◈ Episode 284. Worthless Things, Great Evil.
Great Evil.
The Seven Deadly Sins.
A noble ugliness.
There were countless aliases that referred to him.
But not a single one sounded satisfying.
Because that was how he had been born.『I envy them.
I envy them madly.
Enough that, if I cannot have it, I want to smash it to pieces.』From the moment of birth to eternity.
Craving something.
Living while doing nothing but “envying” something.
The Seven Deadly Sins, Envy.
But on the recent Arcana Continent, there was nothing to envy.
To the point that his severed right arm seemed meaningless.
He was able to maintain his composure without difficulty.『There are days when the mongrels prove useful.』The continent trampled by the mongrels of the Demon World was quiet.
Envy liked that silence.
What had those worthless things been so happy about?
He could no longer hear the humans’ endless laughter.
He no longer had to watch the sight of them, which he had wanted to destroy.『I shall praise you, kings of mongrels.』Especially the Demon Kings.
Even those who had called themselves kings of mongrels and led their hordes, grating on his nerves, for some reason had become thoroughly cowed and did not show themselves.
Envy looked at his severed right arm.『Damn Akshan. Damn demon hunter……』Though he had lost his right arm to that man.
If the Arcana Continent was like this.
There was no need to turn his eyes to another world in pursuit of peace.
It was not bad.
“Damn it……!!”
Until, overnight.
He fell into the adventurers’ world along with the Zero Mountains.
How had he realized that while holed up inside a cave?
Thump, thump—because the beating of his heart itself had changed.
Just what sort of world was this?
The total amount of negative emotions was on an entirely different level.
Even compared to the current Arcana Continent, filled with despair.
There was no comparison.
“……
Karimjeva.”
So that brat had not tried to summon him here for nothing.
Yet even while Envy marveled, he had not forgotten.
That in this world lived a survivor of Akshan, a demon hunter.
Nor the words that man had left him with.
—“O demon who has lost your right arm. I have remembered that fact.”
Envy looked at his right arm.
“Tch.”
His body was brimming with vitality.
An injury like this should have regenerated long ago.
And yet the right arm severed by the demon hunter had not grown back.
If he were to face that man in this state…….‘……
This time, I will surely be cast into hell.’Like the Seven Deadly Sin, Greed, and the Demon King Decarabia.
That terror drove Envy to hide in even deeper darkness.
It made him burrow into deeper caves, into caves less likely to be found.
But Envy’s secluded life did not last long.
Because players existed in the Zero Mountains.
“A-a spawn message……!!”
“My lord……!!”
“The Great Evil, the Seven Deadly Sin, Envy.”
I will have to kill them.
Seeing the adventurers enter the cave, Envy thought so.
He had thought so ever since the Arcana Continent.
There was no race as insignificant, and yet as irritating, as adventurers.
Crack, crunch!
Envy’s body began to twist hideously.
The body he had disguised as a human burst apart, returning to its original form.
Transforming into Envy’s enormous frame.
“You worthless race, resent the foolishness of your birth.”
Adventurers.
They were beings even more foolish than the humans of the Arcana Continent.
Though they possessed the power of resurrection, an authority even he did not have.
They were an utterly weak race.
And yet what made them so happy?
They gathered among themselves and roamed every corner of the continent.
They grated on his nerves to the point of madness.
That was why he thought to take their lives.
“……?”
However, Envy did not do so.
Because he could not feel envy from the adventurer before him.
It was an impression that surprised even himself.
“My lord, I think you should leave this place……!!”
My lord.
The man called that was surrounded by countless people.
Countless humans threw themselves forward to protect a single man.
To Envy’s eyes, it should have been a sight that twisted his insides.‘How strange.’Instead, his heart became peaceful.
To Envy, that man.
Luo Junchun opened his mouth.
“Great Evil.”
“?”
“Are you not curious about the adventurers’ world?”...
Envy draped himself in rags and headed toward the gathering place of Unification Under Heaven.
Countless humans were gathered at the promised location.
Envy laughed in disbelief.
“Among the foolish, you are the most foolish of all.”
Luo Junchun.
To think they regarded him as their lord and followed him.
The reason Envy had felt peace from Luo Junchun was nothing else. Yes, because though he was human, he possessed malice no different from that of a demon.
“There is no way I would feel envy toward such ugliness.”
That was what stimulated Envy’s interest.
“I do not know what goal you possess.”
Even so, watching a human despair after failing to reach his goal.
Was always an enjoyable thing.
Above all, Luo Junchun had value.
He provided information without grating on Envy’s nerves.
Luo Junchun.
Had it not been for him.
