I Became the Main Character’s Demon Sword

45

“Ah, you’re here? Over here.”

Lexia casually greeted the woman’s arrival with a smile and patted the seat next to him. The woman, after fixing her disheveled hair, obediently sat beside him.

Her face exuded nobility just by looking at it. Even if she wore shabby clothes, no one would doubt her status given her appearance.

“Don’t you know me?”

The woman looked at the two people across from her with wide eyes, as they merely observed her without any particular reaction. Arpel, who had been staring at her, asked with an unchanged expression.

“Should I know you?”

“Wow… This is the first time I’ve been treated like this.”

Arpel seemed to think it natural that he wouldn’t know her and moved on, but Lexia appeared surprised that even Rohan didn’t recognize her. He glanced at Rohan and asked.

“I thought you attended services at the temple. Haven’t you heard of her at least once?”

“I’m not interested.”

That was typical of Rohan. Lexia easily accepted his response. The woman, who had been blinking blankly, laughed heartily at this remark.

“I’ve heard a lot about you from Lexia. I’m Evelyn Lencester. Believe it or not, I’m the imperial princess.”

She added, “I look forward to working with you.”

She extended her hand with a grin, but neither of them reacted. The awkward action of withdrawing her hand after attempting a handshake resembled someone else’s behavior.

Birds of a feather, perhaps.

“Well… I understand why you’re wary, but it’s a bit disappointing to be lumped together with him.”

“We know that much.”

Rohan was the one who responded to her dejected expression. His expression was closer to being coldly indifferent than wary.

“Oh, really? That’s good then.”

As if her dejected face had been a lie, Evelyn’s face quickly brightened. Her giggling laughter was an added bonus. She claimed to be friends with Lexia, and indeed, she exuded a very similar atmosphere.

Arpel’s relationship with Lexia was ambiguous. He found Lexia annoying and didn’t particularly like him, but he trusted his abilities. There was also the premise that keeping Lexia, who could exert significant influence outside the temple, as an ally was not a bad choice now that the Emperor had become an enemy.

Anyway, this was the person Lexia had brought as a partner. She shared the same surname as the Emperor, but that fact wasn’t particularly important.

“Since you already know, it’ll be easier to talk. I’ll be direct. Join hands with me.”

“If you tell us your purpose.”

“Purpose… Ultimately, to become the Emperor of the Empire?”

A subtly uncomfortable atmosphere began to develop. Realizing this was due to her statement, Evelyn shrugged and smiled.

“It’s not because of a lust for power or ambition. I heard from Lexia that there were some big events at the temple too. Right? In a way, all of those were caused by my family. I want to prevent such things.”

“So you’re saying you have no choice but to become the Emperor.”

The current Empire had only one Crown Prince who had ascended to the position under the Emperor, and Evelyn Lencester, this imperial princess before them.

“Is the Crown Prince involved in this as well?”

“That guy has been directly educated by His Majesty since he was very young. His ideals closely resemble the idealism His Majesty speaks of. In a way, I’m here because the Crown Prince was marked as the successor.”

She nodded towards Lexia sitting next to her. He pulled out a piece of paper from the side and placed it on the table.

Arpel immediately recognized what he had put out. It was the strange seal he had asked him to investigate long ago. To be precise, a seal precisely divided into 16 parts by red lines.

“This is the seal you gave me, Arpel. For a long time, we tried to find places that used similar patterns or showed regularity, but we couldn’t find any. So we considered the possibility that they had extremely modified an existing seal.”

The result was this.

The seal divided into 16 parts was haphazardly mixed with arrows painted in various colors. A formalized appearance emerged, with the bizarre and crude feeling gone. The neat and elegant pattern depicted an eagle, the symbol of the Empire.

“It’s the imperial seal. One that only the Emperor can use.”

Arpel, who had been listening quietly, silently held back a sigh. The Emperor not only had planted spies in the temple but was also closely related to the Salvation Church’s ‘experiments’. Perhaps these experiments were being directly carried out in the imperial palace.

“This alone isn’t enough to overthrow the imperial family. At best, it would only result in a few subordinates being cut off. We need more evidence.”

The words that came out with a self-deprecating exhale seemed to be mixed with a bit of lamentation. Arpel’s gaze fixed directly on Evelyn.

“I’m not asking for help with something as grandiose as usurping the throne. What I want to ask of you two is to find and destroy branches of the Salvation Church, and to find evidence of collusion between the Emperor and the Salvation Church.”

Her voice was sweet and bouncy, like an innocent child who had finally gotten their hands on a long-awaited toy.

Evelyn was a dazzling beauty that anyone would acknowledge. Such a person’s bright smile couldn’t help but draw people’s attention.

However, Arpel merely gazed at her with an inorganic look. This was partly because a single, intense thought occupied his mind, pushing everything else to the periphery of his interest.

‘It’s become similar.’

Although not exactly the same as the original storyline, the flow had become similar. Rohan leaving the temple and wandering the Empire for revenge on behalf of his family, friends, and villagers – this was the predetermined plot.

