What Value Does Something Like That Have? (15)

“His Majesty the Demon King... is ill?”

As his fear eased, he recalled meeting the Demon King in person at the castle before coming here. The Demon King's safety had to come before everything else. Yet the Demon King in his memory had been seated on his throne as usual, his bearing unmistakably majestic.

He tried to remember if anything else had been different from usual, but nothing seemed particularly strange. Just as always, the Demon King had been seated on the throne at the far end of the vast throne room, while Estellara Urgott, the Demon King's army commander—also called his right hand—stood beside him, behaving like a butler as he gave the demon man his orders for this operation.

Then the demon man noticed something that hadn't seemed particularly odd at the time, but was worth questioning.

“...It wasn't His Majesty the Demon King who gave me those orders?”

Hearing him mutter those words under his breath as he pondered them with a hand at his mouth, Kagami immediately smiled.

“There you go. It's too early to jump to conclusions, isn't it?”

“B-but wait! His Majesty was right there beside him! He didn't object to the order!”

“I'm just saying it's too early to jump to conclusions. I don't know what's going on, either. Maybe he really did change his mind and is trying to conquer the world, or maybe someone's controlling him.”

“Controlling him? Absurd! There's no way someone as powerful as His Majesty could be controlled!”...