NOVEL NEXT Chapter 231
Morning arrived.
I didn’t really need to eat, but I made the effort to use the kitchen and cook for myself.
“It’s been a while. Eating your meals, I mean. It’s been 500 years.”
Arpe sat quietly at the table, eating the breakfast I prepared.
The etiquette of the Empire still resided within me, and I watched over her until she finished her meal.
Rather than just watching, I was eavesdropping.
Was she truly the person I thought she was?
If things unfolded differently than I expected, this would be the last meal I served Arpe.
So…
“It seems like you have something to say. This is the last meal you left me that day, isn’t it?”
“You remember well.”
“At least this much I clearly remembered. Something was weird that day, and it stuck in my mind for some reason.”
“You probably didn’t think I would suddenly disappear using Teleport Magic in a place where no one was around. I wasn’t even a 3-circle sorceress back then.”
“Right.”
I served Arpe her last supper.
Once as the Bel army commander.
And now, again.
If history repeats itself, this breakfast might either sever the relationship between Arpe and me or mark the start of a new one.
“I heard from Lily. Your daughter’s name is Asydia, right?”
“Yeah.”
“The organization that summoned me to the Intermediate Realm is also named Asydia. Care to explain that? I feel like this thread of reason is about to snap.”
“We were allies until 300 years ago, and since then, we’ve been adversaries.”
“…….”
300 years.
No matter how many events crisscross over various timelines, when things align so perfectly, suspicion is unavoidable.
“Am I right in thinking that my daughter organized Asydia, and this organization has continued ever since?”
“Correct. Asydia named itself after her. An organization aiming to resurrect the Great Demon Lord in the Intermediate Realm. The one who took over that organization is…”
“Zephar.”
The one who summoned me to this world.
“That crazy bastard tried to violate me.”
“I know.”
“You know? Then you…”
“That’s what Zephar has been saying since 300 years ago.”
Arpe calmly sipped her coffee.
Her voice was as dry as if reciting a story from a diary.
“I’m not defending him. It’s just that he lost his mind because Asydia… um, can I just refer to her as my daughter?”
“Of course.”
At my words, Arpe’s eyebrows twitched.
“Really…?”
“Yeah. I’ve seen traces of you and your daughter in this castle. You are undoubtedly the mother of that child. I don’t even need to acknowledge it; you are indisputably recognized as the mother whose position I cannot arbitrarily usurp.”
“…Is that so?”
Arpe was silent for a long moment.
She just kept tapping the coffee cup with her fingers, bowing her head, looking as if she were both smiling and crying.
“…I was a bit scared.”
“Scared that I won’t recognize you as my daughter’s mother?”
“Yeah.”
“Think the opposite. They say the parents who gave birth and those who raised a child are different, but it doesn’t mean birth parents have priority. I’m actually the one who needs to seek permission.”
I had clearly drawn the line.
“…Can I call Asydia my daughter?”
“Of course.”
I received Arpe’s permission.
It felt like the knot in my heart was slowly unwinding.
Now.
I think I can more confidently call Asydia my daughter.
“Then for the next question. The relation between the organization known as Asydia and our daughter Asydia is just a matter of the names sharing the same title, right? For now?”
“Correct. Lily, could you prepare a blackboard?”
“I’ll fetch it right away.”
Maid Lily swiftly prepared the blackboard at lightning speed.
The rather wide board was cleaned perfectly for writing with white chalk.
“I’ll summarize it simply.”
Back 500 years ago, everything was recorded on that.
“From now on, calling ‘Asydia’ refers to the organization, while ‘daughter’ refers to the person named Asydia. Got it?”
“Confirmed.”
That too was all a memory.
“After becoming a Great Sorceress, my daughter gathered the remnants of the Demon King’s army and collected traces of the Great Demon Lord. It was to summon the Great Demon Lord based on those traces.”
“She set out to find a catalyst.”
“Right. With a catalyst, it’s easier to summon using magic. However…”
“It’s likely non-existent.”
The entity known as Belphegor is fundamentally a spirit based on Ether.
“In the Intermediate Realm, the physical bodies used are not truly me. They merely borrowed a human body temporarily.”
“That’s right. Nevertheless, my daughter didn’t give up. As the daughter of the Great Demon Lord, as a demi-god, she devoted all her efforts to summoning the Great Demon Lord. She searched for the Demon Lord’s followers and aimed to gather the remnants. Yet, in the end, she failed.”
“…By then, everyone had probably already left for somewhere else.”
30 years after the death of the Great Demon Lord.
