On the way back from the ball.
"Heh heh heh."
I climbed into the carriage and kept snickering the whole way. Lapis sat across from me, staring at me with a deadpan expression. Was her dress uncomfortable? She kept fidgeting with the fabric at her chest.
"What's so funny?"
"Man. When Memoria played out, the look on that guy's face. He'd been putting on the act of a refined gentleman right up until then, and it just completely crumbled."
"……."
Lapis fell silent, clearly disgusted. Couldn't care less — I was busy counting on my fingers.
Let's see. Barbatos had blabbed about the "game" to roughly fifteen female Demon Lords. I'd met seventeen Grand Dukes of Hell so far, and I'd already leaked Memoria footage to seven of them…….
"Just eight more to go."
I giggled. Even to my own ears, the laughter sounded genuinely wicked. So what? A Demon Lord was supposed to be wicked. In that regard, no Demon Lord was as diligent and upstanding as yours truly. Diligence and integrity personified — that's Dantalion for you. I deserved universal praise and then some.
"I'll return exactly what I received and not a coin more. No matter how I think about it, I'm excessively conscientious."
"…Excuse me?"
Lapis looked utterly confused.
"Forgive me. I thought I heard the word 'conscientious' just now……. As far as I know, there is not a single person in this world less suited to that word than Lord Dantalion. I must have misheard."
"No, you heard correctly. Think about it! I could return far more than I received, easy. But instead, I give back exactly and only what was given to me — not a little less, not a little more."
It was admirable. I was on the verge of falling in love with my own magnanimity.
"Righteous executor, wise arbiter, faithful partner. To properly describe my character, I'd need at least those titles. In fact, they're still not enough — I'll have to develop some new ones."
Even in the midst of my self-admiration, there was a faint trace of bitterness. Like someone who had witnessed a scene of breathtaking beauty yet could not find the words to express it — who, having realized the limits of language, sank into melancholy.
I nodded, weighed down by complicated feelings.
"But that's just how life is, isn't it? You want to express something but can't. No matter how many times you try, you can never fully convey it. The frustration of constantly waffling between boldness and banality… I, too, have become one of those indescribable greats to people. How tragic."
"……."
Lapis gazed at me in silence. How to describe it? Her face was a cocktail of bewilderment and irritation. She fanned the collar of her dress, looking thoroughly exasperated.
I placed my hand against the carriage window and asked.
"What, suffocating in here? Want me to open the window?"
"If there's a chance Dantalion will leap out of it, then yes. By all means, open it."
"No. I'd rather not, actually."
Lapis let out a sigh. She muttered something under her breath. I couldn't quite make it out, but it was the kind of aimless grumbling about how I hadn't been this bad before, or when exactly I'd gotten so brazen, or that she couldn't even follow what I was saying.
I decided the jokes had gone on long enough.
I pulled a piece of paper from my sleeve. On it, I had written in Korean: 'Archduke Poison, 2 million, 6 months.' The paper also listed the names of other archdukes who had promised aid, in addition to the Archduke of Poison.
"I've now secured promises totaling ten million gold."
"……So the target amount we initially aimed for has been reached."
The moment money came up, Lapis's expression turned serious in an instant. Lapis was never one to be swept up by the mood. She knew exactly where to draw the line.
"Are you planning to continue requesting aid from the archdukes?"
"It's been working better than expected."
I had been bluffing the archdukes with pure lies. The upper Demon Lords had formed a tacit alliance, they'd agreed to deal with the Demon Realm before subjugating the Human Realm, Barbatos had raised objections… all of it was fabricated.
An alliance. As if something like that could ever come together. The state of the Crescent Alliance Army made an impossible assumption look plausible. Why the legions had gathered in one place, why the Plains Faction had glossed over the Mountain Faction's defection, why…
For the archdukes, the current situation was completely outside their expectations. The more perceptive among them would be desperate to figure out what had driven things to this point. And right then, I offered them a convincing answer: the current situation is actually a prelude to eliminating you archdukes.
"It's a good thing the archdukes are competent."
"A good thing they're competent? Isn't it troublesome when the other side is competent?"
"Well, that's usually the case. But situations like this one are different. The archdukes have essentially tripped over their own competence."
I know how the situation is unfolding. I just don't know *why* it's unfolding that way. When competent people find themselves in a situation like this, they're more inclined to interpret it negatively than positively. They start getting suspicious.
It's similar to a game of Go. Say two grandmasters face each other across the board. Then the opponent plays a completely random, nonsensical move. What do you think? There must be some hidden meaning behind it. You can't afford to let your guard down. If you get careless, you could be in serious trouble before you know it. Stay vigilant.
"If the archdukes had been incompetent, they would've just shrugged and said, 'Come at us if you want.' My schemes would've been completely useless. It's a good thing they're competent."
"Competence can sometimes be poison."
Lapis muttered that to herself, slightly dazed. She had spent her entire life trying to become competent. My words probably struck a nerve somewhere.
Competence alone isn't enough. On top of that, you have to believe in yourself.
The world revolves around me. I'm the one who'll make it so. That kind of unshakable confidence has to come along with it. The upper Demon Lords are banding together to attack? Nonsense! You need that sort of defiant outburst from time to time.
I let out a faint, bitter laugh.
'Except I could never be that kind of person.'
