- Drip. Drip. Drip.
From somewhere came the sound of liquid falling.
I was slowly descending the stairs, holding my breath.
Since I’d made such a racket opening the door above with Sword Force, if anyone was still here instead of running away, they’d already know an intruder was coming down and would have prepared.
Still, there was a pretty big difference between knowing exactly when and where someone would arrive and not knowing.
It would be best if I could strike right around the time they started thinking, “Is he not coming down?”
And, looking at this space, a thought occurred to me.
If anyone with a bit of brains had stayed behind, they would have turned on all the light sources here.
There were things like lanterns, so it wasn’t as if they needed to install anything separately.
Then they could predict my position through my shadow, making it easier from the defender’s side.
Right now, all the lanterns were off.
‘But if they had done that, I would’ve approached while turning off all the light sources.’
This kind of psychological warfare was, in truth, a mercenary’s specialty.
If you start shadowboxing by yourself, it never ends.
If someone told me to do it, I could probably keep it up all day, couldn’t I?
Kind of like how a board game meant for two people never ends when you play it alone because you have no friends.
···.
Not me.
I’m not saying I did that. I just heard about it.
Like how among academy students, there are apparently some who eat lunch alone in the bathroom·· stuff like that.
When you wander around the city, you hear about it more often than you’d think.
So often, in fact, that it’s become a kind of meme.
But··· do I even have any reason to explain myself about this?
Well, anyway.
‘It reeks of blood everywhere, and there’s something dripping too. Seriously bad luck.’
Still not letting down my guard, I continued searching the place.
Honestly, “searching”·· even though I’m the one who said it, it sounds a bit strange.
There wasn’t really anything to search.
If it were a situation like earlier where there were several passages, that’d be one thing, but the path I was descending now was straight all the way.
I really don’t want to let my guard down, you know?
There could suddenly be a hole to the side.
But like I said earlier, there weren’t any lights on in here, so it was hard to confirm exactly what was ahead.
But if, even after ten minutes, it was still just a straight path with nothing there, then maybe there really was nothing?
It’s not even as if structures like this don’t exist.
Just a layout where you keep going down like this and there’s one room at the very end.
‘Situations like this are actually what wear me down mentally.’
If the enemy aimed for this, then I suppose they were fairly clever.
I’d rather there be something.
Then I could assume there was a trap and stay meaningfully alert.
But being told to be wary of something I couldn’t see, well, it felt like my brain’s concentration was gradually dropping.
I must have thought about twenty times whether I should just set a fire with aura, even if it gave the opponent a bit of an advantage.
***
‘Ah, fuck.’
I finally arrived.
The core of the aur··· no, the end of the stairs.
There was nowhere left to go down.
I’d worked hard all the way here, shadowboxing with an opponent who may or may not even have been invisible.
‘Then this was just a waste of effort.’
But like I said before, it was an unavoidable, unblockable setup.
Let’s just be grateful I didn’t get hurt.
‘Then, how should I open this door··.’
As I’d predicted before, this place seemed to be a structure where one path continued all the way and there was a room at the end.
When I finished descending the stairs, there was a door standing right there.
To be honest, it wasn’t exactly a door that made me want to open it.
At a glance, it was old and worn.
There was also some strange smell coming from beyond it.
And most decisively,
my instincts were screaming at me not to open it.
I trust you understand just how sensitive and accurate my instincts are, considering I found this space beneath the cavern.
But,
‘I still have to go in. What else can I do?’
If there’s anyone listening to my thoughts, I want to say this.
Do safe work.
Seriously, don’t go around risking your life like me.
I think there are people meant to do this kind of thing.
Look at me.
I go around cursing, but in the end, for humanity, for Bell,
I’m taking on hardships of my own accord while tacking on all sorts of reasons.
My mouth talks as if I don’t want to do it, but my body is honest.
It really is a job that suits me.
When I suffer like this, there are times when it’s hard and exhausting,
but whenever someone thanks me, it feels good.
Even though social perception is bad, there are occasionally people who thank me like that.
Even if there are no people like that, I just endure while thinking it to myself.
Somewhere out there, someone must recognize my sacrifice.
Everyone knows it deep down. They’re just too embarrassed to say it.
Something like that.
Anyway.
If you aren’t someone with a personality like mine, I recommend not doing this kind of work.
- Creeeak.
With resolve, I carefully opened the door.
Then.
- Bzzziiing.
The moment I opened the door, the violet lights beyond it all turned on at once.
‘What is this space··?’
Since the door was just an ordinary size, I expected a small room when I opened it, but once I actually looked, an enormous space greeted me.
On both sides, pillars that seemed to be about twenty meters tall were lined up at regular intervals,
and on the floor, along grooves carved in geometric patterns, some kind of blood flowed without clotting, glowing faintly red.
