His gaze briefly shifted to Dark, who was standing wordlessly behind the witch. Diablo had indeed hired assassins to take out Dark and the rest of his party, but those assassination attempts had failed, and someone had posted a grandiloquent display in the middle of the royal capital accusing Diablo of taking out a hit on Prince Voros. But the Wicked Witch seemed completely uninterested in listening to Diablo’s excuses as she unfurled another document to read aloud.
“You have committed many other crimes, both egregious and minor,” the witch proclaimed. “For someone with such a ghastly track record, it was only a matter of time before you faced judgment. In any case, this revocation of your land and your nobility is a matter that has already been settled with the authorities. It is far too late for you to contest it now.”
Diablo could only grind his teeth and snarl gutturally at this, the veins on his forehead and neck dangerously close to popping due to his fury. His normally pale face had gone a deep crimson, and his good senses suddenly flew out the window.
“Don’t go thinking you’ll get away with this!” he screeched. “Come, my soldiers! Kill her! Kill this damnable witch where she stands! And then, once she’s dead, I’ll keep this land, my status, and my honor!”
Diablo had stationed the few soldiers still in his fiefdom inside his manor in case there was an emergency. He had personally selected them for their superior combat skills, and on their master’s signal, they came storming out of the manor and pointed their weapons at the tower witch. But the witch simply giggled and gestured behind her.
“You’re certainly free to resist if you really want to,” the Wicked Witch goaded. “But that would mean my dragons reducing your entire domain to a fiery wasteland. In all honesty, as an alternative, that would be much, much faster for us, given our busy schedule.”
As if on cue, the Red Dragon roared to the rest of the swarm still circling overhead, and the other dragons roared back in unison. This brief display was enough to make the soldiers’ skin crawl, as if the noises made by the dragons carried scalding heat too. Even the most elite fighters were no match for a hundred dragons, and they’d heard what happened to the other demon lord who dared to defy the witch. In the end, the demon soldiers were too scared to swing their swords or nock arrows in their bows, and they just stood around in silence.
Spotting her opportunity, the Wicked Witch hammered the final nail in the coffin with regard to facing any resistance. “Also, since this domain will be in the kingdom’s possession, we will guarantee that all soldiers and servants are paid in full, and retain their status. Of course, that guarantee is null and void for anyone who joins in with any rebellion against the Demonkin Nation. Anyone who commits treason will be dispossessed of everything, including their lives.”
There was technically a power vacuum in the Demonkin Nation at this moment in time, since Prince Voros was nowhere to be found and a permanent replacement on the throne had yet to be appointed, but during her tenure as Voros’s temporary proxy, the Wicked Witch was quite willing to allow people living in confiscated domains to retain their pay, their properties, and their ranks. Immediately upon hearing her offer, the maids, manservants, and soldiers all physically distanced themselves from Diablo. It was obvious they would lose any fight with the witch anyway, and if the alternative was a guaranteed return to their former lives, it was obvious which option to choose.
On witnessing this mass betrayal by his subordinates, Diablo spluttered in a fit of fury and confusion, to the point where he was nearly foaming at the mouth. A dark shadow passed across his face, then he tossed open his cloak and lowered himself into a battle-ready posture.
“You ungrateful turncoats!” he screeched. “In that case, I shall take this witch’s head myself!” Diablo’s servants watched from a distance as their lord tossed reason to the wind and prepared to attack the Wicked Witch, the present de facto leader of their nation. Assaulting her while she held this position would be high treason, but Diablo was too infuriated to care.
“Magic power, frozen might! Manifest to blades of ice! Ice Sword Rondo!” After completing the chant for this combat-class spell, ten ice swords appeared in midair, ready to strike the tower witch. Diablo was a Level 400 demon who had been a top adventurer back in the day, so chanting a voiced spell of this advanced grade was a simple feat for him.
“I will end you, you wretched witch!” Diablo yelled as he fired all ten ice swords at Ellie. Of course, as the Level 9999 Forbidden Witch, she had the highest resistance stats against offensive spells of anyone in the Abyss, and there was no realistic way Diablo could have harmed her with his magical attack, even if she did nothing at all. Yet despite that, Dark made his move anyway.
The young adventurer leaped in front of the sorceress at precisely the same moment that Diablo fired his ice swords, then used his staff to smash every single projectile into tiny shards.
“What?!” Diablo squawked.
“Don’t you dare touch the Great Witch,” Dark warned in a flinty tone.
Diablo’s jaw had unhinged itself in shock, since he hadn’t expected the adventurer to display a level of speed and agility that went well beyond what was reasonable for a human. Meanwhile, the Wicked Witch—or rather, Ellie—was startled for a completely different reason, and to such an extent that she let out a short, rapturous breath in a manner that was a total one-eighty from the no-nonsense tone she had taken with Diablo. While it was still impossible to see her expression through her face-concealing hood, the sense of exhilaration radiating from her was palpable enough to be felt by the servants and soldiers standing in the wings.
Although, of course, this reaction was to be expected. After all, her beloved Light—in his disguise as Dark—had gone out of his way to shield her from Diablo’s attack. While the superwitch hadn’t needed any kind of protection whatsoever in the first place, being saved by her own knight in shining armor had sent her maiden heart aflutter.
In her mind, Ellie sighed with affection. Yes, in all our simulations prior to this mission, we didn’t hit on one scenario where I would face any real threat from Mr. Diablo. But there’s no maiden alive who wouldn’t feel lovestruck after watching her sweetheart defend her like this!
If Mei, Aoyuki, Suzu, Mera, Iceheat, or any of the fairy maids had witnessed Ellie’s momentary lack of poise, not one of them would have blamed her for her reaction. In fact, they would all have felt a deep sense of vicarious elation for her.
While Ellie had failed to prepare herself for Light’s valiant intervention, everything else had been anticipated and gone exactly according to plan. In her role as the Wicked Witch, Ellie had purposely provoked Diablo into attacking her, and stripping him of his land, his title, and even his servants had all been in service to that. Of course, Light had said he would be willing to spare Diablo if even one of his servants had offered up his or her own life in defense of their master, despite the offer of absolution.