Chapter 104: CH 98

I went to the palace first thing in the morning. I was surprised to see the traces of battle in the palace but what surprised me more was the fact that once you crossed a certain wall in the palace, you would hardly see any trace of battles.

Although I didn’t know who was in charge of the battle in the palace, they sure had amazing skills in controlling information and leadership.

After I finished the procedure needed to enter the palace in a rather high-paced fashion, I entered the Crown Prince’s office. While wondering if His Highness had a lot of things to do after our meeting, I bowed to him.

“Your Highness. Welner von Zeavert, at your service.”

“Sir Welner. Thank you for coming and good work.”

Praise right after we met? Let’s be humble here.

“I am grateful for your words, but it was not my achievement alone.”

“I’m not talking about Finnoi. I’m talking about the incident in Alea village.”

As I looked at His Highness with a confused expression, he started to explain.

“First of all, I commend you for protecting the family of the Hero Mazell.”

“Thank you for your praise.”

“Mazell’s little sister vaguely remembered what happened when she was almost kidnapped, so we were able to gain information from her. We were only able to question her because Sir let the Hearthing family return first to the capital. If we did not have her information, the damage we suffered might be worse.”

“What kind of information did she have to make you say so, Your Highness?”

According to His Highness, when Lily-san was about to be fed ‘something’, she heard the words [use her body] and [resurrection] but she didn’t understand what they meant by [use her body]. I guess, just like her brother, she had an excellent memory.

The Mage Captain also reported that the black gem had a mysterious ability to fascinate people who saw it, and there was also a report that Sir Puckler, who was investigating the gem, had been acting strangely.

The last piece of information was that one of the black gems which was supposed to be in the capital was somehow discovered in Alea Village. Putting all known information together, His Highness had one guess.

“Most likely, the black gems are the devil’s soul. The words [use her body] meant that the black gems can take over or manipulate their victim. Since one of the black gems had been taken out of the capital, we can assume that someone has fallen to its fascination.”

“I see…”

“In addition, I used the Mangold investigation’s result, which Sir has given us, as a reference, and began my own investigation. I found that the hooded figure who Mangold had been meeting with was, in fact, Puckler, so it all fits.”

With His Highness’s explanation, I finally understood how the Demon Generals in the game were resurrected. So they were the type of enemies who wouldn’t die until you didn’t destroy their cores. Wait…

If the demon generals revived by taking control of someone else’s body… if the black gem that appeared in the Alea Village was Dreax’s core and if Lily-san had eaten it…

Wouldn’t that mean that Mazell would have to fight the Demon General Dreax, who had taken control of his sister’s body, in Finnoi or in some other dungeons? In short, Mazell would have ended up pointing his sword toward his own sister!? If I didn’t make it in time… a chill ran down on my spine.

I needed to explain the danger of the black gems to Mazell, but let’s keep it a secret from Lily-san.

Still, I wondered whose body the Demon Generals used to revive in the game? Maybe it was His Highness’s body or maybe the body of the Knight Captain? Was it possible that they didn’t die but were captured alive in the demon outbreak (Stampede) event?

If they were actually captured alive in the demon outbreak, that would mean that the story began to change all the way to when we defeated the demon outbreak.

Yet another question came to my mind. Just how exactly did the capital get destroyed in the game? Let’s assume that when I met Sir Puckler, which means before Laura joined the hero party, demons had already infiltrated the capital.

In the game, maybe Mazell didn’t find the black gem. But after he left the place where he defeated the outbreak mastermind, the kingdom should have sent an investigator to that place and the investigator should have found the gem. But in the end, that gem didn’t appear in the game, so perhaps the person who found it might be a demon disguised as a human, which was why they hid the gem’s existence. If that was true, that means even that early into the game, the demon had infiltrated the capital.

At first, I thought that the capital was destroyed in the game because of an external attack, but maybe what had actually happened was the capital was destroyed by the infiltrating demons. Which begat a question, why?

I assumed the event where the capital was destroyed in the game was a convenient plot device to make Mazell a king but if the demons had planned to destroy the capital from the very start and even made this intricate plan to do so, the demon must have had a proper purpose to destroy the capital, but what was that purpose?

I almost began to get lost in my own thoughts, but I stopped. This wasn’t the time to think about that. His Highness then continued his story.

“By carefully tracking down the people who had contacted Puckler, we were able to sort out who was suspicious in the capital. Thanks to the hard work of the guards and the knights, the palace was cleaned up yesterday, but…”

“But?”

“Puckler, or rather, the devil who claimed to be one of the demon generals, Gezarius, who had taken over Puckler’s body might have escaped. One of our men who was greedy for achievements attacked Puckler before the encirclement was finished, causing him to escape. This was a painful mistake.”

His Highness was mocking himself, but what caught my attention wasn’t that but the devil’s name. Gezarius? Who the hell was he? That name never appeared in the game.

