“Shall I help you?”
A single day before Reinhild would be pierced by Xion’s sword.
This was when Xion and the mage were still in the duke’s castle’s secret chamber.
Xion frowned at the mage, who spoke as if he could resolve this whole situation.
There was no such thing as a way to fix it.
If he had lightly brought up a matter on which Reinhild’s life depended, Xion could not forgive him, whoever he was.
“If the relationship between the two of you simply stops being hero and Demon King, the problem is solved.”
“Are you playing word games?”
“Not at all. There’s definitely a way. Just trust me.”
Xion studied the mage’s expression with a far more cautious attitude.
If anyone else had said the same thing, he would never have believed it. But perhaps the mage really did know a solution.
The only one who had remained perfectly fine even as the other companions became tainted by miasma from the frequent visits to the Demon King’s castle was the mage.
Xion had long known he was no ordinary person. He had simply tuned him out because he had no interest in anyone other than Reinhild.
But since this involved Reinhild, he had to ask.
Xion decided to settle for certain the identity of the mage he had only suspected until now.
“Are you a dragon?”
“I do have a bit of that blood mixed in.”
“You’re a half-dragon?”
This time even Xion showed a hint of surprise.
A half-dragon—a hybrid between a dragon and a human.
Given dragons’ temperament of treating every other race as beneath insects, the very existence of a half-dragon was absurd.
Though it would be a stretch to say they had always been together, still, a companion with whom he had spent a fair amount of time was a half-dragon.
It was an even slimmer chance than having traveled with a true dragon.
But the mage again shook his head.
“Strictly speaking, a quarter.”
The mage had been born to a half-dragon father and a human mother.
The father, in looks, temperament, and amount of mana, was closer to human than dragon in every way.
However, the mage, his daughter, had been born the closest to a dragon of any dragon-blood hybrid in history.
It’s said dragons hate dragon-blooded hybrids, whose dragon blood is ambiguously mixed into humans, even more than they hate humans. Yet even those dragons took an interest in the mage, who was an extraordinarily special case.
Thanks to that, the mage had the good luck to learn draconic magic.
“They weren’t interested in ‘me’ so much as curious whether someone whose mana nature was close to a dragon’s even if only a quarter, could awaken Dragon Tongue. They merely used me as a test subject. I was grateful enough, though.”
“So, did you awaken Dragon Tongue?”
“No. That turns out to be a realm permitted only to true pure-blood dragons.”
“Ah.”
Xion openly showed his disappointment.
Even if it were Dragon Tongue, it couldn’t arbitrarily overturn the power of a god but it would have helped greatly.
Watching the expectation on Xion’s face flip instantly to disappointment, the mage was exasperated.
“Setting Dragon Tongue aside, I’m an arch-archmage who can use magic that isn’t permitted to humans.”
There is no such thing in this world as an “arch-archmage.” It was just a title the mage had made up and stuck on himself.
“Can that great magic save Rein?”
“Probably.”
“Tell me. What must I do to make my and Rein’s relationship no longer hero and Demon King?”
“Subjugate the Demon King. Then, once you’ve finished your mission, you will no longer be the hero, and the Demon King will, from the moment of death, no longer be the Demon King.”
“…”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“…I think I’ll need a bit more explanation.”
“Among ancient magics, there’s one to seal the Demon King. It seals the Demon King asleep, while making the world recognize him as dead.”
“You’re saying something that flimsy can fool the eyes of a god.”
“Flimsy? Do you know that all the so-called ‘ancient magic’ humans speak of is based on draconic power? The gods can’t do anything about dragons’ magic.”
Seeing Xion’s gaze still full of distrust, the mage heaved deep sighs and added more explanation.
To have to expose detailed information about dragons to a human… Well, it was at least fortunate that the other party was a crazy hero who only cared about the Demon King.
“The High God cannot interfere in dragons’ affairs. For example, whatever happens here in this underground chamber, even the High God can’t see it. Because the magic laid here is dragons’ magic.”
The High God hadn’t simply let the successive Dukes West, who probed for information about the god, do as they pleased.
He simply couldn’t grasp anything that happened here.
