We finally made it out of the forest.
Having fallen flat on the ground and scraped by branches, my body felt oddly exhausted. Since Ivar had poured his heart and soul into crafting this puppet, there was no risk of it falling apart, but I should still handle it with care. Just as before, my body wasn't simply my own these days.
If I died, everything would end.
It might be nothing more than delusion. But I had never neglected even the slightest possibility when plotting my schemes, and this time was no different. I had to survive, no matter what.
"......"
Surviving, huh?
Come to think of it, there was a time long ago when I'd focused solely on survival too. The memory was hazy, but that period had definitely existed. Was it before I'd grown comfortable enough killing people? Did I consider anything acceptable as long as I kept breathing...?
I'd been fond of those days. I could blame everything on someone else. I committed murder with far less hesitation.
Now I wished for the same thing—just to survive. But how vastly different the meaning of "surviving" had become since then. It would be hard to even call it the same word.
Living is easy. Dying is hard.
I let out a small laugh. I didn't know what was so funny, but a dry chuckle escaped me. I pulled a short-range teleportation spellbook from inside my robe and tore it in two. Mana bloomed white and wrapped around my entire body. The next moment, I was standing in the middle of a snowfield.
Every direction showed nothing but a vast plain blanketed in white snow.
In one spot, there was a single ramshackle cabin that looked like it could collapse at any moment.
A landscape I recognized from seeing it illustrated in Dungeon Attack. The place where Ivar's true body was hidden. Originally, Ivar had stowed his true body deep in the mountains of the Kingdom of Moscow. It was so remote that you wouldn't find a soul even if you scoured the area with a fine-toothed comb, and the nearest city was a good three or four days' walk away—and that was only if you marched through the night. In reality, it would take well over a week.
The most godforsaken backwater of backwaters.
Without coordinates pre-entered in the teleportation spellbook, it was a place no one could ever find.
"Brrr. It's cold, so cold......"
I sniffled.
I had dropped from the relatively warm central region of the continent into a remote northern mountain valley. My skin shriveled on its own. Whether out of curiosity at my sudden appearance, the spirits poked their heads up from the snowbank and stared at me.
─ Who is it? Who has come to our village?
─ It's not human. Not a Silver Wolf either.
─ An outsider of unknown identity. My intuition says they're popular.
─ Should we be jealous?
I grinned and waved my hand. I could hear the spirits' language, but strangely enough, their emotions didn't come through. That was supposed to be normal, but after spending the past few years naturally reading the emotions of Demonkin, it felt incredibly foreign.
─ My intuition says this person seems kind.
─ No good. I heard the more beautiful the smile, the more sinister the heart behind it.
─ Innocent days, a romance-filled promise, and an unexpected child. A 36-hour tale of collapse and betrayal that cannot be watched without tears……
─ Better safe than sorry.
─ Let's be on guard for now.
The spirits stared straight at me.
They were probably trying to intimidate me in their own way. Adorable. With summer approaching, spirits who loved the cold must have all gathered up north. Countless spirits were poking just their heads up like a game of whack-a-mole.
"Sorry. I'm just passing through."
The moment I moved my steps, the spirits flinched in surprise and scattered in every direction. Even that sight was so cute that I smiled, but soon thoughts of the spirits that must have been at the Demon Lord's Castle crossed my mind, and my expression hardened. The children who had been with me since I first arrived in this world. They must have perished along with the castle when it crumbled.
Lapis too.
"……."
My face became expressionless. That's right. I had no right to look at things and feel warm inside. Wasn't I the era's greatest villain who sacrificed lovers, subordinates, everything and everyone for the sake of self-satisfaction? Now, trying to contort my facial muscles to pretend to be human — it was nothing but absurd and disgusting, even to myself.
I would turn white as snow.
I would live on as a mere specter chained to the past.
That was the only thing I could barely permit for myself.
The moment I entered the cabin, all sorts of miscellaneous items greeted me. A cloak that adjusted its temperature automatically, a waterskin that didn't leak, Ivar's spare dolls, and piles of gold coins. Equipment so luxurious that any adventurer would drool at the sight was stacked in mountains.
