And the Wish Was Inherited

"……"

"……"

"……"

A run of silences.

Speechlessness.

There was a reason.

"Oi — why is the outside this clean, matched up with the Great Star-Tree, and the interior this — thorny."

Salman's line covered everything.

"P-poison-coloured, isn't it…"

Lilium, putting that line out.

"Excellent taste."

Marisa, sweeping the interior with a cool flat-eyed look.

The exact opposite picture.

If the castle's exterior fairly carried the descriptions dreamlike and exquisite, this interior was —

"Thorny. Bad."

"I've stopped being able to find the right word — possibly that umbrella description is the right call."

As if they'd dropped into a poison-marsh, the interior was painted in dark purples and dark blacks.

A colour palette that, with precision, ran a chill straight up the spine.

What spread out in front of them, the moment they stepped in, was a hall floored with red carpet.

Open the great doors — and the red carpet ran straight ahead, all the way to the back. The kind of long carpet that, by feel, sucked the eye toward the throne at its end.

Sure enough — as Merea and the others walked the carpet —

"Hey! That! That is unmistakably a throne! And the bad-guy kind!!"

"…Yeah… no question…"

Merea, no longer able to hold it in, pointed at the great chair at the back with broad gesture.

Salman, hand on his eyes, faced the ceiling.

What Merea was pointing at was a throne with a uniquely thorny and over-decorated set of trim — Demon-Lord-style, if one had to put a name to it.

Set on a flight of about twenty steps, it was projecting dignity harder than it needed to.

"To start with, the position is too high! That is built for looking down on people!"

Merea couldn't stop the retorts.

"Whoever sits in that thing is going to cross his legs and say Join my ranks and I'll grant you half the world. — How about it."

"And if you decline — Then… die! — and come walking down with the cloak flaring behind him, easy and slow…"

Elma, hand on her forehead, sighing too.

After a complete round of vocalised reactions, the party went up the stairs and stood level with the throne.

"That said — wide, isn't it. How many people would this hold?"

"At minimum — a hundred."

To Elma's plain question, Salman answered.

In the meantime, Merea was wandering around with a strange unsettled air.

It was about then — Merea remembered.

A certain unpleasant memory.

"Hm…? This — I've… seen this somewhere…"

Halfway up the steps, the realisation lit.

Heart kicked up; he immediately denied it to himself.

But the higher up the steps he went, the harder his mind kept settling on the conviction.

"Oh — the stairs to the upper floor are over there. Looks like the rooms are second floor and up. — Anyway, having a place to live is a good thing in itself. Let's hope the second floor and up are sane."

"If it's all in this register, that's depressing…"

Salman and Elma shrugged with a what're-you-gonna-do air; somewhere in there, they'd actually got used to the décor.

Only Merea was still half in a daze, looking out from near the throne.

Then —

"— Hah, but, you know, Demon-Lord-ish is not actually a bad fit. Our master is the man who accepted being called Demon Lord, and we sign on to that line. And — this flashy a castle? Dignity will follow. — Lord of Demon Lords' kind of dignity, but still."

"Probably so. Merea, kept silent, looks the part well enough; once he opens his mouth he can come off like a child. Then — sat here, unmoved, glaring — would, perhaps, give dignity. — Demon-Lord kind of dignity, of course."

To Salman and Elma's lines, the rest of the Demon Lords started laughing and the room started getting noisy. They had visibly let it go.

Then —

"Oi! Merea!"

"Hau—!"

Merea, mid-daze, jumped at Salman's sudden volume.

He looked round for Salman, found him a step lower on the stairs, beckoning.

"Sit there. Try it."

What he was pointing at — needed no qualification — was that most thorny, most ostentatious throne.

"…Ahh, I'm sorry, Salman. I am, right now, getting a violently bad premonition. I might not be able to sit in that chair."

"Don't say that. — Lads! Sit Merea down on the throne!"

On Salman's cue, the Demon Lords closed in and pinned Merea's body.

"N-no— Ah! I have seen this picture! I have seriously seen this!"

In the same breath, a memory clicked clearly into place inside Merea.

In the meantime, his comrades hauled his body up and carried him to the throne.

He was forcibly seated.

"Merea-sama, at moments like this, the legs go crossed. — Yes, just so."

Marisa, taking the strength-less Merea's foot, crossed it like a doll-maker setting a pose.

"Merea-kun, the elbow goes like this."

Aiz, lifting his elbow onto the armrest, adjusted the angle and folded his hands together.

"Merea, the face goes like this."

