Chapter 165: Great Demon (1)

“Your Highness!! Your Highness!!!”

Euclid had been stabbed.

I couldn’t see past Nana’s massive body, but judging from the earlier scream and the angle, it was undoubtedly true.

Forgetting even to resheathe my sword, I rushed towards Euclid, but a voice from behind made me hesitate for a moment.

“…We may have lost the battle, but we achieved our goal. Should we call it a draw? Well then, see you next time.”

A draw? What nonsense. The enemy had accomplished their objective, while all we got was a useless puppet.

Calling this a draw was nothing more than mockery, plain and simple.

Anger welled up inside me, and even though I knew it was pointless, I kicked the discarded puppet Ganryu had left behind.

As I wondered what good this would do, a wave of despair washed over me, but I had no time for self-pity now.

Ignoring the puppet on the ground, I ran to Euclid, who was in Nana’s arms. Suddenly, Euclid was thrown back as if Nana had been kicked away.

“Argh!!”

Wondering what on earth had happened, I looked at Euclid, who had just been in Nana’s arms….

“What the hell is that…?”

I noticed black smoke-like substance constantly pouring out from the dagger lodged in Euclid’s chest, instead of blood.

‘…Is this demonic energy?’

This wasn’t the first time I’d seen demonic energy made visible, but I’d never seen it so clear and intense before.

The snow-covered ground turned black from the powerful demonic energy emanating from his chest, and nearby trees rapidly rotted and collapsed.

While demonic energy could alter the surrounding environment, it usually didn’t happen this quickly.

It should have taken at least a few days, if not years. I couldn’t even imagine how much demonic energy that small dagger contained.

[Master!! I can block it a little, but it’s still dangerous to stay here too long!!]

“Wolffang, can you completely block the demonic energy, even if just for a moment?”

[Master?! W-what are you planning to…]

“We don’t have time. Can you do it or not?”

[It’s possible, but… with this much power, I don’t know when the barrier might break.]

“Alright, that should be enough to work with.”

It might already be too late, but if there was even a chance, a Baldo practitioner had to try.

Protected by Wolffang, I ran towards the dagger that was still spewing demonic energy. I grabbed the hilt and drew it out of Euclid’s chest in one swift motion.

For all the ominous demonic energy it was emitting, the dagger came out surprisingly easily.

The moment I pulled the dagger from Euclid’s chest, the demonic energy that had seemed about to engulf the world vanished in an instant.

“Ugh, urgh…!! Y-Your Highness!!”

As the oppressive demonic energy dissipated, Nana struggled to her feet and tried to rush to Euclid, but her body wouldn’t cooperate.

She barely made it a few steps before collapsing, reaching out towards the still unconscious Euclid.

“Don’t push yourself. You’ve been exposed to too much demonic energy, not as much as Euclid, but you’re far from okay.”

After calming Nana down, I laid Euclid down comfortably and put my ear to his chest, listening for a heartbeat.

Given where he’d been stabbed, I was worried when I first put my ear to his chest, but thankfully, I heard a steady, normal rhythm.

“How is His Highness…?”

“He’s fine. At least, he looks okay on the outside.”

His complexion seemed good, surprisingly so for someone who had been exposed to so much demonic energy.

Moreover, apart from a small tear in his clothes, there wasn’t a single drop of blood where the dagger had pierced his chest.

For all their talk of mission accomplished, this seemed like an anticlimactic outcome.

‘But why target Euclid…?’

Targeting Euclid meant they knew about what was inside him, but I still wasn’t sure exactly what they were after.

After all, unlike them, I didn’t even know what was inside Euclid.

“Hey, if there’s anything you’re hiding, now’s the time…”

Just as I was about to say this to Nana, Euclid’s body suddenly started twitching, accompanied by a short groan.

“Urgh…!!”

At first, I thought it was a sign of Euclid waking up, but what happened before my eyes was completely different from what I’d expected.

His body writhed as if in a seizure, and starting from his hair, his entire skeletal structure began to change.

“D-don’t look!”

Startled by what was happening, I turned my head at that voice.

The emotion on Nana’s face wasn’t fear or anxiety, but impatience.

She quickly tried to change her expression, realizing her mistake, but my eyes didn’t miss the momentary slip.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but you knew about this, didn’t you?”

