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Ruler Vol 5 Chapter 48

Author: Anit666

Editor: Weasalopes

【3rd person’s POV】

“To think I would stumble upon a meeting of Demigods.”

That man’s nonchalant remark was like a bomb for everyone. If they were wary of him earlier, they were seething with bloodlust now.

Ivo and Nora disappeared from their seats in the blink of an eye. Their plan was simple; decapitate the intruder for now and question him later. As they were Demigods, beings who already had one foot in the realm of Gods, doing such a menial task would be easy for them.

Or at least, it was supposed to be.

“How nice of you guys to offer me a seat.” The direction the man’s voice had come from changed.

Why, he was sitting at the very place Ivo had been at earlier. That man had moved, and none of them had registered or sensed his movement. It was as if he had teleported there, but they hadn’t felt any mana either.

In fact, the man seemed to be so devoid of mana that they were convinced that he was using a high-class camouflaging skill to hide it.

“Hello there, Lantz.” The man waved his hand. “To think that we would meet each other again so soon.”

“Eww… humans…” The little demon sitting on that man’s lap stuck out her tongue in disgust.

“Jack Hargreave.” Lantz blurted the name of that man.

“Oh?” Jack smiled. “To think that a man of your calibre would remember my name. I’m honoured.”

Honoured? Him? Lantz was perplexed. After seeing his battle with the dragon today, Lantz was convinced that Jack was someone who held great power, even more than the former Dark Hero.

He was pretty much convinced that Jack’s humility was a charade.

Ivo and Nora wanted to attack Jack again, but Lucia had signalled with her eyes to stop them. Violence wasn’t always the answer, after all.

Jack turned to face Aidan, and the latter’s expression stiffened.

“And hello to you too. Who would have thought that we would meet each other again so soon? The world really is small.” He smiled.

Till now Lucia was wondering who this man was and why he had infiltrated this place, but this sentence revealed his identity.

“I see, so you’re the Dark Hero.” She mumbled.

This revelation came as a great shock to the remaining members of this meeting. To think that the Dark Hero would barge in on their meeting alone, and that too with a little powerless demon.

“Oh my, even the Pope knows me. I’m so happy.” Jack grinned sheepishly.

“Lord Jack, can I puke?” The demon sitting on his lap showed a disgusted expression.

The nuance behind her words was clear to everyone.

“Why is that rat so big?” The big and burly Cardinal of Compassion, Doherty Miseratio, cussed to get back at the demon girl.

“Is that what they said to your mother when she gave birth to you?” But Jack had the perfect response to it.

“Wha?!” Doherty stood up with a jolt, but sat right back after getting a glare from Lucia.

Lantz, on the other hand, had to use his superhuman control to stop himself from bursting out laughing.

Lucia looked at Ivo and Nora, and they went and stood behind her after understanding her intentions.

“So, to what do we owe a personal visit from the Dark Hero himself?”

“Ah, right.” A smile appeared on Jack’s face, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Humans, I’m here to complain.”

“About what?”

“In the past 7 months, the soldiers of the Church have destroyed 12 villages of demonkind. The men were ruthlessly killed and skinned, while the women had been raped and sold into slavery.”

“Those incidents had nothing to do with the Church.” Lucia replied in a matter of fact tone, and a frown appeared on Jack’s face.

“……If you think that we have no way of getting information out from captured soldiers, then I’m afraid we are not operating at the same level of respect here.”

“That we aren’t.” Lucia scoffed. “Even if we humour you and accept that we massacred those villages- which we did not, mind you- what will you do if we don’t stop?”

Everyone else snickered.

“We will simply reply in kind. In fact, I’ve already paid you back for those 12 villages.”

“…What?” She glared at him.

“You.” Jack looked at Owl.” I’m giving you some coordinates. Send your shadows there and report what you see.”

Not keen on taking orders from an enemy, Owl looked towards Lucia, and she nodded. He did as he was told and sent 12 shadows to check the 12 villages Jack had mentioned.

