Demon King of the Royal Class-Chapter 399

People had been accused of being part of the Demon God Cult. When we left, the crowd had been furious, and the guards had been trying to hold back the angry mob, telling them not to take justice into their own hands. We didn’t know what had happened during the three hours we were gone, but it was clear the accused had all been executed.

This wasn’t some rural village; it was the capital of a state, albeit a small one, and this was all happening in the grand plaza where the warp gate was located.

Those who had been accused of being demon god worshipers were dead, and the enraged mob was howling for the dead bodies to be burned.

Whether an inquisitor had arrived and branded them as heretics before executing them, or the guards had taken it upon themselves, I didn’t know. But this execution had been carried out so swiftly that it was impossible that the proper procedures had been followed.

“This is insane... all these people...”

Olivia seemed to be feeling something that surpassed disgust and contempt. She clearly had not expected that those people would be killed without even a proper trial. Fear always bred anger. The people’s fear of the Demon King had turned into anger towards their neighbors, and they were seeking a scapegoat.

Olivia turned away from the horrific execution scene and the angry crowd, heading towards the investigation headquarters.

“What on earth are the Levainan royal family and the Church of the Five Great Gods doing?”

“...”

I couldn’t say anything.

“Could they be instigating this on purpose?”

The royal family and the church weren’t just sitting around doing nothing. In fact, they might have even encouraged this whole situation. They could at least have claimed that those people weren’t demon god cultists, but ordinary citizens. The crowd might have believed it, or not.

However, if those scapegoats had not been executed, the raging anger and fear would not subside. Whether those people were demon god cultists or not, their deaths had been necessary to temporarily quell the mob’s anger. The scapegoats had been executed with abnormal speed to give the crowd a sense of resolution.

If the angry crowd had turned into a riotous mob, it would have caused tremendous chaos. Releasing those suspected of being demon god cultists would have only further inflamed the crowd’s anger, so to control the situation, they had killed innocent people.

Olivia understood the circumstances. Whether she reached the truth or not didn’t matter. The purposeless violence of the crowd, engulfed in fear since the Demon King’s attack, was sure to play a decisive role in turning Olivia against humanity.

***

“Are you just going to leave this as it is?” Olivia asked Scotla Kelton, the head of the special investigation team, when we returned to the headquarters.

The middle-aged knight looked calm. He seemed to fully understand what Olivia was implying.

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“Miss Olivia, you do understand what you’re saying, don’t you?” he replied.

“I know this could be considered interference in internal affairs, and that this investigation squad doesn’t have the authority for such actions. But... this is...”

Olivia, despite her disillusionment with humanity, would never go along with people being killed indiscriminately.

“Of course, I am aware that if left unchecked, this situation could escalate into a large-scale riot and turn into indiscriminate heretic hunting. However, the special investigation team is here to investigate the truth behind the demon attack, not to influence the internal affairs of the Kingdom of Levaina. We’re not to do anything beyond that,” he said.

Olivia wasn’t foolish. She understood what Kelton was saying. But having witnessed the madness of an expedited heresy trial which had culminated in people being executed, and knowing that this trend could continue or escalate into a riot, she felt frustrated doing nothing.

However, the special investigation unit could only operate according to its purpose, and what was happening in Raziern was clearly outside its scope. Olivia knew she was making an unreasonable request of the investigation head, but she couldn’t just leave the situation as it was. Olivia still had some humanity left in her.

“Of course, even without special authority, expressing a few words of concern about this situation to Levaina could have a meaningful impact,” Kelton said.

As the captain of the 3rd Division of Shanapell, the king of a small state like Levaina didn’t matter much to him. Moreover, he was currently acting under orders from the empire and overseeing a field operation. Although stepping in could be construed as an interference in internal affairs, he seemed to think it was out of the question.

“It isn’t just about Levania. Just doing so could be considered interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state,” he continued.

“Are you referring to the other vassal states...?” Olivia asked.

“Yes.”

It would be possible to interfere in Levaina’s internal affairs. However, if other vassal states learned that the empire had interfered in a vassal state’s internal affairs, they could become very uncomfortable. No matter how small the nation state, it was still an infringement on the sovereignty of a vassal state.

All the nations of humanity were part of the empire, but the empire was ultimately a federation of many states. While there were places like the capital that the empire governed directly, the vassal states had their own laws and sovereignty.

In the case of Levania, imperial investigators had come for the purpose of investigating an incident but getting involved in this incident would mean engaging in actions inconsistent with that purpose by interfering in internal affairs.

