Chapter 100
"Please hold on! I'll use healing magic right away!"
"I-I'll help, too!"
Seeing how deathly pale David was, Tina and Alice immediately rushed over to him. They conjured a faint, warm light in their hands and began healing his wounds.
"Huh? Alice-tan, you learned healing magic?"
"Yeah. I wanted to be useful to you when it mattered, Kagami-san... so Kururu-san, Tina-san, and David-san helped me learn it."
Seeing how much Alice had grown since he'd last seen her, Kagami smiled and murmured, "I see... What a sweet girl."
"Ho ho ho... She worked so hard, wanting to be of use to someone. I almost wish you could have seen all the effort she put in, Kagami-sama."
David murmured in a listless voice. Kagami replied with a satisfied expression, "I don't need to see it to know." Kagami knew demons' traits well. Their physical abilities and offensive magic were far superior to humans', but they had little aptitude for healing magic.
Learning a type of magic one had little aptitude for required considerable effort and a strong desire to use it. Considering that, it was obvious just how hard Alice had worked.
"More importantly, David-san, why are you here? What happened after that?"
"I'm sorry, Takako-sama... I couldn't rescue Rex-sama and Kururu-sama, so I fled. If I were captured, I would have been completely unable to act. I had to avoid that at all costs."
"No... I'm glad you're safe. I was so worried about you."
Takako took David's hand, her eyes glistening with tears. Even as he was being treated, David broke into a sweat as if he were taking damage.
"...The reason I was able to escape was probably because they had no use for me."
"What do you mean?"
"It's possible the people from the Kingdom used Alice-sama's being a demon as a pretext, when their real goal was to bring Rex-sama and Kururu-sama back..."
Everyone looked confused at that. They understood why the Kingdom would want to bring Rex and Kururu back, but not why that would mean leaving David and the others alone.
"Then... tell me, why can't we reach an agreement?"
Kagami asked David, wanting to sort everything out from the beginning.
"That's because... the king himself is the problem."
"The king?"
"Yes. The king... is fixated on exterminating the demons. He has devoted everything to defeating the demons... the Demon King, as if it were his very mission."
"We've been enemies for so long; isn't that only natural? He's the king representing humanity, after all."
"Kagami-sama, you don't understand. His obsession with defeating the demons... the Demon King... is abnormal."
"What makes you so sure?"
"...Kururu-sama."
Hearing that much, Kagami and Takako exchanged looks of understanding and each murmured, "...I see."
Seeing the two of them, Tina—who still didn't quite understand—looked from Takako to Kagami and exclaimed, "Huh? Huh?"
"T-Takako-san, Kagami-san, what did you understand just now? What does that mean?"
"Well, Kururu's a princess, right? Even if she was born a Sage, normally you wouldn't raise her to fight the Demon King. She was pretty sheltered, too, and when we first met, she kept strangely asking whether Alice was a demon."
Tina seemed to realize something. "...Oh," she murmured, her expression changing as it clicked. At first, Kururu had been so focused on defeating the Demon King that she'd tried to avoid unnecessary closeness with others. It was hard to imagine that of the Kururu they knew now.
They'd forgotten it after meeting Kagami and seeing her change so quickly, but Kururu had seemed somewhat cold when they'd first met her.
"Just as Kagami-sama says. The king... hates the demons so much that, for the sake of defeating the Demon King, he would even send his own daughter into battle."
Menou and Alice's expressions clouded at those words.
"...What exactly have we done?"
"...Father."
Seeing their darkened expressions, the Demon King gently stroked Alice's head and murmured with a hint of sadness.
"It's all because of this shitty system."
With that, Kagami turned his gaze toward the royal capital. If the system was the problem, he could just destroy it. That was what he thought.
"Please... Kagami-sama. As I said earlier, an agreement with the king will probably fail. But please... at least save Kururu-sama."
David's unusually frantic, insistent plea struck Kagami as odd, and he furrowed his brow.
"Why? It's not like they're going to kill her, right?"
"I'm sure Kururu-sama will stop smiling again."
"Stop smiling?"
"This was a long time ago. When I'd only just begun serving Kururu-sama, she smiled often. She was kind, always putting others before herself and looking out for them... much like Alice-sama is now."
As he spoke, David gazed at Alice. How much comfort had her innocent smile, so reminiscent of the Kururu of old, given him? Perhaps that was what had made him realize it didn't matter whether Alice was a demon.
At the same time, the fear that he might never see that smile again filled David with dread.