It probably wasn't just Daisy who inherited the stats. In a scenario where either Luke or Daisy had to become the Hero no matter what, both of them would have inherited the stats... How terrible.
When I started laughing to myself, Jeremy stared at me blankly. It wasn't the look you'd give a crazy person. More like she was curious why I was laughing, but figured she wouldn't get an answer even if she asked, so she'd hold her tongue—that kind of expression.
"Jeremy. Look after this one until he wakes up."
"Yes. He won't be getting out of bed for about three days, anyway."
"Sorry to keep imposing on you."
"No. When I think about how much Your Excellency will shake up the continent from here on out—"
Jeremy covered her mouth and laughed.
"—this much effort is nothing at all."
"You're quite the pervert yourself."
"Oh my. Could there be a greater honor than being called a pervert by Your Excellency?"
I stared at Jeremy in disbelief.
At that, Jeremy dramatically shrugged her shoulders.
"You're the most diligent and upright of all the Demon Lords, is that right? Yes, of course. I've heard it so many times my ears have grown calluses. After all, Your Excellency Dantalion, who is in a passionate romance with Your Excellency Barbatos—who by all appearances is unmistakably a little girl—is absolutely not a pedophile."
"This one..."
"Furthermore, even though today you spent an entire hour staring at a ten-year-old human girl with the most passionate, intense gazes imaginable, Your Excellency is certainly not a pervert. Naturally. Goodness. The looks between you two were so scorching that I, standing right beside you, was on the verge of getting burned."
I was about to retort, then realized. Jeremy was deliberately clowning around.
My mood had grown excessively serious, so she had intentionally thrown out jokes to loosen things up. In truth, thanks to her, I was able to momentarily shake off the intense attention that had been fixed on the Hero.
I'd made someone worry who wasn't even my official subordinate. Pathetic...
I let out a sigh and smiled faintly. Then I ruffled Jeremy's hair. The soft, sky-blue strands wrapped comfortably around my palm.
"Huh?"
Jeremy's eyes flew wide open in surprise. She was so deep in drugs and hallucinogens that her eyes were usually half-lidded. This time, though, I could genuinely feel that the emotionless Jeremy was truly startled. I cupped as much gratitude as I could into my palm and gently stroked her hair.
"The one that dragged your life down to hell was the Slave Brand too. Making you wallow in filth — that's what I ordered you to do. It's garbage behavior. From now on, you have every right to call me garbage."
"…No, I couldn't possibly."
"You once asked me something back at the Ruined City."
Jeremy nodded hesitantly, uncharacteristically fidgeting.
It had been the first day I met Jeremy. We had been sleeping rough in the ruins. Jeremy had begged me — saying she was born as a low-rank demon and was doomed to live a trashy life, that this unjust world needed someone to overturn it, that I should become king and change things.
"My answer hasn't changed. I can't bear your misfortune in your place, Jeremy. If your life is trash, then mine is exactly the same."
I smiled.
"But walking together at your side — that much is possible. Let's live through the next lifetime together. As fellow members of the garbage brigade, so to speak."
"…."
She had saved both Lapis's life and mine. On top of that, she had turned the Hero into a slave. I would repay this debt, without fail, someday.
Jeremy pressed her lips tight shut. After a moment, she answered in a barely audible voice, "Yes." For some reason, I found myself laughing. I gave her hair one last stroke, then walked out of the room.
That evening, a festival broke out in the Barony of Verse.
The Barony of Verse had been celebrating not just tonight — this was already the fourth straight day of festivities. The lord's steward had bought up mountains of food and drink from the city and distributed them throughout the village. Our party, which had annihilated two entire goblin villages, were naturally treated like stars.
Right now, the dwarves were making a tremendous racket in the center of the square. Since drinking contests alone couldn't raise the excitement any further, the dwarves and the village men had organized a spectacular competition. This was a genuine cauldron of madness.
It was officially known as the Barony of Verse–Sanctioned "Who Cums First" Contest.
The men lined up in a single row across the square. And then they dropped their pants. Completely. Exposing their sizable — or, in some cases, not-so-sizable — equipment for all to see. And then, true to the name of the contest… they went for it. They tried to finish faster than anyone else.
This absolutely insane contest had actually received official approval from the Barony of Verse's junior baron.
"Hmm. Isn't this entertaining?"
The junior baron even declared that the winner would receive a pig as a gift. Not just any pig — a breeding sow. Naturally, the men were fired up. Dozens of males joined the competition regardless of race or age, all eager to show off just how impressive their "technique" was.
The contest consisted of four preliminary rounds, two semifinals, and a final showdown. Right now, the preliminary round was underway in the square. Ten of the most notorious premature finishers had gathered. They wore expressions of utmost gravity, like otters facing the mortal peril of their lives.
Wives blinded by the promise of a pig cheered from the sidelines. Among them, quite a few had dragged their reluctant husbands into the competition by force.
"Aaaah! Go, honey! Faster! I said finish faster, damn it!"
"That man puts on a show at home — finishes in no time — so why's he so slow out here?! What a waste!"
"Hey, hey! Look at my chest and finish already, you good-for-nothing wimp!"
One woman apparently decided that words weren't enough and yanked her top wide open. The spectators roared. But it backfired — rather than being stimulated, her husband actually shrunk. The wife and husband both froze in panic, not knowing what to do.
"Kahahaha! Would you look at that — he saw his wife and actually got scared!"
