Tillis leaned against the wall, smiling at the Oracle.
She gave off the air of greeting an old acquaintance.
“Fufu, I knew you’d come, Miss Oracle. You must have some questions, right? Our last conversation was far too short, wasn’t it?”
“……”
“Then, where should we start? What a demon is… hmm, you might have already heard that from Mr. Johan?”
“You said a demon is born from someone’s soul.”
“That’s right. You remember well. As for the story about the Demon King… I suppose that’s not something you need to hear right now.”
“……”
From the Oracle’s expression, Tillis could easily guess what she wanted to know.
“You coming to find me means I can take it that you’ve accepted the fact that you’re a spirit, yes?”
“……”
“You’re not much of a talker, are you? Well, that’s fine. Let’s just go with that assumption. So, what’s the difference between a demon and a spirit?”
“It’s just a matter of wording, I’d say.”
“Exactly. But I believe that, aside from the original seventy-two demons, the rest are all spirits.”
“…What’s the difference?”
“They form contracts.”
The original seventy-two demons were nothing more than puppet dolls of the Demon King, moving solely to bring about the world’s destruction.
But the demons, or rather the spirits born in this world, were different.
“You said a spirit is a being born from a soul. Then what do you think the purpose of spirits is?”
“If we go by your words, it would be to become flawless, wouldn’t it?”
“Flawless… I see the nuance. Anyway, a broken soul seeks to fill its cracks by absorbing the souls of others. And why do you think that is?”
“Instinct… perhaps?”
“What kind of instinct?”
Tillis smiled brightly as she spoke.
That single remark was enough to leave the Oracle speechless.
“If it were simply an instinct to survive, demons wouldn’t even have a form, would they? Until they make a contract, there’s no danger of them being killed by anyone.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s for the right to die completely. An unstable soul cannot return to the cycle of reincarnation. It can only wander the world forever as a soul.”
“That’s…!”
The Oracle’s face turned pale.
The purpose of a spirit, as Tillis described it—
It overlapped strangely with someone else’s ideals.
“Then let me ask again. Why do spirits make contracts? Why do they grant wishes?”
“……”
“Because those fragmented souls are themselves someone’s wish. The desires and wishes they grant to others are things they themselves once longed for.”
It’s only that, in the shock of a soul shattering, the wishes that leave the strongest trace are often born from negative emotions—
And so they’re treated as demons.
“Spirits never lie. They may deceive people, but they will never enter into a false contract. That’s because…”
“It’s the same as their own wish.”
“That’s right. They can’t abandon the very meaning of their existence.”
The Oracle looked down at her own palm.
If that was the case… was she someone’s wish too?
Through what wish had she been born?
She didn’t know.
Until recently, before meeting Tillis, she hadn’t realized she was no different from a demon.
But once she began to suspect it, many things started coming back to her.
“In my dreams, I heard someone calling me.”
Someone calling out to her desperately.
And so she had assumed that was her name.
The name Alice.
“How could a broken soul contain such powerful power? It’s probably because it could gaze upon the world from the rift between worlds.”
She had spent nearly ten years within that rift.
The ability to leap through space by passing through that gap was merely a result of all that time spent there.
The Oracle now understood. Her power was foresight.
“But… there’s something I can’t make sense of. I exist here, don’t I?”
The Oracle wrestled with Tillis’s words, unsure how to accept the fact that she might be a demon.
Even now, she still didn’t know how to come to terms with it.
That was why she’d come to point out a flaw in Tillis’s explanation.
“How is it that I’m able to manifest physically in this world?”
A high-ranking demon could manifest without a contract.
But even if she were such a high-ranking demon, she shouldn’t be able to maintain such a perfect form indefinitely.
She slept. She ate.
She lived enjoying all the things a human would.
“I see.”
Tillis nodded.
She knew the answer to the Oracle’s question—
There was still one thing she hadn’t yet revealed.
“Do you know this? Spirits have a way of approaching someone who seems capable of fulfilling their wish.”
“……”
“It’s not a choice, but instinct. They seek out the person whose ideals are most similar to theirs, the one with the highest possibility. That’s why spirits are called ‘friends’.”
“In that case, I…”
The Oracle was about to voice another question when the realization struck her.
She had been watching the fate of the world from within the rift… and when she emerged from it, the first person she sought out was—
“I see.”
Abraham Vicious von Miltonia.
The master of the world.
***
The Imperial Palace.
In his study, Emperor Abraham was perusing a book.
Though he had already read and memorized it, books had a way of offering new insights upon each reread.
For that reason, Abraham enjoyed reading.
“Hmm, this one… it’s been a while.”
“Oh, isn’t that the one? The book you swiped when we burned down the World Tree.”
“At least call it a war trophy, Sir Lanius.”
“Don’t see much difference myself.”
“Haha.”
Abraham chuckled warmly at the bluntness of his longtime comrade and right-hand man, the Black Knight Lanius.
Lanius was the one person before whom the Emperor could truly let his guard down.
“Speaking of which, that reminds me….was there really any reason to keep that brat alive?”
“Brat? Ah, right. We were talking about the World Tree, weren’t we?”
“Come to think of it, I still don’t know why you ordered it burned in the first place. Why was that?”
“The fact you’re only now questioning it just shows how little you worry about such things.”
“It just crossed my mind now, that’s all. Doesn’t mean I don’t care.”
Abraham returned the elven book to its place on the shelf.
