Do Demon Lords Believe in Fate

"Earlier, at the corner of my eye, ghost-like things kept flickering — that's my imagination, surely?"

"Quiet. Real, obviously. Where do you think we are. Lin-d-hol-m-Sa-cred-Mountain. — Sacred mountain — of course there are."

"No — because-it's-a-sacred-mountain-naturally-there-are-ghosts — I, however, am inconvenienced. The only thing in the world I believe in is money."

"That's exactly why you get called a Demon Lord, no?"

"Says you, Demon Lord-yourself? — 〈Flame Emperor〉, was it? — Emperor-class title. Frightening. My beloved coins and bills look about to be burned."

"You're 〈Alchemy King〉, no? — Suspicious-looking, the read."

"In point of fact, suspicious! My own ancestor used incomplete alchemy to run vice-business. And I — beautiful! Spotless! Running the most fair commerce conceivable! And, because of an ancestor's stained name, treated as an evil-Demon-Lord! On top of that, hand over all your fortune — !"

"So you ran from somewhere, then."

A finely-dressed young man and a girl with vivid crimson long hair were climbing Lindholm Sacred Mountain.

The young man, on a clean-cut face, carried a bag on his back.

The crimson-haired girl had her hands free, her strong-spirited up-tilted eyes turned on the man.

"What about you, then?"

"Me? Me — they came at me for the 〈Crimson Flames of Life〉 formula my line carries down."

"You didn't hand it over, then."

"Of course I didn't. Hand that over and the war-flame spreads further. And then if casualties rise, it's the 〈Flame Emperor〉 line's fault. Why did you give birth to a thing like that. — Genius-level passing-the-buck, the country chasing me."

"Sounds rough on your end too."

"Yes. Finally my line's name had faded from the public stage and I was living, soft-and-warm — and then back-relapse, this. Hah… and I had finally got into Aios's Academy."

"Hm — that academic-city's. Excellent, surely."

"Right? Worked very hard. No parents, the inheritance scraped clean by the state under the Demon Lord pretext, money-earning desperately on my own."

"Admirable, you. — In my place I'd have used that money for commerce."

"Refreshingly a money-fiend, you."

"Better than being called 〈Alchemy King〉, mind."

The young man and the crimson-haired girl, while talking, kept climbing Lindholm Sacred Mountain steadily.

A few beasts on the way; the girl, with crimson flame, dispatched them without trouble.

The girl, evidently, was a competent formula-user.

After some tens of minutes more —

The two finally reached the summit of Lindholm Sacred Mountain.

There stood one man, and two women.

---

"Eh? Why are people up here?"

"Don't know. Ask them."

The man shrugged; the woman's eyes rounded.

"Eh? What — today there are unusually many guests. Until now, never, has a normal person come."

The man with snow-white hair and bright-red eyes raised his face.

"Achievement, that — being treated as a normal person."

"Are you mocking me?"

"No, look — that vivid crimson hair, and a moody-demon face — ouch! — what was that for! I'm frail — stop poking my side!"

"Where — moody-demon."

"A woman as clean-shaped as you tends to be a frightening one inside. Among my ancestors there was one done in by a country-toppling beauty who took the fortune. Lesson learned. — A beautiful woman should be suspected, first, of being demon or devil."

"Don't put me in that class."

"Right, right — fine. Stop pinching the side. Flesh is tearing."

The two, in that exchange, also observed the three already at work on the summit.

A line came back from the white-haired man.

"Idle?"

"Yes — idle."

"Not idle, but — idle."

"What are you saying. Bad at human language? How did you get into Aios's Academy."

"Read between the lines. Being chased, not idle. But what to do from here not yet decided, so — idle."

"Inconvenient as ever… only a mind-reader could pick that up…"

From the work-area: — "This round is noisy. Brighter, somehow."

"And — idle, do what?"

"I'm building graves. If you're idle — help out. While we're here, sort of thing."

"Hm. — Fine."

"Oh — eager, are we?"

"Idle, after all."

"In the end."

"Looks like I can forget the unpleasant business."

"That's — fair. Then I'll help too."

So the two of them, picking up where the small girl was working, set into stacking stones around the bases of the graves.

