Volume 11 - Epilogue

Epilogue: Intentions 

“The important thing was to have the loreleis dress up like that,” I explained, pointing to the loreleis reflected in the distance. “We talked about how mankind may have been created earlier, right? Well, just like there are beastmen, dragonewts, elves, and a variety of other races on the side of mankind, demons may be another race created by someone, one that mankind simply hadn’t encountered before.” 

“Now that you bring it up, we did talk about that,” Liscia said as if she had just remembered, and I nodded. 

“Someday, when mankind re-encounters the demons, how strong a sense of taboo we feel towards them, and, conversely, how willing we are to accept them will decide whether the negotiations succeed or fail. Appearances will be one of the big things. I’m sad to say it, but first impressions mean a lot to people.” 

“My first impression of you was ‘An exhausted young man.’ You even had bags under your eyes.” 

“...Well, that’s an impression from external appearances, too, right?” 

It told me that bags under a person’s eyes left a strong impression on Liscia. 

The result was that, in addition to kobolds, there was an ogre-like race with horns on their foreheads, and a devil or vampire-like race with bat wings. There were also reports of “ones that looked like giant suits of full-mail armor,” but I couldn’t trust the veracity of these, so I set them aside for the time being. Regardless, I now knew the general features of the demons. 

“Beings that look like ogres and devils are a source of fear for people in this world. In the Republic, I saw gorilla-like ogres attacking people myself. Those ones lacked intelligence, but they were pretty scary. The reason we gave Hal that oni headband, and people carve devil faces on their shields is because of the preconception that they’re scary, right?” 

“Yeah.” Liscia nodded. “That kind of equipment exists to intimidate the enemy.”