Behind Elyon Academy's main building stood the Imperial Prince's office, a structure large enough to rival a grand estate.
It was a place built so the Imperial Prince could manage affairs of state without neglecting his studies.
Security around it was correspondingly severe. Even the Headmaster or Chairman couldn't simply come and go as they pleased.
“I request an audience with Imperial Prince Darius.”
Ex addressed the Imperial Guard knight stationed before the enormous, lavishly decorated doors.
If some mere commoner had dared make a request like this at nine at night, he would have been charged with lèse-majesté on the spot.
But.
“His Highness has been waiting for you.”
As though he'd been expecting Ex all along, the Imperial Guard knight opened the door.
‘…He was waiting for me?’
Ex followed the knight into the sprawling residence.
He had no idea why the Imperial Prince had been waiting for him, but at least it made getting an audience much easier.
“So you're Ex.”
The moment he entered the great hall, he found someone standing there with an imposing air.
A knight clad in ornate full plate, though she wore no helmet.
She was a beautiful woman with blazing flame-colored hair tied long behind her.
The lines of her face and the shape of her eyes were so sharp that just looking at her felt like it could cut.
Ex knew exactly who she was.
‘A 7-Star martial artist and Knight Commander of the Imperial Guard. Milia.’
“Move. Do you intend to keep His Highness waiting any longer?”
Milia turned away from Ex and immediately strode onward.
She was exactly as described in the setting.
‘A fiery temper, and she hates being kept waiting.’
Her stride was every bit as forceful as her personality, each step long and decisive.
And yet she made barely a sound.
That alone spoke volumes about her martial prowess.
The Imperial Prince's office was quite a distance away.
For most of the walk, neither Ex nor Milia said a word.
It was only shortly before they arrived that Milia finally spoke.
“One piece of advice. In this place, you are not a student. You are merely a commoner. Forget that, and you will die by my hand.”
With that murderous warning, the doors to the office opened.
The room was decorated with extravagant works of art.
There were even magic devices whose only apparent purpose was decoration, giving the entire place an almost obsessive devotion to beauty.
It gave Ex the faint impression that whoever worked here needed all this beauty around him just to endure the place.
And there, at the center of it all, sat one man.
Blond hair and golden eyes.
A sculpted face.
A solidly built frame with nearly perfect proportions.
‘So that’s Imperial Prince Darius.’
In the center of the lavish office, Imperial Prince Darius sat behind his desk, reviewing a literal mountain of documents.
There was far too much paperwork for any one person to handle.
‘Admire him later…’
Ex knelt and bowed with all due courtesy.
“It is an honor to meet you, Imperial Prince Dar…”
“Milia. Arrest the idiots who wrote these reports and throw them in prison for a month.”
“On what grounds, Your Highness?”
“They entered the figures incorrectly. Incompetent fools…”
Darius handed the papers to Milia without so much as acknowledging Ex's existence.
Milia took them and immediately began contacting someone through her Mana Phone.
And just like that, the two of them continued processing paperwork as though Ex had never entered the room in the first place.
Fifty minutes passed with Ex still kneeling there.
Just as even Ex was beginning to grow restless.
“We'll take ten minutes.”
Darius finally set down his fountain pen and exhaled.
Forty percent of the enormous pile had already been processed.
It was proof enough that his abilities were anything but ordinary.
After a brief sigh, Darius spoke.
“Do you know why I allowed you in here?”
The question came without warning.
“Is it because you wanted to hear about the recent incidents directly from me?”
“…Haa. Milia, bring it.”
Milia retrieved something and placed it in front of Ex.
It was a rack designed to hold three potions.
Three extraordinarily potent-looking healing potions sat inside.
“In recognition of your accomplishments thus far, I will give you three chances.”
“My accomplishments…? And by three chances, you mean…?”
“First, there is something I need to confirm with you.”
Darius handed Milia a document.
She placed it in front of Ex, where he naturally caught sight of it.
The instant he read the title, a chill crawled up Ex's spine.
The document was titled 「Investigation Report: ‘Ex’」.
Darius began explaining in a dispassionate voice.
“February 22nd is the Academy's freshman entrance ceremony. Anyone coming from even the farthest reaches of the Empire would need at least a week to arrive. Gates are not omnipotent, after all.”
