Chapter 209: The Demon King and the Empire
“I said.”
Daniel Deyrus continued speaking.
“Get lost.”
* * *
“Get lost.”
Blurring vision, an agonised body. Even so, his emotions were unmistakably clear.
Disgust toward the Demon King, rage toward humans.
“Is there really a need to be so hostile?”
“I do not cooperate with demons.”
“Are you saying I am a demon?”
“Anyone would think so if they saw how you look.”
“Ah, I see. As expected?”
At that mont, the body of the colossus-like Demon King rapidly shrank. Like a doll with its stuffing pulled out, its outer layer peeled away.
The man who had existed just before entering the Demon King stood there.
“How about now?”
“Are you forcing an answer by showing such a grotesque form?”
“Is that how it looks?”
“Who are you, exactly?”
“Isn’t there sothing more important than that?”
“What did you say?”
“Your life is hanging by a thread, and I have a way to save you. And I wish to cooperate with you. Is your curiosity more urgent than that?”
“....”
“There is no ti. The Demon King is dead, so the Tower will soon return to the Demon Realm.”
“Even if I go back like this, it will be the sa. I am alone, and they are....”
“Then why not beco an entirely different person and build power anew? What they fear is the hero nad ‘Daniel Deyrus.’”
“What are you talking about—?”
Jjeojeojeok-
The man’s skin shrank and peeled away, just like the colossus Demon King.
A face with a completely different impression was revealed.
“...Is that your true form?”
“It is not my true form, but you may understand it that way for now.”
The man approached while holding the loosened skin.
“...What are you doing?”
“I am giving you a new life. Ah, before that.”
The man reached out toward Daniel’s wounds. A warm healing spell treated him.
“...You weren’t a demon?”
“I am a demon.”
“Then how....”
“It would be better to overlook trivial details. Now.”
The skin was placed over him. In an instant, it enveloped Daniel’s entire body and settled into place. The uncomfortable foreign sensation and distorted vision quickly disappeared.
“...What is this?”
“Today, in this place, Daniel Deyrus died. Your na is Cortian Macerina. One of the countless ordinary heroes from Zespine...skin?”
* * *
“...Skin?”
Berje’s face stiffened.
“That’s right.”
“So you wore the outer shell he discarded. And used it to change identities multiple tis.”
“Correct.”
“Ha, this is driving insane.”
Berje clutched his throbbing head. He wondered whether what he had heard was even possible.
‘That can’t be.’
Yes, that couldn’t be.
‘No, but really?’
In truth, he had suspected it just a little.
When he realized that Daniel Deyrus had been wearing the shell of Balraf Dislode, one race ca to mind.
But he dismissed it.
Why?
Because it couldn’t be.
Because it was impossible.
“What’s wrong? Is there a problem?”
“Wait a mont.”
Berje imdiately summoned the two Demon Kings.
“He absorbed a Demon King and shed its skin?”
“Yes.”
“And he transford into a completely different appearance?”
“Yes.”
Reina’s complexion hardened.
“If this hero is lying....”
“He swore on dinsional power.”
“...Then it’s true. Wow, how did those cockroach-like things survive?”
Vivian exclaid in admiration.
“Do all of you think the sa as I do?”
“If what you think and what Vivian thinks are the sa thing.”
“There’s no other possibility.”
Ha.
Berje let out a hollow laugh.
“Yeah, that’s the only explanation that makes sense. Even the fact that he’s alive is incomprehensible.”
There existed a peculiar race of demons in the Demon Realm.
Parasites that devoured others and wore their skin, living as them.
In the Demon Realm, they were called—
“Doppelgänger.”
* * *
Doppelgängers.
Among humans, they were known simply as demons that copied others, and there was a saying that if one t a doppelgänger that looked exactly like oneself, one would die.
That was wrong.
They were not beings that rely copied appearances and manifested.
“That those greedy parasitic bastards survived.”
As Reina said, they were parasitic demons.
They did not copy—they infiltrated and parasitized. They absorbed the host’s power, and in the end devoured them and wore their shell.
In other words, they could not coexist like a copy. They were rely doppelgängers whose insides had already been replaced.
“I completely misjudged it.”
Berje had believed that Jason had built his strength and foundation over more than a hundred years.
