I carefully examined the Status Window.
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Name: Bufue Ranierika
Race: Vampire (Doll) Original Body: Ivar Lodbrok
Alignment: Evil (-20)
Level: 34 Fame: 4522
Job: Merchant (A)
Leadership: 30/30 Combat: 42/42 Intelligence: 71/71
Politics: 59/59 Charisma: 76/76 Technique: 10/10
Affinity: 100
*Title: 1. Kunkuska's Executive Candidate
*Abilities: Trade A, Accounting B, Arithmetic B
*Skills: -
Current Psychology: 'Lapis Lazuli looks like she's in a foul mood. That bastard definitely holds a grudge against me. She's probably still bitter about the time I saw her naked. Ugh, what a narrow-minded person……'
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The name field clearly read Bufue.
The stats were also quite different from Ivar's original body. However, the most important part — Affinity was displayed as exactly 100, just the same as Ivar. What this meant was clear. It was impossible for Daisy to deceive me using a trick like a doll.
If, as Lapis had claimed, Daisy truly harbored affection for me, it would have shown on the Status Window without any filter. But Daisy always proudly displayed an Affinity of 0. Lapis's hypothesis was easily disproven.
"So that's how it is after all."
"Huh?"
"No. I was talking to myself. Well done, Ivar."
Ivar dipped his head in a slight bow.
The "Daisy doll theory" had been riddled with flaws from the start. Let's say Daisy had used a doll or some similar object as a stand-in. How could she possibly have pulled that off? Daisy wasn't a puppeteer. It was a hypothesis as close to impossible as one could get…….
I was certain once more. The Affinity system was an impregnable fortress — a citadel that no amount of cunning or crafty schemes could ever breach.
There wasn't the slightest chance I had misjudged the situation. The scenario in which Daisy actually harbored affection for me and everything she had displayed thus far was nothing but an act — that possibility had been fundamentally ruled out.
But.
"……."
I shifted my gaze and stole a glance at Lapis. She had been keeping her head bowed this whole time. If I gave up here, Lapis would surely stop pressing me for reconsideration. In her eyes, she had already asked far too much of me.
Let me think about it again.
I would review the possibilities once more.
Daisy was the Hero. In other words, she was the child destined to be the protagonist of this world. Could Daisy alone be the sole exception to the Affinity system? ……No. Then why did Luke's Affinity display correctly? If something was wrong with Daisy's, it should have been wrong with Luke's too.
Think.
'I am the master of all demonkind, the seventy-second-ranked Demon Lord Andromalius.'
'Great one. I humbly dare to speak, relying on your gracious tolerance.'
I dredged up every last memory related to Daisy, from beginning to end, searching for any irregularity — any piece of evidence, or at the very least, any circumstance that could support Lapis's hypothesis.
'Because I need to remember forever that I am the trash who drove my own brother to his death.'
When I first met her, Daisy had been brimming with energy too.
Her voice was confident, and self-assurance showed readily on her face. But the surgery — the surgery to engrave the Slave Brand onto her heart — that was the turning point. She grew more taciturn, her demeanor sinking into cold stillness.
If Daisy had harbored any affection for me, that would have been before the surgery. Back then, she hadn't openly despised me either. But the agony of living flesh being torn and her heart carved open, the outrage of an evil act that had shackled her to eternal servitude — that was what she felt.
"As I thought, it won't work."
And the assassination attempt.
The incident where, taking advantage of me being asleep, she tried to plunge a dagger into my neck.
"You're practically killing yourself in desperation."
"No. I swore an oath to kill you."
"And so? Think you can actually kill me? What a pity."
There was, admittedly, something strange about the whole affair. There was exactly one aspect of Daisy's behavior that didn't quite make sense.
"Tell me now. How long have you been awake?"
"Since the sunlight came out today."
That was the crux of it.
