Demon King of the Royal Class-Chapter 528 [Illustration]

The idea that Heinrich might be an illegitimate child was merely speculation. However, that supposition completely tied up the loose ends of every event.

Why hadn’t they sent Heinrich to an academy within Kernstadt? Why did they feel the need to kill Heinrich, who was gradually becoming a hero?

An illegitimate child with no noble lineage being considered a hero of Kernstadt, and possibly even mentioned as a successor to the throne over Louise von Schwartz. For the pure-blooded royalty, that would be absolutely unacceptable. Of course, the truth of this speculation was still unknown.

“If this is true, then Heinrich probably doesn’t know about it either. The current queen of Kernstadt, Solenin, is a very fastidious person. Her obsession with etiquette, dignity, and protocol is no joke. Perhaps Vertus and I should learn that from her, eh?”

Charlotte laughed at her own joke. “I haven’t seen her much in person, though.”

A queen of a principality, yet one whose dignity and sense of etiquette surpassed even that of the empire’s royal family. However, that was merely a facade; no one considered the queen of Kernstadt equal to or superior to the imperial royalty.

“But an illegitimate child... Just the rumor of such a thing would cause her to have a fit. No, if such a rumor were to spread, she might go beyond being horrified and hang herself.”

“So... She might have accepted the illegitimate child as her own?”

“It would have been easier to kill or eliminate him, but King Konstantin von Schwartz of Kernstadt is also known for his upright character. He might have tried to be moral about the treatment of an illegitimate child as well. But, well, while he might have been accepted, he couldn’t have been loved. The king of Kernstadt wouldn’t have been able to do anything about that.”

After finishing her story, Charlotte drank the rest of her tea and sighed.

“In the end, it’s all speculation. In reality, he might not be an illegitimate child at all, and the royal family might have loved the deceased children so much that they couldn’t help but hate the youngest one.”

Charlotte was merely presenting a possibility, albeit a very rational one. She was just conveying the speculations of the Temple. But wasn’t it a cruel possibility? It was a cruel possibility because it was so close to the truth.

Could Heinrich accept or understand this?

“This is as much as I can tell you. I don’t know how to persuade Heinrich to come to our side.”

‘You are an illegitimate child. Therefore, you might be killed by your siblings.

‘No, your siblings must kill you. They must kill you before you are seen as a greater hero, so that the possibility of the throne passing to an illegitimate child is erased.’

An illegitimate child who had killed two pure-blooded royals. From that perspective, wouldn’t it be strange not to hate Heinrich?

Moreover, he had become so strong that he could no longer be ignored, and was even hailed as a hero of Kernstadt. They had hidden him away in the Temple, hoping he would live unnoticed, but now, they were being forced to treat him as a sibling.

It must have been infuriating.

“Hmm, if I go to Heinrich and tell him he’s an illegitimate child and that he’ll die if he doesn’t side with me, he might flip out and try to literally roast me. Wouldn’t it be fitting for me to be the one who gets burned?”

Charlotte laughed weakly. “That’s true...”

***

The midnight consultation ended. Although I didn’t get the answer I wanted, I knew what I had to do.

I could also infer, to some extent, how the loose framework I had constructed had been filled in.

We had eaten and drank tea together. Yet, somehow, both Charlotte and I lingered, feeling unsatisfied. Perhaps it was because it had been a long time since we’d had a conversation that felt like a real dialogue.

We sat on the terrace, lost in thought.

Was there something we still needed to talk about?

Just as I had things I wanted to say, perhaps Charlotte also wanted to talk about the things we hadn’t yet discussed.

“Do you want to take a walk?”

“Huh?”

Charlotte nodded vigorously, as if she had been waiting for those words.

“Oh. Yes, I’d like that.”

***

Charlotte and I left the royal castle and walked across the plains on the outskirts of Rajak. To our left was the city of Rajak, and to our right was a refugee camp.

