When I opened my eyes, it was already dark outside the window.
"......"
I was sprawled on the floor of Brother Zepar's room. Through a crack in the slightly open window, the cry of an owl drifted in. For a while, I stared blankly, listening to the sounds birds sent echoing through the night sky. It felt as though hearing had consumed the entirety of my consciousness.
"Mmmngh."
Gradually, sight and touch crowded out the sound. First, my cheeks felt rough and gritty. My face must have been pressed hard into the carpet when I passed out—there were deep imprint marks all over them. I slowly sat up, stroking my right cheek with my hand, and only now did something resembling actual thought finally return to my head.
'...So far, things are going according to the script.'
That's right. The script.
The moment I recalled that word, thoughts began chaining onto one another like multiple fish wriggling on a single line, each one tugging the next to the surface. The Mountain Faction. Sitri. The Plains Faction. Barbatos. Infighting and provocation—.
A scapegoat.
The plan to make Brother Zepar the scapegoat. I needed to check immediately whether it had succeeded or failed. I pulled a hand mirror from inside my clothes and checked my face. The area around my eyes was a mess. My hair was a disaster. I wouldn't be able to pick up a country girl looking like this.
But being a disaster was exactly right. Right now, everything needed to be a disaster.
My script was simple yet efficient.
First, I would execute the traitor Belial to unify the Mountain Faction. This was to prevent the Mountain Faction from weakening in the wake of Paimon's death.
Next, I would make Brother Zepar the scapegoat within the Plains Faction. Brother Zepar was one of the Plains Faction's two wings. His fall, in itself, would diminish the Plains Faction's political power.
Strengthen the Mountain Faction. Narrow the Plains Faction's position. And thereby establish a new balance within the Demon Lord's army once more......
Still, Brother Zepar alone felt insufficient. Think about it. The Mountain Faction had lost Paimon. It wasn't a tail or a pair of arms that had been severed—it was the head itself. Simply stripping Brother Zepar of his political life would never be enough to restore the balance.
"Fine."
I tucked the hand mirror back inside my clothes.
If the Mountain Faction had lost its head, then the Plains Faction, likewise, needed to lose its head.
What could she possibly hide.
"Let's begin the game… Barbatos."
Barbatos would pay the price herself for having crossed the line.
Barbatos was not in her own bedroom but in the back garden of the imperial palace.
She sipped her wine, her unfocused gaze drifting over the garden pond. When I approached with audible footsteps, Barbatos glanced briefly in my direction before looking away again.
"Well, look who finally graces us with his presence. The man who's been impossible to find lately."
Barbatos muttered in a bored voice.
"A gentleman who spends every other day dating some other woman at Anchiso — what wind blew through your lungs today to make you come looking for your ex? Could it be you've finally realized you can't sleep with a corpse?"
"I'm not here for you, Barbatos. I didn't come to see you."
Barbatos snorted and gave her wine glass a faint swirl.
"Oh my, how fascinating. Here I've been living my life thinking my name was Barbatos — for over two thousand years, no less. If it turns out I've been mistaken this whole time, I do hope you'll correct me."
"I've come to see the head of the Plains Faction and the Empire's regent."
"……."
Barbatos fixed me with a hard stare. Her golden eyes were unmistakably clouded with fatigue. Yet the sharpness in them had not dulled one bit.
"That's it? You finally show your face after a whole month, and that's all you have to say?"
"Barbatos. It's not like I was avoiding you. I haven't met with Gamigin either."
"Ha. Don't you dare compare me to that psychotic bimbo."
Barbatos's voice carried a threat.
"Did you even have genuine feelings for Gamigin to begin with? You slept with her from the start because you planned to use her, you bastard. Are you seriously trying to put that kind of woman on the same level as me?"
"……."
The two of us stared each other down.
Ever since Paimon died, we had fought every time we met. It started with petty bickering and inevitably escalated into shouting matches where our pride hung in the balance. We knew each other so well that now, a single glance was enough to more or less guess what the other was thinking.
"So. You want me to prove to you again that you're the most important to me?"
I opened my mouth.
"Was Paimon not enough? Do I have to kill Gamigin too before you're satisfied? Should I go ahead and kill Sitri as well, just so you get a man who lives only with eyes for you? Is that really what you want?"
"Don't you dare talk to me like that."
"Oh my. Of course I should speak with utmost respect, Lord Barbatos. You are the great leader of the Plains Faction, and without Your Lordship, I'd be nothing but a wretch wallowing in the gutters."
I flashed a bitter smile.
"Shall I use honorifics like I did when we first met? Would that better suit Your Lordship's taste? My apologies. I never anticipated that Your Lordship's ears would be this sensitive."
"……."
Barbatos gritted his teeth. This was actually mild. Days when we threw punches at each other and screamed weren't uncommon either. Dignity was growing thinner and thinner between us.
"I don't want to fight with you. So, Barbatos. Let's keep this to politics."
"……Fine. Go ahead, Court Count."
"You need to have Commander Zepar apologize."
Barbatos furrowed his brow.
Big Brother Zepar had probably gone to Barbatos already and explained the situation. He would have said that his carelessness had provoked the Mountain Faction for no reason, and that he would take responsibility by apologizing to them.
But the fact that I was the one who advised him to meet with Belial—and that my advice had played a decisive role in it—would have been left out entirely. Big Brother wanted to resolve this matter on his own terms.
