A Shadow Approaching in the Darkness

At Archbishop Marconi’s words, the air in the audience hall literally froze.

Breaking the silence, Archbishop Marconi continued:

“According to the church’s rigorous investigation, there was only one young man with clean silver hair in Gransen city, a boy named Allen Ludwig.”

That much was understandable.

There aren’t many people in the Palaginya Kingdom with clear silver hair, not dull gray or white.

And if you further limit it to young, unmarried men within Gransen, that number would significantly decrease.

“And upon investigating his surroundings, we indeed found a person who was in conflict with him. Someone with black hair, just as the divine revelation said.”

Archbishop Marconi continued with a disgusted expression.

“And there was also information that the warrior and that person had fought over a girl. We confirmed that the girl had red hair.”

Archbishop Marconi nodded as if convinced.

“When the situation matches to this extent, we can consider the divine revelation to be true. Your Majesty, please punish that person before the Demon King’s seal is broken!”

Having passionately spoken his piece, Archbishop Marconi looked at King Gallarus with a proud expression and smile.

As if he believed that King Gallarus would naturally follow his words and punish him.

“……”

“………”

Everyone in the audience hall maintained silence.

But everyone’s expressions were different.

Angry expressions, bewildered expressions, expressions of disbelief, expressions of absurdity.

When everyone remained silent, Archbishop Marconi spoke up.

“Why is everyone silent? This is a crisis that transcends the kingdom, for the entire world!”

“……”

King Gallarus, who had been staring at Archbishop Marconi with cold eyes.

After letting out a sigh, he looked directly at Archbishop Marconi and opened his mouth.

“Listen, Archbishop Marconi.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“The Demon King was completely annihilated 400 years ago, that is our kingdom’s official position, and we cannot accept the church’s request.”

“…Y-Your Majesty?!”

Archbishop Marconi visibly panicked and jumped up.

“I don’t know who this Allen is, but Wentos and Ignis are names of nobles in our kingdom. Do you think the kingdom would tolerate punishing kingdom nobles based on the church’s nonsense?”

“B-But this is a world crisis…”

“Can you clearly prove that this world crisis exists?”

“……”

Archbishop Marconi said nothing.

Well, that was natural. They had merely investigated based on what they received as a divine revelation, without any evidence to prove it was true.

“As I said before, the complete annihilation of the Demon King is the official position that has continued since our founding history of Palaginya.”

“……”

“Denying that and inciting the public by saying the Demon King will appear again, wouldn’t that be equivalent to insulting our kingdom?”

“Y-Your Majesty! That is too…”

“I’m saying that what the church is doing is an act of that magnitude! Inciting the people and requesting the punishment of nobles?!”

Archbishop Marconi cowered as if frightened, overwhelmed by King Gallarus’s anger as he pounded the throne forcefully.

“I will strongly protest this matter to the church.”

“……”

Archbishop Marconi was sweating profusely.

Honestly, he had been too excited after receiving the divine revelation and finding characters that roughly matched its content.

Thinking about it calmly, the request he made upon entering the audience hall was indeed too absurd.

“I…I misspoke. Your Majesty, please forgive…”

“This won’t happen twice.”

Of course, King Gallarus did explode with anger, but it wouldn’t be good for the kingdom if relations with the church deteriorated too much.

No matter how much the church had changed and corrupted, the followers of the World Tree Church still boasted a significant number.

He stopped after asserting his authority and firmly rejecting the request.

“Then Your Majesty… would it at least be acceptable for our church to protect the warrior… I mean, Allen Ludwig and Riel Ignis?”

“I don’t care about this Allen man if he agrees. However, I cannot allow the church to take the young lady of the Ignis family as you please.”

“…I see.”

Archbishop Marconi said this and stepped back.

He knew from his investigation that the girl named Riel Ignis was the daughter of Duke Ignis.

He never expected to be able to take a duke’s daughter freely, so Archbishop Marconi decided to be satisfied with at least securing the warrior for now.

“May I say a word, Archbishop Marconi.”

At the voice from the throne area, Archbishop Marconi raised his head.

Realizing that the owner of the voice was the still young Prince Julius, Archbishop Marconi respectfully said:

“Please speak, Your Highness Julius.”

“This man Allen whom the Archbishop mentioned, I have seen him personally… Honestly, I think it’s quite absurd to call him a warrior. His skill was worse than that of a low-ranking knight.”

“…Is that so.”

Archbishop Marconi did respond to Julius’s words, but he was just letting them go in one ear and out the other.

For him, the important thing was only that Allen had a high possibility of being the ‘warrior.’ His skill level didn’t matter at all.

If possible, he would like to secure the ‘priestess’ as well, but that seemed difficult.

‘Well… it can’t be helped… it would have been good if we could receive her officially…’

“You must immediately stop your activities within the Palaginya Kingdom!!”

The Continental Central Church, which could be considered the headquarters of the World Tree Church.

This is a land with which all countries have signed a non-aggression treaty, agreeing never to touch this church.

Inside the conference room of such a church, a woman was shouting loudly.

“Creating a disturbance in another country with uncertain information, calling it a ‘divine revelation’! Since when has the church become so arrogant?!”

Her name was Alicia Melrot.

She was a devout believer whose family had been involved with the World Tree Church for generations.

Of course, while she was a devout believer, her relationship with the current church was not very good.

The current World Tree Church was divided into two factions.

