Chapter 10: A Discussion about the Truth
LAURENT broke down crying upon my safe return to Elle Village. What a cutie. Manga Laurent was a character with a dark side, but look at how genuine he’s turned out to be. He was so overjoyed to have me back that he didn’t notice Sereniel and Regulus behind me, and reeled in shock when he finally registered them.
Or more like he was ready to pounce on them. But I managed to talk him down. Now he’s just acting like a wary cat watching their every move.
Laurent’s forwardness is part of what makes him cute, but he’s quick to pick a fight. Not that I’m one to talk.
For that matter, aren’t Golem and Prince Guido from Saint Aela’s group the same way? That goes for Laurent and Julius from my village, too. They all whip out their swords and spells first and talk things out later. I can’t help feeling like their jumping the gun is always stealing the limelight from me… Don’t go there, me. I shouldn’t think too much about it.
Long story short, I invited Laurent to join us, to appease his wildly protective side, and had him come along with everyone else to the parlor in my house, which is the biggest building in Elle Village to have survived the Grand Magi’s attack without a scratch.
And just like that, Saint Aela’s party and the Four Grand Magi are sitting at a table for ten.
I had asked Canna to prepare tea and snacks, which liven up the table but do nothing for the dour mood.
Sereniel is the first to breach the bloodlust hanging in the air. “Regulus, you and Elle seemed to know about it, but what’s all this talk about the Demon Lord being a magic circle?” She gracefully crosses her legs and folds her arms under her ample breasts, drawing them closer together. Does she do that on purpose or is it subconscious?
“Wait. Lylish comes first. What’s this business about Lylish being a homunculus?” Golem cuts in, almost as if to antagonize Sereniel.
Sereniel shoots him a loathsome look.
Come on, people! You’re all too quick to start a fight. I wish you would be discerning about it like me. Be like me!
“Hey! Settle down there! You all have such short fuses. As the clever mayor of Elle Village, I will cover each topic in turn, so mind your manners!” I say to stop the storm brewing at the table.
“Clever…,” Sereniel mutters under her breath, like she has a problem with it.
How rude! She makes it sound like I’m not clever!
From the seat next to me, Julius skewers Sereniel with his eyes. “Don’t interrupt Elle, pestilence,” he growls at her in a voice cold enough to freeze the sun. The room temperature plummets faster than Laurent likes to pick a fight.
“Brr! It’s freezing! And it stings! Julius, stop that! Ice is growing on my feet…!” Sereniel wails with purple lips.
I glance down at her feet where ice steadily crawls up her ankles. A sheet of ice is covering the ground at Golem’s feet, too.
The sudden drop in temperature is due to Julius’s magic. Don’t become a part of the problem, Julius!
“H-Hey! Don’t you start using magic, either!”
“Why are you mad? I was simply silencing the flies— Ghh!”
I smack Julius’s hot head. He rubs the spot and looks at me like he can’t believe what I just did.
“What was that for?”
That’s my line! When it comes down to it, Julius is the first to pick a fight. Which is a surprise given his normally calm nature. He was called the Prince of Glacial Beauty in the manga, too, and his cool disposition was his selling point. Where did that character go?!
“For crying out loud, rein in your temper! You know, it’s that ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ attitude of yours that keeps making things more complicated than they need to be!” I rail. Guilty, he averts his gaze. And it seems like he undid his ice spell because the temperature has returned to normal.
Julius always looks like he’s cool and in control and his appearance trends more toward expressionless, yet despite all that, his temper is shorter than a fuse. He jumped straight to battle mode with Saint Aela’s group and the Grand Magi.
I guess with his power, it’s easier to just annihilate anything suspicious before it becomes a problem… What a bloodthirsty mindset. Scary! He wasn’t the secret villain love interest for nothing.
“You know what, magic is banned from this table!” I proclaim, my pitch rising with my irritation. “As long as you are in the grand dominion of Elle Village, whatever I say goes! I’m the mayor. That’s how it is! Sheesh.”
Once I catch my breath, I get right into what they want to hear. “All right, I’m going to tell you everything I know and heard from Clark about the Demon Lord and Lylish… I know Aela’s group would rather hear about Lylish first, but I’m starting with the Demon Lord.”
With that, I go into a long explanation about everything that’s happened up to this point, starting with why Julius and I absconded. After I finish talking about the Demon Lord being a magic circle and the magic circle’s objective, Prince Guido jumps from his seat, knocking it back.
“You can’t expect me to believe that. The Demon Lord is just some magic circle?! And one that’s trying to create a country of people controlled by magic?!”
I completely understand how hard it is to accept. I was in denial and total shock at first, too. So much so that I fled the country.
“That’s right. What we call the Demon Lord is a magic circle configured to lead us into a future controlled by magic. The war between Analia and Gaea was dragged out as just another step in its calculations,” I clarify and gesture for Prince Guido to sit back down before he does more damage to my chair.
Sereniel heavily sighs with her eyes closed. “A future controlled by magic…? Haha. What a joke. Makes you wonder what the Demon Lord thinks of Analia’s citizens. Basically he—or it—thought nothing of us? We Analians were fighting for our lives in order to pump magic particles out of distressed Gaeans? And then we fed those magic particles into the magic circle meant to control us? ...Without knowing any better, I always thought I was fighting for the Demon Lord and for my country, so I kept at it…like a fool,” she finishes in a dark voice.
I slightly incline my head, affirming everything she said.
The Demon Lord never loved Analia’s citizens. Not even anything close to love. We were nothing more than pawns to an inanimate drawing. Nevertheless, we loved the Demon Lord with everything we had.
“What are magic particles?” Golem’s quizzical inquiry breaks through the weight pressing down on my chest.