"What on earth happened?"
"How could it come to this…"
"I can't believe it."
"Lord Macht… just what…"
Weise's plaza was packed to overflowing. The dense crowd surged and murmured before the platform where Macht stood, voices rising like steam, one layer cresting over the next.
Nanoda stood behind Glück, watching the mass of faces below with detached indifference. Familiar expressions, familiar scenes, familiar words — she had witnessed scenes like this more times than she could count. She shifted her gaze to Macht, standing at the very front of the platform.
At this moment, every citizen of Weise — and every outsider who happened to be present — had gathered here at lord Glück's summons.
"…That concludes the account of the wrongs I committed in Weise in my pursuit of emotion. To every citizen of Weise, and to all those who were caught up in this against their will — I am sorry."
Macht — who could have ravaged an entire city in a single night — bent at the waist and bowed his head in apology.
Silence. From the moment Macht began to speak until the very last word, the crowd that had been buzzing with noise fell utterly still.
The gilding of Weise — apart from those directly involved within the territory itself — was already common knowledge to the outside world. Concealment was impossible.
After liberating Glück from the gold, Nanoda had brought Macht to him without delay and the three of them had discussed everything at once.
Looking across all of Weise, perhaps only Glück — the one who had spent the most time alongside Macht — would be willing to stand in Macht's corner.
And indeed, Glück's regard for Macht was genuine — even if the other was a member of the Demon Race.
"Hah…" Glück drew on his cigarette, expressionless, and let the smoke drift out — nothing remotely lordly about him.
He knew that he was not the protagonist of this particular scene. What came next was entirely up to how the crowd responded.
Having taken in everything, every person present fell into a prolonged stunned silence — or something close to thought.
At last, a trembling voice rang out across the entire plaza.
"Monster…" The word was drenched in fear — and it lit the fuse.
Emotion, it seems, is contagious. With that single utterance, the whole crowd gathered before the plaza erupted once more — a roiling, clamorous tide. No longer silent, they raised their voices all at once.
Glück and Nanoda shifted their gaze from Macht to the crowd below.
"He's still one of the Demon Race after all, isn't he?! A nature like that — slaughtering humans — never changes!" someone shouted, voices rising in accusation.
"Waaaah!" A child buried their face in their mother's arms, weeping in terror.
"Impossible — it has to be a lie! Lord Macht couldn't have—" Others still refused to believe, their faces lost and bewildered.
The bowing Macht slowly raised his head and looked out over the churning faces below.
That was fear. That was confusion. Suspicion. Grief…
For just a moment, Macht had the strange sense that he had been transported back to a battlefield torn apart by war — the familiar, tangled emotions of humanity crashing over him in wave after wave. And yet, oddly, his heart was perfectly calm. Having spoken everything aloud — for reasons he could not quite name — Macht felt, unexpectedly, a weight lift from him.
As expected. Humans. Emotions. They really are fascinating.
Heedless of the violent reaction swelling below, he only thought this, quietly, to himself.
In contrast to Macht's composed serenity, Glück's brow furrowed ever so slightly — a sudden, unpleasant premonition settling over him.
And precisely as that premonition took shape, the clamour below reached its peak. Somewhere in the crowd — no one could say who — a pebble was flung up toward Macht on the platform.
Clack. Then came a screamed voice that cut over everything else: "Unforgivable! A member of the Demon Race who takes human lives — get out of Weise!" The cry silenced everyone for just a heartbeat.
"Aah…"
Macht turned his gaze toward the source — and found the emotion he knew more intimately than any other.
Anger.
Eyes blown wide, something like flames flickering inside them. Teeth grinding as though they wanted to gnaw the air itself. A fist raised and swung through the space before him.
Unaware of the pebble that had skipped past his feet, Macht opened his mouth — then fell silent again.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
As though the emotion were contagious, anger spread through the crowd like wildfire, the words growing sharper and more cutting by the moment. One by one, more stones were hurled up from below toward Macht on the platform.
[Perhaps this is what they call retribution.] Watching Macht, Glück thought this quietly to himself.
"That's right — unforgivable! If he dared to do it once, he'll do it again!"
"I knew it — the Demon Race are all the same! You should never trust a creature that kills humans!"
"I must have been blind — actually believing a member of the Demon Race could live in peace alongside humans!"
"The Demon Race are humanity's enemy! Weise has no place for demons!"
A stone grazed Macht's cheek, leaving a faint mark. He made no move to dodge. To him, the crowd's venting amounted to little more than a distant itch.
"Monster!" "Get out!" "Kill him!" — words of that sort began to appear as well, the roar of voices growing louder and louder.
The condemnation of Macht took on the character of a one-sided flood. The act of gilding Weise for ten years had ignited the fury of the masses.
And yet — what surprised Macht was that, mixed into it all, there were a handful of discordant voices.
Buried within the anger, fear, and accusation — within all those negative emotions — something different had crept in.
"Enough! Lord Macht has already apologised to us. He has done so much for Weise — we shouldn't be treating him this way!"
"Have you all forgotten?! If it weren't for Lord Macht, those corrupt nobles would still have their boots on our necks and their spit on our faces! Who was it that brought them to justice?!"
"Lord Macht meant no harm, and no one died. We should give him another chance — believe in him, just this once!"
What was that? Worry. Indignation on his behalf. Respect…
Macht had never imagined — not for a moment — that there would be humans willing to speak up for him, a member of the Demon Race.
Though their numbers were small, and though their voices were drowned beneath the anger and the slurs, Macht caught every word with his inhuman hearing — and something in his chest shifted, just barely, in a way he could find no name for.
And yet, the tide of denunciation rolled in, wave after wave, and in the end, those voices were swallowed under.
"Hah… it seems our luck isn't holding. The crowd is rather more inclined not to forgive Macht."
Nanoda, who had kept her hood drawn up and said nothing throughout, let out a quiet sigh.
"So it would appear. Looks like my time as lord is drawing to a close as well."
Glück stared at the spent cigarette between his fingers, his expression calm. He had prepared himself for this long ago.
"At worst, we simply leave this place. In the end, neither his dream nor mine ever came to anything…"
"Is that so? You don't look like a man who has any regrets, though."
At her words, Glück — in a rare display — allowed a faint smile to cross his face. He dropped the spent cigarette butt to the ground and crushed it underfoot.
"What can I say — I happened to run into a member of the Demon Race, and ended up with a bad friend."
Just as Glück made to step forward, Nanoda suddenly reached out and stopped him.
"Why are you stopping me? If I don't step in now, this situation is going to spiral out of control."
"Leave it to me."
And in that instant, Nanoda ceased to hide herself. As her power unfurled, she became like a black hole — the invisible mana of the surrounding air surging inward, converging into her body. With the platform as its epicentre, an invisible storm rose from nothing, whipping through the air without warning.
____
👻🔥Seek: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Uchiha Reborn in Jujutsu Kaisen: The System Thinks I'm in Konoha, but I'm Not
Let's hit these goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = 1 extra chapter for the public!