I Killed the Demon King. It Was a Mistake. Chapter 144

I Killed the Demon King. It Was a Mistake.

Chapter 144

“So, did you receive a reward from Diana?”

“…!”

Caesar pushed away Elijah’s hand.

“For the first 20-30 years, Diana would periodically come and whisper love to you. But after 50 years passed, after 70 years passed? Did Diana even come to see you once a year?”

“I…”

“What about after 100 years? Didn’t Diana just leave after telling you to take good care of the children, without even saying she would come back?”

Caesar let out a dismissive laugh.

“You must have felt betrayed. After being separated from Diana for 100 years and continuously sacrificing humans like pigs.”

Nevertheless, Caesar still didn’t understand one part.

Why had he maintained the position of the head of the Friedrich family for over 150 years after Diana left?

He knew very well that he had been betrayed by Diana.

Yet he maintained the position of the border margrave.

Why was he maintaining this position for over 150 years?

He was disappointed that he couldn’t read beyond that.

“Yes. You’re right, Caesar.”

Elijah’s eyes and fingertips were flickering with sharp killing intent as if to kill Caesar immediately, but he refined his words smoothly.

“I hate Diana so much. I want to crush her neck right now for using me.”

Caesar peered into his heart.

And he could face a shocking truth.

“So I decided to take the best revenge I could against her.”

“No way…”

“Yes. I decided to tear apart all the succubi, vampires, and beast people that Diana carved. That’s what these 150 years were for, that’s what my patience was for. But…!”

A bone-breaking sound came from Elijah’s fist.

“As soon as the Demon King died, the Emperor stopped conquering the demon realm and turned his eyes to producing magic stones. Do you think that makes sense?”

The disaster of the demon realm war originated not from the empire’s desire for magic stones, but from a man’s terrible love and sense of betrayal towards a woman.

Elijah laughed softly.

“Yes. It’s better to clarify it so openly.”

Elijah roughly wiped the fallen wine glass and filled it to the brim.

“From now on, I’ll make a proposal to you, Caesar.”

And he handed it to Caesar.

“Soon, monsters and vampires will come over the Eagle valley. At that time, mobilize all the wizards and tear them to pieces.”

“…What?”

“Why are you asking back when your ears aren’t deaf? Oh, compensation! Yes. You’ll need compensation.”

Elijah put the wine glass on the table and then thrust his hand into his cloak.

Then his hand was sucked into it.

It was a space artifact.

Elijah took out a box from inside.

“I have many elixirs. Plenty of elixirs that you’d rarely see in a lifetime.”

Elijah placed the box on the table and opened it.

Inside was a red magic herb so potent that just smelling it would make Caesar’s aura react.

“This is probably the first time you’re seeing this. It’s a ten-thousand-year-old magic herb. It’s incomparable to the thousand-year-old snow ginseng. If you eat it, you’ll never lack aura for the rest of your life.”

Caesar knew how extraordinary this elixir was.

In the game, this was a rare elixir that could only be obtained once, and only after completing an extremely complex and difficult quest.

“Now, choose, Caesar. Since you’ve seen my lowly and ruthless desires, you must pay the price.”

Elijah’s eyes were filled with madness.

“Will you help my revenge? Or not?”

Caesar thought calmly.

Right now, Elijah was not in his right mind.

No, he might not have been in his right mind 150 years ago.

If he refused in this situation, the large sword hanging on Elijah’s back could immediately fly to strike Caesar’s neck.

‘If I accept…‘

Agatha will die.

Caesar made his decision.

“I will help your revenge.”

“Wise choice.”

“But why kill the succubi and vampires?”

Elijah’s expression was distorted.

“What nonsense are you trying to say?”

“Isn’t the target of your revenge Diana, not them?”

“You don’t know how to truly take revenge.”

Elijah twisted his neck.

“The true way to destroy someone is to destroy the things they love.”

“Especially the most effective way to torment Diana, who overflows with maternal love, is to torture and tear apart her children. Do you think I wouldn’t know that?”

Caesar slowly read the fragments of Elijah’s mind and detected a hint of unease within his heart.

Caesar put that unease into words.

“Where’s the guarantee that Diana still loves the succubi and vampires now?”

“…Are you trying to play word games with me?”

“No, I’m serious. If she truly loved the vampires, beast people, and succubi, she should have stayed in the demon realm forever. Why did she leave and entrust them to you?”

“The answer is simple. That damn woman trusted me that much.”

“For 150 years?”

Caesar approached Elijah’s unease even more closely.

“You’re deceiving yourself. Don’t you know what kind of woman Diana is?”

Just as Elijah loved Diana, Diana also truly loved Elijah.

But that love did not last long.

-What are these?

-My children.

-Children?

-Yes. These are the new things I will love.

Diana was tired of Elijah and sought a new love.

Those were her own carvings and children.

-Look, Elijah! My children are alive and moving!

-Smauernman was right! This hammer will bring me eternal love!

“Diana is not a woman who can love just one thing for over 100 years.”

“…”

“If Diana had even a speck of maternal love left, she would have immediately flown to the demon realm the moment she heard about the demon realm war. Because the demon realm war was an event that stirred up the entire continent. But Diana did not appear.”

Caesar stretched out his hand over the table.

And grabbed the wine glass.

“I will help your revenge, Elijah. But set the direction of your revenge correctly. The targets of your revenge are not the succubi and vampires.”

Caesar drank all the wine.

“The only person you should take revenge on is Diana.”

