The Daughter of Evil - Volume 4 - Chapter 3.13

chapter 3, section 1-the inside story on the girl; scene 3
Praefacio of Blue, page 149-160

✥ Kyle Marlon ~The Country of Marlon, “Freezis Estate/Guest Room”~

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–Good grief, it had been one surprise after another lately.

The world I had believed in and the world as it really was were entirely different in form. Discoveries and new truths like that which an adventurer who had crossed the sea for the first time would experience were assailing me one by one.

People I had thought alive were dead, people I had thought dead were alive…

And now there was the witch leisurely sipping tea before me.

“Good day your Majesty~ It’s me, Elluka~”

The pink-haired sorceress waved at me.

.

Contrary to before, I had headed out for Keel’s mansion today. Though it had led to him grumbling at me, saying “If you were able to come here after all you should have come sooner”.

My goal was to speak with Germaine and Gumillia regarding the dead soldiers, and to seek their assistance, if possible.

“An active king as ever, aren’t you? You have so many underlings, you should have left it to them.”

I could tell by her tone that Germaine was surprised.

“But it would be much quicker and easier for me to do it, knowing you all like I do, wouldn’t it?”

It seemed that Germaine was able to understand it from that point of view.

When I asked where Gumillia was, as I hadn’t seen her anywhere, this seemed to prompt Germaine to remember something.

“That’s right. Maybe you ought to see her first.”

She told me Gumillia was in a guest room. When I entered the room after Germaine led me to it, waiting in there for me was Gumillia, and Elluka, who I had thought missing.

I heard the circumstances from the two of them, and was able to grasp the gist of the situation. It was like something out of a world beyond my own basic knowledge, but I couldn’t be surprised by that sort of thing anymore.

“You’re saying Abyss had taken over your body…” I took a sip of the tea that had been poured into my cup. I preferred having a good helping of milk stirred into such strong tea. “Anyway, I’m glad you’ve returned to your original form.”

Elluka turned my way, as though displeased with my words. “Well aren’t you shameless. Harshly chasing people around like witches and everything.”

“What happened back then was inevitable. You’re the ones who made the mistake of invading the palace without permission.”

“That place was our home. What’s wrong with us going in on our own initiative?”

“Our home”–I figured such a way of putting it was appropriate for a former member of the Three Heroes.

Ever since I was young I had heard many stories from my mother, a Lucifenian native, about the heroic feats done by King Arth I of Lucifenia and his three underlings.

Loving magic, my mother had enthusiastically told me of Elluka in particular.

She told me about the time when Elluka had stood in Arth I’s way as an assassin from the Beelzenian Emprire, the time that she defected to Lucifenia solely because she was annoyed with the courtship of the then-current Beelzenian Emperor, the time she dueled her former ally Gast, and the time she’d taught my mother some simple spells when she was young…

To me, when I was little, Elluka was like a character in a story. I could never have imagined that I would fight with her, or end up drinking tea with her in the same room like this.

“Well, it’s already long past. That’s water under the bridge now, isn’t it?”

I couldn’t bring myself to apologize sincerely. They’d put me through the wringer back then, too.

“Don’t feel like saying you’re sorry, huh?…That must be why Gumillia dislikes you so much.”

When it came to Gumillia, she hadn’t looked my way once since I’d entered the room.

I told the two of them and Germaine about the situation in Marlon’s northern region. About how dead soldiers had started appearing, how my mother and possibly Ney were in Castle Hedgehog, how I was soon going to head to Castle Hedgehog with soldiers in tow–that sort of thing. I held back from telling them that Ney was my little sister.

And I asked for their aid in suppressing the dead soldiers.

“No way.”

Elluka replied faster than anyone.

“Frankly I’m completely worn out from the duel with Abyss. Gumillia and I will have a hard time using magic until at least the next full moon.”