"You're meticulous about every little thing."
I let out a wry smile and leaned against the cabin wall. When I draped the cloak over my shoulders, my body warmed up just right. Only the air brushing my face was bitterly cold. Air stagnant for hundreds, even thousands of years had quietly settled within the cabin.
In the middle of the room sat a black coffin, all by itself.
"......"
Driven by a sudden curiosity, I lay down in it.
"Surprisingly comfortable..."
The coffins used by vampires were different, no matter what. Cushioned, maybe? A soft, plush material lined the interior. Upon closer inspection, I could see several small passages that looked like breathing holes.
"Heh."
This really makes it feel like I'm dead.
Dantalion, the deceased, makes his appearance here.
No... perhaps I shouldn't call myself Dantalion anymore? Dantalion died together with Daisy. That was the greatest gift I could offer to Daisy, who had acknowledged me. From now on, I needed to live under a slightly different name.
Jean Vole? It was a name I used in France, but that wouldn't do. It was a bit too well-known. A more ordinary name, one as plain as watered-down wine or diluted water, would be better. Hmm, what would sound good?
"Mmm."
I lay curled up in the coffin, deep in thought. To an outside observer, it must have been quite a postmodern sight. Scowling like a constipated patient who hadn't been able to properly relieve himself for three days, I pondered until suddenly, a decent idea came to mind.
Giacomo. What about Giacomo?
It was a name derived from Jack Orland. If you changed Jack into Sardinian, it became Giacomo. I couldn't just copy the family name Orland, so on the spot, I invented the surname Scruta. Roughly speaking, I took it from Ancient Imperial language, fitting for my current situation.
As Sardinia was swept up in war, quite a few refugees were generated. I was a refugee from Sardinia who had been living a normal life but fled out of fear of the war. So, Giacomo Scruta. A man with a plausible story was instantly created.
I didn't know if such an alias would be useful.
But someday, when I venture out to a human village or city, I might find a use for it.
"…Good grief."
Even in this state, I was still worrying about the future and making plans.
Habits really were terrifying things. I didn't need to worry about the future anymore. I drafted a fairly detailed plan and handed it over to Ivar. No matter what kind of trouble arose, Ivar would be able to handle it on his own.
From the very beginning, once this war was over, Demon Lord Dantalion was slated to step back from the front lines. No matter the circumstances, the person responsible for ruining the public execution ceremony was Dantalion's adopted daughter. If she had committed such a blunder and still operated as the Empire's shadow power broker, there was no way the Empire's discipline could be maintained.
Dantalion would semi-retire and take a step back from politics. If so, Ivar could easily fulfill my role with his own political acumen. Manipulating and outmaneuvering the continent might be difficult, but simply maintaining the current state of affairs was not particularly hard for Ivar Lodbrok.
Once the continent was fully stabilized, then… Ivar would decide what to do next.
I gently closed the coffin lid.
The lid settling over the coffin sealed away the outside world into absolute silence.
Perfect stillness. Perfect darkness. It could be described as a near-death state. Perhaps because the space was so cramped, even the hallucinations that tormented me all day long were absent here. I only now realized that hallucinations didn't appear when I was in a space that was too narrow.
"…."
It wouldn't be bad to sleep here for eternity.
It had been so long since I last experienced no hallucinations and no voices that the thought surfaced unbidden.
So this was what my senses were supposed to feel like normally.
It was somehow awkward. Whether to call it uncomfortable or unsettling, I felt as though Paimon was about to whisper his twisted nothings of love in my ear at any moment. It drove home once again the fact that I was, fundamentally, a lunatic.
Being afflicted with madness was one thing.
But once you started clinging to that madness, you were already finished as a human being.
Sleep gradually seeped into me. How many people in the world had ever slept inside a coffin? As my last stray thought, I let out a deep breath. I felt I had moved a tiny, tiny step closer to the peace I had so desperately wanted.
It was quiet.
It was comfortable.
"Where on earth have you been sleeping?"
Chapter: Woke up to a dumbfounded voice.