‘Fuck.’
Anyone could see what this was.
If this were a dungeon, it’d be the boss room.
“Ah.”
At that moment.
Someone across from me spoke to me.
“I am a fortunate man. To think I would welcome a new member of the hero’s party here.”
He was standing with his back turned right in front of the altar in the center,
and on top of the altar lay the corpses of countless deceased.
The bastard was wearing a black priest’s robe.
It contrasted with the white clothing worn by all clergy of the Holy Kingdom.
“To be able to kill you! And to be able to offer you to the demon archduke I serve, Lord Tespatioum!! I offer my heartfelt thanks to the Demon King!!!!”
The bastard spread both arms, tilted his head toward the ceiling, and burst into laughter.
However,
that ridiculous and somehow grotesque movement didn’t really matter.
There was only one thing I was concerned about right now.
‘Tes··patioum?’
It was the name of the demon archduke that had come out of his mouth.
‘Why? I’m sure this is the first time I’ve heard it·· so why does it feel like I know it?’
Something·· something was wrong.
“Ugh.”
I staggered and clutched my head.
It felt as if something was suddenly being forcibly injected into my brain.
‘What is this? His authority? Or··.’
Had I simply forgotten it?
I see an old man.
I see myself walking somewhere with him.
And with him··.
“Ah.”
I didn’t know what was happening.
I didn’t know anything, and I was terribly confused.
However,
even amid the memories that vaguely surfaced, I felt like I understood one thing.
‘I’ve met Tespatioum before. And I saw him being annihilated too.’
Still confused and dizzy,
I first straightened my posture and raised my sword.
Just an ordinary middle guard.
Unless there was a special situation or intent, this was a stance that had to be maintained.
If I couldn’t maintain it, my response speed would become noticeably slower.
It was the same principle as not lowering your guard in close-quarters combat unless you had a good reason.
“Haa·· haa···.”
As time passed, my head grew dizzier and dizzier, but even so, I had to endure.
If I rushed in first to quickly end this fight, this standoff, I would definitely be counterattacked.
Also, from the opponent’s perspective, it would be easy to notice that I was trying to end things in a hurry for some reason or another.
Then, if it were me, I wouldn’t clash head-on and would drag it into a war of attrition.
“Oho··. I see, I see. That reaction·· that flow of time I feel from you.”
The bastard looked at me as if intrigued.
His pupils changed rapidly.
At times they were vertical, at times they changed into the shape of a second hand.
He was clearly showing that he was no ordinary human, that he had already shed the shell of humanity.
“My, my·· if someone saw you, they might think you were the hero. To twist the world to such an extent. Even our demon archduke would not do such a thing.”
The bastard snapped his index finger upward.
“Of course, it is closer to the truth that he cannot. If he could, the world would already belong to our Demon King. Truly regrettable.”
After that, the bastard went on saying this and that, but none of it entered my ears naturally.
Letting it wash over me while forcing myself to cram it in was the best I could do in my current state.
To begin with, there was no need to listen carefully right now to the words of a bastard who served a demon archduke.
Because in the memory that had just been injected into my head, an old man had told me this.
‘Demons are cunning. Do not lend an ear to their words.’
In the past, with knowledge like this, I would have thought I’d picked it up somewhere.
Now, I knew for certain.
Among the knowledge I possessed, the things I didn’t know where or how I had learned were all things that existed in some memory I had lost.
- Fwoosh!
As if to show I had no intention of listening to him any longer, I made a dark red aura blaze up from my sword.
“Oho·· that dark red aura··· you even wield hellfire?”
The bastard saw it and recognized what my aura was.
“I can feel from here that your power has run out, Runia!! For you yourself to so kindly inform us of your downfall—is that not also something to be most grateful for!!!!”
Then he suddenly shouted something toward the perfectly fine chief god.
“You’re insane, aren’t you?”
While the bastard spoke, I slowly formed Sword Force.
I could roughly tell just by looking, but after confirming his level through my senses, I knew for certain.
‘He is stronger than me.’
To be honest, there was no doubt that he was an opponent the current me couldn’t beat.
But,
it didn’t seem like there was absolutely nothing I could try, so I was going to give it a shot.
I needed to endure and experience things like this as much as possible.
That was how my skills would improve.
It was also why I’d come in here.
‘You’re pretending not to be, but you’re watching everything, aren’t you, Commander?’
Besides, I had reliable backing.
If not at a time like this, when else would I try?
I’ve got two lives, right??
‘Now·· let’s give this a try.’
- Tatatat!
I quickly approached the bastard.
“Excellent! Come! And remember! I am Pherver, apostle of Lord Tespatioum, demon archduke of spacetime! This is the name of the one who will harvest your time!”
The first fight of my life against someone who had reached the Master level had just begun.