“Well then we could wait until then–”

“…If you attack on the next full moon, your enemies will assault you with a great deal of power too. You might not lose, but you’d better be prepared to face pretty heavily casualties on your side.”

According to Elluka, ideally it would be best to go much later than the full moon, in the period between the last quarter of the moon’s cycle and the new moon. On that day, her and Gumillia’s magical power will have been restored, and the dead soldiers’ power will have weakened. And that period of time would be–

“You should wait about one month from today.”

“–! We can’t just wait that long!”

The destruction wrought by the dead soldiers after a whole month would probably be enormous. And in the event that my mother was not involved with their summoning, she’d be put at risk too.

It was unfortunate, but I had no choice but to give up on Elluka and Gumillia’s help. In that case–

“How is their power right now?”

Elluka quietly replied, “…Right now is close to the new moon. It’s when magical power is at its lowest.”

In that case this was our chance, wasn’t it? I had heard that those soldiers in Beelzenia had stamped out the dead soldiers with just their own power as well. The amount of dead soldiers that had broken out in Marlon was less than that of Beelzenia. If we launched an assault on all of them at once the resulting casualties would likely be minimal.

“Germaine, what about you?”

I pressed Germaine for a reply, her sitting quietly with her arms crossed during my conversation with Elluka.

“I have no obligation to join in. It’s another country’s trouble, after all.”

It was a reasonable answer. But I decided to persevere a little bit more. I would be much more reassured to have her on my side.

“That’s quite cold of you, for being the hero of the revolution.”

“I’m not really someone who’s fighting for world peace.”

I tried to tell her that I would have adequate compensation set up, but that didn’t have much effect on her either.

“I don’t have that much interest in money; I’m not a mercenary.”

“Well then what do you want? I’ll give you anything you demand, within reason.”

Germaine thought for a moment, hand on her chin, but finally came up with, “If you promise that Marlon will withdraw from Lucifenia, I’ll think about it.”

“All the same…that sort of thing isn’t entirely up to me.”

“That’s fine talk from someone who annexed Lucifenia all on his own judgment.”

As far as I was concerned, ever since being released from the demon I had started to lose all interest in any more military expansion.

If the Lucifenian government that the other countries viewed as being unlawfully stationed were to henceforth withdraw from the region, then there would be no reason for any further conflict, and tranquility would return to Evillious.

But the annexation of Lucifenia that Germaine called “all on my own judgment” in actuality only went as well as it had due to the support of the nobles and the merchant’s trade association. Conversely, their existence was a big wall against withdrawing from Lucifenia.

It would not be a simple thing by any means.

“Well…Even if it’ll be difficult to withdraw right away, as long as you start moving towards that, that’s enough for me,” Germaine offered as compromise, as though unable to just sit and watch me as I was deep in thought

“…Alright. I’ll focus my energies on it.”

“O.K. Then that concludes the negotiation. Well then, I think I might go train for the decisive battle!”

With a satisfied expression on her face, Germaine somehow dashed out of the room via the window. I supposed that was the fastest route outside.

Honestly, what an uncouth girl as always.

But then, that in itself was one of her strong points.

I put my empty teacup on the desk.

“You have my gratitude for the advice. We’ll manage somehow after this. You two just rest up here,” I said, moving to leave the room–and there I was unexpectedly stopped by Gumillia.

“You’re going? To that…place, called Castle Hedgehog.”

“…Yes.”

“When?”

“I plan to leave Bariti within two or three days.”

“In that case, until then, collect all the soldier’s weapons, and bring them here. It is only a slight comfort, but I will lend you my power.”

It was an unexpected proposal. I went up to Gumillia and held her hands in mine.

“I’m glad, thank you. And…I’m sorry, about everything.”

Gumillia’s cheeks seemed to grow the slightest bit red.

At that moment, Elluka came in between us.

“Hold on~ I wish you wouldn’t keep the conversation going while ignoring your mentor~”

Gumillia looked fixedly at Elluka.

