World History (1)

Several days had passed since the Baron had set off for the Royal capital.

Allen was asked to stay with Cecil and protect her until the Baron's return—which of course, he accepted. Consequently, he spent most of the entire day stuck in her room.

According to Zenof, Vice-Captain Leibrand would not be able to defeat someone of Dagrah's level; this was why Zenof now protected the mansion together with several of his knights, leaving Leibrand to accompany the Baron on his trip. Bird Es and Bird Ds constantly circled in the sky, Hawk Eye and Night Vision permanently activated.

Honestly, all this security did not seem that necessary, as the chances of the Viscount making a move were very low. With the Baron using the mithril mining rights for negotiation, there were no more cards for the Viscount to play.

Now that he was Cecil's constant companion, Allen ended up sitting in on her lessons and receiving his own portions whenever she had tea or snacks.

And ever since returning, her prickly attitude toward him had softened. It was making him miss her former self a little.

The two were currently in the conference room on the third floor. They had been led here by Captain Zenof, who had told them this would be where they would be conducting the day's lesson.

"The conference room?" Allen murmured in slight bewilderment.

"That's right," Zenof replied. "This is because you asked to learn the details of House Granvelle's duty."

"What?"

"The tutor will arrive soon. I'm sure I don't have to say this, but the details that you will learn today must remain secret."

The captain left the room, but quickly returned with the magic tutor, holding the old man's large bag for him.

'Uh, the magic tutor?'

Right after stepping in, the tutor turned to Zenof, "Everything, yes?"

Zenof nodded. "Tell him everything. My lord has given his express permission," he replied in a surprisingly respectful tone before leaving the room once more.

"Goodness gracious..."

'Did he come all this way just for my sake?' Allen bowed deeply. "Thank you very much for today, sir."

"Mm. The first thing to say is, everything I will now tell you is strictly confidential. It won't be covered even in the Academy's entrance exam."

"Understood, sir."

"It is rumored about by those with looser lips, but if it gets out of hand, the Royal family will take direct action. As such, I strongly recommend against sharing it for no reason."

'So this is something actively being hushed up?'

"Now, what was it that you wanted to know that led you to this topic?"

'Hey, he did this during my magic lesson too. I guess asking questions is his way of teaching.'

"My question was what House Granvelle's duty is." Allen shared how he had heard from Rickel, the head manservant, that the kingdom was not at war but then also gleaned through the kidnappers' conversation that there was indeed a battlefield somewhere.

"I see. I'll start by confirming what that idler Rickel said; he's not incorrect. However, what he had learned was kingdom history."

'Uh, did he just offhandedly dis Rickel?'

"Why is it 'kingdom history'? Is it not just 'history'?"

"In order to know the truth of this world, you need to learn Demon Lord history." The wizened old man spread a large folded piece of parchment.

"Is this a world map?"

Despite only having ever seen a map of the realm of Granvelle, Allen somehow picked up on the fact that he was now looking at the entire world. It depicted several masses that were likely continents.

"Mm, it is indeed. You're as sharp as ever, lad. The largest continent, this one in the middle, is where we are. This is the Central Continent."

"Oh?!"

'Hey, we live on a pretty big continent. Rickel once told me that there's an empire to the north that's several times the size of our kingdom.

'That means this large region must be the empire, and this small country below it is us. So, we're in the southern portion of the Central Continent.'

"This is where we live: the Kingdom of Ratash. And north of us is the Empire of Giamut," the tutor said, tapping the countries' respective locations on the map.

'I wonder how much of this Cecil already knows. The Baron already told her almost everything, right?'

Cecil simply stared at the map in silence as the lesson continued with Allen and the tutor doing all the talking. Allen recalled how the Baron had told her about House Granvelle's duty on the day news of Mihai's demise arrived, but he was not sure how detailed the Baron's explanation had been.

Was the part of the map she was staring at related to the battlefield that had taken Mihai's life?

"Judging by the name 'Demon Lord history,' a Demon Lord has appeared in this world?"

The tutor found himself struck speechless for a brief moment by how unfazed Allen seemed upon learning of the existence of the Demon Lord, but he then tapped a finger on the map. "Yes, the Demon Lord was born 112 years ago on the Forgotten Continent, the northernmost one."

"And how do you know that?"

"The Demon Lord said so himself."

The one claiming to be the Demon Lord had sent a proclamation to all the world's heads of state that read: "I am the Demon Lord of the End, the one who shall bring about the demise of this world. Submit to me."

"What did the nations do?"

"They all ignored him. There was no reason for them to make a decision about it either way."

The Demon Lord, for his part, did nothing afterward. In the blink of an eye, Fifty years passed.

With each transfer of power, the nations of the world began to forget his proclamation more and more. That was, until sixty-two years ago, when he once again urged the countries of the world to "submit to him." This time however, there was one more line: "There will be no more chances."

"And everyone ignored it again?"

