“How did you know that it was your father?”

“He… had my father’s sword. Physically, he no longer resembled my father though. It didn’t matter though. At that point, I had been getting popular fighting as a gladiator in the colosseum. When the public saw me kill the last demons and remain the last standing, I was named the Demon-Slaying Hero. Funny how the guards who fought valiantly and gave their lives beside me are all but forgotten, while simply by luck, I became a hero for surviving.”

“Is that how you were given a noble position?” I asked. “If Lord Reign gave you a Knight token, why wasn’t it a Demonic Knight token?”

“Pure luck…” She snorted “The public was pressuring him to make me a knight. He declared that I had to win the next competition. He didn’t expect King Aberis to suddenly show up with his daughter and son. The King was giving them a tour. They watched as I won the competition, and then the King himself brought out a token and I took it from him. I didn’t understand Lord Reign’s glower as he watched the King hand it to me until… well, very recently.”

“And Viscount?”

“The King told me that since I was a demon-slayer, then I should live up to my title. He put me in charge of the demon-slaying committee in town. It was our job to look out for more demons. I was to predict when they would come and defeat them. Over a year, we had a few dozen more demon appearances, but I quickly wiped them out. That’s when I was promoted to Viscount and taken off the demon-slayer team. I realize now it was because I was getting too close to the truth. I was only promoted as a means of distracting me.”

“R-really…”

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“I even remember that conversation. He had asked me if I wanted to continue battling demons my entire life. I told him I just wanted to reach Viscount, and then I’d look for a wife, get enough money for some land and I’d leave. The next day, I was Viscount, and a new gladiator championship appeared which included a cash prize and a female slave.”

“A wife?”

“Is that a problem?” She demanded darkly. “Actually… now that I think about it, I recalled something else between my conversation with Lord Reign. He had asked me if I’d like big breasts. I had instinctively thought he was talking about me, and I immediately declared I didn’t. That’s probably why the slave he picked was a flat-chested dwarf!”

“Dwarf… you mean, Garnet?”

She nodded. “I think the reason he snagged Garnet was to deal with me. That’s why… partially, I felt responsible for her in Twilight Dungeon.”

It was a complicated web. I had to wonder if the time King Aberis brought his kids was also when Eliana freed Raissa from Lord Reign. Did that mean Raissa had been Demon Lord Aberis’s slave? As for Garnet, she had been taken by Lord Reign. I had assumed he wanted to put a Deep Dwarf into Twilight to get someone to make his precious silvthril weapon but had he known she was a Deep Dwarf already or did he realize it only after kidnapping her. The way the championship had suddenly changed, ending with me, Bernice, Carmine, and Garnet being tossed into the Twilight dungeon, perhaps it had been a sudden decision, hoping to deal with all of his problems at once. Bernice was a demon-slayer who was tracking his identity, Carmine was a Paladin who had also suddenly shown up, and then there was me. Lord Reign, or should I say Demon Lord Aberis’s actions made a lot more sense with this context.

I patted my hands. “Either way, what is done is done, but, um… why did you shoot at me?”

“You should be dead! You could have been a double!” Bernice responded defiantly, giving me a pouty look. “B-besides! You deserved it!”

If I recalled the greetings from the other girls, whether it was Astria trying to kill me, Celeste’s supersonic love, or Miki’s death aura… being shot at was actually rather gentle. I decided to leave it even between us.