An endless expanse of blue stretched overhead. Under the cloudless sky, uncountable people crowded the travel road, waiting for something to pass with bated breath. All manner of street food stalls lined the street as if a festival was about to break out.
“D-Do you hear that?! That music?!”
“You’re right! I hear it too!”
The crowd fell silent, holding its breath for the approaching march. Rumors were circulating around Holylight—garnering more fervor and anticipation because there was no TV or internet—that the fallen angel was on a victory tour after vanquishing the central nobles.
Finally, confirming the rumor, a massive band marched down the travel road, playing a tune that could have made flowers break out in song. There were no fewer than a hundred musicians in the band—whom Shrimp had recruited from around the country.
A towering white elephant followed the band, stunning the onlookers with every thundering step. When they saw who rode on the elephant’s back, electricity pulsed through the crowd. Atop the elephant’s square saddle, in a gigantic throne, the fallen angel with pitch-black wings sat cross-legged. With a scornful gaze toward the horizon, he was stunning enough to ensnare the souls of those who beheld him—the embodiment of dark allure.
The crowd broke out in murmurs as he rode by.
“Is that Lord Lucifer...?!”
“He’s breathtaking...!”
“The angel...! H-He’s the one who wiped out the central nobles...”
Ordinarily, the populace would have regarded the Demon Lord only with fearful reverence, considering he had taken out an invading army and Central overnight. They might have bowed to his overwhelming power, but they would have never felt closeness or adoration like this. Not for the mythical rebel—how else would he rule than by an iron fist? As if to quell the onlookers’ doubt, nine children emerged from where they had been hiding. The children waved to the crowd, beaming.
“Are those the children...?!”
“The ones Dona abducted?!”
“They’re alive! Lord Lucifer saved them!”
The children kept smiling and waving to the music underscored by the crowd’s whispers. Yu had already instructed them to be the most vibrant flowers to bedeck this show. This was the moment the parade truly began, as Tahara had orchestrated it. The rescued children snatched the hearts of those who watched, sending their excitement through the roof.
Thunderous applause and deafening cheers rumbled through the fallen angel—the greatest con man this world had ever known. Dammit! What is this, a parade at a world-famous theme park?! Nowadays, this much excitement could not be found in even the house of mouse. Tahara had planned for a while how to transport their newly acquired treasure and art, and ultimately concocted this victory parade. The Demon Lord glowered at the advisor behind him; Tahara was leading the caravan of wagons as if he had had no part in orchestrating this whole affair.
Catching his gaze, Tahara nodded conspicuously. “The Secretary gave us the green light. Let’s make it rain!”
What?! What are you going to do?! the Demon Lord wanted to shout.
From the snaking caravan, the end of which the Demon Lord couldn’t even see, quarter-bronze and half-bronze coins were tossed into the crowd like beads from a Mardi Gras float. The shower of sparkling currency hushed the crowd for a moment—until they realized what had been tossed at their feet. Naturally, they swarmed the cash in a frenzy.
As those in the parade, everyone from the staff of House Butterfly to the Militant soldiers, scattered coins with every step of their horses, the caravan rolled down the travel road. Later, the people of Holylight would call this unprecedented spectacle “the Gold Parade.”
“Th-They’re coins! These are half bronzes!”
“No way! Gimme that!”
“Easy, boys, easy...”
“Knock it off! There’s piles of them everywhere!”
Then, the wagons began throwing small leather pouches to the crowd—most were stuffed with bronze coins, and some even included bronze medallions. Anyone who caught one of these bags would be overjoyed. Funny that all of this cash had been rotting in Dona’s fortress. The central nobles never had the need to use small change like quarter- or half-bronze coins. Of course, that didn’t mean they would have returned anything they tithed from their people.
Tahara had ordered the money to be scattered to the masses like he was clearing out dead inventory. This was part of his idea to revive Holylight’s economy, and those on the receiving end definitely felt like they could breathe again.
As those in the crowd inspected the contents of the leather bags, their excitement reached a new height.
“B-Bronze coins?! This bag’s full of them!”
“Look at this! Mine has bronze medallions too!”
“Reeeeeee!”
“Shut up!”
They scrambled for coins and pouches like they’d lost their minds, and cheered their heads off for the Gold Parade and the Fallen Angel Lucifer at the center of it. The image of the Demon Lord, which should have been nothing other than catastrophe, had been transformed by this grandiose performance—one hell of a PR campaign.
Having watched the crowd change their tune so quickly, Tahara sent a Communication, silently guffawing. “Steal from the rich and give to the poor, am I right, Chief? How ironic is that?”
I didn’t sign up for this! How did we get here?! the Demon Lord wondered as he always did. In this case, a quick conversation between him and Tahara was to blame.
“What do you wanna do with this pile of stagnation?” Tahara had asked in regards to the unutilized hoard.
