Otherworld Subjugation Chronicle (1)
-Dimension Name: Dibore
-Registration Number: A-034BM
-Dimension Type: Fantasy Realm
-Hazard Level: Very High, Survival Priority
-······
Information from the Returnee Association that he had committed to memory before coming here—content that had completely stopped being updated several years ago.
Hans roughly organized the details surfacing in his mind and slowly looked around his surroundings.
‘So this is...’
The basement where he had appeared was decorated in a typical occult style straight out of an old horror movie.
From the blood sigils written all over the room to the stubby candles melted down to the floor, the bones and skulls piled up like a mountain to form an altar, and even a human forearm and an eyeball placed atop it that were still dripping fresh blood.
‘The origin dimension of that Executioner bastard.’
Standing atop the altar, his gaze, which had been blankly staring at the body parts rolling around his feet, turned forward.
Toward the one-eyed, one-armed young man who he thought had been holding up fairly well, but had finally foamed at the mouth and collapsed.
‘Didn’t they call him the Great Archdemon of Eternity?’
To his knowledge, that was definitely the epithet the Executioner bastard had used in the other world.
It seemed this ritual had been performed for the purpose of summoning him.
He glanced around once more and shook his head slightly.
‘Everything’s a mess. They actually tried to summon a demon with this kind of preparation.’
No matter how different the detailed formalities were, someone of his level could tell with a single glance.
That this ritual didn’t contain a shred of mysticism.
If he had possessed innate talent, he might have been able to forcefully raise the floor-level probability, but no matter how Hans looked at it, that young man seemed to have absolutely no talent in that regard.
“Kkuheuk... G-Great Demon... I offer you my soul... Please, my grudge...!”
While he was clicking his tongue internally, a faint groan suddenly came from below.
A pitiful voice, breaking off as if he would breathe his last at any moment.
At that, Hans looked down at the young man who had just regained consciousness with an expression of surprise.
[Hoo? Not bad.]
He was suppressing it to some extent, but even the aura of terror currently emanating from his body was at a level where the average person couldn’t even hold their head up.
It could truly be called intangible violence that bestowed despair through mere existence.
And yet this young man had had one arm and an eyeball extracted, was in terrible physical condition, but had still overcome that oppressive pressure?
‘His mental strength alone is admirable.’
Hans slowly stroked his chin.
His appearance during the ritual the young man was performing was purely coincidental.
Who could have known that the moment he took his first step into this world, such a ritual was being performed?
‘...No, I suppose it can’t be called mere coincidence.’
The Executioner was the one called the Great Archdemon of Eternity in this world.
It was an extremely natural choice for a prospective contractor seeking to summon such a being to select a location connected to him as the ritual site.
And he had likely been drawn here by that desperate wish.
‘His rank was too high, so I couldn’t extract accurate location information. That’s why I crossed over accounting for some margin of error...’
At this point, it had to be seen as inevitability rather than coincidence.
Hans lowered his blazing gaze and quietly observed the young man.
And he opened his mouth toward the young man, who was trembling like an aspen tree yet desperately trying to keep his wits.
[Keheh, good. To think you haven’t lost your mind even with me before you. You seem like quite a useful fellow.]
“Ah, aah... T-Thank you!”
Since he had come to a new dimension anyway, securing a local informant was essential.
The information he had gathered before visiting was already long past its expiration date.
In that sense, that young man could be said to be the most suitable candidate available at the moment.
‘Then I should do something about that first. If left like this, he won’t last long before dying.’
An eyeball and forearm that had been strewn atop the altar flew onto Hans’s outstretched palm.
Body parts that seemed to have been cut off by himself as the price of the ritual.
But they had already decayed to the point where their original forms were collapsing.
‘They were too close to me, so it couldn’t be helped.’
Still, it didn’t particularly matter.
He was a black mage, not a priest.
He had no intention of attaching them properly anyway.
Fwoosh—
Black flames ignited in his grip.
Pitch-black flames, ominous beyond compare, as if gazing into the abyss at the bottom of the deep earth.
Yet far from burning away and vanishing, the eyeball and forearm absorbed the flames and gradually regained their original forms.
If forced to name a difference from before, it would be that they began to flow with a jet-black luster, as though carved from obsidian?
[Now then—]
And immediately after Hans opened his mouth again.
The body parts in his hand shot through the air, engulfed in black flames.
Toward their original places.
Sssss—!
“Kuaaaack—!”
A tearing scream echoed through the basement along with a sound like flesh being seared by red-hot iron.
The young man, dramatically reunited with the body parts he had been forced to sever, thrashed madly on the floor.
It was a natural rejection reaction occurring as body parts that had already completely died mixed with the power of death that rejected life.
[If you cannot overcome even that much, you cannot be called my contractor. Prove your worth yourself. The real discussion comes after.]
