"Yes, I'll show you clearly enough."
Valefor nodded slowly.
"However, I must secure your word in advance, Barbatos. The Memoria we intend to show carries considerable risk of gravely damaging Gamigin's honor. I want your promise that you will protect Gamigin's honor to the very end in connection with this matter…"
"A grand speech."
Barbatos snorted.
"I don't make promises of any kind with a shameless bastard."
"The shameless one is Dantalion, Barbatos! He threatened the independent Demon Lords, and today he humiliated Gamigin!"
Valefor shouted boldly. At that, one of the Plains Faction Demon Lords jabbed a finger accusingly.
"Assassination in the Imperial Palace, which has been declared neutral territory! You lot are the ones defying sacred law!"
"Ha! The one who violated neutral territory first was Dantalion himself!"
If he lost the initiative in rhetoric, it would all be for nothing. Valefor knew this well. He glared ferociously—first at Barbatos, then at the Demon Lords, Archdukes, and soldiers who had surrounded them on all sides like a siege.
"Remember five years ago. Andromalius, who was a Demon Lord like us—where did he die, and at whose hand? In Niflheim, which had been solemnly preserved as neutral territory for hundreds of years, in the very center of the main square where every citizen could see—it was none other than Dantalion who murdered him. Who is the destroyer of law? Who is the shameless killer!"
The independent Demon Lords raised their arms high in roaring approval. Yes—Dantalion is a criminal—the voices erupted.
"Neutral territory exists for all Demon Lords, never for a single person! Dantalion uses neutral territory whenever it suits him while respecting no neutrality of his own—he is the most despicable, brazen scoundrel of this age!"
"An assassin's excuse!"
"Cut out his tongue!"
The faction-allied Demon Lords scowled viciously, booing and jeering in a chorus. The independent Demon Lords, too, had veins bulging in their necks. They were overwhelmingly outnumbered in sheer numbers, but they had the confidence that the moral argument and the evidence were on their side.
In an atmosphere where a brawl could erupt at any moment, Barbatos remarked acidly.
"So Dantalion raped Gamigin, and by extraordinary coincidence Gamigin happened to possess a Memoria artifact that captured the scene, and by yet another extraordinary coincidence you lot barged in at precisely that moment. If that's coincidence, what a remarkable coincidence it is."
"There is nothing strange about it. Preparing an artifact as a contingency is perfectly natural. If anything, isn't this Dantalion's fault?"
Valefor sneered.
"That means he's a man so dangerous you can't even meet him alone without an artifact. And as we all feared, the worst actually came to pass… Gamigin."
Valefor turned his head to look at Gamigin. Fortunately, having had several hours to recover, the whip wounds she'd sustained had healed. She nodded and stepped forward.
"Yes. I have the evidence."
"She is unfit to testify!"
A Demon Lord from the Neutral Faction raised an objection.
"Gamigin was in a romantic relationship with Dantalion. Even if intimate things happened between them, how could it be rape?"
"Dantalion did not treat Gamigin as a lover. He simply used his victory in the civil war as leverage to coerce and threaten her!"
Valefor countered on Gamigin's behalf.
"Has Dantalion ever once publicly acknowledged Gamigin as his partner? Every single day, didn't he compare her to Barbatos and tear her down? Dantalion did it purely to humiliate her and turn her into a laughingstock. She is the victim!"
Once again, furious shouts erupted among the Demon Lords.
When Barbatos quietly raised her right hand, the Plains Faction fell silent. These were beings whose very nature was that of warriors, who could never turn a blind eye to the unjust death of a comrade—they were panting with rage and hostility. Not all of them were Dantalion lovers, however. Those who weren't kept their silence.
"Further words are pointless."
Barbatos cut through coldly.
"Gamigin. Show the evidence."
"I was planning to anyway."
Gamigin unclasped the obsidian necklace hanging around her neck. Valefor nodded in understanding. So she had cast a Memoria spell on the necklace. Dantalion had been a fool. He had let her into his chambers without the faintest idea what future might be lurking…
Now the world would see exactly how Dantalion had threatened her. Based on what they had witnessed inside those chambers, perverted torture had clearly been involved. He had treated a Demon Lord like a common harlot. There could be no leniency.
If anyone still defended Dantalion after seeing such a scene, the Plains Faction's honor would be dragged through the dirt. Grand Dukes of the Demon Realm were present here today. Regardless of personal feelings, they had no choice but to officially acknowledge Dantalion's crimes. The plan was perfect…
An opaque film seeped from the necklace.
Gamigin smiled.
"Definitive proof."
A full-color scene began projecting itself into the air. From within it came a voice unfamiliar to Valefor.
—How long must we keep enduring?
At first, Valefor could not place whose voice it was. But as the scene unfolded before his eyes, his mouth slowly opened.
—The target is ranked seventy-first. Is anyone here weaker than that man?
—In the end, Dantalion is nothing more than a pretty face for the factions. His personal strength is negligible—utterly negligible. If the other side intends to keep ignoring us to the very end… then we need to show them what we're made of.
—Valefor. But assassinating him—how is that easy?
It was none other than his own voice. Valefor himself, his fellow Demon Lords—all projected upon the opaque film. What was this. What was he looking at right now. Valefor could not say. An uncontrollable chill crept up his spine.
