“There’s no physical damage. This appears to be a psychological issue.”
That was the diagnosis from none other than a physician directly attached to the Imperial Family.
Darius had hurriedly sent over a doctor of exceptional skill.
There was no reason to doubt the accuracy of his diagnosis.
‘A psychological issue…’
Ex rubbed his throat, his expression troubled.
There really wasn’t a single injury on his body.
Nothing had done anything to his body at all.
‘The name… I still can’t remember it…’
Of all the memories he could have lost from the damage to his soul, it had to be one he absolutely could not afford to forget.
That memory had been the driving force behind everything Ex had done until now.
“Ex!”
“Y-You’re alive!”
Circe and Lola came running the moment they heard Ex had regained consciousness, only to be shocked when they discovered he had lost the ability to speak.
“It’s because of me…”
Lola, who looked strangely gaunt, covered her face and tried to hide her tears.
Flustered, Ex grabbed a notebook and wrote down what he wanted to say.
Fortunately, he could still communicate through writing.
「It wasn’t your fault, Young Lady.」
“No, it was. You were trying to protect me…”
「The demon was at fault. No one else did anything wrong.」
“Ugh…!”
Apparently unable to hold back her emotions any longer, Lola threw herself into his arms and cried for quite a while.
Only after Ex spent a long time comforting her did she finally pull away.
Circe was the only one he could actually have something resembling a conversation with.
「How did I get here?」
“Professor Lung brought you back to the academy five days ago. Apparently, you were lying unconscious in front of the academy’s main gate. He wouldn’t tell us anything beyond that.”
That was strange.
Ex had lost consciousness inside the Ancient Ruins, yet he had been found at the academy’s main gate.
There was only one obvious conclusion.
‘Someone moved me there?’
Given the circumstances, the only possibilities were Gremory or Elia.
But neither of them would have done something like that, nor should they have been capable of it.
‘Gremory wanted me dead, and Elia…’
At the very end, Elia hadn’t been acting of her own will.
Elysia had probably planted some kind of trick inside her.
‘Maybe she set things up so she could control Elia for a short time. Elia practically said as much herself.’
In that case, there shouldn’t have been anyone left to move Ex’s body.
「Could it have been Leon’s party?」
“They were all sprawled out cold until everything was over.”
The moment Leon’s name came up, Circe’s tone turned sour.
“Oh, right. Sorry to spring this on you, but I’ve completely cut ties with them. I transferred to Class F on Monday, too. So don’t ask me about them anymore. I don’t know anything about what they’re doing now.”
“?!”
Ex hurriedly began writing something, but Circe snatched the notebook right out of his hands.
Then she fixed him with a sharp glare.
“I said don’t ask.”
Ex carefully nodded.
He already couldn’t speak, and now she’d even confiscated his notebook.
It felt terribly unfair.
Circe handed the notebook back and declared with complete confidence,
“We can talk about what happens from here on out, slowly.”
「About that.」
“It’s about time you told the Count’s Young Lady that story too.”
Ex immediately understood what Circe meant.
She was telling him to explain what he knew about the future to Lola.
And, admittedly, it was becoming difficult to keep hiding it.
Judging from Lola’s eyes, she seemed to have guessed that there was something more going on, but she patiently waited for Ex to answer.
When Ex hesitated, Lola forced herself to put on a bright, confident smile. She was clearly more concerned about making him comfortable than satisfying her own curiosity.
“You can tell me when you’re ready. I’m a noble. I know how to wait!”
Her answer left Ex both relieved and guilty.
Right now, he was still afraid to admit that he had been deceiving her all this time.
“Well, I think that settles most of that.”
Circe’s expression grew serious.
“Ex, I’m sure you know you have a lot of explaining to do. But before we get into all that, there’s something I want to ask first…”
After a brief hesitation, Circe spoke again.
“Did you really become a demon?”
It was a question Ex had fully expected.
He had already planned to explain everything, so he was about to answer immediately when she continued.
“No matter how many tests they run, you’re human right now.”
That gave her question a slightly different meaning.
She wasn’t asking whether he had become a demon.
She was asking whether he had really been a demon at all.
Circe continued her explanation.
“Do you have any idea how many people examined and tested you after Professor Lung brought you back? They needed to make sure you weren’t connected to demons somehow.”
「What, did they give me some kind of full examination?」
“Yeah. And according to the results, you’re human.”
What kind of bizarre nonsense was this now?
Ex frowned and checked his own information.
「Basic Information
Name: Ex
Race: Human (Temporary)
Special Traits: System Holder」
‘What’s with the “Temporary” part?’
The list of things he needed to investigate just kept getting longer.
***
Ex’s current situation had become somewhat complicated.
Still, he began dealing with each problem one at a time.
The first thing he did was explain his circumstances to Circe and Lola.
