“Two,” Burn noted in his mind. “Next?”
Finn nodded. “The forr Pri Minister’s death a few years ago was labeled an ‘accident’—conveniently after he secured his son’s position as his successor. People say Queen Celia had a hand in it.”
“After that, Lance Inkor beca the current Pri Minister’s chosen candidate,” Yvain continued.
“Three,” Burn leaned back in his seat, tossing the docunt onto the table with a flick of his wrist. “Princess Willow and her old man died in the Wintersin Civil War. If the Pri Minister put his trust in Lance, then Lance must have been the one who pulled it off.”
Silence fell over the room.
“What about Queen Celia? The First Prince’s Faction’s biggest involvent this whole ti was the death of the forr Pri Minister,” Yvain reminded them.
“Four,” Burn said, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees. “The forr Pri Minister had to die because he’d never allow an illegitimate prince to rise to power. That was his whole grudge against Rafaye in the first place—he barely escaped illegitimacy himself. The forr King only married his mother after she was already pregnant.”
“You’re saying it was Lance?” Finn asked, spelling it out plainly. “Lance helped Celia kill the forr Pri Minister?”
No matter how one looked at it, Lance Inkor was the center of it all. All of the deaths were there to give him advantages.
“Don’t you see?” Burn said, tapping the docunts Tristan and Yvolt had brought in. “The inventor of the Vision Resonator was hidden so securely that even they took out the heavy gun to eliminate all leaks.”
He didn’t wait for a response, “The trinkets the Demon Lord sent to Shorof, the regalia that poisoned my father—those can all be categorized as artifacts, intricate designs with a purpose. And then there’s the Vision Resonator, a device capable of controlling Mana without Vision.” He turned to Yvain. “You felt it, didn’t you? Sothing… off.”
Yvain stiffened, his unexplainable discomfort. “I—I thought I was imagining it,” he admitted. “We were supposed to focus on invading Inkia, but I kept getting distracted by sothing I couldn’t explain.”
“Well, it wasn’t nothing,” Burn said. “And in the end, it’s all connected.”
“Thank you for trusting , Masters,” Yvain said, his voice steady but tinged with relief. He knew neither of his masters had ever doubted him.
“You’ve earned it,” Burn replied. “Sending spies out so quickly, prioritizing the right leads—it’s no small feat. And in under three days since we left you? That’s impressive insight.”
All this information wasn’t available to him before. It’s either he didn’t care, or it slipped between the cracks. After all, in the previous loops, he was focusing only on the urgent, bigger view.
Yvain smiled, brushing off the praise. “With your resources, what can’t I find?”
Morgan, seated beside him, ruffled his hair with an affectionate grin. “You’re too modest,” she said, her pride in him unmistakable. Burn’s expression, though more restrained, carried the sa sentint.
“Now,” Morgan said, snapping her fingers.
The docunts rose into the air, neatly organizing themselves to make way for the transparent screens she’d conjured. Images of the Vision Resonator, the regalia, and Shorof’s trinkets floated into view, glowing faintly with magic.
“Even with all my knowledge, these devices feel... foreign,” Morgan mused. “Not Outsider foreign, though. More… modern.”
Burn’s gaze hardened. Modern. That word carried weight in Netherre, a world caught in the awkward flux between tradition and the influx of Outsider technology. The latter, powered by the sun itself, dwarfed anything mana-based in scope and efficiency. But the Vision Resonator? That was local. A breakthrough born of this world, corrupted or not.
“If the Outsiders hadn’t arrived,” Burn muttered, “the Vision Resonator could’ve triggered a new technological era for Netherre.”
Morgan sneered. “And yet, it turns out to be a creation of the Demon Lord.”
Her words hung in the air like a storm cloud. Burn could feel the weight of her unspoken frustration—the centuries she’d spent purging corruption from this world, the betrayal she’d endured. For a mont, a shadow passed over her face, a thought too dangerous to share just yet. She kept it to herself.
