Chapter 106
The moment a black rift suddenly formed above my head.
An enormous number of messages appeared, and when I summarized them, they came down to exactly two lines.
[ A path to the demon realm has opened above your head. ]
[ It must be erased immediately. ]
Shhk!
I swung my sword immediately as I read the messages.
A rift leading to the demon realm had opened out of nowhere.
Before I could even wonder what had happened, the Crown Prince's memories kept surging in.
- How exactly does that thing open?
- Why did it suddenly open above my head—
- It started out so pathetic that I thought it could be stopped.
- The Empire's destruction was futile.
- Maybe again, again—
This was an amount of information on an entirely different level from before.
More precisely, it felt like tiny shards of broken glass pricking my brain.
It was disorganized, devoid of context, and painful.
None of the Crown Prince's memories concerning the demon realm rift were peaceful.
Every moment was filled with rage.
But the strongest emotion I felt was futility.
- In the end, even if I carefully build everything up, like this...
- This is impossible.
- How could such an enormous rift appear above the Empire?
The view seen through the Crown Prince's memories was explanation enough for why he felt such futility.
A black rift that appeared as though it were serving as the Empire's roof.
Countless eyes within that black rift were looking down upon the Empire.
- They don't even look human.
The demons looked nothing like the art style that had appeared in "Jupeobae" until now.
Elves, beastmen, merfolk, dwarves, dragons, and so on.
They had all appeared with forms that seemed capable of communicating to some extent, and in reality, they had been.
But the demons showed no such signs.
For one thing, their very appearance was far removed from that of humanoids.
Their grotesqueness went far beyond merely having wings and horns.
They were bizarre and malformed, with appearances reminiscent of the uncanny valley.
I knew it the moment I saw them.
Those things were humanity's enemies.
They could not coexist.
They were humanity's natural predators, deadly poison, and beings walking a path diametrically opposed to ours.
And they fell toward the Empire indiscriminately, like rain pouring down.
A single black rift appearing above my head had already been ominous enough.
But a rift opening on the scale of the Empire, with demons falling out of it?
The outcome was obvious without even seeing it.
The Empire was doomed.
It was such an effortless destruction that I wondered whether there could be a more absurd one.
In a torrential downpour of demons, the Empire transformed into a demon realm.
The mana emitted by the demons affected the surrounding environment, transforming it into a demon realm.
And naturally, the Empire's citizens were included in that surrounding environment.
The Empire was transformed into a demon realm.
Everything was changing into something belonging to the demon realm.
People, technology, everything—as though it had all been developed to strengthen the demon realm.
The demon realm spread over the Empire.
- Can this truly be called a problem caused by mere weakness?
The resistance was fierce, but it brought about no meaningful change.
No, "meaningless" would be the more appropriate expression.
Sol Bellos's flames were indeed deadly to the demons.
But demons continued pouring down over the Empire without end, so there was no situation in which the term "meaningful counterattack" applied.
Kill a hundred, and a thousand fell; kill a thousand, and ten thousand fell.
They tried to close the rift, the fundamental cause, but even that yielded no proper results.
They considered trying to hold them back with divinity, but few priests remained in the Empire.
They considered resisting with magic, but the Magic Tower was nowhere to be seen.
They mobilized every means at their disposal, but all they could conclude was that it was useless.
Would things have been different if divinity had covered the entire continent? Or if evacuation drills had been conducted properly?
- I have to devise the plan again from the beginning.
- If the Empire is destroyed like this, if this is how it is going to be destroyed, I have to approach it differently.
Even so, the Crown Prince resisted fiercely.
Wielding his flames, he burned the demons one after another.
Burning a hundred, killing a thousand, reducing ten thousand to ashes.
As though proving that he was the Empire's Crown Prince and its highest-burning flame,
he continued confronting the demons pouring down.
Then, at some point.
- Ha.
The Crown Prince laughed as though he found it absurd.
- They all look half-finished, but you alone have a perfectly human form.
The Crown Prince's first impression as he looked at the Demon King.
The moment I heard that remark, I could immediately guess what the Crown Prince had been thinking when he said it.
- It seems I have made my worst enemy my lifelong rival.
With those words, the Crown Prince's memory was cut off.
And immediately afterward, the messages resumed.
[ The demon realm is an inevitability. ]
[ The black rift that just formed was the result Mirne and her system desired. ]
[ If the Empire falls, you will die. ]
[ This incident was an obvious violation of the rules. ]
[ An Advantage has been triggered. ]
[ The divinity spread throughout the Empire grows even stronger. ]
The messages were chaotic.
But their meaning was clear.
'The violation of the rules means that the black rift that just appeared was created by Mirne.'
But she could not have created it intentionally.
If she could, there would have been no need to go to such trouble when supporting the Kingdom of Corallia.
She had revived an ancient prophecy, attached a water spirit, and had it create waves, among other things.
Compared to such schemes, simply making the demon realm rift larger would have been a much more certain way to support them.
'There would be no reason to use something like a jar containing a disaster... So Mirne cannot summon the rift intentionally.'
