In that brief moment, countless events unfolded as if intersecting all at once.
This ritual chamber was a workshop under Sodian’s complete dominion.
The hidden mysteries within were all imbued with her will.
Because of that, connected to her main body, it did not hesitate in the face of a sudden crisis and immediately unleashed its presence.
*Creak—*
Countless tree roots surged from the floor, a barrier covering the entire underground, and it instantly twisted and distorted the internal space.
Shackles to restrain the intruder’s body activated as a terrible curse poured down upon that very spot.
Countless mana barriers rose, blocking the vicious beast’s attack path, and magic circles interlocked like gears floated up, completing black magic to exclude the opponent in an instant.
*Kwa-bang!*
A response near-perfect, thoroughly sealing the sudden ambush.
Truly, it was the dignity befitting a high-ranking archdemon who had walked the path of magic for thousands of years, far surpassing even ordinary transcendent-class mages.
“Kahahahaht!”
“Krhung!”
However, though it was truly unfortunate for Sodian.
To block with merely ‘near-perfect’ measures… unfortunately, her opponent was all too poor a match.
*Crunch— Shred!*
The curse was bitten and swallowed whole.
The barriers blocking the front were torn to shreds by sharp fangs, and the barrier regulating distance from the opponent began to creak.
The shackles that had been holding on with difficulty burst from the rough movements, and the black magic that flew in bearing wicked energy also failed to inflict great damage upon that monster.
“Kuk! Ken, how dare you…!”
Yes, a monster in the truest sense.
It didn’t care in the slightest what blocked its path.
It simply sprinted in a straight line toward its one and only target: Sodian.
“Eliminate! This is my domain! Did you think I would fall so easily!”
“Kukakakat!”
“Kauuul—!”
She fought desperately in her fury, but how long it would last was impossible to guarantee.
She was merely holding out somehow with the aid of her workshop environment; before this fierce onslaught, that resistance would not last long either.
‘…Amazing. I knew Davison was strong, but to think he was at that level.’
Watching it quietly from a distance, Ken squeezed his eyes shut.
Davison rampaging like mad, bizarrely looking excited like a puppy out for a walk.
Seeing the ritual chamber become a wasteland from the aftermath, it reminded him of a beagle that would turn the house into a mess when bored, and he felt a bout of PTSD coming on.
‘There’s no need for me to step in. I’ll just leave it entirely to him and do what I need to do.’
Calming his mind with a light deep breath, Ken turned his body.
He had been thinking of joining the assault if necessary, but judging by the situation, it seemed sufficient without going that far.
“…Is it here?”
Thanks to the activated barrier shaking every which way from Davison’s rampage, finding the way wasn’t difficult.
Above all… he only needed to follow the strange pull that seemed to call him, just like before.
Glancing at the massive balrog, Count Karakul of Tuma, bound entirely just as he had seen then, he passed by and approached a door situated on one side of the pillar’s surface.
Count Tuma would come later.
For now, checking inside was the priority.
*Thump thump—*
The closer he got to the door, the more violently his heart began to race.
Along with it, tension crept up from deep within his chest.
*Crackle!*
Ken poured mana into his hand, ignoring the strong repulsion, and forcefully flung the door open.
What met his eyes as he strode through the opened gap was….
“This is…?”
A space so vast it was unimaginable to be inside a pillar.
It was a grand temple entirely white in color.
Massive pillars and statues lined both sides, along with magnificent paintings on the high ceiling.
Moreover, everywhere around were mysterious unknown languages engraved in pure gold that even Ken, who had lived quite long in this world, couldn’t recognize.
Atmosphere-wise, they were likely sutras honoring some god.
He examined it quietly with furrowed eyes, then shook his head.
‘A temple? In a place like this? Besides, no matter how I look at it, this doesn’t seem to be a temple worshipping a demon god. …Just what were you thinking, Count of the Demon Dragon?’
Ken’s steps inside headed unhesitatingly in one direction.
It was so natural that even he noticed it belatedly.
But he didn’t bother to stop his feet, silently crossing the temple’s corridor.
