon would take an interest in me, ranked seventy-first, or why he'd frame Belial, ranked sixty-eighth—but Amon might've gone a little crazy and done something like that."
He let out a small laugh.
"Or—there's also the possibility that this whole thing is my own fabrication. Maybe I engraved the mark on Leaf's corpse and then came after you with this absurd accusation. At the very least, I look more like the culprit than Amon does."
Barbatos couldn't answer.
He was making his argument. Was she going to deny the very purpose of her own contest? He conceded that there might be some coincidental factor—but if she pursued that line of reasoning, what happened to her original goal of ruling out coincidence? Wouldn't that negate the duel between them?
"Sorry. My mistake."
She admitted it honestly. This wasn't some deduction game aimed at uncovering the truth at all costs. It was a duel contest with its own rules and purpose. Barbatos sighed at the realization that he had forgotten something so fundamental. Perhaps he had grown anxious upon seeing half the suspects vanish from the list.
And so, the second counterargument was overruled.
Dantalion spoke with a smile.
"Next, I'm eliminating the entire Plains Faction from the suspect list. Of course, except for you."
"Wh-what!?"
Barbatos's eyes widened. Of the fourteen Demon Lords still remaining as suspects, nine belonged to the Plains Faction. If he excluded Barbatos and struck eight more Plains Faction members from the list—that would leave a mere six suspects! He had to stop this somehow!
"That's absurd!"
"No, it's entirely possible. The Plains Faction drops off the suspect list simply for being the Plains Faction."
Dantalion continued.
"Every Plains Faction member who attended the hearing knows this: that you, Barbatos, publicly declared you would protect me. They also know that after the hearing ended, you took me on a day-long tour of the city. Now, let's assume the Plains Faction left an imprint on Leaf's corpse."
Dantalion posed the question to himself.
"Why would they do that? If Belial is truly the culprit, there's no need to leave revenge to me. Just a few days ago, Paimon suffered a defeat in the verbal showdown. In that situation, someone from the Mountain Faction attacks Dantalion again for no reason? And suppose I caught them in the act? …Handled well, it could be a devastating blow to the Mountain Faction."
And yet the Plains Faction had remained silent.
They were content to merely leave a mark on Leaf's corpse. Even though Dantalion had spent an entire month taking no action whatsoever, the Plains Faction still showed no response. At the very least, they could have approached Dantalion and suggested, "Let us help you pursue the Mountain Faction."
"The act of 'hostilizing the Mountain Faction' and the act of 'not attacking the Mountain Faction' are contradictory. Therefore, one conclusion emerges: they want to attack the Mountain Faction but can't. In other words, they have no proof that Belial is the culprit!"
Dantalion's voice grew heavier.
"And yet they still slandered Belial. Why? Why must they go through such a complicated and tedious process just to attack Belial? What reason is there for such an elaborate scheme just to target the sixty-eighth-ranked Demon Lord? The same argument from before applies here. It's because they are weaker than Belial. However."
Dantalion pointed his index finger at the enormous list.
"As you can see, there are zero Plains Faction members ranked below Belial! The lowest-ranked among them is Purcas the Fortieth. That's a gap of a full eighteen ranks. Such a person would never leave revenge to me, Dantalion, the weakest Demon Lord."
"I object!"
Barbatos gritted his teeth.
"You're operating on the premise that the Plains Faction's goal was to frame Belial individually! That's utter nonsense. If the Plains Faction planted a mark on Rift's corpse, their target obviously wouldn't be Belial alone—it would be the entire Mountain Faction! So regardless of the gap in rank, the Mountain Faction has more than enough reason to frame Belial!"
"I completely agree."
Dantalion smiled. Before Barbatos could feel the chill of that smile, he spoke.
"That's exactly right. The Plains Faction wasn't targeting Belial individually. They were targeting the entire Mountain Faction. I'm curious—just how powerful a Demon Lord would you have to be to even think about attacking the entire Mountain Faction without a shred of proper evidence!"
"…!"
Barbatos swallowed hard.
She'd been had!
Dantalion had led her into admitting, on her own, that 'if the Plains Faction framed Belial, then that Plains Faction member must be powerful enough to hostilely target the entire Mountain Faction without evidence.' And if that was the case—
"The Mountain Faction is, without question, the greatest power. The only force capable of rivaling them is the entire Plains Faction. And among them, there is only one Demon Lord who can move the entire Plains Faction."
Dantalion pointed at her.