Darius glanced down at another document on his desk.
It was titled 「Freshman Enrollment Application Records」.
“Therefore, most incoming students begin traveling with at least a week to spare. Usually around February 1st, which also happens to be the Academy's enrollment period. That is one of the busiest times of the year for the Empire, so naturally, our administrative apparatus is operating at full capacity. And yet…”
The report contained the following entry.
「Freshman Name: Ex
Application Time: February 1st, 08:06
Application Number: 0015」
“You applied almost the moment enrollment opened. As though you'd simply been waiting for the Academy to accept applications.”
Darius had investigated everything there was to know about Ex.
Including things Ex himself didn't know.
‘I can still explain this…!’
“Yes, perhaps you're simply diligent. But then we come to this.”
Darius looked over the next document.
It was titled 「Gate Usage Report」.
“For the five years preceding February 1st, there is no record of anyone named ‘Ex’ using a gate. Perhaps you didn't use one? Very well. Then let us consider the other possibilities.”
Darius picked up the next set of documents.
「Checkpoint Inspection Report」 and 「Civil Registry Report」.
“You weren't recorded at any checkpoint during that same period either. Then perhaps you were born and raised here in Vallon, the capital? Unfortunately, we found no registered citizen named ‘Ex.’ At this point, it's almost as though…”
Darius's indifferent gaze settled on Ex.
“You simply appeared out of nowhere. For the sole purpose of enrolling in this Academy.”
Ex had made one enormous mistake.
He had thought the person he needed to deal with was ‘Imperial Prince Darius.’
But the existence sitting before him wasn't merely ‘Imperial Prince Darius.’
It was the ‘Dritania Empire’ itself.
“Now then.”
Shing-
From beside him came the sound of Milia drawing her sword.
Darius issued his command in a cold, detached voice.
“Explain.”
At that exact moment, status windows erupted noisily before Ex's eyes.
『Warning! The existence of ‘Ex’ cannot be explained.』
『Plausibility Penalty Acquired: Talents Temporarily Sealed』
A Plausibility Penalty had been triggered.
Ten Thousand Lies and One Truth were sealed.
He could no longer escape lie detection.
Fortunately, Humanization remained intact.
If he'd reverted into a demon here, it would have been an unmitigated catastrophe.
Not that his current situation was much better.
‘I can't explain it…!’
Knowing nothing about his own past had always been his greatest blind spot.
The excuse had worked against Roxwell because Roxwell had no way to prove otherwise.
If nobody could prove anything, Ex only needed to make his story internally consistent.
This was different.
If the investigation had already been completed, then Ex needed evidence to contradict it.
Unfortunately, he had none.
There was nothing he could say.
Darius understood what Ex's silence meant and sighed.
“Milia.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Shing-
At that command, a cold pain flashed through Ex's ankles.
“…Huh?”
The strange sensation sharpened by the second until it became unmistakable agony.
Both of Ex's feet had been severed at the ankles.
“Ghhh…!”
He clenched his teeth.
He couldn't scream.
Milia immediately poured one of the healing potions over his ankles.
The severed wounds rapidly restored themselves until his feet were whole again.
“You have two chances remaining.”
Only then did Ex fully understand what was happening.
‘The Imperial Prince brought me here to interrogate me…!’
This wasn't an office.
It was an interrogation chamber personally presided over by the Imperial Prince.
Darius turned another page and continued.
“Very well. Let us assume there were errors in the administrative records. The Empire's bureaucracy is not perfect. I will concede that we cannot track every citizen with one hundred percent certainty. However, this is also strange.”
The next document was titled 「Special Admission Recommendation Usage Report」.
“The ‘Special Admission Recommendations’ issued when the Academy was first founded, however, contain no such errors. Privileges worth astronomical sums are not handled carelessly. Their management is one of the matters I personally review every year.”
Darius slowly read through the report.
“A total of fifty Special Admission Recommendations were issued, and as of this year, all fifty have now been used. The student who used the fiftieth and final recommendation was ‘Leon Brave.’ And yet…”
The final entry in the report wasn't number fifty.
Two new entries had appeared.
Numbers fifty-one and fifty-two.
Number fifty-one was Ex.
Number fifty-two was Elia.
“Numbers fifty-one and fifty-two, which did not exist last year, have suddenly appeared.”
