The Demon King in the Rubble

It was only to be expected. Until now Presepe had kept quiet as a dead mouse and done exactly as she was told, and here she was throwing a fit about going out. Of course Ella was annoyed. She was probably also irritated at the thought of catching stray sparks from someone else's mess.

But Presepe could say this with absolute certainty: she did not feel the slightest bit sorry for Ella.

"Wait here, Ella."

"You're going in alone?"

Ella shot the question back, irritation still written plainly across her face.

"You think I came all this way just to run off? I only want to pray by myself, in peace."

In the end Ella sighed and said she understood. Honestly, by this point even nagging had grown exhausting. And it wasn't as if Presepe were asking for anything improper—she meant to pray for the safety of the Emperor, Dietrich. Ella could hardly pile anything more on top of that.

Whatever Ella was thinking, Presepe did not look back. She carefully opened the closed door.

And the moment she stepped into the church, she collided hard with someone and went tumbling across the floor.

"Ah, shit……."

The game wasn't in progress, so the unfiltered word slipped out exactly as it was.

What the hell? Face twisted in a scowl, Presepe looked up at the person who had shoved her—and then her expression went faintly blank. It wasn't because she was flustered, and it wasn't because she was startled. It was purely, simply, because the man was handsome to an excessive degree.

There was someone who looked like this in this game, too?

It was a capture game, so every man who appeared in it had a face that was dazzlingly ornate and handsome, and every one of them was tall. Dietrich, Siegfried, Ivan, Noah Debern—even Atar Hanan, already dead. The only problem was that the filling inside every one of those pretty shells was unrecyclable garbage. Still, not one of them had a face that would have embarrassed him anywhere.

But not long ago, on the day she first met Fenrik, Presepe had thought it: so a man could be this handsome even when he wasn't a capture target. She had assumed Grand Duke Fenrik was the end of that line.

The moment she faced this man, she realized how short-sighted that had been.

He was exceedingly handsome. Excessively so. Grand Duke Fenrik was the same, of course, but this was a slightly different grain. Unlike Fenrik, who gave off an air that was somehow dangerous and bleak, the man looked remarkably gentle, and warm. The two of them might as well have been standing at opposite poles.

Hair of brilliant gold, shining as if it had been poured from molten metal. Eyes as deep and blue as the sea, glittering the way sunlight does on water. Skin that seemed even fairer and whiter than her own, though she was a woman, and features delicate and yet splendid. His face was so beautiful she had no words for it. He was only staring down at her without expression, and still every kind of tragic history began playing itself out in her head of its own accord.

Would an angel out of the scriptures have looked exactly like this? He didn't seem to have the wings, of course.

The face was that beautiful. The body was another matter entirely. The other male characters were well-built too, but this man felt different from birth. He stood a good two handspans taller than Siegfried, the tallest of the cast, his shoulders were absurdly broad, and he was solid muscle.

Could he be the true male lead……?

Presepe's gaze flicked reflexively to the space above the man's head. As expected, there was nothing there.

……So he isn't.

And with a face that good-natured, had he hauled his personality off to a junk dealer and sold it for cheap? They said a handsome face came with a price, and he was exactly that. He was the one who had shoved her—why wasn't he apologizing? She had fallen because of him.

"……."

Looking up at him, Presepe's expression twisted. All the while the face looking down at her stayed utterly blank, and she was privately dumbfounded. It was nothing like that first, exceedingly gentle impression.

Even so, perhaps he hadn't sold off his decency for scrap after all, because he slowly extended a hand toward her.

Presepe stared for a moment at the hand held out right in front of her nose. Perhaps because his face was handsome, the hand was elegantly handsome too. This, she thought, was what people meant by a slender, jade-like hand.

"……Thank you."

He was the one who had shoved her, but she had a conscience, so this much courtesy was only proper. Presepe offered the short greeting and took his hand.

Strength closed around her fingers. Without the slightest difficulty, he lifted her from the floor with perfect ease.

And the instant she was on her feet, he snatched his hand away, as if he had touched something filthy. An insect. Garbage.

What? Is this guy out of his mind?

Bewilderment flooded her face.

"No—what—what are you……."

"Excuse me."

That was all. He tossed out something far too ambiguous to count as a sincere apology, then walked straight out of the church without a shred of regret. He didn't even look back.

"What kind of mannerless……."

Even so, in a situation like this, wasn't the apology supposed to come first? And what—was she dirty or something?

Presepe stood there alone, face burning red as she fumed, then glanced down at her long, draping sleeves. She buried her nose in the cloth and sniffed. Well. Just in case.

"Damn it. I don't smell like anything."

She muttered it to herself.

"……Then is that man an NPC tied to Siegfried?"

Just as Fenrik was an NPC connected to Dietrich, this one might be connected to the church. In this world, the only male character associated with the church was Siegfried, commander of the knights. And his clothes were nothing like those of someone who belonged to the church—a priest, say. To be precise, they seemed closer to ordinary dress.

But if that were the case, hadn't this game's artist made an enormous and very serious mistake? The thought struck her all at once. Grand Duke Fenrik was one thing, and that man was another. People who looked like that should have been pushed as the male leads. Not perverts like Noah and Atar.

Presepe walked on, muttering that useless monologue to herself. It did not last long.

Instead her face went blank, and her mouth fell open.

"What…… is this……?"

In the middle of the church hall, statues that had been smashed to absolute pieces lay strewn across the floor like rubbish.

And up came that same loathsome notice window—the one she would have gladly smashed to pieces herself—bearing words she had not expected.

"……."

"Take a look at what."

Presepe's dry lips moved on her dazed face.

"It's all smashed to bits."

She took a few strengthless steps and looked down at the fragments rolling across the floor like trash. They must have been considerable in size before they broke; even the shards alone were an enormous heap. Still, might there be something worth salvaging? A statue this large ought to have kept at least a little of its shape.

Presepe hurriedly began examining the larger pieces first. But they had been destroyed so thoroughly that she could not tell at all what the original form had been.

Is this a bug too? Or is this just how the Secret Mode story goes? Was it that man who just ran out who broke them? But how, alone? And does it make any sense to cause a disaster like this inside the church and then stroll away? At this rate, am I about to get swept into something strange again for no reason?

"Damn it……."

Presepe spat the curse and kicked a piece of wreckage at her feet with all her strength. Then she froze.

"Huh?"

Eyes round, she bent hastily at the waist. What she picked up was a small fragment that had been buried beneath a larger one—probably not part of the statue itself, but an inscription related to it, the sort of plaque that would have stood in front. Even that had been broken into tiny pieces, and there was only a single word she could read.

"……Demon King."

Demon King?

At that abrupt, utterly out-of-place word, Presepe's brow twisted—and the notice window rose again.

It was a bug.

Ah. So this statue was never supposed to have been broken in the first place.

Presepe's face went blank. And it was at that very moment.

Deeper inside the church—on the side opposite the entrance she had used—another door opened, one only the people of the church were permitted to use. The ones who burst in were the Archbishop and the priests.

"……."

They seemed to have been out and come back knowing nothing. Their faces could not easily grasp what had happened before their eyes. They only wore the same blank look Presepe had worn a moment ago, muttered sounds no one could make out—uh, uh—then put on expressions of disbelief, and at last screamed in voices thick with rage.

"W-who would dare do such a thing……!"

"Your Grace the Archbishop! What in the world is this!"

"The guards—where are the guards!"

Taking in the jumble of voices, Presepe knew by instinct. As expected, she had gotten herself tangled up in something she never should have touched.

"……."