Episode 270
The "back alley" - located in the center of the empire yet evaluated as being in the outermost region.
"...Where is this?"
"As a maid, how long are you going to speak informally to me?"
"S-shut up...!"
I have now entered the most secret section of that back alley, with Alice in tow.
"In the back alley... there's a place like this?"
Even Alice, who has been constantly targeting me from behind, doesn't know where this is, so it seems security is being maintained thoroughly.
Well, this is the place I prepared most carefully while doing this work, so of course the security would be thorough.
- Creak... creak...
"Just how much influence have you been exerting on this empire...?"
As a solid and sturdy iron door, as strong as the imperial palace's main gate, begins to slowly open at my touch, Alice asks while looking at me with a frightened expression.
Well, seeing the vast space extending beyond the opened door, anyone would be frightened.
And if the companion entering that space happens to be Frey, the most evil villain and scoundrel in the empire... well, I think I can understand that feeling without saying it.
"So Moonlight's master's exclusive assassin was just a woman after all. To shrink back at just this."
"S-shut up."
She, who was sweating cold sweat while covered in the ominous atmosphere emanating from inside the prison, straightened her back as if her pride was hurt by my words and moved her feet.
"P-please save... save me..."
"F-forgive... please forgive me..."
".....!"
But when desperate screams were heard from all directions, she opened her eyes wide and showed an expression clearly marked with tension.
"It's not like you're seeing this for the first time, right?"
"...Ugh."
I said to her in a calm voice, then hurried my steps while thinking quietly.
'As expected of Klana. She's managing it quite well.'
Naturally, this place is not for my amusement. It's simply a 'secret prison' where I gather and confine the empire's trash.
Putting them in the prison managed by the royal family is troublesome because the Emperor and Princes are still firmly holding their ground. Sending them to the Order's prison is like entrusting fish to a cat.
That's why I had no choice but to create a new prison altogether.
"J-just kill me... just..."
"Save me..."
Those screaming over there right now are trash below human level with no value in rehabilitation.
That's why those like Isabel who caused the commoner dormitory attack incident by making a deal with the Demon King in the past, Empress Lemeia and Raphael, my underworld friends who used to manage young slaves that are now Lulu's property, are imprisoned here.
It would be good to just kill them, but to fix this rotten world, I need to utilize them as much as possible.
By the way, they seem to have become a bit thinner lately.
Lulu often brings Miho here, could that be the reason?
"So... why did you come here...?"
"I have someone to meet."
After glancing at the pitiful, worthless ones, I headed to the depths of the prison with Alice, who was watching me from behind and added honorifics to her speech.
"Wait here."
"...?"
"Why, do you want to come along?"
"No."
"Then stay there quietly. That's an order."
Thus, I was about to head to the room at the very end, but I left Alice standing outside the room and quietly headed inside.
"...Mmph, mmph."
Then, a woman with a wretched appearance appeared before my eyes.
"Mmph! Mm mph!"
She, with coverings on her mouth and eyes, was none other than Vener.
"Can't you be quiet...?"
"Mmph! Mmph! Mmmmph!!"
After looking down at her for a while and quietly whispering that in her ear, Vener starts to thrash about wildly.
"What's wrong? Miss Vener, the eldest daughter of the 'Hayrin' family?"
"......!!!"
But at my following words, she stops and takes a deep breath.
"If you keep thrashing about, I could expose your secrets to the world."
"........."
"Good, be obedient."
As expected, her weakness seems to work well.
"You'll have to keep behaving like that from now on too."
The foundation for successfully completing the 'Making Friends' mission seems to be safely established.
.
A few hours before Rozewin went to find Ruby.
- ...You are the ugliest person among all the people I knew.
She was looking at the system window floating before her with dead eyes.
"Frey..."
Rozewin had been pausing and replaying the video over the past few days, taking in everything Frey had done.
- Rumble... rumble...
- Haa...
What she was watching, having reached the end of the video, was Klana berating Frey before the final battle with the Demon King's army.
- Sizzle...
The scene where Klana is killed by the Demon King, and Frey, embracing her cold body, heads to the altar and is attacked in the eyes by Canary containing Klana's soul, passes by quickly.
- Knock knock knock...
- Rozewin, are you there?
Finally, what appeared on the screen was Frey with an expression that looked like he might die at any moment.
- Creak...
When he knocked on a somehow shabby cabin, what came out was none other than Rozewin herself.
- Th-the poison you asked for...
- Here.
- Th-thank...
- Never mind that, get lost quickly.
Frey, examining the poison he received from her with trembling hands, tried to take out a flower from his bosom and offer it to Rozewin, but she simply spoke in a cold voice.
- You said you're going to commit suicide after using that? Then just eat it quickly and get lost.
At those words, Frey, whose eyes wavered for a moment, soon lowers his head and asks.
- Since it's the last time, just tell me that. Do you like yellow flowers? Or do you like red flowers?
Hearing this, Rozewin chuckles and answers.
- I hated everything you gave me from the beginning. Whatever color it is.
- Ah...
- You clueless piece of trash.
With those words, the door slams shut.
"............"
The current Rozewin watched that scene with soulless eyes.
In the so-called 'Round 1,' whenever Frey committed severe evil acts, he always visited Rozewin.
Because the only person he could do good deeds for was her, a system helper, which didn't count toward the karma needed to cause the Hero's Armament to go berserk.
Thanks to this, Frey visited her when Serena died, when Irina died, when Perloche died, but Rozewin always treated him coldly.