“Can someone serve me some tea while we wait for the report?” Jack asked nonchalantly, but all he got in return was glares. “Haah, I suppose simple courtesy is too much for lower lifeforms.”

He signalled with his eyes and Lui got off from his lap. Using some sort of space manipulation skill, she brought out a teapot, a box full of tea leaves, a pitcher full of water and two sets of cup and saucer. While everyone gave them a ‘What the hell?’ look, Lui gracefully poured water into the teapot and boiled it using magic. She then put 4 spoons of tea leaves in it and served the tea after letting them infuse into the water.

She put the utensils back into her inventory and took her place at Jack’s lap again.

“Mmm, exquisite.” Jack exhaled in admiration after taking a sip and patted Lui’s head as a reward.

“Hehe, thank you.” Lui purred like a cat and snuggled into Jack’s chest.

“…You two seem to be quite close.” Aidan muttered. “What’s your relationship anyway?”

“Hmm…” Jack stroked his chin. “She reminds me of a girl who used to call me ‘Papa’, so I guess Lui is like a daughter to me?”

“Wha?!” A groan of shock escaped from Lui’s mouth. With her mouth hung agape, she glared at Jack with her lifeless eyes. “W-why…?”

“Oh? Is something wrong?”

Aidan stared at Lui and Jack, and sighed. Heroes really are dense, he thought.

“My condolences, Lui.” He gave her a gentle smile.

“Uuuuuu… I don’t need sympathy from a human!” She exclaimed while tears gathered at the edge of her eyes, and quietly sipped her tea.

What the hell? Was what everyone else thought.

“Anyway, Lui reminds you of a girl that called you papa. Does that mean she’s no longer with you?”

“No such thing.” Jack curtly replied, and then glared at Aidan. “Why do you ask? So that you can kill her just like you killed Neia?”

“Who?”

“Serasta’s daughter who was killed 15 years ago.”

“Please don’t baselessly accuse us again.” Lucia intervened.

“Haahh…” Jack sighed. “Must be nice having a brain so smooth that it just rolls around in your head like a fucking ball-bearing.” When everyone gave him a confused look, he grumbled. “Right, such a high-level insult is wasted on you…”

This world didn’t have much in the name of Medical Science, so they couldn’t understand how Jack had just insulted them.

“Did you just insult us?” Doherty, the muscle-brained one among them, glowered at Jack.

“How kind of you to notice that.”

“Do you really think you can get away with this?”

“…You guys are not so bright, are you?” Jack sighed. “Have you already forgotten what happened with the Cardinal of Love?”

The moment Jack said that, the room was filled with chilling killing intent. Every member of the Council, including Lantz, was now dying to rip out Jack’s impudent tongue and burn it to ashes.

This was the one thing they couldn’t forgive. How dare a lowly demon invade their home and abuse its sanctity? How dare a lowly demon spit on their comradery? How dare a lowly demon insult their friend? Unforgivable; absolutely unforgivable.

However, the very fact they hadn’t lunged at him yet showed that they’d never forget their blunder.

Yes, they remembered. They remembered every single detail of that damned day with chilling accuracy.

Around 1 year and 2 months ago.

It was a day of celebration for humanity. Johan Lantz, the Commander in Chief of Asmaria, had successfully defeated the Demon King. With this remarkable feat, the threat to humanity was no more. It would be a long time before a new Demon King would take birth again, and without him the demonkind would remain in the shadows and won’t interfere with humans.

While the entire kingdom was celebrating and holding a festival, the Church of Meteron was in an uproar. The cause for the chaos was the Magic Orb currently sitting at the middle of the table inside the conference room. Surrounding the orb were 7 people, glaring at the picture it was projecting in the air.

In the projection stood a young man with wavy black hair and crimson eyes. While he seemed really normal, the two horns on his forehead and his words said otherwise.

“Good evening, humans.” That demon gave a courteous greeting. “I’m the newly appointed Demon King, Solomon El Maxwell. I’ll be in your care starting today.”