"I'm seriously worried about that couple's nights together! Haha!"
Ridicule and jeers rained down. The woman who had mustered the courage to bare her chest got nothing in return and fled. The spectators burst out laughing once more at the sight of her running away. Their laughter echoed through the night sky like a grand fireworks display.
"Heh heh heh."
Junior Baron Verse clapped and laughed. He'd already had quite a lot to drink, and his face was flushed red. The junior baron was a stern and strict lord, but he was the kind of man who understood his people's daily lives not through reason but through instinct. Being ruled by a lord like this was a blessing.
"So you're saying you leave tomorrow?"
"Yes. Your Lordship's commission has been fulfilled as well."
"What a shame."
The junior baron's regret was genuine.
"Thanks to you, we made it through the winter safely. You even wiped out the Goblin village."
"It was all guided by the Goddess."
"Heh heh, the Goddess, is it…"
He raised his horn cup of wine.
"I don't serve any god. When famine struck, when plague spread, no matter how we begged, the gods never helped us humans. Hunger was ultimately human hunger, and the pain of grinding our bones was ultimately human pain. The gods neither starve nor suffer…"
Baron Versi drained his wine in one gulp. In this era, living as a diligent landed noble—and one who ruled a modest fiefdom at that—must have been incredibly stressful. The moment you earnestly took on the mantle of noblesse oblige, being a landed noble instantly became a 3D job in every sense.
Politics, military affairs, diplomacy, economy, adjudication, record-keeping, marriages, construction, and more—it all fell on one person's shoulders. Even if the village head or the landowners lent a hand, the landed noble ultimately had to oversee everything. Beyond that, you had to read the mood of the great nobles nearby, cooperate with the lesser nobles around you, or clash with them.
"How could gods who have never known hunger or pain ever pity humans? The greatest misfortune of mankind is that we are born only to die."
"You're quite right."
Not that I need to worry about dying of old age, being a Demon Lord and all.
The baron stared intently at me.
"Interesting. I just blasphemed against the divine, you know. Doesn't that anger you?"
"The holiness that falls from human lips is nothing more than human holiness, wouldn't you agree? No matter how much we praise or beg, if the gods won't grant our requests, then no matter how much we curse them, they won't be angered either."
I clasped my hands together and murmured as if reciting a prayer.
"O gods. We pray that you simply stay right where you are. We humans shall handle our own affairs."
The baron looked like he'd been hit with a solid counter. He burst into laughter.
"Hahaha! Well said. And here I've been tripped up by my own words. Very well—let's drink a toast for our Goddess Artemis! To the Goddess!"
"To the Goddess."
We clashed our horn cups together in a toast.
A roar of cheers erupted with particular force from the center of the plaza. The participants who had passed the preliminary round were now decided. The vile brilliance of this tournament was that contestants had to perform three times total—the preliminaries, the main round, and the finals. I genuinely admired whoever had come up with such a monstrous format.
The baron wore a faint smile, but his voice carried weight.
"Since meeting Priest Jean Bollée, my perspective has changed quite a bit."
Jean Bollée was my alias.
"A priest, regardless of any connection to the gods, could still bring hope to this world."
"You flatter me."
"No, not at all. You've already brought hope to hundreds of your domain's residents. To me as well."
The noble before me would probably never learn until his death that Priest Jean Bollée was in fact the Demon Lord Dantalion, the one who had driven millions upon millions of humans into fear and despair. That was what made it amusing.
"And you even took in the survivors of the village that was ravaged by Goblins."
He was speaking of Luke and Daisy.
"Yes. I intend to raise them as my adopted son and daughter."
"As your adopted son and daughter?"
The Baron-Subordinate was startled once again.
Shifting cultivators were treated worse than serfs. Priests, on the other hand, stood at the very top of the class pyramid. For the most noble to take in the lowliest as part of his family — no wonder he was shocked.
"But wait, weren't they shifting cultivators? Taking them in as servants alone would already be a noble deed. Must they truly be adopted?"
"Baron-Subordinate."
I smiled gently.
"Just as the affairs of the gods are ultimately the gods' own, the affairs of humans are ultimately humanity's alone. A priest, a noble, a slave — these boundaries that humans have drawn for themselves are unknown to the gods."
"......"
Silence fell.
The haze of intoxication vanished from the Baron-Subordinate's eyes. His usual solemn and dignified noble's face reappeared. He spoke in a deliberately lowered voice.
"Is that the republicanism Her Majesty the Empress Dowager supports?"
"No. Her Majesty will likely preserve the aristocratic class. We humans do not live as we think — rather, we think as we live."
"......Let us pretend today's conversation never happened. You've already overlooked my blasphemy."
As expected, Baron-Subordinate Versi was a good man.
"If Your Excellency does not believe in God, then you should not believe in class either. After all, people say that class is what God has ordained."
"......"
The Baron-Subordinate did not answer.
I was satisfied with that. Baron-Subordinate Versi was a man who took life seriously. The seed of doubt I had planted in this man's mind would grow with the passage of time and someday burst into bloom……
The Frank civil war would not end in a year or two. It might drag on for more than ten years. If Baron-Subordinate Versi joined the republican faction by then, I would consider it a success.
Laying the groundwork step by step with such diligent aristocrats — that, too, was a mission I had assigned myself on this journey. About themselves, about what it meant to be aristocrats — I hoped they would question those things thoroughly.