I talked with both Harriet and Ellen, but that wasn’t the end of it.

I had to explain to Eleris how I knew of the Black Order and Cantus Magna.

I acted as if those things were common knowledge when they weren’t.

Sarkegaar had a problem with the Ellen situation, but he didn’t seem to think that the Black Order posed any problem in particular. He might have assumed that I was trying to get new powers under my rule or something.

However, even though Sarkegaar was fine with it, Eleris wasn’t.

While I was working in various directions, I suddenly decided to get in contact with the Black Order.

Wouldn’t it be rather strange if she didn’t think that I was planning on rebuilding the Demon Realm among other dangerous things?

Sarkegaar seemed rather reserved about the matter, so there was no need to explain myself to him.

As such, I first had to resolve the situation in which Eleris, who had been my greatest ally up until then, might become my greatest enemy.

The next day…

I left Temple and visited Eleris’s semi-basement apartment.

The atmosphere around her was very different from usual.

She usually welcomed me with a bright expression, but she just stared at me with a firm look on her face.

If Eleris tried to kill me, I wouldn’t be able to stop her.

“You look scary.”

“You Highness, who is trying to contact the Black Order and came to me on his own two feet, is speaking of fear? That fear can’t be real, then.”

“You really are scary.”

“…”

Eleris looked at me silently.

“I thought you’d bring Loyar or Sarkegaar. I can’t believe you actually came here alone…”

We were in a dark semi-basement.

While it wasn’t night yet, Eleris’s powers should have reached their peak. There was no way that Eleris, who was more than capable of killing me while the sun was still up, wouldn’t be able to kill me in that environment.

“Your Highness, you really are a strange man.”

Her pupils were shaking.

“You’re trying to hold hands with a dangerous organization such as the Black Order, and yet you try to protect this girl named Ellen with your life. I can’t say I understand what this all means.”

It seemed like she was unable to understand my actions in the least.

“Your Highness, no matter what you plan to do, I believe you have too much faith in me… You shouldn’t. If you dream of rebuilding the Demon Realm, you should stay far away from me. Even if you aren’t creating some grand scheme to rebuild that place, you still place far too much trust in me. Why… Why do you believe in me so much? You don’t even know me that well.”

Eleris spoke as if pleading with me. It seemed as if tears were about to pour out of her eyes at any moment.

There had been some friction between me and Sarkegaar, but he would never be able to kill me. In the end, he had no other choice but to follow my will, so even if it was difficult for him to tolerate Ellen’s presence, he wouldn’t be able to lay hands on her right away.

However, that wasn’t the case for Eleris.

Eleris kept feeling suspicious that I might dream of starting another war and rebuilding the Demon Realm.

She was a difficult subordinate to deal with—a subordinate who would kill me at any time if my intentions didn’t align with her values.

There was no reason to keep such a subordinate close to me, and yet I had only favored her up until then; that was something Eleris couldn’t understand.

The bond of trust I had with Eleris was damaged.

Since I was about to hold hands with a magic society, Eleris would never be able to believe that I wanted peace.

That was why she seemed so confused. Just when she was thinking about what to do with me, I appeared before her alone like I was asking to be killed by her.

When I fell into that world, I was mentally overwhelmed.

I felt relieved when I met Charlotte, but when I reached the Imperial Capital, I felt lost again.

I had met Eleris when I was worrying about the present and not even thinking about the future ahead of me.

I met someone who had to be on my side in that world filled with humans.

Was it similar to finding an oasis in a desert? Eleris and I meeting at that time seemed to me like a rope of salvation, so no matter what kind of being Eleris actually was, I had no other choice but to open my heart to her.

“I have never lied.”

I stared at Eleris calmly.

“I’m not interested in rebuilding the Demon Realm or starting another war.”

Eleris looked doubtful. Yeah, I wouldn’t believe myself either.

It was too much to call myself a pacifist when I did all those things.

I already knew that would happen when I decided to take Eleris with me to Aaron Mede’s mansion.

It was an inevitable moment, after all.

Eleris would have to do something very important from then on.

“Would you believe me if I told you that I know the future?”

“…What?”

I was thinking about telling Eleris about the future.

***

Knowing the future…

Eleris seemed exceedingly perplexed as if she didn’t expect me to say something as silly as that, and she didn’t know how to react.

I wanted to tell the others as well, but I couldn’t.

To do that, I would have to explain too many other things, including things that I should never tell anyone, but I wanted to tell at least one person, and that person was Eleris.

To be exact, I wanted to get rid of that last bit of doubt Eleris carried in her heart.