The leader of the Plains Faction. The one who despised the Mountain Faction more than anyone.
"It's you, Barbatos. No one else."
"…"
She realized she had been cornered.
At first, there had clearly been thirty-two suspects. But at some point, it became fourteen, then fifteen—suspects were slowly eliminated one by one, and in the blink of an eye, the target had been narrowed down to her. A situation had been constructed where, if the Plains Faction was the culprit, Barbatos alone could be the mastermind.
"…Heh."
A laugh escaped her lips.
A quiet instinct crept in—that Dantalion would win this confrontation. The same instinct that had saved her at every critical moment. There was still ground for objection left. It was a decisive counterargument. But Dantalion would overcome it regardless—so she thought.
She had always craved battles fought with honor on the line.
As the Demon Lord, her honor lay in conquering the Human Realm. That was why she had stood at the forefront of the Crescent Alliance Army. Defeated, and defeated again, yet she pressed on without end—believing that a glorious conclusion awaited her there. Whether that conclusion was victory or death, it didn't matter in the slightest.
Only battle. A grand, honorable war.
Two thousand years had passed. Not once had she achieved her wish. The Crescent Alliance Army crumbled again and again. From infighting. There was no honor to be found anywhere. Cowardice and fear, envy and jealousy, and above all, sheer stupidity held dominion. Her comrades grew weary, turned their backs, and some simply left.
How could she not have grown weary herself?
*But. If it's this fellow.*
The corner of Barbatos's mouth curled upward.
If the one before her stayed by her side, perhaps she could find the strength once more. She could endure another two thousand years. Unlike herself, who moved purely on instinct and intuition, Dantalion would support the Crescent Alliance Army with that keen mind and cunning of theirs. Perhaps, in the grandest of dreams—they would wage that great war she had always envisioned.
So let this be the final test.
Break even the last objection. Whether you are qualified to command an army of one hundred thousand demons—I alone will be the one to test you.
"Utter nonsense!"
Barbatos shouted with vigor. She was laughing in high spirits.
"Every single one of your claims rests on the assumption that the Plains Faction is the culprit! What about this—even if both the Mountain Faction and the Plains Faction are completely cleared of suspicion, there are still six people! Six, including me!"
She waved her hand. A rustling sound echoed through the air. On the list, every name belonging to the Plains Faction was crossed out. Only Barbatos's name remained untouched.
"I'll give you genuine credit for the wit it took to trim the list from thirty-two down to six! But how exactly are you going to narrow it down to me from those six? A member of the Neutral Faction, or an unaffiliated individual—they could have simply carved the engraving on Leaf's corpse to sow discord between the Mountain and Plains Factions!"
She clenched her fist tight.
"Among the six remaining suspects is Séère, ranked seventieth— weaker than Belial herself! She has more than enough reason to orchestrate such a scheme through what you so delicately call a 'complex and tedious procedure.' The weak have no choice but to use tricks against the strong. Who knows—maybe she's trying to use this opportunity to drive a wedge between you, Dantalion, and Belial to gain an advantage. Furthermore!"
Barbatos pointed to the very top of the list.
"The Neutral Faction's leader, Marbas, ranked fifth—that old codger has always loathed the sight of both the Mountain and Plains Factions. That geezer has the nerve to slander the Mountain Faction without a shred of evidence! Of course he does! A scenario where the Neutral Faction grows in power while the two major factions tear each other apart is entirely plausible!"
She let a triumphant smile cross her face.
Now the two pillars of logic Dantalion had wielded—"someone of far higher rank has no reason to slander Belial" and "someone of far lower rank has no reason to antagonize the entire Mountain Faction"—had both been blocked. In the former case, Séère, ranked seventieth, now fit the bill; in the latter case, Marbas, ranked fifth, did as well. At the very least, three suspects remained—including Barbatos herself.
"Why of all people must it be me, Barbatos?!"
She spoke, her voice trembling with agitation.
"Do you truly believe you can defeat me?!"
Her heart hammered wildly.
"Show me your potential—show me your abilities!"
The vast hall. Her voice rang out, rising toward the impossibly high ceiling. Five hundred Death Knights rumbled and growled, sensing their master's agitation. They spread their colossal hands, then curled them tight—as though, at a single word from their master, they would instantly sink their teeth into that insolent wretch and rip out his innards, butcher him where he stood.
Barbatos's Demon Lord palace filled with excitement and killing intent. She herself was burning from the tips of her toes. Right now, every nerve she possessed was aimed at a single point—Dantalion's lips. How would he retort? No—was retort even possible? If he could... then how.