“So be grateful to me. Because I stopped you from wrecking this place, we didn’t get noticed by the High God. Otherwise, it’d all be over. Everything must proceed without the god knowing.”
“Dragons are just one of many races. How can they obscure the eyes of a god?”
“Dragons do not believe in gods.”
Dragons believe only in themselves. Dragons have no god.
Some humans think dragons have their own deity, but that’s a baseless rumor humans made up as they pleased.
Humans believe the “High God” is the principal deity who created this world. But that’s merely a name humans gave.
It wasn’t that a god created this world.
Humans created the god.
“Gods come into being through someone’s belief. Because humans believed there must be a being who created this world, built temples, and grew their devotion in prayer, the ‘High God’ was created.”
“A god born of belief…”
“Right. But we dragons do not believe in gods. Therefore he cannot be our creator. He’s merely one among the many gods humans believe in.”
“If all gods are created by belief, how did the Demon God come into being? Demons have no devotion.”
“That too is a god created by humans. Seeing demons and monsters, humans must have thought: The High God could never have created such evil things. Then those must have been made by a wicked being who wields a power opposed to the precious holy power bestowed by God. Yes, let’s call that one ‘the Demon God.’”
As faith in the High God grew stronger, so too did belief in the Demon God’s existence.
Humans believed the two gods opposed each other, and to embellish the greatness of the god they believed in, his enemy also had to be that strong for it to make sense.
The reason the strongest among all gods humans believe in became the High God and the Demon God was the same.
Simply because the greatest number of people believed in their greatness.
Even if it looked like the two gods held humans in their grip and shook this world, in truth it was little different from the two being swayed by humans.
“Without humans, there are no gods. It’s a very complicated relationship. That’s why the gods made a silly contract like this—to gather greater power through the Demon King and the hero, so they could meddle a bit more in this world. But we dragons are a race that doesn’t believe in gods at all. So gods cannot involve themselves in anything related to dragons.”
If mages had a god of their own, perhaps that god could have seen through dragons’ magic.
Because dragons’ magic is still magic.
But mages, by nature, are peculiar beings who don’t readily believe in anything beyond their own knowledge, so mages had no separate god.
Even if there were one, that god’s power would have been very weak.
“I was under the impression dragons have no interest in human affairs. Why, then, did a dragon help House West to create such a secret chamber?”
“I don’t know about things from thousands of years ago. I’m still a young dragon only a few hundred years old.”
Even that was far longer than the combined years that Xion and Reinhild had lived.
“Perhaps in the past House West wasn’t as rotten as it is now. Otherwise, they couldn’t have received a dragon’s aid.”
“I don’t care about the past.”
“You were the one who asked about it first.”
“Can you guarantee that Reinhild will definitely awaken from the seal?”
“Of course.”
The mage smiled, full of confidence.
“Exactly five hundred years. I’ll keep the Demon King asleep for a precise five hundred years. But there’s a precondition to carry out this plan.”
“What is it?”
“You must stab the Demon King with the hero’s sword.”
Crack.
Another enchantment laid over a parchment was crushed to pulp.
“Calm down. This plan isn’t simply about lulling the Demon King into a deep sleep. If that were it, I’d sing a lullaby. Why bother sealing him? The Demon King must die. He must be subjugated by the hero’s hand.”
“I understand. You mean to satisfy the clause of the contract between the High God and the Demon God: ‘the Demon King must die by the hero’s hand’ and thereby terminate the contract that binds Reinhild and me.”
He understood it in his head, but perhaps his body did not; everything that touched Xion’s hands was being shattered into pieces.
The mage hurriedly tried to stop him.
“Calm down, will you? If the magic circles here get damaged, the High God will be able to see us. Then it’s all over. All of this must proceed out of the god’s sight.”
“…”
“It’s unfortunate that you’re shocked, but there are only two options, hero. Will you kill the Demon King under the name of hero… or not? Choose.”
Xion looked down at his two hands and fell silent.
With these hands he must pierce Reinhild.
He hadn’t wanted to hurt him anymore, and yet he must become the one who hurts Reinhild the most.
Xion clenched both fists tight.
“I will do it.”
❖ ❖ ❖
And the next day,
the hero killed the Demon King.
Just as the two gods had contracted.
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