Demon King of the Royal Class-Chapter 516

When Vertus returned to the capital, the only attendant he brought with him was Sabioleen Tana. It was better if as few people were aware of Ellen’s condition as possible.

Dettomorian was not in the dormitory, but in the club building where he usually studied sorcery by himself.

Dettomorian was the sole member and president of the Occult Research Club, a club he had created to study sorcery. Initially, neither Vertus nor Ellen was particularly close to Dettomorian, so it was the first time they heard of the Occult Research Club he had established.

Naturally, the clubs in the Temple were no longer functioning properly. Since the Temple was almost deserted, there were no club activities going on, and the area where the club buildings were concentrated was even more desolate than the other parts of the Temple.

Vertus felt a sense of futility when he reached the area with Ellen and Tana.

“...”

Was this the right thing to do? Was it right to seek these possibilities, under such circumstances?

They hadn’t gained the cooperation of the Church of the Five Great Gods, and even the forces of the Demon King, who surely had Olivia Lanche with them, had not found any answers through Divine Power. Moreover, the renowned mages of the continent also could not provide a solution. Was it right to bring Ellen here just because a mere student claimed to be able to use the mysterious power of sorcery?

Standing in front of the desolate section that housed the Temple’s club buildings, Vertus realized just how absurd his expectations were. But they had already come this far.

Even if there was no possible solution, then confirming this impossibility would still hold meaning.

“Let’s go.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Tana supported Ellen, who occasionally staggered and struggled to maintain her balance, as the two of them followed Vertus.

***

“... He’s not here.”

Vertus inclined his head at the sight of the empty club room. Although it was daytime, the room was terribly dark, as the blackout curtains were drawn.

Dettomorian was nowhere to be seen.

“And why is it so dark?” Vertus moved toward the curtains, wanting to get a better look at the club room.

“Don’t touch it,” Ellen said, stopping Vertus from approaching the curtains. “I don’t think we should touch anything carelessly.”

“... Yes, she’s right, Your Majesty.”

“Is that so...”

Though it was hard to see in the darkness, the room was filled with strange idols, just like what Ms. Mustang had reported. It was unclear whether they had been simply placed randomly or installed in a proper arrangement, but Ellen felt as though nothing in this room was to be touched carelessly.

None of them knew much about sorcery, but whatever it was, it was best not to meddle with it.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Vertus could see the bizarre sculptures, unlit candles, and countless traces of mysterious research scattered throughout the club room.

“What are all these things?” he wondered.

If Dettomorian wasn’t a Temple student, this scene alone would have been enough to have him arrested for researching dark magic.

There wasn’t a single symbol that looked ordinary.

“But where is he?” Vertus asked out loud.

Dettomorian was said to come to this club building every day, but he wasn’t in the club room. Perhaps he had gone for a late lunch.

“The basement,” Ellen said softly, her eyes unfocused. “I think he’s in the basement.”

“...?”

Tana and Vertus were puzzled by Ellen’s words, but it seemed Ellen had sensed something.

***

Just like the upper floors of the club building, the basement was also unused. It was mainly used as storage for club equipment.

The three of them descended to the basement of the club building, guided by Ellen’s strange certainty.

Clunk! Clunk!

“It’s locked,” Tana said.

The large door leading to the basement was locked.

“... It seems to be locked from the inside,” Tana added.

The lock was on the outside, but they couldn’t enter, indicating that the door was locked from within.

“It seems they’ve sealed it off...”

Since the building wasn’t in use, they might have simply locked the door to the basement.

But Vertus felt a strange sensation.

“Let’s try to get in.” With a single swipe of her Aura Blade, Tana easily opened the locked door.

As soon as they reached the basement, Vertus couldn’t help but frown at the sight before him.

“What is this...?”

As soon as they entered the basement, Vertus and Tana felt a chill run down their spines at the sight of the strange patterns drawn on the corridors and ceiling.

It was as if the entire space was being used as a magic circle, with bizarre patterns and formations drawn haphazardly on the corridors and ceiling.