Burn didn’t press her. He leaned forward, eyes fixed on the images before him, already piecing together the next move.
“Anyway, as we all know, we might as well lump the suspicious deaths of recent world rulers under the Demon Lord’s handiwork,” Burn said, his tone flat but laced with dry cynicism.
The forr Pri Minister of Inkia’s death? Sure, they had their theories. But without the Vision Resonator tying Lance Inkor to any of this chaos, it would’ve been impossible.
“Wintersin’s Crown Prince died during a civil war a few years ago,” Yvain began, leaning forward as the pieces started falling into place. “And guess who just happened to witness his death? Lance Inkor’s uncle. Princess Willow’s full-blood brother. Oh, and let’s not forget—it’s the sa war that killed her and her father.”
Burn didn’t flinch. “Five,” he said, nodding. “Go on.”
Yvain continued, “King Lazarus Lumine rose to power in Luminus Kingdom after years of being stifled by the Pope of Luminus. With the Pope out of the way, he had free rein to steer the kingdom’s political tides. He even married his daughter, Bianca Lumine, to Duke Padparadscha. She then beca Saint Lucia’s headmaster too.”
Finn frowned. “But doesn’t it seem odd? Princess Bianca marrying into a neutral faction?”
Burn’s eyes darkened, his gaze drilling into Yvain’s hesitant expression. “Six?”
Yvain hesitated, then shook his head. “It fits the pattern, but I don’t believe Princess Bianca and Duke Padparadscha are…”
“Don’t let personal ties cloud your judgnt,” Burn snapped. “Just because you’re friends with their son doesn’t an they’re exempt.”
Yvain stiffened under the reprimand. “Understood, Master.” He swallowed, then added, “And… she’s also one of the founding mbers of the Democratic Teachers. They’ve been supplying Princess Nahwu with her trinkets.”
Finn jumped in, brows furrowed. “The Democratic Teachers? They’re a group of educators friendly with the Outsiders. No clear ties to Lance Inkor… until…” he paused, letting the gravity of the next statent sink in. “Turns out, they’re sponsored by a gentlen’s club. A club owned by Lance Inkor.”
Burn exhaled sharply, closing his eyes as his thoughts coalesced. In three years, the Loneborn rchant Group—the group Lance was deeply tied to—would be revealed as the Outsiders’ largest custor. Larger even than Velaryon.
And he couldn’t forget: the descent of the White Dwarf—the world-destroying weapon sent to kill him—wasn’t random. It was triggered because he’d seized control of Inkia and Luminus, the base of the Loneborn rchant Group’s operations.
“Six,” Burn concluded, his voice heavy with finality. “There’s your answer.”
Lance Inkor. The second Demon Lord. The web of power, death, and manipulation? It all led back to him.
But him specifically?
It all ca down to one detail: Burn rembered Lance Inkor should’ve been dead. The mont he conquered Inkia, Lance’s death was so utterly unremarkable, so pathetically unflashy, that Burn barely spared it a second thought in any of his loops. The na simply slipped through the cracks every ti.
And that was the point, wasn’t it? The second Demon Lord had been hiding from him all along—intentionally, ticulously. It was almost funny in hindsight. The clues were there, sure, but just vague enough to slip by unnoticed.
After all, if he was the Demon Lord, changing his identity wouldn’t exactly be a challenge. Faking his age? Child’s play. Killing his own people? Barely worth a ntion. No, the hard part was staying unremarkable. And he had mastered it.
How exactly had Lance managed to kill the Pope of Luminus? Stage the “accidental” death of Inkia’s forr Pri Minister? Engineer the Crown Prince of Wintersin’s demise in the middle of a civil war?
And what about Yvain’s father? The late Elven King? Was the demon king soone with specialties in cursed artifacts and devices and used it to quietly assassinate them?
The questions hung in the air, heavy and damning, until Gawain finally broke the silence. He raised his head, his expression twisted into sothing dark and ugly.
“Your Majesty,” Gawain said, his voice quiet but cutting, “I understand why you called now.”
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