The time I sensed Daisy's killing intent and woke was the dead of night. Daisy, however, had woken far earlier than me. Before I ever regained consciousness and opened my eyes, she could have tried the assassination in secret and then — pretended she knew nothing and let it go.
There was absolutely no reason for her to wait until I woke up and then make sure I knew, in no uncertain terms, that she had attempted to kill me.
And yet Daisy deliberately said aloud, "As I thought, it won't work." She had prompted me to wake. She had provoked and goaded me. As if she were advertising that she was someone capable of going through with something this dangerous without batting an eye.
"Who is Jack?"
Or could it be the opposite?
"Do you always have nightmares? You were mumbling a name over and over. There was a name that kept repeating — Jack, Hawk, Orland, Rif…"
What if it was the complete reverse?
"And your mother."
After attempting my assassination, she had tried to stand but couldn't bring herself to do so for some unknown reason.
"I'm surprised that even a being like you has a mother."
If the reason so shocking that it could pin Daisy's body in place and render her completely immobile had been occurring at that very moment — the moment I had yet to fully awaken from sleep and realize what was happening.
That was.
Something like that.
There was no way something like that could exist.
―――My mind turned completely white.
"......"
My right hand trembled slightly.
It was impossible. There was no way such a thing could be possible. But there was still that one-in-a-million chance. I couldn't deny that possibility just yet. So I had to verify it. I had no choice but to test it thoroughly.
I interlocked my fingers tightly with both hands. It was to suppress the trembling.
"Ivar. I have one more favor to ask. Will that be alright?"
"If it is Your Majesty's command, I would gladly carry it out a thousand times, ten thousand times over."
"When the unaffiliated Demon Lords conspired in their rebellion."
Whenever my composure wavered, just as it always did, the voice that flowed from my mouth was colder and more somber than usual. It was proof that I was desperately acting. Gruffness and coldness had always meant acting, as far as I was concerned.
"Didn't you make several dolls that looked exactly like me at that time?"
"Yes. To deceive the unaffiliated Demon Lords, I created a total of three dolls resembling Your Majesty."
"One of them was destroyed, so two should still remain."
Ivar nodded with a somewhat puzzled expression.
"I kept them in case they might prove useful for anticipating assassination attempts. One was hidden in the Demon Lord's Castle, and the other was hidden in the imperial palace."
"Can you bring them here now?"
"Of course."
"……I'm counting on you. And Ivar, you should switch to your main body as well before coming back."
Ivar left the office.
An eternity seemed to pass. I stared at the floor, thinking of nothing. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say I couldn't think. Time stretched like taffy.
"Your Majesty. We have arrived."
Ivar returned with a doll brought from the rear. It was hard to gauge how much time had passed. In reality, it had probably been only five or ten minutes. But to me, it had felt far longer. I spoke.
"I'll be transferring my consciousness to the doll for a moment. Help me with it."
"Yes, Your Majesty. Please forgive the momentary presumption."
I had briefly received Ivar's help to operate a doll once before. That had been when Valefor and the other unaffiliated Demon Lords launched their coup. Back then, I had been killed as the doll, then returned to my main body as though nothing had happened, completely unfazed.
"You may experience some mild nausea."
Ivar gently placed his palm on my forehead. The palm was cold. I closed both eyes.
A moment later, a wave of revolting queasiness hit me. It felt as though my limbs had shrunk endlessly until they all fit within the confines of my skull. The sense of distance itself vanished — I could no longer feel how long my body's arms actually stretched.
"It is done, Your Majesty."
I slowly opened my eyes.
The view of the office came into focus. Nothing had changed from before. The only difference was that my main body sat motionless in the chair, wearing a prosthetic on the left foot. This was the second time I had transferred my consciousness into a doll. It was not a pleasant experience.
"……."
My heart pounded with a foreboding beat.
From here on, I was about to embark on a certain experiment.
If Lapis Lazuli's hypothesis was correct, this was the last remaining possibility. Excluding this, there was absolutely no chance that Daisy had deceived me. Even if I betrayed Lapis Lazuli's expectations, even if I brought her grief, I would calmly deny her faith.
