"I wasn't aware that was an option."

"That's what I said! I'd been assuming that demons were, like, a species, that spawned a Lord every now and then, but apparently there are just two summoned folks. How would you distinguish two summoned folks duking it out over the fate of Elhom IV with superpowers if they both just looked like people?"

"Well, I mean, in the end, if one wins and the other loses, I suppose you could tell who the winner was, by seeing whether a lot of people die on one continent or almost everybody dies everywhere?  But I've never heard of there being an ambiguity like that.  So far as I can tell from history, on the last two occasions that we have lots of surviving records for, people knew who the Summoned Hero was, once they declared themselves.  This void dragon is sounding less credible by the minute.  - Though, yeah, it's not that there's a species of demons, it's just that 'Demon Lord' is the title of the leader of the faction that tries to kill everyone, and any particular species like Drow Elves that mostly go along with it tend to be called demon-aligned by people who aren't demonic."  A note of uneasiness plucks at Haroun, and his conscience compels him to say it.  "Uh, the fact that the Demon Lord is able to fight nose-to-nose with the Summoned Hero could suggest that the Demon Lord was also from a higher world, though I don't think I've heard - anybody point that out - and it's not impossible that facts got concealed for some unknown reason - look, wouldn't God have told you if that was true?  Seriously, this is just not very credible especially when you add to it the claim to be able to control dungeon cores!"

"God was in a hurry and kind of generally sketchy. In fairness I did ask the void dragon if there was any reason to believe he was telling me the truth and he said no so I'm certainly considering the possibility that some or all of it was a fabrication. It did seem - illuminating? And he didn't hurt us and he could have. But a fabrication could also seem illuminating and he could have other reasons not to hurt us besides just wanting me to go forth better-informed, I know."

"I mean, the obvious reason is for the Demon Lord's spies to try persuading the Summoned Hero that she's actually the Demon Lord, and see how much trouble they can get her into."  Haroun smiles without being able to help himself, despite the larger situation not being funny at all.

What Haroun wants to do is demand that Bella reassure him that of course she wouldn't side with the Demon Lord, even if that was an option for her.  What he needs to do... is think out from scratch whether that would be likely, given what he's seen of her so far.  If he just asked, she'd know what he wanted to hear.

"I don't have any incentive to declare myself the demon lord unless I'm surrounded by people who have for some reason decided they're loyal to the demon lord, in which case it's really interesting to know that they might believe me if I said I was the demon lord. My takeaway here is that these might not be actual things. If demons aren't a species, then it might just be a matter of, for instance, who tells the demon-y people they're the demon lord first."

"And if nobody says they're the Demon Lord, a couple of foreigners live happily ever after in our world?  Because that absolutely sounds like an outcome we should be trying for, if there's any way we can possibly try to..."  Haroun trails off.  This is admittedly a terrifically good explanation for why you shouldn't tell the foreigners that they have the option of being a Demon Lord.

"Maybe? Anyway, the void dragon wants or claims to want things to go differently than before and claims that there have been an absolute shit ton of Hero/Demon matchups and if the hero wins too many times in a row the demons start getting stronger till one wins and everything sooner or later gets back on track till the world looks kind of like this as a natural consequence of your dungeon based economic and ecological situation. We did not resolve the question of how exactly the demons start getting stronger when being one is optional, he said, uh, this is a paraphrase, something like 'if there's always one of each, probably the process that brings them in can foretell which is which even if it seems to them they have a free choice'."

"Who the goatmanure is this void dragon supposed to be?  If they'd pretended to be a High Elf, it might at least be credible coming from one of those."

"What, you want his name? He said he was called Skagganauk."

"Never heard of him."

"Well, he was a fuckoff huge absence-of-vision in a dragony shape and he had a lot of treasure and he told me he was the final boss of the final floor of the dungeon of - I wasn't actively taking notes yet, the dungeon that was created with the world or something like that."

(Bella sees Haroun's face go slightly slack and slightly frozen in the same position it was previously occupying.)

"Is that more recognizable as a claim on the void dragon's part than is 'void dragon' or 'Skagganauk' somehow?"