My daughter probably began moving around that time, so many must have already faded into the sea.
To Belselphia.
“That’s right. Everyone either died or disappeared. No matter how much we searched, there were no traces. Those who went to the northern lands were all missing or froze to death.”
“……?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
Could Arpe really not know about Belselphia?
“…It’s just that thinking all my subordinates have perished, no, realizing the only survivor is someone like Zephar freaks me out.”
“Zephar… right. That guy is currently driving the continent mad.”
“Why aren’t you doing anything about Zephar?”
This part I couldn’t understand at all.
“You wouldn’t agree with Zephar’s plans.”
“Even if I don’t agree or collaborate, there’s no reason to stop him, so I left him be.”
“While you might not need to intervene, I sense there’s some other reason behind it.”
There must be a reason why Arpe deliberately allows the organization of Asydia, named after her daughter, to commit evil acts.
“Why’s that?”
“…About the goal they desire. I might secretly wish for it too.”
“What do you mean?”
“I lost you 500 years ago. And I lost my daughter 300 years ago. Neither shared a drop of my blood, yet they were both my only family whom I loved the most. More than the Empire.”
Arpe’s clenched fist trembled.
“Asydia still aims to summon the Great Demon Lord Bel Phegor. That’s the primary goal. If you think of it as the overall goal of the organization, it would be about resurrecting the Demon Lord Bel Phegor for the new Demon King’s reformation, but what about Zephar as the leader of Asydia?”
“He did say.”
I still vividly remember.
“Take the power and go to him. While throwing all kinds of insults at me, he tried to control me.”
That was.
Just like.
“It seemed he valued me more, being a woman. Why is that?”
“Other folks might not know, but Zephar honestly wouldn’t care about you. He merely thinks you’re the father of his daughter, Asydia.”
“……No way.”
“What I mean is the ‘Demon Lord’ that Zephar wanted to summon was not you. After the demise of the Great Demon Lord, the remaining demon race was barely held together by one entity… It was as if the daughter of the Demon Lord inherited the place of the next Great Demon Lord.”
Zephar sought to summon me.
To use me, to summon ‘her’.
“Zephar aimed to use you as a catalyst to call Asydia, the soul of his daughter.”
*
At that moment.
Inside a dark cave, the pale-faced man—Zephar, flicked his fingers to create a spark of light.
Flame flickered.
The red flames ignited on the torches hanging on the wall, and Zephar walked into the cave and pressed his hand against the wall.
Buzzing.
The light of red magic swept over Zephar’s eyes before the cave wall cracked open, revealing a door.
Click.
As soon as Zephar stepped inside, the door closed behind him.
In the sealed chamber designed so that no one but Zephar could enter:
“…Huh.”
Numerous glass tubes stretched up and down, lined up on either side.
Green liquid bubbled and flowed up and down inside the tubes, where women with red hair wearing white dresses floated in each glass tube.
“…….”
Zephar scanned each glass tube, shaking his head.
Without any names or labels, there were only numbers like 69%, 74%, 89.2% written all over them.
And.
“Huh.”
Before the glass tube marked with the highest percentage of 96.7%, Zephar sighed and reached out toward the woman inside.
“Oh, my beloved Demon Lord.”
Click.
Zephar pulled out a locket hanging from his neck.
Inside was a picture of a much healthier-looking Zephar with a red-haired woman smiling brightly next to him.
Correction.
Two different pictures overlapped into one.
The photo of Zephar lay behind, while the red-haired woman’s picture was folded and placed right beside him.
“Oh, my lovely Demon Lord….”
Zephar affectionately caressed the locket, shedding tears.
“You said it yourself. You would always be born with the color red, so you would still be red when reborn. Oh, please wait just a little longer. I will find you.”
Creak.
As he scratched the glass tube with his fingernail, Zephar began to giggle.
“Just wait a while longer. I’ll prepare the body of the woman who resembles you the most from all the red-haired women in this land. And…”
Zephar grinned, caressing another glass tube with a higher percentage than 96.7%.
“I’ll stuff the soul of the one you cherished and loved dearly inside that body, the most splendid Demon Lord’s soul you ever desired.”
In the other glass tube marked 97.6%.
“I will surely find the body containing the soul of the Great Demon Lord.”
With the number No.660 engraved on it.
“I will let you be reborn in this land. To be reborn from the soul of the Great Demon Lord Bel Phegor.”
He smirked.
“…To start again from the belly of the Great Demon Lord, as a baby. I shall protect you, my Demon Lord.”