---

That day, on the summit of Lindholm Sacred Mountain, an off-pattern number of figures had gathered.

After the finely-dressed young man and the crimson-haired girl arrived, one more, two more, three more.

Before he registered, twenty-one in total. Counting Merea, twenty-two.

— What is going on.

He, finally, could not avoid threading the line.

In Merea's chest, the line surfaced.

The second arrival — the small girl — he had taken for some coincidence.

But this many was, frankly, hard to take for coincidence; a design of some kind seemed to be in play.

And — every one of them, on reaching the summit, started helping with the grave-building.

A few without exchanging words at all, set in silently.

Off-pattern.

Off-pattern, but — not an unpleasant atmosphere — also true.

No one asked anything in particular.

If anything — burying themselves in the work as if forgetting something.

By proportion to numbers, the work-efficiency increased; before he registered, Merea's own work had been narrowed down to carving the names on the stones.

He'd write one name; another already-shaped stone slid in from the side.

The role of sliding the stones in was being filled by a beauty in a black-and-white maid uniform.

— Off the rails.

How she'd climbed the sacred mountain in that uniform was a question — but on a closer look, the maid had two short-swords at her back-waist.

— What an alarming maid.

"The next, if you please."

"Ah — yes."

A new gravestone presented; Merea, on a small body-jolt of startled, carved the name.

The maid, by hand, sent it to the next person along; from there, bucket-brigade style, it was passed steadily on.

The maid, flatly, presented the next gravestone. The weight of the gravestones was not light, but the maid took and set, took and set, with light handling — the strength in the slim arm did not match the look of it.

And, finally — the hundredth grave was complete; the maid passed it to the person beside her, then on to a gap-lessly armoured, two-metre-class full-helm fellow, and on to a strange-smile-bearing mystery young man.

The end of the relay was the black-haired sword-bearing woman who had reached the summit at the start, 〈Elma〉 — by her hand, the last gravestone went into the ground.

"…Phew."

Done.

Merea took a deep breath, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

"…Phew."

Those around let out the same one-job-done breath.

A few seconds of silence — and, finally —

"— Who — who are all of you—!"

Merea, almost groaning, said it.

The line carried clean across the summit of Lindholm Sacred Mountain.

---

Those around, hearing Merea's line, threw glances at the nearest person.

"You — who are you."

"No — you — who are you."

Such lines went up here and there, and finally the gazes converged on Merea, with —

"And — who are you."

— the appeal.

In the middle of it, summing everyone's voices, 〈Elma〉 opened her mouth.

"That there would be people on the summit of Lindholm Sacred Mountain, I'd not predicted — Merea, what is your story?"

"Me? I'm —"

Merea hesitated on how to put it.

To say I was raised by Heroic Spirits, shut up on the sacred mountain — would they believe it?

While he hesitated, from a slight distance, another line came in.

"Mn — 〈Future Stone (Funas)〉 is rare. These flip their content like nothing, so they're hard to trust — but they do show one possibility, and they're, in their way, interesting — eh, Demon Lord is written here. — This — yours?"

The crimson-haired girl, with a strange flame-bird on her shoulder, was holding a 〈Future Stone (Funas)〉 picked up from the scatter near Merea's hut.

— Ah — there were ones I'd not yet broken.

"Ah…"

Drawing the line out, Merea hesitated on how to answer.

To say Demon Lord — would something off-pattern come of it?

In the lower world, subjugation-attempts on Demon Lord power were happening, the talk ran.

While Merea hesitated —

"What — you too, then, Demon Lord."

— came in from various directions.

"Eh?"

"I'm a Demon Lord. More precisely — Demon Lord descendant. — Possibly — everyone gathered here is the same?"

The voices crossed in a buzz.

"Me too, descendant. Run off by a nearby city-state's army."

"Same here."

"That's a false-charge, mind. How many generations back a sin do they think it is."

"Convenient, very. Hand it over now, honestly."

"When a war kicks off nearby, it's always like this."

Setting Merea aside, the origins of the gathered figures started surfacing one after another.

Before long, fidgeting with restraint, Merea, gathering all eyes, raised his voice.

"Truly, every one of you — Demon-Lord-descendant?"

"— Apparently so."

That day, every person there believed in the real existence of a phenomenon called fate.