Which parts were true, and which were lies? There was no doubt that the version of the story I’d heard from the Demon Lord had some of his own biased perspective in it as well. If we could just speak to the hero and Demon Lord themselves, we could probably get to the truth of the situation, but an opportunity like that would never come in my lifetime.
I’m still interested in that one topic, though.
“Is there any information about the first king and Demon Lord being romantic rivals?”
“Who knows,” Ronald said.
“There aren’t any?”
“Even if I were to have some witness statements from people back then about their romantic entanglements, would you trust them?” Ronald showed no signs of trying to even look for any documents.
That’s fair. I don’t think I’d trust them, whether they came from the involved parties themselves or from a third party. Information about which people are dating and who likes who are usually pretty wrong... I guess I’m good on this romantic rival topic, I thought as I shook my head. Ronald then pulled out another document he’d prepared.
“I think this is the last one. It’s something the first king wrote towards the end of his life.” Ronald then handed me a properly bound book. He opened it up to show us the contents, but the pages were much too crisp and clean. This probably wasn’t the original, but a copy.
Scanning through the text, it looked like it was written for someone. First was the diary that had sprinkles of personal complaints, which was followed by a letter from one individual to another... This third document was different from those two.
Seeing this book, Eleanora, who’d been wandering around the archive as if she were bored, finally spoke up. “I’ve seen that book before!”
I think you’re mistaken, Eleanora. It was surely her first time coming here, and there was no way Ronald would bring this document out, let alone put it somewhere his younger sister could see. I’d expected Ronald to correct her and move on, but he surprisingly nodded in agreement.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you have. This used to be in the possession of the Hillrose family. It used to be passed down within the family, but it was moved here.”
“I’ve definitely seen it before!” Eleanora repeated.
“Which room did you see it in? I believe Father said not to go into the room where it was stored.”
Eleanora fell silent for a moment. “I don’t think I’ve seen that book before...”
Setting aside whether or not Eleanora had explored the room that was off-limits, this book had historically been the Hillroses’ property. Since the Hillrose family duchy was no longer, they’d probably had it moved.
To summarize, the Hillrose family duchy had originally been established to support the royal family. The older brother was the king, while the younger was a duke—it wasn’t uncommon to appoint trusted people into high positions to help run the kingdom.
Though Valschein was currently stable, when the kingdom was first founded, things were quite rocky. The administration was pretty much established, but right before they had an official ceremony to celebrate the founding of the kingdom, the Demon Lord, consumed by anger and resentment, manipulated a horde of beasts into attacking Valschein. The first king was incredibly skilled when it came to battle if nothing else, so he was able to suppress the horde of monsters and seal away the Demon Lord.
A kingdom ruled by the hero that sealed away the Demon Lord—the king had obtained the ultimate legend for how the kingdom came to be, and he couldn’t not use it. Though, in reality, the Kingdom of Valschein was ready to fall apart at any moment.
“Was that because the first king was only skilled at fighting and nothing else?”
“That would be the natural conclusion to draw, but whoever wrote this didn’t think so.”
Oh, right. He suddenly just started explaining things so I didn’t think about it, but who wrote this book?
I continued reading. The author had deduced that the reason the kingdom was so unstable was because the Demon Lord was gone. There were more powerful noble families who were unhappy with the king than in the past. They’d first thought that the desires they’d been suppressing during the state of war were now exploding since things were peaceful, but they had been wrong.
When things were going smoothly, the powerful families all directed their dissatisfaction towards the Demon Lord, who was austere and couldn’t take a joke. The king would then, though haphazardly, come up with a compromise and make both parties accept the terms. The Demon Lord aided the king as his second-in-command by using fear behind the scenes. It was unclear whether the Demon Lord was doing this intentionally, but it was quite effective.
However, whoever wrote this text wasn’t able to use fear quite as well, so instead of having the people’s complaints directed at them, they decided to become a vehicle for those feelings. They would oppose the royal family on purpose and gather all the rebellious actors of the kingdom, making sure to keep them at an appropriate level of happiness. Finally, once their despicable desires had piled up to the brim, they were going to get rid of all these rebellious actors, along with themselves.
“Was this written by...?”
“It’s exactly who you’re thinking.”
I remembered hearing this story somewhere. This was written by the first Duke of Hillrose to outline the role of the Hillrose family. The Hillroses had stored, made copies, and passed down this book, and the successive dukes each fulfilled their duties.
That role had been continuously executed throughout generations, and as a result, Eleanora’s father carried out the final job, which led to the duchy finally ending.
I stood there in awe at the Hillrose family while Ronald, who could’ve been the head of said family, spoke in an unconcerned manner.
“Well, the Hillroses don’t really matter right now.”
“I wouldn’t say they don’t matter.”
“Aren’t you here for information about the first king? It’s fine. My father managed to get out of it with his life anyway.”
You’re not wrong, but... I was a bit unhappy that Eleanora had a blank look on her face as she listened, which made it hard to tell if she was understanding what we were discussing or not, but I kept reading until we reached the information relevant to the hero.
To summarize once more, the king had been quite concerned with the fact that he’d lost the Demon Lord and that he’d unintentionally pushed someone into the role of a convenient target for the sake of the kingdom. Then, after the final battle, he’d ended up sealing away the Demon Lord. Those who hated the Demon Lord stopped the king’s letter from reaching him, which left the two to battle without a chance to clear up their misunderstandings.
Towards the end of the king’s life, after hearing the role that the first Duke of Hillrose had established for himself, the king had been filled with even more regret.
He had thought that he wasn’t fit to be king—that he didn’t have the skills to rule over a kingdom, and that caused those around him to struggle. He had thought that if he had been a better ruler, the Demon Lord wouldn’t have been feared and isolated. The first king had felt that it was because he wasn’t fit to be king that his friend turned into a being known as the Demon Lord.
On top of everything, his own brother was about to go down a similar path as the Demon Lord. Everything was because he wasn’t a skilled enough ruler. If he had been a perfect regal king, he thought he would’ve been able to lead the Kingdom of Valschein without sacrificing everything.
The first king wanted to start over with the founding of the kingdom. If not, he wanted to at least make it so that he’d never established this kingdom. With such regrets in his heart, the sickly king deliriously mumbled those thoughts.
“Because of the sort of man my older brother is, I established the Hillrose duchy. I beg my descendants reading this—there is no need to force yourself to carry out the role of this family, but if you want to support the king of your generation, I hope you will carry on my wishes.”
With that, the text in the book concluded.
The first Duke of Hillrose’s determination was incredible, but even more than that, I was shocked by the first king’s regrets. The king was a barbarian who lacked both intelligence and proper behavior, contrary to my earlier impression of him. That very barbarian hadn’t wanted his relationship with the Demon Lord to collapse, but he’d ended up becoming the hero. That hero died, his heart full of regret for the people who were sacrificed to establish his kingdom.
My impression of the king had changed several times in this short period of time. The one thing that stayed consistent about every version of him was that he was never very kingly.