Shadow Transfer.
It was a movement technique Manggot had independently devised. A skill that traveled a long distance through shadows by linking to a target.
For Selena, it was also an indispensable skill to protect Frondier. That was one of the reasons she and the other members of the Yeolgots were so capable in close combat. If the linked target wasn’t an ally but an enemy, then once you transferred through the shadow, close combat would inevitably follow.
In this way, Shadow Transfer was usable by quite a few within Manggot. The Shepherd and the Yeolgots could all use it, and the Shepherd’s direct subordinates could use it as well.
However, looking at Manggot as a whole, that was a small number. It wasn’t something that could be learned so easily.
“Shadow Transfer is not a technique you can learn in a day or two. Your body could be injured as well.”
“I don’t care! I’ll put everything I have into learning it!”
“......More than anything,”
Selena’s wary gaze deepened.
“How am I supposed to trust you?”
“What?”
“Shadow Transfer is useful, but it’s a technique that dangerous in equal measure. If you mastered it and then launched a surprise attack on Lord Frondier,”
Selena’s eyes grew clearer, and all the colder for it.
“Even if Lord Frondier came out unharmed, you would die. Along with me.”
Riri would die for aiming at Frondier, and Selena would die for teaching her Shadow Transfer.
Selena was saying the price for both of those sins would be death.
Looking at Selena like that, Riri grinned.
“I knew it. I figured you’d say that.”
“Excuse me?”
“Selena, you believe I can pull it off, don’t you? As long as I learn it.”
“......Urk.”
Selena had spoken on the assumption that Riri would master the skill. In other words, even Selena was unconsciously aware of it. That if it was Riri, she would be able to pull off Shadow Transfer.
Selena let out a sigh.
“What do you plan to do with it if you learn it? Let me at least hear that.”
“Well, protect Frondier, of course.”
“And you expect me to believe that?”
“Why wouldn’t you? I’m Frondier’s subordinate.”
That much was true. It was a fact that Riri appeared to serve Frondier.
Even so, Selena found it hard to trust Riri, who was a demon.
At that, Riri smiled as if she understood perfectly.
“Right. Selena, you’re human, not a demon. So you don’t really know much about demons.”
“What do you mean, ‘don’t know much’?”
“Demons, you see, are a race that lays down their lives for the one they serve.”
“.......”
“You’ve seen how the demons you’ve met act so far, haven’t you? When they attacked Frondier, and when they attacked Pielot. Demons move on the assumption that dozens or even hundreds of them will die. An individual life doesn’t rank very high.”
For demons, the priority of their own lives was low.
Their top priority was not an individual instinct to survive, but the ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) survival of their race as a whole.
Demons retreated from battle in only two cases: when they judged that the battle would yield no gain whatsoever, or when they judged that the entire race was in danger.
“So you’re saying you’re the same, Ms. Riri? That you take your own life lightly?”
“I’m a high-ranking demon, so I’m comparatively someone who values my life, but it feels different from a human’s. High-ranking demons can command low-ranking demons. I live with the sense that if I die, all the demons beneath me might die as well. That’s why I treat my life as precious.”
In other words, even Riri treasured her own life only insofar as she was thinking of her race as a whole.
“But right now, you’re moving for Lord Frondier’s sake, Ms. Riri. If you’re thinking of demons as a whole, then serving Lord Frondier would have the opposite effect, wouldn’t it?”
“Exactly. That’s the important part, Selena.”
Riri raised a finger as if she had hit the nail on the head.
“At first, I thought the same. Frondier is human and powerful, so one day he might put all demons in danger. But look at the situation now.”
Indeed, Frondier had opposed the demons. You couldn’t count how many demons had died by his hand alone.
Frondier was human. He killed demons to protect humans.
And now.
Frondier, to protect humans, had saved demons.
“The 72 Demons have gone under Frondier. Once we found the Gate, they became able to return to the demon realm at any time. He has unified scattered demon forces. And he did it with the power of demons.”