Since he had decided to search this place thoroughly anyway, it didn’t much matter where he went first.
The place he arrived at was a space with beds lined up like a hospital.
“A place to offer sacrifices?”
No, looking closely, they weren’t beds but small altars.
Considering people were lying on them one by one, it didn’t seem much different.
‘…I had somewhat expected it.’
The appearances of the sacrificial people varied wildly.
Gender, age, and even race, all of them.
The common points were that they all appeared to be adults and were all lying emaciated like the dead.
‘It’s rather amazing that some are still alive until now.’
Perhaps thanks to some special grand sorcery, some were still barely breathing, but most seemed to have died long ago, having far exceeded their limits.
There were even some who had become complete skeletons, so that said it all.
‘I need to correct myself. It’s like a morgue, not a hospital ward.’
And there—Miyamoto Ken the Japanese, Count-class demon Ken of the demon world.
He could confirm the identity of what had led him here.
He looked down blankly.
“…Huh? What is this?”
One of the dozens of small altars lined up.
There lay a man, emaciated like the others, breathing faintly as if his life might end at any moment.
“…Why?”
Despite his emaciated state, his face was extremely familiar, recognizable at a glance….
A being that looked exactly like Ken in his human days.
***
“It’s been a while since we met, yet you’ve already returned? Though it wouldn’t have mattered if you stayed longer.”
Heinz II, the vampire with a cold impression sitting in his office, tilted his head slightly.
Where his gaze reached, a boy who looked to be in his late teens sat on a reception sofa with his interlocked hands behind his head, looking distracted.
But he couldn’t pretend not to notice when his new master had bothered to speak first.
He let out a small sigh at the gaze fixed upon him, straightened his hands, and carefully opened his mouth.
“We’ll have plenty of time together from now on anyway, won’t we? There’s much to be done ahead, so a few days of catching up should be sufficient. And with the presidential election not far off, Mother must be busy as well.”
“Hmm, is that truly all?”
At the repeated question, Temiran McClair pouted his lips.
Then he averted his eyes slyly and muttered small.
“…Actually, it’s a bit uncomfortable too. I’m a grown son now; I can’t stay in my mother’s arms forever, can I? But in Mother’s eyes, I still seem to be that same little child….”
So he had run away here using an outside mission as an excuse.
Heinz smirked at that petulant complaint.
Who would look at that sight and think him an adult?
No matter how or where you looked, he was exactly as he appeared: a boy who had just hit puberty.
‘Well, he had been locked up and brainwashed until he came out, so it’s only natural.’
People don’t mature simply by growing older.
What’s more important is meeting many people, learning, and accumulating diverse experiences.
Just as a child who grew up with the internet is more cunning than an old man who lived only in the mountains, Temiran’s time could now be said to have entered a normal orbit.
‘Well, I’ve looked after him this much; he should handle the rest on his own. After all, he’s no ordinary child.’
A former apostle who roamed the world’s shadows, and now a high-ranking executive of Hybrid as a holy-blood vampire—such was Temiran.
In this world, probably only his mother, Kayla McClair, could treat him like a child.
“If so. Then let’s talk business. Elaborate more on the demon world you mentioned before.”
“Ah… you mean that?”
“Yes, I heard it roughly then, but I might have missed something.”
At Heinz’s order, Temiran, who had stood with a serious attitude, bowed his head slightly and continued.
“Let me say again, I only did some cleanup. Most of the work was already finished by my predecessor, so I didn’t do much. Naturally, there’s little I know.”
Moreover, the Revolutionary had died screaming without properly handing over duties, and Temiran had come into the world as an incomplete apostle.
Naturally, there was much he lacked in knowledge, but…
Still, an apostle was an apostle; he wasn’t entirely ignorant.
To proceed with work, he had to know the general framework.
“They kidnapped otherworlders and forcibly sent them to the demon world….”
And one of those was the kidnapping incident of Earthling Awakeners that had been secretly carried out until a few years ago.
“The purpose?”
