"You……"
My heart pounded frantically. Heat surged through my head. My eyes burned, and overheated breath spilled from my mouth. Only one image surfaced in my mind.
Laura, always smiling brightly.
Self-assured and utterly too lazy to care about anything, pulling ridiculous faces while she yawned, occasionally scorning me and heaping insults on me — yet never once refusing my whims or wishes, always insisting on being my eternal companion... my little military lady.
─ I'm sorry, My Lord. I'm sorry……
─ Because of me, because of me, My Lord was whipped……
The memory of that night when Laura screamed through her tears.
Laura apologizing over and over, as though something inside her had been shattered — I'm sorry, I'm sorry — all those memories steeped in bleak, rain-drenched hues filled my mind to the brim.
"You — you harmed my Laura."
"The Minister of Military Affairs faithfully carried out my intentions. Thanks to that, I was able to discover a flaw in the Slave Brand. While I couldn't directly harm Father or Father's lovers, I could indirectly sow suspicion, paranoia, harm, and internal strife."
To uncover that single fact, Daisy had destroyed Laura.
No — it wasn't just that. I could read her psychology. Laura was the only child I had elevated to equal standing. In other words, Laura and I had transcended the ordinary lord-and-subject relationship and treated each other as friends, as lovers.
Daisy had wanted to destroy that singular bond.
Because only then could she deal me a devastating blow. Only then could she drive my mind into a corner.
"It felt as though I could see a beam of light."
Daisy confessed, perfectly composed.
"The Minister of Military Affairs locked me in an underground dungeon and tortured me for days — for tens of days. She hung me from the wall and gave me only a teardrop's worth of water each day. She fed me pig slop and called it food. Yet throughout it all, my mind was whirring with more exhilaration than it had ever known."
Daisy offered a small but gentle smile.
"The wager between Father and me had been overwhelmingly stacked against me from the start. I couldn't hurt Father, and I couldn't even harm Father's lovers. In a rigged game where defeat was a foregone conclusion, a single escape route descended — impossibly narrow, yet undeniably an escape route all the same. You must understand my joy. My ecstasy."
"......"
"Locked in that dark underground dungeon, eating pig slop, retching until I threw up, with my skin flaying open under the whip — even then, I was thinking about how to exploit this weakness, how to bring about Father's destruction."
Daisy's tone was so mild it could only be described as happy. A faint delight seeped into the girl's voice.
The child born human who had become the Demon Lord's daughter quietly laid bare her misdeeds.
"It must have been around the third day. Watching Minister of Military Affairs Laura de Farnese lash me like a madwoman, it suddenly hit me. It was an enormous epiphany. I trembled as though lightning had licked my entire body. In that instant, I understood everything — what I needed to do, and how."
A ten percent chance. In a game where defeat had been a foregone conclusion, Daisy had miraculously glimpsed the winning card.
"It's almost embarrassing to think I'd momentarily forgotten such a simple fact. The woman screaming before my very eyes — Minister of Military Affairs Laura de Farnese — is the lover of Demon Lord Barbatos, isn't she?"
Silence settled over the room.
It was not an awkward silence. It was the silence born from a chasm in perception. Daisy spoke with confident matter-of-factness, and I parted my lips because I could not grasp the meaning. Perhaps sensing nothing in my gaze, Daisy continued in a slightly amused tone.
"I'm talking about Barbatos. Father. The Barbatos right here. Think about it."
Daisy tilted her head.
"Barbatos suddenly began pressuring Father one day. Weren't you curious about the reason? No matter how much Barbatos hated Paimon, don't you think assassination was going too far?"
At that, Barbatos — who had kept his mouth shut until now — scowled.
"You, what are you—"
"Shut your mouth."
The instant Barbatos opened his mouth, Daisy brought her greatsword down. The blade pierced squarely into Barbatos's thigh.
Barbatos screamed. Even the Neutral Faction Demon Lords who had been surrounding Daisy flinched at the unexpected attack.
Daisy stared at Barbatos, expressionless.
"I am speaking with Father at the moment. How dare a third party presume to interfere."
"You — you filthy — bitch..."
"The only answer you are permitted is one. Barbatos. Who told you to watch out for Paimon?"
Daisy stabbed her greatsword into his thigh and then twisted the blade upward. The edge tore deep into Barbatos's inner flesh, mangling it. Barbatos bit his lip to stifle a scream, but a groan of agony escaped him.
Daisy clicked her tongue softly.
"Can't even answer properly? You're a woman utterly devoid of any worth. To have fallen for such a pathetic worm, Father... It's embarrassing enough for your own daughter to witness."
I ground my teeth.
"Stop this at once...!"
"You are contradicting your own words from just a moment ago. You yourself ordered that Barbatos be excluded from all commands, did you not?"
Daisy smiled faintly.
"I confess I am flustered and cannot tell which command I ought to obey. But it will be fine. I am an obedient daughter. If Father wishes it, I will gladly accept even an unreasonable order."
