Book 8: The Twelfth: Chapter of the Final Battle: “Ending the Demon King”
Book 8: The Twelfth: Chapter of the Final Battle: “Ending the Demon King”
I finally understood the words Earth had said.
A man who is crying and laughing at the same time is ugly to the extreme!
Even if that man is Adair, I still had an urge to send him flying!
Especially when he was using a sobbing voice to shout, “Captain~” while dashing toward me, and even though I knew he had made great sacrifices, that I should be grateful from the bottom of my heart, that I should probably even join in and dash toward him shouting “Vice-captain~”… I still pressed my foot on his face and shouted, “You better clean up your tears and snot before you get back up!”
Adair lay flat on the ground. After a minute, he stood back up with an incomparably refreshing look, and had completely returned to his professional image of a vice-captain. He also used a sincere voice to say, “Captain, I am elated that you have finally returned.”
Hearing this, I regarded him solemnly and said, “I have truly troubled you greatly this time.”
It was probably because, throughout my entire life, I seldom thanked people so directly that Adair was somewhat disconcerted when he answered, “N-No, not at all.”
“Adair, among the most fortunate things that have happened to me in my lifetime, one of them is having you as a vice-captain.” I could not be more sincere as I said, “Even if I were to repeat my life a hundred times, I will always choose you as my vice-captain. I can swear to the God of Light that all of the words I have spoken just now cannot be any truer!”
“You, you praise me too much, Captain…” My praise caused Adair to blush a bit. He hurriedly used a serious tone to cover it up as he said, “This is the expected duty of someone in the position of vice-captain!”
I had praised him enough, so I said, “Since that’s the case, you can start carrying out your duty now!”
“Huh?” Even Adair could not help asking, “So quickly?”
I nodded. Other than Roland who was still roaming about, the Twelve Holy Knights were all sleeping like they were dead. Before they slept, they only told me a single sentence.
“Taking care of the aftermath is all yours!”
After that, everyone went to sleep. I was very certain that even Storm, Leaf, and on top of that, Cloud, would not help me divide up the work this time. Luckily I still had Adair. Even if I said this one thousand more times, I would not tire of it. I really had such a good eye for people back then!
Since he was my vice-captain, Adair’s psychological qualities were nothing to scoff at. He immediately entered work mode and asked, “Captain, are we to call back the troops now?”
“Of course not!” I retorted, “With as big an event as the Church of the God of Light deploying troops, if we were to return in failure, the Church’s reputation would definitely plummet so much that the Pope would spit blood!”
Even though I didn’t care whether or not he spit blood, recruiting worshipers was the Sun Knight’s duty. If our reputation fell to desperate levels, several of our believers would no doubt run off. I would never allow that to happen!
Confused, he asked, “Then, what is to be done at the moment?”
“You still have to ask? Of course it’s crusading against the Demon King!”
Adair froze. He lowered his voice and said, “But you are the Demon King.”
I tilted my head to look at Adair. Even though he put a lot of effort into maintaining his professionalism, he could not stop his body from stiffening.
“What are you nervous about? You’ve already gone head-to-head with the Demon King. You’re still afraid of the Sun Knight?”
“Compared to the Sun Knight, the Demon King really isn’t much.” Adair seriously said, “Captain, when you are the Sun Knight, you are much scarier, truly! When you were the Demon King, the most you would do is get angry, and sometimes you would hit people, and occasionally you would kill someone, but as the Sun Knight, you would always scheme someone to death, an eye for an eye!”
This isn’t praise. Don’t complete it with a worshiping expression!
“So, Captain, how are we to crusade against the Demon King under the situation where you are the Demon King?”
“Who says I’m the Demon King?”
Adair blinked. I looked at him, smiling as I said, “You’re the Demon King.”
“Huh?”
After rushing about for three days, I thoroughly comprehended the infrastructure of the army and the terrain of the vicinity. I was then busy with organizing all sorts of matters, and I also had to pass information back to the Holy Temple and other places. Most importantly, I also had to let the Twelve Holy Knights catch up on their sleep. It was only then, finally, that I could have the army of the Church of the God of Light gather with the intention to continue to head toward the Demon King’s Castle on our crusade.
On horseback, I arrived before the army that had finished assembling. As usual, I began speaking my radiance-filled nonsense.
“Under the God of Light’s illumination, the army will now step foot upon the path of defeating darkness. Even if there shall be masses of thistles and thorns en route, as holy knights, we must disregard anguish and pains done unto us, for only when we see the suffering of the common folk must we wield the weapons in our hands, to eliminate the darkness shrouding the people and honor the beauty of the light!”
Phew~. I haven’t spoken this way in a long time. I’m really a little rusty. When I return to the Holy Temple, I should practice for a good while to prevent returning all my elegance back to my teacher.
