Chapter 4

The girl I spoke with was none other than Charlotte de Gardias, the first princess of the Gardias Empire, the largest Empire on the continent.

Let's say this was like these common situations.

Let's say I was really a prisoner in the Demon King's Castle and I really suffered from amnesia.

I then proceeded to try to get a crying girl out of her cell without knowing what happened, comforted her and even got her something to eat because I pitied her for starving like that. However, she turned out to actually be the imperial princess who was captured by the demon king army!

Then let's say I was to be rescued together with the princess.

So let's just say that the princess was to tell them to treat me with their utmost respect.

The best expression that would fit this was "what a cliche".

However.

I was a demon who changed his appearance with low-level camouflage magic.

What, wasn't I kind of screwed if things developed like that?

I was led out of the Demon King's Castle like a cow being led to the slaughterhouse, and arrived at a place close to the barracks of the commander-in-chief of the Demon Conquest Army garrison far away from the battlefield.

Countless wizards and priests got close to the princess and immediately jumped into action. They also took some measures on me.

To my relief, I didn't have any undead attributes so the healing magic the priests cast on me didn't cause damage or something. It sure was fortunate that I didn't have a constitution that rejected sacred power.

Of course, I already knew that that wouldn't be a problem. If it were, I wouldn't even have tried to get rescued by the human's side.

Not long after I became a dirty bastard, a lot of people clung to me to wash, wipe and clean me. It was a hot day, but the fear that I might die if I made a mistake made me overcome everything.

If a wizard cast a spell to, for example, dispel curses on me, everything would be over. Fortunately, a large number of troops were put into searching the Demon King's Castle, and it seemed difficult for them to just take care of the Princess as there were a lot of bleeding and injured people among the wizard forces.

However, the question was, was Charlotte naturally good-natured or did she somehow take a liking to me?

"Please look after this person. He's my benefactor after all."

In the end, the problem was that she cared too much about me.

Despite her own lack of energy, she was constantly instructing them to take care of me first. I bowed to the girl I put my arm around not too long ago.

"N, no. It's alright, Your Highness. I'm fine. I'm really healthy. Yes."

Actually, I didn't even do anything special.

"You said you lost your memory. You must have had a severe curse put on you."

"N, no, that's not it! I don't need to remember. Yeah, it's not such a big deal. Yes."

"That's…."

No, I know you're a nice girl, but won't you leave me some space?

You're giving me much too much for just one biscuit.

Eventually, I was allowed to lie in the private room next to the barracks after persuading the nursing staff who couldn't even catch a break taking care of me and the princess. They were close to collapsing.

First of all.

I felt like I just escaped a collapsing cave only to jump into the mouth of a tiger.

[Event complete – Downfall]

[You have earned 100 achievement points.]

I somehow broke through the first hurdle..

* * *

The princess' consideration for me was persistent.

After some essential first aid was over, the princess summoned me back to the barracks.

There was a huge amount of food set on a table.

"You couldn't have eaten well. Go ahead and eat."

"Oh, yes…. Yes."

However, I couldn't easily touch it. There were too many eyes looking at me right now. The princess stared at me and nodded as if she understood what was going on.

She seemed to think that I was someone that couldn't get even a single corn of rice down my throat if so many people were looking at me.

The princess looked at the surrounding guards, wizards and priests.

"Go out and wait."

"Bu, but Your Highness…."

"Didn't you say that the Demon King is dead and this place became safe?"

At the princess' gentle command, everyone left the barracks, leaving only me and the princess behind. She looked at me quietly.

"Let's eat quickly."

"Yes, huh? Ah, yes. Yes."

The princess grabbed the roasted turkey leg with her bare hands and began to bite into it.

"...."

It seemed like she kicked them out because she wanted to eat comfortably.

"E, erm... Uh. Wo, won't we get sick...?"

If one starved for such a long time and ate something like this, wouldn't it cause problems in the stomach that may lead to one's death?

Do you trust the priests outside so much?

