Volume 6, Chapter The Tenth Week of Annihilating an Undying Lich: “Demon King”

Kiyutsuna

“After you went missing, we searched everywhere for you and also sent someone to alert the king. He immediately gave the evacuation order. The next month was like hell. While we were busy searching for you, we also had to evacuate the entirety of Leaf Bud City.”

“Also, we had to take care of the matter with Charlotte and Stephen. We had no evidence at all to accuse the two of them of being the Demon King and a lich. Silent Eagle was also skeptical about the claim.”

“The Pope said there were traces of spatial overlap in Stephen’s room, not that we understood what a spatial overlap was… Anyway, the point is he said he had a way to find you!”

“However we were worried that citizens might get injured in a head-on clash, so we waited until the evacuation was finished to make our move. The plan was for the Pope to get you out while we stalled Charlotte and Stephen. But they found out halfway through and snatched you back, so we ended up fighting in the plaza.”

The Twelve Holy Knights sat in the meeting room. Everyone was talking over each other to report the happenings of the past month.

I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that a whole month had already passed. I had practically only closed and then opened my eyes, and in the end, not only was a whole month gone, so much had happened too.

Leaf said with a smile, “Thank goodness for Knight-Captain Hell’s presence. That dark magic of Charlotte’s was truly frighteningly powerful. If Hell hadn’t been present, there was no way we could have stalled them.”

I turned to face Roland. The latter was at a bit of a loss about what to do, and he frantically said, “It was nothing. It was all thanks to everyone working together.”

Seeing him in a fluster was truly quite funny. Despite his embarrassment, he could not help the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth. It looks like Roland should be quite happy being the Hell Knight…

Sun, good job!

I was startled but immediately realized this was probably Pink using psychic magic to communicate with me.

However, you probably don’t want to be the Demon King, right? Hehe, I have a way to let you not be the Demon King yet not have to die! Are you surprised? If you don’t want to be the Demon King, come and find me!

I knew it! I rolled my eyes. That wretch Pink, she was clearly watching the excitement from the sidelines and taking advantage of the situation. Without an ounce of effort, her demon king candidate could actually become the Demon King. It was so easy that it was ridiculous!

I locked onto Pink’s location, and then responded.

Isn’t it too dangerous for me to go find you by myself? If your candidate wants to kill me later, I can’t win against the both of you alone.

Hmph! If I wanted to kill you, you would have died a hundred times already.

She was right. If Pink had wanted to kill me, she definitely had many opportunities to do so.

Bring Roland along, then. It should be enough to have a death lord with you, right? But you can’t bring anyone other than that. I’m worried that you’ll kill my candidate too!

All right.

Then come here! Oh, right, remember to bring my strawberry shaved ice.

Just after I finished my negotiations with Pink, I regained awareness of my surroundings to find everyone staring at me.. I quickly explained to everyone, “Just now, I was communicating with the last lich using psychic magic. We have come to an agreement. She knows how to let the other candidate become the Demon King without taking my life. So right now I have to pay her a visit to take care of things once and for all.”

“Is it Pink?” Judgment frowned as he said, “Are you sure she’s not lying to you? Is there really such a method?”

I nodded, saying, “I’ve confirmed it with Stephen. There really is a method. Pink also understands me well and knows that I don’t want to be the Demon King. Since I’m already willing to give up the demon king position to her candidate, she should have no reason to clash with me.”

Judgment was still worried and said, “I’m coming with you.”

I replied, somewhat reluctantly, “Pink said I’m only allowed to take Roland along, in case I wanted to kill her candidate.”

Roland then added, “Pink won’t cause trouble. She has helped us many times before.”

Judgment thought for a bit, and then gave a nod as he said, “Then you two be careful.”

I stood up, told Ice that I was going to his room to pick up the strawberry syrup, and then called for Roland. The two of us went to leave the meeting room together. Before leaving, I turned and said, “When I come back later, this Demon King case will be completely resolved. In order to save time and let the citizens of Leaf Bud City return home sooner, everyone, remember to continue the meeting and finish discussing all the follow-up work. No need to wait for me to return before discussing it!”

One after another, everyone rolled their eyes at me.

“Don’t try to make excuses for being lazy and wanting to skip the meeting!” Earth snapped, “Also, when have we ever waited for you before starting a meeting? By the time you arrive, we’d already be finished with the meeting! Hurry and scram now!”

Roland and I arrived at the doll shop. There wasn’t a single person inside the shop. Even the beastmen had vanished without a trace. Then again, this was to be expected. If there were still people in here after the whole city had been emptied, it might attract attention from the royal knights or the holy knights.

