CHAPTER 58
What is this?

I briefly lost my mind staring at the wings that had sprouted from my back.

"Ceres, are you alright?"
"Get a grip!"

Seeing my dumbfounded expression, Alios and Ares immediately approached me.
Only after the two of them spoke to me and shook my body did I finally snap out of it.

"Keep a firm grip on your senses!"
"...In this situation?"

I replied blankly to Ares’s advice.
Could a person really just brush it off like nothing happened when wings suddenly sprouted from their body? That wouldn't be a human; that would be an enlightened immortal.

"What is this?"

I tried my best to suppress my bewilderment as I asked about the identity of the things on my back, but Ares didn't answer.

"How are we supposed to know?"
"They're attached to your back!"

Instead, Viol and Red answered, sounding just as flustered themselves. Well, it made sense; there was no way others would know something even I didn't.

"My Lord, are you experiencing any physical discomfort?"
"Does it hurt?"

Soon, Niobe and Hames approached and asked about my condition. I shook my head at the two of them.

"I'm perfectly fine. Strangely enough, nothing feels out of place. If you guys hadn't pointed it out, I wouldn't have even realized I grew wings."
"...That means these wings feel incredibly familiar to you."

Hames examined the wings on my back with a serious face, then slyly shifted her gaze toward Sibylius.

"Do you know anything?"
"Even I cannot figure it out immediately."

Sibylius then examined me as well.

"I think we need to conduct a more precise examination. We can't do it here, so let's all head inside the Imperial Palace for now."
"With these things?"

Ares scowled deeply, pointing at Viol and Red.

"Ares, look around you," Sibylius advised, prompting not only Ares but me as well to look at our surroundings.

"Do you see that?"
"Lord Ceres grew wings!"
"He really wasn't human after all."
"He was a real angel!"

A massive crowd of onlookers had already gathered because the famous women had been fighting, but when I showed off the stunt of sprouting wings, the number of people gathered around us multiplied several times over.

"...Mother, if I stay out here any longer, weird rumors are just going to spread. If only we go inside and leave the others out here, these people might swarm them to find out what happened."
"Tch, understood! Let's get inside, quickly!"

Realizing I was about to become a public spectacle, Ares reluctantly agreed, and we all went inside the Imperial Palace together.

I went to a certain room inside the Imperial Palace.

"It is a room used when the Imperial family requires medical treatment. It's rarely used, but the facilities are always prepared in top condition."

Since a problem had occurred with me, Emperor Viol immediately guided us to a place used by the Imperial family.
It was spacious enough to fit our entire group, so they gathered in a circle around me as I sat in a chair.
And standing in front of me was the Archmage Sibylius, who used various tools and magic in the room to examine me.

"It seems these wings are a spiritual organ rather than an actual physical one."

She focused her examination particularly on my wings.

"Even though the wings suddenly popped out of your back, your clothes didn't tear. They passed right through your clothes."
"So?"
"...Please wait a moment."

Instead of answering my question, Sibylius abruptly gestured toward the group. Surprisingly, the person she called over was Red.

"Me?"
"Yes."

Red herself didn't know why she was being called and approached with a baffled look.

"Try touching Ceres's wings."
"Touch the wings? Is that all?"

Red wore a puzzled expression as she touched my wings, and in that moment, I felt a strange sensation. It was a truly bizarre feeling to have someone touch a body part I had just grown for the first time in my life.

"There, I touched them."
"Does your hand burn or melt? Is it painful?"
"No."
"Ah, then there should be no problem if I make contact as well. Hurry up and take your dirty hands off, and go back to your seat."
"...You little bitch!"

She had just used Red as a test subject, just in case, because the wings looked so holy just by glancing at them.
Suddenly turned into a guinea pig, Red huffed in anger but couldn't bring herself to attack Sibylius and returned to her seat.
Soon after, Sibylius expressionlessly grabbed my wings, looked at them, and examined them.
Then, she brought her face close and sniffed them.

"...She's finally lost it."

When something is just too absurd, you don't even have the energy to react. Instead of shaking Sibylius off, I just stared at her in mild disbelief.

"What the hell are you doing?!"
"Crazy bitch!"

Instead of me, Count Ares and Emperor Viol lunged forward and pulled her off.

"Wait, I did that to confirm something!"

Only when the two of them grabbed her by the hair did Sibylius frantically begin to excuse herself.

"These wings strongly emit Ceres's body scent!"
"So?"
"This means my theory was correct."
"What theory?"
"That Ceres is, in fact, an angel."

