All the scenery faded away. The monsters' corpses, the plains — everything vanished.
The surroundings turned completely white. Only Barbatos and Paimon remained.
An endlessly white space. The only sound was the girl's choked sobs, echoing softly. It was a scene jarringly alien from reality. Somehow, the perpetually white space felt oddly fitting for Paimon.
For her, this must have been a memory in its most primal form.
Everyone carries at least one such memory through life.
"The girl couldn't say it was alright back then. She couldn't tell Barbatos that everything would be fine going forward, couldn't comfort him. Perhaps she already had some intuition — that the days of us fighting together would never come again."
By this point, I had begun to grasp Paimon's intentions.
She had concluded that I might not be a pure republican. And yet she tried to persuade me anyway. She was courting me, asking me to take her side.
She and I were both Demon Lords. We couldn't read each other's emotions. Through ordinary means, we could never earn absolute trust or truly convince the other. So she resorted to dreams.
What kind of life she had lived. What she had felt through it all. What she believed the problem was, and how she judged one must act to solve it. She intended to show all of it vividly within a dream.
*What a noble attitude.*
She would lay her life bare, piece by piece. Flung open every lock on her heart. And then she would ask the other person: Can you cooperate with someone like me?
*— But I don't move on emotions alone, Paimon.*
I took a sip of tea.
Go ahead — try to convince me. As for the debt you lost at the hearing, you've more than repaid it by saving me during the Crescent Alliance Army's debate. Between the two of us, nothing remains now but the lingering knot of emotion.
*We're on equal footing.*
What plan do you have? How sophisticated a scenario are you sketching out? If I pitch in, what benefit comes my way? I'm not an easy man. You'll need to persuade me properly.
"Dantalion. You probably know the reason, don't you? Why the Crescent Alliance Army keeps failing."
"Even among Demon Lords, the gap in power between upper and lower Demon Lords is vast. If the continent is unified, the upper Demon Lords will begin pressuring the lower ones. At that point, it won't be humans versus Demonkin — it'll be a great war between Demonkin and Demonkin..."
"Exactly."
Paimon smiled, seemingly pleased.
"I only realized that fact much later. Until then, I simply assumed the supply lines had been destroyed by the human army. I never imagined that a fellow Demon Lord would secretly feed information to the humans. I tried to confront them about it eventually, but as you might expect..."
There was no evidence whatsoever.
The lower Demon Lords had desperately tried to protect the supply lines. But they simply couldn't keep up with the knight order's elusive, sweeping raids. Among them, quite a few lower Demon Lords lost their lives trying to defend supply bases to the very end.
"They were probably loyal to the Crescent Alliance Army. They refused to collude with the human army—or were presumed to have refused. So they were purged by their own comrades... No, perhaps they fell victim to a borrowed-blade stratagem and lost their lives on the edge of a human blade."
The upper Demon Lords never caught on.
Rather than the lower Demon Lords being at fault, it was the human army that had performed brilliantly. Or perhaps it was the upper Demon Lords who had erred—pushing too deep into the continent. Their operations had stretched the supply lines far too long. That was how they had rationalized it.
"At the time, we upper Demon Lords, Barbatos among us, actually apologized to the lower Demon Lords. We told them our flawed strategy was what had doomed the Crescent Alliance Army's expedition."
But Paimon eventually caught on, even if a step too late.
Having risen all the way from a mere Succubus to a Demon Lord, she could put herself in a lower Demon Lord's shoes. And she realized what the lower Demon Lords truly feared...
"But Lady Paimon. I still don't understand why you created the Mountain Faction."
I asked, genuinely curious.
"If you had already grasped the lower Demon Lords' intentions, couldn't you have simply set a trap during the third or fourth Crescent Alliance Army campaigns and waited?"
That's what I would have done.
Pretend to push deep into the continent, then strike the moment the lower Demon Lords attempted their betrayal. You could wipe them all out in one sweep. And if you accused the other side of plotting betrayal, you'd even seize the moral high ground. Isn't that the optimal play?
"Because I realized there was a far more important problem."
"A more important problem? What would that be?"
"The fact that war would erupt after the continent was unified."
Paimon said.
