Akuyaku Reijou no Naka no Hito

Chapter21，Part2 – Extra Story — What The King of Demons Thinks, Part 2

Translated by KaiesV

Edited by KaiesV

It was finally the day of the evening party. As usual, my younger siblings are giving me the cold shoulder. I pleaded that I did not want to burden Remilia, who was preoccupied for today with revealing whose past sins it was and even trying to save her fiancé and family who did not trust her, but she did not listen to me at all.

On the day of the event, I didn’t even confess to her, but I put on her own colors and told me that “Brother’s love” was too heavy and cowardly. I think so myself, but I don’t want to see Remilia being wooed by another man at an evening party. Even in Remilia’s home country, I have heard that engaged couples give or wear ornaments of each other’s hair and eye color. I make an excuse to myself that no man will try to seduce her with her whole body covered in my colors, and that it’s also to dismiss any unnecessary trouble before the decisive play.

I was still reluctant to let her enter the venue alone after she had been so nervous in the carriage. I was told that in social occasions in this country, the escort is considered a relative or a fiancée if the man is not a relative. It’s selfish of me to wish for that position when I haven’t even confessed my feelings. I can’t argue with Misery’s comment,「That’s why you should’ve told her how you felt about her sooner.」

According to today’s schedule, during the evening party, when the banquet has reached a certain level of excitement, the king announced, as scripted,「To commemorate the deepening of our friendship, we will now further strengthen trade. Specifically, I will make an announcement that…」They talk about it as if it was decided during this evening party, but everything is as planned. Politics in the human realm is complicated and troublesome, but I suppose this is a necessary procedure to ensure that everything goes without a hitch.

According to the plan that Miss Sofia, and through her story, Klimt and Misery, have made, I will intervene after this announcement, saying,「Before we do that, we must reveal the real sinners and get the pus out of the heart of this country.」It would be disruptive, but Remilia was falsely accused and made a worse scene, and Miss Sofia advised her that she should send a bottle of Lilin wine to the royal family and the nobles to「apologize」later. There is virtually no way in the human world to cure a disease that has reached a chronic state. We said that if we revealed the identity of the Star Maiden and offered her this as an apology, she wouldn’t only say nothing, but would be grateful.

And yet, at the very beginning of the soiree, right after the toast is over and the curse of the love potion cast by the Star Maiden is lifted… What was she misunderstanding from the exchange between me and the king of this country, the Star Maiden herself ran up to me and approached me… I thought that even in this country, it was against manners and in some cases disrespectful to address someone from a lower status. Or is there no way this woman thinks she is in a better position than me?

The sarcasm of「ornamentation,」which is quite direct to say at an evening party, does not come through. I knew this, but what is this rude woman? I dared to ask her, but she thought I was asking for her name and even introduced herself. She calls my name even though I have not forgiven her… Although it’s possible that the drugs were used and the effects of those drugs were amplified by this woman’s power… Does this mean that they were caged by this terrible woman and did not trust Remilia’s words to the contrary…?

I’m too shocked to think straight. Moreover, this woman gave me… I could smell the drugs that Remilia had advised me and supposedly restricted my handling of them.

Trusting Remilia’s word, I had the pharmacologist examine them to see how dangerous they were, and all of them showed the formation of psychic dependence and mild psychotropic effects. If a qualified person can process it into a drug and then administer it in a controlled manner, it’s not a problem, but if, for example, this is ingested over a long period of time, it would certainly be emotional manipulation, as Remilia says. There were no side effects that seemed to be side effects, but just saying that「unwilling favors are implanted」is harmful enough. Some sought the nectar of the Lilith flower, whose export ban was ordered some time ago, and the tuberous root of Asmodi. I thought about simply forbidding it, but Remilia’s words sparked an idea in me, and I decided to set a trap. A perfume with a characteristic smell that is native to the magical world and not of the human world, something completely different but easily detectable, and a root vegetable with a unique taste that falsely claims to be… we made it look like a bribe had been lost and flushed. The footsteps were cut off there because the middleman was dead on the way, but this woman wanted it. Furthermore, she knew about my eyes, something that even the demons don’t bother to tell other kin, in case someone’s wondering. It’s exactly the kind of person I drew from Remilia’s story, a being who has knowledge she shouldn’t know, but uses it only for evil.

My plans were off, but this woman went out of her way to get involved first. Miss Sofia and I made eye contact secretly and decided that we were going to unmask this woman now, though much earlier than planned. I was shocked to hear her say,「You are going to make an alliance with the demon tribe for the sake of friendship, aren’t you? For that alliance, I think it’s a very good idea that I, the Star Maiden who represents this country, and His Majesty the… Demon King get married,」she said, which astonished me deeply… What is this woman talking about?

But I’m confused because I know she’s not lying in her words. Seriously, this woman truly believes that it is a very good idea for her and myself to get married. Wasn’t she the one who disgraced Remilia and took the Crown Prince’s fiance role? I’ve heard that she liked to have several other men in her manor, but I don’t think she’s going to include me in that. Please don’t do that.