Viol and Ares, who had been interrogating Sibylius, both shut their mouths.
Everyone, including myself, had a similar reaction. We all just stared blankly at Sibylius.
I barely managed to open my mouth.

"I'm a what?"
"An angel. It was written in the records that heavenly beings always emit a fragrance from their bodies."
"...So anyone who smells nice is an angel? Why were you even looking up those records in the first place?"
"Because I had already been suspecting that you might be an angel."

This is bad. Sibylius has gone just as crazy as in the original novel. No, she's gone even crazier than the original!

"The Empire's greatest Archmage is finished now."
"It sounds plausible if you consider she's spouting madness befitting a Demon King."

Viol and Ares looked at Sibylius as if looking at a pitiful fool.
However...

"Perhaps she's actually right."

In that moment, surprisingly, High Priest Hames voiced her agreement!

"If you think about it, Ceres's birth is still shrouded in mystery. Why can he wield Divine Power? Why does he possess the traits of the Whiperion royal family even though he's adopted?"
"Excuse me?"
"Why did that demon, Haas, call Ceres a noble being and try to make him the Demon King's consort!"

I tried to speak, but Hames was engrossed in making absurd deductions in her head.

"Everything makes sense if you assume Ceres is actually a heavenly being who somehow entered the human world, and Haas picked him up. If he's from heaven, it wouldn't be strange for him to possess Divine Power."
"Then what about his Whiperion traits?!"
"The Whiperion family originally received their power from the Heavenly God. You could say they are a family that originated from heaven, so if he is of a heavenly race, they could be considered distant relatives."

It was a ridiculous hypothesis. And yet.

"That's convincing!"

First, Duke Alios nodded her head enthusiastically.

"I've always thought Ceres was so pretty, cute, lovely, and beautiful that he couldn't possibly be human!"
"...He definitely possesses an otherworldly appearance."

Then Viol agreed.

"Is that really so? She certainly has evidence, and it is logical..."

Unexpectedly, even Ares seemed half-convinced.
This is driving me crazy! Because these people don't know the circumstances surrounding my birth, they're coming to weird misunderstandings!
What should I do? Should I reveal the truth right now?

"I think so too."

As I was agonizing over this, Niobe chimed in with something completely out of the blue. I looked at her in surprise, wondering why the one person who knew the truth was saying such strange things, when Niobe used some method to speak directly into my mind.

-My Lord, the speculations they are making are actually not that far off from the truth. You are indeed a being that originated from heaven, and you are connected to the Whiperion family, are you not?

W-Well, that's true, isn't it? Even though I was artificially created, I am a clone of the Heavenly God, so I am a heavenly being, and I am related to the Whiperion family.
So it's totally possible that I actually became an angel and grew wings. But why right now, of all times?

"Isn't it an awakening?"

As I was pondering this, Red, another being who knew my circumstances, answered somewhat awkwardly.

"Haas guaranteed that you would be able to resurrect the Demon King. But to me, it didn't seem like the previous you had that kind of power. In other words..."
"It's only possible if I fully awaken my dormant power, and you're saying that just woke up?"

Is that really it? Did I fully awaken earlier because I got so angry and used my power?
If that's the case...

"Someone go to the kitchen and bring me a single raw chicken."

To test it, I requested a raw chicken that had been fully plucked and prepped. Then, I used my Divine Power on the chicken.

Cluck, cluck!

"It resurrected?!"

It became a living chicken, completely restoring its appearance from when it was alive!
Not only was I, the one who did it, surprised, but everyone watching around me was shocked as well.

"See? Ceres is truly an angel!"
"...No, he could be considered a lesser god at this point."

Hames countered Sibylius, who was still acting foolish, while breaking out in a cold sweat.

"He might be considered a lesser god under the command of the Heavenly God..."
"Divine Power is, by nature, the power of the gods. Ceres possessed the qualifications to become a god from the very beginning."

Alios also replied seriously to Hames's muttering, unlike her usual self.

"My son is a god?"

Ares was shocked, and Viol just stood there blankly with her mouth open.
For even these two to react like this, it must be truly shocking.

"My Lord, you have now become a being unbound by the rules of the human world!"

Suddenly, Niobe shouted excitedly, for whatever reason.

"A being who has transcended humanity! You will be the greatest king among all the Holy Kings in history!"
"May infinite glory be with our Lord, who has become a god!"

Niobe and the Death Knights must have decided to take this all positively, as they chattered away in excitement.
I looked at them and suddenly had a thought. If I had become a god and a being unbound by the rules of the human world...

...Can I have a harem now?