I Was Told to Drink Poison, So I Drank It - 46 - Betrayed after having hope
“Prince Lawrence…”
I quietly said his name.
When he suddenly appeared, the women looked shocked.
“Wh-Who is that!?”
“He just appeared out of nowhere…”
Everyone spoke in shaky voices, saying what they thought.
Then, one person said quietly,
“A monster…”
Everyone looked at her in surprise.
I also felt that things were turning bad, so I tried to push Prince Lawrence aside and step forward.
At that moment, a mother with three children shouted in a trembling voice,
“He’s from the Demon Tribe, isn’t he!?”
“─”
I opened my eyes wide at those words.
After saying that, the woman must have really believed it. She panicked, got scared, and yelled at us sharply.
“A demon!! He’s a demon!! A demon has come with magical beasts!!”
“Hey, stop shouting so loud!”
“He clearly doesn’t look human. Calm down!”
Others tried to calm her, but the woman in panic couldn’t be stopped.
As if she was blaming everyone for not realizing it sooner, she kept shouting with strong energy.
“He suddenly appeared, didn’t he!? He’s not human!!”
“That’s true, but…”
“He’s leading the beasts!! Lady Chalize… that man is a fake!! He’s tricking us!!”
At that moment, the woman suddenly stopped talking.
Then, as if she just realized something, she lowered her voice and said,
“We have to kill them.”
“…”
She was too scared, confused, and upset to think properly.
She looked at us and quietly said,
“We have to kill them. That’s right. If we kill them, the magical beasts will go away!”
“That’s nonsense!”
One person disagreed, but another agreed.
“But it’s worth a try.”
They started to argue with each other.
The woman with the children looked at us with shining eyes.
She had no weapon, but some of the others were carrying swords.
“Please calm down! Right now, we need to defeat the magical beasts. We can’t start fighting each other here—”
“You’re trying to trick us!! We won’t fall for it!!”
The woman interrupted me. I couldn’t continue speaking.
(This is not the time for this…!)
As I was feeling frustrated that things weren’t going well…
A growling sound echoed.
“Vooohh…”
And it was very close.
“…!!”
Everyone gasped.
When I looked around, I saw that a large number of magical beasts had surrounded us.
They must have been drawn to the woman’s loud voice.
The beasts were growling low, looking at us with threatening eyes.
Their bodies were covered in dark magical energy, so we couldn’t see them clearly.
But their red eyes were glowing sharply.
The woman who had been shouting at us earlier screamed and collapsed in fear.
The people around her were also too scared to move.
“N-No way… It can’t be…”
The woman said in a shaking voice.
Then she quickly turned and looked at me.
“Y-You’ll help us, right? Lady Chalize… you defeated a magical beast just now, didn’t you…?”
“─…………”
Her voice was shaking, and what she was saying now was completely different from before. I felt deep sadness.
The people around us also seemed to have thoughts about her sudden change in attitude.
The man who had disagreed with killing us shouted at her angrily.
“You’re the one who shouted and brought the beasts here!! It’s your fault—do something!!”
“T-That’s not…”
“Y-Yeah, that’s right! It’s your fault! You stay behind and stop them! I don’t want to die here!! We ran all the way here!!”
The others grabbed her arms and tried to force her to stand up, and the children watching started to cry.
It was a horrible scene.
(…First, we need to drive the magical beasts away. Then, secure an escape route, and after that—)
No… there was no escape.
With the city gates closed, the only path left for us was to defeat all the magical beasts.
Do I still have enough holy power…?
I thought about how much holy power I had left, and I realized it was hopeless.
(If I can buy some time… and have everyone climb over the gates and escape the city? That might work.)
Thinking that, I looked up again and took a step forward.
Just as I tried to speak to the arguing people, Prince Lawrence stopped me with his hand and spoke to them.
“How ugly… humans really are.”
“Wha…”
Everyone opened their eyes wide at his words.
They turned to look at Prince Lawrence in surprise.
What he said made it sound like he wasn’t human. Their faces slowly began to show fear.
“No way… you really are a demon…?”
Someone whispered.
Prince Lawrence didn’t answer.
“You blame others for everything, force them to carry your guilt, and then judge them unfairly. I believe that a person’s true nature comes out in extreme situations. And your true nature is far uglier and more rotten than I thought.”
“What are you…”
Even though he said such cruel things, they couldn’t say anything back because of fear.
If Prince Lawrence really was a demon, and if he controlled the magical beasts, they were too scared to risk saying anything.
Even I… couldn’t argue with his words.
Because even I couldn’t say that the people of Victoire had good hearts anymore.
But still, now is not the time to argue.
As I thought that, I suddenly felt something strange.
Even though we were surrounded by so many magical beasts, none of them were moving.
(Why…?)
As I was wondering, Prince Lawrence quietly spoke again.
“No, maybe that’s not it. The ones with kind hearts… were wiped out first. They were the ones attacked and lost. That’s why, in the end, only people like you are left.”
“S-So what if that’s true!?”
One woman answered back, scared but still trying to argue.
Her voice was shaky and high-pitched, but she clearly spoke to Prince Lawrence.
“You think we can survive just by being kind and nice!? The world isn’t that easy!! You have to step on others to move up or you won’t survive!! We don’t even know if we’ll be alive tomorrow!! We have no choice if we want to live!! Being nice won’t feed us anymore—not in this country!!”
Hearing her painful voice, I lowered my eyelashes.
It’s always the country’s policies and the royal family’s decisions that ruin the hearts of the people.
“We have to become inhuman and forget that evil is evil… or we won’t survive!”