“There is... definitely something here.”

As Ellen had said, they couldn’t discern the specific function of these things, but they were clearly related to sorcery. Dettomorian was doing something in the basement, behind the locked door.

Concerned about any potential effects, Vertus, Tana, and Ellen carefully avoided stepping on or touching the various drawings and formations as they descended into the basement.

There were two levels to the basement, and both the first and second levels were filled with mysterious formations and symbols.

“This wasn’t made overnight...” Vertus said softly, observing the work around him.

“It seems that way...” Tana replied.

The club building had been unused for quite some time. It seemed certain that Dettomorian had locked himself within this basement even before the large-scale army had been formed, drawing and installing these sorcerous formations over a very long period of time.

Though he had only heard rumors, Vertus still felt a chill down his spine. Despite not knowing what these formations and symbols meant, they still seemed ominous.

They finally found Dettomorian in the deepest part of the second basement level, inside a large storage room.

In the dimly lit basement, they could see countless candles burning beyond the open door of the large storage room.

Hundreds of large candles were placed haphazardly, and the melted wax dripped onto the floor of the storage room. Dettomorian sat quietly in the center of the array of candles.

In the light cast by the candles, Vertus could see idols made of bone fragments and numerous other sorcery symbols drawn in blood.

As if aware of the visitors, Dettomorian slowly raised his head to look at the three standing in the corridor.

“What are you...” Vertus said, quietly gazing at Dettomorian, who sat calmly at the heart of what seemed like an unholy ritual. “What are you doing here...?”

If Dettomorian had no reason for being there, that would be terrifying in itself. But if there was a reason, it was even more frightening—because whatever purpose this massive design of sorcery served, it was surely anything but good.

“I said, what are you doing!” Vertus shouted, his brow furrowing.

Dettomorian, the boy with the perpetually gloomy expression, watched them in the dim candlelight.

Another chill ran down Vertus’s spine.

“A prayer,” Dettomorian replied. “I’m praying for ‘peace.’”

He was sitting in the middle of what seemed like some sort of heretical summoning circle, claiming that he was praying for peace, although what surrounded him seemed as far removed from that as possible.

***

Dettomorian’s explanation of what seemed like an ominous summoning ritual was simple: he was praying for peace.

While it all still looked ominous and suspicious, Vertus did not have any understanding of sorcery. Therefore, he couldn’t determine whether this ominous-looking ritual had any actual function.

He couldn’t punish or interrogate Dettomorian because he couldn’t discern whether he was lying or telling the truth.

“You can come in...” Dettomorian said to Vertus, who was hesitating just outside the storage room.

Making their way through the candles, Tana, Ellen, and Vertus approached Dettomorian.

The storage room was filled with formations and symbols drawn in what seemed like blood.

Could something like this truly be a prayer for peace? Could it really serve that purpose? Vertus didn’t know.

“What is this ‘prayer’ you’re talking about?” Vertus asked.

“I don’t know,” Dettomorian responded.

Vertus was taken aback by the absurd response. “What?”

“I don’t know, either,” Dettomorian said, staring at the burning candle. “I’m just doing what I can.”

“...”

“I can’t fight, and this is all I know how to do...” Dettomorian looked up at Vertus with his ghostly face. “That’s why I’m doing this.”

The sorcerer himself didn’t know what the ritual he was performing really was.

“So in the end, you’re just praying?”

“Yeah... that’s right...”

Countless powerless people prayed to the heavens, projecting their hopes onto the hero. Although their prayers might be meaningless, that was all they could do.

Vertus looked around the storage room and then at Dettomorian, as if he couldn’t believe it.

“Do you... really think this will have any effect...?” Vertus asked.

“It might not...” Dettomorian tore a half-melted large candle from the floor and placed it in his palm. “But it might...”

Dettomorian was staring intently at the flickering candle flame.