He turned his head mechanically and looked at Gamigin.
Gamigin was smiling with her eyes.
—I will participate.
—Valefor…
—However, I will only join if every person gathered here is in agreement. This plan demands the strictest secrecy above all else. We all move together, or we do nothing at all—there is no other choice.
It was a maliciously edited recording. Every word Gamigin had spoken had been scrubbed clean, and only the parts where the independent Demon Lords expressed their approval remained. Facing the recording that ended in a flash, every independent Demon Lord froze like stone statues.
The plaza fell silent. No one opened their mouth. A deeply ominous atmosphere settled over the entire imperial palace. Someone suddenly muttered.
"Is that… a plot to commit assassination?"
It was closer to a soliloquy than a remark directed at anyone else. But if it voiced what others were already feeling, it was no longer a soliloquy. The oppressively heavy air began to stir.
"Assassination! It's a planned assassination!"
"They assassinated the Court Count!"
The square trembled with the shout. The unaffiliated Demon Lords froze. The single thunderous word Beleth had bellowed set everything off like a powder keg.
"Kill the assassins!"
Beleth hurled his axe at the nearest unaffiliated Demon Lord. The Demon Lord, still numb from the shockwave of Memoria's power, instinctively thrust both palms forward in a panic — but the axe blade buried itself squarely in his forehead. His skull shattered without mercy, and the Demon Lord toppled backward.
At that same instant, dozens surged forward.
"Gamigin… Gamigin, you wretched — gurk!"
Ipos snarled in fury, swinging his short sword. In the blink of an eye, Sitri's serpentine blade lashed out like a snake and tore his right arm clean off from the shoulder. Unable to bear the pain, Ipos dropped his short sword, and five Mountain Faction Demon Lords descended on him like hyenas.
Ipos let out a bloodcurdling scream and collapsed. The other unaffiliated Demon Lords fared no better. A Demon Lord who had dropped to his knees begging for mercy was pierced by a storm of spear tips. The spearheads went through his chest, thigh, right forearm, and neck, killing him on the spot.
"Don't kill them! We need to capture them for interrogation!"
Paimon shouted in a panic. His words snapped people back to their senses.
But it was already too late. In the blink of an eye, three unaffiliated Demon Lords had already been killed. Including Valefor, only three remained. They had lost all will to resist, and their bodies were bound tight before being thrown at Barbatos's feet.
Valefor murmured.
"A frame-up… yes, a frame-up… that footage was fabricated…!"
Barbatos sneered.
"That's not very convincing as an excuse. Can't you come up with something a bit more creative, Mister Assassin?"
"Why…"
Why had they betrayed them? Gamigin had certainly performed the binding oath as well. If she had betrayed them, she would have lost every magic Circle and been reduced to a half-paralyzed wreck… yet Gamigin looked perfectly fine. Could the oath magic have malfunctioned? No, that was impossible. The magic had been certain. He had checked it over and over…
At some point, Gamigin had slipped up beside Barbatos and was smiling sweetly.
"You're asking the wrong question, Valefor. It's not 'why.' You should be asking 'how.'"
"What are you talking about…"
"I activated the artifact just as I promised you. Maybe the artifact changed on its own without me even knowing?"
Valefor couldn't make sense of it. A look of pity for the other party surfaced in Gamigin's eyes.
"You probably think you're quite clever, but in the end you're nothing but a fool who spent hundreds of years wasting away, indifferent to both war and politics. Even when you suspect someone, you don't know how to suspect them properly—and even when you kill someone, you don't know how to kill them properly..."
"What are you talking about?!"
Just then, a commotion erupted behind them. Valefor tried to turn around, but with Beleth's foot planted on his back, he couldn't turn his head. A moment later, a familiar man's voice drifted down from above.
"It means you're a blockhead beyond saving, Valefor."
"What..."
"Please move your foot, Brother Beleth. An assassin is the equal of a king by nature. He has every right to see me."
The man chuckled.
At that, the pressure pinning his back vanished. Valefor raised his face. There, Dantalion was bent over, looking down at him.
"That's impossible... It doesn't make sense..."
"Unfortunately, not only does it make sense—it's reality. It's wonderful to see a comrade I thought I'd never lay eyes on again. I do hope you'll welcome me."
Dantalion patted Valefor on the shoulder. Then he spoke, loud enough for everyone around to hear.
"I've long been aware that you all despise me. As you can see, I'm nothing more than a feeble coward. I always keep a decoy doll on hand in preparation for assassination. What you killed was just a pitiful doll."
"A doll..."
In that moment, Valefor recalled that the person he thought he had killed had been wearing anti-magic clothing. The reason the magical energy had felt so weak was because anti-magic was at work. He had dismissed it because Dantalion's mana had always been unremarkable. But—if he had never been the Demon Lord from the start...
Dantalion straightened his back and spoke.
"Lock up the prisoners. They didn't act alone. I will interrogate them and find the accomplices hiding behind them."
Accomplices?
Valefor hadn't understood a single thing since earlier. What accomplices was he talking about? The people who had sworn to kill Dantalion numbered seven—no, only six.
Valefor was dragged away without any resistance. Although Dantalion said something to the others, he couldn't hear it. Only the word "interrogation" kept echoing in his mind. A chill ran through him. What on earth was happening. What was that man planning…