The lid of the coffin was open. In front of me, the golden-haired girl, Ivar, was furrowing her brows deeply. My brain was still soaked in sleep, and my thoughts were a mess.
"Ivar?"
"Yes, it's Ivar. Good grief. I was wondering where you'd disappeared to, but to think you'd be hiding in a coffin left in a young lady's room... Your Majesty, you're not exactly a child, are you? It's a bit much to be playing hide-and-seek at this point."
Hide-and-seek?
"Even if you're trying to escape from the meeting, it won't work. The great chieftains of the centaurs are already gathered in the reception hall waiting. It's been over ten minutes already. Are you planning to commit any further discourtesy?"
Ah.
That's right. There was a meeting. There was always a meeting, but there were so many meetings that it felt like there had never been any. I kicked open the coffin lid and stumbled out of Ivar's bedroom in a rush. Outside the door, Lapis was standing there.
Lapis looked at me and let out a sigh.
"Your clothes are crooked, Lord Dantalion."
Sorry.
When I smiled apologetically and pleaded, Lapis approached me with a blank expression. Close enough that our noses were almost touching. From that position, Lapis skillfully straightened my collar and tie.
"Lord Dantalion, you generally don't put enough care into your appearance. As the Demon Lord, please maintain some dignity."
Doesn't being beautiful on the inside make up for not decorating the outside?
"...You need a psychiatrist."
I'm sorry.
I got a little cocky.
"There, there. It seems the Master is sufficiently remorseful, so let it go."
"Lapis, the problem is that you always give in to Lord Dantalion's childish demands."
"And Miss Lapis, you never refuse either whenever the Master asks you to do something, so what are you talking about?"
Laura laughed.
It was a laugh I truly loved.
"Oh my, you're late by quite a margin. Has our Dantalion grown a lot?"
"Barbatos. Pull yourself together — the clan leaders are watching."
"You keep up appearances yourself. I showed up to the meeting, so I've done my part."
Barbatos waved his hand dismissively and raised a bottle of liquor. No matter how wide the world may be, there was only one Demon Lord brazen enough to pull out alcohol and drink openly in a meeting room. Paimon covered her mouth with a fan and sighed.
"I'm sorry, Dantalion. I dragged him here somehow, but his attitude is..."
Paimon had dragged Barbatos here?
That would be shocking if it weren't for the fact that it was entirely believable.
There's no need to apologize. The act of dragging him here alone is already an accomplishment worthy of being recorded in the history books for posterity.
"Oh, Barbatos! Give me a sip too! That's insanely expensive liquor, isn't it?"
"How pathetic. Why would you beg for a drink from someone else's cup?"
"Huh? I'll happily take women and men that others have already been with, so what's the difference?"
"That's quite the proud boast—"
Sitri and Gamigin.
It was the same scene as always. If I had to pick out any difference, maybe they seemed slightly off their game. Even Barbatos and Paimon, the way they bickered looked oddly gentle. When on earth had they gotten so friendly? It was frankly unpleasant.
"Father. Here are today's meeting documents."
Ah, right.
Thank you.
"Don't mention it."
Daisy smiled softly and bowed her head.
I unfolded the meeting materials. I couldn't make sense of them. Maybe because I already knew everything, but the words in front of me refused to register in my head at all. Whatever. It'd be fine. I was an extremely competent chairman who could run successful meetings even without documents.
I felt at ease.
The certainty that this was where I belonged washed over me fully. Yes. The truth was, I loved this kind of scenery — dividing up work with these people the most. I didn't know what it was, but I was doing my job properly.
When I took the seat at the head, everyone turned their gazes toward me. Barbatos was still grinning with that sinister look. Paimon pressed hard at his temples. Sitri was... beaming from ear to ear. Gamigin was grinning too, though his grin carried a different meaning.
Lapis and Ivar and Daisy — though I couldn't see their expressions, I could feel them standing firmly behind me as my shield.
A smile crept onto my face of its own accord.
Now then, everyone.
I'm sorry to have kept you waiting.
Let's find a satisfying solution once again today.
For all of us.