Looking down at the young man rolling his eyes in extreme agony, Hans coldly intoned.
Of course, he wasn’t tormenting an innocent man out of petty malice.
‘In a world like this, I can’t easily trust someone who tried to contract with a demon.’
That was both a shackle and a surveillance device to ensure he could never betray Hans.
So to speak, it was merely the necessary terms-and-conditions signature before the real contract.
Of course, accepting it wasn’t without its merits.
Not only would he regain his lost eye and arm, but by harboring a fragment of death within his body, he would now have some resistance to the deathly aura Hans emanated.
With this, he wouldn’t foam at the mouth and collapse from merely facing him like before.
‘And his body has become optimized for necromancy.’
Going forward, he would see things he shouldn’t be able to see through the eyes of the dead, and handle things he shouldn’t be able to handle using the arms of the dead.
Necromancy was an ability that shone even brighter in a world saturated with death; it would be no exaggeration to call it the greatest ability in such a world.
[Hmm, so he lost consciousness after all. Still, this much is excellent. I can look forward to your future.]
Hans looked at the young man convulsing on the floor, who had finally fainted from the shock of his new flesh settling in, and slowly nodded.
And leaving him behind, he slowly moved toward the exit.
‘I don’t know when he’ll wake up, so I should at least roughly assess the situation.’
The world of Dibore, which had already fallen long ago and become a closed dimension.
A single outsider set foot there.
A single, great step that would shake this entire stagnant world.
***
McCarthy was a somewhat unusual young man.
He had done everything since childhood to survive, and murder was no exception.
As was the case with everyone in this world.
‘If I don’t kill first, I die.’
That was the truth of life he had realized since childhood.
Thanks to realizing it early, he had managed to survive stubbornly into adulthood.
Even while the parents who bore him and the gangs he ran with died off one after another, unable to endure long.
It was around then that he realized his own specialness.
‘This place is dangerous. I need to escape to somewhere else.’
His survival instinct was truly at a miraculous level.
Without any warning signs, he could sensitively detect crises approaching him.
He couldn’t predict exactly when and what situation would arrive, but that alone was enough to survive for the moment.
Because the moment he sensed danger, he just needed to get as far away as possible from that place without looking back.
Afterward, having become a wanderer, he began roaming here and there.
From cave villages that rejected outsiders to canyons rife with pillagers, ruined underground cities, and surface castles ruled by demon contractors.
Naturally tougher than others, he survived stubbornly through life-threatening incidents.
In the process, he took in many sights of this world.
A sky that was dark all year round because the sun never rose.
Barren earth where only monstrous, grotesque plants remained.
A small number of survivors barely living within ruins where civilization had collapsed.
And demon contractors who clung to demons and reigned over those few survivors.
There was no land in this world where one could farm normally.
Those who formed groups were all bands of violence that pillaged and hunted, and if they were somewhat large, they were little more than slaves gathered around demon contractors.
And McCarthy, who had thought he would wander for life and die on the streets,
met the woman of fate in a ruined village he happened to visit.
‘Delia...’
A lifesaver who reached out to help when he was wounded by a trivial mistake and his life hung by a thread as it worsened.
In this world where you couldn’t survive without killing others, an altruistic act was enough to shine by itself.
‘If it were me, I definitely would have killed them and taken the loot first.’
Her benevolence wasn’t directed only at him.
When surviving alone was difficult enough, she took in orphaned children with nowhere to go, even while selling her body.
A single ray of light cast upon a world filled only with darkness.
Falling for such a woman was only natural.
The wanderer settled in the village that day, and for over a year helped her with her work, gradually developing their relationship.
Never had he been so grateful for his sturdy body as then.
And the poison called love, which dug into the heart of one who had lived his whole life alone,
certainly addicted him and cast him into despair.
Fwoosh—
Fiercely burning flames and black smoke.
Now terribly familiar, the acrid stench of burning corpses.
Collapsed residences and a village devoid of any life.
The space where he had felt warmth was stained with blood and death, but
he could do nothing.
‘Why.’
He had warned her of the crisis, but she didn’t listen.
No, to be precise, she understood his words but didn’t follow them.
She couldn’t.
Because there were too many things she was responsible for to abandon everything and flee with him alone.
And McCarthy.
As he always had...
‘......’
And only after a long time did he return to the village, regretting too late.
That he should have kidnapped her by force and run away.
That he should have stayed with her until the end and died here.
He had thought it would be fine since it was a familiar thing he had repeated countless times until now, but the sense of loss—as if a hole had been pierced in his heart—never got better no matter how much time passed.
‘Who was it.’
Identifying the culprit wasn’t difficult.
From the start, the opponent was an existence with no need to hide the fact that they had done this.
