[Royal Palace – Belzerg's Capital]
The moment I entered the room, every single noble inside the hall went silent.
Most of them looked at me with a hint of fear, which was thoroughly justified. I was pissed, and my temper would only rise even further if they didn't react.
"What brings you here, Artificer?" The King asks, and I toss a medallion on the floor in front of me in response. Faces paled even further, recognizing the gold and the embedded amethyst, even as I hold my staff at the ready just in case.
"You're commissioning assassins. To eliminate that damn Crimson Demon girl." I all but stated instead of asked, my gaze narrowing at the King who had an expression carved out of stone.
"Do you want to betray your only defense against the full might of the Demon King's Army, you damn idiots?" I snarled, with motes of blue light rising up from the ground beside me. "They're the main individuals responsible for harrassing the Demon King's forces and preventing them to mount a coordinated attack, and you want to eliminate them?"
"That Crimson Demon was the one casting [Explosion] on our forces on the frontlines! They've all but taken the side of the Demon King!"
"Ho? Then where's your proof?" I asked with eyes zeroed on one of the nobles, a gaudy-looking man with robes that hid skin and bones. "Did you track the magical signature? There's a lot of experienced and retired adventurers that can cast [Explosion] without much effort. Did you cross-check the database in the list of [Explosion] practitioners in order to see if they have an alibi?"
"T-That's..."
"You're a fool, and an idiot. If it weren't for the status of your parents, then I would've already put you in your place." One of the motes of light around me shifted, and I immediately slammed my staff in that direction, causing a shriek to fill the air as a woman appeared out of thin air and slammed into the ground. I pinned her down with the end of my staff without much effort, and I turned back towards the nobles with a smile on my face.
If I was pissed before, then now I was downright murderous.
"...Now this is a new low, even for the lot of you. Sending an assassin after a renowned Adventurer and Guildmaster while in the middle of a meeting? I thought you lot were much more subtle than this. Where did your intelligence go? Did it fly away the moment you lot finished planning for the murder of that Crimson Demon?"
A smirk formed on my face. "Although, for a bunch of people that seemed to frame me for the Crimson Demon's murder, you seem to have never taken account the chance that your target might have switched rooms with someone else."
"Treason!" One of them yelled, pointing a gnarly finger at me that I didn't want to know where it came from. "You're accussing us of trying to murder a renowned adventurer!? Treason, I say!"
"Oh, treason is it?" I asked with a raised brow, silencing the pathetic attempt to browbeat me until submission with a simple glare. Pathetic, the lot of them. "What do you think, o King?"
That statement shut everyone up. With trembling gazes the nobles turned towards the King, still on his throne and watching the proceedings with a half-lidded gaze.
"Just this once."
A sigh escaped my lips, containing both relief and exasperation in the same measure, all the while the nobles slowly began panicking for their lives. "Just this once, I'll let this slide. I have no doubt that you will be able to accomplish the task that I had set out for you, so I will refrain from foolishly punishing you for your misplaced declaration of treason. However, I would like to know your true thoughts about this matter. I've given you enough time as it is, Artificer."
"Now that, I can rally behind." I said with a grin, leaning on my staff once again as I met the stares of everyone in the area.
"Quite simple, really. Her name is Wolfbach, Demon King Army General."
[Royal Palace – Belzerg's Capital]
I'm a bad person. I really am. Didn't take too much thinking, considering that I was the Demon King, and all that. Alright, so maybe I'll spin the bad press around, say that I'm just ruthless in a pragmatic manner that everyone could understand. But this? This I'm not too sure about.
"I'm using [Steal] the next time you cast [Explosion] without my permission, yeah? Let's see how you do without that staff of yours for a full week..."
"Yeah..."
Kazuma blinked. "Megumin? What's wrong? Usually you'd be all over me while shouting about how I desecrated your pathetic [Explosion] or something like that–"
"Pathetic, you say!? Let's just see who's going to be pathetic when I blast you into pieces once again!"
"Oi!"
I sighed, disabling my [Remote Eye] and glancing towards the other member of Kazuma's current party who was currently making their way over towards me.
"Yo."
"What are you doing here?"
"Resting while making sure that your party leader's fine. Using [Resurrection] takes a lot out of you, I'm afraid."
"Did you tell him of his cause of death?"
"Of course." I said, crossing my arms at her. "I told him that he was blown to bits when your other party member casted her spell a little bit closer to him than recommended."
As expected, a sword gouged onto the carpeted floor, and I couldn't help but snort as the crusader in front of me started to flush in embarrassment. "S-Stop laughing, you! This is a serious matter!"
"I'm not though."
"Y-You are!"
"I'm really not..."
A bit of time passed as the crusader composed herself, before she let out a determined breath and stared directly at me. "Well then, I assume that you can tell me the reason to why you would lie to him about this?"
I smile as I turn towards her. "Say you want someone to not make the same decisions you made. What would you do to keep up the facade?"
"Kazuma–"
"Is merely a boy who doesn't know the true meaning of life here. His home...is far enough from here that they haven't even heard of the conflict with the Demon King." The crusader opened her mouth to speak, but I silenced her with a glare. "Say what you want about your depraved fantasies, but that's the case more often than not, isn't it?"
Silence. Then, "Did you visit his birthplace?"
"I did." I replied with a nod of my head. "A country at peace, garnering vast amounts of land, people, and strength to even make the worst of what the Demon King has to offer look like children. They have the curse of never knowing the bounties of magic, forced to accept it as fact from a young age, yet still their country flourished. Yet I know the question on your lips."
I pause, glancing towards the crusader's open mouth.
"Why did I return here? To a land of strife and endless death, perpetuated by the defamation of all sides until there is nothing left but ashes?"
I chuckled at her confused expression, even as I stare past her and out into the blue skies above the capital. The call to adventure beckoned, just as it once did in the past, but they were memories of an individual who hadn't experienced the same memories as I have. Instead, they were stuck reliving the past, seated at the ends of the world with too much tasks to even bother doing anything else.
The Administrator and I are different people. We might share the same face and I might be a clone of them, but we both knew and accepted that we would be forever different at our core.
"Quite simple, young lady. My family's still here."
Yet I can't help but feel disgusted even as I speak.