Hi guys, author here! Please share your thoughts in the comments and reviews. And if you like it, don't forget to drop some stones — they're a great motivator!
--------------------
After the whole situation at the Spade Kingdom was under control, and the Captains felt like it was all right to give the reins back to the Spade Kingdom royalty, everyone from the Clover and the Heart Kingdom started their preparations to go back.
Sekke waited for the Heart Queen and Mereoleon to finish their talks with Yuno's mother.
The two were royalty as well, so it made sense that these two took the initiative to finish the formalities.
Sekke and the rest of the Black Bulls were standing a bit away from them while keeping an eye on Adramelech, who decided to go with the Black Bulls.
It was the only place he knew that already had devils living with people, and he was curious about Sekke and the other strong humans he mentioned. To him, it seemed like going with them would be the most interesting.
While waiting, Adramelch looked at the dead Dark Triad members, whose bodies were being taken away by the Spade Kingdom soldiers and looked towards Sekke.
"...Sekke Bronzaza," called the highest ranking devil.
"Hm? Need something?" asked Sekke.
The rest of the black bulls looked at the devil curiously as well, wondering if the devil had some plans to mess with them.
"I don't think that you, in particular, would be in any danger, but I should still warn you so that I won't get blamed in the future."
Sekke's curiosity increased at the devil's words.
"You have neutralised the threats of the devils and these so-called Dark Triad, but you should still keep an eye out for Lucius Zogratis."
"Hm? Another threat?" muttered Magna.
"Wait. Zogratis? Like the Zogratis from the Dark Triads?" asked Nacht, his expression turning tense in an instant.
"Yes. I don't know what he is to them, but that man did introduce himself as Lucius Zogratis. He is a devil host as well. Astaroth's host, to be precise, a highest-ranking devil as well," explained Adramelech.
He knew that he had earlier agreed to help Lucius. Still, the man's plan was totally foiled by Sekke, and just earlier today, he had decided to join forces with Sekke Bronzaza, as he seemed more interesting and far more powerful than the other party.
The Black Bulls, who just got the news of a new secret enemy, were shocked. They just finished a grand battle, and now, somehow, somewhere, there exists another devil host that they needed to defeat.
"Adramelech, do you know where this man is?" asked Sekke.
"Hm...if I remember correctly, he told me he would be in Clover Kingdom....wait, you guys are from the Clover Kingdom as well, right?" said Adramelech as he realised mid-sentence.
"Wait, wait, wait!!! A devil host and an enemy is living in the Clover Kingdom, and we didn't get any news about that?!?! He is related to the Dark Triad, right?!" asked Asta.
"He is a Zogratis, so he should be....But I didn't hear about the activities of any Lucius Zogratis during my time here as a spy...." said Nacht.
"Why do you know all this? By your tone, I am guessing you had a nice long talk with this Lucius guy," asked Sekke.
"Well, the time he made the contract with Astaroth, he predicted the future and how it was going to unfold. I thought that he was interesting, so I went with the flow and decided to follow what he said....though you happened, and all those future predictions were destroyed," said Adramelech and pointed towards Sekke.
"Hm? What do you mean by that? I feel like you praised me just now, but what the hell did this man predict? And how did this guy predict?" asked Sekke.
"I was praising you. As for what and how he predicted. Everything that has happened today, apart from you killing all the devils, was predicted by the man. Most things that happened in recent times in your world were also predicted by him, and all this has been in his perfect control. If not for you being a massive variable in this situation, I would not have decided to follow you. And precisely because you caused such a huge issue in his predictions, you need to keep your guard up. All of you," warned Adramelech.
The Black Bulls looked at Adramelech with a serious look on their faces. A man who predicted and had the future move accordingly. Now that might be a troublesome opponent.
"You still didn't answer. How did he predict the future? What are his goals? How strong is he?" asked Nacht.
"The devil he contracted, Astaroth, has [Time Magic]. Once they made a contract, Lucius Zogratis could predict the future and thus could alter it by changing specific events as well. As for his goals, he told me that he wanted to bring absolute peace to the world," said Adramelech.
"...That doesn't sound too bad," muttered Vanessa.
"He will first destroy everything and everyone in this world and then recreate them as he imagines perfect beings to be and rule over them in such a way that no hardship is faced by anyone," added Adramelech.
The Black Bulls facepalmed at those words.
'Another nutjob.'