“Elluka. Don’t we, have a reason, that we must, aid Kyle?”

“What are you talking about!?”

“The ‘Glass of Conchita’.”

“…Oh, I’d forgotten all about that.”

Elluka poured more tea into the cup she was holding and sat back down in her chair.

“We have to ask Prim about the demon of the Venom Sword too, don’t we?”

“And, there’s this too.”

Gumillia pulled out two hand mirrors. One she had already had on her. The other was one that I had owned until recently.

Elluka nodded.

“True. There are probably more mirrors like these. Until we’ve sealed all of them the demon of 'Pride’ will probably resurrect itself again. Just like the demon of 'Gluttony'…Ah~ How do you like that? We have to help after all!” Elluka leaned back in her chair and looked to the sky. In that pose, she said to me, “Alright. We’ll join you. Though Gumillia and I won’t be of much use.”

“…Thank you.”

“…Not to mention it was me who taught Prim magic in the first place.”

I bowed to the both of them once more, and then opened the door to the room.

“Auuugh!”

Yukina suddenly launched against my chest. Apparently she had been eavesdropping on everything from the other side of the door.

She opened her mouth and blurted out, “P-please take me with you to Castle Hedgehog!”

That was exactly what I would expect her to say. Considering her personality I had figured as much. But it was for that reason that I couldn’t allow her to come with us.

I put my hands on both her shoulders.

“Yukina, you need to watch the place while we’re gone. I can’t let you get wrapped up in danger anymore.”

But she didn’t seem to accept that.

“B-but, I could serve some u–”

“No. You’re a normal person, after all. And we’re up against beings that aren’t even human, who we don’t know what they’re capable of.”

“If you mean the dead soldiers, I saw those in Beelzenia!”

Yukina strengthened her tone of voice. She glared at me with what was likely as grim an expression as she could manage.

“You can make that face at me all you want, it’s not going to happen. I admire your curiosity, but from here on out–”

“It’s not because I’m curious!” Yukina cried, eyes filling with tears. “I couldn’t do anything to help that time with you, or that time when Gumillia fought with Abyss…. I knew that everyone was hurting, and suffering, but…I trembled so badly I couldn’t move…I’m so mortified…”

Her body was trembling even now.

Somehow I had been convinced that Yukina was a child who had strong will beyond her years. But in truth, that was because she had the courage to always put herself forward for going to dangerous places.

But that wasn’t strength.

She was always trying not to face her own weakness.

She was just hiding it.

Absolutely not, Yukina. That’s not enough.

If you didn’t face your weaknesses and accept them, you would just be destroyed.

Like I had been just a short time ago.

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Even I didn’t know why I did so, but before I knew it I had both arms around Yukina’s small body.

“Yukina…I know how you feel. But you can’t handle a sword swiftly like Germaine. You can’t wield powerful magic like Gumillia. So I can’t take you with me.”

Yukina looked a little surprised, but leaned into me without really resisting.

“But that’s nothing to be ashamed of. You don’t need to feel like you owe us anything. There are things that only you can do, Yukina. Isn’t that so?”

“Things that…only I can do?”

“Indeed. What you’ve done up until now, and what you’ll do after today. You can take all of the many events you’ve experienced and convey them to everyone by writing stories about them. I know that the novels that you’ve written will be a guide to many people.”

Yukina had stopped trembling at that.

“…I understand. I’ll wait for everyone to return. But, you absolutely must come home safely. Because when everything’s over, you have to tell me what happens in Castle Hedgehog!”

“Ah, I got it. It’s a promise.”

At that point, I heard a man’s voice from behind.

“Get home safely? …That might be difficult.”

At my back I could sense a thirst for blood so strong it made me cower.

I timidly turned around.

“Because you’re going to die right here, right now! Kyle!”

There Keel stood, standing with the fury of an ogre.

I hurriedly let go of Yukina, but it was too late.

“What are you doing to Yukina, you bastard!?”