But now, rather than ‘revenge’, Evelyn’s request took precedence. Even though characters who originally didn’t appear had entered the power dynamics, the future of leaving the temple remained the same.

“As you know, the branches of the Salvation Church are scattered throughout the Empire. Therefore, we need to move with a small number of people who can avoid the Emperor’s eyes and are not restricted in movement. At the same time, we need to be able to deal with one branch and have enough force to avoid injury in sudden battles.”

Thinking that not answering indicated questioning, Evelyn carefully explained the reasons afterward. She mentioned that only the two of them could exert force with a small number of people and move relatively freely.

“I will kill the Emperor.”

Suddenly, the air became heavy. It was still a far-off future event, and no one could be certain of it, but Arpel’s words were imbued with sincere determination to accomplish this task.

If that person had been manipulating everything from behind, there could only be one conclusion. He had no desire to let live the person who had made Rohan unhappy and would clearly interfere many times in the future.

That’s why Arpel was asking. If she decided to join them, she might have to directly kill her father in the distant future, or at least condone the situation of his killing. Could she endure such a situation?

Realizing what he was trying to ask, Evelyn smiled slightly. There was a hint of bitterness in it.

“His Majesty… No. Father is a really good person to his family. I know that I was raised with love.”

“…”

“But you see. Now that I’m here and have decided to become the Emperor, I have to expose my father’s crimes to the world. You know what happens to a deposed emperor, don’t you? Yet I chose this path.”

The smile that had been bitter was now gone. Arpel realized that the woman before him was stronger than he had thought. And that she had already made all her decisions before coming here.

“Rather than some grand reason like for the peace of the Empire… I just want to live like a human being. That’s my reason.”

Evelyn thought that her words had made the atmosphere here quite heavy. Of course, that thought didn’t last long.

When she raised her slightly lowered gaze to meet Arpel’s, Evelyn noticed that his expression was excessively emotionless. It was inevitable because he had only realized what kind of person she was, not feeling sympathy or pity.

He seemed so detached from reality that for a moment, she felt a sense of discomfort with the very existence of ‘Arpel’.

“No.”

“…Pardon?”

She would have continued to feel that way if she hadn’t received a shock like being hit on the back of the head with a hammer soon after.

“I refuse to join hands.”

“But why?! You were listening to my story just fine until now!”

“Listening and permitting are different matters.”

The desperate gaze now turned to Rohan. The slightly softened reaction that seemed to have appeared while listening to the story was nowhere to be seen, and he only showed a calm behavior that didn’t question Arpel’s answer at all. Instead, he even put a sugar cube in Arpel’s teacup, adding, “The tea tastes a bit bitter.”

“Why did you bring such people?!”

“You were interested too. And Arpel is strong.”

Evelyn, who had been watching their behavior in disbelief, changed her target and shouted at Lexia. However, he was also calm. Although it was a distant memory, he had already experienced this seven years ago, and he realized that nothing had changed while being stuck between the two of them until Evelyn arrived.

She couldn’t give up like this. Evelyn’s eyes flashed as she struck the table. A faint ripple formed in the tea.

“Reason! What’s the reason?!”

Arpel added, patting Rohan’s hand that had added the sugar cube as if praising him.

“Because Rohan is still young.”

“What?”

“Huh?”

Evelyn wasn’t the only one questioning Arpel’s last action. Even Rohan, sitting next to him, widened his eyes.

“Arpel… you think he’s still a child?”

The tone of Lexia’s belated question was also tinged with disbelief. To his eyes, Rohan looked fully grown both in appearance and mentally. It was clear that he certainly didn’t look young enough to be declared a child.

“But, I’ll be an adult next year…”

Seemingly unsatisfied with that declaration, Rohan muttered in a small voice while fidgeting with the handle of his teacup. There was no way Arpel, who always tried not to miss Rohan’s words, especially when this close, wouldn’t hear that.

However, his reaction was unusual.

“…An adult?”

His quiet murmur was filled with a hint of surprise. Even his expressionless face cracked. Noticeable changes tend to draw people’s attention. At some point, both Evelyn and Lexia were staring intently at Arpel.

“But you’re only 17 now…”

“The age of majority in the Empire is 18, isn’t it? Don’t tell me you didn’t know?”

It was a very ordinary and basic fact. Evelyn, who didn’t know at all that Arpel was a Demon Sword who had only opened his eyes to this world 7 years ago, explained with an expression that clearly said ‘I’ve never seen someone like this before’.

Of course, even 7-year-old kids would know this, but Arpel’s ignorance of this was partly due to not being curious about it, and largely because no one around him had informed him. No one had thought he wouldn’t know in the first place.

“…Isn’t it 20 years old?”

The biggest reason was the common sense carried over from another world. He had even painstakingly searched through his past memories to figure out the age for making contracts. Perhaps because of the effort he had put into it, Arpel, who had never once doubted the fact that adulthood was at 20 years old, looked quite shocked.