Elijah looked at Caesar’s face.

These were the words Elijah had been repeating to himself for 150 years.

There was a big difference between swallowing those words internally and hearing them from someone else.

Like a massive glacier cracking, a fissure appeared in Elijah’s clear desire for revenge.

“…Damn it.”

Elijah eventually couldn’t endure it and burst out of the tent.

***

Elijah sat blankly near a blazing campfire.

He didn’t know how long he had been sitting there.

The sun disappeared beyond the horizon, and the moon rose.

‘Diana.’

Why on earth would her name be Diana?

Whenever he saw that red moon rising every day, her name, face, and eyes would come to mind.

Elijah touched the pendant hanging around his neck as if by habit.

A brass pendant that had become smooth from being touched so many times.

This was the first gift she, with her skilled hands, had given to Elijah.

-Elijah! With this, you’ll be able to see my face no matter where you are!

Elijah recalled her smile, as deep as the moon, and opened the pendant.

Inside was a small portrait drawn with clumsy skill.

It was a blurred image that others might not be able to recognize at all, but Elijah could see Diana within it.

Skin as white as the first snow.

Hair as smooth as silk.

And a white horn that looked like a heavy crown.

Finally, eyes as red as wild raspberries.

Everything was captured in this small portrait.

“…I thought this would reach you, even though you left me.”

Elijah lied to Caesar.

The biggest reason Elijah waged war in the demon realm was not just because he intensely hated Diana, but there was another reason.

Even if it was an angry face.

Even if she cursed him as the one who killed her child.

He just wanted to see Diana’s face one more time.

He hoped that instead of him going to her, she would come find him again.

Was that such a big extravagance?

I still haven’t forgotten you.

I still miss you.

You forget me so easily.

You so easily forget what you loved.

How enviable.

That heartless brightness of being able to abandon love and set off to find a new one.

Elijah tucked the pendant back inside his clothes.

“Why did you come?”

Caesar placed some items next to Elijah.

“Things left behind.”

Inside a small box were an artifact capable of casting a sound block magic, a wine glass, and a myriad of things.

Elijah cast a sound block magic.

Elijah looked at the red moon from outside the burning campfire.

“Is it dawn today?”

“Yes. Agatha will arrive at dawn today.”

“What would you do if I said I must kill them unconditionally?”

Caesar responded immediately.

“I would stop you.”

“Even if you might die? Or worse, be branded a traitor to humanity? All the reputation and achievements you’ve built up so far would vanish like foam. Would you still stop me?”

“Isn’t this me trying to persuade you because I don’t want to do that?”

Elijah laughed as if it was absurd.

“You’re quite an interesting fellow.”

Elijah put the items into a void space within his cloak.

“Not very doppelganger-like at all.”

“What does being doppelganger-like mean?”

“Doppelgangers have an unusually strong desire for life.”

“Isn’t that true for all other living beings?”

“No, it’s different in quality.”

Elijah looked into Caesar’s eyes.

Those eyes were filled with pride.

“Doppelgangers can throw away everything they’ve built up – honor, wealth, relationships… All that has defined themselves when death approaches, and starts a new life. I definitely thought you were a typical doppelganger when you abandoned Barre’s form and lived as Caesar. You so easily gave up the achievements you’d built as Barre.”

“Don’t humans sometimes do the same?”

“Even so, killing one’s own children is quite rare.”

Caesar read Elijah’s memories through psychometry.

“……No way.”

“Yes. I genuinely loved the 8 sons I’ve killed so far.”

Elijah smiled while watching Caesar’s expression flood with shock.

“Doppelgangers cannot escape the flow of time. However, by mating with another intelligent species, having a child, and then directly killing that child to live in their form, they can regain their youth. That is the secret to a doppelganger’s longevity.”

Elijah patted Caesar’s shocked shoulder.

“Can you truly escape that horror of death?”

With those words, Elijah left.

***

Caesar returned to the tent.

“Oh, my head.”

He had an unexpected argument with Elijah, and now his head was throbbing.

Fortunately, Elijah didn’t intend to kill Agatha immediately.

However, no matter how much he thought about it, Elijah’s mental state was beyond confused, it was downright strange.

Killing his sons eight times, preparing for a demon realm war to take revenge on Diana, everything about his actions was radical and unpredictable.

‘He seems like someone who could go off in any direction.’

Caesar stared at the chair Elijah had been sitting in.

Would reading the thoughts left in this chair reveal something?

Caesar stood up, placed his hand on the chair, and used psychometry.

–■■■■■■■■■

–■■■■■■■■■■■■

“……This is a first-time experience.”

It was certain that Elijah’s memories were in this chair.

But no matter how he tried to read the thoughts, it was as difficult as reading a canvas splattered with black paint.

-You’re certainly using psychometry on this chair, Caesar.

Caesar was startled by the thought that seemed to be read from somewhere.

-But it will be useless.

-I’ve erased my name from the ‘Unopenable Library’ where the records of all souls are stored.

Caesar felt as if Elijah was sitting in this chair, looking down at him.

-You won’t be able to understand what this means.

-I’ll tell you when you become my person.

-Well, see you later.

What on earth was this nonsense?

Records of souls?

An Unopenable Library?

As everything remained a question, a small mole crawled out from under the chair.

The mole transformed into a small gray mouse and stared fixedly at Caesar.

“You couldn’t be…”

The creature silently left the tent.

Caesar realized then:

There was no place in the demon realm where he could escape Elijah’s eyes.

TL NOTE:

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