Ex started by telling them that he had originally been human. Then he explained how, during the incident at the demon mansion, he had been drenched in a massive amount of Demonization Accelerator and ended up having his race changed to demon.
「Of course, I don’t fully understand my own condition either. Even now, I have no idea why I suddenly turned human again.」
Circe looked puzzled by his explanation.
“I’m no demon expert, but as far as I know, there aren’t any cases of humans turning into demons. The reverse should be impossible too.”
Circe’s observation was correct.
In this world, demons could only possess humans or descend into the world with their true bodies.
Demons could neither reproduce nor truly die.
Once born as a demon, one had to remain a demon for eternity.
New demons could be born in Hell, but a human becoming a demon was impossible.
If such a thing did happen, then it was an ‘error.’
There were still too many uncertainties, but a few things were clear.
Lola was the one who pointed out the most important part.
“But your soul is still the same old commoner’s soul, right? Then it doesn’t really matter. If that demon who attacked us wasn’t lying, your human soul stayed intact while only your body became demonic.”
Of course, not everyone was quite so ready to shrug the matter off.
Circe, who clearly still had plenty of concerns, casually slipped in another question.
“When you became a demon, did you suddenly start having… evil thoughts or anything?”
「No.」
“Did you ever feel like you had to kill someone? Any violent urges?”
「Not at all.」
“Then what actually changed when you became a demon?”
「I’m not sure. I suppose I was able to use demonic abilities?」
Ex checked over his abilities and current condition.
Several things had changed when his race became Human (Temporary).
The biggest difference was that every ability connected to demons had become unusable.
Talents such as Demonization, Ten Thousand Lies, and One Truth had all entered a sealed state.
It was almost as if the demonic part of him had simply been stripped away.
‘I was getting pretty good use out of those talents, too…’
That didn’t mean he had become completely human, however.
Human (Temporary) wasn’t just some meaningless label.
‘The price increase from my racial penalty is still there.’
The changes to his stats that had occurred when he became a demon were also still in effect.
Taking everything into account, it seemed that, for some unknown reason, only the parts of him directly tied to being a demon had disappeared.
‘Anyway, I’m human again… so I guess that’s a good thing?’
The thought that he might now be capable of truly dying again was unsettling, but there was nothing he could do about that right now.
“…Well, I suppose there are plenty of things in this world that even I don’t know about.”
After listening to everything, Circe let out a moderate sigh and seemed to accept the explanation, at least internally.
Once she set aside her preconceptions and looked only at Ex’s actions, there was nothing evil about anything he had done.
Even if Ex had been a demon from the very beginning, there was no reason not to cooperate with him if he was still a fundamentally good person.
And if all of this had somehow been part of an elaborate demonic scheme, humanity probably would have gone extinct a long time ago.
“I’ll believe you. Well, you’re human right now anyway.”
「I was human from the beginning.」
Circe held out her hand.
Ex took it, and the two shook.
He no longer had the faintest idea what would happen from here on out, but strangely enough, it didn’t feel bad.
「Young Lady, is there anything you’d like to say?」
When Ex subtly directed the question toward Lola, she gave a haughty little huff and lifted her chin.
“I don’t care what you originally were. As long as someone is competent and won’t betray me, I’m fine with them. My family is thoroughly meritocratic. Some of our servants and officers are demihumans or Demonkin, so adding one demon to the roster wouldn’t have been a problem.”
That alone told Ex plenty about what House Lemercier must be like.
Was it some kind of extreme military society run entirely by soldiers?
The sudden thought of the military made his mood sink.
“What’s with that face? I tell you about my family and you immediately look miserable?”
「I was merely thinking about what an extraordinarily impressive family it must be.」
“That shamelessness proves you’re a commoner, all right.”
Only after everything had been sorted out did the atmosphere finally begin to relax.
Circe and Lola filled Ex in on what had happened while he was gone.
The reason Lola looked so worn out was because she had been learning combat magic from Circe.
Circe was highly interested in Lola’s family, and she also saw tremendous potential in Lola herself.
There was some surprising news as well.
「A curriculum for simultaneously using internal energy and Magic Power?」
The educational program Ex had previously proposed to the Chairman had finally begun.
Circe gave an uninterested snort and mocked the students who had become obsessed with the new curriculum.
“It was complete chaos. You’d think mastering one discipline would already be enough, but now the magic students are training their internal energy, the martial arts students are trying to sense Magic Power, and the sacred arts students are sticking their noses into everything they can find.”
Circe clearly disliked students wandering outside their chosen fields of study, and her sharp gaze stabbed straight into Ex.
“At least all the rumors about demons disappeared because of it…”
Her eyes practically screamed, ‘You’re the culprit, aren’t you?’
Ex somehow endured her silent demand for a confession and turned to Lola instead.
「There’s something I want to ask.」
“Yeah?”
He wasn’t sure whether he should ask at all, but in the end, he did.
「What happened to Elia?」
Circe flinched and immediately looked away, falling silent.
