Who counts as a winner in life?
It’s the people who use other people.
And me — I’m definitely on the winners’ side.
Born the eldest son of a ducal house, given the finest education in the country, and starting next month already locked in to attend Lichberg National Magic Academy.
Naturally, I’m starting there with grades that won’t disgrace the family name.
What I aspire to is to become an absolute, monumental evil.
Hero-tier justice? Absolutely not.
Why should I waste the limited years of my own life for the sake of other people?
I’ll do what I want and live how I want. And no one’s going to get in the way.
A life like the Demon Lord, opposed to all of humanity — that’s what I want.
And today is going to be the memorable first day of that magnificent life.
“Thank you for waiting, Father.”
“Think nothing of it, my son. I know you’ve been hard at study. It’s important to keep refining yourself.”
“Thank you.”
The man stroking his beard in good humor as I bow is my father, Gordon Veret.
His features are stern and his bearing severe, and at first glance he looks like he’d be tough to deal with — but he’s a good father, devoted to his family. “Doting” wouldn’t be an overstatement, honestly.
Whenever I wanted to learn something, he’d hire the best teacher in the field.
The best father, building me the best environment.
“Right, I’ll keep this short. Starting next year, Ouga will attend Lichberg. You know that Lichberg requires students to live in the dormitories?”
“Of course. So that we can devote as much time as possible to magical training, correct?”
“Just so. Now, you may take one personal attendant with you to the dorm. In the next month, Ouga, you will choose that person yourself.”
“Anyone I want, truly?”
“Of course. This is also training in judging usable talent. A maid from our household is fine. If you’d prefer a slave, you may buy one. Whatever the case, bring me someone you believe can support you through academy life.”
I had been waiting for those words.
A chance to acquire one excellent subordinate without spending my own money.
The person I picked here, I planned to use not just through dorm life but for the rest of their natural-born days.
Which means they’d be made complicit in my evils.
If all I wanted was someone “usable,” I could just go to a slave merchant and buy someone with a high IQ.
But that’s boring. What I want to see —
A person of righteous heart, falling into evil.
I’ve always thought it. The hero in stories, no matter how many times he’s deceived, never loses his good heart.
But what if he kept being immersed in evil? What if he committed evil acts himself — what would happen then?
Heh heh heh… He’d writhe and suffer, no doubt. I want to watch that life from right beside him.
“In that case, I already have someone in mind.”
“Ho… as expected of you. I’ll be looking forward to seeing whom you bring back.”
A wicked grin crept onto Father’s face.
“Then, Father — if you’ll excuse me.”
I bowed and left the room, immediately got myself dressed, and headed out into the city.
“Heh heh heh… BWAHAHAHA…!”
From here, my era begins.
The opening of my magnificent life.
“Let’s go pick you up. My first accomplice.”
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
The very edge of the royal capital. Not an exaggeration to say it’s been cut off entirely from the capital — the filthy town of Woshua.
Drugs, human trafficking, blood matches.
The most despicable, rotted town in this world.
But all of the capital’s darkness had been condensed here, and I was in the underground arena beneath it.
“Do it! KILL HIM!!”
“Right there! Stab him! Cut him in half!!”
Heckles without a shred of morality flew over my head.
In front of me, a man two meters tall.
Horned helmet. Massive axe. Thick iron armor.
My opponent for this match.
“I don’t care if you’re on a winning streak — don’t get cocky, little girl.”
The man’s breath was hot. Until I beat him, he’d been the arena’s top-ranked fighter.
He hated that he’d been overtaken — by a woman.
This match-up had been forced on me from his side.
”…Spare me the speeches. Come at me, already.”
I thought I heard the snap of a vein bursting.
The man fell for my taunt instantly and swept his axe with raw force.
A foolish attack ruled by anger.
He’d probably bulldozed his way through everything until now on power alone.
Against someone with no skill, maybe that worked.
But I am different.
”——[Wild Blade Path].”
“…huh?”
Force directed at the enemy will return to you, without fail.
After dodging the axe, I gave his arm a push to add to the momentum.
The uncontrolled axe sliced clean through his own arm.
“GUAAAAAAH!?”
”…Go quietly, at least.”
“Gngh!? Ahh… ahh…”
To muffle the man’s screams of pain, I thrust my sword through him.
The tip pierced his throat. The floor went dark with blood.
I shook the blood from my beloved sword, sheathed it, and walked out of the still-roaring arena — and the manager was standing at the entrance.
“Oi, Chris. You’ve got a guest.”
”…I don’t have any appointments scheduled.”
“Just come with me! Or I’ll ban you from this place!”
”…Fine.”
A rough way to talk. But I had no choice but to obey.