“…!”
Nothing like this had ever been mentioned in the setting.
Ex had never even imagined there could be records like these.
But Darius's reasoning was flawless.
Special Admission guaranteed entry into the Academy.
There was no conceivable way something that important would go completely unmonitored.
Darius produced two sheets of paper.
They were Special Admission Recommendations.
“Special Admission Recommendations fifty-one and fifty-two, neither of which should exist. Curiously enough, our investigation determined that both are ‘authentic.’ The administrative serial numbers are valid, and every method of verifying their legitimacy found nothing unusual. Fine. Perhaps I misremembered. So I cross-checked them.”
The report listed the names of the officials who had certified each Special Admission Recommendation at the time of its use.
“Normally, the Headmaster or Chairman certifies these documents. For this year's class, the Headmaster certified all of them. We received confirmation that he personally certified number fifty, Leon Brave, and number fifty-two, Elia. However…”
Darius's gaze returned to Ex.
“Number fifty-one. Ex. Neither the Headmaster nor the Chairman certified yours. Each assumed the other had done it. Their accounts do not match. So I will ask you directly.”
Milia's sword gleamed coldly once again.
“Who certified your Special Admission?”
There was no such person.
Ex had been dropped into this world out of nowhere.
When he'd opened his eyes, he was already in the middle of the entrance ceremony.
He'd known absolutely no one and had been too busy desperately struggling to stay alive.
He'd had neither the time nor the reason to worry about a past he knew nothing about.
And now that ignorance was closing around his throat.
“Milia.”
Shing-
At Darius's call, half of Ex's neck was sliced open.
Fwoosh-!
“Kh, krrrgh…”
Ex clamped down on the wound as blood poured through his fingers, and Milia roughly splashed another healing potion over him.
His neck rapidly knitted itself back together, but even that brief loss of blood left his head spinning.
And that wasn't all.
『Warning! The enrollment of ‘Ex’ cannot be explained.』
『Plausibility Penalty Acquired: Titles Temporarily Sealed』
Another Plausibility Penalty activated.
At the same moment, an overwhelming terror crashed over him.
Having his titles sealed meant losing the effect of Thick-Skinned.
The title that had suppressed his fear no matter the circumstances was gone.
What Ex felt now was the raw fear of an ordinary human being.
“One chance remains.”
His teeth chattered.
His entire body trembled uncontrollably.
He was standing on the edge of a blade called truth.
No.
This wasn't an interrogation chamber.
It was an execution ground.
An execution ground where truth itself held the blade, and no excuse could save him.
‘W-What do I do…?’
Ex had survived countless situations by lying his way through them.
But lies were useless here.
His talents were sealed.
His titles were sealed.
Everything he had relied upon was gone.
All he had left was one pathetic human body.
‘This is exactly why I tried to stay away from him…!’
Once Ex entered Darius's surveillance network, every detail of his existence would be investigated.
There was a reason Darius was always buried beneath mountains of paperwork.
After what happened five years ago, he had stopped trusting anything.
That was why he personally verified everything.
Lie-detection magic, magic devices, testimony, reports. None of it mattered unless he himself was satisfied.
A supreme paranoiac who trusted absolutely nothing.
That was why Darius was the greatest intelligence operative in the Empire.
“Say something. Make any excuse you like.”
Nothing came to mind.
Fear had swallowed Ex's ability to think.
Every plan he'd prepared before coming here had collapsed.
Whatever lie he told, there was no chance it would work…
‘A lie…?’
As terror drained the color from his face, something primal stirred awake inside him.
He remembered the one goal he'd nearly forgotten.
‘Why have I been lying all this time?’
It wasn't for overwhelming authority.
It wasn't for incredible power.
It wasn't for some untouchable reputation that no one could challenge.
“Y-Your Highness. I-I…”
There had only ever been one thing driving him forward.
“I-I know… the f-future of the Empire…”
Ex had simply wanted to live.
And if that was all he wanted, then there was only one thing left to do.
“This Empire… No…”
He steeled himself.
“This world is going to be destroyed.”
Darius sighed at the outrageous declaration.
“Milia.”
Shing-!
This time, both of Ex's eyes were sliced out.
The horror of losing his vision crashed over him.
And yet, strangely, his voice no longer trembled.