"You, too. Quickly eat."

There was no point telling her that.

* * *

The meal was quite large, so I had time to sort out my thoughts while the princess munched away.

In the Prologue, the Demon King Valier died, but there was a situation that happened before that.

An all-out war between the humans and the Demon Realm called the Demon World, the Demon World War.

Naturally, since there was a war going on, the hero destroyed the Demon King. Although they ended up destroying each other.

Although the reason behind the war wasn't known, it was started under the Demons' name. Demon King Valier had incredibly powerful forces and tried to make the Human Coalition surrender.

Valier used his spies hidden in various parts of the Human Forces to kidnap key figures of the Coalition. He kidnapped politicians, kings, powerful warriors and wizards themselves or their families to prevent them from participating in the war.

And the most important hostage was the First Princess of the Gardias Empire and her mother.

Valier succeeded in kidnapping the Empress and the Princess. If the Emperor pulled out of the war, it was clear that the other forces would follow one after the other.

However, the Emperor knew that giving up on the Demon World War would be a great mistake. If the Empire pulled out, it would've been destroyed.

In the end, he had no choice but to give up on the hostages and launch an all-out war. All the hostages were killed, but after many twists and turns, the princess survived.

Was it something like that.…?

No. I don't think so.

Let's think about it.

It's definitely a novel I wrote, but honestly, I couldn't remember each and every sentence. The prologue was relatively less memorable. I wrote that part the longest ago after all.

The princess, who ate in front of me with a cute face, wasn't the main character of my novel, which was a school drama.

To be honest, I didn't even know that her name was Charlotte de Gardias. It's not that I didn't remember it, I didn't know it in the first place. It wasn't like not remembering the name of someone passing by, but later when seeing the name of said person written down going "Oh, right there was someone like that.".

I couldn't remember the princess' name at all.

Let's think about this some more.

What I wrote had become reality.

As a result, all the parts that I hadn't imagined got filled in.

This was the world I knew and at the same time, it was a world filled with things I didn't recognize at all.

The soldiers guarding the door outside each had their own pasts, but I didn't know them. Even though this is the world I thought up, it was natural that things were like this. This was like virtual settings suddenly becoming reality after all.

Therefore, there would always be events in this world happening even though I hadn't described them and there should also be events that already happened. There were things in the past, present and future I had no clue about.

However, the sentences I wrote would definitely come true.

The Emperor gave up on the hostages and launched an all-out war. The subjugation of the Demon Realm was successful and if the Emperor pulled out of the war because of the hostages he would have received a lot of backlash by the other participants and the possibility of the Empire falling because of that wasn't small.

This was true.

And I never wrote anything about the first princess, which must be quite important for the main narrative. Of course, this was supposed to be just a normal slice-of-life school thing, however the imperial family's history got mentioned slightly as well.

However, the first princess was right in front of me and yet I have never written anything about this girl. Although this might be misguided inference, what if there was a character with the role of princess abducted by the Demon King? Wouldn't I've forced her into the narrative and made her more important?

An important character that was sure to appear on the main stage, to deviate from the main narrative isn't something that should occur.

Although the princess should occupy an important role later in the story, she doesn't even appear in the future.

She was the first princess who survived the Demon World War, you know?

However, why doesn't this character appear and why do I as the writer have no clue about her?

I had no choice but to regard my own novel as some kind of prophecy. I had to do this strange thing where I had to interpret my own writing.

The writer was usually ignorant of the vestiges of the story, however now I was experiencing said vestiges. They would now be and will be filled with things and I have no idea, with what.

I had to locate the blanks of the story that were filled as this world became reality and connect them to the future I knew.

I had to deduce how this bivalent narrative affected the future I knew. The princess was rescued like this right now, but she didn't appear in the future in the imperial family's story at all.

I had to figure out the answer using two facts.

There were two possible answers.

First.

My existence somehow made the princess who was supposed to die immediately live.