Vertus felt suffocated as he watched Dettomorian’s slow actions. Wasn’t he basically admitting that all of this might turn out to be useless?

“When did you start doing this...?”

“I’ve been doing it... all along...”

Dettomorian was known for muttering strange words and bowing and dancing before strange idols.

Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, Dettomorian continued to pray for peace.

For over two years since the Gate Incident had been triggered, Dettomorian, who was unable to fight, had continuously offered prayers to an unknown power.

How was this different from the prayers of ordinary people, except in scale?

Dettomorian said that he continued to pray because it was all he could do.

Vertus didn’t know whether to feel a sense of emptiness or a sense of awe. It might not have any effect, but it might.

Vertus focused on how Dettomorian’s words emphasized neither revenge nor destruction, but peace. The fact that he was praying for peace, stuck in Vertus’s mind.

Ms. Mustang had provided some personal information on Dettomorian as well. He was a native of a primitive northern tribe... In this world, where monsters filled every field and plain, it was likely that Dettomorian’s homeland no longer existed.

Dettomorian didn’t know the truth, and so it would have been perfectly understandable if he prayed for the Demon King’s death in revenge. Yet, Dettomorian prayed not for vengeance, but for peace.

“So... If your prayer succeeds, if it has power, then how exactly will peace be achieved...?” Vertus asked.

Dettomorian shook his head and put down the candle he was holding. “I don’t know. If peace isn’t achieved... then my prayer would have failed...”

“...”

“But if peace is achieved... then it means my prayer succeeded...”

It was a result-oriented way of thinking.

“Of course, regardless of whether my prayer succeeds or not... peace might still come...” Dettomorian said, as if acknowledging what he already knew. “Well, if that happens, then that’s just good in itself...”

“Adding to the possibility of hope... can’t be a bad thing...” he added.

Dettomorian’s prayer might fail, or it might succeed. Or it might have had no meaning at all. But if there was even a slight possibility in the prayer itself, there was no reason not to try it. Therefore, he continued to pray for peace in the basement of a now-abandoned building where no one came.

He continued his endless rituals, drawing strange patterns and sorcery formations, and creating idols and bowing to them.

Watching Dettomorian, Vertus felt a sense of divinity coming from an unknown source. Just as he couldn’t read the meaning behind the sorcery formations, Vertus couldn’t grasp the value behind Dettomorian’s ritual. Even so, he was certain it wasn’t something to be dismissed.

“So... why did you come here...?” Dettomorian asked.

Only then did Vertus realize that Dettomorian was speaking to him, the emperor, in a casual manner.

While Ellen was a special case, the other students could no longer see Vertus as a friend. However, Dettomorian didn’t seem to have any intention of revering or fearing Vertus, even if he had become the emperor.

This sorcerer acted and moved according to his own principles and values. And he was praying for peace in accordance with those values and principles.

Vertus still couldn’t trust sorcery, but he decided that he could trust Dettomorian.

“There’s something I need your help with.”

***

Vertus briefly explained Ellen’s condition. Numerous spirits had possessed Ellen’s body, and she might lose her identity. They needed a way to remove or eliminate those spirits, or find a way to prevent Ellen’s identity from disappearing.

“...”

Dettomorian looked at Ellen, who was sitting in front of him. Ellen was desperately trying to keep her mind from wandering, but her eyes occasionally lost focus, as though keeping her mind focused was a struggle. Her condition seemed to be deteriorating in real-time.

Dettomorian observed Ellen’s complexion.

The hero, Ellen Artorius... When the Temple had been functioning properly, the two of them hadn’t had a chance to talk. Just as Ellen found Dettomorian unfamiliar, Dettomorian also found Ellen unfamiliar.

What was peace? Dettomorian sought to achieve peace through prayer, but he wasn’t the one actually bearing the weight of expectation. However, Ellen was carrying a significant portion of that weight.

“I don’t have the ability to handle ‘this’ kind of thing,” Dettomorian concluded almost too quickly, after studying Ellen’s condition.

Even Dettomorian had no solution.