"If I wasn't hanging around with you I'd immediately say the person I was talking to was insane.  There's a couple of old-old dungeons on the north and south poles of the planet - uh, I don't know if that term would come across, I mean that if you drew a line through the rotational axis of the planet, both of those dungeons would be where the line intercepted the planet's surface.  A couple of orichalcum-plate teams tried both dungeons, never came out again, people pretty much leave them alone.  Which is sort of anomalous because dungeons collapse if nobody goes into them for long enough?  I just figure there's some underground race that delves both places.  Anyway there's a theory, which before today I would have said was not very credible, that those are two different entrances to the same dungeon and they both go down to the world's center.  Well, I guess that's at least a credible monster to know things and be able to do things, assuming you believe in the monster in the first place, which on the one hand might well talk to you if it talked to anyone, but on the other hand... I guess mental illusions wouldn't work on you, would they.  On the other hand, purely 『photon』 and 『vibration』 illusions."

"I don't think it would be fair to assume someone reporting that they were told by a third party that the third party was anything whatsoever must be crazy, even if they aren't me! Anyway, the compulsiony feel from the dungeon core didn't appear to rely on light or sound."

"That's fair, I'm - possibly not thinking completely clearly right now.  Some of these ideas are a little upsetting, and I am, unfairly, considering you having just come to a really strange new world which was the point of everything you told me, I am unfairly upset about the fact that you seem to be taking them seriously and, you know, this means a bunch of people might die, from my standpoint, but I realize you have to take the claims seriously anyways which I suppose is what makes it work as a trap and thank you for not just saying nothing to me I do appreciate it even if I don't sound like it -"  Haroun stops for a breath.  "What do you mean, the compulsiony feel didn't rely on light or sound?"

"Uh, I went up to what I assume was the dungeon core and it felt... compelled? I myself was not compelled. I can't totally rule out that there is some kind of creepy infrasound which on top of context cues would make me feel this way but it didn't register as a noise and the things I was seeing were 'cool-looking probable-core' and then the compulsion appeared to make the core do some magic that made a portal dome thing around me so the dragon and I could converse."

"...somebody threw some compulsion magic into the room, focused on a goblin or whatever, while casting the illusion of a dungeon core being nearby?  I - I guess the big question is who has an incentive to lie about all this, in order to trick you into joining the Demon Lord, who wouldn't just kill the Summoned Hero if they had that much capability for setting up a trap while she was still weak."  Haroun swallows.  The truth here isn't something he finds particularly palatable, but it's also obvious.  "I think you may need to be talking to somebody older and more experienced than me.  I'm sorry.  Please don't decide to kill everybody."

"I don't want to kill anybody, Haroun."

Healhealhealhealheal
Resurrectresurrectresurrectresurrectresurrect

His mind might just be selectively recalling memories that confirm what he wants to believe.  Or Bella could have just been trying to revive a couple of potential allies to help her fight, not acting out of compassion.

"I believe you," Haroun says anyways.  He isn't lying so much as finishing the words early.

...Bella also dove into that fight into the first place, didn't she?  She told him what the 'void dragon' said.

Haroun can recognize when his mind is trying to argue itself into something.  There's a Skill for recognizing it, which Haroun has at Lv. 3.

He knows the remedy as well.  He needs to review everything he remembers Bella saying or doing.  Not just the good parts.

Pending that full review, is there anything that makes Bella be an obvious Demon Lord, if he phrases the mental question that way?

The mental question doesn't come back with an obvious answer.  Which doesn't prove much.  Haroun knows he didn't want a positive answer to that question.

"Do you have - other questions?" Haroun says.  "I would like to think."

"Whereabouts do lionkin mostly live?"

"I think they most prefer relatively warmer temperatures, so a little south of here to a long ways north of here?  I don't have the locations of any major settlements memorized."  Haroun doesn't ask why.  She can tell him if it's important and he has a lot of other things to think about.

"Okay. Go ahead and think." She scribbles in the notebook, attempting to steer her horse with her knees.