Demon King of the Royal Class

Fortunately, it was the weekend, so even though it was dawn, we were allowed to enter and exit the Temple freely. There weren’t many people around at dawn except for some diligent students exercising, but we were able to follow the father and daughter pair at a considerable distance.

Olivia Lanche, walking with her head bowed down like a criminal, and the commander of the Holy Knights who walked silently beside her, left the Temple and headed for the station.

However, there was a problem.

Adriana and I looked at each other, at a loss for words.

“...”

“...”

Riding the magical train wasn’t free...

It was only natural that we hadn’t brought any money with us, since we had rushed out in the middle of our morning exercise to follow them. We were so focused on following them that we didn’t even consider bringing money.

This whole incident was going to end just because two idiots who couldn’t think properly started tailing them.

“W-What should we do?” Adriana asked.

“Can’t we leave something like a student card as collateral and run a tab—Never mind, we don’t even have our student cards.”

We literally had our bodies, and nothing else.

Of course, I always wore my precious items like Sarkegar’s ring and the Flame of Fire, but those were not at all suitable items to leave as collateral for a debt.

Even though it was early morning on a weekend, there were still quite a few people at the station who were heading into the Temple for work.

We had to think fast.

I approached someone dressed in a suit, though I couldn’t tell if he was a staff member or someone from the shopping district.

“E-Excuse me, sir?”

“Yes? What is it?”

“We are students from the Temple... and we accidentally left our wallets behind. We urgently need to get on the train... Could you perhaps lend us some money for the tickets?”

‘Damn it.’

Never in my life did I think I’d end up doing something like this.

I was nothing more than just a common beggar you see at the terminal, making excuses like, “Ah... Pardon me but I lost my wallet just now... Could you possibly spare five thousand won for the fare?”

“... Is that so? And it also seems you don’t have your student IDs with you as well... Okay then, could you tell me which class you’re in, and who you are?”

“We are from the Royal Class, first-year Class A, Number 11, Reinhart, and second-year Class A, Number 2, Adriana. We will definitely reimburse you later if you contact us again.”

“Did you just say Royal Class? Goodness... It must be quite the emergency for you to rush out like this. Okay, here. Don’t forget it next time.”

“Thank you so much!”

Fortunately, it seemed he was a staff member or something of the sort, as he believed my words and readily handed over the money for the tickets. Perhaps my smooth delivery of our credentials helped to convince him that I was speaking the truth.

The civic spirit within the imperial capital was really something else.

Adriana was staring at me with a dazed expression, having just witnessed me successfully beg for ticket money.

“Oh, right... junior, you’re from the...”

Adriana nodded blankly, as though remembering once again that I had supposedly grown up on the streets.

‘No no no, that’s not it! That was just fabricated information! I’m not really from the streets! This was literally my first time doing something like that!’

Having her look at me as if I was going back to old habits was quite an unpleasant feeling.

***

After purchasing the train tickets, we followed the two of them again. We didn’t board the same train car, but we waited until they got on board before boarding an adjacent car. There weren’t many people on the train, perhaps because it was still early morning.

Once inside, we whispered between ourselves.

“Where could they be going?”

“Senior probably lives in the commander’s private residence, near the temple of the Order of the Holy Knights. We just have to get off at the temple station in Roznok.”

Roznok would correspond to the Yangcheon district of Seoul.

To be honest, I couldn’t remember all the districts, so I had even put up a map of the imperial capital in my room while writing.

Anyway, I had been to the Roznok district—where the temple of the Order of the Holy Knights was located—once before, during the incident involving the demon prisoners and the black-market auction.

That time, I hadn’t headed there with good intentions, and strangely, this time too, I was on a somewhat unsavory errand.

We had to switch lines a few times, but followed them all the way. They seemed to be conversing, so by enhancing my hearing, I was able to distinguish their voices through the noise.

They appeared not to have noticed they were being followed at all. We were now located within their blind spot. Although they kept their voices low to avoid being overheard, I could pick them up clearly.

—Do you really want to choose such a difficult path?

—...I’m sorry, father.