The holy knights stared at me in absolute silence, but it definitely wasn’t because they couldn’t stay focused and were sleepy. In the past, whenever they listened to me speak, they would always look as absentminded as “having their spirit be with the God of Light,” but now they were so seriously staring at me that their eyes had become cross-eyed!
The Sun Knight Platoon especially, because they could see their captain with their eyes, all of them had their emotions blatantly displayed, tears and snot flowing, giving me the urge to stomp on each and every one of their faces.
“Excellent speech,” came a cheer from behind.
I smiled faintly. Even though I had already seen them, I turned around to face the people who had come over. Then, I used a quiet voice that only we could hear to ask, “Did you get enough sleep?”
“Nope.” Storm weakly said, “Can I sleep three more days?”
I nodded and said, “With your abilities, you could sleep on your horse.”
“That’s true, but I can sleep better on a bed.”
“The Holy Temple has beds, yet you can’t sleep there,” someone murmured quite loudly.
“Don’t say it!”
Everyone had probably slept well. Their moods were good, and their laughter made the atmosphere rather lighthearted. I was just about to remind them to be more serious, we were crusading against the Demon King after all, so this kind of fieldtrip-like atmosphere wasn’t acceptable! However, Judgment suddenly frowned and bellowed, “Depart.” Then, everyone immediately transformed from schoolchildren on a field trip into holy knights on a crusade, departing by horse at once.
From his horse, Judgment explained to me everything that they had been doing during this time.
“Because the Pope needed time to complete the magic circle for the seal in the Church of the God of Light, we had to put an end to the possibility of your coming to the Church, so as to prevent you from discovering it. That was why we deployed troops against you as a pretense. With everyone gone from the Holy Temple, you would think the Church was empty, and so you would have no need to go there.”
So it was like this. I knew it! Judgment wouldn’t come and crusade against me for no reason.
“In order to prevent you from doing something irreversible during this period, we decided to send someone to your side.” Judgment calmly said, “At first, I wanted to send Storm, but Adair volunteered himself. It was also more convincing for him to switch sides than Storm. You have a very good vice-captain.”
“I know.”
“First, we sent Adair over, not only to prevent you from doing something irreversible, but also to reach an agreement with Scarlet. Because Adair had to ensure the safety of all of the holy knights, to prevent you from doing something you could never take back, he needed Scarlet’s cooperation. Otherwise, it couldn’t be done, because all of the undead creatures were summoned by her.”
Scarlet? I shouted in alarm, “But she would never betray me!”
“Indeed, she didn’t betray you.” Judgment nodded. “We promised her, if you returned to the Church of the God of Light as the Sun Knight, then even when you lost your powers in the future, the Church of the God of Light would protect you and would not let you be crusaded against.”
If this was the condition, then Scarlet was likely to agree. After all, she has always worried that I would end up getting killed.
“That is not the only reason why she agreed.” Judgment’s lips lifted. “She said that you really wanted to return to the Holy Temple, that you were enduring it with a lot of pain. She didn’t want to see you continue to be in such pain.”
“…She once killed you.”
“Really? I’ve forgotten.” He is obviously lying with his eyes open. He told such a blatant lie, yet Judgment’s heart rate didn’t even change. His lying ability is truly too frightening!
I used a very suspicious gaze to look at Judgment, but his expression didn’t change at all. He continued to explain, “Adair’s last job was to send you over to our side.”
When I heard this, I very disapprovingly said, “You guys really shouldn’t have come at me head on. What if I really killed you all?”
“That’s impossible.” Judgment said indifferently, “Because we never fought against you. From start to finish, there was only one person who was actually fighting with you, and that was Roland. The others, once they realized you had been sent over, had immediately taken the Pope’s special medicine for feigning death and lay down on the ground to pretend to be dead.”
…So it was like that! So from start to finish, that shadow that was super quick was always Roland? No wonder he had so many injuries on him!
“Even though we can pretend to be dead, the injuries were real, otherwise you would definitely see through us. In order to make you believe it, we even used the dream you had before. Because of that, Leaf’s neck injury and Blaze’s shoulder injury were the hardest to create. If we took a misstep, they could have slept on forever!”
“Then why did you guys do that! What if they really got into trouble? Then what?” I growled angrily.
Judgment didn’t answer, but I understood it myself. They had to make sure it was absolutely flawless. If I were to discover any abnormalities, they might have all died together!
“In the end, we finally managed to force you to grab the Divine Sun Sword out of your own volition for the sake of wanting to cast Resurrection. With the holy element, the dark element in your body was all driven out.
