CHAPTER 34
The city we were staying in was in an uproar.
Red might have disappeared, but the mess she caused didn't vanish with her.
The people who had been kidnapped woke up, saw the dead monster carcasses, and started screaming.
"Count Whiperion, what in the world happened?!"
The guards, who arrived late, interrogated us.
"There was a demon attack."
"A demon?"
"A demon suddenly appeared, and we just fought back. It doesn't seem safe here anymore, so we'll be taking our leave."
Wanting to avoid anything bothersome, Ares used her authority to forcefully brush off the guards and left the city.
We had no choice but to return to the family mansion late at night.
"Count? Young Master?"
"Who are the knights behind you?"
Since we brought the Death Knights along, the servants made puzzled expressions.

The spacious drawing room inside the mansion.
We were all gathered in the place usually used when many guests visited.
Me, Ares, and Hames.
And even the Death Knights.
...If anyone else saw this sight right now, they'd ask what kind of crazy stunt this was.
Not just regular Death Knights, but monsters comprising a Sword Master and multiple Aura Experts were brought into the house.
I only brought them because they said they'd explain the situation if I took them to a safe place.
There were two reasons I allowed this crazy stunt.
First, they had helped me by saving the hostages Red took and forcing her to retreat.
Second, they were incredibly obedient to me.
"You said your name was Niobe, right?"
"Yes, I am Niobe Whiperion, a member of the royal family and the Knight Commander."
The leader of the Death Knights.
The silver-haired woman, who introduced herself as Niobe Whiperion, bowed politely and spoke.
"It is the name of the one who will be Your Majesty the Holy King's faithful subordinate from now on, so please remember it."
She kept calling me 'Holy King' and pledging her loyalty, which left me bewildered.
If it was a setting related to Ceres, there was no way I'd forget it, but I had never heard of a 'Holy King'.
As I tilted my head, Hames, who was standing next to me, made a peculiar expression.
"If you mean the Holy King, is it related to the Holy Kingdom? The legendary country where all royalty wielded Holy Power."
...What the hell is that?
It wasn't mentioned in the original work, but it seemed to be a pretty famous legend. Everyone else seemed to know what she was talking about.
"My god. To think the Holy Kingdom actually existed, and its royal family was actually the Whiperions!"
"It may be hard to believe, but it is all true."
"But that makes no sense. The Whiperions have been a Count family of the Empire ever since the first head of the family fought alongside the founding Emperor a thousand years ago."
"And where do you think that first head came from?"
Niobe countered Hames, who had pointed out the discrepancy.
She looked between me and Ares with a lamenting expression.
"It seems even the descendants have forgotten everything. Your Majesty the Holy King, from now on, I will explain your roots."
Niobe spoke.
She said that a long time ago, a country blessed by the Heavenly God existed.
That was the Holy Kingdom, and the reason for its name was that all of its royalty could use Holy Power.
"Although it was a country, it was a small one, probably with a smaller population than this territory. It only became famous due to the uniqueness of our Whiperion royal family."
The Whiperion royal family.
A royal family that received a divine artifact from the Heavenly God, the influence of which allowed the entire clan to use Holy Power.
Niobe explained that the first head of the Whiperion family was originally from this lineage.
Wait a minute.
"If the first Whiperion was royalty, why did she become an Imperial Count?"
"Because the country fell."
Niobe answered when I asked.
I was about to ask what caused it to fall when a name suddenly came to mind.
"Was it the Demon King?"
A thousand years ago would be when the Demon King who wielded Black Pain was still alive.
I mentioned it just in case, and she nodded.
"She was a Demon King, but ultimately a demon. To her, the Holy Kingdom, where the entire royal family wielded Holy Power, must have been a threat. One day, she launched a surprise invasion and destroyed our nation."
"So the first Whiperion was a royal who escaped back then?"
"That is correct."
"But why didn't she rebuild the country after defeating the Demon King?"
If she was the last remaining royal, she would automatically become the monarch, yet she was satisfied with being an Imperial Count.
When I pointed out how strange this was, Niobe said,
"Not just anyone could become the monarch simply for being royalty. Only those with a special aptitude among us could become the Holy King."
"Don't tell me that aptitude is Divine Power?"