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The Demon Generals I knew were Dreax, Beliulace, and the guy that appeared later in the game, Avadorus. A Demon General named Gezarius didn’t appear in the game. Wait a minute…

In the game, before the player could face the Demon King, they would face a series of boss battles against the resurrected 3 Demon Generals.

At that time, I thought what the Demon Generals were guarding was the room, not the doors, but what if what they were actually guarding were the doors? Since there were four doors, that  would mean there were supposed to be four Demon Generals, not three.

Maybe there was actually the fourth demon general, but he was cut off from the game because of insufficient memory. If this was true, then Gezarius’ appearance would make sense, but there were still too many questions that I didn’t have any answer to, but for now, let’s focus on thinking about the problem in front of me.

“What do you mean by ‘might’?”

“The encirclement composed of the Mage Unit, the Royal Guard, and the palace guard has certainly given him a close to fatal wound. But after that, he crossed the palace walls to escape and then he disappeared. We also couldn’t find the black gem. Sir, what do you think about this incident?”

“We have to assume that he can return to a human form, though I hope this isn’t true.”

“I agree.”

If he could return to his human form, then it would be almost impossible to search for him among the many humans who lived in the capital. Or rather, he disappeared? Really? Even though, in the game, you couldn’t avoid a boss battle with a demon general no matter what you did?

“Did our side suffer any damages?”

“Yes. We have a fair amount of casualties and some missing people. We knew Puckler might be a devil, so we kept our guard up around him but we never expected that he, a demon commander, would just straight up reveal himself and go on a rampage in the middle of the laboratory.”

Well, since he didn’t try to deceive us with his words or anything else, but just straight up went into a rampage, it would be no wonder that we had some casualty on our side. Maybe the demon side had also been cautious ever since they were found infiltrating Finnoi.

Moreover, according to His Highness, Sir Puckler’s body swelled up and when it looked like it was about to explode, that was when the demon general revealed himself. Your train of thought would stop if you saw that kind of scene. Even the adventurers would be surprised.

But from His Highness’ story, I could conclude that with proper preparation, the Knights and the Mages of this world could fight with a demon general. Good thing I could confirm this.

Wait a minute. A boss class demon should have his own subordinates, right? Was it that the black gem didn’t disappear with Gezarius, but rather they were secretly taken away to a safe place by his subordinates?

I wouldn’t go as far as to say he had planned everything perfectly but at least someone on the level of a demon general should have prepared some kind of ‘insurance’ in case he was found out, right? Maybe there were some devils disguised as humans among the people that went missing in this incident, and they were the ones that took the black gems. Let’s investigate this later.

Now that I think about it, why the Demon King was revived was also a mystery. I wonder if the Demon King was revived by taking over someone else’s body, just like the Demon generals… Ah!! stop thinking too much, me!

“Will this incident affect the research about countermeasures against Area Magic?”

“No. For better or worse, the researchers were still stuck in their research room when the incident happened.”

So no actual harm was done. As long as the researchers were fine, I could assume that there was no problem with the research. On the other hand, the fact that they didn’t even come out with such a big commotion might mean that the research has progressed little, but I guess I should be happy because the research project didn’t suffer any actual harm. Plus, if the research had actually progressed by leap and bound, the research team might have been targeted by the devils.

“Speaking of which, what sort of appearance does the demon commander have?”

“He looked like a mix between a lion and a human. He was fast, strong, and the most troublesome trait of his was his great jumping power.”

So that guy was a Lycanthrope. Come to think of it, in the game, the Undead, the Reptipos, and the Giant each had their own demon general, but there was no Lycanthrope demon general.

(T/N: I’ve been translation Reptipos as just reptile demon. This was the first time the Reptipos name has appeared so I will continue to use this.)

Wait, that would mean…

“…Will the area near the land that was formerly Triot become dangerous?”

“So you noticed it… or rather have you also been investigating this, Sir?”

His Highness looked surprised. Actually, I investigated nothing, Your Highness. In the game, the area near Triot was where Lycanthrope-type demons like the Werewolves and Weretiger often appeared. It looked like His Highness misunderstood me, though.

“I also got the information from the refugees that the area near Triot was where many werewolves often appeared. If that guy is alive, then as Sir has probably feared, he will most likely flee there and is currently building up his force.”

“Wouldn’t that mean the Marquis Knap’s territory, which bordered Triot, is in the most danger?”

“Sir is correct, but we can’t just send our military force to a noble’s territory.”

It would be impossible for Marquis Knap to defend his territory alone but if the kingdom sent a military force and created defense facilities in the Knap’s territory, it would cause problems like, would that area where the defense facilities were to be built become the property of the royal family? And who would take care of the food supplies of that military force? Everything would be easier if the Marquis house understood the situation and asked the kingdom for help, but I doubt the Marquis and his vassals would do that.

In the end, helping Marquisate Knap was troublesome. The kingdom needed to think of the supply, how to create a defense facility, the budget, etc.

However, it would also be impossible for a noble house to take care of that demon general on its own. Sigh… as expected, even trying to help a noble house would come with many troublesome entanglements.

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