There were too many conditions that could be open to dispute, so no matter how dire the situation, Scotla Kelton’s stance was that the special investigation unit couldn’t intervene, and both Olivia and I had to understand that.

“Also, I don’t think this response is that bad. Presenting the truth to an angry crowd will only make them angrier. A few innocent people may die, but things will calm down soon,” Kelton said casually as he continued to read reports and make notes with his pen.

He was right. Telling those seeking a scapegoat that their scapegoat is innocent would only lead them to find another scapegoat or become even angrier. Anger demands resolution, even if its cause is misplaced.

The choice was between facing chaos in the form of a large-scale riot or finding scapegoats, executing a few of them, and restoring stability. The Levainan royal family and the church had chosen the lesser evil. Olivia stared at Scotla Kelton, who was casually twirling his pen, with a vacant expression.

It seemed she wasn’t blaming him for his cold conclusion but was rather at a loss herself, unable to find an answer.

“Of course, I don’t have the authority to step in, but there is someone here who does have the authority to interfere in internal affairs...” Scotla Kelton said, looking at me pointedly.

“Mr. Reinhart,” he addressed me.

“... Yes,” I replied.

“If you claim to be here as a representative of the imperial family, you could discuss appropriate measures with the Levainan royal family.”

“... But wouldn’t that be considered interference in internal affairs?” I asked.

“I said that under the assumption that you are willing to bear the consequences. I have no intention of doing so, but your thoughts on this matter might be different. After all, you are not under my command, are you?” he explained.

He was essentially saying that while he was just a knight, I, bearing the imperial emblem, was quasi-royalty. If the head of the investigation unit interfered in the matters of the Levainan royal family, he would be acting outside the scope of the investigation.

However, if a representative of the imperial family contacted the royal family to discuss matters, it could be considered permissible. Of course, it could still be seen as interference in internal affairs, but discussing internal matters with the Levainan royal family was possible.

However, in such a case, both I and the imperial family would have to take responsibility for any consequences arising from my careless words. The imperial emblem was not just a priority pass for the warp gate. I understood why it was not given out lightly to just anyone.

I was beginning to get a sense of why Tana had sent me to this place.

Did she want me to stabilize the chaotic situation in Levaina if possible? Indeed, while my life wasn’t in danger, succeeding in this would be a significant achievement. It might not even be about solving the issue; it could be about observing how I reacted when faced with such a major problem rather than trivial matters.

But what was I to do?

Thinking about it, it was quite infuriating how the empire was handling this. They had instigated a terrorist incident in a small southern nation and were now ignoring the aftermath. They had framed the Demon King, and was now expecting me, the Demon King, to clean up the mess.

***

The capital of Levaina, Raziern, had been thrown into chaos in the aftermath of the demon attack, and people were going mad from fear of the Demon King, resulting in a witch hunt for members of the Demon God Cult. Of course, those being hunted and killed were mostly innocent people with no connection to the Demon God Cult.

Even the royal family and the Church of the Five Great gods, who knew these people were innocent, seemed to be deliberately sacrificing them to quell public anger. Moreover, the Demon King had never been involved in this place from the start.

Ultimately, the empire had pushed the leaders of the Revolutionary Forces into this small southern nation state of Levania and killed them there because Levaina was weak. Even the investigation unit seemed only concerned with covering up the incident, ignoring the aftermath by claiming it could be construed as interference in a state’s internal affairs.

The atrocities committed by the ruling class were countless—a long-standing truth of the human world. However, seeing it first-hand was even more chilling.

The empire, which had created this situation and was now passively observing it, was horrifying. The Levainan royal family and the Church of the Five Great Gods, who were trying to stabilize the situation by executing innocent scapegoats, were also horrifying. And the crowd, who, despite knowing better, were transforming their fear into anger and searching for scapegoats, were horrifying as well.

“Hell isn’t somewhere else,” Olivia murmured with a grim expression, standing by the window of the VIP room, listening to the distant cries of the people.

In the days when the Demon Realm existed, battles had taken place in that specific region. Thus, the fighting, bloodshed, and slaughter had all been confined to that place. But now that the Demon Realm had disappeared, demons could infiltrate the human world, appearing and disappearing suddenly, and in any place.

People were being driven mad with fear of an enemy without form, terrified that these enemies might be living and breathing nearby.

Unable to find enemies in the form of demons, they sought enemies in human form within their own ranks, labeling them as demon god cultists. But since even the real demon god cultists were nowhere to be found, they were left to turn their suspicion and hate on each other.