To live in this place, having lost both my former glory and my station, all I could do was kill people here every day, dye my sword in blood.
How ironic.
That the very evil I loathed and hated was the thing keeping me alive now.
I followed the manager and was led to the VIP-only room.
A room with tasteless, ostentatious decor that punished the eyes. In the leather chair at its center sat…
“…a child?”
“Chris! Watch your tongue!”
“It’s fine. I won’t be offended by something like this. More importantly — Manager, could you leave us alone?”
“O-of course! Ah, no one will come near, please feel free to do whatever you like with her, heh heh… well then…”
The manager nudged me forward and scurried out of the room.
…I’d never seen him grovel like that.
Just how high in station was this boy?
When I looked back at him, he was sighing in something like exasperation.
“Idiot. As if I’d start anything in a place like this.”
“What do you mean?”
“That man assumed I came here to buy you because I wanted a woman, Chris Lagnica — Former Captain of the Holy Knight Order.”
”…!?”
The old title startled me.
It’s been years since I held that role, yet he knows it well.
The boy gestured for me to sit, and sank deeper into his own chair.
“I am Ouga Veret. Eldest son of the Veret ducal house.”
“Wha—!? Truly!?”
“Yes. And here’s my proof — a dagger inscribed with our family crest.”
What he produced was beyond doubt the dagger bearing the crest of House Veret, exactly as I remembered.
To impersonate a noble’s crest is a serious crime. A child wouldn’t carelessly use a forgery.
And if he was tied to House Veret, it would explain how he’d located me.
The Verets specialize in intelligence and primarily handle diplomacy.
With their intelligence apparatus, finding someone of my level would be easy.
Not that anyone would bother with a woman as far fallen as me.
”…So. What business does House Veret have with me? I’m sorry, but I have no intention of responding. I despise you nobles. You don’t need me to spell out why, do you?”
“Of course. Because it was nobles who condemned you and expelled you from the Holy Knights.”
“That’s right. Rotten aristocrats hiding their crimes to line their own pockets!”
As the head of the Holy Knight Order, my role was to judge evil.
I believed that doing so was the path to the citizens’ happiness and peace.
While carrying out my duties, I caught wind of human trafficking. I gathered evidence, seized the scene, then immediately petitioned the king to arrest the nobles involved.
The king does not make wrong choices.
I believed: with this, one more evil would disappear from the kingdom…!
What got driven out was me.
The evidence was buried. The trafficking site was reclassified as “a personnel loan.” And to tie it all up neatly, I was branded a criminal who’d filed false reports.
Stripped of my position as a Holy Knight, with nowhere to live, I drifted into the arena.
My swordcraft, honed for the sake of justice, was now used to sustain evil — and to earn me my next meal. How humiliating…!
Without doing this, I cannot live. The shame of it has been eating away at my heart.
“I learned about that story too. But back then, the head of House Veret — my father — was abroad in a neighboring country. If he’d been in the capital, you would not be here.”
“Hmph, so what? Are you comforting me? It’s too late now. The me of today is just stupid Chris…”
”…Honestly, Chris. I’m disappointed.”
…What?
What did this boy just say…? Disappointed…?
I slammed my clenched fist on the table and glared at him.
But he didn’t look away — even as the table cracked and splinters scattered, he didn’t so much as flinch.
If anything, he sighed again.
“You’re swinging your strength at the mercy of your emotions. Where did the pride of a Holy Knight go?”
”…Shut up! I’m not a Holy Knight anymore—”
“——I admired the Holy Knight you used to be.”
”——”
“The Chris Lagnica who rallied her comrades, who never broke against the Demon Lord’s army, who never bowed her head — I respected her.”
”…Aah… aaah… stop it, please…”
Don’t speak of me in such dazzling words.
The person you’re describing is past me. The me I gave up on and threw away.
I left her in the past, to drum into the miserable present me what I am.
“I can’t go back…! Chris Lagnica is dead…!”
“Then you can start over.”
”…Eh?”
“If she’s dead — no, precisely because you threw it all away — you can begin again from here.”
His warm hand cupped my cheek.
The face I’d been hanging down was lifted upward — toward him.
“Come with me. I’ll carve out a place where your justice can shine.”
Drop after drop, tears rolled down my cheeks.
They wouldn’t stop. As if washing all the filth inside me out into the open.
It was pathetic, it was wretched — and yet they wouldn’t stop falling.
He gently brushed each tear away with a finger, and wrapped my hands in both of his.
“Show me that brilliance again, beside me. My knight, Chris Lagnica.”
In that instant, my life sprouted. My heart trembled with joy.
I understood instinctively: the one I am meant to serve is not the kingdom. It is this man.
“——I swear, my sword will swing for you, Lord Ouga.”