Chapter 9 - Regret Cannot Be Undone
In Tia's office, chaos reigned after Yuru's departure.
The wallpaper was violently torn from repeated attempts to cast spells, and shattered ornaments littered the floor.
Tia sat motionless in her chair, her long hair draped around her.
The office assistant, who had been cowering in terror from Yuru's outburst, slowly got to his feet, trembling.
He cautiously approached Tia.
"Your... Your Majesty."
"..."
"Are you alright?"
At his question, Tia lifted her head.
Her eyes were dull, devoid of light.
The assistant swallowed hard, speechless at her gaze.
After a moment of silence, Tia spoke.
"...Send a carrier pigeon to the Holy Empire of Kratia."
"Pardon?"
"Inform them that Yuru is targeting their Crown Prince."
"Your... Your Majesty!" the assistant cried out in alarm.
"If we do that, the entire Holy State Alliance will declare Lady Yuru an enemy!"
"Lady?"
Tia retorted, her gaze chilling.
The assistant flinched, holding his breath.
"I... I..."
"If Yuru causes trouble while we remain passive, the situation will become incredibly complicated."
It hadn't been long since the Hero was executed.
If Yuru were to attack Kratia, the leader of the Holy State Alliance, then the entire Hero's party could be wrongly implicated as accomplices.
"We must draw a line," Tia stated clearly.
"Unless we all wish to die."
"..."
The assistant stood frozen, unable to respond.
Tia commanded him again. "Send the carrier pigeon."
He could no longer defy her orders.
As she said, if the Archmage Yuru attacked Kratia now, the situation would spiral out of control.
It was only logical to inform Kratia of the situation in advance, to prepare for any potential issues.
The assistant clenched his eyes shut, accepting the grim reality.
Damn it.
Rationally, Tia's words were correct.
But Yuru was one of the individuals who had defeated the Demon King.
Even with the rapidly changing political landscape, handing her over to the Holy State Alliance felt deeply wrong.
"...Yes."
Despite his reservations, the assistant's words were predetermined.
The Hero's Party, once hailed as humanity's champions, praised by all, no longer existed.
The Hero himself had already been branded as evil and vanished from this world.
All that remained were fragments of their fallen honor.
Although it still felt like a lie that the Hero was the Demon King's spy, it was no longer relevant.
The assistant bowed to Tia and then turned to leave.
As he walked out of the office, he heard Tia's voice instructing a bewildered maid to clean up the mess.
'She's changed so much.'
Tia was no longer the woman she once was.
Her current neurotic state had begun when the Hero was accused of being the Demon King's spy.
'Perhaps it couldn't be helped.'
In such circumstances, it would have been stranger if she had remained sane.
The assistant decided to focus solely on the task at hand.
He wrote the message for Kratia, then traveled far from the castle to send it off with a carrier pigeon.
Thwack!
Suddenly, something struck the carrier pigeon, sending it plummeting to the ground.
"What...?"
The assistant rushed over, startled, to where the pigeon fell.
"This is...!"
It was an ice wedge.
More precisely, a clearly magical construct that had pierced the carrier pigeon's body.
Gulp.
The assistant swallowed hard, then slowly turned his head.
Rustle.
Someone was walking through the bushes near where the pigeon had fallen.
The assistant strained to identify the figure, obscured by the shadows of the trees.
"It's me."
But there was no need to strain.
The figure soon revealed herself, stepping out of the shadows.
"Lady Yuru...?"
"Tia must have told you to send a carrier pigeon."
At her words, the assistant's face showed his panic.
"Th-That is..."
"It's alright. I expected it."
Unlike him, she remained utterly calm.
"Considering what Tia did, this is mild."
"L-Lady Yuru?"
"I'm afraid you won't be able to deliver the news to Kratia just yet."
Crackling!
A sudden sound made the assistant turn his head in alarm.
"H-Haaaaaah!"
His body was freezing from the feet up.
"La-Lady Yuru!"
"I won't kill you. I know it was Tia who ordered you."
Crackle, crackle!
