Demon King of the Royal Class-Chapter 435

At the Temple, inside the Sun God’s Temple...

“...”

Ellen lay on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.

“Reinhart... He seems to have returned,” Charlotte, who had gone out briefly to talk to someone, said to Ellen when she got back.

“...”

In her fight with Loyar, Ellen had narrowly escaped death several times.

Even as a Swordmaster, the power of a lycanthrope who had gone berserk under the full moon was overwhelming.

Without Lament and Lapelt, she might have been defeated.

In her battered state, Ellen had managed to subdue the lycanthrope and drag its body out of the sewers before collapsing.

The soldiers and knights who followed Ellen did the rest.

Thanks to the priests’ healing, her physical condition had improved, but the bone-numbing fatigue that had settled into her whole body still remained.

Adriana had been taken into custody.

Ellen had told Charlotte that Adriana was not involved in it, but she did not know how things would unfold.

The two of them had pursued the truth, and had reached it in just two days.

Putting together the scattered clues was not difficult, but handling the truth that they had so easily found was another matter.

“Ellen?”

“Yes?”

“Is Reinhart... the Demon King?” Charlotte asked, unable to look directly at Ellen.

Ellen continued to stare at the ceiling.

He might not be the Demon King, but it was entirely possible that Reinhart was one of the Demon King’s minions.

However, his confession, which had seemed like a joke at the time, had now become the final puzzle piece.

All the arrows of suspicion and doubt were pointed at Reinhart.

“Yes,” Ellen said quietly, her eyes losing focus. “That’s probably it. Definitely.”

Reinhart was the Demon King.

***

The Temple was silent.

The arrest of Hero Reinhart under the suspicion of being the Demon King was kept top secret.

Those who knew even a little about the situation kept their mouths shut.

Meanwhile, the elite forces of the empire that had departed for the Dark Land, including Sabioleen Tana, had returned to the capital after being summoned while searching for the missing Reinhart.

Naturally, Grand Duke Saint-Ouen and Harriet were with them.

Harriet had been pacing about anxiously while they were unable to find the missing Reinhart, and her face turned from pale to ashen upon hearing the details from Grand Duke Saint-Ouen, who had met with the emperor along with Sabioleen Tana.

“W-what do you mean, Dad...?” Harriet asked.

Grand Duke Saint-Ouen was just as confused about the situation.

“Reinhart... His Majesty said there’s a very high possibility that he’s the Demon King.”

“Wh—What? What does that even mean?”

Harriet, having never considered such a possibility, heard the words clearly but doubted her own ears, wondering if she had heard correctly.

Grand Duke Saint-Ouen briefly laid out the investigation that Charlotte and Ellen had undertaken as well as Vertus’s final instructions, as relayed to him by the emperor.

Harriet wasn’t so dimwitted that she could not understand the situation but she still couldn’t believe it.

“There must be... some misunderstanding... It’s a misunderstanding... It can’t be, Dad. Reinhart... Reinhart is a person. He’s human... So how could Reinhart...”

The Grand Duke gently embraced the trembling Harriet. “Yes, if there’s a misunderstanding, it will be cleared up.”

“Yes, there must be some misunderstanding. Surely...”

In the faint reaches of her consciousness, Reinhart’s last words echoed through Harriet’s mind.

“I wanted to save everyone...”

Reinhart couldn’t possibly be the Demon King.

He couldn’t be the Demon King.

But Harriet clearly remembered the unknown yet powerful presence that had been by Reinhart’s side at that moment.

Harriet stared blankly at the person who walked out from the central palace, Tetra.

The commander of Shanapell, Sabioleen Tana, whose face had turned pale, staggered and collapsed as she exited Tetra.

—Commander!

—Commander!

Numerous knights rushed to the Shanapell commander, whose legs had given out, causing her to collapse.

That was the nature of the situation that they faced.

This revelation could only instill enormous doubt, suspicion, and shock in everyone’s hearts.

***

I was gagged.

They were afraid that I would use the power of Incantation to do something reckless, so they had covered my mouth, the trigger for Incantation, for the time being.

Because of that, I couldn’t make any excuses or say anything to defend myself.

I could not say why I had done what I’d done thus far, and the reasons behind my actions.

I wasn’t given even the slightest chance to explain or defend myself.

I had done everything to prevent the Gate Incident, which threatened to destroy the world, and now that I had found Akasha, I had achieved my goal.

However, I was not given the opportunity to say any of this.

