Chapter 623
On the way to persuade Eleion Bolton, I found myself not speaking with Eleion Bolton at all, but instead listening to the soft yet firm rebuke of the duchess.
Foolish pride does not make one a tyrant or a despot.
No, there were simply too many foolish things a person seated on the throne could do.
There could be a tyrant who killed people without proper principles or one who waged endless wars of conquest without justifiable reasons.
However, paying too much attention to the circumstances of outsiders and refusing to kill enemies who hadn't bared their teeth against me could also be tyrannical in its own right.
The duchess pointed out that the scope of my definition of who needed to be killed was far too narrow.
It could be a threat.
In this dangerous age, when merely the possibility of a threat was enough to warrant annihilating someone, I had been criticized for prioritizing not killing those whose allegiance was unclear.
Wasn't it enough to just kill the enemy?
Was that too human a way of thinking?
Once an enemy was confirmed, the foe would have already bared their teeth, and battle would be inevitable.
There was also a way of killing before they became an enemy.
I was no born king.
But how long could I use that as an excuse? Now that I was already a king, it could not be justified or excused that I lacked the qualities necessary to be one.
I had nothing to say to the duchess who felt uneasy and thought my way was dangerous.
I agreed with her.
While it would take all my strength to protect the sheep within the fence, I had been living my life thinking that the pack of beasts roaming outside the fence might also be sheep.
A king should protect the inside of the fence and consider everything outside the fence as the enemy.
I had not been doing that.
If the land where I and my children lived was ruled by a monarch with such a disposition, I would dislike that country too.
It wasn't about killing Eleion Bolton.
She had asked if I intended to continue this way and if I knew how dangerous it was.
No one had built a nation on love, understanding, and mercy.
A throne could only be built upon what had been taken.
And that throne had to be maintained with blood.
If asked whether I knew this truth, I couldn't say I didn't.
It was just hard to accept.
The duchess hadn't told me something only she knew.
She had told me something everyone around me knew but didn't dare tell me.
It could be because they were sorry, or because they knew I would struggle with it, or because they didn't want to burden me further.
The duchess had told me something everyone knew but no one said to me.
That, too, was ultimately an act of courage.
Our walk was neither long nor short.
We just walked silently in the heavy atmosphere.
Upon returning to the mansion, Eleion Bolton and Charlotte were already outside.
Had their conversation ended?
"Reinhardt, Sir Bolton would like to speak with you for a moment."
"…Really?"
I wasn't sure how the conversation had unfolded.
However, judging by Charlotte's expression, it didn't seem to have had too terrible an outcome.
I had a private conversation with Eleion Bolton.
Not inside the mansion, but outside. The footprints on the beach where we had just walked remained undisturbed.
I wasn't sure what they had discussed, but my heart felt even heavier.
"I don't think I've ever had a choice."
"…Really?"
Originally, in the novel, the leader of the Holy Knights was Riverrier Lanze. And it hadn't changed.
Olivia Lanze had exited the story in the margins.
Eleion Bolton was also one of the marginal characters.
I didn't know Riverrier Lanze's personal affairs, let alone Eleion Bolton's.
I only knew about his public affairs.
Eleion Bolton became the next leader of the Holy Knights due to the downfall of the radical Riverrier Lanze.
It probably wasn't his will. The empire wanted Eleion Bolton to be the leader of the Holy Knights. And whether the popes had received their influence or not, they must have wanted to keep Riverrier Lanze, one of the main protagonists in the Demon War and a war hero, in check. They wouldn't have wanted the influence of the leader of the Holy Knights to grow too much.
Eleion Bolton became the leader of the Holy Knights due to various circumstances. Whether he wanted to be the leader of the Holy Knights or not was irrelevant.
Even in the situation just before the Gate incident, he had been swayed by the opinions of the pope, Ellen, and Olivia.
And as time passed, the popes chose to turn the Order into the Demon King’s clutches on their own accord.
Just a few days later, he was forced to step down.
And now, he had been offered to become a Holy Knight of the United Holy Order due to the possibility of returning to his position as the leader of the Holy Knights.
Looking at it this way, he was a person who had been pushed around to an almost cruel extent.
Despite having considerable authority, strength, and power, he was a person who showed that one could still be swayed by greater powers and wills.
"And now, even the gods I've believed in so far have all been lies."
That's right.
From the beginning, the teachings about the five gods and the demon gods were all in vain.
There was no truth anywhere, and even faith had been arbitrarily reinterpreted.
"Moreover, Tiamata has two forms."