As we entered the backroom together, we were greeted by the sight of Pink perched on her chair, seated in the same manner of having her small knickers exposed to the open air. She went straight to the point and asked, “My shaved ice?”

Annoyed, I chucked the whole bag of strawberry shaved ice at her. She immediately took one out and began to scarf it down.

“Where’s your candidate?” I was put off by the fact that I saw no one else besides Pink and said, “Is there really a need to be so mysterious? You should know that I only want to be the Sun Knight, and that I have absolutely no interest in fighting over the demon king position with your candidate, right?”

“I know that!” Pink ate several mouthfuls of shaved ice before shrugging and saying, “But the Cathedral of the Shadow God definitely won’t let my candidate become the Demon King.”

What… Guh! A stab of pain shot through my shoulder. Out of reflex, I dropped down and rolled away to reduce the damage to a minimum.

Somebody stabbed me from behind? But Roland is standing behind me. He couldn’t have been defeated already? I snapped my head up, only to see Roland with his sword raised. From the sword, blood dripped nonstop. The blood even carried holy element. It’s my blood!

Lost as to what was going on, my only thought was to protect myself first by casting the Shield of Earth, but…

Pink giggled as she said, “You cannot gather elements here.”

This phrase sure sounds familiar, and I’m afraid the reason why is the same. In here, only demon king candidates can gather dark element!

I immediately reached up to take off the Eternal Tranquility, but I could not remove the necklace from my neck because it was secured there by black threads. Furthermore, those black threads were actually emerging from underneath my shirt, but the only thing there was…

“Dragon’s Saint Brigandine had been slightly modified by me!” Pink mentioned nonchalantly, “It does recognize you as its master, but while in this room, it’ll only listen to me!”

On the front of my chest, there now grew many thread-like substances from the surface of the dragon-shaped insignia. They stretched all the way to my neck and secured Eternal Tranquility tightly there. Even though these thread-like substances felt just like the bodysuit fabric, I was unable to tear them off no matter what I did.

I could only give up on this pointless endeavor and cautiously turn my attention to Roland and Pink. I asked, “Roland, just what are you doing? Were you the one who stabbed me?”

“Sun, you’re really stupid when it comes to certain matters!” Pink smiled as she said, “Do you really not understand, or are you purposely refusing to understand?”

Roland being accidentally turned into a death knight…

The incredibly complicated process detailed in A Complete Guide to Necromancy Spells for making death knights…

The day I lost my memories when I ordered Adair to dispatch someone to trail Roland…

The ‘concern’ Pink had to take care of in Leaf Bud City…

Bitterly, I opened my mouth and asked, “Roland is the last demon king candidate? What exactly happened on that day I lost my memories?”

Pink shrugged and said, “Scarlet somehow managed to break through the seal that the Pope and Neo made together with the Divine Sun Sword. She not only found you but also told you the truth. In the end, you were so angry that you tried to ambush me using the Divine Sun Sword. However, I had always had a magic circle that prevents elemental gathering cast on my house, so you got thrashed by me instead.

“I originally wanted to kill you then, but to save you, Scarlet forcefully broke my magic circle from the outside and sent you away with teleportation. However, in doing so she took heavy damage. Not only did her new body get destroyed, even her soul was affected.

“Thankfully, I managed to use psychic magic to seal your memories in the moment before you were teleported away. But that dealt me a lot of damage too! If you had not fainted and dropped the Divine Sun Sword from your hands, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do it.”

I stared at her but did not know what to say. Pink still looked like the same old Pink, but I was struck with the sudden realization that, perhaps I had never truly understood her these past ten years!

Pink sighed, and then said, “Such a shame! Sun, I actually truly like you a lot, really I do! Compared to the dense Roland, your personality is much more interesting. It’s only too bad that my child is Roland and not you. For his sake, I can only ask you to die.”

Just then, Roland suddenly rushed forward, followed closely by a slash of his sword. I could not even see his movements, never mind trying to dodge them. I felt a chilling breeze on my neck and quickly took a few steps back. When I touched my neck, I felt a patch of moist wetness.

I immediately pressed onto my neck tightly, but the blood continued to flow with no hope of stopping. This wound added to the previous one on my shoulder was causing major blood loss. I began to feel dizzy; then my legs gave out and my entire body collapsed to the ground.

“Why? I agreed to give up the position… Could it be that that method doesn’t even exist?”

Pink shrugged, saying, “Sure it does! However, that method needs to take place at the altar in the Cathedral of the Shadow God, and those people at the Cathedral of the Shadow God definitely won’t let my Roland become the Demon King. You see, there’s always a limit to how much chaos a living person can cause, but nobody can tell just what kinds of things an undead creature would do.”

