“I came to deliver good news.”
First, I barged into the laboratory where Coran Lekias was working.
I had agreed to Emily’s request, but to be honest, I’m not that good of a person.
I’ll help, but I want an advance payment.
Just because I help doesn’t mean Coran Lekias is guaranteed to survive.
I needed to get what was owed to me first.
I laid out everything I knew to Coran Lekias.
“…So Emily did realize it was my doing, after all.”
Coran Lekias seemed to have already suspected that Emily had figured out his true identity.
Since she was the type whose thoughts were written all over her face, he probably picked up on it.
Whether he knew she was also part of Ex Machina, I wasn’t sure, but even if he did, I doubt he’d be all that shocked.
“I ended up worrying that child.”
“Is that so?”
Despite having his identity exposed, Coran Lekias remained calm.
It was different from how Emily reacted.
She gave off the feeling that she didn’t care even if her identity was revealed, but Coran Lekias’s reaction seemed closer to resignation.
Thanks to that, all the contingency plans I had prepared in case he did something reckless went straight into the trash.
That made things easier, so I’m not complaining.
“Student Johan, what will you do with me now? If you want to live a normal life, it might be best to report me to Olga Hermod or the Emperor.”
“That’s true.”
Coran Lekias was a criminal.
No matter who I turned him over to, it was unlikely he would come out of it alive.
Even if he was a valuable asset as a researcher of Ex Machina, the fact that he had made a contract with a demon was a different issue.
Demons and their contractors had left countless scars throughout human history.
Just being chosen by the Book of Lemegeton was enough to warrant capital punishment, yet he had gone so far as to make a contract?
That alone meant it was already over for him.
If he wanted to stay alive, he’d have to keep hiding and never draw attention to himself.
But if that had been his plan, would he have gone so far as to sign a contract with a demon and devise a scheme to target Tillis?
He had already staked his life on this.
“But I’m not that nice of a person, so I’ll be collecting my compensation first.”
I pulled out the Phoenix’s Heart and the Frost Giant’s Blood from my coat.
Coran Lekias, seeing the endless stream of materials I was bringing out, let out a dry laugh as if he were overwhelmed.
“You came well-prepared.”
“Experiments come with failure. I brought everything I had.”
Once I resolved the most critical part, my experiment would finally have a path forward.
That’s why I took the risk and came to Coran Lekias in the first place.
“I had a granddaughter. She was a good child. She was murdered by the saintess. She was just doing volunteer work in the slums when she got caught up in it and killed.”
“I don’t care. I’m not interested in the justification behind your revenge either. I just want my experiment to succeed.”
“…Now that I think about it, Johan, you would’ve made an ideal recruit for Ex Machina.”
“What a horrible thing to say.”
I wasn’t so obsessed with the experiment that I’d risk my life for it.
Everything I was doing had been carefully calculated.
If my life had truly been at stake, I would’ve scrapped the whole thing from the start.
Coran Lekias continued, giving a bitter smile.
“I know you don’t care, but consider this my final lament. That child was my son’s pride and my hope. But do you know how the world viewed her death?”
“I’m sure it wasn’t kindly.”
“People said, ‘She must’ve deserved it if she died’, and pointed fingers at her.”
It was just as I expected.
Tillis’s public image was flawless. So much so that people called her a saintess.
She didn’t particularly hide her true nature, but people were simply mistaken.
A high elf, a sacred race.
Her beautiful appearance and soft voice.
And her supernatural ability of charm.
Because of all that, no matter what she did, it was bound to be perceived in a positive light.
“Student Johan. I find myself hesitating. Even after coming this far, I still can’t take that final step.”
Coran Lekias probably hadn’t been a cruel man.
If anything, he was closer to being a good person.
The reason he had been driven to this point was nothing more than bad luck.
The world had been cruel to him.
“Is it right for me to take revenge?”
Coran Lekias’s granddaughter had died because of Tillis. But she died because of Tillis, not by her hand. That distinction seemed to be the root of his hesitation.
Coran Lekias was tormented over whether it was right to kill someone called a saintess out of personal emotion.
“You should. You’ve come too far to debate right and wrong now. Your machine destroyed a building, and the ones you summoned died in the Cradle. Even that was just sheer luck.”
If Ariel hadn’t been present when the machine went berserk, the damage could have been severe.
If the criminals who entered through the hole Coran Lekias had torn in the Cradle’s walls hadn’t been stopped by any means necessary, there might have been casualties.
No, there almost certainly would have been. The only reason there hadn’t been was that the students of the Cradle were highly capable and that, in itself, could only be called luck.
“Let’s not pretend either of us is clean.”
I had turned a blind eye to crime for the sake of my goal, and Coran Lekias had committed acts of terrorism for revenge.
No matter what reasons we tacked on, nothing would change. A crime was still a crime.
“Haha! You’re incredibly bold. Professor Georg really raised a fine student.”
Coran Lekias let out a bitter, self-deprecating laugh as he grabbed the materials I had laid out.
“Well then, Student Johan, if I help you, what will you give me in return? I’d like to believe you didn’t come all this way to convince me with nothing more than a naive promise to look the other way.”