I'm unfortunately much closer to the archdukes' side. I suspect everything. Being cut from the same cloth, I was able to predict what the archdukes would think. The best tricks I could pull off only go so far.
The title of true hero suited that Princess Elizabeth. She had both competence and magnanimity. She was, quite simply, a dazzling talent.
I'm envious. But I won't lose. There are things only someone who suspects everything can do. The one who plunges a dagger into the emperor is always the lowliest of slaves, after all.
"Dantalion. I have a question."
"Ask me anything. I'll tell you everything—except the color of my underwear."
"...I already know that Dantalion doesn't wear underwear."
Excuse me?
"How—how did you know that?"
"Who do you think has been preparing Dantalion's clothes all this time? The clothes you're wearing right now. The cloak. The pants and the vest—all of it was arranged by me. You just never happen to order underwear."
Lapis stared at me with a look of absolute contempt.
"Of course, I know that the Demon Lord naturally has a lower metabolism. There are probably plenty of days where you don't even sweat at all. But even so, to not order even a single set of underwear……"
"I'm sorry. Please ask your questions."
I bowed my head. I should have just accepted the questions normally, but I had to go and throw in a joke trying to tease her, and a massive counterattack came flying back. It was a counterattack I had never once allowed from the Doxsa Grand Duke, yet Lapis executed it as naturally as breathing. What a terrifying woman.
"Lord Dantalion, you have met with seventeen Grand Dukes so far."
"Mm."
"But of those, you only demanded tribute money from six. It's difficult for me to guess the reason. Wouldn't it be far better to demand tribute money from all seventeen?"
"No."
I answered immediately.
"Lapis, are you saying it would be better to bleed a million or two million gold from each of the seventeen?"
"Yes. You received it from only six, and you've already amassed ten million gold. If you had received it from all seventeen, think of how enormous that sum would have been……"
"Heh heh."
A laugh escaped before I could stop it.
"It's to instill vigilance in the Grand Dukes."
"Vigilance……?"
"Right. The Grand Dukes aren't fools. We're talking about a minimum of one to two million gold. They'd have to pay that kind of fortune to me—there's no way they wouldn't investigate."
The Grand Dukes would mobilize every intelligence resource they had. To determine more certainly whether my words were true or false. They would start by probing the other Grand Dukes around them.
And then they'd realize. That while there were those who had paid tribute money to Dantalion—there were also Grand Dukes who hadn't even heard a word about paying tribute money.
"Get what I mean?"
"I'm sorry."
Oh dear—Lapis did have a dense side after all. She was supremely capable when it came to finances, but weak when it came to actual power plays. Maybe I should give her a little hint.
"Think about what subsidies would mean to the Grand Dukes. They'd definitely come to think of it like this: 'I invested a fortune to purchase my own safety.'"
"……!"
Lapis's pupils dilated. She seemed to have figured it out.
"There was actually a process of filtering them out……?"
I nodded.
"The Demon Lords didn't demand loyalty from every Grand Duke. They only demanded it from a small few. So what happens to the Grand Dukes who weren't asked for loyalty? Why did some receive money while others didn't even have the topic brought up……"
A smile crept onto my lips.
"Can you imagine how the Grand Dukes who were promised subsidies would interpret it?"
"A warning…… example," Lapis said, barely managing to squeeze the words out. That was the correct answer.
"The Demon Lords never truly gave up on conquering the Demon Realm. They simply sorted the loyal from the treacherous. Dantalion wasn't a tax collector dispatched to collect subsidies. His true role was that of a reaper deciding which Grand Dukes would be killed and which would be spared…… That's how the Grand Dukes would see it."
And they would tremble in fear.
At the realization that they had unknowingly dodged the blade of a purge.
"The moment they realized that, I'd imagine their necks would feel pretty cold."
I chuckled softly. Just imagining the scene was enough to bring a smile to my face.
"I put in some effort for that. I deliberately excluded the Grand Dukes who were openly hostile toward the Demon Lords. I just gave them a moderate bit of intimidation and wrapped up the private meetings. I only squeezed the subsidies out of those who were docile toward the Demon Lords."
"Then, hiring informants over the past month to gather intelligence on the Demon Realm—"
"The goal was to assess the Grand Dukes' usual attitudes."
As a result, I found that only a meager nine Grand Dukes showed any real respect toward the Demon Lords. The rest were all uncooperative toward the Demon Lords. Or, to be more precise, uncooperative with the Crescent Alliance Army's expedition.
A few among them were even providing financial support to the lower-ranking Demon Lords. There was a reason the Mountain Faction demons had been so emboldened. It was all laid out so brazenly that it left one at a loss for words.
"Well, this isn't my only objective. The other Grand Dukes will follow shortly――."
Just then, a massive explosion rang out from ahead. The shockwave hit and the carriage rattled violently. It lost its balance in an instant, tilting to one side. Lapis sprang to her feet and threw herself over me.
"Lord Dantalion. Lower your head!"
There wasn't even time for me to respond. Lapis wrapped my face as deep into her embrace as she could, then deliberately rolled across the carriage floor. Right after that, another tremendous explosion thundered — this time, it had gone off right next to the carriage.
Sheltered beneath Lapis's body, a single instinct pierced through me.
*It's a terrorist attack!*