Miyamoto Ken (3)
Ken, who had been silently looking down, murmured in a low voice.
“···No doubt about it.”
He was emaciated, as if he might breathe his last at any moment, but no matter how Ken looked at him, this was exactly how he himself had looked when he was human.
How could he fail to recognize the face he had lived with his entire life?
Even now, he still retained its basic foundation, and it was also a face he often used when disguising himself as a human.
‘And these clothes··· They’re the clothes I wore when I was a mercenary. Exactly what I had on right before I fell into those black magicians’ trap.’
As he stood there in a daze, a faint tickling sensation began to creep through his mind.
Soon, it went beyond a mere itch and turned into a throbbing headache.
An intense pain, as though something were stabbing into his skull, and a mysterious vortex churning in his mind.
His expression twisted fiercely as he clutched his head.
‘Wait.’
Then, suddenly.
Along with a single thought that abruptly surfaced, a chill ran down his spine.
‘···Come to think of it, what was my original unique skill?’
No matter how hard he thought, he could not remember.
What felt even more alien was that he had never questioned it in the first place.
He had become a settler against his will, losing all his abilities as an Awakened.
Everything tied to the system, including his status, skills, and the like.
But even so, wasn’t it clearly unnatural that he had never recalled anything related to them, nor even felt that something was strange?
‘Who··· exactly am I?’
His head spun with confusion over his own identity.
Ken took a deep breath and quietly stared at the other version of himself lying there as if dead.
Though he was skin and bones, his age itself seemed to remain frozen at that time, some twenty years ago.
Gulp—
Swallowing dryly, he slowly reached out as if possessed by something.
It was an action that came instinctively, without him even realizing it.
And at last, the moment his hand touched the other man’s forehead.
“······!”
His body shuddered as if struck by lightning.
As though they had been waiting for this very moment, the memories he had forgotten—and the memories that had been distorted—began to burrow into his mind.
“Urgh! Cough!”
Thud!
Staggering backward, he collapsed onto the floor and gasped for breath.
How long had it been since he squeezed his eyes shut and steadied his breathing like that?
After roughly sorting out the memories that had been jumbled together, he slowly opened his eyes and looked around.
The majestic pure-white temple, and the golden scriptures engraved everywhere.
He felt a strange sense of déjà vu, as if he had already been here once before.
Yes, this was not his first time coming here.
“···I see. So that’s what happened.”
Miyamoto Ken’s unique skill was 「Thought Transfer」.
It was an ability that could be used for things such as telepathy, transmitting his thoughts, or conversely, psychometry, reading the thoughts left behind on a target···.
But Ken, who had wanted a more combat-oriented ability in order to survive as a mercenary, developed it in a slightly different direction.
By bestowing his thoughts upon the magic tools he possessed, he created and used “ego weapons,” each with a will of its own that it shared with the main body.
A magic tool engraved with simple defensive magic became a treasure that protected its master of its own accord, and the items he had prepared for attack and healing were no exception.
An ego sword that moved freely along paths his opponents could not predict and slaughtered his enemies, a potion supply device that injected various potions into his body at appropriate times depending on the situation, and so on.
Thanks to that, Ken, an extreme-level mercenary, had reached the point where even if he suffered severe damage and lost consciousness, the magic tools he wore would move and respond on their own.
‘And I···.’
Looking down at his own hand, Ken clenched his fist tightly.
‘Am I a doll implanted with that Miyamoto Ken’s ego···?’
That was what he was.
The true identity of Ken, the count-class demon of the Demon Realm.
***
In the innermost depths of the temple, far deeper than the place where Ken stood sunk in anguish after facing the shocking truth.
Something that had been asleep for a long time writhed violently.
By now, “it” had fallen so low that it could do nothing on its own, but this moment was different from before.
At last···.
At long last, the key that would release it had appeared!
The threadlike self-awareness, nearly eroded away until almost nothing remained, began to awaken little by little due to the external stimulus.
It immediately stimulated instinct and prompted movement.
If it missed this chance, there would never be another.
Now that what it had only wondered about had become reality and approached, there was no longer any room to hesitate.
Rumble—
The shallow vibration echoing from the depths of the temple slowly began to rise upward.
All that moved that being now were a few lingering thoughts left as fragments.
To take revenge on those who had deceived it and reduced it to this state.
To regain the power it had lost and return once more to its rightful place.
That to cut down the heavens, it needed even greater power.
In order to accomplish those things, what mattered now was to keep going upward and obtain the key.
To complete itself, now made extremely unstable.
