27.
“Listen carefully.”
“I don’t know what was discussed up above.”
“But one thing has been relayed to us for certain.”
“One hour. In one hour, Arma will move.”
“Arma isn’t moving to raze the battlefield.”
“It seems Arma intends to ‘clean up.’”
“The situation on this battlefield is over.”
“The cleanup begins in one hour.”
“So get off the battlefield, quickly.”
There was no time to answer every word coming over the radio.
It was not an attack meant to kill the opponent.
It was simply that if they could not endure it, they would die.
“Don’t make me laugh.”
The opponent was enjoying himself.
There was no room to give him the reaction he wanted.
He had to think quickly.
“…Phew.”
“Sejin, will this be all right?”
“I can’t be certain.”
“To begin with, it’s difficult to reach an answer when we don’t even know what the other side is really thinking.”
It was not meant to kill, but merely to confirm.
It was for confirmation, but that did not mean it was safe.
Quite the opposite.
If they could not withstand it, they would die.
“This is why demons are…”
“Haha.”
The opponent was enjoying himself.
This entire situation was nothing more than amusement, a game to them.
Because he was not ignorant of demons, he could understand that mentality all too clearly, which made it all the more so.
“What a troublesome bastard.”
What they needed was not to kill the opponent, but to subdue him.
Since killing him was impossible, they had to subdue him and leave the battlefield quickly.
Before Arma moved.
“We’ll return within the target time as best we can.”
“So prepare accordingly.”
“…What’s the situation?”
“Confronting the otherworlder in question.”
“The opponent is currently demanding a fight as a form of amusement.”
“I intend to subdue him as much as possible and return.”
“…”
The radio did not continue.
Only the crackle of static and, between it, the sound of someone clicking their tongue could be heard.
He picked up a stone and threw it toward the opponent.
The moment the stone clearly passed beyond the opponent, he used his ability.
“Position Exchange.”
28.
When the stone flew beyond him, it had turned into a person.
No, the positions of the stone and the opponent had changed.
“Position exchange, is it!”
The opponent silently leveled his weapon.
A weapon he had seen for the first time since coming to this world.
Something was fired from within it.
He wondered if it used magic, but it was not magic.
With a small movement of the hand, the contents inside were fired.
He knew that their power was far from ordinary.
And so he blocked them.
He cut them down and attacked the opponent’s body.
“What is that weapon called?”
“…It’s a weapon called a gun.”
“This one is a handgun.”
“And this is…”
The weapon called a gun, and another weapon he took out that might also be a gun.
He aimed it.
“This is rapid fire.”
“…I see.”
It did not fire just one at a time, but continued firing.
He could tell the opponent had judged that cutting them all down would be difficult.
He laughed.
Because he understood the opponent’s intent.
And then he moved his tail.
“I told you.”
“I was originally a Demon King.”
“The seat of Demon King is not something one can obtain easily.”
“You stand at their peak and command them as a monarch.”
With his tail, he cut down everything flying toward him, and they all fell.
The opponent did not panic.
He merely watched calmly.
“Do you have anything else?”
He was looking forward to it.
To what would come next.
But nothing came.
The opponent was staring somewhere.
Where?
Behind him.
“…Behind me?”
He looked back and thought.
At first, there had been two of them.
And when he had fought after switching places with the stone, there had been one.
Then where was the remaining one?
Naturally, they must have been in the same place from the beginning.
Behind him from the very start.
“Well now, it seems I let my guard down without realizing it.”
29.
“I, I caught him!”
“W-what do we do now?”
They had used binding magic to render him unable to move.
If he was the Demon King, he could tear through the magic and move, but he did not.
“We’re going back quickly.”
“We don’t have time.”
“What happens once time passes?”
“What exactly happens when those Arma guys start moving?”
There was no one to answer that question right now.
There were only people in a hurry.
“Can’t you answer me?”
“It’s not that I can’t answer you. It’s that there’s no time to answer.”
“First, with this motorcycle… You need to hold onto him properly.”
“Ah, yes!”
On the motorcycle, as that thing was called, three people—more precisely, two people—rode, while one remained bound.
With a loud roar, it began to move.
