According to Vermouth’s predictions, the deadline he had given Eugene would arrive within a year.
Eugene naturally had no intention of leaving things right until the end of that year. There was no definite time set for the deadline, as Vermouth’s prediction was solely based on how long he felt he would be able to endure. But, to put it simply, the Demon King of Destruction was expected to escape Vermouth’s suppression and wake up on its own within the year.
What would happen then? Would the Nur proliferate on a large scale like they had during the Age of Myth? Or would the Demon King of Destruction manifest directly and wipe away the world, just like he had during the last days of the previous era?
Eugene hoped that it would be the former. If the Demon King of Destruction manifested directly, there would be far too little time left for them to do anything to avert it. In the case of the former outcome, it might not be much, but it would at least buy them a little more time.
However, before all that, they still needed to climb up Babel in order to defeat the Demon King of Incarceration. If they wanted to reach their final goal of saving Vermouth and slaying the Demon King of Destruction, they first had to overcome the challenge of the Demon King of Incarceration.
Yet even with all that in mind, it was still impossible for them to simply rush to attack the Demon King of Incarceration. But the problem with waiting to make a plan was that Eugene had been in a coma for the past three months.
“A declaration of war…,” Eugene groaned as he held his throbbing head.
He had already heard the news from Anise.
A month ago, the Demon King of Incarceration had announced the start of the war.
If this were in the past, it would have been Gavid Lindman who had made the announcement in his role as the Archduke of Helmuth instead of the Demon King of Incarceration himself, but Gavid Lindman had already died at Eugene’s hand.That said, the Demon King of Incarceration still hadn’t appeared in person to make this announcement. Instead, the one who stepped forward to do so was the former Tower Master of the Black Tower of Magic, Balzac Ludbeth.
Amelia Merwin had already fallen into a state beyond any possibility of recovery, so of the Three Mages of Incarceration, Balzac was the only one left who was currently still alive and well. So when Balzac Ludbeth reappeared, it made sense that it would be as the emissary of the Demon King of Incarceration.
A month ago, all of the screens installed within Helmuth suddenly turned on by themselves and began broadcasting Balzac’s figure.
Balzac had informed the city’s residents that the Oath from three hundred years ago had finally expired. Soon, elite warriors from every nation on the continent would be invading Helmuth. As such, all of the demonfolk who wished to partake in this war would need to gather at Babel.
Helmuth had no intention of avoiding this war. Having betrayed the Demon King’s mercy, the ungrateful humans would soon be making their way to Pandemonium to challenge the climb up through Babel.
There, they would meet their deaths in Babel.
That was a basic summary of what Balzac had announced in his role as the emissary of the Demon King of Incarceration. The very first thing that was arranged after this declaration had been given was the mass evacuation of all non-demonfolk immigrants who had been living in Pandemonium.
‘Even though I thought that they would keep the humans as hostages,’ Eugene thought to himself in surprise.
Though on second thought, it didn’t seem all that unexpected, as the Demon King Of Incarceration wasn’t the type to use Helmuth’s immigrants as hostages.
Shortly after this extreme evacuation policy had been implemented, Pandemonium, as befitting of its name, had descended into a frenzy of war-lust. This was all thanks to the fact that the city was now solely occupied by savage demonfolk with cravings for war.
Then, a week before today, Pandemonium had begun to move towards the frontlines of Helmuth.
“After Helmuth declared a state of war, all nations across the continent immediately began entering their own war preparations,” Anise reported. “Each country began mustering its elite forces and mercenaries, then deployed them onto their border with Yuras, as this is the closest nation to Pandemonium. All of your Holy Knights also began gathering here, quickly arriving at the Holy See—”
“Hold on, just hold on for a second,” Eugene suddenly raised his hands to stop Anise from continuing to speak. He had been trying to listen patiently until the end of Anise’s explanation, but he couldn’t help but interrupt her, “There’s something that I don’t quite understand. Did you say that Pandemonium has moved towards the frontlines of Helmuth…? And that’s why the other nations have deployed their troops on Yuras’ borders?”
