Fundamentally, the Holy Astal Kingdom was an autocracy, with two people at its head.

The king, and the pope.

The current king was named Cecilios Alexander Maximilian VII, and as one might surmise from the title, it was a hereditary position. He had several children, the oldest of which would succeed him when he died.

… How he managed to make multiple children was a mystery best left unsolved.

The pope, meanwhile, was not hereditary—instead, he was picked by Lady Luciel herself. A blessed personage, chosen to lead the masses.

In the past, there had even been times where both positions were held by the same person.

There was also the position of royal knight commander, in charge of the defence of the castle and the nation as a whole, but politically, he was not very powerful.

Yet where the pope was completely independent, unfettered by any chains, the king was shackled to a group called nobility. People whose families had, in the past, proven themselves worthy of praise, and who were even now reaping the rewards of such.

They were not a senate, or anything, nor could they pass laws, but many nobles had private armies of their own, so if the king performed too many anti-noble actions, he would soon find himself robbed of his crown.

So, every once in a while, there would be meetings. Of course, the king and his more mature family attended, and so did the pope, a number of cardinals, and the heads of several large noble houses…

But on this occasion, there was a set of special guests.

First, there was a scholar, who had come on a visitation from across the land. Normally, she spent her days at the May-Porter Magical Academy, researching all she could about spells and sorcery, but that was fundamentally a government-funded organisation, and she was to come, every once in a while, to report her findings.

In addition, there was a pair of Heroes, who had managed to survive not one, but two confrontations with the demon king.

In any reasonable country, these would be split into two separate meetings, but the king and the nobility alike disliked spending too much time on these kinds of things, so it was decided they were to be done at the same time.

The king, the nobility, the pope and the clergy were already seated.

Just then, there was a knock at the door, and a moment later, it swung open.

“Lord Reynald and Lady Ebstrea, heroes of the divine Light!” the guard declared, showing the two inside.

The heroes lowered their heads in a deep bow, then sat down at the indicated chairs. Chairs that were, by all measure, far too soft for a country that could get embroiled in a bloody war at any moment.

“It is an honour to be granted permission to be here,” Ebstrea said, once more lowering her head.

“It is fine, heroes,” Cecilios responded, managing to nod without breaking down into a sweaty mess. “Then, you are-”

Another knock at the door. Of course, it was terribly rude to interrupt the king, but the knight outside had no way of knowing what was going on inside… After all, the room was, for the most part, sound tight.

Once more, the door swung open.

“Lady Emily, scholar of the May-Porter Magical Academy!” declared the guard, showing another person inside. This time, a blonde-haired, green-eyed, decidedly innocent-looking young maiden.

She, too, bowed, and then, in a large voice, declared—

“Great scholar Emily has arrived! I am pleased to report that I have made much progress since last time!”

Despite the rudeness of her words, enough to make Ebstrea’s face go pale, she was simply shoved into a chair.

“Then, once more,” said Cecilios, apparently used to Emily’s… sporadicness. “I shall permit the meeting to begin.”

The first topic was, quite simply, decided by who had arrived first, and thus became the heroes’ report on the demon king.

Their report could quite easily be summed up in a single word.

Terrifying.

Compared to their first encounter with the man, he had grown even more powerful. In addition, if their report was to be believed, the recent rumours about the elves and drakonids cooperating with monsterkind were entirely true—through some method, he had won them over. The room featured several magic items that would point out when someone was lying, so there was no chance they were not telling the truth.

Of course, no one present could even imagine he had the backing of several goddesses, nor were the heroes very well going to declare that, what with their hazy state of allegiance.

And there was no one, absolutely no one, who could have imagined that the goddess he served was the origin of this world.

The heroes did, however, bring up an important point.

“To put it simply,” Ebstrea said, “through conversation, we managed to pull out the demon king’s motives.”

Not entirely true. To be more accurate, he had gone and declared it on his own. There had been no trickery involved—he was simply willing to share.

“Ohh!” one of the nobles said, “now that is incredible! As expected of Lady Luciel’s god-sent heroes!”

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense!” said another, “what are his goals?”

The pope urged the heroes on with a look, and even the crown prince, for once, looked interested, despite the distaste he felt for his father.

Ebstrea cleared her throat and, after a brief pause, declared—

“He is acting out of love.”

A heavy silence fell upon the room. Not even the lie-detecting artifacts rang—in other words, she was speaking the truth.

“His main goal is to make the girl he loves happy. No more, no less. He mentioned several side goals, too, but…”

The continuation of the young hero’s sentence sent the nobles into a stir. Love? Love? Was he not responsible for the massacre of heroes at the hands of the goblins?! This was beyond unreasonable!

The pope cleared his throat, drawing all the attention in the room to himself. Narrowing his eyes even further than they usually were, he spoke.

“What of this… Girl you mentioned? Who is she, then? Does he imagine her his bride? Does she perhaps need to be saved?”

A moment of silence, during which Ebstrea contemplated her answer. But before she could open her mouth, Reynald, for the first time during the meeting, spoke.

