When the bright light vanished, I was inside Soph’s memories again, just as before.
Even after entering the memory, the place where I stood had not changed.
What I could see around me were the buildings of the city called Sidon.
They were not quite as ruined as they had been in reality, but many of the city’s buildings were still badly damaged.
The destruction was less severe than in reality, yet the sight before me now was far more horrific.
Bloodstains and pieces of flesh smeared over half-collapsed buildings.
Corpses scattered along the streets, and pools of blood.
The scene from the moment the destruction had taken place was unfolding before my eyes.
“We’re too late, aren’t we?”
The young mage walking ahead looked around, then asked me.
No, he had asked Soph.
My mouth moved, and Soph’s answer came out.
“We’re late. There’s only one life sign in this city besides us.”
“It’s him.”
Hearing Soph’s words, the young mage ground his teeth.
He was not the only one whose expression had hardened.
The soldier with the gauntlets, the martial artist Gibro, and the Magic Tower Master whose final moments I had seen were both looking around with grave faces.
I could not see Soph’s face, but it seemed to be the same.
The Star Guardian, Soph’s lover, was apologizing to the dead with a sorrowful face.
“I’m sorry. We came far too late.”
Seeing her bow her head to each corpse, Gibro the martial artist said,
“We received the news too late. We were told this city was holding off the monsters well, so this is not your fault, Shamara.”
At his words, Shamara shook her head.
“No. It is my fault.”
At Shamara’s words, the other mages merely stiffened their expressions and did not stop her.
Even Soph, who had always been on her side, was the same.
Instead, Soph comforted her with different words.
“But we came, even if we were late.”
At Soph’s words, Shamara nodded with a sorrowful face.
“Yes. We were late, but we had to come. If we hadn’t, that monster would have laid waste to the kingdom before we could seal the Demon King.”
They were currently on their way to seal the Demon King.
It seemed that while the companions had gathered and were heading to seal the Demon King, they heard that the city was in danger and rushed here.
While Soph comforted Shamara like that, Jafmel, the Magic Tower Master, looked around the ruined city and clicked his tongue.
“More than that, this is absurd. For a single monster to annihilate such a vast city… I heard this city had even held back a Controlled Entity.”
Come to think of it, he had said there was only one life sign besides their group.
According to them, that life sign was the monster.
A monster that had destroyed this great city alone.
It was not the Demon King, so could there really be a monster capable of destroying a city like this by itself?
It was something I had never imagined. Naturally, it was not something I had heard from Soph either.
I had only just become able to deal with Controlled Entities, and now there was an even stronger monster.
This was one mountain after another.
Just how many monsters did the Demon King have beneath him?
As if he had noticed my worry, Soph said,
“That must be the power of a monarch-class monster, one directly under the Demon King.”
Fortunately, it seemed monsters would not keep appearing without end.
At Soph’s words, the young mage, Esh, asked,
“This is the second monarch-class monster, right? The first one that appeared was dealt with by the elders of the Magic Tower and the kingdom’s Magic Corps.”
“Considering the damage, they didn’t deal with it. They perished together with it.”
Soph answered Esh’s words cynically.
Hearing that, his friend, the Magic Tower Master, shook his head.
Seeing that he could not refute Soph’s words, it seemed Soph was telling the truth.
A little while later, a large park came into view between the buildings in the distance.
It was a grand park of the sort that would be found in the center of a city.
Seeing the park, Esh asked again,
“Will this be the last monarch-class one?”
“Who knows. There may be more where the Demon King is.”
At Soph’s words, Esh looked at Shamara.
“Do you know, by any chance?”
Shamara, the Star Guardian and prophet, shook her head at Esh’s question.
“No. I cannot see around the Demon King. Since I do not know, I do think there is at least one there.”
I could not tell what connection there was between her being unable to perceive something and the existence of a monarch-class monster.
However, seeing everyone nod at her words, it seemed true that there was a monarch-class monster there.
At Shamara’s words, Jafmel, the Magic Tower Master, clicked his tongue.
“The difficulty has gone up again.”
Even at his friend’s words, Soph replied as if it were only natural.
“That’s why we have to be able to kill that thing. It makes no sense to say we’ll seal the Demon King if we can’t even kill a monarch-class monster.”
At Soph’s words, the young mage forced his voice louder.
“Then let’s hurry up and kill it, and go seal the Demon King. The place where the Demon King is isn’t far now.”
The Demon King was nearby?
That was good news. It seemed heading west had been the right answer.
As soon as the young mage finished speaking, Soph’s group arrived at the park.
The park was dyed red as if the leaves had turned with autumn, and many people were gathered there as if they had come to view the foliage.
Of course, the leaves had not turned red, and the people had not come to view them.
What dyed the park red was human blood, and those who filled the park were all dead.
In that red-stained park, something of a different color towered upright.
It was a giant of pure black.
A huge, elongated black giant that looked easily over five meters tall.
It was like looking at a black, lanky alien from a science-fiction or horror movie.
Thanks to all the monsters I had seen until now, I immediately knew what that giant was.
That was an Akzar monster.