We occasionally saw people we presumed to be part of a militia group patrolling the camp, carrying torches. This was part of Charlotte’s cruel plan. They were destined to become corrupt, and would be purged when the time came so that a new militia group could be formed.

It wasn’t cruel because Charlotte was encouraging them to become corrupt. The corruption of the group would be a sin that resulted from their own choices. The corrupt militia, which would later be punished, could not escape the guilt of having chosen to sin. They were merely being used, but they would be judged without even realizing they had been used.

Charlotte understood how humans behaved in certain situations. She knew there were people who would crawl into a predictable quagmire without being instructed, and that there were others lining up to take their place. That was the cruelty behind this policy.

I didn’t know how far that scheme had progressed. We no longer brought survivors from the continent back to Edina. Therefore, there were no external factors to affect the growth of Edina’s population. Now, we only needed to manage the people who were already in Edina.

We had saved many people, but it was just a handful compared to the actual number of people who had died.

Because of the chain of events, things had happened that I didn’t even want to think about.

From a distance, Charlotte and I watched the torches moving through the refugee camp as we walked.

“How’s the regency work going? Is it manageable?” I asked.

“I don’t know if it’s manageable, but I’m doing it somehow. I’ve got a pretty good grasp of the overall situation in Edina now. Things will get better,” Charlotte replied.

“That’s good to hear.”

Things could only get better. It sounded positive, yet it also sounded like things were so bad that they couldn’t possibly get worse.

Was I being too cynical?

“Most importantly, there are no complaints from the demons. If... things were normal, the demons would have been more resistant than the humans.” freeweɓnovel~cѳm

“True.”

Despite having no reason to live with humans, the demons still followed the Demon King’s orders without complaint.

The Demon King’s rule was ideal, yet strange. If the society was composed solely of demons, the Demon King could rule as a lifelong dictator without any opposition.

Didn’t Eleris say that was the case when she had been the ruling Archdemon? And that she had eventually been exiled after her horns were broken by her son, the only demon who could resist her rule.

I was the Demon King, and the princess, Charlotte, was now my regent. Had this outcome been predestined even before we’d met?

“Charlotte,” I said.

“Yes?”

“I have no memories of my life as a prince of the Demon Realm.”

Charlotte stopped walking and quietly looked up at me.

“I was thrown into this world knowing only that I am the son of the Demon King, Baalier.”

Charlotte listened silently as I suddenly recounted the past.

“When I first met you, I didn’t even know who you were.”

“...”

“I won’t try to use the excuse that the many lies I told you were unavoidable. But, I should at least apologize to you.”

Charlotte was still listening quietly.

“For all the lies I’ve told you, I’m sorry.”

I didn’t know how to apologize sincerely. I didn’t think a single sentence could atone for all the deceit I had shown to Charlotte. However, I had to say something. I could not delay any longer, using busyness or having too much to do as an excuse.

Charlotte smiled quietly as she watched me apologize.

“That’s three times,” she said.

“Three times?”

“Once in the Demon King’s Castle, once in the Spring Palace, and now this time. That’s three times.”

It seemed she was referring to the number of times I had saved her life.

“It feels like the world hates me, and that I should die, but you keep saving me. I wonder if something will happen in the future, and if I’ll have to die again.”

The clouds overhead obscured the moon and the stars in the night sky.

“You’re strange,” Charlotte said.

“...”

“You should hate me.”

“Hate you?”

“Yes.” Charlotte looked up at the night sky. “You saved me several times, yet I wasn’t able to find it in me to believe you. Even though my mind had been pushed down that path, you had still saved me with pure intentions, yet I couldn’t believe that about you and cursed you instead.”

It was perfectly understandable. Countless lies had been stacked upon each other into a tower of misunderstanding, which became more convincing than the truth. I didn’t blame Charlotte for that.

“You couldn’t have helped it in that situation,” I told her.

Charlotte smiled bitterly. “You saved me and protected me several times, but I didn’t trust you, but cursed you instead. If you had blamed me for that and cursed me, it would have been understandable.”

Blaming Charlotte for not understanding my feelings... Could I have done that?