"The young girl believed that unifying the continent was the path for all Demonkin. She believed that once the Human Realm was conquered, the Demonkin would finally enjoy peace and abundance. But continental unity would instead be the spark of war. Until now, the Demonkin had been united under the banner of subjugating the Human Realm — but they would scatter and divide, each rushing to the battlefield in service of the Demon Lord they worshipped."
A single sovereign. A single Demon Lord, and the entire Demon Realm would be engulfed in war. What kind of continental unity was this? Talk of uniting the continent for the sake of all Demonkin — nothing more than empty words... Indeed. Had Paimon harbored doubts about the Crescent Alliance Army's expedition all along?
"The young girl came to realize something. Humans were a necessary evil. And to humans, Demonkin were a necessary evil as well. If either race had vanished from the world, the remaining one would have waged endless wars among themselves."
"……."
"The young girl thought about it. Whether the continent is unified or left divided, war still erupts. Isn't that strange? Not a single commoner wants war. As long as their lives and livelihoods are guaranteed, neither humans nor Demonkin would willingly set foot on a battlefield of death. So why on earth does war keep happening?"
Paimon looked at me.
"It is precisely because of those in power."
"……."
"Imagine that going to war required the approval of the commoners. The commoners would have to bear every hardship that war brings upon themselves. They would need to pick up blades and kill with their own hands, pay for the costs of war out of their own pockets, and rebuild the cities and villages devastated by conflict with their own labor. Commoners would surely be far less eager to support war."
The heat in Paimon's voice began to swell.
"But those in power are different. They are not commoners. They are the masters of the commoners. If it means gaining something greater, they will gladly stake what they currently possess — the lives of the commoners, the commoners' very homes — like gamblers placing bets. The young girl came to understand. So long as society is treated as the property of someone — whether in the Human Realm or the Demon Realm — war can never be severed!"
Her obsidian-dark eyes burned with a quiet fury.
"How foolish we were!"
she cried out.
"Our Demon Lord — how utterly blind! We believed we were acting for the sake of the Demonkin. We believed we were fighting for the Demonkin. But look. It was not the Demon Lords who died. Only a handful of Demon Lords perished in battle. The ones who sacrificed — the tens upon tens of thousands who fell — were not Demon Lords. They were Demonkin!"
Paimon ground her teeth.
"And yet we still told ourselves we were fighting for the Demonkin! It was hypocrisy. It was deceit. Even if the continent were unified, that hypocrisy and deceit would not cease. It would blaze ever brighter, burning through the Human Realm, the Demon Realm, and eventually the entire world. Simply because our Demon Lord could not read the hearts of humans... simply because they were alien to us, we sought to annihilate them, and we sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Demonkin in the process!"
The scenery around us shifted. The pristine white space vanished, and a battlefield unfolded in its place.
Orcs were massacring humans in a village. Screams and moans pierced the sky. On the other side, humans were wiping out a goblin encampment. Young goblins were toyed with as though they were playthings before arrows pierced their tender chests, snuffing out their lives.
Massacre. Endless massacre continued on and on.
"It was our Demon Lord's fault!"
Paimon wailed.
"It wasn't humanity's fault either. It wasn't the Demonkin's fault either. One perfect sovereign ruling all of creation in an ideal state — to build that gilded empire, our Demon Lord deceived everyone……!"
Over the past two thousand years, there had been eight Crescent Alliance Army expeditions. After the third expedition, the Mountain Faction had always participated in the Crescent Alliance Army's campaigns halfheartedly. As a result, most of the Demonkin who followed the Mountain Faction's Demon Lord had survived. The Demonkin belonging to the Plains Faction, on the other hand, kept dying.
The Plains Faction called the Mountain Faction traitors. The Mountain Faction, in turn, accused the Plains Faction of being the real traitors to demonkind. Which side was right? Which side was wrong……?
I spoke.
"So you've decided to establish a republic."
"Yes."
Paimon nodded.
"The Demon Lords must all disappear in the end. Whether one can read others' emotions or not — that is of absolutely no importance. Humans can't read each other's emotions either. And yet they live. And yet they think as we do, and act as we do."