Lola’s response was an oppressive, heavy silence.
“Ex.”
Lola said his name in a tone that was utterly unlike her usual self, as if she were forcibly restraining her emotions.
Then she smiled.
There was something faintly chilling about it.
“Why don’t we just forget that girl ever existed?”
“…”
“If you want revenge on her, leave it to me. My family is already searching every corner of the Empire for her.”
That was enough.
Ex didn’t ask anything else about Elia.
He buried the sigh threatening to escape deep inside himself.
Even if he told Lola the truth, she wouldn’t believe any of it.
The Elia Lola had known was effectively dead.
No.
Perhaps death would have been kinder.
‘Elysia, is this what you wanted?’
It was a cruel design, cruel enough to make Ex wonder whether she truly was the same author who had once loved her own work so much.
He could understand her scheming to eliminate him.
What he couldn’t understand was why she was trying to erase characters from her own story.
Even if Elia had never existed in the original novel, that didn’t make it any easier to understand.
‘…Do I even have the right to think that?’
After all, Ex was the one who had treated extras as disposable and casually urged Elysia to kill them off.
And considering the manuscript Elysia had originally brought him hadn’t contained anything like this, perhaps her anger was directed at this entire world.
Because this wasn’t the story she had wanted to write.
Then what was Elysia’s true objective?
The destruction of the world?
Ex’s death?
Restoring the original story?
‘And if she succeeds, what’s left at the end? If she doesn’t actually want the world destroyed, then interfering with me makes no sense. She should be helping me instead.’
That brought him to a more fundamental question.
‘Why did Elysia, who had the power to create an entire world, go all the way to a publishing company and ask for an editor’s help? If she hated having her work changed, why deliberately put herself in a position where someone else could interfere with it?’
Then came an even more fundamental question.
‘Was resentment really the only reason she killed me in my previous life?’
He knew nothing.
Every question merely gave birth to another question he couldn’t answer.
But for now, simply knowing that those questions existed was enough.
“Excuse me.”
At that moment, the treatment room door swung open and someone entered.
It was Darius, accompanied as always by Milia at his side.
As soon as Darius stepped inside, the three of them started to rise and show the proper respect, but he immediately waved them off and got straight to the point.
“I’d like to speak with him alone for a moment.”
It was phrased as a request rather than an order from an Imperial Prince, and Circe and Lola quietly left the room.
Darius looked far more desperate than usual.
The instant Circe and Lola were gone, he spoke.
“Did you bring the item that can remove His Majesty the Emperor’s curse?”
As expected.
That was why he had come.
“I heard the results of your examination from the doctor. There’s no need to force yourself to respond just for the sake of courtesy. Let’s simply confirm what we need to know as quickly as possible.”
Fortunately, Circe and Lola had remembered to bring the bag containing the artifacts.
Everything inside had also survived intact and was returned to Ex.
「I did bring it.」
Ex had expected Darius to come, so he took out the item he had prepared in advance.
It was the Chalice of Purification, the holy relic that had been split cleanly into two pieces.
「It was damaged during the attack.」
“This is the holy relic?”
With trembling hands, Darius accepted the two broken halves of the chalice and carefully examined them.
“Milia. Bring it.”
Then he glanced toward Milia, and she brought over something wrapped in a handkerchief.
When she unfolded the cloth, a coin was revealed.
The curse clinging to it was so intense that simply looking at it made one instinctively frown.
“A coin that has killed its owner three times. There’s no ordinary curse on this thing.”
After explaining in an even voice, Darius fitted the broken halves of the chalice together as closely as possible, restoring something resembling its original shape.
Then he dropped the cursed coin inside.
He intended to test whether the chalice could still remove curses.
All three watched closely, curious about the result.
Under their collective gaze, the coin remained motionless inside the chalice.
Then, at some point, it slowly began to tremble.
Guooooaaaaagh-!
A vicious scream erupted from the coin in a harsh, guttural voice, and every object in the room began to shake as if trembling in terror.
The coin continued rattling and screaming for quite some time.
Then its movement suddenly stopped.
When they looked at it again, there was no longer any trace of a curse or lingering resentment.
Incredibly, the broken chalice still retained its curse-removal ability.
“…So it can remove curses.”
The promise Ex had thought he had failed to keep had, in fact, been fulfilled.
But Darius’s next words were nothing like what Ex had hoped to hear.
“But this isn’t enough. We need something far more powerful immediately. At most, we have one week left.”
Darius’s shoulders sagged helplessly.
“The curse has grown stronger. Strong enough that not a single clergyman can remove it anymore… They told me I should prepare myself for the worst.”
Behind him, Milia frowned and turned her face away, as though she couldn’t bear to acknowledge the words about to follow.
“His Majesty the Emperor will soon pass away.”
The Imperial Destruction Scenario had begun in earnest.
–TL Notes–
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