To fill what was lacking and be reborn in a more perfect form.
[————!]
The form trapped within the black nest howled violently.
***
Ken was neither an Earthling nor an Awakened.
He was merely a being who had inherited those memories intact.
And even then, he himself was nothing more than a ragged doll, with all sorts of missing information caused during the transfer process clumsily patched over.
‘So he gathered all of his selves into one and made a final gamble.’
It had not taken Miyamoto Ken very long to accept the fact that, after being forcibly transferred to the Demon Realm, he could not escape from this place.
In this worst possible environment, he was only a weakling who could not even guarantee victory against a mere baron-class demon.
So, in order to escape the crisis, to seek a solution from the outside and resolve the problem, he gathered his thoughts into one and hurled them somewhere else.
‘Of course, at the time, he never dreamed it would take more than twenty years before I arrived.’
In truth, the attempt itself had been a gamble even for Ken, so he could not have anticipated the distortion of memories caused by what had been lost.
He had come to the “Dark Nest” on his own, guided by some unknown pull, but because of the thorough security, he had been unable to find this place and had simply wasted time until now for that very reason.
“Hoo, it’s all meaningless now.”
Ken looked down at his original body with a conflicted expression.
It would be a lie to say he felt no shock at all, but it was not enough for him to agonize over his identity.
It was probably because the body that had already become completely demonic was affecting his way of thinking as well.
‘From the looks of it, it’s already far too late to save him.’
He had known that at a glance as soon as he saw him.
Though he was barely being kept alive by some kind of ritual, in truth, that was no different from a corpse already dead.
His spirit and flesh remained only as traces, like ashes burned away, and the unique skill he had arranged in advance showed no sign of activating.
The fact that he had not aged was merely an aftereffect of the wicked ritual. His body had long since become that of a true settler.
That was only natural, since nearly thirty years had passed since he had come to Auterica.
When he turned his head slightly, those who had become corpses atop the small altars entered his sight.
They, too, must have been Earthlings in the same situation as Ken.
Thinking that his original body would soon end up like them made an unpleasant feeling surge within him.
‘The state of those still alive is mostly similar too. What a vicious method. Just what were they trying to do?’
Just as Ken was lost in thought.
“Kahahak!”
“Kahang! Kahang!”
With a cry as bizarre as ever, a three-headed dog the size of a large hound lightly trotted into the space where he was.
Though it had a dog’s face, its expression was immediately recognizable—thick with fullness and satisfaction.
“Davidson? How are you here so quickly?”
Ken, his eyes round, looked him over from here to there.
The fact that he had followed him here meant he had dealt with Sodian.
A magician-type demon who had built a workshop in his own residence—and a marquis-class demon at that—had been dealt with and he had come here this quickly.
On top of that, from the looks of it, he did not seem to have suffered much damage either.
‘No, did I waste more time here than I thought?’
But even so, it was impressive all the same.
Even if they were both marquis-class, fighting an opponent under those conditions would not be settled in a single day.
‘Maybe this guy ate the essence of that monster, Duke Goerang, and inherited his power.’
While Ken was inwardly admiring him like that.
Davidson, who had chased him all the way here by following his scent, was busily moving his three heads and examining the surroundings.
The golden characters engraved everywhere, the dozens of sacrifices offered upon the small altars, and among them··· a man with a face that looked exactly like Ken’s.
“Kahung?”
After looking back and forth between the two several times, Davidson’s eyes narrowed.
At the same time, a strange dignity began to emanate from that small body.
Was it because the hierarchy had already been firmly established?
He had not said a single word, yet for some reason, Ken felt he knew what the creature wanted.
“Ahem··· This is hard to explain in words. It’s something I only learned this time too, but it seems this side was my original body. The original had an ability that could move his consciousness elsewhere, and the current me is···.”
As though reporting everything that had happened to his superior, Ken had been rambling on like he was making excuses when his words suddenly stopped.
Then he merely opened and closed his mouth, unable to bring himself to speak.
The current me is··· and after that···?
‘Why haven’t I thought of this until now?’
He had figured out why things had turned out this way.
The problem was what came next.
This body, which housed the consciousness of Miyamoto Ken’s 「Thought Transfer」—where on earth had it come from?
‘It’s the same as before. This is just as important as the truth behind this matter, yet I never even questioned it until I was about to say it aloud.’
An unprecedented power could be felt in his grasp.
The demonic power of a count-class demon who had reached the transcendent realm seethed like an active volcano deep within his body.
The body he now occupied was by no means an ordinary fleshly vessel.