The Demon Lord is an aberrant existence.
Paimon declared as much.
"Humans, Demonkin — they must build their own societies and govern their own societies. Disputes will never cease, of course. But given time, they will come to understand that the other party is a rational being just as they are."
Her eyes gleamed with conviction.
"……."
It was a fascinating story. Knowing how history had unfolded in the original world, I wanted to agree with half of what she said and disagree with the other half.
Paimon was right about one thing — in the end, the republic would triumph. But to utter that single word "in the end," how much blood had to be shed?
Not hundreds of thousands. Not even millions. Tens of millions. And they were slaughtered and slaughtered over and over again…… Could the weight of all that blood truly be borne by the word "in the end"? I was not optimistic.
"Paimon. Forgive me, but to me, you look nothing more than a naive idealist."
Her words were steeped in passion.
But there was no conviction behind it.
"I will say this outright. For a republican society to be built according to Lady Paimon's ideals — for a society where humans and Demonkin live together as equals to truly come into being — an truly enormous amount of blood will need to be shed."
"……Yes. The maiden thinks so too."
Really? Were you truly prepared for just how much blood would flow?
I spoke.
"The blood that Demonkin shed after the continent is unified. The blood that humans and Demonkin shed to achieve a republic. If you compare the two, there probably won't be much difference. Either way, the Demonkin are the ones who pay the price. Do you understand?"
Whether you follow Barbatos's ideals or Paimon's ideals, the Demonkin are the ones who bleed all the same. So tell me, Paimon — I'm genuinely curious.
"Why can't it be Barbatos, but it can be you?"
"……."
"If you can't answer that, you're nothing more than yet another Demon Lord. A fire that goes by the name of Demon Lord. You burn the entire world to achieve your own goals, and Demonkin who have gone blind to the light throw themselves into the flames like moats. I personally call such people monsters."
In other words, the strong.
Those who sacrifice others without hesitation for the sake of their ideology. Those who deceive themselves into believing they are sacrificing for some lofty ideal — for the greater good — rather than for themselves.
I am not like that. When I kill someone, I don't make excuses. It isn't for some ideal. And certainly not for the greater good. Hork, Jack Orland, Leaf…… they all died purely because of my selfishness. That is the truth. I know it.
"I have absolutely no intention of condemning your ideology itself. Honestly, I think it's noble. However, to me, Barbatos appears equally noble in exactly the same way."
You cannot convince me.
"If you want to convince me, then don't just scream about ideology. Present me with tangible benefits. At the very least, present me with a blueprint. A republic — fine. But how exactly do you intend to achieve it? Is there even a possibility?"
Paimon did not answer. She merely stared at me in silence.
I waited for a moment. As expected, no reply came. I stood up from my seat with a faint sense of disappointment.
"I'd ask you to keep your eyes on your ideals but your feet planted firmly in reality. I could have deceived you, but you saved me during the last Crescent Alliance Army campaign. You also helped me during this latest attack. To repay that debt, I gave you an honest answer.……Don't expect me to be this honest again next time."
I turned my back and walked away. This was a dream, after all. Walking wouldn't get me out of anywhere, but in my own way, it was a silent demand for the dream to end. After a few steps, I paused.
"If you're asking about a blueprint, I have one."
Paimon spoke from behind me.
"This girl is not as foolish as she may seem. Seventeen hundred years ago, when that idea first surfaced—back when we couldn't even call it a republic—I decided it would have to be tested with the utmost care."
"Oh?"
I responded without turning around. And then?
"I thought about it. Rather than attempting a republic in Demonkin society, where a being as incongruous as a Demon Lord exists, wouldn't it be far easier to achieve one in human society? If I wanted to find out whether a republic was truly possible or impossible, I should experiment in the Human Realm first."
"…!"
That was something I couldn't ignore.
Paimon was still seated comfortably in her chair. Her eyes were filled with the same unwavering conviction as before. Surely not, I thought, and opened my mouth.
"What do you mean…"
"The Batavia Republic."
Paimon said with a smile.
"The one and only republic in the Human Realm. Did you perhaps believe that humans created such an extraordinary nation entirely on their own?"
The shock hit me like a thunderbolt.