Zeus left the Demon Realm together with the other gods.
The Demon Realm had abandoned the 72 Demons who impersonated the gods. Since those words had come from the mouth of the king of the Demon Realm, there was nothing more to do here.
“Ahem. Good, everyone worked hard.”
After the gods withdrew, Satan looked around at all present and spoke.
Then Lucifer said,
“Worked hard? We did nothing.”
“Exactly—you worked hard at doing nothing. It couldn’t have been easy.”
Half of Satan’s words were a sneer, but half were true.
Zeus’s provocation, the killing intent the other gods shot at them, the hatred and contempt shown without even bothering to hide it in their eyes.
For them—the Seven Deadly Sins—to endure that in silence took considerable patience.
“Now then, shall we look at the situation in Palma as well?”
“Ah, yes.”
Astaroth responded at once.
He had opened a gate somewhere in Agoris. Therefore, with simple magical manipulation, they could view the situation in Palma.
Only—
“......Tch.”
There were a few eyes looking with displeasure at the sight of Astaroth snapping to obey Satan’s order.
“Do you think a war will break out?”
When Mammon asked, Satan shrugged.
“It already has. Zeus ran all the way here.”
Soon, a single screen opened before their eyes. The image resembled the one that had shown Bael, but this time it could only be watched.
“What do you intend to do by watching? Are you curious about Bael’s response?”
When Beelzebub asked, Satan shook his head.
“No—I’m curious about Frondier.”
“......Did you not speak as if you had no interest in him, in front of Belphegor?”
“I lied. As if that could be true.”
Satan answered with a laugh.
His eyes shone with a chilling light as they turned to the screen.
“It’s been a long time since someone stirred up anger in me. I thought he was all slick talk, but he toppled Belphegor.”
At that, Lucifer nodded.
“I, too, am curious about his strength. There isn’t much information we can know from here. I mean how he defeated Belphegor.”
“And he’s the one who has kept interfering with Satan’s plan.”
Since the moment he met Frondier, Satan’s plan had not unfolded as he wished.
But Satan smiled.
“There was only a small crack in a grand plan. In the end we reached this point, didn’t we?”
Indeed. The big picture had not collapsed.
Satan had become king, and the troublesome 72 Demons would now be gone. The power of the Demon Realm would be weakened by that much, but he had already prepared routes in anticipation.
“I wonder how it will go this time.”
At Satan’s words, everyone’s gaze turned to the screen.
“What can you do in this situation, Frondier.”
***
The square where Aphrodite and Atena faced one another.
Citizens and demons, gods.
And between them, hiding and watching, Frondier and his companions.
[......Frondier.]
The crow gave a small voice.
[Bael has failed.]
“He failed?”
[The Demon Realm has no intention of saving the 72 Demons. Just now, Beelzebub informed Bael.]
Gregory, who had watched the two’s conversation with a bird’s eyes.
He relayed what he had heard to Frondier.
“Satan became king?”
Frondier asked back in surprise.
Had the Seven Deadly Sins come to an agreement? To break through this situation?
'Then why Satan, of all of them?'
Even if everyone agreed that someone had to be king, choosing Satan among them was another matter.
If it had been proven by strength, he would have become king long ago, so there had to be some other reason.
'Arald asked me to become the king of demons, and in the end a king appears anyway.'
Frondier dropped the thought and looked straight ahead.
Bael was a problem too, but the situation here was urgent as well.
Already an enormous tension was sweeping through the venue.
Only—
'Wow, they’re both so pretty.'
There was just one person who was different.
'So that’s Aphrodite. Truly the goddess of beauty!'
Cybel failed to read the mood and looked back and forth between the two.
Cybel, who knew nothing of the situation in Palma.
Having come to find Frondier with nothing but the feeling that “now is the right time,” the “appearance vote” held in the capital this time was nothing but an event to her.
Of course, during the process of enjoying the event there had been a sudden attack, but now even Charon, who had attacked her, stood stock-still without a twitch.
'What on earth? Calling me a demon, a god, just from seeing me.'
Cybel found it quite offensive to be called a demon.
Because she herself had harbored that suspicion.
A child loved by fate.
Loved so much that everything that hindered her would be eliminated.
Cybel had no divine power.
She had thought the good fortune she possessed was a god’s power, but no god ever responded to her call.
Therefore, though she had worried that perhaps she was a demon, now she did not.
It was not that she had found proof that she was not a demon.
She had simply ceased to care about such things.
“Aphrodite, you’re more desperate than I thought. To show yourself in person.”
Atena spoke with a fearless smile.
The people around, thinking it was Carla speaking, were appalled.
“Drop the clumsy act, Atena.”
Aphrodite’s words were keen-edged.
Atena’s eyes sank.
When a god possesses a human, other gods avoid disclosing that fact if at all possible. Because it is an act that diminishes the other’s faith.
This was close to an unwritten rule, and while not absolute, most kept to it as far as possible.
'Are you planning to damage my image? Aphrodite, those wounds must be bothering you indeed.'
Atena knew the rough circumstances of Aphrodite as well. Aphrodite, wounded by some cause and bound in place. She needed the Golden Apple by any means.
'Of course, that’s not the only thing, it seems.'
Atena glanced sidelong at Cybel.
Even Atena herself had thought that a human with looks on the level of “Carla” would not appear easily.
Yet the women whom that fellow Frondier had brought were all of tremendous appearance. To the extent one might think he had deliberately searched out and gathered only those kinds of girls.
And now, a girl like this popped out.
'Etius—no, I’ve never heard that the continent of Falind had especially more beautiful girls.'
