Chapter 43: Mirror Queen

Cough… Irene really is the same… no matter the world.

The audience chamber of the snow-white castle.

A violet magical energy, completely unfitting for the place, began to gather.

Soon, it formed into a sphere.

Still, it helped me understand her power.

Before long, someone stumbled out from within it.

Her mask nearly shattered.

The woman barely managed to return to her throne.

The queen reached out and touched her mask.

Thankfully, it hadn’t broken completely.

That didn’t mean she got away unscathed.

To protect the mask, the Mirror Queen had to sacrifice a tremendous amount of magical energy to her barrier.

And since this wasn’t a planned consumption of magic,

The Mirror Queen was now experiencing real-time magical exhaustion.

It had been a long time since she’d felt such a headache and dizziness, and she ended up just closing her eyes.

Only then did the pain begin to subside.

Well, I suppose this is a good time to reflect on my plan.

The Mirror Queen recalled everything that had happened so far.

For over ten years, she had been summoning heroes.

She’d return them without destroying their souls, and draw magic power from them in the process.

It was a simple and straightforward plan.

Especially since all she needed was one demon realm and brute force.

The Mirror Queen had been steadily advancing her plan.

Until the worst possible variable appeared—just as she feared.

None other than Irene.

That the one to disrupt a plan for Irene… would be Irene herself.

Amused by the strange irony, the Mirror Queen let out a soft laugh.

Good thing I didn’t expect this Irene to be any different. If I’d underestimated her, who knows what would’ve happened.

She caught her breath.

Then slowly opened her eyes and looked around the audience chamber.

The strange transport device behind her throne.

And the massive pool of magic gathered at the center of the room.

She’d failed to kill Eliane.

Not only had she failed to kill Irene—she’d nearly died instead.

Still, the plan was steadily heading toward its final chapter.

That said, setbacks had definitely occurred.

I need to push through to the end. There’s no time to rest.

Whipping herself back into focus, the Mirror Queen stood up.

She looked for a mirror to reaffirm her resolve one last time.

But ironically, despite her name, there weren’t many mirrors in the Demon King’s Castle.

Then again, the name came from her illusion magic—not vanity.

Now that I think about it, “Mirror Queen”? What a terrible name. Who came up with that?

Before long, she found a full-length mirror in the kitchen.

Its placement was odd, but she didn’t care.

Looking at her reflection with the cracked mask,

The Mirror Queen made a vow.

I’ll save you. Even if I have to destroy this world to do it.

Was it because of those words?

The barely balanced mask finally gave in and shattered.

As the shards scattered to the floor,

Golden eyes filled with determination and long blonde hair were revealed.

A face familiar to everyone.

So just wait a little longer, Irene. I, Eliane, never break a promise.

The Mirror Queen turned around.

Before long, Irene and her companions would come to defeat her.

It hurt to think that her past self—and Irene—would come to hate her.

But there was no helping it.

With that thought, Eliane left the audience chamber.

Whether or not she could defeat Irene and extract her magic, there was still much to be done.

* * *

“…I’m getting serious chills all of a sudden.”

[Irene] – [Currently streaming!]

[!Important Announcement!]

[Viewers – 8,864]

Maybe because it had only been a day since the tournament ended,

Even though the stream title wasn’t anything clickbaity, a huge number of viewers had shown up.

Guess they thought there’d be, at most, 3,000 people.

Of course, it wasn’t quite the number I got during the Hero Guild civil war,
But this was still more than satisfying.

As soon as I started the stream, I naturally began speaking.

“Hello everyone, it’s the one and only Irene who’s been making headlines. Nice to see you.”

– Ah-ha

– Oh-ho

– When are we getting that ‘Aha~’ from this person???????

– Swears they’re not a streamer, but won’t drop the act even after a million years

– Came here after watching the Hero Guild civil war

– Same, I watched that mad movie and came right over

– Aha~

“Oh-ho~ Looks like a lot of you really did watch it.”

One of the many rewards I managed to squeeze out of the emperor

Was none other than the exclusive broadcasting rights to the Hero Guild civil war.

Well, “broadcasting rights” sounds fancy, but in truth,

It was just the right to upload the footage first.

It wasn’t a huge win, but…

Since it was my first upload, the “Hero Guild Civil War Mad Movie” I posted pulled in massive views.

Of course, I only included the most thrilling, condensed scenes.

The one-on-one with Eliane.

The intense battlefield at sea.

And finally, the fight against the Mirror Queen.

Honestly, watching that pretty much gave you the full experience of the whole civil war.

In fact, there were lots of comments like, “No need to watch the full war video now.”

Thanks to that, this many viewers had shown up,

And I was able to smoothly get to my announcement.

But before that, there was just one person I had to call in.

“Before the announcement, let me introduce today’s special guest.”

As I gestured,

A person naturally popped out from under the table.

It was the same setup I used with Luminil last time.

But there was one key difference this time.

The person who appeared—Arcia—looked so excited,

She spread her arms wide like she was greeting a live audience.

“Nice to see you all! I’m Arcia, an 8th-rank hero!”