“That’s right,” Anise said as she nodded in confirmation.
“No… just what on earth does that even mean? How on earth… does a city like Pandemonium even move?” Eugene asked in confusion.
He just couldn’t understand what Anise meant by those words. The city of Pandemonium stood at the very heart of Helmuth.
In the first place, three hundred years ago, the Empire of Helmuth had been founded with Babel at its center and had then proceeded to spread outwards across the Red Plains that surrounded the castle. The current Pandemonium might be seen as such a highly developed city that no other capital city of any other nation could even compare to it, but three hundred years ago, all there was where the city now stood were the blood-red plains that the desperate armies of mankind had been forced to march across while risking death with every step they took.
“I meant it in a literal way,” Anise stated with a serious look on her face.
Anise knew that Eugene’s confusion at this news was something that couldn’t be helped. Even Anise herself, who was currently giving him this report, had had no choice but to react in a similar fashion a week ago after personally witnessing the sight of Pandemonium in motion.
“Rather than trying to explain it through words, it would be quicker for you to see it for yourself,” Anise said with a sigh as she walked over to the window.
When Eugene, who had been unconscious for nearly a hundred days, had first woken up, any overly bright sources of light would have been enough to damage his eyes. That was why Eugene’s room had been dimly lit with only faint sources of light for illumination.
However, it wasn’t like the room he was in was devoid of windows. Anise pulled back the thick curtains and, seeming to decide that alone wasn’t enough, she also pulled aside the screens that usually covered the windows.
“Aargh, the light is burning my eyes,” Eugene complained.
“If you lose your sight, then allow me to serve as your eyes,” Anise offered generously.
“No, you can just heal them, remember,” Eugene reminded her bluntly.
“To think that that would be your reaction to such romantic whispers,” Anise grumbled as she threw open the glass windows themselves.
The bright sunlight instantly illuminated the entire room.
Eugene’s eyes were stinging and sore from the light, but after blinking a few times, he soon got used to it. Looking at the angle of the sun, he realized that it was already noon.
Just as this thought went through his head, Eugene spotted something in the distance, “What is that?”
Eugene’s voice couldn’t help but tremble slightly. He walked over to the window on unsteady legs. Then he held onto the window frame with his hands as he stuck his head further out the window for a better look.
“Do you understand what I meant now?” Anise asked sympathetically.
The target of Eugene’s observation was at a considerable distance. They were in the Holy See, the center of the capital city of Yuras, so they were located quite far from the country’s border with Helmuth. However, even from this distance, that thing could still be seen as a faint dot in the sky.
But how could Eugene ever mistake its appearance, even from this distance? Three hundred years ago, he had repeatedly glared up at that very castle.
Eugene was carried back to the Battle of the Red Plains. He recalled the moment when they had raced across that battlefield to reach Babel. All the while, they had been clashing with the Black Fog that was commanded by Gavid. At that moment, as the ground was stained with the combined blood of the demonfolk and the death-sworn human army, the Red Plains had truly resembled their name.
When the battle was over, everyone had been left glaring up at the castle that loomed in front of them.
“Babel,” Eugene muttered its name darkly.
Babel was currently floating high in the sky. Its appearance was completely different from what it had been in Pandemonium. It was no longer shaped like a ninety-nine-storeys high-rise. Instead, its current appearance was what it had originally looked like three hundred years ago — a dark and gloomy-looking castle that seemed to be a literal representation of its role as the Demon King’s Castle.
Just like how, back in the Demon-Dragon Raizakia’s fief, the Dragon-Demon Castle had once floated aloft in the sky, Babel was flying high in the distant sky.
“A week ago, the Demon King of Incarceration moved the entire city of Pandemonium to its current location,” Anise said as she let out a deep sigh. “That’s… it was a sight that was hard to believe even when seeing it with the naked eye. Pandemonium literally flew through the sky until it arrived at its current location.”