“The World Tree was drawing in unpleasant things from other worlds.”
“Huh?”
“Demons.”
“Well I’ll be… and here I thought it was some holy tree. Turns out it was a vile monster.”
“It is a holy tree. The problem is that far too many wretched, tainted souls were drawn to that holiness.”
Elves regarded spirits as friends and lived alongside them.
But once Abraham learned the true nature of spirits, he began to think.
In this world, calamities caused by demons occurred regularly—
Yet they were few in number.
If such great disasters had been happening every year, the world would have long since been reduced to ruins.
And spirits were the same as demons.
In the land of the elves, there were enough spirits that they could be called neighbors.
“If there were a person who could create a cure for every disease, what would happen to them?”
“They’d make a fortune, no doubt.”
“And after that?”
“Hmm…”
“In this world, there are countless people suffering from incurable diseases. If all of them were to cling to a single person for help, what do you think would happen to that person?”
The World Tree was like that.
It was certainly a holy thing, but because of that holiness, it also drew in foul things from other worlds.
“That’s why I burned it. If there’s a weapon you can’t control, it’s better to destroy it altogether.”
“Your Majesty, are you really saying that?”
“Aren’t I managing just fine?”
Abraham let out a small laugh, then pulled out another book from the shelf.
“So why are you keeping that kid alive? As for me, I figured I’d already achieved my goal without killing any more, so I left her alone. But isn’t the situation different now? That woman’s been causing no small number of incidents.”
“It’s something that needs to be done. Even if the source has been removed, there are still remnants lingering in this world.”
During the extermination of the elves, most of the spirits had been dealt with as well.
They were beings whose soul-gaps had been filled with the power of the World Tree.
If they were destroyed before they could use that power, they would return to the cycle of reincarnation and be reborn in the next life as ordinary people.
However, many were not like that. Those ones could not be killed, nor would they return to the cycle, they would endlessly wander in search of a new contractor.
“That’s why we need a trash can to hold the garbage.”
Then what if there were someone gathering such demons?
Someone working tirelessly to bind them with the World Tree’s remaining power and keep them all in one place?
“That’s what you’d call a necessary evil.”
There was no reason not to make use of it.
“Spirits, demons… the more I think about them, the more my head hurts.”
“You’re the one who brought it up.”
“Well…”
The Black Knight Lanius scratched his cheek and asked Abraham,
“Your Majesty, you’ve made a contract with a demon yourself. I can’t help but be curious…but is that really safe?”
“Safe?”
Abraham stared blankly at the ceiling for a moment, lost in thought.
He remembered a book that had appeared before him about ten years ago.
One of the so-called books of Lemegeton.
But it didn’t look like some grotesque abomination—
It was a pristine, pure-white book.
It spoke to him as if it were a person, telling him to use it to save the world.
After a few exchanges, Abraham readily agreed to a contract with the book.
Then the book became a person.
Unaware that it had even changed form, it simply answered that it would live on to save the world.
It seemed not to realize that a contract had been made between them at all.
A clean, pure, childlike demon.
Abraham had never drawn a distinction between demons and spirits.
But in that moment, he couldn’t help but think of a spirit.
“It’s fine. In fact, I’m glad I made a contract with her. If she ever asked me for my soul, I’d gladly give it to her.”
“…What? What do you mean by that…?”
“The day I give her my soul will be the day my goal is achieved.”
The completion of the contract would mean the world had finally stabilized.
He was a man who had always chosen the lesser evil to somehow keep the empire safe.
And now, Emperor Abraham had found a milestone in a journey with no end in sight.
“Of course, that future may never come. Too many things have been set in motion already. For now…”
A demon that sought to steal others’ souls to return to the cycle of reincarnation—
It was a disaster for the empire, but there was another kind of disaster in opposition to it.
“I can never tell what that foolish sage is thinking.”
***
Loki was imprisoned in the underground cell Cattleya had built.
Having already died once and been reborn as an undead, he now had to watch his own body rot away.
It was not a pleasant sight.
“I’m glad to see you’re enjoying another peaceful day, Loki.”
“Cattleya…”
“What? Have another question? Something to tell me? Or maybe you’d like to beg?”
“I hear it.”
“Hmm?”
“That sound… This annoying noise. It won’t leave my ears.”
“Did you hurt your head when you died? Ah, right. I stabbed you in the head. Guess nothing can be done about that.”
Loki was trembling.
For someone already dead in the biological sense, it was strange that he could tremble.
“Can’t you hear it?”
“I have no idea what nonsense you’re talking about.”
“This sound…”
Loki stared straight ahead.
Then he saw the source of the noise he had been hearing all along.
“The sound of countless chains dragging across the floor…”
“What…?”
Only then did Cattleya begin to sense that something was wrong.
A chill brushing against her back.
That eerie feeling one gets walking alone down a dark alley on a midsummer night.
“Ah, I see now.”
Loki muttered as if entranced.
“Only death can make us eternal.”
Cattleya felt her skin crawl.
The man who had worn a blank expression ever since his death was now smiling.
“Only death could ever allow us to truly understand one another.”
Clatter.
Now she could hear it too….the sound of chains dragging across the floor.
Loki’s murmured words.
The sound of countless chains tangling and scraping against the ground.
And at last, Cattleya realized.
Here, in this very place…
“Only death…”
“…can bring an end to eternal sorrow.”
The master of Under Chain.
“I shall commend you for having realized that truth.”
The Great Sage Faust had appeared.
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