Frey knew this too, so his footsteps that used to visit Rozewin every day when he was young became slower as he grew up.
Of course, Rozewin disliking him was unavoidable.
In Round 1, Frey was truly an evil villain.
Not just Rozewin but anyone else naturally had to treat him that way.
- It must have been hard because of me all this time...? Sorry, Rozewin...
But the sight of Frey, who came to her house for the last time, burdened with guilt and self-loathing, muttering to himself as he walked down the blazing street, swaying while holding poison.
To anyone who knew his truth and circumstances, he couldn't help but look so pitiful and sad.
- Ugh, uuu...
And when he was seen sobbing with his head on the table after committing 'filial impiety' by feeding the prepared poison to his father, it was even more so.
- You bastard, why on earth...?
- ...To get a System.
At the last moment, when he embraced the Demon King and gathered all the evil deeds he had committed to make the Hero's Armament go berserk, it was even more so.
Rozewin, who watched his entire chronicle from his perspective, which would make even someone unrelated to him feel quite sad, was already making a blank expression with even tears dried up.
"That is...?"
As she watched the screen turning white with a dazed expression for a while, something caught Rozewin's eye.
- Rumble rumble rumble.....
It was the Demon King's stomach that had started to be stripped away by the Hero's Armament's rampage.
".............."
Seeing that sight, Rozewin quietly stood up from her seat.
- Swoosh...
And she stood up, gathering the highest-grade potion she bought at the market intending to feed Frey if she could save him, various attack scrolls, and escape scrolls.
"I have to confirm..."
It was to verify the hypothesis she had been putting off until the end, but couldn't avoid.
.
Thus, back to the present time.
"Does... it hurt a lot?"
"Ah, did you come to worry about me...?"
"Heek."
Rozewin, who asked the question in a timid voice to Ruby lying on the bed, flinched involuntarily when Ruby asked back with a chilling expression.
"Why are you so scared? Rozewin...?"
"Ah, n-no... it's nothing..."
"Hmm..."
Ruby, who examined her this way and that, soon opened her mouth with a much softer expression.
"By the way, what is that you're holding in your arms...?"
"Th-this is... the potion I gave you before? I brought a replica of that... for you..."
"Ah."
But Ruby's soft expression freezes instantly upon hearing those words.
"Is it... completely the same composition as the one you gave me before?"
"Y-yes. It's completely... the same thing. The bottle and color are different though."
"Ah... I see..."
At Rozewin's answer, Ruby's frozen expression, which was nodding quietly, begins to rot away.
"Come, please drink it... you need to get better quickly. Even an incurable disease was cured..."
"Hmm, the medicine I took before still has its effect, so there's no need to eat it..."
"Still. Quickly..."
While looking down at such Ruby with a frightened expression, Rozewin, holding the potion with trembling hands and forcing it toward her.
"I said I don't need it?"
"Eek!"
"...Oh my."
When the potion bottle she was holding suddenly broke, she started making a blank expression.
"The potion bottle suddenly broke..."
"I-is that so..."
"...What a shame."
There was no way the potion bottle would suddenly break.
That potion bottle, which she bought at the highest price at the market, was sturdy enough not to break even if a carriage generation stepped on it simultaneously, thanks to solid magic.
"Oh my, did you get hurt there?"
- Throb...
And the throbbing of her heart felt when Ruby, with a worried expression, grabbed her hand.
"Ah... ah..."
Thanks to that, Rozewin, who quickly pulled her hand away and turned around, made a pale, frightened expression and muttered inwardly.
'Ruby is... the Demon King... She was... the Demon King!'
The eye color and face shape slightly visible at the last moment of the video matched the appearance of Ruby lying on the bed right now.
Thanks to that, the tremendous shock that came to her belatedly was significant.
'I, I have to tell... somehow, I have to tell someone...'
Thanks to that, she moved her feet while thinking so, with her legs shaking and cold sweat flowing, but she was too frightened to move quickly.
"Hmm....."
Ruby, who was watching Rozewin moving slowly like a turtle with her head tilted.
'It seems like she hasn't made a confirmation...?'
For some reason, she was tilting her head in a perfectly fine state without receiving a penalty.
'But it's also weird to just leave her be...?'
Because the Helper System's 'Penalty Nullification' was also applied to the Hypocrite System.
- Swoosh...
The Demon King, who was pondering Rozewin's disposal, quietly extended her hand from her bosom.
"Ah, good... bye... eh? Why, why won't the door... open..."
The door that locked at the same time.
"Well, why would that be...?"
"Heek, ugh..."
"Rozewin?"
Thanks to that, Rozewin, who was making a frightened expression, soon took out an attack scroll from her bosom as a last resort.
'I've already left the information that she's the Demon King... in my room... But... but...'
- Zzzing...!
"...Huh?"
Then, a Moonlight System window floated before her eyes before she could make a decision.
Reward: Intelligence +1, Magic Power +1, Stamina +1
"......!"
At seeing that, hope began to rise in Rozewin's eyes.
'M-maybe...!'
- Click!
".....?"
But at that moment, the door opened and someone entered, and she, who thought her destiny had been resurrected again, looked down with a dazed expression.
"Step back, sister."
"Eek?"
"Please go down to the first floor. I have some business to attend to."
What pulled Rozewin behind, covering herself with a robe, was.
"Hurry."
None other than Glare.
"Uh uh......?"
Rozewin's eyes, looking at the familiar system window floating before Glare's eyes, were growing hollow.