“Of course. I’m not expecting to get something for nothing. If I tried that, I know a simple bribe would be a cheaper way to shut me up.”
In reality, that part wasn’t a problem.
The biggest concern had been whether Coran Lekias would even agree to talk.
Even that, however, he accepted with surprising ease, as if resigned. And that was enough to bring him into the deal.
That alone meant the conditions for success were met.
“I’ll let you choose the battlefield. Wouldn’t it be far easier to pull the enemy into your own territory after making thorough preparations?”
“How?”
“Well, it’d be easier to explain if I tell you a little story first.”
I had deliberately made Tillis watch and pursue me.
I was confident that she would.
At this point, I was probably the only one who had figured out her true purpose.
“Did you know? In the past, spirits used to be called something else.”
Saintess Tillis.
“They were called daimon. But at some point, the word was distorted and began to be pronounced like this.”
Coran Lekias seemed to catch on just from that. He rubbed his face dryly and finished the sentence for me.
“…Demon.”
A devil or an evil spirit.
Isn’t it absurd?
People didn’t know a thing.
Tillis was openly summoning and controlling demons, and yet everyone was dressing them up as spirits.
“And as it happens, I’m actually quite similar to you.”
I showed Coran Lekias the Lemegeton I had been carrying.
The real reason Tillis was watching me was because I was chosen by the Book of Lemegeton. She came to the Cradle because she felt the energy of the great demon Mephistopheles
But there had been no one who had made a contract with a demon, so she must have been drifting aimlessly.
Now, however, the situation had changed.
– You.
-You’re loved by the spirits, aren’t you?
At the time I met her, I was carrying the Book of Lemegeton so she would recognize me.
Even if I hadn’t made a contract, my bold behavior must have tipped her off that I had ties to demons.
It must have felt like prey had walked right into her hands.
But that doesn’t matter now.
“Then let’s think this through again.”
Now, I intended to erase the last remaining doubt in Coran Lekias’s heart with the truth.
“Do you really believe your granddaughter just got caught up in something and died?”
Saintess Tillis.
Publicly, she was portrayed as a truly virtuous person.
But peel back that layer, and something very interesting appears.
“Demons always approach with the face of an angel.”
Yes, she was none other than the “Judge”, one of the final boss candidates of this game, on par with the “Prophet” Kult.
The Chief Librarian of Lemegeton.
Ostillis Liberatio—
The one who seeks to save the world through evil.
***
The contract was sealed.
As an upfront payment, I offered a combination of materials, and in return, I agreed to cooperate with Coran Lekias.
Of course, there was something I had to clarify first.
“You won’t win.”
There’s no way someone like him, just a member of Ex Machina, could defeat the Chief Librarian of Lemegeton.
Even throwing in every possible resource, it would still be impossible.
That’s exactly why I was trying to bring Eden into this.
Only then was there at least a slim chance of survival.
And to put it another way, even with Kult’s support, targeting Tillis was out of the question.
The problem was that, although both were final boss candidates, they were starting from different points.
Tillis was close to being fully formed, while Kult was still in his growth stage.
“There’s a high chance you’ll die.”
“I already let go of my life the moment I vowed revenge.”
“So are we just going there to die? If the odds of winning are that low and you’re willing to throw your life away, how is that any different from suicide? So let’s make it our goal to come back alive.”
“……”
Coran Lekias stared at me for a moment, then spoke as if tossing the words out.
“Student Johan, I really can’t tell if you’re good or evil.”
“Let’s go with good.”
“Very well.”
“Now that you know I’m a good person, let’s start with this. I won’t run off after eating, I promise.”
I pointed again at the materials I had brought.
None of the rest mattered. For now, I just needed these synthesized somehow.
I believed he wouldn’t say it was impossible after I’d come this far.
Because if he did, everything I’d done up to now would’ve been for nothing.
Coran Lekias silently looked at the Phoenix’s heart and the Frost Giant’s blood inside the case, then reached out his hand.
“Student Johan. Do you know which demon I’ve made a contract with?”
“…I have a guess.”
Of course, I didn’t know at first.
There was a lot that was unclear about divine powers in the first place, so I thought there was no way I could even guess the name unless I found it out directly.
But as the clues began to add up, a name surfaced in my mind. Then, when I learned he made a contract with a researcher from Ex Machina, I was halfway certain.
“Demons have their own likes and dislikes too.”
I wasn’t insignificant, nor was I in such a desperate or hopeless situation that I’d be willing to sell my soul.
And yet, Mephistopheles had approached me.
It was simply because he was drawn to my soul, one that retained memories of a past life.
So then, which demon would be the type to take an interest in Coran Lekias?
What kind of demon would be drawn in by upright, rule-bound researchers, and what would even appeal to them in the first place?
Iron gears that didn’t warp under the heat, pressure, or steam blasted from huge power engines.
A supernatural ability that allowed two materials of different temperatures to be fused while each retained its own heat.
“A demon capable of controlling thermal energy… or even entropy. There’s only one I know of.”
It was one of the four great demons in the history of science.
A being said to be able to reduce entropy by manipulating the movement of molecules.
“Maxwell’s Demon.”
A demon born from a thought experiment. A demon that defied the very laws of thermodynamics.
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