Chapter 203: Reunion, part 1

When morning came, I climbed out of bed taking care not to wake the still-sleeping Lyla. As I prepared to go to work, I noticed an envelope stuffed in the crack of my front door. First a strange presence, I thought. And now an unmarked letter. No sender, no addressee.

Even without reading its contents, I knew that it wasn’t good news.

「At least it won’t be an assassination request」, I said to myself with a bitter smile.

I opened the letter.

「…」

It was from Elvi — and, surprisingly, not containing a single word about the Heavenly Kingdom of Reubens.

『Roland』, it began. 『Before we executed that person, he told us that you were living with the Demon King. Is it true? If so, why did you let her live?』

So the person watching Lyla had been sent by Elvi.

I pressed a thumb to my forehead, massaging the creases that had formed.

「Why do you look so troubled?」

Naked save for the blanket wrapped loosely around her, Lyla hugged me from behind.

「I think the cat’s out of the bag.」

「Fumu?」

「I just received a letter from Elvi. It seems that the doppelganger revealed that you’re the Demon King.」

「That knight girl knows, thanks to him?」

To the straight-laced Elvi, the Demon King was the Demon King — whether she still had her powers or not. They were also not sealed away at present, so it wasn’t surprising that some alarms had been raised. Lyla had started the war, and I had been tasked with defeating her. Why I had let her go seemed inexplicable to Elvi.

「What will you do? Do me in for real?」, said Lyla, chuckling. 「You can make another fake, just like you did all those months ago.」

She knew that the former was out of the question for me.

「I doubt the same ruse will work twice.」

Of all the people that could have found out, Elvi was the most troublesome. I suspected that the doppelganger had told her exactly because he understood her personality.

I killed the Demon King. Or should have. It’s easy to see why Elvi’s so caught up about this.

As an assassin, I dictated whether my targets lived or died. Over time, I had gained a sixth sense that allowed me to discern whether a person was ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Thinking back, a part of me had already wanted to quit being an assassin. Granted, they were just assignments — yet, I felt that something was inherently wrong with killing good people.

That’s why I had wanted a ‘normal’ job.

Building on that train of thought, I had ‘sensed that the Demon King wasn’t a bad person’ and decided to ‘give the collar a try’. Would Elvi, whose veins justice ran through, buy such an explanation?

「Since she went to the trouble of writing you a letter, it looks like there’s still room for negotiation.」

「Yeah. She wrote that she’ll bring the other party members along. There’s a time and date given too.」

As she had sent me a letter in private, it was unlikely that she intended to publicise the fact that the Demon King was still alive. After all, doing so would cause widespread panic once the rumour was confirmed to be true.

「You’re not a bad person, Lyla. There’s some good in you, even if only a little. It was enough to swing my judgment of you.」

Her decision to start the war had had complex political roots. It had not been for fun. In that sense, she wasn’t entirely to blame.

「I can tell that you’re doing all this for my sake. So that you can protect me.」

I turned around to look at her. She smiled.

「As far as the humans are concerned, I’m the biggest criminal there is. For reasons inexplicable to them, I invaded their territory and caused irreversible damage to their society. To be honest… I had expected this moment to come sooner or later.」

「Don’t jump to conclusions. Elvi wants to talk — she hasn’t said what she’ll do.」

「『But if anyone ever tries to kill you, Lyla, I don’t care who or how many — a small division, an entire army, or even a kingdom — they’ll have to go through me first.』」, recited Lyla. 「Does this still apply?」

「Yeah.」

「Even if they were your former allies?」

「Of course.」

「Fufu. I chose the right person to love.」

Still hugging me, she caressed my back.

「I’m the person who the strongest Demon King in history fell in love with at first sight.」

I finished my preparations and Lyla sent me off, following me all the way to the door like she always did.

「Something on your mind, Roland-san?」, asked Milia.

「Just a little.」

「That’s rare.」

「Yeah… it’s been decided that I’ll be meeting old friends.」

「Isn’t that great?」

「It’s quite embarrassing — a lie I told long ago got exposed. They seem unable to get over it.」

I was deliberately trying not to say anything concrete.

「I see～」, she laughed. 「Everyone has told a lie at some point. Just apologise, shake hands and everything will be back to normal!」

Her smile was like a ray of sunshine.

She’s… right, I thought. Perhaps the scale of things had caused me to worry more than I should.

「That’s true. I will do my best.」

It all depended on whether I could talk my way out of this mess. All of us in the party had been on the battlefield together and experienced the cruelty of war. But I was most worried about Elvi, as she had a track record of being a stickler for rules.

Will she be satisfied with my explanation? What’s the best way to settle this?

Those thoughts occupied a corner of my mind all day.