“What are you going to do, Reinhart?” Olivia asked.

At this point, I was the only one who could approach the Levainan royal family without causing a ruckus.

I could report this to the imperial family, but even the head of the investigation, a knight of Shanapell, seemed to think it was best to leave it alone. If the imperial family got wind of this, whether it was Charlotte, the emperor, or Vertus, they would likely tell me to just leave it be.

Was I any different?

Even if I told those seeking out scapegoats that these people weren’t demon god cultists, they wouldn’t believe it, and even if they did, they would find another outlet for their anger.

There was the option of imposing martial law and controlling the populace to prohibit private witch hunts. But if that led to the angry crowd starting a massive riot, it would cause an even greater disaster. The riot could result in the overthrow of the royal family, and it would also be a catastrophe if the mob was suppressed by force.

As terrible as it was, Scotla Kelton wasn’t wrong in saying that letting innocent people die to calm the situation down was the method that led to the least bloodshed.

“Unless there are real demon god cultists to catch, or unless the Demon King is killed, I don’t know of a way to resolve this without bloodshed,” I admitted.

I wasn’t a genius, and politics wasn’t my field. Even if I met with the King of Levaina and engaged in the presumptuous act of interfering in their internal affairs, what could I possibly say? There was no clever solution.

Olivia stood by the window, quietly looking down at the street. She had come to dislike humanity, but she couldn’t calmly watch innocent people die. Her original nature hadn’t disappeared entirely.

“When people are consumed by despair, they turn into this...” she said.

There was no certainty that the demons would return, and the actual damage hadn’t been that significant. But fear continued to spread among the populace, independent of reality.

The fear of the Demon King was talked about, reproduced, and inflated into preposterous proportions. It was essentially a form of faith. It wasn’t so unlike how people who didn’t know God would describe Him and then form a common concept.

A faith surrounding the name of the Demon King was being created among the people. None of what they said would resemble me, but people were fleshing out the vague entity of the Demon King, shaping it into something to be feared. A new faith surrounding the name of the Demon King, evoking only fear and despair, was rising.

—Find the demon god cultists!

The same message was likely echoing across the continent.

Raziern was an extreme example, but across the continent, people who were unable to find demons would surely seek out enemies in human form—the demon god cultists.

This place was just the beginning. A large-scale witch hunt for demon god cultists was about to begin.

And then, out of nowhere, we heard...

—Believe in Artorius!

—The hero will be reincarnated and defeat the Demon King!

Olivia, standing by the window, turned to look at me with a puzzled expression.

“...?”

“...?”

‘What did I just hear?’

—Hero Artorius will protect us!

“Did I hear that right? Did they say Artorius?” I asked.

“Yeah... it seems like it,” Olivia replied.

‘No way. What kind of nonsense is this?’

***

While it was understandable that people would be shouting about hunting demon god cultists, Olivia and I were taken aback by an even more unexpected pronouncement.

‘Believe in Artorius?’

Olivia and I immediately rushed out to the street and grabbed the person who was shouting at the top of their lungs.

“Excuse me.”

“Artorius will save us...!”

The person yelling those bizarre words was an elderly man.

“Ah, yes, what is it?” he asked.

“What are you talking about? Believe in Artorius?” she asked.

“You too should believe in the hero and be saved...! There’s no need to fear the Demon King...! None at all...!” he exclaimed with a face full of faith and conviction.

Olivia was dumbfounded, and so was I.

“But, Artorius... he fought the Demon King and... died, right?” I stammered.

The old man shook his head vigorously.

“Oh! Young man, you don’t know what you’re talking about! Sir Artorius didn’t die; he ascended! After achieving the great feat of defeating the Demon King, he ascended to the rank of a martial god...! Yes, a martial god! And now that the Demon King has returned, it’s only natural for Artorius to come back to finish his unfinished mission!”

‘No way.’

“You too should believe in the hero and await the coming salvation!”

‘What kind of bullshit is this?’

The old man moved away from us, crying out at the top of his lungs.

—Believe in Artorius!

—The time of salvation is near!

—The hero will return! So do not be afraid!

As we watched the old man’s back recede into the distance, Olivia and I exchanged glances.

“What is this Hero Cult?” I asked.

“How would I know...?” Olivia replied.

The hunt for demon god cultists was within the realm of possibility, but the emergence of a new religion that worshipped Ragan Artorius was completely unexpected, leaving us both stunned.