The Grand Castellan who ruled the largest castle among existing surface castles.
The contractor of the Great Archdemon who stood at the pinnacle of demons roaming this world—Rapua.
The ‘Hunting Festival’ he held for his master was the very root of this tragedy.
‘The Infinite Great Archdemon. And Rapua.’
There was no possibility of revenge.
Simply forgetting everything and leaving to survive was the right choice.
As he had always done.
As he had done just moments ago.
But having let go of everything, he did not give up.
Using his abilities to the utmost and wandering to find a way somehow.
He finally managed to get his hands on a certain record.
‘The Great Archdemon of Eternity.’
The being who was even called the strongest in the world before the Infinite Great Archdemon.
One of the decisive culprits who had slaughtered countless heroes and finally ruined the world, having suddenly vanished from the world about a hundred years ago.
‘If only I could make a contract with him...!’
He did not care that the other party was a demon, the same as the target of his revenge.
In this world, it was not all that rare for demon contractors to kill one another, or for demons to kill one another.
He had heard that the great demons, beings no different from lords among demons, were not on good terms with each other, so perhaps his proposal would even be welcomed.
And so, with the goal of summoning the Great Demon of Eternity, he crossed all manner of deadly lines and prepared the ritual.
[The Great Demon of Eternity...? Where did you hear such a lowly name?]
In the end.
He failed to achieve his goal.
[Kekeke, this body is the king of all the dead and the ruler of death. I am Hannibal Strauss.]
But he did not give up.
If this was a being who could disparage as “lowly” the Great Demon of Eternity, who had been passed down for nearly a hundred years as the strongest—
If this was a being who could call himself, of all things, the “Ruler of Death,” then he thought there might still be a chance.
‘Even if that’s nothing more than a demon’s lie.’
And so, after squeezing out the last of his strength and clinging to the other party...
Whoooong—
High in the sky, so far above that the ground below seemed impossibly distant.
“Ghhhh...!”
McCarthy, who had been recalling the past, gritted his teeth at the searing pain coming from his left eye and left arm, both provoked by the biting wind.
Then, like himself, he looked at his “master,” who was gazing down at the earth from high in the sky with an indifferent expression, and drew in a deep breath.
[Hmm, I see. So what you’re saying is that the demons, including this Great Demon of Infinity, are the root cause of the world ending up like this?]
“That... is one way to put it. In truth, it happened so long ago, and as you can see, there was no proper situation in which records could be left behind, so only the demons involved would know the exact truth. Including the contractors who heard the story from those demons, of course.”
As he had done until now, he answered the question faithfully.
Fortunately, thanks to his experience wandering from place to place and hearing all sorts of rumors, he was able to answer most questions without much difficulty.
[I see. So that is how it is.]
A short phrase rang out gloomily.
Whoooosh—!
The moment those words ended, their bodies, which had been floating in the air, descended rapidly toward the ground.
The pain transmitted through McCarthy’s arm and eye grew even worse, but he gritted his teeth and somehow swallowed his scream.
[Well, the details hardly matter.]
Hans lightly set foot on the ground and muttered in a low voice, not even glancing at the staggering McCarthy.
Just from the explanation he had heard so far, he knew perfectly well what he had to do.
[In any case, you’re saying the fundamental cause is the demons, aren’t you? Then all I need to do is clean them all up first. Kekeke!]
The bizarre man spoke such absurd words so nonchalantly, letting out a low laugh.
But McCarthy could not argue against them.
Because, through the arm and eye that had bound him in servitude, he could instinctively feel it.
That those words were not empty boasting, but a statement founded on confidence.
‘Don’t tell me... he really...’
The moment he unconsciously gulped.
The abnormality had already begun.
Kyaaaaaak—
Woooooo—
Uhhhuhuhuk—
Startled by the ghostly wails coming from every direction, he looked up at the sky.
Through his left eye, the eye of the dead that seemed carved from obsidian, he could see clearly what was happening.
“Ah.”
Countless souls covered the entire gloomy sky, having gathered there at some unknown point.
Their number easily exceeded the tens of thousands, and they surged like waves as they poured down toward this place.
And at the very front of the host, as though representing them all, a ghost wearing a hat with a black veil and a dress like mourning clothes prostrated herself before the king.
[Olivia.]
[Command me... my king... This humble maid... has presented herself here...]
Banshee Queen Olivia, head of intelligence for the Immortal Army.
She, who had been gathering the ghosts that filled this land under the king’s orders since McCarthy had lost consciousness, bowed her head respectfully.
[Find them.]
To the great master who had crossed beyond one world and now, at last, extended his hand even into another dimension.
[Those who reign at the summit of this world.]
[I shall obey your command...!]
It was the moment her infamy, having surpassed the limits of the dimension known as Auterica, took root even in the Divoe dimension.