“I acted that way because I had no choice, but you didn’t blame me even though you had every reason to. I think that difference is quite significant. You did what I couldn’t do. And every time I feel that you don’t blame me at all, it feels a bit strange.

“What am I to you? I haven’t done anything for you, I’ve always received help from you, and I even pushed you into the abyss at a crucial moment. Yet, you saved me again as if it were only natural... I don’t know what I am to you anymore. That’s why you feel distant to me.

“I don’t know if I can do anything for you that matches what you’ve done for me... I think I might never be able to repay you, no matter how long I try.”

What should Charlotte do for me? Aside from the regency work, what else could she do for me? There was nothing. I didn’t particularly want anything from her.

“Just live a good and healthy life. That’s all I want,” I said.

Charlotte giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. “I thought you’d say that.”

Should I have said more? Should I have said that I needed her, not just for the regency work, but that I needed her in my life, always within my sight? Should I have said that?

Charlotte was the first life I’d saved upon arriving in this world. Because of that, I felt a different kind of attachment to her than to anyone else.

“There’s something I want to do with you,” Charlotte quietly said to me.

“Something you want to do together with me?” I asked.

“Yes, we can do it right now.”

‘Something she wants to do with me at this hour?’

As I looked at her, puzzled, Charlotte rummaged through her belongings and pulled something out.

“Let’s eat this together.”

It was a biscuit wrapped in paper. It was an item that symbolized our first meeting.

Did she always carry this around with her? Had she been planning to share it with me when we finally had this conversation?

“Sure.”

At my response, Charlotte smiled bashfully, unwrapped the biscuit, and broke it precisely in half.

She had done the same back then. I had given her the biscuit to eat, but she had broken it in half and handed one of the halves to me. Even in that moment of extreme hunger, she had not eaten it all by herself but shared half of it with me, leaving me with a strange feeling.

Charlotte placed half of the biscuit in my mouth and took a bite of her own half.

She had always carried the biscuit with her, intending to share it with me someday. She had probably been ready to talk all this time, to have a conversation with me. Finally, quite a while after her arrival in Edina, we were able to talk about our first meeting and everything that had happened since then.

We sat on the hill overlooking Rajak and the refugee camp, leaning against each other, eating the biscuit. Naturally, it wasn’t the same biscuit as back then.

“It tastes different from back then.”

“It has to.”

Charlotte and I talked as we shared the biscuit. Given the situation, it objectively tasted worse than what we’d had back then. That biscuit had been of high quality fit for the prince of the Demon Realm. The biscuits available in Edina were bound to be of lower quality.

I was comparing a high-quality biscuit, eaten in a moment when anything would have tasted good, against a regular biscuit that was being eaten while neither of us felt particularly hungry. Of course they would not taste the same.

Charlotte had said that she never found anything as delicious as that biscuit, so she didn’t particularly care about what she ate afterward. She had told me that in the imperial capital.

Although the biscuit did not taste the same as back then, we still had the opportunity to share it together.

After going through so much, we could finally be together. We no longer resented or hated each other, and I no longer had to lie to Charlotte.

“Reinhart.”

“Yeah?”

“What do you plan to do when all of this is over?” Charlotte asked, taking a bite of the biscuit.

After the Gate Incident.

After the final battle, if I survived, and after resolving things with Ellen.

After everything was over.

If I survived until then, what would I do next?

“I don’t know,” I replied.

I didn’t even know if I would survive to see such a distant future, and thinking about what to do afterward was overwhelming.

I wasn’t someone who could think so far ahead, into an uncertain and faraway future.

Heinrich was on the verge of being assassinated, and I hadn’t even found a solution for that, let alone figure out what to do after everything was over.

“War... I don’t think it can be avoided,” Charlotte said.

“Do you think so?”

“Yes, after everything is settled, the fact that we have established ourselves in Edina will eventually become known on the continent. Whether it’s a year, two years, or ten years after the Gate Incident... I don’t know when, but it will happen.”