The fact that I possessed the power of Incantation, the strongest supernatural power, had now become the worst curse for me.

It was as if the power of Incantation had been given to me purposely, as a mechanism to prevent me from saying anything in this situation.

I couldn’t speak up for myself or say anything to those who felt betrayed by me.

Trapped in that dark underground space, I couldn’t sense the passage of time, but I knew that the day had dawned.

Loyar, who was trapped in the iron cage opposite me, had returned to her human form.

Loyar, gagged, looked at me.

“Ugh... uh... ugh...”

Tears flowed from Loyar’s wide-open eyes.

Did she think I had been captured because of her?

Well, I didn’t think so.

So many incidents had accumulated over time that things were bound to reach a critical point and explode someday. It had just happened at a really lousy time.

I didn’t know what I would have to endure, but since it had come to this, I resigned myself to it.

It had ended like this only because it had been destined to.

It felt like resignation.

Although I couldn’t speak, I looked at Loyar, who was wide-eyed and crying, and shook my head. I had the freedom to move my head, at least.

‘Was it your fault? I don’t think so,’ I wanted to say to her.

‘Did my feelings get through?’ I thought.

Loyar didn’t stop crying. Instead, her sobbing became even more ragged.

Where in the Temple were we? I didn’t know.

Since I had been captured in the Temple, it seemed the empire had decided it was better to keep me confined in the Temple rather than transport me to the imperial palace.

Thud, thud.

After a while, the guards were replaced.

They were likely knights of Shanapell and mages of the Imperial Mage Corps.

Those who had been on a mission with me just yesterday had now come to guard me, who was under suspicion of being the Demon King.

Everything had changed, as if the world had turned upside down in just one day.

Two iron cages...

I soon found out who would be stationed closest to Loyar and me to keep watch.

Sabioleen Tana quietly looked down at me, bound and sitting inside the cage.

She seemed unable to comprehend the situation yet.

“Reinhart,” she called to me from outside the cage.

“...”

“You’re the Demon King?”

I couldn’t say anything because of the gag.

Perhaps it was better this way.

‘Yes, I am the Demon King.’

Or, I could lie and deny it, even in this situation.

I didn’t want to say anything with my own mouth.

Sabioleen Tana looked at me from beyond the bars, and her eyes widened.

“Could it be... Was saving the princess also...”

“...”

I wasn’t surprised.

They would inevitably reach that conclusion.

Following the chain of events, even the fact that I had saved Charlotte would ultimately be seen as an action to preserve the soul of the previous Demon King.

All the actions I had taken to protect someone under the pretense of saving everyone would inevitably turn into arrows that pointed back at me.

I could understand why such a conclusion could be reached, but I couldn’t help but feel despair and misery.

***

Of course, I wasn’t just being watched while I was confined.

“Dispel doesn’t work.”

This chapt𝙚r is updated by freeωebnovēl.c૦m.

“Yes, if it did, it would have been dispelled the moment he passed through the Temple’s gate.”

They were likely speculating that I had changed my appearance by some means. Sabioleen Tana listened to the mage’s report and looked at me quietly.

“Did he use a spell? Like Polymorph...?”

The ring of Sarkegar, which specialized in disguising its wearer, remained undetected by the mages’ various spells.

Sabioleen Tana looked at me quietly, as if she wanted to believe I was just a human.

But she knew that my guardian was a lycanthrope, which was clearly a minion of the Demon King.

And the fact that I possessed two relics meant that I couldn’t be treated as just another minion of the Demon King. After all, there was the perception that, unless I was the Demon King or a similarly powerful being, I couldn’t possess two relics.

***

How much time had passed?

Would the Council and the Black Order know that I was in this state?

What would happen if they found out?

Trapped there, unable to properly sense time, I was soon made to face what I had to confront.

“Your Highness...” Sabioleen Tana was speaking to someone in a voice full of concern.

Soon, a silhouette appeared in front of the bars.

It was Charlotte.

She looked down at me quietly.

“Open it,” she said.

“Your Highness, you mustn’t.”

“Open it.”

That was the only thing Charlotte said.

Sabioleen Tana, faced with Charlotte’s firm resolve, eventually gritted her teeth and opened the cage door.

Charlotte knelt down in front of me, bound and sitting.

She looked at me, and I could see the depth of emotion swirling in her eyes.

I couldn’t fathom the depth of the betrayal she felt.

“You’ve lied to me so many times so far,” Charlotte said as she looked into my eyes.

