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#1119 Thus the Legend...
🕑 Added 2025-02-12 18:17:08 +0000 UTCI am Armiga, a high-ranking official of the Demon Kingdom.
Right now, I’m being dramatically summoned by my lord.
So... why did he summon me again?
Seija (saint)?
What's that?
Seija, as in right (sei) and wrong (ja)?
Because if anyone asked whether we’re on the side of righteousness or evil, I’d proudly say we’re on the side of righteousness, thank you very much.
That’s not it?
Then maybe “alive,” huh?
Well yeah, we’re definitely alive and kicking... and that’s why we’re struggling!!!
While I’m standing here, scratching my head over all this, someone among the retinue nervously raises a hand...
“Um… Your Majesty? May I speak?”
“Yes, go on.”
“When you say ‘saint,’ do you mean that person everyone’s been talking about…?”
Wait, so some of my fellow bigwigs do know about this?
“They say there’s somebody out there who holds immense knowledge and power. If they felt like it, they could burn everything down seven times over…!”
“Um, I wouldn’t actually do that, though?!”
That random, dopey fellow from a different race suddenly jumps up all alarmed.
Before I can ask what’s going on, Lord Lucif Focale yanks him back down, so I can’t really follow up.
…Anyway, what or who is this “saint,” exactly?
I ask some of my peers quietly, and they explain...
“It’s just a rumor floating around; some transcendent being supposedly living in a hidden sanctuary somewhere in this world.”
Oh.
So that’s the saint?
“They say the saint’s power is off the charts, beyond anything we mere mortals can fathom. Even the two greatest calamities in our world, the Dragon and the Lifeless King, supposedly bow to the saint without question.”
“If the saint wanted to, they could wipe out everything in a heartbeat. But they don’t, because they’re merciful, broad-minded, and love all living things.”
Seriously? An absurd person like that actually exists?
“Well, we always wrote it off as idle gossip, nothing more real than tales of Zumrimberakam or Gipopobronco…”
Huh?
Zumri-what? Gipo-what now?
“But then there was that time on the battlefield when a dragon showed up shouting the saint’s name, and right after that, the war ended as we seized the enemy’s royal capital with lightning speed. There’s been some chatter at higher levels that maybe the saint is real.”
“Some even say we demons only won thanks to the saint’s intervention.”
“After all, we still have no idea how we broke through the humans’ holy barrier—something that supposedly only a true holy sword can destroy.”
Huh.
So the troops were gossiping about that on the front lines?
Why was I clueless?
Well… I was pretty wrapped up in domestic affairs.
Anyway, does that mean this legendary saint truly exists?!
Must be, if the Demon King himself says he’s going to introduce them!
The Demon King stands at the apex of demonkind.
If he says it’s true, that’s all the proof we need!!!
“Allow me to introduce our esteemed guest: here is Lord Saint, the holiest person in this world, and a friend of mine!”
“Hey there, everyone!”
The person who stands up and walks over to His Majesty…
...is that dopey dude?!
I had my suspicions, but so he really is the saint?
Otherwise, why would he even be here?
But… that guy is the saint?
He’s supposed to be the mightiest, holiest existence in the world.
He should be able to command the two worst calamities and even destroy the world on a whim, no?
From all the rumors, I pictured some shining figure who practically glows with divine power, maybe floating above us holding a big staff…
But instead, we’ve got a normal-looking fellow, nothing special to look at.
He’s not especially handsome, kind of on the slender side, and his constant polite smile is the opposite of imposing.
Standing next to our commanding Demon King only makes the contrast starker.
Is this regular guy really the legendary saint?
“Um, Your Majesty?”
“Yes?”
“Are we sure this person is the famed saint we’ve heard of? He’s… not exactly what the rumors made me picture…”
“Are you suggesting your Demon King is lying?”
“N-no, of course not!”
Right, like we can just flat-out contradict our Demon King.
Everyone else around here is thinking the same thing, though.
What about Lord Lucif Focale?
…He’s just letting out a long, weary sigh.
“Lord Saint is a dear friend who once saved my life,” the Demon King begins.
Wow… The Demon King leads our entire race, so the idea of him having an equal friend...
“Among my contemporaries, only Lord Saint and King Arowana of the Mermaid Kingdom could truly share my struggles. Being a ruler is a lonely existence, but the three of us understood one another.”
“Wait, what do I have in common with a king? I get why Arowana would, but me…?”
Ooh, the loneliness of ruling at the very top…!
If anyone else can relate, it’s only a handful in the entire world.
Sure, King Arowana of the seas makes sense, but the Saint is on that same level, too?
“And by saving me, the Demon King, he effectively saved our entire race. It was Lord Saint who brought me together with my first wife, Astres…!”
What?!
Back when Lord Zedan first took the throne as a young king, he had no queen.
That’s exactly why, if the Demon King took a shine to you, you could climb straight to the pinnacle of the new power structure.
With that goal in mind, all sorts of schemers tried shoving their daughters or sisters into the Demon King’s path.
And those same people never forgot to eliminate any “inconvenient obstacles.”
At the time, Lady Astres, one of the Heavenly Four and the Demon King’s childhood friend, was the prime target of these power-hungry fiends.
They considered her such a threat they would have booted her out at the slightest excuse.
Sure enough, Lady Astres got caught in one of their plots and was sent packing from the capital. Right after that, the Demon King himself vanished.
Even now, I can vividly recall the chaos back then and how terribly Lord Lucif Focale was run into the ground while left in charge.
“In those days, it was Lord Saint who sheltered Astres, recognized how we cherished each other, and even invoked the Underworld God Hades to sanctify our union.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa!
I remember the big commotion when His Majesty returned with Lady Astres as his bride, the two of them blessed by a god. That was the saint’s doing?!
The Underworld God is one of the three mightiest deities, famously monogamous—married to only one divine consort.
Anyone blessed by that god is bound to have only one spouse forever, leading many to call it a “curse” more than a blessing.
But for those scheming sycophants vying for the queen’s seat, that was basically a deathblow.
Not only was the position snatched away, but now there was no chance of being a second queen or concubine, either, because of that curse...I mean, blessing.
Eventually, most of those power-hungry creeps were purged or exiled.
That was the start of King Zedan’s big reforms, come to think of it…
If the saint was behind that historic moment, then yeah, we owe him a ton.
A true friend to the demon race.
“And that’s not all. Later, when I took Glasya as my second wife, Lord Saint was an enormous help. Under the deal with Hades, I shouldn’t be able to have more than one wife. But Lord Saint arranged a miracle on my behalf.”
What, what, what kind of miraculous trick is that?!
Does the saint negotiate with gods on an equal footing?!
“In exchange for relaxing the terms, the god demanded a great achievement: the end of the war by demon victory. Lord Saint supported us in making that happen!”
So the saint was responsible for finishing the war?!
The biggest triumph in Demon Kingdom history?
“It was the saint who reforged the shattered holy sword of one of the Heavenly Four, imbuing it with new strength as the True Holy Sword. That sword shattered the humans’ sacred barrier, allowing us to storm their capital!”
So that’s how Lord Zedan’s legendary conquest of the Human Kingdom—the so-called Demon King’s Miracle—came about?!
Reviving a broken holy sword is practically a divine feat.
And if that brought an end to the long-standing conflict between humans and demons, then the saint truly is the hero of it all.
We demons owe him more gratitude than we can ever express!