After all that effort... Vertus and Sabioleen Tana’s expressions were tinged with despair.

Dettomorian stood up and walked over to a corner of the room. He rummaged through a leather backpack and took out a small bone fragment. He retrieved a carving knife and slowly began to carve the bone fragment.

He continued for hours, shaving, polishing, and grinding the bone fragment, and carving a symbol into the bone. Vertus, Tana, and Ellen quietly watched Dettomorian for a long time.

Finally, after carving the symbol into the bone fragment, Dettomorian drilled a hole and threaded it with a leather cord, creating something resembling a necklace.

Dettomorian handed the finished, albeit crude, necklace to Ellen. It bore the symbol of a moon within a sun.

Despite claiming he had no way to solve her condition, Dettomorian had made something for Ellen. It was a small symbol, created without any grand ritual.

“Will this... protect me?” Ellen asked, staring blankly at the necklace in her palm.

“... Anyone can pray,” Dettomorian replied.

Dettomorian had prayed by creating a massive sorcery formation, but in truth, prayer was something anyone had access to, regardless of whether what they prayed for came true.

“Just like I pray for peace...”

Even without the power to change the world, Dettomorian hoped and prayed to increase the probability of it happening.

“... You can also pray... that you won’t disappear.”

Ellen could pray that she wouldn’t disappear.

Perhaps this was a world in which believing in something could grant some kind of mysterious power.

Ellen had been chosen by the gods of the moon and sun.

Dettomorian had carved symbols of beings that could grant Ellen strength—not through his own power of sorcery, but in hope of protection from a greater power—and handed them to her.

“I’ll pray that this becomes a guidepost for your soul...”

And he promised that he would also pray for Ellen.

“May the blessings of the moon and sun be with you.”

Ellen recalled words she had once heard from her mother.

The moon and the sun...

She gently clutched the symbol carved from some unknown creature’s bone.

“Thank you...” Ellen said, and hung the amulet given by the sorcerer around her neck.

***

After receiving the amulet from Dettomorian, Vertus, Ellen, and Sabioleen Tana left the Temple. Ellen and Tana had to return to the army camp. Vertus, too, planned to stay with the army for a few more days, as his inspection wasn’t over yet.

“Do you think it will have an effect...?”

They didn’t even know if sorcery truly had any effect, and it might have just been a waste of time.

The three of them didn’t know if Dettomorian truly possessed any power. They didn’t know if he even had any power at all.

Magic proved its existence through reality. Divine Power proved its existence through the authority of the gods. But the three of them hadn’t seen any proof of the existence of sorcery. They didn’t know if it truly worked or not.

If peace could come about just by praying for it, then why were all the other practicalities necessary? Was it not just relying on fiction in a situation that was overwhelmingly difficult and desperate? Wasn’t it terrible that the emperor, the empire’s sharpest sword, and the hero who bore all of humanity’s hope, were trying to rely on the uncertainty of sorcery?

They had gone and spoken to Dettomorian and received an amulet as though in a trance, but as soon as Vertus left the Temple, he felt a sense of self-reproach, wondering what he had done.

Surely, this couldn’t protect Ellen.

Such thoughts were inevitable, and he felt guilty for bringing Ellen away from the battlefield to the Temple in the first place.

However, Ellen walked quietly, holding the small symbol hanging around her neck.

“It might not have any effect,” Ellen said, “but it also might.”

Dettomorian prayed, saying that peace might not come, but it might.

A mere amulet might not be able to protect Ellen, but it might also be able to.

“I don’t think having something like this is a bad thing.”

It might not actually protect her, but as Dettomorian had said, even the slightest possibility was enough for Ellen to believe.

If she used this as a guidepost for her soul and prayed—if she truly believed in it—then perhaps that belief alone could keep her from falling apart. If believing that she wouldn’t disappear could anchor her, then the amulet had already served its purpose.

Ellen believed, and with that, her blurry consciousness seemed to grow a little clearer.

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