If I had to guess, perhaps she wished for everything to be reset after nothing connected to me had gone according to plan.
Given Mirne's personality after installing a Forced Save & Load mod, it seemed entirely plausible.
'But the fact that a rift appears in response to Mirne's emotions is extremely important information.'
Why did a rift leading to the demon realm open in response to Mirne's emotions?
There was only one piece of evidence supporting that.
The Crown Prince's final line.
Why was the Demon King the only one among all those demons to have a human form?
'This is truly horrifying.'
Whether the original story had been meant to proceed that way or she had made it happen by installing a mod,
there was only one possible conclusion.
'Is the Demon King also a candidate for a male lead?'
Was the reason the Empire had to fall really because she needed to raise her affinity with the Demon King, a male lead?
Was the reason she could not accept Imperial citizens also that they all had to become demons?
If the story progressed that way, I could understand why she had tried to obtain various forms of aid from the Empire.
It was going to become a demon realm anyway, and it would be troublesome if the Empire that was going to transform into one became too powerful.
It was a truly disgusting reason.
Disgusting enough to make me want to vomit.
'Could this memory be from the first round in which the Crown Prince witnessed the Empire being destroyed by the demon realm?'
Or was it a round in which he had forgotten that destruction and regressed?
I could not know the details, but one thing was certain: it was a regression memory from an early or middle point in the story.
The fact that there was no separate mention of the Executioner alone made that clear.
'Things must be very different now.'
That was the end of my train of thought.
I immediately focused on the next thing I had to do.
"If the other races within the Empire come here, how many can we accommodate?"
"We've already cleared out all the land where the black magicians used to stay, so we have plenty of unused land."
"Actively accept the beastmen, but punish them exactly like Imperial citizens if they cause trouble."
"Yes, Your Highness."
After passing my instructions to Theo, I gestured to Vark to follow Theo.
An enormous number of beastmen would pour into the Empire following Vark's speech.
To prevent the chaos, it was right to start preparing now.
No, to be precise, we had actually been preparing for some time.
We simply had not moved in earnest because we did not know what kind of dirty tricks Mirne might pull during the contest to determine the leader.
Now that the contest to determine the leader had ended with the best possible result,
nothing stood in our way.
'So the beastman arc ended like this too.'
For the time being, I needed to make sure the beastmen and Imperial citizens blended together well, so it would be difficult to undertake anything major.
It was something that required time, so there was no helping it; in that case, I only had to do what could be done during this period.
And as it happened, there was something perfectly suited to a situation like this.
+++++
Prince Ryujin of the Eastern Continent.
Heir to the Kingdom of Cheongryu, known as the center of flowing rivers and prosperity.
While leisurely exploring the sea as usual,
he developed a deep affection for Mirne, whom he met as if by fate,
and thus, instead of returning to his own kingdom, he was currently staying in the Kingdom of Maselin as an honored guest.
"Did your trip this time go well?"
"No, it didn't go well. I'm sorry."
"Mirne, what could you possibly have to apologize for?"
"This time and the last... You actively provided the Kingdom of Cheongryu's mystical treasures, but I didn't gain anything from them."
"I can give you that much as often as you like, so please don't look so sad."
Ryujin had helped Mirne with complete sincerity.
'It would be wonderful if she became my eternal other half.'
The meeting of a kingdom from the Eastern Continent and a kingdom from the Western Continent.
What a beautiful harmony.
When he thought about it seriously, he felt that yin and yang matched perfectly.
Ryujin was indulging in such happy fantasies when—
"Hm?"
He rummaged through his clothes and found a letter that he did not know when or how had entered there.
How had someone slipped this into his clothing without making a sound?
There was only one possible explanation.
'The Kingdom of Cheongryu?'
Why had such a letter suddenly arrived from his own kingdom?
Ryujin told Mirne that something had come up, then entered his room with a puzzled expression,
and the moment he opened the letter and read it without hesitation, his expression hardened.
Despite the extremely polite wording, the letter's vicious contents came into Ryujin's view.
The letter was three pages long, and its contents could be summarized in exactly one sentence.
[ The Kingdom of Cheongryu is under suspicion from the Bellos Empire because of you. ]
"...How?"
The contents made the back of Ryujin's neck grow cold.
Ryujin unconsciously turned his head toward where the Empire lay.
Had they discovered where that jar came from?
How?
'No, before that, how on earth did they manage to contact the Kingdom of Cheongryu? And so quickly?'
Since the people of the Eastern Continent did not properly understand how frightening the Empire was,
Ryujin could not even begin to guess how he should respond.
Needless to say.
'...This is telling me to solve it myself.'
The Kingdom of Cheongryu had already been frightened by the Empire and was telling him to take care of the matter himself.
Why on earth had the Kingdom of Cheongryu become afraid of the Empire?
'What on earth happened in such a short time?'
The feeling that unimaginable things were happening while leaving him completely out of it.
For the first time in his life, Ryujin felt his life was in danger.