Hearing the word “stagnation,” the Demon Lord had decided that he had no need for a trash heap and thoughtlessly replied, “If anyone wants it, give it to them.”
Tahara had inferred the cunning Secretary’s intentions and orchestrated this whole spectacle. After all this time, the Demon Lord had not learned the virtue of keeping his mouth shut.
Now he wanted nothing more than to escape this ridiculous display, but there was no way to weasel out of it when he was the star of the show. This is getting out of control... Did Tahara say this parade was going to the other travel roads?
He had. The Gold Parade was a massive undertaking that went through every major travel route of Holylight as caravans traveled from the west through the north, center, and south, until they finally reached the village of Rabbi. By the time the parade concluded, there would be no one in Holylight who would doubt that the Fallen Angel had returned—or that the old ruling class was dead and a brand new era was dawning on Holylight.
Amid the cacophonous festivities, a red-haired boy quietly spoke to the Demon Lord. “You’re amazing, Lord Lucifer. No noble has ever done anything like this.” He was one of the nine surviving Numbered children, and the only boy. As such, the Demon Lord had given particular attention to him through their march.
“I simply have no need for it,” the Demon Lord said. It wasn’t a lie. Like a tourist being handed a stack of unfamiliar currency, he had no grasp of the value of what he was giving away.
“The lords only ever took from us...” the boy continued.
“There will be no room in this country for self-serving lords,” the Demon Lord said. “Now, about your names—”
“Yes, Lord Lucifer. Please call me Ten!” the red-haired boy proudly declared with a hand on his heart.
The Demon Lord resisted the urge to groan aloud. For whatever reason, the Numbered children had begun addressing themselves with numbers: One, Two, Three, etc. Because Nine was their collective name, Ten had claimed the next number up.
The other Numbered must have been listening in, because they began speaking to Demon Lord all at once.
“We have overcome our past and are now reborn!”
“...Every part of my being belongs to Lord Lucifer.”
“Stop hogging Lord Lucifer!”
“Yes, we have to share him!”
“Stay out of it, women!”
As the children barked at each other, the Demon Lord let out a quiet sigh. Clearly, Yu had indoctrinated them with certain aspects of the Nine—the Hakuto Kunai fan club from back in the game. Ironically, these children, who had been deemed unworthy of names and were addressed only as numbers, had reclaimed those numbers...as their names.
Children in the crowd seemed to share their excitement, scrounging for bronze coins and running around to food and toy stalls. Sweet pastries, like the ones sold here, were a rare treat for these children. The adults, too, reached for drinks, skewered meats, and honey buns, breaking out into picnics all around.
Stall owners bellowed over the bustling parade.
“We have the best prices! Come get your corn on the cob!”
“Over here we have great deals on ale!”
“How about some apples, cherries, and nuts!”
Liquor flew off the shelves. Soon enough, street performers, dancers, and fortune tellers began popping up along the parade route, turning this chaotic march into the party of the century.
The Demon Lord watched this all unfold, a bitterness growing in his chest. Bastards! I’m the one who should be chugging booze right now! The mascot of the parade couldn’t very well down a bottle of liquor—he was well and truly out of options.
The Gold Parade dragged on for days and nights. At times, the Demon Lord used his Charge skill to fly off from the parade—a bit he’d concocted just so he could take a break from mascot duty. Although he loathed every minute of it, the Gold Parade restored smiles to faces throughout Holylight, breaking through the sense of isolation and despair that had clouded the nation. Just as Tahara had intended, the parade showed, rather than told, the populace that the central nobles had been defeated.
Of course, this wasn’t Tahara’s only scheme. The Gold Parade just happened to be the flashiest means of grabbing the people of Holylight by their heartstrings. In the shadows, Tahara had enacted several welfare programs like disaster aid and bereavement aid using Holylight’s civil registry, which had been maintained solely for tax purposes by the former nobles.
The Holy Maidens had also announced a disbursement of a celebratory payment for Holylight’s unification, as well as plans to distribute Water Spell Stones free of charge, but Holylight’s citizens had taken those decrees with a large grain of salt. It was a natural reaction, after generation after generation of nobles extorting them. With the Gold Parade, when the ruling class finally paid them something back, a spark of hope was ignited in them—maybe this time, it could be different.
Tahara had also decreed that the Holy Church would pay to repair houses and infrastructure destroyed in the war, restoring the people’s faith in the church as well as the Holy Maidens. These were well-calculated moves that, naturally, the Demon Lord had no part in. He was cruising through life garnering goodwill on the backs of his advisors—the king of freeloading.
Never thought they’d cheer for a little cosplay like this. This angel worship stuff is weird... the Demon Lord thought throughout the tour. After everything he’d done, this was little more than a costume parade for him. The defeated central nobles must have been rolling in their graves like a proton in a particle collider.