Right now, aside from the problem of the Golden Apple, Cybel must be considerably on Aphrodite’s mind.
As the goddess of war, Atena sought war; likewise, the goddess of beauty sought beauty.
Aphrodite’s problem was that this “beauty” applied to herself.
Even if Atena was the goddess of war, she was not war itself; but Aphrodite sought to become beauty itself.
The tragedies born in Aphrodite’s hands because of that dangerous way were now beyond counting.
“You there.”
And Aphrodite looked at Cybel.
“Ah, yes, me?”
Startled by the unexpected summons, Cybel answered without thinking.
At that moment, Atena felt a strange unease.
'Don’t tell me.'
Atena looked at Aphrodite.
Aphrodite, goddess of beauty. Nowhere should there be a being more beautiful than she.
There must not be.
“Wait a moment, Aphrodite.”
Atena tried to stop her, but without listening—
“Would you like to join as a candidate as well?”
That offhand single line.
The one who reacted most strongly to that question was neither Cybel nor Atena.
It was Frondier, who had been quietly watching.
“......This is.”
An invitation, offered personally by Aphrodite, for an unrelated human to participate.
Pride—or conceit—as the goddess of beauty.
Aphrodite had misspoken. She likely did not realize it was a slip of the tongue yet.
Frondier’s mind spun rapidly.
His magical metaphor was a set of gears. Therefore, his usual process of thinking resembled that.
An empty space was filled, and the gears in his head began to turn.
'Good. This could work.'
Frondier, flushed with a feverish «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» delight, looked to Elodie beside him.
Elodie’s face scrunched up completely.
“......I really hate this.”
“We have to save people.”
At those words, Elodie lowered her head.
Bzzzt—
Just then, Frondier’s phone buzzed once more.
[Frondier, it’s Riri.]
“What’s with that manner of speaking?”
Suddenly it felt like he was answering over a radio.
[This is how you usually do it. Anyway, the demons look strange.]
“Hm?”
[There are some slinking backward. Of course, they could be citizens, or gods possessing humans. But seeing how they’re edging back while watching Aphrodite—]
“Then they’re demons.”
The demons were withdrawing. In other words, they were trying to flee.
'The gods are gathered here, and to respond you need a fair number of demons. At least until Satan opens a gate.'
The demons had no intention of waging an all-out war with the gods.
However, as always, if they moved individually, they would merely be defeated in detail.
To increase their chance of survival, the demons had to gather, and they had to know where and how the gods would attack.
Sacrificing an individual’s life to save the group. The basic survival method of demons.
But if they were trying to run, it meant the situation had changed.
'......Bael?'
This change had surely been sparked by Bael.
Had he told the demons that the plan had collapsed?
If Satan would no longer open a gate, the likelihood was high that he had told them to each find their own way to live.
'And this information will be conveyed to the gods as well.'
If the Demon Realm had abandoned the 72 Demons, the gods would have no hesitation in killing them.
Even if they could win, fighting the entire Demon Realm was a burden; but if what remained were only the 72 Demons and the low-grade demons of Agoris—
With a hardened face, Frondier looked around.
In his eyes were a few who, with tense faces, were slowly edging backward.
'Dangerous. They’ll be found out.'
Right now, the gods did not know only because they were still hiding among humans.
The moment they left this place, they would be detected at once. And by Frondier’s intuition, the gods’ speed in pursuit was faster than the demons’ speed in fleeing.
Once that began, it could not be undone. If they did nothing, they would merely lose their chance to run.
'If one demon begins to flee, the demons will all try to run at once. Among many demons, perhaps a single self might survive.'
Frondier thought for a moment.
Cybel was here now.
Poseidon had said that this Golden Apple story was a fate that could not be altered, but with Cybel’s appearance it had begun to drift little by little.
Sssk.
Frondier, having made up his mind.
And then, all of a sudden, Cybel, who was in the center of the square, lifted her head.
“Ah, that sound.”
She let out words whose meaning no one knew.
While Aphrodite waited for an answer—
“Ah, I’m sorry. It’s a sound only I can hear.”
“......A sound?”
Atena, who stood nearby, asked.
To that, Cybel smiled brightly.
“I, you see—am a child loved by fate.”
“......And therefore?”
Naturally, Atena thought her words were a joke or an exaggeration. She answered with a small laugh.
“So when it’s about time for fate to try to match itself to me, I hear a sound.”
But the more Cybel’s words continued, the more that smile gradually froze.
“Creak, creak-creak—like that.”
The chill spread even to Aphrodite,
“You can’t hear it, can you?”
And then—
“Elodie, get ready.”
Frondier de Roach took off his mask.
“You—what—no, hey!”
Whoosh!
Frondier shot into the air.
Unfurling a demon’s wings.
A demon who, in this situation, spread wings and flew up—
'The 72 Demons!!'
Every god thought that.
“Catch—!”
One of the gods hiding among the humans, without meaning to, let out a voice.
But the demon who had soared, to everyone’s surprise—
Tap.
Came down right in front of Cybel.
Spreading wings more eerie than any demon’s.
Cybel looked at him and beamed.
“Hello, my demon.”
“Cybel.”
The demon embraced Cybel.
While Cybel’s eyes went round, he took out a single glittering crystal and—
“Close your eyes.”
He hid Cybel within his arms, and—
KWAAAAAA—!!
A brilliant light poured over the entire square.
All saw it.
The gods, the humans—even the Seven Deadly Sins in the Demon Realm.
The demon who had alighted, the light pouring down in radiance.
Through that light—
“Test.”
Frondier.
Opening the demon’s power.
