"It may have started as nothing more than one of Master Jeremy's little jokes."
Daisy said.
"If it had ended there, we could have swept it under the rug as if nothing ever happened. But everything after that — all of it was you, brother."
"I really... didn't know..."
"Good."
Daisy tightened her encirclement, leaving no room for escape.
"You had absolutely no idea, so that's a relief. Only I knew, only I suffered, only I was hurt — how fortunate. I hope you live out your entire life in that blissful ignorance, never knowing a thing. That way, you'll always have the excuse of not having known."
Silence settled between them.
It took a little time for the mental edifice the boy named Luke had built to crumble. Everything he had believed in, everything he had taken pride in, slowly sank to the bottom of his heart. Time drifted on, empty and without purpose.
"...I..."
Luke murmured. His voice was like a ruin.
"What... what am I supposed to do...?"
"Things won't get any better. They won't get any worse, either. The sin simply remains — unerased, lingering on."
Daisy spoke with unhurried calm. Like a snake that had already sunk its venomous fangs into the nape of its prey and was now savoring the thought of which part to tear into next — deliberating with both pleasure and care — she slowly tightened her hold on Luke.
"I will never forgive you. Not until the day I die."
"..."
"Spend eternity making amends, brother."
Right after that, the distance between Daisy and Luke closed to almost nothing, then opened again immediately. I was certain Daisy had kissed Luke. There was no proof. But if I had been in her place, I would have done the same — to sear tonight's conversation into his memory so he could never forget it. Not ever.
"Get out."
Daisy issued the order to leave. Luke stumbled out of the bedroom like a ghost.
"......"
Even after Luke was gone, I couldn't manage to crawl out from under the bed. What could I possibly accomplish by coming out now, in this situation? Daisy didn't say a single word either. The two of us held our silence for a long time.
Daisy was the first to speak.
"You can't run away now, Father."
"......What are you talking about?"
"You remember what kind of bet you and I made at the very beginning, don't you?"
Of course I remembered.
Luke voluntarily swearing sincere loyalty to me. In that case, I swore that no matter what happened, I would never kill Luke and Daisy, nor the children's biological parents or the villagers.
On the other hand, as long as Luke did not swear loyalty to me, I was free to kill them anytime, anywhere. In other words, they were living on borrowed time. That was the bet Daisy and I had made in Frank's frontier village.
"I've always wondered why you never took Luke to the battlefield. Luke is just as useful as I am. No, compared to me—who was raised to be an assassin—Luke, who was trained as a warrior from the start, would actually perform better in melee combat. And yet you simply left Luke alone in the territory."
"......"
"You deliberately didn't use Luke. You barely even saw him. I had no choice but to conclude that you had almost no intention of extracting a loyalty oath from Luke."
That was right.
I had practically abandoned Luke, leaving him to rot.
"My doubts only deepened. Leaving such a useful card to go to waste—that didn't match your personality at all, Father. Fortunately, as time passed, the questions resolved themselves naturally."
I crawled out from under the bed. This conversation had to be had face-to-face. I was certain of it. I stood up and stretched, loosening the stiffness that had set in from remaining motionless for nearly three hours.
Daisy was sitting on the edge of the bed, smoking. By the scent, it was quite potent stuff. My master Jeremy and I—both of us were chain-smokers rotten to the bone—so it was only natural that Daisy had picked up tobacco as well.
However, Daisy never smoked in front of me. She didn't want to show me any sign of weakness, most likely. Even now, as I crawled out from under the bed, she pressed the pipe tobacco against the floor to extinguish it. But I shook my head.
"It's fine. I allow it."
I pulled a chair from the corner of the room and placed it directly across from Daisy. Then I sat down. Daisy gazed at me with those ink-black eyes, unblinking.
"There were three clues to the answer. Count Versi, Demon Lord Paimon, and Consul Elisabeth."
"Oh my."
"First, Count Versi. During the Puppet War, Father carried out a large-scale massacre. That was when Count Versi came storming in, furious and demanding answers from Father. That was when I noticed something extremely strange."
I drew tobacco leaves from inside my jacket and slowly rolled a cigarette. It had been quite some time since I'd quit smoking, but quitting drugs was never really quitting — it was just a temporary pause.
"Father admitted to his crimes immediately. Without hesitation."
While I absentmindedly, mechanically rolled the tobacco leaves, Daisy spoke in a flat tone.
"Why? How could that be? I couldn't understand it. Father had absolutely no reason to confess. It would have been far more advantageous to blame it on another Demon Lord — *I'm sorry, but there was nothing I could do to stop it.* That would have been the smarter play. But Father confessed with breezy nonchalance."
Daisy quietly exhaled smoke into the air.
"That was when I realized. Father had been *testing* Count Versi."
"......"
"I didn't know what his objective was. But I was certain that Father was, for some reason, measuring something about Count Versi. He deliberately told the truth, and then waited to see how the Count would respond."