Ten years later was so far away. But Charlotte was the regent. She had to think that far ahead. And it was an issue that I, as king, had to consider as well.

After the Gate Incident was resolved, humanity would deal with the remaining monsters on the continent and lay the groundwork for reconstruction.

We could create our own paradise here, far from the continent, in silence, but we couldn’t avoid encountering each other forever.

At some point, a conflict between humanity and Edina would occur.

Charlotte’s mention of war wasn’t new. That issue had crossed my mind as well.

That war couldn’t be avoided. As humanity rebuilt itself and the situation improved, their thirst for revenge against me, the cause of it all, would demand satisfaction.

If news spread that the Demon King had settled in Edina, a moment would eventually come when we would have to fight against humanity’s expeditionary forces.

It might not happen in the short term, but in ten or twenty years, it was bound to happen.

Charlotte tapped my shoulder as if sensing my concern.

When I turned my head, Charlotte was looking at me, her head tilted slightly sideways.

“Do you want to hear something funny?” she asked.

“What is it?”

“Because you’re with me, you can claim to be the heir of the Gradias Imperial Family.”

“What?”

‘What is she talking about?’

“Also, you have two holy relics. You can exert influence over the Church of the Five Great Gods. Or you could reform the Church, absorb them into the Holy Order and bring their forces under you by putting Olivia Lanche at the head of this unified Order. That’s possible too.”

“What...? What are you talking about?”

This idea of pushing for religious reform to overthrow the Church of the Five Great Gods and reorganize the religious forces under the name of the Holy Order was terrifying.

“Of course, all the demons will follow your rule. That’s a given.”

What was she trying to say? Whatever it was, it was enough to send chills down my spine.

“Reinhart, you could become the ruler of the entire world, not just the empire.”

Not the emperor of humanity, not the king of demons, but the ruler of the entire world...

Charlotte smiled slightly, as though she could understand me. “You think that because humans hate and resent you, and they won’t accept your rule, right? But people don’t live as subjects of the Gradias Empire because they support the empire.”

“...”

“Rule is inherently a passive trait. There’s no need to persuade the masses to accept it, whether the one at the top is the Gradias royal family or the Demon King they so despise. After all, they’ve never been persuaded before.”

Ruling is just ruling. It doesn’t require the support of the masses...

“A ruler just needs to be strong. As long as they’re strong enough that those below them don’t dare to challenge or overthrow them, that’s enough. Whether you rule Edina’s people with love and protection, or become humanity’s oppressor, disguising yourself through tyranny and fear, it’s all the same.”

Given humanity’s hatred, was it right to confront it head-on or even invade them first, rather than fearing the inevitable war?

“What about Vertus...?”

Charlotte buried her head between her knees. “I believe... he’ll be spared.”

The emperor of the continent and the king of the world... It wasn’t as if I hadn’t considered such a grand idea before. I also did not believe that humanity had to be ruled by the empire. But Charlotte was saying that this was the time to consider that enormous issue.

“It seems like you’re only thinking about what you’ll lose when everything is over. Like you’re only afraid of it.”

I remained silent.

“Instead of losing something, you could gain something.”

That was a radical thought, one I never considered.

Charlotte looked at me. “I wanted to let you know that you can decide to have everything and not lose anything.”

Whenever I considered the future, I always saw war breaking out after the Gate Incident was resolved, and someone from Edina dying again. But that was not the only outcome. I could try to have everything and not lose anything. That’s what Charlotte was saying.

Could a nation exist where all its people hated their king?

Could such a thing be established? Even if it could, should it exist?

If we were considering it as a possibility, then it was definitely possible.

If hatred was turned into fear, such a rule could be established. If their fear of me was greater than their hatred, humanity could be placed under my feet, no matter how much they despised me.

But could I handle that? I couldn’t even manage this small island nation and had left it to Charlotte.

Did I have the capacity to do something as insane as becoming the king of the entire world?

“...”

Was it okay to try to have everything just because I didn’t want to lose a single thing?

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