"…Yes."
"Can you show me?"
Perhaps just hearing about it wasn't enough.
Or maybe he needed to see with his own eyes that the power of the gods was truly arbitrary, as the United Holy Order said.
I didn't know which one it was, but I summoned Tiamata to my right hand.
The pure white sword spirit of purity, Tiamata.
But this wasn't what he wanted.
-Kurung!
I didn't even need a command anymore.
Tiamata's sword spirit, reacting to my will, began to darken and ooze darkness.
"…The aura of corruption."
Eleion Bolton stared at the demonic Tiamata in silence.
"Is that enough?"
"That's enough."
As I dismissed the demonic Tiamata, Eleion Bolton gave a bitter smile.
"Are the gods malicious, or have we misunderstood them all this time?"
Even here, gods were considered beings beyond human understanding.
However, they lent their power even when misunderstood.
They lent their power because they thought they were properly believed in, but in fact, they lent their power even when they were misunderstood.
What were the gods?
Eleion Bolton seemed to be lost in such a fundamental question.
"I don't suppose the United Holy Order has a complete understanding of the gods either."
The Demon Gods and the Great Gods were the same beings.
It was even questionable whether the five Great Gods were truly the five Great Gods.
"Although I can't reveal the source, I'll share an interesting fact."
"Is there anything more surprising for me here?"
"Vampires were originally derived from the Sun God and the Moon God."
The truth that Luna Artorious had shared.
Vampires were actually born of the gods.
Those who sought immortality prayed to the Moon, and they received the Moon's blessing while simultaneously being cursed by the Sun.
That was the beginning of vampires, or so he had heard.
After longing for forgiveness from the gods for a long time, they were finally granted it.
But in exchange, they became beings forever separated from the world.
"It doesn't sound like a joke."
Eleion Bolton laughed bitterly, as if realizing that something that didn't even qualify as a cheap joke was actually the truth.
"Actually, saying I never had a choice is a lie."
"...?"
"I just didn't have an opinion."
If that's what he meant, then perhaps that was the case.
"If I didn't want to be the commander of the Holy Knights, I could have refused. But I didn't do that."
"If I had decided to kill or save the Demon King, I could have done so. But I didn't make any choices."
"If I wanted to object to the Pope's decision to support you, I could have said so. I didn't do that either."
"When you requested retirement and I didn't like it, I could have drawn my sword. But I didn't do that either."
"I just went along with the tide. Always."
"Looking back, there's no life more cowardly than this."
It wasn't that he didn't have a choice.
He simply didn't choose the less likely options, always going with the flow.
He had power and authority but always lived a middle-of-the-road life, following the flow. It wasn't about what was right or wrong.
Who were the majority?
Where was the trend?
He followed that flow.
Neither an absolute supporter nor an absolute opponent.
Was it a life swept away or a life freeloading?
Eleion Bolton seemed to think that his previous statement about not having a choice was just a pathetic excuse.
"So now, will you try making a choice with your own will?"
"There's no reason to. The tide hasn't changed."
There was no resistance.
"Isn't it better to live as a coward to the end if one has been a coward once? At least, I'll be able to maintain the principle of consistency."
A life without faith or pride.
He might have thought he had such things once, but Eleion Bolton had long since admitted that he was too pathetic to speak of them now.
So, if he lived as a coward forever, he would at least maintain that one consistency.
Not the consistency of being good for a lifetime, but the consistency of being a coward for a lifetime.
Now, rather than making choices and finding his own direction, Eleion Bolton's attitude of choosing to be a coward for life seemed utterly despairing.
"Considering that the rare choice to kill my subordinate turned out to be the worst choice, it seems like I'm not the type of person who should make choices. Or perhaps, this too is just an excuse."
Eleion Bolton laughed.
He laughed for a long time.
As always.
Bitterness was bound to mix with an old man's self-mockery.
Upon reflecting on his life, he realized that all that remained was his cowardice.
The sorrow mixed with his self-mockery felt unbearably sad.
Eleion Bolton and I talked briefly afterward.
"For several months, I've traveled around this country."
"It must have been quite a bizarre sight for you."
The coexistence of humans and demons sometimes felt grotesque to me as well.
"Yes, it was."
This place was sparsely populated, but it seemed he had wandered around Lazak while staying here.
He must have been with the duchess.
Whether the duchess had offered to guide him first or Eleion Bolton had asked her first was unknown.
"All I could think was how strange this land is."
"It certainly is strange."
He must have had many thoughts while observing the landscapes created in Edina Archipelago.