“Where exactly is the city located now?” Eugene asked.
“It landed right in front of the Alcarte Parish,” Anise replied.
The parish was where the borders of Yuras and Helmuth met.
Anise further elaborated, “The only building that is currently left floating in the sky is Babel itself. The rest of Pandemonium was landed on the ground a week ago.”
Having been to Alcarte a few times before, Eugene was able to clearly visualize the place where Pandemonium now stood.
Located at the very northern end of Yuras, there was a city named Neran. After passing through the border gate located outside the city and traveling across the wide-open plain for several days, one would arrive at Alcarte, the entrance into the land of Helmuth. The place where Pandemonium had currently landed was within those plains on the border between Helmuth and Yuras.
“Crazy bastard,” Eugene muttered with a derisive snort.
Was the Demon King trying to save Eugene the trouble of having to walk across the whole of Helmuth to reach him? Or perhaps… did the Demon King intend to end the war personally by arriving at the frontlines of Helmuth like this? Either way, this definitely sounded like something that the Demon King of Incarceration would do.
In any case, if Eugene were to be defeated by the Demon King of Incarceration when they met in Babel, the Demon King would immediately launch an invasion of the continent, just like he had done three hundred years ago. That might have been another reason why the city of Pandemonium itself had been moved to the front lines.
“They may have made their declaration, but not all demonfolk have rallied to Pandemonium,” Anise admitted with another long sigh. “The younger demonfolk are completely uninterested in the idea of war. And even amongst the older demonfolk, there seem to be quite a few who are satisfied with their current lives and have no interest in going back to war.”
“But as time passes, the demonfolk’s numbers will only increase, don’t you think?” Eugene growled out as he kept glaring at Babel in the distance.
Since war hadn’t fully broken out just yet, it didn’t seem like the demonfolk felt any pressing need to head directly to the battlefield. However, the bloodlust of the demonfolk was a core part of their very nature. As time passed, the number of demonfolk gathering in Pandemonium would surely increase.
Anise responded, “Even if that is truly the case, we still have the edge when it comes to numbers. After all, the birth rate of pure-blooded demonfolk is pretty low.”
Helmuth might be the largest and most powerful empire on the continent, but compared to its vast territory, the proportion of the population who were pure-blooded demonfolk wasn’t all that high. This was because most demonfolk had a lifespan that was too long and a very vague attachment to the concept of a relationship between parents and children. By this point, the number of human immigrants residing in Helmuth had far surpassed the number of demonfolk.
Of course, no matter how small the number of pure-blooded demonfolk was, when one took into consideration the difference in strength between the demonfolk and humans, Helmuth’s military power wasn’t at a level that could be easily ignored. Even if the elite forces from every country on the continent were to gather here, they still wouldn't possess all that large of an advantage in a contest of strength with Helmuth.
In fact, the biggest problem was still the Demon King of Incarceration. No matter how many allied troops there were or how small Helmuth’s military forces were, all of that was meaningless compared to the power of the Demon King of Incarceration. Simply put, the outcome of this war fully depended on when the Demon King of Incarceration would be defeated. The longer this war went on, the more demonfolk would be drawn to Pandemonium from all across Helmuth. Even the demonfolk who held no desire to involve themselves in the war would be drawn to the battlefield by the scent of blood and forced to succumb to their instincts.
“So it’s lucky that he brought the frontline right to us,” Eugene muttered as he closed the windows.
If Pandemonium and Babel had stayed right where they were, it would have been a pain in the ass just getting there. After all, it would have been impossible to use the warp-gates between countries while everyone was on a war footing.
“By the way,” Eugene said as he frowned while turning towards Anise, “did you just say that bastard Balzac appeared in front of everyone as the Demon King of Incarceration’s emissary?”
“That’s right,” Anise confirmed.