“...”

“So, just this once. Just this one time... be honest. Just once. Just this once, tell me the truth...”

Her eyes bore into mine. Even in this situation, she was kneeling before me, begging for the truth.

“Is it... true?”

She didn’t specify what she was asking about, but I knew.

Was I the same person who had escaped the Demon King’s castle with her?

Was I the Demon King?

That was what she was asking.

Would it be better to say no?

Even now, would it be better to tell another obvious lie?

There was no corner to escape to, and the truth that I was the Demon King was bound to come out.

There was no way that I could be released and things could return to how they had been before, without any shadow of suspicion hanging over me.

I had deceived Charlotte thus far.

I had lied to her more than anyone else.

And now that everything was over, could I just tell her another obvious lie?

No. I was tired. Tired of building up lies.

I looked at Charlotte.

If I lied even then, it would only lead to an even greater betrayal.

If I denied it, something even more irreversible would happen.

It was too late, but I would not build more lies and misunderstandings that would eventually be exposed.

Nod.

With the gag still in my mouth, I nodded.

Charlotte, her head drooping, murmured in a trembling voice, “I... I... You know... I...”

She was crying.

“W-what wrong did I ever... do to you...?”

She had not wronged me in any way.

“Why did you have to torment me? Why only me? Why did you have to... torment me like this...? Did you... hate me that much? Yes, I understand that the empire destroyed the Demon Realm and you wanted revenge... but... to this extent...? You know how much... how much I cared about you. You knew. And yet, was it all part of your plan for me to forget you and rely on you again?”

‘I wanted to save you.’

“What did you want to do with the Demon King’s soul inside me? Yes, it was strange. Somehow. You asked to be taken to the Spring Palace as soon as something happened to me, and you appeared just in time to stop me from going berserk, all because you were the Demon King’s son, right...? You knew from the beginning what was happening to me...”

I couldn’t say anything about the puzzle she was piecing together on her own.

If my mouth were free, could I have said something?

If she asked me why I hadn’t said anything sooner, would I have anything to say?

Even if I could speak at that moment, she would only think that I was telling another lie, since I’d already been caught.

“Did you think... that if we got married... you could take over the empire...?”

‘That’s fair. I could see how it might look that way. The engagement I’d proposed to protect you could be seen as a plot by the Demon King to take over the empire through marriage with a princess who had fallen out of the imperial succession.

‘Yes, it was Vertus who had suggested the engagement first, but ultimately, I was the one who had accepted it.’

I was being seen as the Demon King who, instead of rebuilding the Demon Realm, was looking to take over the empire and make the enemy my own.

Even I thought it was a plausible plan.

But of course, I had no such intentions.

If that were the case, then would Ellen, who had become the princess’s guardian knight and prevented that situation from becoming reality, become a hero of the empire?

“Did I... do something to you that was so wrong?”

From beginning to end, she had only been used by me.

Her escape from the Demon King’s castle, meeting me at the Temple, becoming friends, me taking on the role of a messenger, and all the lies I’d stacked up while dealing with Charlotte... They could only be seen as part of my plan to take over the empire.

That was why Charlotte was kneeling in front of me, trembling with the weight of betrayal, unable to even cry.

“You should have killed me... You should have just killed me...”

“...”

“If all you were going to do was to make me feel more miserable than death... then you should have just killed me...”

The person who had saved her was actually the Demon King.

And so she found someone else to rely on, but that person also turned out to be the Demon King.

All she could think was that she had been toyed with all this time.

“It must have been fun... playing me like that... Me, smiling at you without knowing anything... crying in front of you, all those moments... It was fun, wasn’t it?”

Charlotte looked at me, her empty eyes looking right into mine.

“All those moments when I didn’t know my enemy was right in front of me... When I didn’t know I was being used, when I relied on you... It must have been unbearably amusing, right?”

No. In fact, I found the state I was in more amusing than anything.

Stirring up things that should have been left alone, causing all those events, and ultimately facing the utter ruin of everything that was reality...

At that moment, that person that I was was ridiculous and amusing.

“I... I hope you die in the most... miserable way possible...” Charlotte murmured, cursing me. “I hope that even in death, you’re not at peace, and that you’re thrown into the depths of hell, suffering eternally... That is what I hope for...”

“What did I do that was so wrong?”

Charlotte had said that to me repeatedly.

But that was what I wanted to say.

What did I do that was so wrong...?