Professor warned me that if I died, Siegfried would become the demon king, and I believed him. But I never imagined it would be like this.
“Siegfried! Siegfried, stop!” I screamed his name with all my might, but it was like he couldn’t even hear me anymore. He didn’t respond to my voice or my screams or anything. He raised his hand toward the sky again, and this time, flames began to spiral into a vortex above him. It was enormous, so much larger and more powerful than anything the fallen angel had summoned.
If he released that, he’d wipe out the whole world with it.
Still, no matter how much I called out to him, he wouldn’t look my way.
Anger gradually began to burn in my chest. He said he loved me so much that he fell apart just from presuming my death, yet he couldn’t even hear me now? Was it because I wasn’t the real Kreis? I wasn’t enough to wake this sleeping prince?
“You’ve got to be kidding me...”
After everything I’d done for him, after all the times I fought to keep him alive, he couldn’t even acknowledge me? Just once, couldn’t he repay that effort?
I pressed my hand to the ground and drew what little Earth magic I had left to form a path to where he hovered in the air.
I was a total mess, torn up and screaming with pain. Honestly, I didn’t want to move a finger. Dying and starting over would’ve been easier. The pain could end if I did. But I couldn’t leave him like this; I couldn’t let him stay trapped in that despair.
I gritted my teeth and approached. Every step made my body cry out in protest, but I ignored it and forced my way upward, climbing toward him with everything I had left.
“Snap out of it already!”
I grabbed his face with both hands and shouted at him. “I’m alive! Are you really going to destroy the world with me still in it?!”
His eyes were blank like twin voids, but tears streamed down his face.
If Kreis died, he really would break. Poor thing. The Kreis he loved had been gone for so long already. But it’s all right. I’ll give your precious Kreis back to you.
“Come back to me, Siegfried.”
I leaned forward and gently kissed him. He’d been like a statue until that moment, completely frozen, but now he finally moved.
“K-Kreis?”
Light returned to his eyes. He was back. Siegfried had come back to me. A wave of relief hit me so intensely that my knees nearly gave out, but he pulled me into a firm, trembling embrace before I could collapse.
“You’re...alive?”
“Yes.”
The air that had been burning like fire began to settle. The ground stopped shaking. The dark, roiling sky returned to a soft, familiar blue.
“Kreis... Oh, Kreis...”
“Wait, that hurts! Ow, ow... You’re really gonna kill me this time!” He squeezed me even tighter, and I let out a yelp. My whole body was torn up, and he wasn’t being gentle. I whimpered through the pain until he finally eased up on his grip, but he didn’t let go. He just leaned his cheek against mine, holding me close.
“Siegfried, I don’t want to spoil the mood, but this isn’t over yet.” I pointed to the ground. The fallen angel was there, still barely breathing and clinging to life after the brutal attack.
“All right. Let’s finish this.”
Siegfried still held me in his arms as he drifted down to the courtyard, touching down in front of the angel.
He gently set me down, then turned his palm upward. A silver sword shimmered into his hand, and he gripped it, raising the blade toward her. “Any last confessions?”
“Confessions? Don’t make me laugh. Do you think you can kill me? I’m possessing this woman’s body. If you kill me, you’ll kill an innocent woman too. A saint like you could never—”
He drove the sword through her chest before she could finish, without any hesitation.
“If you thought that would stop me, then you don’t know me at all,” he said, twisting the blade deeper. “Do you even know the girl you’re possessing? She was awful. Absolutely insufferable. There’s no way she’d have ever become my fiancée if you hadn’t taken over her body. You were the perfect candidate, in a way. Thanks to you, I was free to devote myself to Kreis completely. I’m grateful for that. But now your part is over. Goodbye.”
Fire magic flared through the blade, and he burned her from the inside out.
“Arrghhhh!” Her shriek tore through the air as her body crumbled away into nothing.
“Why did it have to come to this?” Professor’s voice echoed sadly in my head. Even though she’d turned her back on him, the fallen angel was still one of his beloved children. And somehow, I felt like I understood her just a little bit.
“There is only one god.”