With a dull thud, Daisy withdrew her greatsword. Dark, blood-red fluid gushed from Barbatos's thigh. Daisy flicked the blood from the blade with an annoyed motion.
The atmosphere was grim.
Daisy was clearly dominating this space. Even the Neutral Faction Demon Lords had their ears captured by her voice, watching her with a mix of wariness and curiosity. The citizens of the plaza murmured among themselves, observing the intruder's bold actions from afar.
I had to stop this.
My instincts were screaming a fierce warning. Then, Daisy's jet-black pupils locked directly onto me.
"You intend to stop me here? That is acceptable. But I will warn you in advance: if you silence me now, Father will never learn how I came to rebel against the Slave Brand. If that is acceptable to you, then yes. Stop me all you wish."
"You're trying to threaten me?"
"It is not a threat. It is merely fact."
Daisy smiled gently.
"Furthermore, I will behead Barbatos with my own hands. The lover you cherish most will die not by your hand, but by another's. That is one thing I am certain you cannot endure."
"......"
"Let me bring this conversation back to the point."
Daisy placed her right foot on Barbatos's thigh. Right on the wound torn open by his greatsword. Barbatos bit back a groan, blood trickling from his lips.
"I'll answer the question this woman couldn't. Barbatos received an urgent warning from someone. To beware of the Demon Lord Paimon — that if things continued as they were, Paimon would almost certainly assassinate Father. It was because Barbatos heard this warning that he moved to eliminate Paimon."
Ah.
"That person was Laura de Farnese, the Military Affairs Minister."
Ahh.
Ah, ahhh!
"The Minister was already wary of the Demon Lord Paimon. And rightly so — Paimon had clashed with Father on numerous occasions. But now, the very place where Father was poisoned happened to be the Governor's residence in Batavia. The residence of the Batavia Republic, where the Demon Lord Paimon operates in the shadows. Do you truly believe the Minister would dismiss that as mere coincidence?"
Daisy shook her head.
"The Minister had to act immediately, without a moment to spare. There was no direct evidence that Paimon had attempted to assassinate Father. But the Minister's devotion to Father ran far too deep to leave anything to chance simply because evidence was lacking. So the Minister somehow devised a safeguard to keep the Demon Lord Paimon in check — as a contingency against the worst-case scenario..."
My mind went numb, as if struck by lightning.
My chin trembled.
"Father. Father, who prides himself on being the smartest man in the world. Tell me — who do you think Military Affairs Minister Laura de Farnese would have consulted?"
"That's absurd... There's no way..."
"The Demon Lord Paimon is a formidable being. To stand against Paimon, that person would have to be just as powerful. Someone close enough to Military Affairs Minister Laura de Farnese to receive the warning, powerful enough to rival Paimon, and who also considers Paimon a threat."
Daisy pressed her right foot down hard.
A faint cry of pain escaped Barbatos.
"That's right. The Minister warned Barbatos — that Paimon appeared to have attempted to kill Father, and to please be on his guard."
While being tortured in the underground prison,
it is said that Daisy had given no answers during Laura's brutal interrogation, but whispered just one word — a single phrase that planted the seed of doubt in Laura's heart.
—No contact from Batavia, then?
That strongly cemented the suspicion that Daisy was cooperating with Paimon. At least, that was how Laura interpreted it. Before long, Laura had come to regard suspicion as certainty, and she turned to Barbatos—her most trustworthy lover and ally—for help.
Of course, Daisy said.
"Barbatos has been keeping a close eye on Paimon. Laura is Father's closest confidant. If someone that close felt the need to sound a warning, it would only be natural to assume the situation was serious."
The memory of that night—when Barbatos had cried out, begging for Paimon to be killed—came rushing back.
Had it really been nothing more than jealousy toward Paimon?
Laura knew that Paimon was the head of the Republican Liberation Alliance. If Laura had told Barbatos that fact—had she explained just how cunning and dangerous Paimon truly was—Barbatos's wariness would have skyrocketed to extreme levels.
And right at that moment, the Demon Lord's army had put forward the proposal to abolish slavery.
In Barbatos's eyes, wouldn't that have appeared as proof that Paimon, the republican, was finally making her move in earnest?
Was that why Barbatos had been willing to risk everything to eliminate Paimon?
In other words.
That Laura had been seized by the specter of suspicion and ruined.
That Barbatos, wary of Paimon beyond what was necessary, had ultimately resorted to the extreme measure of assassination.
That I would reach the point of killing Paimon—
"Of course, I never expected Barbatos to go so far as to assassinate Paimon. At best, I thought it would lead to a grand factional war, but..."
Daisy smiled.
"That would have to be called a very welcome miscalculation."
It had all been a trap of Daisy's own design.
============================ Afterword ============================
One reader today predicted today's developments with astonishing precision.
As a tribute to them, I secretly wove their nickname into today's text — hidden in plain sight, so to speak. If you take just the first letter of each paragraph, the nickname reveals itself in between. It's my little prank! Hehe >_<)