“Sereniel, wh-why?!” I can’t help but ask. She says nothing.
“I see. You were among those I needed to count as a mindless fool. How unfortunate,” Clark drawls, annoyance puckering his forehead.
“Don’t pout because a pretty lady wasn’t willing to play along with you, boy.”
“Aren’t you embarrassed to call yourself pretty? Then again, you are a slut who wantonly struts around in that outfit, so you mustn’t have any sense of shame. Regulus, remove this indecent woman and bring me Elle’s heart. I don’t do the whole fighting thing. I’ll leave it to the old bones,” Clark says, directing his demands to Regulus this time.
Regulus stops silently watching over the situation with folded arms and moves forward. Sereniel withdraws a step.
No matter how I pair them up, Sereniel and Regulus are a bad match. Sereniel is more of a bewitcher than a direct fighter; she doesn’t stand a chance against Regulus, who boasts of raw fighting strength.
…All right, looks like this is where I need to intervene.
“Sereniel, move! I’ll take him on! I can use magic now, thanks to you!” I say to her back as she stands protectively in front of me. She doesn’t look at me.
“Run away! Your crude magic is a bad match for Regulus! And you’ve lost too much blood. Go as far west as your feet can take you while I buy time.”
“I can’t leave—”
As I’m arguing with Sereniel, Regulus shifts his hard gaze away from us and steps between a smugly smiling Clark and Sereniel. Then he pulls back his muscular arm—
“…Ghh!” Clark sputters painfully through gritted teeth.
What the? Regulus grabbed Clark by the neck and lifted him off the ground!
“Did you see the…Demon Lord? Did you learn about that…magic circle?” Regulus asks Clark with a tremble in his soft yet deadly voice.
Regulus knew about the Demon Lord, too?
Clark waggles his eyebrows as if to mock him. And then he sneers. “Ooh? Could it be you know about the Demon Lord as well, old bag of bones? I shouldn’t be surprised. You are that piece of art’s guard dog, huh?” Clark’s reply is nonchalant, even though he should be in too much pain to even speak with Regulus’s fingers digging into his throat.
“What magic circle…?” I hear Sereniel mutter, confusion lacing her tone.
She seems unaware of the truth, but judging by their conversation, Clark and Regulus know that the Demon Lord…is actually just a magic circle.
“But why does it seek Elle’s heart? What is the Demon Lord planning to do with it…?” Regulus asks, his expression far more pained than that of the man hanging by his squeezed throat.
“Will you release me if I tell you?” Clark negotiates in a breezy voice.
In a moment of hesitation, Regulus casts down his gaze. “…I don’t know if I will until I hear you out.”
“Haah,” Clark sighs. “What kind of an answer is that? You’re a real pain, you know that? But whatever. It’s not like I have anything to hide. I can tell you if I have to,” he says, like it’s a real nuisance, which is so bizarre I’m getting the creeps.
Why? Because he’s the one being held in the air by his throat, and yet he’s the calmest person here. It’s uncanny. He exhales as if he’d rather not talk but will to get this over with.
“Fine. I’ll tell you,” he concedes. “The Demon Lord’s objective is to use Elle’s heart and the power coursing through his unique bloodline to resurrect his old body. You heard that right. His objective is the Resurrection spell! He is trying to pull off a miracle no one has succeeded at before. And what an incredible miracle it shall be. So please don’t interfere. Please adhere to your doglike loyalty to the Demon Lord and fetch Elle’s heart for his grand scheme, sack of bones.”
Regulus’s eyes widen.
I’m also rendered speechless. I mean, he’s talking about resurrecting the Demon Lord! How can that be?!
“What are you talking about?! Reviving the Demon Lord? How does that work? It’s not possible! The Demon Lord doesn’t exist! I saw for myself. It’s just a magic circle! Just a damn magic circle guiding our kingdom toward being ruled by magic!” I shout in the heat of the moment.
Amused, Clark looks at me. “Hahaha! I knew it! You saw the Demon Lord’s magic circle, too. Is that why you fled? What a fool! I’d gladly rip out my own heart and put it on a silver platter if it meant being a part of this miraculous spell!” He throws back his head and laughs to the high heavens.
What the heck? He’s nuts.
“The Demon Lord will revive,” he announces while I’m too shocked by his insanity to speak. “He is just a magic circle right now. But please use your head for a minute. The existence of that mind-boggling magic circle means that at one point in time there existed a genius capable of creating it! That genius is the true Demon Lord. He established Analia in order to set up all the preconditions to bring him back to life at a later time!
“Isn’t it marvelous?” Clark exclaims. “He created a magic circle that would build the foundation of his ideal world, and then he established the Kingdom of Analia with everything prepped for him to resurrect and become the god of that new world! His plans are just too supreme; it makes me go crazy just thinking about it!” Clark’s lips twist in a deranged smile despite Regulus’s nails creating crescent moons in his throat.
He was crazy before he learned about this!
“Wh-Why are you so thrilled? If the Demon Lord is the person who came up with that demented magic circle, then they’ve gotta be a lunatic! I mean, how could they be anything but deranged when they view people as nothing more than tools to further the development of magic?!” I argue, clenching my one good fist. “They think of people as puppets! What will happen if that psychopath comes back to life? Are you happy with a world controlled by magic…by the nutjob who drew that magic circle?!”
“A world controlled by magic? Haha! Who cares? You see, I’ve never felt more thrilled and alive! We’re talking human resurrection here! This is on a whole different scale from my homunculi! I will be more than satisfied if I can witness the moment that miracle spell is used. The world can be damned afterward for all I care,” Clark declares, lunacy gleaming in his beady eyes.