“We never met her. But from the way he spoke of her, and the way his eyes twinkled when he thought of her… I believe him to truly be in love, sir.”

Although Ebstrea, for a moment, wondered what horrible thing he was going to say, it turned out to be a half-decent comment—though he left out the most important part, which she was quick to append.

“To add to that, sir,” she said, “it did not… Seem warped, or anything of the sort. Those kinds of eyes… To have a gentleman turn them to me would be a great honour.”

She glanced suggestively in Reynald’s direction, and he quickly looked away. The pope, meanwhile, nodded, his eyes closed.

“So it is likely mutual, then… That is a worrying prospect. A man in love can do the most crazy of things… What was the saying used by heroes, again? Lovers are crazy?”

“I believe you refer to ‘amantes amentes’, sir,” Ebstrea said. “It means that, when it comes to love, everyone is a little crazy. In a more literal sense, it translates as ‘lovers are lunatics’, I think.”

“Hmm…”

Lunatic was right. A gloomy mood hung over the meeting room.

“Have no fear, for great scholar Emily is here!”

Stubbornly refusing to read the mood, Emily rose from her chair, slammed her hand onto the meeting table and put her other in front of her chest in a confident gesture.

The reason for her outburst, she went on to explain, was her most recent discovery.

A previously unexplored principle of the magical laws, the usage of which would allow even humans to defeat the strongest of foes.

Humans were weak, it was no secret.

But one of their redeeming values was their ability to cooperate in a pinch.

And this discovery utilised exactly that property.

Magic was, for a simple definition, the act of willing the mana in the world into doing what you wanted it to do.

Generally, this involved detailed knowledge of the way mana flowed, so as to exploit those natural flows. For some, it was instead performed by force of will alone, making the mana bend to their desire.

Either way, the process involved establishing a connection between your soul, the mana inside your body, and the mana outside it. Establishing that connection between one’s soul and the mana in their body was often also called clearing out one’s magic circuits—a necessary first step to becoming a mage. From there, that connection was permanent, and one would connect their inner mana to that of the outside world to cast a spell.

As a result of the way this worked, every caster’s spells resonated with the specific mana pattern of their soul, making them rather recognisable.

So how, then, was magical crime committed? If one could simply trace the remnants of a spell back to its caster, the idea of using magic for evil would be absurd. And yet people did it anyway. As for how—

There existed a technique called mana cloaking.

To put it simply, this involved temporarily changing the mana pattern of one’s own soul, to give the impression that a cast spell had been cast by a different mage.

Her new discovery was, to put it simply, an alternate application of that technique.

There existed spells that could be cast by multiple casters at once. Oftentimes, they involved large rituals, and even danger to the casters’ lives.

This was a result of the fact that different casters had different mana patterns, and thus needed to be synchronised by the spell itself.

But what, then, if one used mana cloaking to match a different mage, and then cast a spell in tandem?

In other words, this was a technique that allowed several mages to connect and contribute to the same spell. The output of such a “compound spell” was much more than a simple sum of its parts—indeed, the growth as one added more mages was exponential, allowing for truly, absurdly powerful spells.

It was not like she had completely succeeded yet, but she was making solid progress.

Surely, even if the demon king’s defences were as absurd as the pair of Heroes claimed, spells of this magnitude would be able to pierce through.

Emily’s heart shone bright, illuminating the nobles’ darkened faces with new hope.

The pope, despite his usual stern expression, seemed to harbour a sort of pride in his gaze, and gave an approving nod.

Even Cecilios, who by all rights should have been clueless about what Emily was talking about, was swept up in the mood.

Only a few people failed to see the bright light of hope.

For one, the Hero pair, whose allegiance was shaky to begin with.

“Do you really think it’ll go that well, Ebstrea?” asked Reynald, leaning in close so no one else would hear.

“I wonder…” she responded, though her tone made clear her answer.

She was confident it wouldn’t work.

She’d kind of glossed it over earlier, but making his bride happy wasn’t the demon king’s only goal—a different one he had mentioned shot to mind. One he had mentioned the first time the pair encountered him.

“There are several… in order of importance, they are defeating Lady Luciel, world peace, becoming a deity, and currently, play—

testing Claiomh Solais’s power.”

She still remembered every word he spoke, so overflowing with charisma had they been.

He had stated, quite plainly, that he wished to become a deity. A god.

Who was to say how far he was along that path?

If he succeeded, then…

“Even if we put all the human mages in the world together, we won’t have enough mana…”

In that case, the only option left would be Claiomh Solais, which he had already demonstrated he could defeat.

“This is hopeless, isn’t it…” Reynald said, shaking his head.

The scales of allegiance of the most important pair of Heroes, though just a little, tipped to one side.

There was one more person in the room who wasn’t blinded from humanity’s follies by the light of hope.

“Father…”

The crown prince muttered to himself, almost quivering in fear.

“When will you finally give up, Father…? There’s no winning this…”