The papal faction, which serves the World Tree that watches over this world, and only follows the principles of helping the weak and punishing the wicked.

The cardinal faction, which believes that the only great beings to be served in this world are the World Tree and its servants, the fairies, and all other creatures must follow their policies and teachings.

Alicia Melrot’s family had belonged to the papal faction from ancient times and had a bad relationship with the cardinal faction, which could be considered the mainstream faction of the current church.

“But Sister Alicia. This divine revelation was directly bestowed upon Cardinal Gerald by the World Tree…”

“The content of the revelation itself is too suspicious, isn’t it? It’s been over 400 years since the Demon King disappeared! And now the revival of the Demon King… it’s nonsense!”

“But there was actually a divine revelation! Many people witnessed Cardinal Gerald receiving the divine revelation… perhaps the fact that the Demon King disappeared is incorrect!”

“…What did you just say?”

While harsh words had been exchanged between factions many times before, this particular statement was something Alicia could never let slide.

“The disappearance of the Demon King is content from a divine revelation received directly from the World Tree by the great Pope Bernardo of that time. Are you claiming that to be incorrect?!”

“Yes! It must be incorrect! A worn-out record from 400 years ago versus a divine revelation that just came down! It’s obvious which one is right, isn’t it?”

“What did you say?!”

Alicia approached the priest who was speaking mockingly, with an angry expression.

“Say that again!”

“Ha, are you perhaps… jealous that a divine revelation came to Cardinal Gerald, who isn’t even the Pope?!”

“…This is ridiculous. Really ridiculous.”

Nothing gets through to a fool.

Thinking this, Alicia clutched her aching head and backed away.

“So… what are you planning to do? You must know very well that the kingdom won’t stay still if you do such things?”

“If necessary, we must do whatever it takes.”

At the priest’s words, Alicia stared directly at him.

“…What are you planning to do?”

“The church’s covert unit is already in motion. Soon they will secure the warrior and the priestess, and if possible, eliminate the demon as well.”

“…What is this…”

It’s an outrageous act that could turn the kingdom into a complete enemy.

“It’s probably impossible to stop the covert unit at this point. Everything is for the World Tree… we must accept that level of sacrifice.”

“They’re mad… completely mad.”

She didn’t know they would go this far.

Alicia felt the strength leaving her body as she stepped back.

‘Mother… the church has truly gone too far. What should I do…!’

Alicia lamented to her mother who had already passed away.

At that moment, as she was thinking about her mother, another thought came to Alicia.

It was the object her mother had passed down to her before she died.

‘Alicia, this is a precious treasure that has been passed down since the Demon King disappeared… this is…’

“……”

“Sister Alicia, where are you going? It’s already too late…”

“…I’m going away for a while. Do as you please.”

Alicia left the church and headed to her home.

She had hidden the object she received from her mother there.

“…Let’s go and… confirm the true intention of the World Tree directly.”

The treasure passed down through generations…

Using the ‘World Tree’s Jewel,’ which was said to allow one to go directly to the World Tree’s side.

“What’s this now?”

Riel and I were returning to the dormitory together after seeing Emilia off.

At that time, people were gathered around a bulletin board, and when I went to check out of curiosity, I saw a very fancy paper posted.

“The Demon King’s seal will be broken…?”

“Who wrote such a crazy thing on the bulletin board?”

“Ugh, such blasphemy…”

As people were murmuring such words, I read it, and indeed, the content was worthy of such reactions.

Even Riel, who was next to me, had her mouth hanging open after reading the paper.

“Whoever did this, they’ve got guts to stick such a paper in the kingdom.”

“I know, right? Judging by the paper, they must be a rich fool.”

Since Riel said that, I nodded in agreement.

To post such a paper in the capital of the Palaginya Kingdom, which explicitly mentions the complete annihilation of the Demon King in the founding queen’s story.

At that moment, someone approached the bulletin board, pushing through the crowd.

“Excuse me! Please make way!”

Looking closely, it was a soldier in armor.

After coming to the bulletin board and examining it, the soldier discovered the paper and sighed deeply.

“Haah… there’s one here too. How many have they posted?”

The soldier took down the paper, rolled it up, put it in his breast pocket, and turned to leave.

Judging by his words, it seemed like he was collecting these papers.

Well, that makes sense.

But the Demon King, I didn’t expect something like this to suddenly appear.

In the original story, the Demon King is just a being mentioned once in the introduction… just mentioned once in the same nuance as celestials and demons at the beginning of time.

It never appeared in the original story, and wasn’t even mentioned.

Originally, the main conflict in the original story was closer to political gang activities surrounding the succession to the throne.

“What a strange writing we saw.”

Riel, seeming to have lost interest, turned her head and looked at me.

“Kyo, let’s go back now. Phyllis said she prepared a small celebration party today.”

“…Huh? What kind of celebration party when the Mushin Festival isn’t even over yet…?”

“She said it’s a party to celebrate Kyo’s second place.”

“Uh…”

No one expects me to beat Senior Iris.

Well, honestly, I’m not confident either.

“Come on, let’s go!”

“Uh… y-yeah.”

My feet headed toward the dormitory, as if being dragged by Riel, who suddenly linked arms with me and walked forward.

Ah, the slightly soft feeling against my arm… Ahem.

“Target spotted. Acquisition target and elimination target. They are together.”

“…Wait until night falls and they separate. Execute the assigned mission at that time.”