I looked Ivar straight in the eye.
And in my mind, I spat out a single word.
'Status Window.'
Utterly profound silence.
No sound was heard, and nothing materialized in the air before me. I forced myself to wait calmly. Once more, I murmured in my mind.
'Status Window.'
But nothing appeared. No matter how calmly I whispered the same words again, no matter how persistently I repeated them over and over, absolutely nothing surfaced in the air. The only response was Ivar, who met my gaze head-on, her cheeks flushing pink as though she were embarrassed.
"Um, Your Majesty. If you stare at me like that, this maiden will be embarrassed."
"……."
"Your Majesty?"
Now my hands had slipped beyond my control and begun to tremble.
I turned my head and this time looked toward Lapis Lazuli. Speaking softly out loud, I addressed her as she still kept her head bowed.
"Status Window."
Nothing.
Nothing changed.
"…Ah."
It was an exceedingly faint groan, yet at the same time, a feeble scream. This can't be right. Impossible. Fragmented, negative thoughts flooded my mind, turning it pitch-black.
Through the puppet, there was no way to see the other person's Affinity.
The Status Window itself wouldn't even appear.
In other words, the Affinity system functioned only for the Demon Lord, "Dantalion." If my consciousness had transferred into the puppet, not only could I no longer read the demons' emotions, but I also couldn't exercise any dominance over them. Of course. Reading emotions and wielding dominance were both privileges exclusive to the Demon Lord.
Even if Ivar and Lapis Lazuli loved me as much as they possibly could—
The Affinity values were invisible to me, now that I had transferred from Dantalion's body into the puppet's.
Because what they love is, ultimately, the Demon Lord Dantalion.
―――Then.
If someone were to.
'Miss Daisy always paid attention to Lord Dantalion.'
'She was particularly curious about what Lord Dantalion had done in the past. What kind of life he had led before meeting her. What era he had lived through. She gathered information to uncover every last detail.'
If someone were to realize a single truth.
'It is astonishing that even a being such as yours has a mother.'
That I was not, in fact, Dantalion.
That I was not a Demon Lord born naturally from magic power, without mother or father, but rather a different human being who originally had a mother and was never a Demon Lord to begin with.
'What is your name? When I first saw you in the village, you introduced yourself as Andromalius. After that, Dantalion. And after that, Jean Vollet.'
And that Dantalion's body was nothing more than a puppet.
That Dantalion's name was nothing more than an alias.
That in this world, I was merely acting as an actor.
That once, beyond the mask, there had been another self of mine.
If that someone were to feel affinity not for Dantalion, but for me —――.
'What should I call you?'
A hollow breath escaped my lips.
Only now did I understand.
The meaning of the last words Daisy had left me with at the public execution grounds was finally, fully clear.
'Father. It is high time you accept that nothing called "I" exists in this world.'
"Admit that your self-deprecation is a perilous tightrope walk, won't you? Of course, Father, such a choice would be impossible for you. I know that. If it were possible, you would have fled long ago."
Daisy.
The girl who was supposed to have become the Hero.
My one and only successor and adopted daughter.
"If you, Father, are to become the world's Demon Lord, then I shall be a demon for you and you alone."
She had known all along that I was not Dantalion.
That was why she had so persistently dug into my past.
Daisy had likely discovered it before long—that several years ago, starting from a particular point in the Continental Calendar, Year 1505, the power of the Demon Lord Dantalion had suddenly risen to prominence. And using my delirious mutterings about my mother as evidence, she had arrived at certainty.
In this world, she alone had seen through me.
"Ah… a… ah…"
Daisy had not been the one wearing a mask.
On the contrary—it was I who had been living while wearing the mask of the name Dantalion.
The Affinity directed not at the Demon Lord Dantalion, but straight at me the person, had been invisible all this time.