Among demons who had bowed to the power of other demons, the relationship of master and servant was absolute.
Selena spoke.
“......So you’re saying that serving Lord Frondier is ultimately something done for the demons’ sake?”
“That’s right. The moment I realized that, my objective changed.”
Riri, too, was one of those serving Frondier after receiving his power. Their master-servant relationship was absolute.
Yet at the same time, Riri had resolved that she would be at odds with demons. Frondier was human. Serving a human meant opposing her own people, the demons.
But that was not how things were turning out.
“I persuaded the 72 Demons. The ones who still haven’t come to Frondier are, one by one, returning to Bael. The Seven Deadly Sins are certainly powerful, but their king was chosen only as a temporary head. Their power is not unified as one.”
“......Wait, hold on. Ms. Riri, don’t tell me.”
A chilling thought brushed across Selena’s mind. Riri nodded as if to say she was right.
“I want all 72 Demons to be able to use Shadow Transfer. So that demons can stand by Frondier’s side, instantly.”
***
After the fight in Palma ended—
Cybel stayed behind in the capital of Palma.
To be precise, rather than “stayed,” it was more that she turned back after following Frondier’s group.
Because of what he said to her after returning from Pandemonium.
“Cybel, you go back to the capital.”
“Why?”
“You showed up in the capital before I did. There’ll be a lot of people who remember you. If you disappear around the same time as me, you could end up being branded a demon too.”
“I wouldn’t mind, though.”
“I would.”
Cybel had wanted to stay at Frondier’s side, but he refused more firmly than she had expected.
Cybel had no intention of returning to the capital out of concern about being mistaken for a demon, but she had no choice when Frondier said that her being in the capital would help.
“At this point, it’s basically magic words. ‘For my sake.’ It’s better for me if you’re here. It’s better if you do this. You know I can’t refuse if you say it’s for you, hmph.”
So now, Cybel had bought ice cream at a shop in the capital and was sitting outside on one of the chairs, eating it.
It had already been several days since she came to the capital and settled into a lodging. Coming here “to see Frondier” was turning into nothing more than a sightseeing trip.
As she ate her ice cream, Cybel shifted her gaze.
Over there hung two pictures that had been put up for the vote not long ago. The vote to choose the most beautiful woman in the capital. The two candidates.
As she stared at them quietly, Cybel muttered,
“......I’d be good enough, wouldn’t I.”
Munch, munch.
As she ate her ice cream, Cybel suddenly became pointlessly depressed.
“I mean, honestly. I, you know. There’s nothing about me that falls short of anyone. I was popular at Constel too, I mean, super, super popular!”
Of course, at Constel there were plenty of other people whose looks were outstanding besides her. Elodie, Runia, and the transfer student Aten, and so on. A little later, Selena had joined that list as well.
Even so, Cybel was still Cybel. There was no reason her looks or popularity would ever go dull.
“There’s no way you don’t know, Frondier. How I’m being.”
With a sigh, her head tilted, and with it, her pink hair slipped down.
Her hair had grown even longer than in her student days. She had always stood out, but now she made every passerby turn to look at least once.
Caw─
Apparently one of them was a crow. A crow flew past nearby and cried as it passed Cybel.
Then it circled back and settled on her shoulder.
“Huh?”
[Cybel, there is a message.]
“......A message?”
[Ah, no. Habit. It’s not a message. Frondier told me not to call it a message under any circumstances.]
“If it’s not a message, then what is it?”
[Frondier says he has a favor to ask you.]
Not a message, but a favor.
‘Don’t call it a message.......’
As if that was all that different from a favor.
As if there were some grand meaning to Frondier’s wording.
“......What kind of favor?”
Cybel asked in a noticeably more generous tone.
[Will there perhaps be another beauty vote held here in the capital?]
“Mm? I did hear some talk like that.”