Elma, taking the dazed Merea's cheeks in both hands, fixed the expression into a smile. A thin smile with, undeniably, something villainous tucked into it.

The three then withdrew, took it in from a distance, and Right, good — nodded together.

In the meantime, the other Demon Lords lined up, one on each side of the staircase.

Beside the red carpet running up to the throne — like a guard of attendants for the throne — they stood, posture clean.

Twenty-one in total.

The picture from below would have carried a fair bit of force.

And —

"Oi — anyone here who can run a recording-formula? Want to leave this picture as a memento."

Salman put it out.

One of the Demon Lords brightly raised a hand, and at once deployed a formula in mid-air.

"Right — going on a five-second timer."

Salman threw a strong thumbs-up; from the Demon Lord across, an equally strong thumbs-up came back.

"I have seen this picture…"

About then, Merea finally came back to himself.

But his face was set in the expression Elma had configured; only a little awkward stiffness was added on top.

The recording-formula deployed by the Demon Lord drifted as a white light —

"Three—"

The light, drifting, shaped a mirror-face.

"Two—"

The mirror-face caught a flash —

"One—"

—.

---

"I have seen this on 〈Future Stone (Funas)〉!!"

---

An instant before Merea's scream landed, the recording-light dropped its catch.

From inside the white light hanging in mid-air, a sheet of paper fell down, and onto it the picture rendered itself out.

A perfectly accurate transcription of the moment onto paper.

The Demon Lords filed over to the paper, in cheerful voices.

"Hah — look at Merea's face, too stiff!"

"As I thought — slightly short on dignity."

"No no — Merea-sama is at his best on any face."

"Merea-kun, you, a bit, tired?"

"This is unsaleable. Cheapness leaks out of it. A photograph that does not become money."

"Merea looks rough, but the rest of us are rough too — we just got back from war, our appearances are at the floor."

And on, with Next time bring Noel into frame too — that'd carry more force, and Better to fix the clothing first, and Have to practise the face, the lines went up; the throne hall filled with cheerful voices.

Merea, in the throne, watching, dropped one elbow lazily onto the armrest, threw his legs out — and said —

"Hah… in the end, that one came true after all…"

He had remembered, clearly.

The time he had used 〈Future Stone (Funas)〉 in secret from Flander.

Among the future stones, which had mostly held out vague Demon Lord and Demon-Lord master word-clouds for him as possibility-fragments, one had, just once, projected an actual picture.

He'd hand-chopped it to pieces like the rest. But the awkward face on a throne that the stone's surface had shown — was, even now, burned to his retina. His own face, holding that wretchedly bad villain-look.

This thorny interior and the thorny throne — looking back, did not, in the picture, differ.

Which is to say — that's how it is.

"Right to the end, the future stone toyed with me… that thing's hit-rate against me, specifically, is way too high…"

Merea's bone-tired line, going up with the sigh, drifted around the hall, and popped, lightly, with cheerful sound.

---

"Right — about time we went up and explored the upper floor."

The Demon Lords, having had their fill of laughter at the picture, nodded at Salman's call and filed over to the second-floor stairs.

To follow them, Merea finally got up off the throne.

Last, on a casual sweep of the floor in case anything had been dropped in the earlier scuffle — Merea's eye caught something.

Coming round to the back of the throne, he noticed text carved into the throne's lower-back panel.

"Mm?"

Merea narrowed his eyes.

"Oi — Merea —"

"— Ah! Coming!"

To Salman's voice from the distance, Merea threw an answer back, then crouched and brought his face closer.

He read the carved text.

---

"Look, Flander! How about it! A fine castle, no!! I made it for you all! Even by my own measure — perfect!!"

"Th-the interior taste is too bad… Leilas…. By next time we come, at least the second floor and up, please set it to something proper… nobody'll want to come here…"

"Don't wanna—!"

"Y-you're not a child… haa…"

---

Under the large, clearly cut letters, the answering line had been carved more modestly.

A handwriting he had seen before. — Flander's handwriting.

Which meant the springy hand above it was —

"…"

Merea, eyes wide, traced the letters.

A strange warmth, at his fingertip, seemed to come back.

"Hah — second floor and up had better be all right — Leilas."

Merea, on a happiness welling up from the bottom of his chest, broke into a small laugh.

"Merea? Found something?"

"No, nothing big. A bit of a — memory."

A last look at the letters — and Merea moved off after his comrades.

―――

――

―

Above the throne left behind, two butterflies, having drifted in from somewhere, were dancing.

A pair, dancing as they flew — jade-coloured — beautiful butterflies.