Its black, egg-like head and long torso were the body of a monster, and its elongated arms and legs were all tentacles.
It was not imitating a human like the humanoid monsters did; it simply looked like a black monster standing on two tentacles.
“So that’s a monarch-class monster.”
The moment the martial artist looked at the black giant and laced his fingers together, an unfamiliar voice sounded inside my head.
[Welcome. I have been waiting.]
Soph was not the only one who heard the voice.
“Who said that?”
As the martial artist looked at the group in surprise, the mages stared at the monster with hardened faces.
“As expected, monarch-class ones can communicate too.”
“Among the elders who fought the first monarch-class monster, there were some who said they heard the monster speak. But at the time, given the situation, everyone ignored it and moved on.”
When the young mage spoke with a nod, the Magic Tower Master recalled what he had heard before and clicked his tongue quietly.
After their mage-like conversation, Soph casually reached a conclusion.
“What’s so surprising? If the Demon King can speak like a person, then it’s only natural that the monarchs beneath him can converse with humans as well.”
At Soph’s words, I grumbled with all my might.
‘What part of that is natural?’
I had never seen a monster that spoke human language as well as that one.
Moreover, what it had just used was the telepathy employed by mages.
Perhaps magic had overcome the language barrier, because I could understand the monster’s words even without going through a translation relic.
Having learned that the monster could speak, the Magic Tower Master asked it in return,
“You were waiting for us?”
Did being able to speak human language make one friendly?
The black giant answered the Magic Tower Master’s question.
[That is so. The one who sees the future told me that you would come here. I waited for you.]
The monster’s answer gave me information I had never expected.
Just as Earth had Hanna, and the magical kingdom had Shamara the saint, it seemed there was one among the monsters who could see the future too.
Well, since they used the same energy and the same magic, there was no reason a monster with the same ability would not exist.
In the end, that monarch-class monster had listened to its fellow monster who foretold the future and waited for Soph’s group here in this ruined city.
Hearing the monster’s words, I remembered what Shamara the saint had said a little while ago.
If Soph’s group had not come, the black giant would have laid waste to the kingdom before they could seal the Demon King.
When I heard those words, I thought she meant they had to hurry to stop the monster, but that was not what she meant.
It meant that only if Soph’s group came to this city would that monster not leave it.
A monster that had seen the future and kept its fellow monster in this city, and Shamara, who knew the monster would not move only if they came to this city and had brought her companions here.
Was it because they knew the future?
To an ordinary(?) person like me, the actions of the monster and Shamara looked extremely complicated.
As Soph’s group entered the park while conversing with the monster, they tilted their heads at the sight of the monster not attacking even after seeing humans.
“That’s strange. That monster isn’t charging at us right away like the others.”
The young mage said that aloud, and he was able to hear the black giant’s answer.
[Because conversing with you humans is enjoyable. I was able to hear many stories from the people in this city as well.]
The black giant spread both hands, indicating the corpses filling the park.
At that, everyone’s expressions hardened.
The corpses piled up in this park were the remains of people that monster had brought here in order to converse.
I did not know what kind of conversation it had held with them, but that monster had killed every person it spoke to.
Of course, from the fact that it had killed everyone in this city, I already knew that monster was no different from the others.
But after learning that it could converse with humans, it seemed I had held a faint expectation as well.
Hearing the monster’s words, I was just as shocked as the mages.
Until now, monsters killing humans had felt like wild animals killing people.
But the way that black giant had piled corpses in the park now did not feel like that kind of disaster; it felt like deliberate malice.
Being able to converse with humans meant it could become far more cruel.
I could feel that Soph was enraged just like me, but what came from Soph’s mouth was a calm order.
“Everyone, prepare for battle.”
At Soph’s words, the martial artist stepped forward and placed himself in front of the mages. Then Shamara spread a shield around the group.
At the same time, the mages raised their staffs and began preparing magic.
Seeing that, the black giant said,
[A pity. I thought I would be able to obtain new information.]
With those words, the giant stomped its foot.
A gigantic blood-colored magic circle rose up across the entire park.
It was a trap magic circle prepared by the monster.
A magic circle I had never seen before, one I could hardly recognize.
The instant the magic circle formed, Soph’s magic poured down from the sky.
Flash.
Countless clusters of lightning collided with the magic circle that had emerged.
At that moment, the world turned white.
Flaaash!
‘No way?’
This was the white light I saw when leaving a memory.
When the light disappeared, I had returned to reality.
The ruined city, the park where a deep pit like a crater had been formed.
The monsters digging through that park.
I had returned to reality as I had every other time, but this time, something was different.
Before, I had been able to see all the memories I needed, but this time, I had not.
This was clearly because, the moment the monster’s magic and Soph’s magic collided, I had been thrown out of Soph’s memory.
Still, fortunately, Soph’s memories had returned.
[We must stop them. Those things are trying to resurrect the monarch we killed.]
At Soph’s words, I looked at the crater the monsters were digging into, and caught a glimpse of something black inside.
It was the black giant I had seen in Soph’s memory.
Giant Monarch (2)