My head was about to boil with confusion and anger, and Remilia gently snuggled into my arms. That brought me back to my senses, and I managed to hold back the hand that was about to come out. Remilia even shows concern for the woman over there who disrupted the scene by saying something insane, and she is willing to let her back down. How kind you really are…

Well, I knew that the woman didn’t have the personality to take it gratefully. The timing was a little off, but the exchange was carefully discussed.

To this me, knowing that I would see through the lie, while cutting off my struggles to undermine Remilia again without somehow uttering a falsehood in front of me… I was too impatient to let Remilia worry even for a moment that I might be seduced by that woman after seeing this scene, and I found myself shouting my love for Remilia.

… I’ve done it, I was going to invite her to the balcony and confess my feelings there in the mood after the last dance, where I exposed the lies of the Star Maiden and the connection between the countries themselves was strengthened through trade…

Remilia was not taken aback by my outburst, but answered with tears in her eyes,「I’m so glad.」I had been listening to the answer in an unsuccessful attempt to probe ahead of time, but hearing it in words like this was very moving.

I would like to take her away to the garden and redo the confession, but the hanging of the Star Maiden is still in progress. I had only Remilia in my eyes, almost forgetting my original purpose, when I heard Miss Sofia’s voice intervening.

It’s a travesty, but as we discussed, we begin the screening of「Water Mirror Of The Past,」which reveals the sins of that woman. In addition to the scene of fabricating the woman’s crime, I interspersed it with a scene of the woman hitting things in her room and screaming her vindictiveness toward beautiful women of higher status than herself and men who didn’t fall for her. The people around her, now that the effects of the love potion and the perfume of charm are gone and they can see things flat, look at the image and look at that woman with disgust. The sons and daughters who were witnesses at the time when the perjury was revealed, uglyly dropped excuses, saying「Because I thought Pina-san was right at that time,」and「I thought it was true because there was a lot of evidence.」I could count on my fingers the number of times they apologized to Remilia… We don’t need to give forgiveness to such people. It’s necessary to sniff afterwards that it wasn’t a good idea to give an important chair of the country to a person who is not even aware of being a criminal.

Finally, the image of Remilia’s former guard, who was the woman’s pawn in framing Remilia. The maids of honor who betrayed Remilia in exchange for money, but the men of the guard were offered their bodies as a reward in addition. I wonder how hurt they must have felt when they’re blinded by the horrific rewards and lied about being「forced to serve Remilia-sama.」I’m going to expose to the light of day which one of them was really the lascivious and evil woman.

I thought I could play the definitive scene and shame would be a modest but punishing addition, but Remilia stopped me… I kept quiet about doing the hanging here because I thought Remilia would not like it. It was faster than I thought it would be until the barriers were lifted, a mistake.

I turned my head and saw Remilia’s real parents staring at her. I suppose I should have greeted them with a marriage ceremony, but I have no intention of being polite to those people who didn’t trust Remilia and abandoned her like a lizard’s tail. I ignored them without even speaking to them and return to the conversation.

It seems that at last the clouded eyes have awakened and the crown prince and his entourage have realized the truth. Too late, though.

Her hands were shoved away, and the Star Maiden, sprawled miserably on the floor, groaned out something. Remilia is concerned about the Star Maiden in that state and looks as if she is about to reach out to her. Please don’t go near such a repulsive being.

Sure enough, a woman so delirious that the word「insane」could not be more appropriate leapt into the air and tried to jump on Remilia with a movement that did not seem to bother her, even though she was wearing a heavy-looking dress. She knocked it off without a second thought, but… Well, even the slightest honor as the「Star Maiden」to this woman is no longer a diplomatic issue now.

Despite me waking up everyone in this place and completing my goal, Remilia started crying「pitifully」in front of that dirty and screaming woman. No resentment, no anger? There was no lie in Remilia’s words. She was crying in pity for that woman who was so happy with her false love that she deceived and framed… people as criminals and drugged them… with drugs. But it was so Remilia-like in its appearance… Ahh, I felt even lovelier about her when I thought that Remilia would take pity on a woman like her.

After that woman left with the soldiers, I’ll do my job as the steward of the demon tribe, just in case. The fact that the demon tribe had gone mad and was called demons, the fact that the god of creation whom the demon tribe believed in had fallen and become an evil god, and the fact that the world was about to be destroyed, whether it may be considered the ravings of a crazy woman or not, cannot be allowed to go unheard by others.

The truth is that I want to execute that woman to keep her mouth shut, but Remilia would be heartbroken even against a woman like that, so it would be difficult. Is imprisonment appropriate after depriving a person of all means of communicating things to others, such as voice and fingers to write? It depends on the decision of the king of this country, so that part is not definite. If I can’t kill her, the least I can do is punish her to the point of wanting her dead for the crime of… depriving Remilia of her previous happiness.