—You will eventually submit to it anyway.

—Wouldn’t it just... be better to expel me from the congress instead? I will forget everything I’ve seen and heard.

—That’s not possible.

—...

—A person’s character can be changed. Thoughts can be changed too. But talent cannot be changed. What’s innate cannot be altered. You were born with everything. Looks, talent, ability. You were born with it all, and that is why you became my daughter.

—...

—Undesirable things are bound to occur within any sort of group. No one who is perfect in every way can become a leader. If such a person exists, they’ll be living a life intoxicated by their own excellence. You are not destined to be an outstanding individual, but a leader. All these things are just part of what you need to accept. I wasn’t surprised when you blamed me. It was just the right time for the inevitable words and actions, that’s all.

—I can’t... do that. I am, just as you said... a pathetic person, living intoxicated by my own excellence. Father, please...

—It’s wiser to accept it now, rather than changing yourself after getting hurt.

‘Getting hurt...’

It seemed like something beyond my imagination was about to happen.

It appeared that, if Olivia didn’t accept this matter, they planned to pressure her in some manner until she did.

It was not about simply punishing Olivia or anything like that; they had no intention of letting Olivia go at all.

—I don’t think my opinions will change no matter what happens to me. Father, please... please...

—Enough.

—...

—I won’t hear any more.

The commander said nothing more after that.

***

“They didn’t specify what was going to happen, but I heard them talking about getting hurt or something.”

“Getting... hurt?”

“Yes. It seems... they might resort to some coercive method.”

Adriana’s eyes shook in disbelief upon hearing this.

Coercive methods...

There could only be one thing coming to Adriana’s mind: inquisition.

“C-Could it be... they’re planning to do something like an inquisition...?”

“It’s not entirely impossible.”

Instead of letting her stay silent and live on quietly, they might forcefully recondition her mentally to change her mind. The commander of the Order of the Holy Knights didn’t say anything more after that once they were back outside, but the lack of confirmation only made Adriana and I consider even more extreme things that could possibly happen to Olivia.

Upon reaching the station that led to the Order’s temple, the commander and Olivia did not head to their private residence, but towards the temple itself. We could only look on, dumbfounded.

Olivia simply wanted to leave the Temple, forget about the Order, and live her life. However, the commander was intent on making her accept the circumstances, by force if necessary, and this could involve violent methods.

Olivia, being his adopted daughter, likely never imagined that he would go to such lengths. Had she known, she might have run away somewhere.

She thought that simply keeping quiet would have been enough, but she had not expected her adoptive father’s obsession with her future to be this deep.

“What could possibly be the reason for going to such lengths...?”

Adriana wept, hidden in an alleyway, covering her face with both hands.

While it was true Olivia Lanche was an outstanding person, torturing an unwilling person to forcefully make her accept her role as a successor was unfathomable.

The commander was not at all flustered by Olivia Lanche knowing about the ugly side to the Order of the Holy Knights or the five Orders that made up the Divine Cult of the Almighty. Rather, he believed that knowing this was necessary if she was to become the leader eventually.

This meant that, regardless of the previous terrorist incident, Olivia Lanche was inevitably going to face this situation one day.

However, in my novel, the character of Olivia Lanche was not given major importance until the end, and despite her exceptional talent, she did not appear in the later “gate” incident.

In other words, the commander would fail to change Olivia Lanche’s heart.

At this stage, the only possible outcomes I could think of were that she would either be completely broken or, in the most extreme case, she would die.

That conjecture was turned into conviction.

[Special Achievement Event Update - Historical Turning Point (Olivia Lanche)]

[Description: If you successfully rescue Olivia Lanche, the predetermined future will change significantly.]

[Reward: Attainment of a special achievement. One of Olivia Lanche’s traits will be randomly granted to you.]

A “historical turning point.”

Such an event would occur when a person who wasn’t supposed to exist was saved, going on to become an individual who exerted tremendous influence and causing a major upheaval in history. I knew this from Charlotte’s case. Indeed, Charlotte’s survival drastically changed the main story on a massive scale, making it unpredictable.