“Speaking of this, Grisia, there is something I must tell you.” Judgment hesitated. “When you return to Leaf Bud City and formally complete the seal, without the Divine Sun Sword and the temporary seal of all of the Twelve Holy Knights, you will probably not be able to leave Leaf Bud City.”
Having the Twelve Holy Knights all leave the Church of the God of Light at the same time, letting the Church become an empty hull, was too outrageous. Just having to leave every half a year to go to the wilderness to exhaust the dark element was already too much. These words pretty much pronounced that I could practically never leave Leaf Bud City again.
“Isn’t telling me now a little too late?”
Judgment looked at me worriedly.
But I smiled and said easily, “My everything is in Leaf Bud City. I don’t need to take a single step outside of town. Have you forgotten that I was originally someone who doesn’t even like leaving the Holy Temple during a break? I don’t even like leaving the Holy Temple, but now the range of my actions is permissible in the entirety of Leaf Bud City.”
Judgment’s expression relaxed a whole lot. He offhandedly said, “When we learned that you would not be able to leave Leaf Bud City, everyone swore that when they retired, they would all live in Leaf Bud City.”
“…You don’t need to do that at all! Some people’s homes aren’t in Leaf Bud City, right?”
“Then, you’ll need to convince them yourself.” Judgment had a smile on as he said, “I don’t want to do something as tough as that. It would most likely be to no avail.”
…God of Light, these fetters that you have arranged for me are really a bit too strong.
“Hmm?” Judgment’s expression turned puzzled. “The Pope discovered the magic circle from an old scroll. It has nothing to do with the God of Light.”
“By fetters, Sun doesn’t mean the magic circle.”
Judgment blinked, his hand already on his sword, about to draw it. He shouted, “Who is it?”
Expressionless, I shouted, “Cloud, where are you?”
“Here.” Cloud silently floated upwards from behind, to the right.
Aren’t you overdoing it? Now your floating is even making your horse invisible too? You even frightened Judgment!
Judgment and the “cold, cruel-hearted” faction he led all stared with wide eyes. On the other hand, the “good, warm-hearted” faction didn’t have much of a reaction. At most, they showed expressions of admiration.
Judgment put away his sword and asked in curiosity, “If the fetters don’t refer to the magic circle, then what do they refer to?”
Cloud didn’t answer. He only looked at him and then at the rest of the Twelve Holy Knights.
Judgment lightly said, “Oh,” and his lips lifted upward.
“Judgment, your smile is scaring Vidar and the other holy knights…”
“Sorry.” Judgment awkwardly let his smile drop.
“He’s here!” Stone urged his horse forward and warned us.
From the faraway horizon, a thread of smoke rose. Everyone immediately took an extremely alert stance… Hey, Earth, stop yawning! I glared at him.
Hmph! Storm is even sleeping! Earth mouthed back to me.
“…”
When the smoke was close enough for us to see the undead army, the sky suddenly twisted, and a figure as dark as the night appeared, wearing a black crown and robes of the same color. The eyes were completely black as well, without any white.
He lazily looked down at us. First, he laughed for a good long while. Then, his face changed and he yelled, “I am the master of the world, the king of the darkness—the Demon King! You maggots actually dare to crusade against me? Prepare to pay the price!”
From the side came Earth’s whispered praise, “His acting is truly too great! He is a hundred times more like a demon king than a certain someone!”
…Being like the demon king isn’t something to praise. I’ll just pretend that Earth wasn’t making a dig at me.
“Adair is truly omnipotent!”
Storm praised, “From being the vice-captain, to becoming the insider, to acting as the Demon King, he can do it all. Sun, for you to be able to find such a vice-captain was truly a great fortune.”
What “fortune!” That’s called “having a good eye for discovering talent” and “nurturing training!”
It was because as a captain, I had amazing foresight and threw all of my work at my vice-captain, thus training him into a two-faced person. In front of people, he smiles; behind their backs, he beats them up. That was why he had such great acting skills. Even if his captain accidentally becomes the demon king, his captain still has a stand-in to use! Hahahahaha—
Cough cough! I almost forgot that I wasn’t the demon king at the moment. I was too used to lengthy laughter. Thankfully, I had been laughing to myself and had not laughed out loud. That would be a mess.
Judgment impatiently shouted, “Knight-Captain Sun, the Demon King has delivered his challenge. What is your response?”
I shouted, full of vigor, “Twelve Holy Knights, heed my command!”
“Yes!”
“Twelve Holy Knights of the Church of the God of Light, I declare here and now, that we will end. The. Demon. King!”
And so unveils the greatest fraud in history—
From then on, the demon king still had to be born after a certain time, but the demon king never again caused great harm to the world. The reason was because each kingdom’s royalty and their church had a secret that couldn’t be revealed, passed down through the generations…