The demon hunter.
His name.
His alias.
What sort of existence he was in the adventurers’ world.
Envy would not have known any of it.
It was thanks to the information he had provided that Envy could roam the mountain range like this.
“He will not be able to sense my presence.”
At this moment, that man would be holed up in a cave in the Zero Mountains.
Taking advantage of that gap to devour the prepared offerings would be easy.
The adventurers were visible in the distance.
Envy smacked his lips.
“I shall gladly accept them.”
And then he thought.‘Taking that man’s body would not be bad either.’Luo Junchun was, in many ways, unlike a human. So possessing his body and living in the adventurers’ world did not seem bad. Above all, he would be able to hide this right arm.
Players blocked Envy’s path as he formed his plan.
“What the hell is this bastard doing?”
A red insignia.
Luo Junchun’s subordinates.
A few of them revealed open hostility.‘Of course they would.’They must be thoroughly riled up because of the discord.
How pitiful.
Without even knowing that everything thus far had been part of Luo Junchun’s scheme.
A scheme to offer them up as sacrifices to him.
They were about to die.
Crunch—Instead of answering, Envy released the malice (惡意)
he had been hiding.
A massive hand burst out from his ribs.
It crushed and absorbed those surrounding him in an instant.
“Uuuaaaagh……?”
Humans rolled their eyes back with their death cries.
“!!!”
Even those who, shocked by the sight, drew their weapons.
Were no threat to Envy.
Of course they were not.
“Weak. Infinitely weak.”
Even players classified among the upper ranks of Unification Under Heaven had yet to reach level 500. Considering that the newly resurrected Greed had been level 600, there was not a shred of falsehood in Envy’s words.
Crunch!
Crack, crunch!
Crunch!
But Envy did not complain.
The demon hunter who had severed his arm, Lee Hoyeol.
Now that he had fallen into the same world as him.‘I must devour everything in sight.’He had to build up his strength quickly.
In that sense, the adventurers’ world.
Reality was a highly suitable place.
“Good. The spices make up for the lack of quality in the ingredients.”
It was the moment Envy smiled faintly.
In this place that should have been filled with fear.
For some reason.
An utterly hearty voice rang out.
“This wasn’t in the plan!”
“What difference does it make? In the end, everyone but us was going to die anyway. I don’t know what circumstances are tangled up in that damned mess, but as long as the result’s the same, that’s enough, isn’t it?”
“Wahaha! As expected, you and I have something in common.”
Gulp.
Envy swallowed the human he was holding.
Then looked at the two men.
Then he shifted his gaze to the carnage.
Flesh and blood splattered across the mountain range.
A sudden change in circumstances.
If they were human, they should have frozen stiff in terror.
Yet the two men were far too fine.
As if they were used to sights like this.
Scratch, scratch.
The large man, Rockid, scratched his head.
“So, any new plan passed along?”
“Ha! Since when were we ever proficient in magic?”
“I asked for nothing, then.”
Rockid, himself, and Henderson were martial types.
Which meant they were outsiders when it came to magic, and naturally, they could not communicate with Wolf’s side. But in a situation like this, there was no way even Wolf would have a damn plan.
“Even so, it’ll be a problem if they all die. That gloomy woman using magic to bring corpses back to life has to have a limit, doesn’t it?”
“Gloomy woman? You mean Isabelma? If she heard that, she’d be hurt. Haha!”
“Stop grinning and let’s do something about that bastard first.”
Whoosh—Rockid tossed off his rabbit mask and raised his axe.
A race that made one feel displeased just by looking at it……
As expected, there was nothing but demons.
Thud—Just like Rockid.
Henderson raised his hammer.
Rockid said to Henderson.
“Well, be careful not to get scared.”
“Wahaha. I wish I could, for once.”
“As expected, I said something pointless.”
Papap!
At the same moment, the battle began.
All of those circumstances were being shared with the Shadow Mercenary Corps through Nadivo.
Alkari let out a low, deliberate groan.
“……
Hmm.”
The only one who understood its meaning was the vice-captain, Wolf.
“I had been vaguely thinking it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Luo Junchun. Whether the lord of the adventurers truly did not know his own group was rotting away. This went beyond ignorance. It was practically at the level of encouraging it.”
“Hm……”
“Thanks to that, my head is clearer now.”
But what if they thought of that grotesque man as a demon?
All their questions were answered.
Luo Junchun and that demon were in a symbiotic relationship.
If they assumed that Luo Junchun had thrown his own subordinates.
To the demon according to his interests.
“In other words, his subordinates were a kind of offering.”
Wolf raised the corner of his mouth.