Eugene’s frown deepened. “Why would he do that?”
“How would I know?” Anise said with a shrug. “I presume that he just took up the vacant position of the Staff of Incarceration.”
“But at this point in time?” Eugene questioned in disbelief.
“Wasn’t it you, Hamel, who said that we shouldn’t consider such a suspicious black wizard to be our ally?” Anise pointed out.
“That might be true, but I never suspected that he would actually attach himself to the Demon King of Incarceration,” Eugene sighed.
In all the battles that Balzac had involved himself in thus far, he had served as Eugene’s ally on every occasion. Although he had never seemed all that trustworthy, Balzac had never once actually attempted to betray them.
This had even led Eugene to ponder a certain possibility. What if Balzac was actually planning to betray the Demon King of Incarceration? However, in the end, things still turned out like this.
“Well, he’s not really in a position where he could betray the Demon King, even if he wanted to,” Eugene muttered to himself.
In Samar and Nahama, Balzac had made himself the enemy of the previous Staffs of Incarceration. But, for some reason, the Demon King of Incarceration himself hadn’t seen fit to lay down any punishment on Balzac for doing so.
Despite all that, in the end, Balzac was still a black wizard who was bound by a contract to the Demon King of Incarceration. If his contracted partner had been just another low-level demonfolk, then it might have been possible for the black wizard to use his wits to usurp control of the contract, but such tactics would never work against a Demon King. As such, this meant that Balzac would never be able to betray the Demon King of Incarceration.
‘That said, to think that he would actually end up acting as the emissary of the Demon King of Incarceration,’ Eugene shook his head.
Both Gavid and Noir had already perished. The other two members of Incarceration's Three Mages had also fallen. As a result, Balzac naturally became the sole subordinate of any significance to the Demon King of Incarceration.
‘Was that his goal all along?’ Eugene thought suspiciously.
Considering that Balzac had helped to defeat the other two black wizards contracted to the Demon King, such a possibility wasn’t entirely unlikely, but… from what Eugene had seen of Balzac, the wizard didn’t seem to possess any ambitions for things such as power. That said, Balzac also didn’t seem to desire the outbreak of a war like the other high-ranking black wizards and demonfolk of Helmuth had.
Balzac’s true pursuit was the fulfillment of his lifelong dream. He wanted to become a legendary wizard, someone whose name would go down in history.
“There’s no way he could be planning on becoming a legendary wizard by killing either me or Sienna, right?” Eugene questioned doubtfully.
If that was the case, then Balzac was truly a fool. Eugene sincerely believed this proposition. No matter what techniques Balzac might use, it was impossible for him to inflict any serious harm on either Eugene or Sienna.
Then, just what kind of scheme could he really be up to?
Eugene didn’t have any clue as to what kind of plan Balzac might be brewing up, but if they did encounter Balzac as they climbed up Babel, and if Balzac truly did choose to stand in their way as an enemy, then….
Eugene would destroy him without any hesitation.
Sienna would also do the same. Whether they met Balzac in Babel or on another battlefield, if he truly did turn out to be their enemy, they would definitely take his life and thus crush his dream of wanting to become a legendary wizard into nothingness.
“But where is Sienna?” Eugene suddenly asked.
Anise glanced at a clock, “At this time, she should be instructing the Divine Army’s magic corps.”
“That’s…,” Eugene hesitated, “there’s something that I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while now, but I got distracted. And I really am just asking because I truly don’t know the answer, but why exactly are we calling it my Divine Army?”
“It’s only natural, Hamel,” Anise said with a smile. “After all, you’re the one who will be leading this army as its Commander in Chief.”
Eugene’s eyes fluttered in shock as he was met with this calm response.
Anise shook her head slowly as she said, “Hamel, haven’t you realized yet? You are the God Emperor of the Holy Empire of Yuras, the Speaker for the Allied Powers, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Divine Army.”
“And who went and decided all that?” Eugene protested.
