...I...almost died...

    [...You must be the first human to suppress a Devil in such a way, and almost got killed by someone else soon after.]

    ...Agreed.

    I glanced at the Sword Saint—who had barely calmed down and was trying to regain his breath a distance away from where I was—while having such a conversation with Caliban.

    He finally succeeded in persuading himself that I really hadn’t done anything to the empress. I mean, he wasn’t someone without the ability to think rationally, so that was a given, but...

    “...”

    The problem here is... I actually did something... Technically speaking...

    Of course, I’ll take that fact to the grave. Unless I want him to split me in half.

    As I made such a resolution inwardly, someone approached me with clear footsteps.

    “...We’ll take Her Imperial Majesty with us for now.”

    Iliya said while pressing the area around her eyes with a tired expression.

    This girl had been taking care of Her Imperial Majesty—who was still sobbing even now—and helped her to get up.

    “...Please do.”

    “...”

    “...”

    For a moment there, we exchanged an awkward silence.

    Well, uh, I don’t know...

    The atmosphere was just so heavy, it was to the point that I wondered if things had always been so awkward between us.

    “...Teach.”

    “...Yeah?”

    “I already knew about it before anyone else did, so I didn’t feel too upset about it...”

    “...Knew about what?”

    “That you fucked the Gray Devil first before us.”

    “...”

    Woman.

    You are THE Hero, what’s with your choice of words?!

    Wait, come to think of it, Caliban was a Holy Knight, and he also used vulgar words whenever he had the chance. Maybe she got it from—

    [Just for your information, she’s always been like that.]

    ...

    [She grew up on a farm, you know? I never taught her any of that shit. Also, that girl always said that she’d study how to crossbreed animals like pigs or chickens—]

    Dude, too much information.

    While we were chatting like that, Iliya made a stiff smile after stealing a glance behind her.

    “...But those women are different. Unlike me, they might be really, really upset with you even though it doesn’t seem like it. Trust me, they’re only holding themselves back right now because of the incident.”

    She was right, the Devil’s Vessels looked the same as usual.

    Except...

    “...”

    I could see the air around them moving erratically.

    It was an expression you could see being used in cartoons, but considering that the ones creating such an atmosphere were people with Devils in them, it wasn’t a strange thing if that expression turned real.

    The air around them was actually rumbling.

    “...You probably need to prepare yourself in the meantime. I have a feeling that something’s going to happen the moment you return to Elfante.”

    “...”

    “You know, everyone’s been trying not to cross the line so far...”

    Hearing Iliya’s words, various things that those women had put me through in Elfante crossed my mind.

    Those women locked me up inside a room, deceived me by calling themselves my girlfriend when I lost my memory, and...pretty sure that they’ve been stalking me the entire time I was in Elfante. I practically had no privacy anymore.

    And you’re telling me that they aren’t trying to cross the line?

    “Yes.”

    “...Seriously...?”

    “I mean, they haven’t done anything that you actually hate, right, Teach?”

    That was...true...

    When the empress and Faenol locked me in a room, they backed off the moment I got angry.

    Because they knew that what they were doing to me was wrong.

    The fact that I had survived through countless crises like that unscathed meant that they respected my feelings to some extent.

    “But now that they’ve come to know you’ve touched someone else first...”

    “...”

    I tried to shift the topic as I looked at the brown sphere in my hand.

    “I’d need to deal with this first.”

    What was this thing exactly? Well...

     system="" message=""

    [ You have completely made target ‘The Brown Devil’ submit to you. ]

    [ Obtained target’s ‘Fragment’! ]

    It was the Brown Devil’s Fragment.

    Is this supposed to drop like this...?

    This was the first time I’ve ever seen the Devil’s Fragment that didn’t get ‘absorbed’ into anyone’s body, and instead was obediently caught by hand like this.

    When I rolled it around in my hand, it subtly emanated brown light periodically.

    Like a pet trying to appeal to me by acting cute.

    “...”

    Come to think of it, I remembered seeing a System Message that said I could receive some kind of reward if I were to interact with the Devils in certain ways before. So, this was the way it worked?

    ...For now, I should take this with me.

    By the way, I hadn’t heard the reason why that punk hated me so much, so...

    I probably should have a nice and long talk with her later.

    “Ah.”

    As I thought so, a strong light suddenly beamed through my inner chest pocket.

    It was the Mana Stone for contact. Someone was contacting me, and that person should be Gideon, the person I stationed somewhere inside the Imperial Palace.

    “...”

    Seeing that, I let out a chuckle.

    This meant, ‘they’ had ‘successfully’ infiltrated the place.

    [Infiltrate? Who?]

    “Well...”

    Caliban tilted his head, muttering, ‘Come to think of it, I can’t see that dude anywhere even when we were fighting the Brown Devil...’. I calmly replied.

    “It’s the Holy Land punks...”

    [...What?]

    Caliban asked, unable to understand why the hell were those fuckers roaming around the Imperial Palace, but instead of replying to him, I stood up.

    This was something that was going to be revealed in the next chapter, ‘Sanctuary’. I didn’t need to explain it now.

    Instead, I told him a simple story.

    “You know, they are closely related to your death, Her Imperial Majesty’s illness, and Duke Tristan’s struggle.”

    [...]

    Seeing how Caliban went silent after I said all that, I let out a chuckle.

    Anyway...

    I survived again this time.

    There were no casualties, and the whole thing wasn’t particularly difficult.

    Which meant, handling the aftermath would be—

    “Whoa, great job everyone!”

    ...Easy...

    ...If only this punk hadn’t suddenly showed up...

    Everyone who was busy cleaning up the debris stopped moving. All of them turned to look in the direction of the voice with dumbfounded eyes.

    “...I’d have to admit it.”

    Even the Sword Saint, who was leading the clean-up work, said such a thing in a dumbfounded tone. Not angry, just dumbfounded.

    “You are the second person I’ve seen in my life who has achieved this level of lunacy.”

    “...”

    I somehow could tell who the first person was, but I didn’t want to talk about it.

    Because...

    “I came to turn myself in!”

    “...”

    “You may torture me or kill me or whatever, but could you listen to my suggestion first?”

    Seeing Marquis Bogut spouting out such things while smiling...

    Whatever I was thinking about just didn’t matter.