The mass fainting incident of the citizens caused by the sudden appearance of a demon.
Since it had been canceled due to an external factor, there was talk that they would start it again.
[If the vote is held again, he would like you to put yourself forward as a candidate.]
“Me, as a candidate? Why?”
[He seems to be interested in the prize they give to the winner.]
A prize. For Frondier, that was a surprisingly worldly concern.
Cybel asked,
“What if I don’t win?”
[He said there is absolutely no way that will happen.]
Hmm.
Hmmm.......
“Well, I could give it a try, I guess. It’s not like it costs me anything.”
[On the day of the vote, Frondier will come back. He said that once he finishes what he’s doing, you can go back to Atlas together, if you’re willing.]
“Hm, really?”
Frondier had asked her a favor.
Enter the beauty vote and win it. Because if it’s you, you’ll definitely win.
He would come see her that day. Once it was all over, they would go back to Atlas together.
Hmm.
Hmmm-mmmmmm.......
“I guess I’ll try it. It’s not like it costs me anything.”
[You just said that a moment ago.]
“Ah, did I?”
***
After the battle in the capital of Palma ended, it was not Agoris but rather the continent of Falind that became busier.
Especially the imperial palace.
“Most of the Zodiacs are in shock and have stopped working.”
“The only ones who returned immediately were Ospreet and Monty, just those two.”
Emperor Bartello and Empress Philly received the report and their faces hardened.
After Bartello’s health recovered, he began taking charge of the imperial palace knights, military training, and the Empire’s public order.
While he was under that curse for a long time, the scope of what Philly had to shoulder alone had become far too broad, and it would take time to wind that back.
But this matter was something the couple took on together. The situation was quite serious, and it didn’t clearly fall into either’s domain.
Philly let out a sigh.
“......The only Zodiacs who remain unaffected are those who were never possessed by a god, or who managed to reclaim themselves even after being possessed......”
“When the Empire was merely devout, this wouldn’t have been so shocking. But things have changed.”
If the Empire had remained the Empire of older days—
Even before Frondier’s time in the Empire, back when Bartello was making a fierce showing on the front lines—
No one would have been shocked even if gods possessed humans. Rather, they would have been grateful, calling it the grace of the gods.
Apparently the gods had believed the Empire’s Zodiacs would still be like that even now.
“On top of that, there hasn’t been a single word since the report that Aster Evans and the Zodiac Ludovic were seen heading for Agoris. I don’t think they’re dead, but......”
“The voices of concern are coming from the citizens.”
Long ago, after Frondier left the Empire.
Those who had feared and condemned him as a demon all became seized, over time, by a colossal doubt.
Because of the Zodiacs’ behavior.
Ospreet, the headmaster of Constel, never answered any question about Frondier, and refused any related interviews. Zodiac Ridwi was the same.
Those two were actually better than most; Zodiac Monty looked ready to cause an incident the moment Frondier’s name was mentioned.
Of them all, the one who most changed the public mood was Zodiac Ludovic.
Ludovic himself did nothing.
It was precisely because he did nothing that things grew so large.
Crushed by immense guilt and despair, Ludovic locked himself away at home and never went out. The first to be shaken by the sight of him, whose loyalty to the Empire was higher than anyone’s, were the other Zodiacs.
Ludovic never tried to persuade the other Zodiacs that Frondier was not a demon. He had no interest in such things.
He simply saw Frondier as a demon, judged him as a demon, and then fell into despair when he saw the result.
At that sight, the Zodiacs gradually became aware that a chilling truth was crawling up from under their feet.
─What have we done?
─We drove out a demon.
─We drove out the demon that was about to swallow the Empire.
─The demon who persuaded the imperial palace, gathered the strong, predicted Manggot’s attack, headed for the front line before anyone, and struck down the Seven Deadly Sins.
─The demon who had done all that, supposedly to devour the Empire himself in the end, a lurking, insidious demon.
──But if he wasn’t a demon.