“It was agreed upon by the leaders of all the Allied Powers. And who asked you to go and put yourself in an unresponsive state for three whole months?” Anise scoffed.
“It’s not like I was unconscious because I wanted to be—!” Eugene erupted before asking with a frown, “Also, what was that about a God Emperor?”
“Yuras is a theocracy that worships the Light, and the Pope is, at its core, the leader of the church. Meanwhile you, Hamel, are the one who was chosen by the Light and entrusted with its divinity. So isn’t it only right for him to concede the rulership of Yuras to you?” Anise asked as if she was only stating the obvious.
Eugene was left speechless.
Anise continued, “Since you’ve already taken up the Godhood of the Light, what’s so difficult about becoming Yuras’ God Emperor as well?”
“I… I already told you that I didn’t want to become some sort of king—!” Eugene protested weakly.
“Don’t worry about that. You’ll only be an emperor in name. The Pope will continue to handle all of the government affairs as he had done up to this point. And even though you are the Speaker for the Allied Forces and the Commander-in-Chief of the Divine Army, no one actually expects you to manage either the alliance or the Divine Army,” Anise revealed with a snort.
Although Eugene himself had said that he didn’t want to do it, after hearing her say something like that, he couldn’t help but feel a little offended.
“Why not?” Eugene demanded in a hurt tone. “I might have some unrevealed talent for kingship that even I don’t know about.”
“No way, Hamel, are you seriously saying that? I can also admit that you do possess some charisma to a certain extent, but to tell the truth, you really don’t have the talent to be a king,” Anise shook her head sadly.
Eugene silently scowled.
“To think that you, someone who always goes running off on your own at the drop of a hat, without any heed for your protection, and who also charges headfirst into battle, would actually believe that you could be a king!” Anise gasped in shock. “It’s terrifying just trying to imagine it. Hamel, if you were to become a king, all of the knights and your other subjects would soon become mentally ill from the stress of your leadership.”
Eugene still couldn’t find a way to deny those words, but after hearing Anise voice such skepticism, each word felt like it was impaling him in the heart.
“A king just needs to be brave enough,” Eugene muttered petulantly.
Anise sighed, “Now you’re even saying something that only Molon would say.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a bit too harsh?” Eugene protested once more.
“Then allow me to correct myself,” Anise sniffed coldly. “What you said just now was very rude to Molon. After all, Molon at least managed to found his own country and run it smoothly.”
Eugene couldn’t see any way to refute her, so he could only clutch his chest in pain. With a faint hope, he turned to look at Mer and Raimira for help. However, the two of them couldn’t think of any way to defend Eugene either, so they kept their lips shut and avoided his gaze.
Although Eugene had naturally expected a turncoat like Mer to react like this, to think that Raimira, who had always taken his side no matter the issue, would also choose to avoid his gaze…! Eugene’s clenched fists trembled in grief and anger.
“Hey!” a voice suddenly shouted as the window that had only recently been closed burst open.
The person who popped her head into the room through the now-open window was Sienna, who was currently supposed to be instructing the magic corps.
Sienna looked at Eugene with tear-filled eyes and stammered, “Y-you…! You’ve finally woken up—”
But before she could fully share her tear-filled joy at his revival, Eugene preempted her by asking, “Hey, between Molon and me, who do you think would be a better king?”
“What?” a stunned Sienna replied.
Eugene repeated himself, “Between Molon and me, who would be a better—”
Sienna angrily cut him off, “You, having finally woken up after three whole months, do you really think those are the words you should be saying to me right now?”
She didn’t know what conversation they had been having that caused him to ask her that question, but one thing was for certain: this wasn’t the time and place for Eugene to say such a thing.
“Um…,” Eugene panicked as he watched the rage flooding Sienna’s tear-filled eyes. After hesitating for a few more seconds, he greeted her with an awkward smile, “...Hello?”
Bam!
Sienna’s fist slammed into Eugene’s cheek.
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