That was wrong. The creature was a doppelgänger that had lived for several hundred years after devouring the Demon King nad Jason.
“We must kill it imdiately. We cannot allow a doppelgänger to roam freely.”
“I agree. Just breathing the sa air as those disgusting things makes sick.”
Reina and Vivian spoke in unison.
“But we cannot move rashly. According to what that thing said, it t Jason hundreds of years ago. That ans it had been devouring Demon Kings and heroes and building power even before that....”
Perhaps it had beco a monster that even Berje, as he was now, could not handle.
No, it was certain.
Berje twitched his ears and glanced at Daniel, who was trying to eavesdrop on their conversation.
But soundproofing with demonic energy was already in place. With all his mana restrained, there was no way he could hear anything.
‘A doppelgänger, a doppelgänger....’
He had never expected this. Not even before the regression, not until capturing Daniel Deyrus.
He had thought of him rely as a clever Demon King who survived by skillfully twisting The Demon King’s Standard even in the worst situation called Arein.
That was not it.
His enemy was far tougher, stronger, and more enormous than he had imagined.
But it was not all bad.
“...Perhaps.”
“Perhaps?”
“Things might be resolved easily.”
“Is there a way to kill it?”
“There’s a way to starve it to death. Doppelgängers are traitors to the Demon Realm. An extermination order was issued, and they were wiped out.”
In another sense, they were rarer than Demon Dragons, which already had the smallest population in the Demon Realm.
“If we inform the Demon Realm that a doppelgänger has been calmly devouring Demon Kings and impersonating one?”
“Then....”
“Yes. We tell them it was all a lie. That the doppelgänger frad us, and that in truth, all the incidents were caused by that thing.”
The truth itself did not matter.
Knowing how obsessed the Demon Realm was with exterminating doppelgängers, there would be no issue even if all bla was pinned on it.
However, a prerequisite was needed.
“Reina.”
A connection to the Demon Realm.
Berje’s and Vivian’s connections had been severed, but until recently, Reina’s had remained.
However, there was no certainty it still existed now.
She had appeared in battle with the heroes, and Jason surely knew that fact.
If a report had already gone up and Archduke Arkaine had cut the connection, then it would an nothing.
But fortunately—
“It remains.”
The connection was intact.
It was thanks to Jason being unable to pay attention to anything else while preparing to devour Dorche.
* * *
It was madness.
Utter, undeniable madness.
“Withdrawing from the alliance? What kind of nonsense is this!”
“It is His Majesty’s will.”
“I don’t like it either, but my brother was kidnapped. Imperial cities turned into hell, ten thousand soldiers died. And now heroes including Balraf Dislode are dead. And you say withdrawing from the alliance makes sense? We should be leading the charge to subjugate the Demon Kings instead!”
“It is His Majesty’s will.”
“Grandfather!”
Martin bit his lip. His maternal grandfather and the imperial relative, the Marquis of Aincheil, was the sa.
“The imperial decree has been issued, and an envoy to convey that will has attended the alliance council. Soon, news of the Empire’s withdrawal will shake the entire continent. It ans it cannot be undone.”
“All the people fear the Demon Kings. All kingdoms cry out for their subjugation. Yet we oppose that will and march alone against it?”
“I am a subject of the Empire, and a subject of His Majesty. I cannot defy an imperial decree.”
“Then do you endorse it? Even if it is an imperial decree, you should have refused if it was wrong. If only the reason had been valid, I could have understood.”
But the reason was rely, ‘The Empire has suffered too much damage and needs ti to recover.’
‘The Empire’s true enemy is Dark Fla, so there is no room to turn its gaze to other Demon Kings.’
Of course, the Empire’s losses were severe. Overwhelmingly greater than any other nation’s.
But if the Empire were to stagger from sothing like this, it would not even deserve to be called an empire.
The other excuses were the sa. From the mont the floating battleship was destroyed and Balraf Dislode died, there was nothing the Empire could do.
They were nothing but shoddy pretexts.
“This is not an opportunity. Other nations bleeding while facing the Demon Kings and us waiting to strike only turns the entire continent into our enemy!”
The purpose was obvious.
Opportunity. They saw it as a chance to expand the Empire’s territory.
That was why the Emperor declared it so.