So you were lying to me? You planned to kill me from the start? I could not comprehend this and asked, “Why wait until now to strike? You have had many chances to make your move.”

“There actually weren’t many chances. I didn’t find out that you were actually also one of the demon king candidates until much later. Though I still had opportunities to kill you, it felt like it’d be a bit of a shame. I wasn’t even sure if Roland could win against the other candidate! Also, if the Cathedral of the Shadow God found out that Roland was a death knight during their battle, it was very likely that they’d lend a hand to the other candidate.”

Pink rationalized in a tone that was so detached it was cruel. “It was much too risky to battle the other candidate; however, it’s much easier to kill you. You’d even let Roland stand behind you with his sword raised, giving him your complete trust.”

Roland… I looked toward him. His face held no expression. He just stared at me with his head lowered.

Seeing me lying on the ground, bleeding nonstop, yet you can remain expressionless? Could it be that I’ve never truly understood you either? Roland!

“Even though the Cathedral won’t accept undead creatures as the Demon King, I still had to let Roland turn into a death knight.” Pink grumbled, “Never again do I want to see my child get killed by an expedition after exhausting the dark element that they absorbed! As long as he becomes a death knight, the Demon King’s powers will surely allow him to evolve into the highest level of the undead— a death monarch! Then, even if he uses up all of his dark element and is no longer the Demon King, there’d be no need to worry about him being killed by others.”

Roland’s death was single-handedly orchestrated by Pink? Despite the dizziness that was setting in, I still wanted to get to the bottom of all this. I could not believe that everything about Roland was faked this whole time. Impossible! I stared at him, and asked, “Was-Wasn’t it the king who tortured you to death?”

Instead of Roland answering me, Pink was the one who opened her mouth and replied, “Do you really think that fat pig of a king has the patience and methods to slowly torture someone to death for three months? It was only under my hypnosis that he gained the patience and learned the torture methods.”

The true culprit for Roland’s torturous death was Pink? There was no way Roland could have known, or else he wouldn’t have held a grudge against the king as a death knight. However, Roland has not said anything after hearing Pink’s words, so could it be that he already knew? He knew, yet he is not afraid of her?

I don’t understand, just what is going on? Roland, do you really want to kill me, for the sake of becoming the Demon King?

Pink said, “At first, to prevent Roland from killing him and then passing on, I thought I had to put in a lot of effort into protecting that pig. But in the end, Roland’s obsession was to become the Sun Knight. That saved me a lot of trouble. However, you saved me even more trouble, by going as far as getting Roland to become the Hell Knight. That disguise is actually pretty good, so I’ll forgive you for stealing the Sun Knight position from Roland back then!”

Roland… I looked toward him. He still had no expression at all. Also, for some unknown reason, even though his appearance was still human, his eyes had turned into twin orbs of flame. I could not even tell if he was looking at me or not.

Roland, look at me! I’m Grisia. Do you really want to kill me?

“You don’t need to stare at him,” Pink squatted down and murmured. “You don’t really care for him anyways. He is a death knight, you know. Do you really think that death didn’t affect him at all? He is pained by his identity as an undead creature, but you had no idea, so he could only come to me to speak of his fears.

“He told me, ‘Everyone around him was so lively, he was like a walking tombstone. He could not understand at all why others felt excitement, sadness, or even happiness.’ I can actually understand; he is already dead after all. Is there anything more serious and emotional than death? So of course he can’t get stirred up, though he did try really hard to act out different emotions.”

“…”

Pink walked back and perched on her chair again. Then, she mumbled as she ate more strawberry shaved ice, “It’s just too bad that I’ll never get to eat the strawberry shaved ice that your Ice Knight makes again.”

Cold, it’s freezing cold… “Kill me.”

“No way!” Pink refused immediately, “The fewer wounds on the corpse, the more durable the undead creature made from it will be. You shouldn’t have forgotten that your body after your death belongs to me, right? To avoid making another wound, you should just bleed and bleed until you die.”

“I am… the Sun Knight.” I said, trembling, “I will not d-die so easily.”

“Oh?” Pink smiled around a bite of shaved ice, saying, “Even the Sun Knight will die when all his blood has flowed away, right? I’m not in a rush. You can take your time dying!”

No! Don’t let me await death! Please, I beg of you… Roland… Kill me!

Kill me, I’m begging you…

…

“Wow, the Sun Knight is really something. I’ve already finished the shaved ice, and you’re still not dead… Roland, what are you doing?”

Ugh!