"Exactly. You are the one born into the royal family with the aptitude of a king, transcending a thousand years of time!"
In stark contrast to the passionately speaking Niobe, I felt awkward.
It was such an out-of-nowhere setting.
But if this was really true, it explained one thing.
Why, of all things, Ceres possessed Divine Power.
The original novel never gave an exact reason why he had Divine Power, but if there was a backstory like this, it made sense.
It wasn't a simple mutation, but the manifestation of a distant ancestor's power!
Was this some hidden lore that never made it into the original story?
While I was marveling at this new fact, a loud voice rang out beside me.
"Don't be ridiculous!"
It was Ares shouting in sheer disbelief.
"Our Whiperion is actually a legendary royal family, and Ceres is an existence possessing the aptitude of a king? That's impossible!"
"I know you're surprised. It's hard to believe that the power would manifest at this point. It must be atavism."
"I'm telling you, that atavism is impossible!"
"What?"
As Ares suddenly grew highly agitated, Niobe looked at her with a strange gaze.
It wasn't just Niobe. Everyone around, including me, stared at Ares, wondering what was wrong with her.
As the gazes focused on her, Ares flinched hard.
"...I meant that so much time has passed and the bloodline has thinned, so there's no way such atavism could occur in Ceres."
She spoke as if making an excuse.
"It's been a long time since anyone could use Holy Power after the first head. Even I can't use anything like Holy Power. There's no way a bloodline that uses Divine Power would suddenly manifest now."
"...I suppose so," Niobe replied bitterly.
"Originally, our royalty intermarried with distant royal relatives to preserve the bloodline that could use Holy Power. Those with the aptitude of a king were beings born extremely rarely from those who were strongly influenced by the divine artifact."
"...With only a tiny fraction of royalty surviving and even the divine artifact gone, the royal family couldn't be sustained. Is that why the first head was satisfied with being an Imperial Count?"
"Given the situation, we had all given up as well. We just planned to stay in a quiet place until we faded away."
However.
Niobe dropped her melancholic aura, shifted her demeanor, and knelt before me.
"You appeared before us. This is nothing short of a miracle!"
Niobe acted as if she was receiving some sort of savior.
"When the Demon King invaded the Holy Kingdom, we died once too. But with the sole intent of getting revenge, we used a special secret art to resurrect as undead," Niobe said.
But they felt a sense of emptiness when the Demon King was actually killed by the founding Emperor and the other royalty who followed her.
"Rebuilding the royal family was impossible, and we couldn't even get our revenge. Everything felt vain, so we wandered aimlessly before eventually falling into a long slumber in the Land of Death. We were just waiting for the day we would fade away, but then our eyes suddenly opened."
"We didn't know why we woke up then, but now we do. It was because we sensed the presence of you, our true king!"
The moment Niobe spoke with conviction.
The other knights behind her simultaneously knelt and bowed their heads toward me.
"Please become the new liege for those of us who have lost our reason for existing!"
"We pledge our loyalty to Your Majesty the Holy King!"
As the Death Knights swore their loyalty, voices spoke up from both my sides.
"Ceres, I am against this. These people are simply under some kind of delusion."
Ares continued to oppose it, while...
"Ceres, do whatever you want to do."
Even though Hames was a priest, she didn't object to taking undead as subordinates.
Amidst this situation, I was thinking about something else entirely.
If Ceres went to the Land of Death, the Death Knights would sense his presence and become his subordinates?
Then the original Ceres could have done the exact same thing if he had just gone to the Land of Death like I did, right?
In the original novel, he refused to go to the Land of Death.
A little while later, he was framed as a witch. If he had just gone, he would have gained a reliable military force and that never would have happened!
...Fuck, what kind of forced bullshit is this!
Dumbfounded by the absurdity of the situation, I shouted in disbelief.
"Fine, I'll take you in as my subordinates!"
"Ceres!"
Ares reprimanded me as I accepted the Death Knights, but it couldn't be helped.
The original Ceres didn't have subordinates like this, which was why he ended up framed as a witch and suffered all sorts of hardships.
Even if the circumstances were different, as the same Ceres, I couldn't just let a military force that walked right up to me slip away.
Figuring they would be useful to have as underlings, I gave a half-hearted wave to the deeply moved knights.

A week after taking the Death Knights as subordinates.
"Ceres, we received a message from the Gravius Duke's family."
Ares approached me and spoke while I was walking around the mansion for exercise.
"Did Alios send it?"
I figured she was the only one there who would contact me, but I was surprised by the answer that followed.

"No, Sir Alios's mother. Duke Allois Gravius has invited you to the Dukedom."