“The demons will turn the Empire into hell, summon an evil god, and destroy the entire world! That's the future awaiting us!”
“Milia.”
This time, the blade tore through his left shoulder.
Not a single ounce of Ex's sincerity had reached Darius.
It didn't matter.
“There are countless things that must be done if we're going to prevent the end of the world, but there is one thing that must be done immediately!”
“Milia.”
This time, the sword cut through his right thigh.
Darius clearly regarded everything Ex was saying as the ravings of a madman.
That was fine.
Ex had never expected a heartfelt plea to move this ultimate paranoiac in the first place.
What mattered was saying something Darius could not possibly ignore.
Ex used the ‘keyword’ he'd obtained from Imperial Princess Beatrice.
“We have to remove the curse on His Majesty the Emperor!”
Milia was the first to react.
“You insolent…!!”
Ex had dared speak of the Emperor she served.
And he had done so directly in front of the Knight Commander of the Imperial Guard.
That alone was grounds for immediate execution for lèse-majesté.
Swoosh-!!
Milia's sword came crashing down toward Ex's neck.
Her fury was so intense that aura blazed along the blade.
But the sword never reached him.
“Stop.”
The Imperial Prince's voice rang out, filled with even greater fury than the Knight Commander's.
“Just now.”
Darius strode toward Ex.
“What.”
He grabbed the blood-soaked Ex by the collar and hauled him into the air.
“Did you.”
His grip tightened.
“Just say?”
Ex knew Darius's circumstances well.
He knew what had happened five years ago.
He knew how Darius felt now.
He knew exactly what the Emperor's collapse had meant to him.
“Your Highness never wanted His Majesty the Emperor to fall! You were never particularly hungry for power in the first place! But once it happened, you must have felt the weight of that ‘enormous responsibility’ called the Empire!”
“Fine. Let's see just how far you're willing to take this bullshit.”
BOOM-!!
“Khugh…!”
Darius slammed Ex into the floor as though trying to break him against it.
The impact blasted the air from Ex's lungs and sent blood spilling from his mouth, but he didn't stop.
“Everything was planned! Her Majesty the Empress's assassination, the changes in the Imperial Princess, His Majesty the Emperor's curse! You know better than anyone that there's no way all of this can be dismissed as coincidence!”
“I don't know how you learned any of that, but…”
Darius coated his fist in aura and began beating Ex.
“If you wanted to live, you should never have said it…!”
Thud-!
Ex desperately clung to the fading thread of consciousness.
If he passed out now, he really would die.
So he kept talking.
“Remember what happened five years ago, when Imperial Princess Beatrice lost her divine power…! So many things changed after that… You suspected something yourself, didn't you? That's why you seized imperial authority…!”
“What the hell do you know about my sister…?!”
“There is an obvious reason Imperial Princess Beatrice lost her divine power! It's because she became something incapable of using divine power at all! There is only one kind of being on this continent that fits that description!”
“Shut up-!!”
Thud-!!
Agony exploded through him as the place Darius struck seemed to cave in, the pain burning straight through Ex's brain.
Still, Ex had to say it.
“No matter how painful it is, Your Highness, you have to accept it now.”
He forced Darius to face the truth he'd been desperately trying not to see.
“Your sister, the Imperial Princess, has become a demon.”
That was why Ex had come here.
That was why he had endured every step necessary to reach this moment.
‘Tell Imperial Prince Darius the truth.’
That was the essential condition for preventing both the ‘Hellgate Episode’ and the ‘Imperial Schism Scenario.’
If he couldn't make Darius understand this, then the Empire was doomed anyway.
Even if it meant enduring more Plausibility Penalties, Ex would tell him everything.
Then he went one step further.
“There is a way to put everything back the way it was.”
With the only hand he could still move, his right, Ex grabbed Darius by the wrist.
The man's hand was trembling more violently than Ex had ever imagined possible.
“There is a way to restore the Imperial Princess, avert the crisis facing the Empire, and ultimately prevent the destruction of the world.”
Ex couldn't tell whether that trembling came from rage or hesitation.
He couldn't see Darius's expression anymore.
“I will remove His Majesty the Emperor's curse.”
But the emotion trembling through the hand in his grasp was unmistakable.
It was the faintest sliver of hope.
–TL Notes–
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