Olivia Lanche was also a figure on such a level.

The mere fact that this event was triggered confirmed that something extremely detrimental would happen to Olivia Lanche, resulting in her death or her becoming a wreck.

Effectively, it was as if the candy vendor had informed me of the future.

After crying for a while, Adriana looked at me with a hardened expression.

“This... This is insane. This shouldn’t happen.”

As Adriana said, although I don’t know Olivia Lanche well, I did not wish for her to die or be broken.

If there was a way to save her, I wanted to save her.

Thus, the reward was ultimately secondary; I just wanted to save her. It was infuriating to think that such a kind person had to be treated so unfairly and end up destroyed or dead.

Not even knowing what Olivia Lanche’s traits might be—and hence not knowing what rewards were possibly available—made this whole thing even more perplexing. This was the first time such an abstract thing had been offered as a reward. It certainly didn’t seem to be a talent of some sort, though.

I never specifically set out anything about traits in the original story. This had to be an additional setting created by the system itself.

“I think so too, but... what should we do?”

Rescuing Olivia, who had been taken into the temple of the Order of the Holy Knights, seemed an impossible task for the two of us. We didn’t even have a pretext to enter the temple in the first place. Even if it was possible to gain entry, we likely wouldn’t be able to reach the location where Olivia Lanche, who was facing imprisonment or torture, would be held.

Power had to be countered with power.

Charlotte or Vertus might have some clever solution, but I couldn’t think of any reason why they would need to intervene to save Olivia Lanche.

Even if a prince or princess were to put pressure on the the Order of the Holy Knights, that sort of meddling in the internal affairs of the Order would result in an enormous amount of backlash that had to be dealt with.

Interference in internal affairs was in itself a serious diplomatic issue. While the Order of the Holy Knights was not a nation, in this context, it could be more or less considered one.

It might become an even bigger issue if it was construed as a political power trying to interfere with a divine organization.

In this situation, the only people who could help were Charlotte or Vertus, but obtaining their help would undoubtedly be a difficult task.

“If many people knew about this... would anything change?”

Adriana realized that the Order of the Holy Knights was planning to do something inconceivable. If a large number of people were to learn that the Saintess of Eredian was being tortured by the commander of the Order of the Holy Knights, what would happen then?

Public outrage would certainly erupt at the ridiculousness of the situation.

“Things would certainly change. But the moment the Order of the Holy Knights admits to such an action, they’d be crossing a point of no return, so they would have to deny it vehemently, whatever it takes.”

Admitting such heinous acts would not just tarnish the image of the Order of the Holy Knights—it would shatter it entirely. Naturally, they would deny it by any means necessary.

Furthermore, the Divine Cult itself had a massive existing base of support, so it could also easily be dismissed as an absurd slander against the Order of the Holy Knights.

‘What should we do?’

Spreading rumors would undoubtedly take time, and there was no guarantee Olivia Lanche would be safe while those rumors potentially turned into actual action.

The fastest method would involve the intervention of other significant powers, but Vertus had already lost interest, having assumed that Olivia Lanche would be able to handle matters within the Order of the Holy Knights. Even if she was being brainwashed to become the next commander, it would be of no concern to Vertus. After all, she would be “reformed” into someone who wouldn’t cause trouble.

In the end, getting Charlotte and Vertus to act carried too much risk, and lacked a justifiable cause or merit.

‘Significant powers... Powers must act...’

Then it hit me—I had been only considering the strongest power I personally knew.

While it was true that I was surrounded by some of the strongest powers, I realized there existed another significant power.

A power with clear cause and sure strength...

“Um... senior, I don’t mean to be funny... but listen.”

“D-Do you have an idea?”

I felt a bit embarrassed to say it out loud.

“How about we talk to a teacher?”

“Let’s tell the teacher!”

Even I found the notion somewhat absurd as the words stuttered their way out of my mouth.

“Oh...”

Adriana’s expression soured at my suggestion.

Though it sounded odd, I meant to use the power of the Temple itself!

In that case, though, what we had to do was essentially tattle-tale to the teacher...

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