By now, the assistant's upper body was frozen.
He cried out in terror.
"La-Lady Yuru! Please don't do this! I..."
"Didn't I say I knew?"
Yuru stared at him with an expressionless face as he froze.
"Still, trying to hand me over to Kratia is a bit much."
"..."
The assistant couldn't reply.
Only his right eye remained unfrozen, its trembling pupil watching her piteously.
"Swiftness."
Zing.
Her feet imbued with a power that rapidly cut through the ground.
"Acceleration."
She didn't stop there, strengthening that power once more.
"High Speed."
One more time.
"...Supersonic."
Kiiiiiii!
Simply by standing, the ground where her feet rested began to crack.
She had lightened her body and enhanced her breakthrough power purely to achieve extreme speed.
Her bones were made harder than steel girders, capable of breaking through anything.
[Body Focused Enhancement.]
Casting multiple enhancement spells on her own body would cause an immense burden.
But that wasn't important to her.
CRASH!
Even if her body shattered, she had to atone for this unbearable regret, this mistake.
With that resolve, her foot pressed down on the ground.
KABOOOOM!
Her figure was already gone.
The lingering sound, a sonic boom, tore through the air moments later.
And so, the Archmage of the Blue Magic Tower departed for the Kratia Imperial Palace.
"...Ugh."
Where she had been, the assistant, stripped of his bodily freedom, witnessed the scene alone, only his fear-filled eyes darting about.
***
Meanwhile, in Barungenia, the Fourth Demon King's Castle, Clay walked silently down a vast and somber corridor, still processing Beatrice's shocking offer.
-If you wish, you may freely use the legacy left by the Pitch-Black.
Beatrice had suggested something outrageous to him.
-To avoid regretting, you must carelessly commit the most regrettable acts.
She had spoken of the Demon King's position.
-The choice is yours, Clay.
Her words had ended there.
She didn't force him.
The choice was his.
'Demon King.'
Clay muttered the name, then let out a hollow laugh.
"Am I to follow the same path as you?"
He only knew of the Demon King's life through what he'd been told.
He couldn't know the emotions with which the Demon King had walked that path.
Yet, he suspected their paths might not be so different.
"..."
If so, would he repeat the same mistakes the Demon King had made?
Hero Clay.
His former title still constrained his heart.
Squish.
Just then.
Something squished under his foot, and Clay looked down.
-Gloop, gloop.
Seeing a green, liquid-like blob wriggling and struggling, Clay instinctively lifted his foot.
Boing, boing.
The creature, quickly regaining its shape where it had been stepped on and bouncing up and down, was a slime, a low-level magical beast.
"A slime?"
Slimes were weak magical beasts, posing little threat to humans.
'Why is something like this in the Demon King's Castle...?'
He wondered if it was left to dispose of waste, being an omnivorous magical beast, but it seemed to be moving too freely within the castle.
Indeed, after a few bounces, the slime began to move down the corridor as if it had been on its way somewhere.
Unconsciously, Clay followed it.
The corridor had numerous doors, all identical, with no markings, making it hard to guess what rooms they led to.
Click.
Just as Clay wondered how far it would go, the slime stopped in front of a door, stretched its body to grab the doorknob, and pulled it open.
Leaving Clay behind, still perplexed by the peculiar sight, the slime entered the open room.
Clay slowly moved forward, eventually peering into the opened room.
"...Ah."
Inside was a laboratory.
Clay gasped involuntarily when he saw countless glass bottles of various shapes, mysterious chemicals, and a young woman with a demonic appearance sitting in a white lab coat.
"How rude, for a first greeting."
The woman, even as she intently stared at a glass bottle in front of her, seemed to notice Clay's presence and spoke.
"You must have heard nothing about me, have you?"
She slowly turned towards Clay and stood up.
"Pleased to meet you, poor Hero, bound by countless restrictions."
Then, without touching it, she lifted a bottle containing a swirling mixture and bluntly told the still unprepared Clay,
"From now on, remember this well. I am the woman who can make you the Demon King."
She introduced herself with an absurd claim.