Ainel recalled the sight of Xion from 500 years ago, sitting there like a corpse, unaware that time was passing.
Immaculately kept once, now a wreck, he did nothing but cry out Reinhild’s name.
Seeing Xion like that, Ainel had thought he would never again witness a person broken any further than that.
He would revise that.
The Xion he met again today was even more ruined.
‘No way he ran into bandits and ended up like that. Did something happen to the Demon King?’
It was serious. Letting an unhinged Xion loose on the world over a Reinhild-related problem was dangerous.
Ainel brought Xion inside before he could cause trouble.
He didn’t relish letting someone else into his nest, but he decided to consider it a sacrifice for humanity.
“Don’t tell me you ran all the way here?”
“Yes.”
“You should’ve ridden a horse.”
“I’m faster.”
“Ah, sure. Of course you are.”
Ainel made hot cocoa and set it in front of Xion.
Instead of drinking, Xion just stared blankly at the marshmallows bobbing on top.
Watching the marshmallows slowly melt made him think of Reinhild.
Reinhild would always pluck them out impatiently before they melted and then grumble that the cocoa wasn’t sweet enough.
“Reinhild….”
Picturing Reinhild smiling at him in his mind made Xion’s chest ache.
He clutched the mug in his hands as if it were Reinhild himself.
As though trying with all his might to keep it from slipping out of his grasp.
“You’re going to break my cup like that.”
“…”
“Did you hold on to the Demon King like that and end up breaking him, too?”
Only then did Xion raise his head and look at Ainel.
To anyone else, that chilly, sunken gaze might have made their heart lurch, but to Ainel it looked more sorrowful than ever.
‘He’s going to cry at this rate.’
Not wanting to waste time comforting an old comrade he was meeting after 500 years, Ainel swiftly changed the subject.
“How’d you even know this was my house? Don’t tell me you’ve been spying on me all this time?”
“I’m the one who was being spied on.”
Ainel felt a chill, like a sharp blade had touched the back of his neck and hunched his shoulders.
He hadn’t spread rumors about Xion far and wide, but he had bundled stories of the Hero and the Demon King together with other information and published them as books.
Under the name Neria.
“Don’t get me wrong. I never wrote anything that would harm you or the Demon King.”
“I know.”
“You do? How? Did you read my books?”
“Rein liked them, so I read a few.”
“The Demon King read my books?”
Ainel was dumbfounded to hear that his writing was loved by none other than the current Demon King.
His writing was rigorously focused on the Hero and humans; there wasn’t much in it a Demon King would find intriguing.
Yet not only had he been interested, he’d liked them. Ainel couldn’t make sense of the Demon King’s taste.
Then again, given that he liked Xion, the Demon King’s tastes were certainly peculiar, but if he liked Ainel’s writing, perhaps his eye wasn’t entirely bad….
“When did you figure out I didn’t lose my memories?”
“I knew from the start.”
“That can’t be. My acting should’ve been perfect.”
As the price for his wish, Xion had been erased from the memories of everyone in existence.
Before parting ways with Xion 500 years ago, Ainel had said his own memories would soon disappear as well, and then he left.
It had been a lie.
But how had Xion realized that Ainel’s words were false?
“Didn’t you say dragons aren’t affected by the god’s power?”
“Ah! I dug my own grave.”
He hadn’t thought that through.
Even if the price of the wish erased memories connected to Xion, that too was accomplished by the god’s power.
Since Ainel, as a dragon who didn’t believe in “gods,” wasn’t affected by their power, his memories couldn’t have been erased.
Explaining all of that to Xion in painstaking detail had been the problem.
‘So he knew I remembered him, and he still reacted like that?’
Now that he thought about it, Xion had been calm to the very end as they parted.
It was bad enough to send off a comrade you might never meet again so matter-of-factly, but knowing Ainel’s memories were intact and still not even thinking to ask him to stay… that was even more galling.
