Chapter 52

“Hey! Just what is the meaning of this!?”

She was a tall girl for a demon.

I could tell just by looking at her expression that she was fuming. Apparently, something wasn’t to her liking.

“Making a human stepdaughter the Crown Prince! Honestly, really! You’ve completely ruined my magnificent plan. This is all your fault!”

Plan? What plan?

More importantly, who is this girl?

“Um… who might you be, exactly?”

Whenever someone I don’t recognize approaches me, I instinctively switch to polite speech. Even if I am the Demon King, that habit doesn’t change.

“Wha—! You don’t even remember me!? Good grief, what is wrong with your memory!”

It seemed I had only succeeded in making her angrier, but I still hadn’t been given the crucial piece of information: her name.

No, deduce it. Deduce. From this moment on, I am the Great Detective Garto. There shouldn’t be many people who would act so high and mighty toward me, the Demon King—or so I thought, but my secretary Torualina was already pretty bossy. If I keep looking, I feel like I’ll find even more…

Also, this sector is a place where only those of the Ryuzen bloodline are permitted. In that case, she must be a Ryuzen… let’s see, let’s see…

“Ah! Princess Freise of the Dattle Duchy!?”

“Yes, correct! Correct! It’s the world-famous Princess Freise of Dattle! It took you way too long to remember that!”

Freise was talking big, but the Dattle Duchy is an incredibly narrow and tiny scrap of land. I really wanted her to praise me for remembering her at all.

She is part of the Demon King’s clan, so her status is high, but the reality is that she’s just a low-tier noble with zero actual power.

“In the first place, you are always, always so rude. You didn’t send an invitation to the Red Moon Viewing Party fifteen years ago, and you didn’t invite me to the ceremony celebrating the solar eclipse twenty-one years ago either!”

Well, both of those were relatively small ceremonies, so I didn’t invite the Dattle family since our blood relation is particularly thin.

Even among my “six of one, half a dozen of the other” relatives, there are still differences in standing. A nation places great importance on those kinds of gaps in social status.

But if I tell her “I didn’t invite you,” she’ll definitely get mad… There is absolutely no merit in suffering the consequences of telling the truth.

Then, it started coming back to me.

My secretary Torualina had mentioned it.

—There’s a noble who shows up to every single ceremony even though they weren’t invited. I wonder if they’re just bored. They must be bored. They probably have nothing to be proud of except their status. What a pitiful person.

I’m certain that final bit of “sympathy” was actually sarcasm, but she definitely said something like that.

Come to think of it, I feel like this Princess Freise character was at every single event… You know how there’s always that one person who shows up at every function?

Well, now that I know who she is, I should just brush her off and leave.

We don’t have any common topics to discuss anyway. I have nothing to talk about except the weather. I literally have no information on her beyond “someone I see at ceremonies.” If I stay too long, things will definitely get awkward, and that would be a problem.

“Ah, my deepest apologies for that. I shall be more careful in the future. Well then, I look forward to our continued relationship. If you’ll excuse me.”

Scratching my head, I tried to escape the situation by making a completely empty statement.

However—

“Wait right there.”

She caught me before I could step away.

A tail extended from her leg and coiled around mine.

“You just tried to escape by spouting empty pleasantries, didn’t you? I won’t let you get away that easily.”

She caught on. I might have been a bit too obvious.

“Besides, you say ‘I look forward to our continued relationship,’ but you have no intention of actually asking me for anything, do you? Then don’t say you’re looking forward to it! What was that even supposed to be!”

That’s just a standard greeting, so I wish she’d cut me some slack. Though, to be fair, a situation where I’d actually need to ask her for something likely won’t happen in a million years.

Also, I haven’t paid much attention to it until now, but for someone speaking to the Demon King, this woman has a remarkably huge attitude.

“I came here to protest. Making a human woman the Crown Prince is an absolute outrage!”

Ah, so that’s what this is about.

She wants to file a complaint. Naturally, there are still those among the relatives who aren’t satisfied with the decision. Especially since the chance of becoming the Demon King wasn’t entirely zero for them.

However, the whole point of making Angelica the Crown Prince was to keep the throne away from these useless relatives. If I said that straight to her face, it would be an open declaration of war.

“As a result of a rigorous screening and careful deliberation, we judged that this arrangement would be best for the future of the demon race. I ask for your understan—”

“But my plan to marry you and ascend the throne as a co-ruler has completely gone up in smoke!”

She started shouting something incredibly selfish!

Princess Freise of Dattle began thumping her tail rhythmically against the floor. It wasn’t because her tail was itchy; it was a clear demonstration of her fury.

“Um… my apologies, but I’ve never even heard of such a marriage proposal…”

“Of course you haven’t. It was a plan I was personally cultivating!”

Seriously selfish! Even for a political marriage, she’s the kind of character I’d want to turn down…

“By marrying you, the Demon King, I could have achieved great social advancement. That’s why I attended every single ceremony—to catch your eye!”

I suppose that’s better than doing nothing at all, but the only memory I have of her is my secretary telling me she was the person who shows up even when she isn’t invited.

“And then, eventually, I would use my charms to make you fall in love with me so we could remarry—that was how it was supposed to go… So why on earth did you remarry the Hero’s mother instead!?”

I couldn’t help it; I fell in love! That’s what love is, and there’s no rationalizing it! It’s none of your business. Shut up!

—I wanted to scream that at her, but even for me, shouting about things like “love” and “liking someone” is embarrassing.

In fact, I feel like people who go around saying “I love you” every single day are frivolous and untrustworthy. Such people probably don’t know the meaning of true love (this is just my personal opinion as the Demon King).

Umu, how should I explain this…?

“…There is no need to discuss this with you. This… was done for profound reasons.”

I told a flat-out lie.