Two people were startled, and one person moved while keeping track of the time.
“What’s the situation?”
A voice came from somewhere.
He grabbed something and answered.
“We’ve succeeded in subduing him for now.”
“We plan to return like this.”
“And Arma?”
“They don’t seem to be moving yet.”
“For now, only orders to evacuate are being issued to the living.”
“Those bastards… are planning to use the bugs.”
“Bugs?”
“…”
“Hurry.”
“We don’t know when or where they’ll use the bugs, so make sure you don’t get caught up in it.”
“…Understood.”
30.
“…”
“Is something the matter?”
“You’ve had a frightening look on your face for a while now.”
“My apologies.”
“I was checking the situation on the battlefield.”
“It seems the issue with that otherworlder has been resolved.”
“Is he dead?”
“No, he’s alive.”
“Someone who was fighting the otherworlder subdued him and has him in custody.”
“A mercenary, is it? What will you do about that otherworlder?”
“Don’t tell me you’re asking us to take charge of him?”
“…No, I didn’t expect that either.”
“Someone will have to take responsibility.”
“But I know that someone is not you.”
“The person who will likely take responsibility is…”
Only one person came to mind.
Aside from that one, there was no one else.
“Our preparations are complete.”
“We can send the bugs to the battlefield at any time.”
“As it happens, there no longer seem to be any living things on the battlefield.”
“I think now would not be a bad time. What do you think?”
“…Let us begin.”
“Very well.”
31.
“…What is that?”
“Something is falling from the sky in droves.”
“It would be best not to go near them.”
“Those things are dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“Corpse-eating bugs.”
“I don’t know what their official name is, but we all call them that.”
“Bugs, corpse-eating bugs, corpse bugs… They’re called by many names, but in the end, the fact that they are nothing more than bugs that eat corpses does not change.”
“Bugs that eat corpses. Are those bugs widespread?”
“No. In this world, Arma is the only one that handles those bugs.”
“Arma raises them.”
“They’re always used to clean up battlefields.”
“Cleanup of the battlefield.”
Countless bugs came down from the sky.
Bugs whose source could not be determined moved across the battlefield.
Their purpose was only one thing.
To clean up the corpses piled on the battlefield.
“If we had been late, we would have become food for those bugs as well.”
“Usually, people die on the battlefield because they are killed fighting one another, but when that cleanup begins, if you still haven’t gotten off the battlefield, you become bug food and die just like that.”
“And if those bugs eat you, you can’t even return home.”
Those who died on the battlefield could not return to their families’ arms.
They were simply eaten by the bugs, leaving only bones behind, and there was no way to know whose they were.
They could return, but not in the form the bereaved would want.
All that remained were unidentifiable white bones.
“…”
“That’s a depressing story.”
“Don’t you think we need to shake it off a little?”
“Here and now?”
“Until that cleanup is over, there’s nothing we can do. What are we supposed to do?”
“A board game?”
“Like hell we will.”
“So what is it?”
“We’ve been contacted.”
32.
When contact came from the battlefield, especially in the middle of a cleanup, it was usually bad news.
All the more so when one specific person had been singled out.
“So… to summarize, is that what you’re saying?”
“Because no one seems able to manage the otherworlder who suddenly appeared on this battlefield, we are to take him and return home?”
“Did someone from our country accept that?”
“Of course not.”
“However, in the end, it is a situation where someone must take responsibility.”
“That fact does not change.”
“As a mercenary, you know that well, don’t you?”
“…”
Amid the urge to cut off the call right then and there, he let out a sigh.
The other party had nothing more to say.
All they offered was a word telling him to endure the hardship.
“Looks like they shoved the responsibility onto you.”
“…Well, it’s not as if I couldn’t have expected it.”
“I suppose there’s nothing to be done about another troublesome matter arising…”
“Then what happens now?”
“Do you remember the person we met at first?”
“The National Assembly member named Choe Seongjae.”
“Ah, yes.”
“We need to meet him again.”
“And the result will probably be similar.”
A troublesome matter had arisen.
And the person who would have to be sacrificed for that troublesome matter had already been narrowed down to one.
“…Those damned bastards.”