That was it, wasn’t it? The whole reason she’d done all this. She hadn’t wanted Professor to stop being a god. She would sacrifice the entire world if he wasn’t going to be the god anymore. She wanted to show him that if you gave humans too much power, they could destroy everything.
“What a foolish child.”
To her, Professor was what Siegfried was to me.
“It’s over now,” Siegfried whispered. But I didn’t see any relief on his face. Only guilt, I noticed. But I always noticed. I’d watched him long enough to see even the slightest change in his expression. “If anyone should be hated for this, it should be me.”
That quiet murmur was probably meant for Risthea. The only reason he’d said what he did about her was so the fallen angel couldn’t manipulate him. But it was clear he’d carry that guilt for the real Risthea’s death with him. That was just the kind of man he was, and that was why Kreis loved him. That was why I loved him too.
“Stop trying to make yourself the villain,” I said.
“I don’t have a choice. I’m the demon king, remember?”
Siegfried’s power hadn’t faded, even now. His mana remained awakened, surging through him so intensely I could feel it even with my own weak magic.
“The demon king... Having a demon king for a leader is kind of cool,” I joked, trying to keep things light.
He looked surprised for a moment. “Yeah, I guess it is,” he replied with a soft laugh.
I knew we had a long road ahead. No one had ever heard of a demon king being the monarch of a kingdom before. But I knew if anyone could do it, Siegfried could, with Kreis at his side.
It was time to say goodbye.
“Professor?”
“What is it?”
“Do you remember what I asked you?”
“You wanted to switch places, right?”
“Yes. Do it now.”
“You’re so impatient. Impatient kids aren’t very popular, you know.”
I don’t need to be popular. I’ve played my part, and that’s over now.
“What are you two talking about? Professor, you explain this time. What’s going on?”
“This child thinks he’s not needed anymore. That you don’t need him,” Professor said.
“Professor, don’t say too much.”
Panic returned to Siegfried’s eyes. “Wait, what are you planning? Don’t do this! Of course I need you, Kreis!”
“No, Siegfried. I’m not the Kreis you love.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! You are Kreis! You’re the one I love more than anyone else! Kreis von Louboutin!”
I didn’t need to convince him, because he’d understand once things were back to how they should be.
“Now, Professor.”
“All right, all right.”
Light enveloped my body.
“Kreis!”
Siegfried tried to run to me, but a sort of barrier stopped him, and he couldn’t reach me.
I wished I’d touched him one more time before I had to say goodbye.
“Kreis! Where are you going?! Don’t leave me behind, Kreis!”
“I’m not going anywhere. The real Kreis will come back, and he’ll stay this time.”
Smile, I told myself. I forced the corners of my mouth up. I wanted the last thing he remembered of me to be a smile on my face so he wouldn’t feel guilty, thinking I’d vanished in sadness.
“I hope you remember me a little bit, even after Kreis returns,” I said.
Then I closed my eyes.
“Kreis! Kreis! Kr—”
Siegfried’s voice faded...and the world around me changed.
So this is how it all ends...
Strangely, it wasn’t like any of the other times I’d come back from the dead. Instead, my awareness turned inward, and images began to play inside my head.
I saw the birth of Kreis von Louboutin, his first meeting with Siegfried...and his last, where he was killed by Gilles and Claude.
Am I watching Kreis’s life flash before my eyes?
I braced myself, thinking Kreis’s consciousness was about to awaken inside of me, but then I saw more images.
“Huh?”
I saw myself born in Japan, losing my parents and becoming an orphan. Struggling with part-time jobs, living in a run-down apartment as a failed novelist.
This was my life.
I saw everything, right up until the moment where I suddenly collapsed and died. Just when I thought that really was the end, the next sequence began: my life as Kreis.
The memories played all the way to the present, and then the images abruptly stopped.
Finally, it was over.
Slowly, my own consciousness began to fade, replaced by Kreis’s—at least, that was what I thought was going to happen.
“This is your life.”
“What?”
“This is the path your soul has traveled.”
I heard Professor’s voice and opened my eyes. I was still in the same place as before.
“Kreis!”
Siegfried was there too, unable to approach me, pounding again and again on the invisible wall.
Something was wrong. Why was I still here?
“Where’s Kreis?” I asked.
“Kreis is right here.”