So from Barbatos's perspective, the mere fact that I knew the full story was bound to seem suspicious. Just a few hours ago, Big Brother Zepar would have reported that "this incident arose entirely from my unauthorized actions," and yet here I was casually discussing the matter as if it were obvious.
"How did you find out?"
"I was the one who egged on Commander Zepar to arrange a meeting with Belial."
"What?"
I said calmly.
"Think about it logically, Barbatos. Has Commander Zepar ever made a major decision for the faction without consulting you first? The Commander always acts on your orders. The only exception would be…"
"When you gave him advice, you son of a bitch."
Barbatos growled.
"I thought something was off, and sure enough, that's exactly what happened. What's your angle?"
"I wanted to instill a sense of urgency in the Mountain Faction."
"Urgency? What the hell kind of urgency?"
I sighed.
"Look at the massacre Sitri pulled off in the Demon Realm. Sitri is clearly abnormally agitated right now — anyone can see that. If the Mountain Faction collapses rapidly under these circumstances, Sitri will react impulsively once more. In the worst case, he could spark a civil war."
"……."
"Some form of shock therapy was necessary. I figured that if we let things spiral out of control, we'd start seeing traitors jumping ship to other factions. And since Belial is the weakest minnow in the Mountain Faction, he was the perfect target to plant just the right amount of anxiety… at least, that's how I judged it."
My voice grew darker here.
"Though in reality, things didn't unfold the way I'd anticipated."
"What went wrong?"
"It was Sitri. The degree to which Sitri became unhinged far exceeded my expectations. If Sitri were of sound mind, he should have only reacted once Belial met Big Brother Zepar for a second or third time. But Sitri killed Belial over a single meeting with Big Brother Zepar. That's not a normal reaction by any stretch…"
Barbatos spoke with a displeased look on his face.
"Hmph. The Mountain Faction wouldn't even exist if it weren't for Gamigin in the first place. Of course those little shits are going to throw their weight around. So what?"
"That's precisely why Commander Zepar absolutely cannot apologize."
I looked straight into Barbatos's eyes.
"Even if Commander Zepar says he handled it all on his own, nobody's going to believe that. It's painfully obvious that he's your most trusted subordinate. Everyone will think you were behind it — even us in the Plains Faction."
"......"
"That would make you, Barbatos, someone who pinned the blame on your own underling. You'd earn ridicule from the Mountain Faction, contempt from the Neutral Faction, and disappointment from us, the Plains Faction. That's the one scenario we absolutely cannot allow."
The more I spoke, the more complicated Barbatos's expression became.
"......What are you saying? So it can't happen because it would make me look bad?"
"If you want the simple version, yes."
Barbatos scowled.
"Then who's supposed to apologize? Should I just flat-out deny it — Belial was the bad one and the Plains Faction had nothing to do with it? That crazy bitch Sitri isn't going to buy that."
"Commander Zepar shouldn't apologize, and you shouldn't apologize either — but not apologizing at all isn't an option either."
I spoke in a low voice.
"I'll offer my apology to the Mountain Faction."
"......Huh?"
"I'm different from Commander Zepar. Almost every Demon Lord knows that I'm the kind of person who can act on my own even without your orders. Even if I apologize, the suspicion is unlikely to spread to you, Barbatos."
Barbatos opened his mouth as if to object, but I didn't wait and continued without pause.
"Besides, I'm publicly recognized as the second-in-command of the Plains Faction. If I bow my head, the Mountain Faction will have no choice but to accept it. Either way, we'll reach a satisfactory outcome."
"Hey, wait. Shit, hold on a second."
Barbatos pressed his fingertips hard against his temples.
"Unless I'm spectacularly stupid and failing to understand this — it sounds like you're saying you'd rather take the entire blow yourself than let it smear my reputation."
"Don't get the wrong idea, Barbatos. I'm not saying I'm doing this for your sake."
I stated coldly.
"In the first place, the root cause of this whole mess is that I gave Captain Zepar bad advice. It's only natural that the person who created the problem should take responsibility. Captain Zepar might think sacrificing himself would settle everything, but that's a colossal misjudgment."
"No…"
"If I bow my head, the only one who suffers is me. But if you bow your head, the entire Plains Faction takes the hit. It should be crystal clear which of the two of us should be sitting at that apology table."
Barbatos stared at me, his lips slightly parted as though he had lost the ability to speak.
"No, just—wait a damn second, you idiot. Sure, some Demon Lords might think you acted alone, but normally they'd figure this was something involving our faction, so you would have consulted with me first. Right? Huh?"
Barbatos's brow furrowed deeply.
"So what, I'd be the world's biggest piece of trash—someone who shoves responsibility onto their own lover instead of shouldering it themselves? How is dumping it on Zepar any different from dumping it on you?"
"I'll handle it on my own."
A flat, emotionless voice spilled from my mouth.
"Don't worry. I'll make sure everyone around us is convinced you had nothing to do with this. You had zero involvement in this incident, so stay out of it quietly."
"Stay out of it quietly…?"
Barbatos glared at me with an incredulous look in his eyes. I didn't meet his gaze. Instead, I turned my back and started walking toward the garden exit.
Just then—*squeeze*.
A small palm clamped down hard on my wrist.
"Stop your bullshit, Dantalion. Wait."