The Duke of Osrian endorsed it.
And so nobles must have agreed.
But while it might seem beneficial in the short term, in the long term it was the height of folly.
Because the allied forces that subjugated the Demon Kings would never look kindly on the Empire.
“Of course, the Empire is strong. It could certainly wage war against the entire continent. But the outco would never be positive. The Empire would not survive either.”
At best, mutual destruction. That was how Martin saw it.
Thus, once the Duke of Osrian had already sided with the Emperor, at least Marquis Bolderbof or Marquis Aincheil should have opposed it to maintain balance.
Martin believed they would.
But there was no opposition. The three high-ranking nobles who supported the current Empire unanimously endorsed it, and the Empire’s withdrawal from the alliance proceeded without delay.
“Your Highness, I hope you will understand that there are circumstances preventing from explaining everything in detail.”
“...Does that an there is sothing else?”
“What I can tell you is that the Empire has joined hands with the False Demon King for many long years.”
“Wasn’t it my brother who joined hands with him?”
“It was His Majesty and the Duke of Osrian who connected the First Prince with falsehood.”
“That ans....”
Good heavens.
Martin let out a groan.
“...You’re not just preserving the Empire’s strength, you’re planning to help False and strike the alliance from behind?”
The marquis did not answer. But his silence was the answer.
“...That is insanity! Humanity must survive for there to be a future. If all nations are ruined and devastated and the Demon Kings grow stronger, what aning does the Empire’s victory have!”
“The Demon Kings can be controlled sufficiently.”
“Even after seeing the results of this hero’s march, you still say that? False helped Dark Fla and annihilated the hero party!”
This was wrong.
No matter how crazed the Empire’s ambitions were, this was not it.
“Your Highness.”
At that mont, the Marquis of Aincheil’s voice dropped low.
Their eyes t.
A chill ran through him.
Every hair on his body stood on end.
It was a gaze he had never once seen from his always-kind grandfather.
No—was this really the grandfather he had known? He felt unfamiliar. Utterly unfamiliar.
“It is an imperial decree.”
“....”
“Please do not spread this information elsewhere. His Majesty has strictly ordered secrecy.”
And then—
“Do not worry. We will not strike the alliance from behind while they fight the Demon Kings.”
The Marquis of Aincheil disappeared into the distance.
“...Haha.”
Left alone, Martin let out a hollow laugh.
“No, this isn’t right.”
Demon Kings.
Untrustworthy beings.
To join hands with such creatures and stab humanity in the back—
It was utter madness.
It was an act of abandoning humanity. Even if the operation succeeded, could it be maintained after losing all trust and righteousness?
Would the people accept an Empire that betrayed humanity, joined hands with Demon Kings, and annihilated other nations?
Even victory would be nothing but a scarred one.
Even if it did not show on the surface, it would fester and burst one day.
‘There’s no way they don’t know that.’
Why had the Emperor and all the nobles been consud by madness?
‘I have to stop it.’
But he had no power.
Most of his influence ca from the House of Marquis Aincheil, and while his own faction was certainly greater than that of ordinary nobles, it was insufficient to accomplish anything alone.
He needed help.
‘But whose?’
The Emperor, the three pillars of the Empire, had united in will.
This vile madness would infect the entire Empire—and it already was.
‘I must stop His Majesty.’
The ideal scenario was for the allied forces to subjugate the False Demon King without heavy losses, leaving the Empire no nerve to strike from behind.
But Martin was pessimistic.
The marquis had said the Empire had nurtured False for a long ti. He was confident that False would inflict great damage on the allied forces.
If the Emperor and grand nobles were that confident, his level could not be ordinary.
‘But what if that damage could be reduced?’
There was one thod that ca to mind imdiately.
During the search of the Tower of Dark Fla, Martin, who had ties with a Demon King, heard things that were not commonly known.
For instance, that Dark Fla and False were on bad terms and hostile toward each other, and that the rumor that False had helped Dark Fla was a sche ant to put False in a difficult position.
“Using a Demon King to kill a Demon King.”
If Dark Fla, who hated False, lent even a small hand in killing False—
If the alliance’s losses beca less than expected—
If the Empire abandoned its plan—
That would be enough. That would suffice.
Martin hurried toward his office.
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