That Xion, with nothing in his head but the Demon King, was impossible to grow fond of.
“And now you shamelessly crawl in here asking for help?”
“Are you saying it will be hard for you to help me?”
“It sounds entertaining enough, so I’ll hear you out. Explain in a bit more detail.”
Xion was infuriating, but Ainel’s life had been getting dull.
What mess had he come all this way to stir up this time? His expectations were high.
So Ainel listened closely to what had transpired between Xion and Reinhild.
Xion, who usually said only what he wanted and then clammed up, had plenty to say when it came to Reinhild, and went on at great length.
Claims like how Reinhild had looked at him with an exceedingly lovely gaze, or how he had accepted Xion’s proposal and they had promised to spend their lives together in happiness—things that sounded very much like Xion’s own interpretive spin—Ainel filtered out as needed.
“So you left that Hero’s Sword in the basement just as it was.”
“Yes.”
“If you’d at least wiped the blood off, it would’ve looked less suspicious. Why didn’t you?”
“How could I presumptuously wipe away Rain’s blood?”
Ainel had plenty to say, but he held his tongue.
That quick-witted Xion turned dumber than a goblin whenever it involved Reinhild. It was absurd.
He hadn’t wanted to get involved because he hated seeing this kind of thing. To think he’d get tangled up with this man again.
‘Still, it should be entertaining.’
Propping his chin on his hand, Ainel sized up Xion’s condition.
He looked plainly unhinged.
‘Perfect state to make a mess.’
His calculations were done. Ainel himself had nothing to lose.
He did feel a bit sorry for lying, so he would help a little, and then record the process in detail and turn it into a book.
He might end up offending the god’s sensibilities, but so what.
Dragons do not fear gods.
“So? How exactly do you want to start over?”
“As you know, Rein resurrected as the Demon King and so has the fate of dying at the Hero’s hand.”
“Mm, right. The god will make sure it ends that way. Just like last time.”
“By the original plan, I intended to obstruct the Hero from approaching Rein and thus nullify the god’s contract. But now that Rein has left my arms and can no longer be under my protection… the first priority is to make sure Rein is no longer the Demon King.”
“How?”
“I’ll reenact the method from 500 years ago exactly.”
“……You’re insane?”
He’d suspected, but to think “start over” literally meant repeating the last 500 years from the beginning.
He had to be out of his mind. Thoroughly.
“So you’re saying you’ll kill the Demon King again, seal him, then wait 500 years and meet the memory-less Demon King? Did I get that right?”
“That’s correct.”
“…”
He was so forthright it left Ainel at a loss for words.
“I have a ton of questions, but putting the rest aside, that plan is hard to implement. You haven’t forgotten we consumed a dragon heart to use that magic last time, have you?”
“I remember.”
“Dragon hearts aren’t some common thing you can just ask for and one appears. Without a dragon heart, we can’t realize that spell.”
“I am firmly convinced that in these past 500 years your skill has grown to the point you don’t need a dragon heart’s aid.”
“A-hem. I am rather exceptional. But if we end up even a tiny bit short on mana and the spell fails, the Demon King could actually die.”
Xion’s face turned grave.
Whatever else, he could not gamble with Reinhild’s life as collateral.
“I’ll handle the mana problem.”
“…You will?”
Surely he wasn’t planning to go hunt a dragon right now and bring back a heart.
No, he probably was.
Ainel wanted to ask what Xion intended, but he was afraid the answer would be that Xion would indeed head out dragon-hunting, so he couldn’t get the words out.
At this rate, it would be faster for Ainel to shut himself away and train until he’d expanded his mana reserves enough not to need a dragon heart.
“Th-there’s… another problem, too. What if after all that, Reinhild resurrects as the Demon King again? Then you’ll just have wasted another 500 years.”
“That will not happen.”
Xion spoke firmly.
With a voice full of conviction.
“By then, the god will no longer exist.”
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