I wanted Eleris to truly be on my side and stand next to me without having to doubt anything.

“Your Highness… What… J-just what are you talking about?”

“I don’t know everything about the future, but I do know some big events that will happen in the future. I also can’t predict in what way the future will change as a result of my actions.”

It was difficult to go into more detail. I didn’t actually believe and didn’t want to say that I was kind of like the creator of the world.

I didn’t have much knowledge of the place. It was like a house built by a different person on the ground I provided. I knew about the foundation, but the finished world was a place unfamiliar to me.

“The information about the Black Order and the Cantus Magna was just something I originally knew. You know that there was no way nor reason for me to find out these things.”

“Your Highness… I don’t know what you mean. Are you saying that you might be from the future?”

“Not really, but it’s kind of similar.”

The phrase “The more you talk, the worse it gets” was made for situations like that. Eleris seemed convinced that there was something wrong with my head.

“You don’t have to believe me. I know it’s unbelievable, but listen.”

The story was simply far too long to answer all the questions Eleris might come up with one by one. Hearing my words, she fell silent.

“There isn’t much I can use as proof. However, the thing is, in two years, the warp gates all over the continent will connect to another world, and many people will be killed during that incident.”

“I named it ‘The Gate Incident’, but I don’t really know what caused it. If things are left as-is, millions or even billions of humans will die.”

“I was thinking that magic is the only thing that could have caused this, so that’s why I’m trying to get a clue from the magic side of things. I’m trying to contact magic societies such as the Black Order and Cantus Magna because they might have caused it, or they might even have a solution for it.”

“I’m expanding my forces now because, if things don’t work out as I planned, we might have to travel all over the continent to destroy all of the warp gates.”

“Not only that but there are many ways to do it as well. If I think about it more, there are so many things I still would have to do.”

“Yeah, I know it’s hard to believe, and you are probably wondering why I know all of this.”

“Now you can ask.”

* * *

* * *

I didn’t have much time.

Eleris had to move around for me. She could teleport, after all.

That was why she was the only one who could carry out the most important orders immediately and accurately.

Eleris might believe that I was actually out of my mind, telling the truth, or making up excuses, but she was silent for a very long time.

“Why are you suddenly telling me this…? I don’t know what to do…”

In the end, Eleris still seemed to find it hard to believe me.

“Yeah, you don’t have to believe me, but I hope you realize that I don’t want a new war or the end of humanity.”

The chances were higher that she wouldn’t believe me.

With the Orbis Class gone, it was impossible to show her any definite proof inside of Temple, but there were still some things that would certainly happen in the future.

“Do you remember the club I made?”

“Yes, you created a club named the Magic Research Society and are even the president of it…”

“There will soon be some amazing things made there.”

“…!”

Eleris knew of the Magic Research Society from me. She was very surprised at that time that I became the president of it even though I didn’t know how to use magic.

She had already heard of the things I ordered to be made there. Like everyone else, Eleris was pretty negative about it.

That was why she told me about using magic with the surrounding atmospheric mana.

“No way…”

“Yeah, I knew they would end up making those items. That’s why I made them create them in advance.”

Power cartridges and moonshine…

If those two items were to be made by the hands of those students, Eleris would probably have a bit more faith in my words about knowing the future.

“I have no clue what will happen in the end because the future surely changed a lot due to my actions…”

Another definite future event…

“Alsbringer will choose his new master soon. Its master will be my classmate, Ludwig.”

The next owner of Ragan Artorius’s Alsbringer would be Ludwig.

Eleris heard the name ‘Ludwig’ leave my mouth for the first time.

“You mean… It’s not Ellen?”

“Yeah.”

Eleris, who knew Ellen’s true identity, couldn’t believe that the next master of Alsbringer, which should have obviously been her, wasn’t actually Ellen.

“You’ll find out whether I really know the future or not when it’s time.”

She might not have believed me for the moment, but Eleris would eventually have no other choice but to admit that my predictions were gradually coming true.

It seemed like she felt that I was telling the truth—or at least not lying—from my weird confidence.

“I don’t know if you received an oracle or something, but… I just can’t believe it all…”

“Of course, I anticipated that you would react like that, so I haven’t told you anything up until now. You would have just treated me like a crazy person.”

“…”

I didn’t know when the future I talked about would come true, but Eleris would wait to confirm if what I had said was true.

In other words, until then, she would at least be my ally.

“You telling me this… means you have a role that you want me to play.”

Eleris looked at me, her eyes filled with determination as if she had made up her mind.

Eleris seemed determined not to turn her back to me, even asking me what she could do.