"...Can't we get to fight some relatively sane people for once?" complained Noelle.
"What sort of true peace is that?" complained Asta.
"Don't know? It must be one of those for the greater good type of shit..." replied Sekke.
"...Should we inform the others?" asked Nacht.
The Black Bulls looked at the other people and wondered if they should jump in and destroy the festive mood.
"Better ruin their happiness now than let them blame us for not telling them earlier. Leona-san will kill me if I don't tell her about such a 'fun' opportunity," said Sekke.
"We need to get to the bottom of this and finish this before this new bastard does something bad. Lucky for us, the dude is in Clover Kingdom. Let's inform the Wizard King and give him a heads up," said Asta smugly.
The rest of them nodded and thought that letting the Wizard King know about the situation, so that he could protect the citizens, just in case, would be good.
"Heh, good thing the Wizard King stayed behind. He will easily deal with this devil host," said Asta.
"True. He only lost last time because he was made to focus on protecting the citizens during the fight. His magic is....wait a minute, Adramelech," called Sekke.
"Hm?"
"What did you say Astaroth's magic was?" asked Sekke.
"[Time Magic]" replied Adramelech.
Sekke and Nacht stopped and blinked their eyes in surprise.
"Huh? Weird. The Wizard King uses the same magic," said Asta.
Hearing his words, the other Black Bulls started thinking as well and soon a small realisation filled with horror came to their minds.
"Vice Captain Nacht."
"Yes, Grand Magic Knight Sekke."
"Tell me that I might be overthinking."
"What a coincidence, I was going to ask you the same thing as well."
"Hahaha."
"Hahaha."
The two of them started laughing uncomfortably.
Soon, the uncomfortable feeling spread to the other Black Bulls who were having the same thoughts as the two of them.
"Huh? Why are you two laughing like that? What happened?" asked Asta.
"Oi, idiot. Put two and two together," scolded Liebe.
"Huh? What is it?"
"What sort of magic does the wizard king and the devil use?"
"Time Magic."
"And where has this devil host been hiding?"
"Clover Kingdom."
"So...." said Liebe and trailed off at the end.
Asta thought for a while, and soon his jaw started dropping. He looked at the rest of them before his gaze fixated on Nacht.
"You don't mean that the Wizard King...."
"Just a possibility, but a strong possibility. To have all his predictions under his control....the man has to be in quite an influential position to monitor and control many events," explained Nacht.
"...The Wizard King skipped out on a lot of work to monitor the events going on in the kingdom. I would like to believe that he was only interested in enjoying the magic and seeing the growth of the kingdom, but on the off chance...." added Sekke.
"Wait, wait, wait! Are you being serious right now? We are talking about the Wizard King. The same wizard king who sacrificed his life to protect the citizens of the Clover Kingdom during the elf invasion," retorted Asta.
This made them silent. They could not retort to that claim. Julius Novachrono has on multiple occasions acted with his life on the line to protect the citizens and the kingdom. Be it his Magic Knight days or his Wizard King days. The man has built up quite a bit of merit under his name.
"...It's hard to imagine him being an enemy, but still, we cannot let a suspicion go unchecked. Remember how things went with Captain Vangeance and Pattoli. Undercover operations require the person to gain trust first before launching a lethal strike. Until we are certain about the real identity of this new devil host, we cannot drop our guard and blindly trust a potential suspect," said Nacht.
Asta looked conflicted at those words, and so were the others. None wanted to believe that the Wizard King could be an enemy in disguise.
"Don't be so depressed, guys. There is a high chance that there is someone else who could be a devil host. We are just basing a guess because they both have the same type of magic. Magic is not so restrictive that only a single being could have a type of magic. Sure, there might be cases that we know only a single person with a particular type of magic, but that doesn't mean that there could not be others," said Sekke, trying to cheer the group up.
"...True! It must just be a coincidence! We just need to find the other person," said Asta.
The others nodded hopefully, feeling a bit calmer.
Suddenly, Sekke raised his hand, and from his finger a mana bullet launched.
All of them looked at the bullet fly through the sky and break the communicator in Nozel's hand.
Nozel and the others got alerted, ready to fight, thinking that there might still be an enemy remaining.
But once they followed the attack's direction, they spotted Sekke and the others with the Dark Lord slowly waving at them with a smile and gesturing for them to come closer.
For some reason, they could tell that Sekke's smile hid more troubles for them.