“To think there would be trash on par with us.”
Alkari added to his words.
“Considering the difference in the years we have lived, I wonder if he is even worse than us. An evil deed that has gone far beyond this old man’s thoughts. I suppose I have no choice but to admit it now. I underestimated the lord of the adventurers.”
It was not sarcasm, but sincerity.
Alkari had observed the struggle for supremacy on the Arcana Continent.
The monarchs who survived on the Arcana Continent had not survived because they were sage kings. They had survived because they were merciless enough to be called tyrants by some.
Alkari asked Wolf.
“So what do you intend to do, Acting Captain Wolf?”
The gazes of every member of the Shadow Mercenary Corps turned toward Wolf.
“Well.”
Wolf imagined it.
If it were the captain, if it were Kichi, what judgment would she make?
Then he shook his head.
If it were Kichi, she would never have made a plan like this in the first place.
She would have tried to resolve everything alone.
In that respect, he was weak, unlike her.‘Because I dragged in everyone the captain wanted to protect.’But they, too, wanted to protect her.
The Shadow Mercenary Corps, every one of them.
They had moved in order to find her.
Wolf opened his mouth as if it were only natural.
“First, in true fashion for us, let’s beat him half to death and think afterward.”...
Envy looked down.
“I wondered, just in case.”
Their number was “nine.”
Unlike what he knew, one was missing.
But upon seeing the brand coiling around the man’s body, he realized it.『Brand of the Shadow God』They were indeed the Shadow Mercenary Corps.
Envy looked down at his own body.
His hacked-up body twitched and regenerated.
Envy evaluated it objectively.
“Astonishing.”
He had not expected to suffer this much damage from humans in a situation so favorable to him, a demon. Envy spoke, recalling the past anew.
“Indeed, I did not entrust that commission to you for nothing.”
“…….”
Wolf clutched his torn-open side.
Not even the captain……
I think this is the first time I’ve blamed Henderson and Rockid.‘To think they could not feel that crucial emotion, fear.’Because they had been far too calm, he had mistaken it.
He had thought it was an ordinary demon.
Damn it, anyone could see it was no ordinary demon.
Not only had he realized it by clashing with it directly.
He could tell from the words Kichi had left behind.
—“I’m going to check whether it’s the Great Evil’s commission.”
Thanks to that, the moment the bastard mentioned the commission.
He became certain.
That bastard was the Great Evil.
However, the words that followed went far beyond expectations.
“For you faithfully carried out even that weighty commission.”
His side had been torn away.
“What……?”
Gush!
The damage to his organs, including his lungs, was severe.
Even twitching.
Even drawing breath was fatal damage.
But even while coughing up blood, Wolf continued speaking.
No matter what.
He had to ask.‘We carried out the commission perfectly……?’Kichi had clearly said it.
The Great Evil’s commission.
It was one of the malicious commissions that had remained in the ledger for a long time because it had not been resolved. If they checked what the Great Evil’s commission was, it might be of help to the Commander-in-Chief.
That was why Kichi had accompanied the Commander-in-Chief when he entered the Arcana Continent.
Only then did Wolf realize it.‘……
You knew from the beginning, Captain.’The only one who could open the commission ledger.
Was the captain of the Shadow Mercenary Corps.
There was no way she had confused whether it had succeeded or failed, much less the contents of the commission.
Wolf suddenly froze.‘……
Wait.’Kichi had vanished.
Leaving behind only the words that she would take all responsibility before the Commander-in-Chief.
That point in time must have been after she had once again confirmed what the Great Evil’s commission was.
His thoughts flowed naturally.
At last, Wolf reached a conclusion.‘……
The Great Evil’s commission was connected to the Commander-in-Chief.’Only now did he begin to understand Kichi’s actions.
“Haha……”
So that was why she had left behind those damned words and disappeared.
“What a damned mess this has become……”
Wolf thought of Hoyeol, then lowered his head.
Because he was beginning to understand Kichi’s actions, which he had resented.
Perhaps even he would have made the same judgment.
But this, at least, he had to ask.
Wolf struggled to open his mouth toward Envy.
“What was…… the content of that commission?”
“You do not know of it?”
“That’s right…… It’s only been a few days since I became captain.”
A human from the Arcana Continent he had met after a long time.
Answering was not difficult.
Envy was just about to open his mouth indifferently.
“Cla—……”
A sound rang in his ears.
“……!!!”
It was not the groan of the fallen Shadow Mercenary Corps.
Nor was it Wolf’s voice.
Wolf.
It was the howling of a real wolf.
In other words.
“Awooooooooo—!!!”
It was the Tempest draped over the mountain range.