Even by simple calculation, he was a powerhouse who would rank among the double digits throughout the entirety of the Demon Realm.
And above all···.
‘···From the very moment my memories as a demon began, I had this power.’
There was no way 「Thought Transfer」, cast out like a gamble, could have seized the body of a demon possessing such power.
Rather, the moment it touched the other party’s mind, it would have been normal for this side to be torn to shreds.
‘Then that means··· this incredible body was simply left abandoned without an owner.’
At the exquisitely precise timing when he happened to attempt that gamble.
A body that, by coincidence, had a synchronicity rate so high with the original body that there was no particular sense of incongruity.
A body capable of elevating him to this realm even while ignoring his insufficient enlightenment.
It accepted Ken’s drifting thoughts as though it had been waiting?
As if something that convenient could possibly···?
Rumble—
At that moment, his sensitive senses detected a faint vibration shaking the entire temple.
An earthquake that grew stronger with each passing moment.
Before long, he could tell that it was because something was rising from below.
“Don’t tell me Sodian wasn’t the only one guarding this place? Davidson! Can you still fight···? Gah!”
Ken hurriedly turned his head and looked at Davidson.
But he could not finish his sentence.
Crunch, crunch—
One of the heads that had been looking at him with meaningful eyes had suddenly bitten off his hand.
“Urgh! What are you doing all of a sudden!”
Ken frowned at the feeling of a chunk of his energy being torn away and shouted roughly.
The wound itself could be regenerated quickly, so it was not a major problem, but he could not simply let it pass when he had been attacked without warning by someone he had considered an ally.
However, his anger did not last long.
“Ah, as expected.”
Because of the deep voice that suddenly rang out.
“···Who are you!”
Ken raised his guard and hurriedly looked around.
The only ones here were himself, Davidson, and the sacrifices barely clinging to breath.
He was already on edge from one unexpected situation after another, so when an unidentified voice sounded without the slightest sign of a presence, he had no choice but to react sharply.
“Khrung! Where’s that guy looking?”
“Kahahah! I thought so from the start, but he seems kind of stupid!”
“What a pity. If he had three heads like us, he might’ve been a little better off.”
But at the voices that followed, Ken’s expression turned sour.
Unlike earlier, when he hadn’t been sure, this time he had definitely heard it.
Still wary of his surroundings, he looked down with a dazed gaze.
There, a three-headed dog with a sullen expression was staring blankly up at him.
“You could talk all this ti—”
“Come on, enough of that.”
At that indifferent reply, all the humiliation he had suffered flashed through Ken’s mind.
The days when he had lost a dominance struggle to a dog, had his bed stolen, and was forced to sleep on the floor; the moments when he had to humble himself to get meat.
There was truly a great deal he wanted to say, but he swallowed it down with effort and slowly closed his eyes.
He at least had enough tact to know the time and place.
“Anyway, that body isn’t yours right now, is what you’re saying? Right?”
“…That is true, but.”
Ignoring him as he answered with a frown, still seeming dissatisfied, Davidson poked around here and there and nodded.
The prayers engraved on all sides had already been completely erased from the records of this world and should, normally, have been something that “could not exist,” but for him, who was both an otherworlder and possessed 「Xenoglossy」, it was not much of a problem.
“Khrung! This, by the looks of it…”
After scanning the surroundings for a while, one of his heads kept twitching its nose, then smacked its lips.
“I think the one coming right now is the original owner of that body?”
“What?”
“Kahahah! Now this is unusual! The taste was definitely count-class, you know. But the scent getting closer right now isn’t merely at that level, is it?”
His sensors, boasting a sense of smell no less impressive than Diya’s when it came to things he had eaten once before, were reacting wildly.
Something greater than the marquis-class demon Sodian he had eaten before coming here, greater even than the duke-class demonic being Karakul, was approaching this place.
“Come on, I wondered where it went, but it was holed up in a place like this?”
“What are you talking abou… No, wait. Don’t tell me?”
Rumble! Kwaaaang—!
The growing tremors finally reached right before them.
A pitch-black form that had begun to appear from far away started rapidly drawing closer.
“Khrung! But this is a bit troublesome, isn’t it? Even after smelling it, I thought maybe, just maybe.”
“…Ugh, this won’t give me any strength.”
If there was one problem.
““There’s no meat!””
It was that the being was Davidson’s natural enemy: a spiritual body without a single piece of flesh… no, an existence made entirely of curses.
[————!]
A hollow cry swept in, engulfing every direction.