The message ended there. The contents of the message, Solomon’s mannerisms, the tone of his speech and his gentle smile, while being really polite, served to aggravate the members of the Council even more. They felt utterly humiliated by this new Demon King’s speech.

“This is absolutely unacceptable!” The Owl roared in fury. “How dare he look down on us! He must pay!”

The other members more or less had the same reaction. Lucia Constantine, the head of this Council and the Pope of the Church, calmly listened to her Cardinals’ grievances. However, beneath her serene expression was a raging sea of wrath. This orb was a great shame to both the Church and the Council.

It would have been a different story if the orb had been delivered to them through mail, but they found it lying on the table when they came to this room for a celebratory toast. No one had access to this room aside from the Cardinals and the Pope, and none of them left the orb here.

That only meant that Solomon had found out about their conference room and infiltrated it, and none of their security systems or guards had caught him. The very fact that he hadn’t set a trap to kill the members of the Council was a clear testament to how much Solomon was looking down on them.

This message was an insult and a show of power. Solomon was indirectly saying that he could end them whenever he wanted to.

“So, what do you think we should do?” Lucia posed this question.

“I think demolishing Solomon with our full might would be the wisest choice.” The Owl put forward his proposal.

“Aren’t you being too hasty?” Nora asked.

“On the contrary, we need to make haste. Solomon has been newly appointed, so he could not have taken control of the entire demonkind. The previous demon King’s loyal subjects would resist his usurping of power.”

Unless Solomon was an heir of the throne, he would face problems due to his sudden ascension to the throne. Not every demon would accept him as the King right away, and so, they would resist. This would form a chip in their defences.

“So, you’re saying that the demonkind is at its weakest right now, hence it would be the easiest to strike Solomon down.”

“Precisely.” The Owl nodded, satisfied.

Lucia more or less agreed with Owl.

“But what if this is a trap?” The Cardinal of Love, Conor Amare, countered. “If he has issued a direct challenge to us, then there must be something that makes him so confident. Shouldn’t we be on our guard?”

This was a fair point as well. Only a fool would underestimate an opponent from the get-go.

“I don’t think his traps would bother us.” Doherty, the most hot-headed member of this Council replied. “As long as all of us are together, none of his schemes would work on us.”

This… was also a fair point, and not because they had naïve thoughts like ‘We can overcome everything as long as we are together because we are friends.’

The reason for their absolute confidence was the two abilities of the Council; Resonance and Sanctuary. These were the two skills granted to them by the King of Gods, Meteron, when he had raised them to Demigods.

As long as the Council was together, no one would be able to touch them.

“Ummm.” Aidan suddenly raised his hand meekly.

“What is it, Aidan?” Lucia gave him the opportunity to speak.

“This is just a thought, but, what if… what if the message is simply what it tried to be? What if this Solomon guy just wants to form a cooperative relationship with us?”

Silence descended on the conference room for some moments, and Aidan fidgeted uncomfortably under everyone’s intense gazes. The silence was broken by-

“Pfft! Hahahahahahahahahaha!”

-the sound of everyone bursting out into laughter. Even then, Lucia had shown the proper etiquette expected of a lady and had held back by simply giggling at Aidan’s suggestion.

Humans and Demons working together- to the Council, such an idea was so preposterous that it was funny.

“Ha-hahahaha…” Aidan laughed awkwardly. “Right, that was just a joke…” He sighed internally.

While the others might see him as a coward, Aidan considered himself to be the most level-headed one of this group. And his instinct told him that something was fishy with Solomon. As a spy himself, he knew how hard it was to infiltrate this fortress without leaving behind any trace. He hadn’t found a single drop of foreign mana in this entire fortress.

“Anyway.” Lucia gathered their attention after they had their fill of laughter. “The Council hereby designates Solomon El Maxwell as a threat to humanity, and will proceed to eliminate him.”

The Council had decided to kill Solomon, no question asked.

However, it had yet to realize just how monstrous Solomon El Maxwell could truly be.