“Don’t get me wrong and just listen, okay?”

“Yes.”

I was about to tell her the important point.

“We need to rebuild the Demon Realm.”

“…What?!”

Eleris let out a shrill voice.

Before, I said that I didn’t wish to rebuild the Demon Realm, but then I said that I wanted to rebuild it, so Eleris was very shocked.

That was beyond saying that I brought our conversation right back to square one. After Eleris looked surprised for a moment, she looked at me with a straight face.

She looked as if she thought that I said all those words just to end up talking about that again.

“To be precise, rather than actually doing it, we should make the humans believe that the Demon Realm has been rebuilt.”

“What do you mean by this…? I don’t understand.”

“If there are rumors that the Demon Realm had been rebuilt now that Ragan Artorius is dead, the humans would panic, right?”

“…Yes.”

The little senior, Redina, had reacted like that the other day.

Since Artorius was dead, who the hell would kill the Demon King again if he resurrected?

Fear of the Demon King…

If the Demon King returned in the absence of Artorius, the only one who could truly rival him…

The humans would fall into panic.

“We don’t have much time. Only two, no, not even two years.”

The gate incident would happen at the start of the third year’s first semester.

There was only one year left, not two.

“If we don’t manage to eliminate the cause of the Gate Crisis in the given time, we should go ahead and smash all the warp gates on the continent as the next best solution. Something else might happen because of that, but that’s what we should go with for now.”

“…I can’t do something like that.”

“Right.”

It was impossible to destroy all the warp gates scattered all over the continent at the same time unless I suddenly turned into the Empire itself.

That was impossible, but it was possible for me to become the Empire’s enemy.

Being someone’s enemy meant that one had a certain amount of influence over that someone.

“What would happen if we made them believe that the Demon King’s forces invaded the Human Realm through the warp gates?”

Eleris’s eyes widened when she heard those words.

“They would… block the warp gates themselves… Is that what you mean?”

“Even if they don’t end up destroying them, they will place enough defensive forces around them.”

I wouldn’t solve everything, but the initial damage would be significantly reduced.

“This is just insurance. Just in case. We don’t really have to rebuild the Demon Realm. It’s just to make people nervous. That’s enough to make humans feel the need to move. Whether it’s me or someone else, it just has to be rumored that we’ll attack the Human Realm through the Warp Gates.”

It wouldn’t actually be demons that would come out, but monsters of another world, but that’s fine—the humans would be prepared.

That was my insurance in case I ended up not being able to get anything done. The humans had to believe that the Demon Realm was being reconstructed and become afraid.

Eleris looked at me with a stern expression.

“That role… Are you saying that you want me to play it?”

“Yes.”

Sarkegaar and Loyar had other important work to do.

Eleris didn’t have any particular job to undertake. In addition, because she was a wizard, she was able to move all over the continent in an instant, so her mobility was incomparable to anyone else’s.

The reconstruction of the Demon Realm had to be entrusted to the one who least wished for it. Of course, it wouldn’t actually be a reconstruction, it was just a bluff.

I felt like I knew that Eleris would somehow agree to it.

“…Yes, Your Highness.”

Eleris also knew.

Her expression told me that she had accepted her inescapable fate.

“Your Highness, if all this… is a lie, however…”

If all of it was just a lie, was she going to kill me?”

“I’m… I’m going to be very sad.”

Even in that situation where she didn’t know whether she could trust me or not, Eleris seemed unable to choose to hate or harm me.

Eleris, the first person to recognize me in the Imperial Capital, seemed quite intent on killing me before.

Could that have been a misunderstanding?

Eleris seemed like someone who wouldn’t be able to bring herself to even slightly harm me.

The talk was roughly over, but there were still some important points left to discuss.

“By the way… How should we start if we want to rebuild the Demon Realm…?”

Rumors already spread throughout the Human Realm that the reconstruction of the Demon Realm had begun, but we also needed real power. It was absolutely necessary to subdue the forces of the different demon clans who still held power and bring them under my feet.

The first one on the chopping block would be…

“The Vampire Council.”

“…What?”

They weren’t even forces of the Demon Realm to begin with.

“Make them gather.”

I intended to get them first.

“If we lock the door and push the Holy Sword in their faces, they’ll probably be willing to make a blood oath or something.”

“!”

I wasn’t really sure if I was able to break those long-lived vampires’ pride, but wouldn’t it be possible to force them to open their closed-off hearts to me with the Holy Sword?

It was the strongest weapon in the world limited to only the undead, even Eleris feared Tiamata.

History proved that there was nothing like violence to open closed doors.