The corners of Daisy's lips curved upward ever so slightly.
"The second clue was Demon Lord Paimon. It was last winter. When Demon Lord Paimon organized the Republican Representative Council, Father scrambled desperately to defuse it. To protect the Empire. To maintain the balance between the factions. That was his explanation, but......"
The tip of Daisy's cigarette glowed red.
"My interpretation is a bit different. Father wasn't bustling around because he wanted to protect the Empire. It was to protect Demon Lord Paimon. Paimon was far too precious to Father. Too precious to ever lose."
"......"
"So then why did he kill the one person he held so dear? Simply because he feared the Empire would collapse? Because he was worried factional conflicts would escalate? No. Those were all just surface reasons. The real reason is something else entirely."
Daisy looked me straight in the eyes.
"It's because, Father, Paimon had become unable to kill you anymore."
"......"
"The reason Father went to such lengths to protect that woman last winter was precisely this. To Father, Paimon was one of the most prominent among the 'candidates capable of killing me.'"
The sneer at the corners of Daisy's lips grew deeper and deeper.
"If the Republican Assembly had been left to its own devices back then, the Demon Lord Paimon would almost certainly have been crushed by the Plains Faction and the Neutral Faction. Father simply could not stand the thought of a candidate who might one day kill him being snuffed out so senselessly. And so, he went so far as to injure himself in order to protect the Demon Lord Paimon......"
My hand, which had been rolling a thin cigar, went still.
The two of us stared straight at each other. Sight became something almost like touch. Daisy's gaze held mine, and my gaze held Daisy's, and they stretched, and they pulled.
"Only then did I realize why Father confessed the truth to Count Versie. Count Versie was also one of the 'candidates' Father had quietly selected. He was testing whether the Count could actually kill him."
"......"
"Without question, Father also offered the Demon Lord Paimon a chance to kill him. But Paimon kicked that chance away...... Instead of killing Father, Paimon chose to submit to him."
In other words, the Demon Lord Paimon was eliminated from your list of candidates.
That was what Daisy declared.
"The third and final clue is Consul Elizabeth of the Habsburg Republic."
Daisy spoke not with speculation, but with the tone of someone stating a firm truth.
"Father saw through Consul Elizabeth's intentions, and remarkably, adjusted his war to match hers. He could have deceived and manipulated her at every turn. Yet he synced his rhythm with hers, as though he had forged a blood alliance with the Consul. Rather than ending her life for good, he instead kept it intact."
"......"
"I am now certain. Consul Elizabeth, too, belongs on Father's list of candidates. I don't know how many names he has put on it, but Father has always had one consistent weakness when it comes to his candidates."
Had I caught Daisy's sneer through some kind of infection?
Without meaning to, the corner of my mouth had twisted into a strange smile.
"Well then, the very first question — why you don't make use of my brother — is also answered automatically. He must be on the list as well. Isn't that right, Father?"
"Correct."
"The reason I didn't drag Luke into the war or any other affairs is simple. You wished for Luke to grow into a truly pure, righteous, and upright human being — someone pure and good enough to execute a villain like yourself."
When a villain kills another villain, it is nothing more than murder.
When a righteous person eliminates a villain, however, that is a proper execution — a just sentence.
I finished rolling my cigarette and placed it between my lips. Then I leaned my face forward. Daisy touched the tip of her tobacco to the end of mine. A moment later, the ember transferred over to my cigarette. I drew the smoke in deep.
"Perhaps you intended, when the time came, to guide my brother toward the truth. To help him become a true warrior — capable of killing you. All without his knowing."
"……."
"That was clumsy of you, Father."
Daisy spoke.
"I am, of course, a foolish child. But you showed me three separate clues. Even if I tried not to notice, I couldn't have missed them. Count Bercy, Consul Elizabeth, Luke — did you truly believe they could judge you worthy of death?"
Daisy smiled.
"As if I could ever cede my rights to the likes of a count, the likes of a consul, the likes of my own brother. What could any of them possibly know about you? Did you really think, from the very start, that they could kill you in any true sense of the word? I must say — that is a thoroughly misguided assumption."
Perhaps it was the cigarette, but my mind had settled into a profound calm.
"My brother now sees himself as both a sinner and a villain. He is no longer someone who can execute a villain without a shred of doubt. Please, remove my brother's name from the list of candidates."
"……."
"Judging for myself, Count Bercy is hardly a worthy candidate either. Since you killed Demon Lord Paimon with your own hands, I suppose the remaining possibilities are Demon Lord Barbatos and Consul Elizabeth. But they could never kill you. Never."
From the center of the room, where pale smoke curled upward.
"I swear it. I will protect you from all of them."
Daisy declared, her gaze unwavering as she looked at me.
"The only person in this world who can kill you is me."