“Naturally, to use them as mediums. I only heard stories, but they say that if you utilize otherworlders’ traits well, bypassing the world’s laws becomes incredibly convenient. And if that happens, the possibilities are endless.”
They say it continued from not long after Earthlings were first transmitted to this Auterica until just a few years ago.
To hide their identities, they carried it out secretly, so indiscriminate kidnappings didn’t run rampant, but given the duration, the number of victims would hardly be small.
‘The number of Earthlings who fell victim to them during that period must be enormous.’
Perhaps that also greatly contributed to why the dimension called Auterica became known only recently.
It was a dimension where transmission had not long begun, so there weren’t many dispatched to begin with, and the moment anyone showed signs, they were kidnapped without a trace, so the number of returnees couldn’t help but be few.
‘Perhaps I… and Hans, too, might have ended up the same if our first transmission had started at a different location.’
Being ignorant of this world and carrying unique items from Earth, he would have stood out one way or another.
Then Ken’s face flashed through Heinz’s mind.
From what he heard, Ken was clearly one of the kidnapping victims.
Then for what reason had he become a demon and a settler?
“Yes? Demonic transformation? What do you mean by that?”
The answer to that question was another question.
“And to completely erase an otherworlder’s traits… Wouldn’t that diminish their value as sacrifices? I don’t know of any method to fully steal those traits. The previous generation, the Revolutionary, probably didn’t either.”
In the end, what they found out was that sending Ken to the demon world was true, but the rest was completely unrelated.
‘Hmm, what happened? Did he lie?’
Perhaps he might have.
At the time, his and Hubert’s relationship was merely fellow countrymen who had just met.
He had checked the truth through 「Analysis」, but since the gap in their levels was considerable, it couldn’t be considered perfect.
‘No, I checked again later talking with Hella. And since we had already revealed we were both Earthlings, there was no need to tell such a lie….’
His head grew complicated, and Heinz, frowning, shook his head.
Needless overthinking was only making it more convoluted.
At times like this, he needed to think more simply.
For example—
Like Halley, who acts before he speaks.
‘Demon world life is more fun than I thought.’
Recently, Halley was enjoying a fierce monster life as Davison.
He had always been someone who moved as he pleased, but after replacing his entire body, including his brain, with monster genes, that tendency had become even more pronounced.
‘The fight must be over; shall I start moving now?’
He hadn’t felt anything particularly strange while being with him, but if he stuck close and observed, something would come up.
And if it really came down to it, there was another way.
‘A high-ranking demon should be able to regenerate a finger quickly.’
A cold smile formed at Heinz’s lips.
At that, Temiran, carefully reading the mood, quietly moved away from his seat.
Thinking that resting at home would have been better after all.
***
A huge tree sprawled on the floor as if it had been felled.
Davison, sitting on it and crunching branches with his three heads, turned his head.
“Krhum~!”
“Kahat!”
Then he stretched out refreshingly from his prone position and walked lightly toward the door of the pillar Ken had entered.
Leaving behind the ruined ritual chamber and the wretchedly smashed Ghost Tree (鬼木)—the remains of Count-class demon Sodian.
But Davison did not enter the door immediately.
Where his feet stopped was right in front of it.
Where the massive balrog, tightly bound—Count Karakul of Tuma—was.
Three pairs of eyes looked up quietly at him, barely breathing.
The emotion in that gaze was neither admiration for a mighty demon nor sympathy for his plight.
*Gulp—*
There was only appetite.
Drool dripped from all three snouts.
He had happened to have an unintended vegetarian meal just now, so his stomach was empty.
And in the midst of that, a delicacy hard to come by was laid out right here; how could he just pass by this feast?
That would be disrespectful to the 「Glutton」!
‘Yes, the road is long, so just one bite.’
To be exact, one bite ‘each’.
It wasn’t a big difference, so it probably didn’t matter.
*Slurp—*
The three heads instantly swelled to an enormous size.
Unlike just now, when he had moderately controlled his size for combat efficiency.
He concentrated all mutation energy solely on size.
*Chomp! Crunch! Munch—*
For the record.
Leaving meat for Halley was impossible from the very beginning.
End