It didn't seem strange that the princess who was crying all alone could maybe take her own life. Also, she was extremely malnourished. However, could that just be solved with a single biscuit? Anyway, there was a possibility that my existence saved the princess. It was very low, but it was there.

Second.

This possible answer relied on the assumption that there may have been a huge event happening in my novel of which I wasn't aware of.

For instance, the big events I wrote would still flow as intended. There may be other reasons behind that.

So, let's say event A happened. I did write a description for it, but behind the scenes, there might have been a completely different factor that caused event A to happen.

Let's say I wrote, it just happened out of nowhere. What should I do in that case? Let's say the reasoning was written irresponsibly like that.

However, it wouldn't be too absurd for there to be a backstory, a reason for this to happen the moment this world became reality. In other words, there might have been some kind of probability correction.

That was what happened when I tried to use the teleportation scroll a while ago.

So I'd know what incidents were going to happen in this world, but not why. This was a very strange situation. This all happened because I wrote this story so irresponsibly and rough without explaining things properly.

Was this my punishment for being imprecise?

So, unless I was the reason for the princess' survival, there was only one more answer.

She would be killed or would die soon.

"Why aren't you eating?"

The cute little princess asked me calmly.

* * *

Even in slice-of-life stories, villains were needed. There may be slice-of-life stories without villains, but these were in the realm of masterpieces. The presence of a villain simplified the narrative process. If one just wrote a bad guy did it, one can explain away a lot of things.

Why did he do that? If someone asked something like this, one could just explain it with "Because he's a bad guy lol".

So, I wasn't skilled enough to write a slice-of-life story without a villain.

[The Demon King is Dead]'s main villain was Imperial Prince Bertus de Gardias.

There were some minor villains, but the prince was a little different. If one would call the villains found at the Academy kind of sloppy and second-rated, the prince would be the real deal. He was the type to conspire to kill people. I gave him the setting that he'd do anything to become the next emperor.

From Bertus' perspective, the existence of the first princess who returned alive after getting abducted by the demons would only be a thorn in his side. Just because she had gone through such hardship, the princess would be in a position that garnered a lot of attention, and seeing as to how she was the First Princess their succession rights to the throne would be similar.

Bertus would be embarrassed to know that the first princess was alive and not dead. He would have, of course, thought that she died, but she came back alive.

If that were the case, then there was a good chance that Charlotte would soon be killed by Bertus or one of his people.

Charlotte would die behind the scenes at the vestiges of the main story. She wouldn't even be able to join the main story.

Charlotte would probably die soon. The possibility that she won't even make it to the Empire isn't that low either.

Charlotte would be in danger soon. I don't know how though. While I was thinking about that, the princess was letting out a sigh as she was finally full.

Would I be able to save this girl?

My life was like a fallen leaf in the wind, so was I even in any position to care about someone else's life?

Wouldn't it be better for me if Charlotte just died here and the wizards turned their gazes away from me?

Just when that thought went through my mind, a sense of horror ran down my spine.

I was an ordinary person. This wasn't an ordinary situation, but I was still just an ordinary person. Just the thought of planning to survive using such a young child's death already made me feel disgusted with myself.

Charlotte was the closest to an ally I had and she was in a situation in which she wouldn't know when her head might get cut off. Having Charlotte on my side would make her a great force to have though, no matter what unexpected situation might happen in the future.

Let's think like that.

The only time we were able to talk was now. After the meal was over, the guards would come back in again. Then we couldn't talk about any important things.

How the hell was I supposed to convey to her that her life was in danger? How was I supposed to explain why I knew that?

Charlotte wiped the grease from the corner of her mouth as she looked at me.

The look in Charlotte's eyes, which had been innocent and pure until now, seemed to have suddenly turned cold.

Just when I thought that the atmosphere around her suddenly changed, Charlotte talked in a low voice.

"Now, listen carefully."

Charlotte's demeanor was more serious than before.

"Our lives are in danger."

Charlotte brought up what I had wanted to say before me.

And she told me it's us who's in danger, not just her. I'm telling you, it's you.