Boom—!
The training dummies shattered into pieces under Tezette’s swift strike.
No sooner had they broken apart than they began reassembling themselves again.
Tezette, watching in silence, let his sword slip from his hand.
‘What’s the point of all this?’
Elsez had been dragged into the dimensional rift.
He had stood there, powerless, watching her being taken away — unable to save her.
He had grown far stronger than he had been back when Ruel died, and yet… all he could do was stare blankly as she was seized before his eyes.
And even now, when he had no way of knowing whether Elsez was alive or dead—
‘…There’s nothing I can do.’
He couldn’t go to rescue her. He couldn’t overturn the minds of those who saw her as an enemy simply because she bore the Demon Lord’s power.
A sense of helplessness — something he hadn’t felt since seizing power — weighed on him.
Tezette clenched his fist tight enough to crush it.
Just then, he sensed someone at the entrance of the training grounds.
Already on edge, Tezette immediately turned toward the presence.
It was the priest he had once seen standing at Dike’s side.
“Lord Dike wishes to see you.”
****
Dike had summoned Tezette to her office.
The priest who had guided him there reported, “Lady Dike, I have brought Tezette.”
“Come in.”
Tezette entered her office.
Dike stood by the window, looking out, and began to speak. “It seems everyone is very confused.”
“……”
“Well, it’s only natural. Not only has the Demon God returned, but the being who became the Demon God was a person who was a hero until yesterday. That’s shocking.”
At the mention of Elsez, Tezette’s unreadable expression twisted. “Are you going to kill her?”
“Do you hope she won’t die? The Ruel you love is right beside you.”
“That one’s a fake.”
“You’re quick to notice.”
Dike no longer denied it.
“Yes. She’s a fake. A fake I made. More precisely… a ‘failed product.’”
Three years ago, Rezantia’s death had gone completely against Dike’s plan.
“When the Demon God died three years ago, Ruel died with him. The Demon God merged souls with her, and she passed into another dimension.”
“Another dimension?”
“Yes. I tried to bring her back from that other dimension.”
When Dike learned that Ruel’s soul was from another world, and that Reti’s soul had merged with Ruel’s and moved to that other world, she tried to resurrect Ruel.
But the Ruel in that body was not the original Ruel; Yoo hana’s soul had inhabited Ruel’s body, so Yoo hana could not simply be brought back.
The being revived by necromancy was neither the original Ruel nor the Yoo hana Dike sought to resurrect. It was only an evil spirit, clinging to an empty shell and refusing to move on.
“It was a failed byproduct born in that process.”
Dike had killed and revived that Ruel many times. At some point she realized things had gone wrong and stopped.
The evil spirit that finally took Ruel’s body begged her,
“P-please… save me. I’ll do whatever you ask!”
Dike changed her mind about killing Ruel. She gave the revived Ruel the role of priestess so that she would appear as the public face of the Demon Resurrection Cult.
She later tried to recreate the Demon God, but she failed because there was no one with the enormous holy power like the princess of Eurion.
In the end, Dike changed her plan and decided to summon Reti’s soul into this world.
But if Dike performed necromancy on Reti’s original body and it died, Reti’s soul would settle entirely in another world. So Dike searched for a blood relative who shared Reti’s blood with whom she could bind Reti’s soul.
She found a body with somewhat similar traits—Elsez.
Dike killed Elsez and successfully summoned Reti’s soul by necromancy. The souls of Reti and Yoo hana, bound together, thus came to live on as “Elsez.”
Tezette, who had listened silently to Dike’s shocking confession, asked,
“…Why did you bring her back?”
“Because I needed a villain. To preserve this world’s peace.”
Dike spoke plainly, as if she felt no shame hiding the truth.
Tezette’s pupils trembled, then went cold. The woman before him had saved Ruel, then used and shaped her for her own purposes.
If he were the man he used to be, he might have accepted it—after all, she’s alive, and that meant they met again.
But seeing the hurt in Elsez’s eyes from people’s fear of the Demon Lord changed him.
Tezette drew his sword in a flash and pressed the blade to Dike’s throat, his voice full of killing intent as he spat out,
“She’s a hero.”
A hero who fought ready to die to protect this world. She deserved reverence—not to be hated as a villain.
Even with the sword at her throat, Dike only smiled.
‘Tezette Rittenhouse doesn’t judge by good or evil,’ Dike thought. That’s why she told him everything.
He would act as he pleased, regardless of moral labels. If it suited both their interests, he would follow without conscience.
Dike smiled and asked casually, “Tezette, you like Elsez… no, Ruel, don’t you?”
Tezette only stared at her coldly instead of answering.
Dike continued as if she already knew his reply.
“Then let’s make a deal.”
“……”
“Frankly, the Demon God doesn’t need to be in Elsez in particular. It just needs a host.”
“……”
“So I plan to extract the Demon God’s power from Elsez—but Rashiel has been interfering.”
At Rashiel’s name, Tezette’s expression grew colder still. Dike’s smile widened slightly.
She’d noticed how Tezette and Rashiel felt about Elsez, and she intended to exploit that.
“If we isolate Elsez, won’t she eventually trust us and allow us to extract the power?”
Of course Elsez would never willingly join that plan. Dike knew it. Her real goal in courting Tezette was—
“Remove Rashiel for me.”
She wanted Tezette and Rashiel to fight, so that one of them would die. If one of them perished under her scheme, Elsez would be driven to rage and try to kill Dike.
A Demon Lord trying to kill the saintess—perfect for rallying the heroes.
‘I’d prefer Rashiel to die, if possible,’ she thought. He knows too much and is troublesome.
As Tezette’s sword wavered slightly, a knock came and a hurried voice called, “Lady Dike, may I enter?”
Dike slowly pushed Tezette’s blade down with her hand, still looking at him. Tezette kept his cold gaze but didn’t attack.
At that moment a paladin rushed in.
Dike asked him with her usual gentle smile,
“What is it?”
“Th-the Demon God has appeared.”
They meant Elsez.
Tezette’s eyes flickered at the news.
Dike calmly concealed the uplift in her lips at the perfect timing of the “villain’s” appearance and asked,
“Where has she appeared? Contact the temple of the nation involved—”
“In front of the temple.”
Dike’s brow twitched. As she expected, Elsez should have come out of the rift by now.
A rift can’t naturally appear near the temple, so Elsez should have emerged far from homes or crowded areas.
But she was already in front of the temple.
‘I didn’t sense the Demon God’s power,’ Dike thought, uncertain.
The paladin, catching his breath, added more precisely, as if to nail it down,
“She is right now… in front of the temple.”
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