"That's right. And then... the Great Calamity occurred."

"...What happened?"

"The Demon Lord strengthened all monsters throughout the world by one rank."

There was no way to know for sure that it was his doing, as he did not claim responsibility afterward. Even so, the large majority of people attributed the disaster to him.

In any case, this marked the dawn of an age of terror. All the monsters in the world had ranked up: Rank E monsters had become as strong as Rank D; in the same way, D had become C, C had become B, B had become A, and A had turned into the as yet unheard-of S. It was said that Rank S monsters had power rivaling that of Minor Deities.

The powered-up monsters, drunk on their newfound strength, went on a rampage, massacring people who had been living in peace all this time. During that year alone, millions had lost their lives.

'Hold on, isn't this the answer to what I've been asking all this time?'

Ever since he took down his first albaheron, Allen had nursed the feeling that monsters in this world seemed stronger than their rank indicated. This sense of discrepancy, this intuition that something was off, had nagged him the entire time.

"What happened to the actual ranks of the monsters, then? If the Demon Lord made them all one rank stronger, does it mean the ranks assigned to them also went up by one?"

"Good question, but no, the ranks were left as is. It is the Adventurer's Guild that assigns ranks to monsters, and they decided to leave all the rankings the same."

'I see, so there is an actual reason goblins all look so muscular, and why neither the knights nor adventurers could do a thing against the murdergalsh.'

Due to the Great Calamity, the Rank B Murdergalsh now had the strength of a Rank A monster. In the same way, the Rank A White Dragon possessed fighting strength on par with Rank S, making it a truly unassailable being.

The tutor continued his lecture.

As it turned out, the Great Calamity was but the overture. That same year, an army of several million under the Demon Lord's command crossed the seas to attack the Central Continent. The Kingdom of Cortes, the Kingdom of Gamelo, and the Principality of Bashli were all wiped out in that year.

"Three whole countries disappeared in a single year?"

"Mm, that is so. Even after that, what we today call the Demon Lord Army continued pressing its attack."

Three years later, the Demon Lord Army also annihilated the Kingdom of Rastuli. This rocked the entire world.

"Why was it that big of a deal?"

"You see, Rastuli was a midsize country multiple times the size of our own Ratash. And yet, it only took the Demon Lord Army three years to obliterate it. This was an incredible shock."

The first three that had fallen were tiny nations on the northernmost edge of the continent. Unlike them, however, Rastuli shared a border with Giamut and had enough power to deal with the empire on equal footing. This meant that it was by no means a pushover.

The story of the nation's last moments became public, and the world was shaken once again. Supposedly, when the Demon Lord Army had surrounded the capital, the King had begged for his people to be spared in exchange for his own life, but the demons had rebuffed him, saying, "We already gave two opportunities to surrender. You are the ones who refused us. Now, grab your weapons and fight to your last breaths."

The Demon Lord Army had forced a country that had already surrendered to continue fighting. After this exchange with the king, the fight naturally turned single-sided. According to the refugees who managed to escape to Giamut through secret passages, it was a massacre beyond description. The enemy forces advanced relentlessly until not a single human life remained within what used to be Rastuli. Less than half of its population managed to escape to Giamut.

"In other words, the Demon Lord has no interest in ruling over humans."

"Correct. His title implied that he, too, was some kind of ruler. As such, the world expected him to reign over the lands and peoples he conquered, albeit in some twisted demonic way. However, that was not so."

Everyone had assumed that the newest Demon Lord was a king hell-bent on subjugating and commanding the entire world. However, nothing could have been further from the truth. No, this Demon Lord intended to wipe out all life in this world.

Allen had only asked about the duty of House Granvelle. Before giving him the answer, the magic tutor had dived into a history lesson on a scale that entirely exceeded his expectations. And there was still more.

"Two years after destroying Rastuli—that is, fifty-seven years ago—the Demon Lord Army launched their assault on the Giamutan Empire."

This marked the start of a war between the superpower that controlled two-thirds of the Central Continent and the demons. Having seen what became of Rastuli, Giamut did not hesitate to bring all its forces to bear on the front.

The current world map showed the Demon Lord Army located at the northern borders of Giamut. That implied that the empire was successfully keeping it at bay. And thanks to that, Ratash, the kingdom where Allen lived, remained safe.

"So the empire managed to beat the demons back."

"That is not so. Giamut's forces kept losing battle after battle. Though they were not as overwhelmed as the four countries that had already fallen had been, the empire continued losing to the point where the large majority of their border fortresses had fallen. The best it could do was slow the advance of the demons. So Giamut formed the Five Continent Alliance."

"The five continents teamed up?"

As soon as he determined that the Demon Lord Army was far too powerful for his country to handle alone, the emperor of Giamut immediately approached the heads of state in the four other continents—excluding the Forgotten Continent where the Demon Lord lived—with talks of an alliance. This was what led to the formation of the Five Continent Alliance that was still active to this day.