– LOLLLLLLLLLLL

– This Demon Lord’s Castle even invites noble daughters now…

– They’re not even pretending to be evil anymore

– A castle of the Demon Lord, yet they host cooking shows and streams and invite duchess daughters?

– Alright~~ Now for our second special guest, please welcome His Majesty the Emperor

– As if he’d actually show up LOLLLLLLLL

Everyone was clearly caught off guard.

No one expected me to invite an 8th-rank noble’s daughter I’d only met once.

But the more shocking part was—

I was just as surprised as they were.

What the hell is she doing here?

I was trying to summon Friess…

So why did you pop out from under the table like it was the most natural thing in the world?

And just when I had that awful hunch—

Sure enough, Friess peeked her head out from the side.

“Elfriess… has arrived…”

She hadn’t said a word until now, so I thought maybe she died or something.

Maybe she got eliminated before we even met.

I decided not to ask how.

Honestly, she probably stepped on some trap or something dumb like that.

“Um… this isn’t the special guest I was planning to invite.”

– ?

– Special guest (actually special)

– (Irene emoji with a confused question mark)

– What kind of randomly spawned special guest is this LOL

– I’m speechless hahaha

– Swears she’s not a streamer, but streams like it’s nothing

– That’s why we’re watching

– (Irene emoji with a question mark)

– Where do you even get that emoji? Don’t tell me Irene made it herself?

– From the Irene fan community

“Irene, you look just as surprised as we are. Then I guess I’ll… no, would you like to say something, Friess?”

Friess slowly nodded.

“Yeah… it’s a long story, but…”

Since she even took a sip of water, I braced myself for a long explanation.

“I fell into a trap… and Ar…cia? tried to save me and fell in too… then we both got ejected…”

And that was it.

Friess’s long explanation was over.

She just paused a lot and dragged it out a little.

The whole thing barely took two minutes.

And wow, she really did fall into a trap.

…Should I be blaming Friess for this, or the devs who slapped a -95% trap detection rate on elf mages?

Anyway, since she wasn’t a weirdo or anything,

I figured I’d just carry on with what I was saying.

Actually, it worked out better this way.

With Arcia here, I could ask her something live.

“Anyway, I think it’s safe to say everyone knows I’m not the type to bring fun content just because I’m a streamer.”

– Irene’s trying to collect question marks again

– Fact: She’s a luxury-tier streamer no matter what she says

– User tlfldntm has been temporarily banned.

– Never call her anything other than ‘UngaIrene’

– ?????

– If you’re not a streamer, why are you streaming?

– Is Irene still doing the whole villain act?

– Yeah

– It’s not even a villain act, she’s literally a high-ranking official in the Demon Lord’s Castle LOL

– Can you really call someone a villain when they work in a demon castle that doesn’t even have monsters?

– …That’s actually a fair point

It kind of hit me again, right then.

Just me talking like this caused an explosion of chat messages.

It really hammered in how famous I’d gotten.

Still, it annoyed me a little.

If I could just gift this fame to Luminil like handing someone an item, how great would that be?

Ah, wait.

I can do that—by enforcing it.

“This won’t do. I’m starting a Love Luminil Order now.”

Maybe because of the flood of new viewers,

The moment I finished my sentence, the chat window imploded.

I had to temp-ban over 40 people

Before the chat finally looked the way I wanted it to.

Nice.

Now, praise Luminil more, I said.

– Luminil-sama, you’re absolutely beautiful again today ^^

– I kept buying Luminil merch ironically, but I think I actually like her now LOL

– Irene convert here, Luminil is now my fave

– Wait, this kind of person actually exists?

– Same here

– ㅇㄷㄴㅂㅌ (gibberish praising Luminil)

“Irene… this is just oppression…”

“You know, the more you’re forced to buy something, the more likely you are to actually fall for it eventually.

Besides, there won’t be many chances left to talk like this.”

“…Huh? What do you mean by that?”

Luminil’s face clouded with confusion and sadness.

She must’ve remembered what happened yesterday.

Sure enough, Luminil turned to me, her voice almost pleading.

“I’m sorry…! I never thought I didn’t need you, Irene! Please don’t leave me…!”

Well, there was no point dragging it out any longer.

If there was ever a time to say it straight, it was now.

“No, Luminil. I’ll be heading out for a subjugation mission soon.”

“Subjugation…?”

“Yeah. I’m going to take down the Mirror Queen.”

– It’s finally happening

– So she’s actually going on a real raid now

– This is what she always did though, lol

– Didn’t she do the same thing during Luna’s stream? hahaha

– True that

– Is there anything she hasn’t done besides joining the Hero Guild?

That’s right.

I’m going to take down the Mirror Queen.

It was a pretty sudden decision,

But it was also something that needed to be done.

Last time, the Mirror Queen clearly knew my name and tried to kill me.

In other words, that kind of monster could come knocking on the Demon Lord’s castle door any time.

After what happened with Celine…

I decided to rip the problem out at its roots.

“So, I’ll be recruiting people for the subjugation party. Only the elite.”

All these Luminil haters?

You’re all dead.

“Please check the announcements for how to apply.”