"Ogres tilling the fields, trolls constructing buildings, orcs standing guard, succubi comforting orphaned children as they slept together, and mermaids appearing on the beach, exchanging jokes with humans..."
"A strange land."
"Was this even possible?"
"If this was possible, why have we been living the way we have until now?"
"Why did we..."
"Fear each other, hate each other."
"Kill and be killed?"
"Why were we so adamant that there were no other options?"
"Where did such claims originate, and how did everyone come to believe them?"
"I've become curious."
Eleion Bolton looked up at the blue sky that signaled the arrival of spring.
"Demo... No. Reinhardt."
"Yes?"
"In a way, this country is a disaster."
A disaster.
I still thought it was much better than the Empire.
But I didn't misunderstand the meaning of his words.
"Do you know how many people will despair just because they've learned that the long history of hatred between us was actually meaningless, and that this could have been possible?"
"I suppose it could be seen that way."
All the wars up to this point were meaningless.
The history of hatred and animosity, what we believed was right, was denied by what we saw before us.
We could coexist and cooperate.
The Great Demon War was not a glorious war.
For many people, the result that overturned human values and historical views could bring despair rather than hope.
"Did you despair?"
"Yes."
More than anything, the one who despaired amidst the peaceful and bizarre scenes was Eleion Bolton himself.
The beings he killed, the beings who died.
None of them had to suffer that fate. He must have felt it.
"If I had known that this was possible... No, if the world had been like this from the beginning, the Gate Incident would never have happened."
The current reality is the result of mutual distrust.
If we had a society of coexistence and cooperation, there would have been no hatred, distrust, or fear of the Demon King in the first place, and the Great Demon War, the cause of all this, wouldn't have happened.
And then, humans invaded the demon race.
Lack of faith and trust caused all the problems.
In fact, that was the root of everything in the world.
It was ridiculous.
The duchess had told me to hate everyone beyond the fence.
Eleion Bolton realized that all the blood and tears shed until now had been meaningless.
Those who do not know war speak of slaughter, while those who know war speak of peace.
They speak of the futility of slaughter.
"It's not like humans were the only ones who feared demons."
Demons felt the same way.
For a very long time, demons had also been afraid of humans.
Eleris, an ancient Archdemon, had once dreamed of the extinction of humanity.
The previous Demon King, Valier, had also been afraid of humans. That was why he had wanted to create a world without them.
Both sides feared each other equally.
"I hate this country."
Eleion Bolton said this with a stern expression.
The moment he realized that peace had been possible, he understood that he could not justify any of the past events. He had not triumphed over humanity's ultimate enemy, but merely succumbed to fear and committed massacres.
Facing the despairing truth, Eleion Bolton could not help but hate this peaceful scene.
"However, it's a scene that must be protected because it's detestable."
In the end, this scene showed a possibility that had been deemed impossible.
Although feeling despair was inevitable, it was not a sight that should disappear.
The truth did not disappear just because it was denied.
The truth could not be erased from one's mind just because it was unpleasant to know.
The truth that had been imprinted in his mind could not be erased.
It seemed as though he believed he had no choice but to protect this truth.
After talking with Eleion Bolton, Charlotte and I headed back to Lazak.
"What did you talk about with him? We agreed to cooperate."
It seemed that Eleion Bolton had already decided to cooperate when he talked to Charlotte.
It must have been difficult for him to accept his life of cowardice, and to commit to living a cowardly life forever.
"Nothing much, really."
I didn't know if Eleion Bolton had talked about his cowardice with Charlotte, but I hesitated to discuss his personal matters further.
"He called it a strange country."
Eleion Bolton was shocked.
A strange country.
Well, it was a scene that would have been shocking to the demon hunters.
"Indeed, it is a strange country."
Charlotte chuckled in agreement. Actually, I had come from a world that was essentially no different from humans and had no such thing as demons.
The strangest thing to me was this scene.
Like most wars, the Great Demon War was no different.
There was no one who deserved to die.
"You got what you wanted, but you don't look very happy."
"No, I am. I'm happy."
"Then smile a little."
At Charlotte's words, I awkwardly smiled.
Thoughts kept swirling in my head.
The Duchess's words that in order to protect peace, one must not hesitate to kill.
Eleion Bolton's words of despair upon realizing the meaninglessness of the war he had thought was justifiable.
The Duchess's words were not wrong.
However, if I were to live by her words, I would become Eleion Bolton.
We must fear our neighbors.
Knowing that the end of this fear was the present, we were forced to repeat the same history.
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