Nana hung her head as if everything was over. Ironically, it almost looked like she was nodding in agreement. I turned my gaze back to Euclid.

I had only looked away for a moment, but Euclid’s hair, which had been long for a man, had instantly grown to reach his waist.

His skeletal structure had changed from male to female, and his flat chest now sported a distinct feminine curve that hadn’t been there before.

The naturalness of this transformation, along with Nana’s reaction, made me realize this was a familiar occurrence for them.

“…What exactly happened here?”

“……”

Nana stubbornly refused to speak, even though staying silent wouldn’t improve the situation.

A little later, when Marina and Jessica arrived and moved Euclid to a hastily prepared cabin with disbelieving expressions, Nana still remained silent.

However, as Euclid showed no signs of waking up, she finally spoke, her lips trembling.

“T-there’s an ancient demon inside His Highness…”

“An ancient demon…?”

At the mention of something far more significant than we’d anticipated, everyone’s face, except mine, turned pale.

Marina’s expression, in particular, was a sight to behold. As the person in charge of the academy, her face contorted as if the world was ending.

“Do you know the demon’s name?”

“No… Even that person didn’t tell us much about the demon. Maybe… maybe even she didn’t know its name.”

“T-that person… you don’t mean…”

“…Of course, I mean His Highness’s birth mother.”

“……”

As soon as she said this, Marina tried to leave, acting as if she hadn’t heard anything, but I grabbed her hand to stop her.

“L-let go of me!!”

“Would someone like you really leave, Headmaster? What’s done is done, so just accept it.”

“No, why?! Why does this keep happening after I became headmaster, when nothing happened for hundreds of years?!”

I couldn’t exactly tell her it was because this coincided with the timing of the original story.

After venting her frustrations indiscriminately for a while, Marina finally sat down on the ground, holding her head in her hands.

Seeing her like this, with tears in her eyes, I couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for her. Who knew how much stress she’d been under all this time.

“…Are you okay?”

“…Yes. I’m sorry for showing such an unsightly side of myself.”

Her earlier cry had been so heart-wrenching that no one dared to comment on her apology.

Instead, we all turned to look at Nana, who seemed a bit dazed, as if trying to change the subject.

“…To get back to the main point, the demon has been residing in His Highness’s body since birth.”

There’s a forbidden magic that can determine the gender of an unborn child.

In this world where males typically inherit family titles, Euclid, being female, had almost zero chance of inheriting the throne.

A normal person would usually wait for the next opportunity, but unfortunately, Euclid’s mother was far from normal.

“So she decided to make a contract with a demon. His Highness gained the power to change his body to male. Of course, it wasn’t perfect.”

He couldn’t change into a male at will, and for some reason, he couldn’t maintain the transformation during menstruation.

“And what did Euclid have to pay in exchange for this power?”

“…The demon left its seed inside His Highness.”

The seed was a kind of ritual for demons to gain physical form. In the original story, there were demons who obtained bodies through this ritual.

When intense demonic energy is injected into the seed planted in a human body, the seed blooms, and control of the body transfers from the host to the demon.

Even after the transfer of control, the host’s consciousness doesn’t disappear but continues to exist alongside the demon.

If the host’s mind breaks, the last shackle restraining the demon disappears. The demon then tears apart the body and descends into this world in its own form, boasting strength that far surpasses that of an adult dragon.

“I don’t want to badmouth someone else’s mother, but that woman was out of her mind.”

“How could she do something so terrible to her own child…!!”

As everyone was expressing their thoughts, Nana suddenly stood up, knelt before me, and lowered her head to the ground.

“I know it’s shameless of me to ask. But please, I beg you!! Save His Highness…!!”

“……”

“He’s suffered all his life, having everything about himself denied under that person’s control. I wish I could save him myself, but it’s far beyond my abilities!! Please!! I’ll do anything you want, just please…!!”

“I’ll help, so raise your head.”

Nana lifted her head, looking like she couldn’t believe what she’d heard, but I had no choice other than to help.

After all, who in their right mind would pass up the chance to fight a greater demon that rarely appeared even in the original story?

‘Today, I’ll become the swordsman who cut down a demon…!!’