I trap the Devil Lord Lucifyra inside my barrier.
This one is the seriously serious kind, so I successfully cut her off from everything on the outside world.
Even if I forgot to pluck out a spell or two in the capital, she won’t be able to activate them. Probably.
“It’s time to end this.” I stroll toward her.
“Hyeah…?!”
The Devil Lord turns to face me, but she falls flat on her butt and inches away. Looks like she’s lost the will to fight.
I pity thee.
Who knows what would’ve happened if the Devil Lord was as strong as she was in her prime. Please don’t call me a coward─winning the fight before giving the opponent a chance to charge to full power is a legit strategy.
“What are you…going to do…?”
Ask you to politely bow out, of course.
Except, there’s one problem.
I don’t give a hoot what happens to some Devil Lord, but Gizelotte’s death is going to cause a huge headache later.
Queen Gizelotte absolutely needs to stand trial in public and be judged accordingly.
And a mysterious man dressed in all black executing her is bound to make her supporters revolt. This hag is surprisingly still popular among a small community.
For that reason, I can’t just off her.
At the same time, it’d be too dangerous for my dad or anyone else to deal with her while she’s still under the Devil Lord’s control. She seems pretty weakened now, but who knows when she’ll regain her mana.
Which only gives me one option.
I gotta suck it up and work a little harder.
Sheesh, I can’t see her face clearly with this helmet.
Plop!
I remove my headgear.
“Wha?! Wh-Who are you?” the Devil Lord exclaims.
Oh yeah, this might be the first time we’ve seen each other since I was born.
“I’m the guy inside Shiva, duh. Anywayz─”
I can’t be bothered to carry a conversation with her, so I get straight to the point.
I stare at Lucifyra. I give the being inside Gizelotte’s body a good hard look.
“Found ya.”
I can see it in the center of her head. Or wait, more like inside the brain. It’s a bug-like creature nestled, not really in the physical body, but more like in her soul. Its form is blurry and hard to describe, so I’ll just call it a “bug.”
I conjure numerous microscopic barriers.
Operating in the third dimension might damage her brain, so I surround the bug with my barriers from a couple dimensions above…
B-glunk!
Gizelotte’s body jerks wildly. I don’t know if that was the trigger, but the bug enveloped in my barrier flies out.
I catch it with my right hand.
“Blegh!”
Hm, I just heard it make a noise. I wonder if it could still talk in this form.
I listen carefully and hear a tiny voice yammering endlessly about sparing its life or something.
What should I do?
For the time being, I could leave it trapped in my barrier and show it to Professor Tear─
“Achoo!”
Splat!
Oops… Did I smush it?
I open my hand and inspect it carefully. There’s nothing there. I look all around, but there’s no Devil Lord in sight. In fact, I can’t feel anyone’s presence other than my own.
“Urh, Ugh… Shiva…?”
Gizelotte looks up at me, still in a daze.
I could just hand her off to my dad… But before I do that, I should give her a gift: an impending sense of despair and a chance to self-reflect.
I tear open my fitted black uniform to reveal my chest.
“…………” After a long pause, “Wh─” she barely lets out a gasp.
“That insignia… Could it be…? Are you…?” Gizelotte chokes, and slowly musters her words. “N-No… How…? You couldn’t… You couldn’t be…”
Apparently, she doesn’t want to accept reality. Not that I want her to be like, “My oh my. What a strong boy I gave birth to!” or anything.
For now, I just wanna make one thing clear to her.
“I’ve risen from hell to seek revenge on you and the king,” I say as I take a step toward her for intimidation.
Whoa, she’s shaking like a leaf.
“N-No, it wasn’t my idea. It was Jilq’s… It was the king’s orders. I didn’t want─”
“But you agreed to it, didn’t you? I heard you saying so.”
I’m just bluffing. In truth, I don’t know what she said. But─
“?!”
Gizelotte widens her eyes, flabbergasted. Judging by her reaction, it’s indisputably a fact. She’s so easy to read.
“Either way, you’re not even worth laying a hand on at this point. Watching you─the woman who once controlled the powers of a god─be convicted by the people might be entertaining, though.”
I land one final blow to the quivering woman before me.
“You might as well spend all that time in jail coming up with every excuse to save yourself. After all, you’re the master of self-rationalization, aren’t you?”
“W-Wait─”
Nope, don’t wanna hear it. I conjure a hole right below Gizelotte and let her fall. She passes through mystery space-time and…
THUD!
“Ack!”
…falls into my room.
“Did you just hear the queen’s voice?”
“Yes, from that way!”
Multiple footsteps stomp closer.
“Over here!”
A crowd of muscular soldiers and high-level sorcerers storm into the room.
“Gizelotte, you’re under suspicion of committing treason. You’re coming with us. It’s best you do not resist,” Count Gold Zenfis states coldly.
“N-No, it’s not what you think! It wasn’t me. The Devil Lord was controlling me!”
“…”
The count─the only one in the room who knows that she’s speaking the truth─looks down at her gravely. The others, however, stare blankly for a moment before letting out snickers.
“I have witnesses who can testify!” bawls the queen. “Alexei Guberg and Zara Yessel have been possessed by the Devil Lord, just as I have.”
Silencing those two shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ll just kindly ask for their cooperation in Shiva Mode.
Gizelotte continues to shriek with her hair in disarray.
“And there’s even Shiva─the Black Knight! He was the one who defeated the Devil Lord and pried it off me. That’s right─that man deserves to be rewarded by the queen later.”
Oh, hell no. I don’t think so. No way she’s trying to cling to me for help. I’m gonna deny everything.
She’s freaking out quite dramatically; I don’t think she even knows what she’s saying anymore.
“I saw his face,” she sputters. “He looked very much like me─fine, delicate features with black hair like mine. H-He saved me… Saved…me? B-But wait, we killed… Eek! No! I didn’t abandon him! It was the king who ordered─”
Her mental breakdown is reaching the zenith.
My dad, or Count Gold Zenfis, speaks up in a low, apathetic voice, “We’ll hear your excuses at the specialized court.” Then, he turns to the soldiers and orders, “Restrain her and take her away.”
The tough-looking soldiers obey my dad and tie her hands behind her back. They lift her up by her arms.
“Wait!” Gizelotte begs. “There’s more! There was another person who met the Devil Lord, and he was with me even after I became possessed. That man, um… His name was… Huh? Why can’t I remember his name?”
She’s being weird again.
Oh well. The whole plan couldn’t have been a bigger success.
My dad knows about the whole Devil Lord thing, but to the public, it’s a far-fetched tale that’s hard to take seriously. I’ll bet even Gizelotte’s supporters would roll their eyes once they see how deranged she’s become.
It was worth revealing my true identity to get a rise out of her.
All her crimes will be brought to light, and she’ll be convicted and shamed by the masses.
…And happily ever after. Yup.
After watching Gizelotte get dragged away, my dad looks up to the ceiling. His gaze does not meet mine.
“I’m sorry…” he says.
I’m not bothered at all.
I never considered that wench to be my parent in the first place. Besides, my only family in this world is the one that’s always looking out for me. That’s for sure.