Lips parted.
"There's a fact we've been overlooking this entire time. A truly critical fact."
A calm voice seeped through the Demon Lord palace.
"And that is—who actually killed Rif."
"......"
Barbatos's body froze.
"There's also the question of when exactly the mark was etched onto Rif's corpse. At the time the body was discovered, there was a spell surrounding Rif designed to repel animals and insects. The culprit likely cast that spell while simultaneously carving the mark onto the corpse."
She stared blankly. Watching his lips move ceaselessly, she thought.
Ah.
So that's it.
That's how it's being used.
"Who was capable of killing Rif, and who could have cast the spell? It's simple. There's no need to overthink it. Only two people ever managed to escape from Rif's adventuring party—Rif himself and an unidentified mage. The mage killed Rif, carved the mark onto his corpse, and placed the spell around the body."
In other words—the real contest I've been longing for over two thousand years. That conclusion.
"Now the question moves on to the next one. Who was the mage? I immediately searched the guild in the city where Rif had stayed. But the mage Rif supposedly hired only appeared on paper. In reality, she wasn't registered at any mage tower. A name on a list. Suspicion practically reeked off the page."
Even if this wasn't a battlefield where blades and blood flew, could this be what awaited him here?
"The mage appeared to be roughly a 4th Circle mage. A high-ranking sorceress, to be precise. The problem was that the mage's mana color was black. I immediately investigated the remaining six suspects. As expected of Demon Lords who had been active for at least several centuries—records on the Demon Lords themselves, as well as on their close associates, were relatively easy to obtain."
He considered that it had been quite a long time.
"Out of those, about one hundred and seventy were mages. Twenty-one were high-ranking mages of 4th Circle or above. Among those, three had black mana. There—the suspects narrowed down. But then a problem arose. All three were not human. The mage who had served in Rif's adventuring party was undoubtedly a human woman. How could this be? I needed to shift my thinking. Ah."
He considered that he had endured fairly well.
"She used disguise magic. Disguise magic is a 7th Circle grand spell. Ha! The story became awfully simple. Out of the total one hundred and seventy mages, there were only three grand mages of 7th Circle or above."
Not a single friend she could speak to without formality, not one she held close to her heart. She had led her declining faction single-handedly, wading through wars and political struggles that were nothing but quagmires.
As he recalled those past days, Barbatos stared blankly at the man before her eyes.
"Of those three grand mages with black mana, there is only one."
Dantalion was smiling.
"It's you."
Silence.
A hush filled the Demon Lord's palace.
Dantalion could not see Barbatos's expression. At some point, she had bowed her head. She stood perfectly still, not so much as flinching. After a long while, she slowly raised her right hand. Five names on the list were crossed out.
Rank 8—Barbatos.
Only her name remained, whole and untouched.
"Hah."
Dantalion let out a sigh of relief. The last third objection had been refuted. Something akin to the euphoria that follows an exhausting workout spread through his entire body.
His mind was completely consumed by thoughts of the Death Knights. Just imagining the profit twelve A-rank monsters would bring was enough to make him dizzy with delight. A smile spread across his face of its own accord.
"So, that's how it happened. It took me quite a while to figure all this out. I definitely didn't catch on right away."
"......"
"So don't be like that. Haha. To think Death Knights, all twelve of them...? Barbatos?"
Dantalion flinched. Barbatos had her head bowed and was walking toward him, one step at a time. He asked what was going on, but she gave no answer. She kept closing the distance between them. Finally, Barbatos stood right in front of him.
"......"
"What's wrong, picking a fight now all of a sudden... hm?"
Her small hands grabbed hold of Dantalion's head.
"——Mmph!?"
It happened in an instant. She yanked his head toward her. At the same time, she rose slightly onto her heels. The height difference vanished. In a single moment, the gap between them disappeared. Lips met lips.
His eyes flew wide open. Barbatos had both of hers closed. A brief stretch of time passed like that. Barbatos, still gripping his head with both hands, pulled her lips away just slightly. She smiled.
"You know what? You look so damn cool right now."
Before he could even begin to respond, she kissed him again. This time, it was a deep kiss.
The Death Knights, as though unable to bear witnessing their lord's mortifying scene, quietly turned their heads away on their own. Inside the vast Demon Lord's palace, the faint sound of a man whimpering — mmm, mmm — echoed weakly through the halls.