◈ Episode 316. Your Intentions Are Impure
“Hah…….”
I tried to catch my ragged breath and recover my memories.
But nothing came to mind.
To be precise, my head was too tangled for it.
“What in the world……?”
The muscles of my body, my skin, my blood—each and every drop of it—felt unfamiliar, as if none of it belonged to me. It was as alien as the scenery before my eyes.
“Hah, hah…….”
Even so, just as I struggled to move my feet.
Splatter.
“!”
Something sticky caught my step.
It was blood.
Cold, black, viscous blood was clinging to my feet.
No, to my entire body, wrapping around me unpleasantly.
“What?”
A question surfaced in my murky mind.
……
Unpleasant?
Why did I think blood was unpleasant?
‘This is the blood of sacrifices.’
Even in the midst of the dizzying situation, what I had not forgotten was my instinct as a demon. Negative emotions were the source of power. In a ritual that offered something as a sacrifice, negative emotions were maximized.
Then I ought to have welcomed being drenched in blood like this.
“Ugh!”
But beyond unpleasant, it was so revolting that dry heaves surged up my throat.
Amid the confusion, the mixed-blood demon staggered.
Barely managing to grab the wall, she looked around.
‘……
This isn’t my home.’
All around her was like a fortress built of iron.
There were even complicated machines of unknown identity attached to various parts of the walls.
Everything was something she had never seen in her home.
The mixed-blood demon, mulling it over, flinched.
‘……
Home?’
Because she could not immediately recall where her home was.
Two words drifted through her chaotic mind.
The Demon Realm and the Arcana Continent.
Urgh, her head hurt as if it were about to split open.
The moment she clutched her head in pain, a voice reached her.
“I dislike sacrifices.”
“……?”
The woman’s voice was high and cloying.
So much so that it made her focus her senses in an instant.
It was not merely enchanting, but bewitching. Yet it was strange. Soon, what emerged from the darkness was not a woman, but a man.
“They’re disgusting. I’d refuse human blood even if it were given to me for free.”
“……!”
The complicated machine attached to the iron wall—a CCTV.
What appeared on the screen being recorded was a demon.
An appearance that could inspire terror simply by being seen.
It was exactly the kind of demon depicted in all kinds of media.
However, the mixed-blood demon swallowed dryly.
‘……
Beautiful.’
Because in this moment, anyone who looked upon that demon—
regardless of its appearance—could not help but be captivated.
Even fellow demons were no exception.
The demon spoke.
“Now you are the same as I am, Queen of Mongrels.”
Queen of Mongrels.
“Urgh!”
At those words, her murky memories surged.
Mongrel.
A term the Seven Great Evils of the Arcana Continent used to look down on the demons of the Demon Realm. And queen meant herself, the only queen among the demon kings……. The mixed-blood demon recalled her past.
“Gremory……!”
Rank 56.
Apricot-colored hair.
Radiant skin.
A demon king who could even beguile humans.
‘Yes, I am Gremory.’
The moment she realized it, the past of the mixed-blood demon, Gremory, flashed through her mind like a revolving lantern. At the same time, she realized what sort of being the demon before her was.
“Lust, you bastard!!”
“You remember my name? I commend you.”
“Commend me? Me, Gremory……?”
Gremory was a reigning queen.
A commendation should not have pleased her; it should have been humiliating.
Yet her body would not obey her.
Even the insult was nothing but sweet, like a lover’s whisper.
‘Damn it……!’
Everything had happened because of him.
Gremory had not been greedy.
There was the Dark Dragon, the Empire’s counterattack—the situation on the Arcana Continent had been ominous. Above all, had she not witnessed even the Demonic Eye in the Sky trembling?
She had resolved not to stand out. That was why she had even put forward again the human lord she had been toying with for amusement.
It was to disguise the Demon King’s Castle of Tears as an ordinary human castle.
What she wanted was a long, quiet life as queen, not a life of rampaging without knowing her place and getting hunted down. But every plan had gone awry.
“How dare you deceive me?”
Lust.
A Great Evil.
By the deadly sin of lust.
Grit!
If she could follow her heart, she wanted to tear the bastard before her to shreds.
‘I can do it.’
She still did not know why she found blood unpleasant, but in any case, she could feel that her body had grown stronger through those sacrifices. And yet she could not do it.
“You want to kill me? If you could, you would have resisted desperately when I dragged you into the rift. But you couldn’t, could you? I still remember the look on your face, enjoying it even after I grabbed you by the hair……”
“Shut up! Shut your mouth!”
“No, the one who should shut up is not me, but you.”
She was supposed to keep her mouth shut even after hearing such contemptuous words?
It was the moment Gremory sharpened her nails.
Lust continued.
“Because I saved you, Queen.”
“……
What did you say?”
“I mean, aside from you and the Ten Thrones, every demon king who was a demon king is dead. What else would it mean?”
The Ten Thrones.
Aside from her foolish fathers and herself.
Every demon king was dead?
She could not believe it.
“……
Is that true?”
“Of course.”
“That’s impossible.”
The first thing that came to mind was Akshan’s last survivor.
Him.
That demon hunter had cast Gamigin of the Fourth Throne down into hell.
With that terrifying combat power and brutality…….
It was entirely possible that he had hunted down all the remaining demon kings.
However.
Gremory said sharply.
“You’re saying I was unconscious for that long? Nonsense.”
She knew well because she, too, was a demon king.
Demon kings were not called the kings of demons for nothing.
Gremory continued.
“They would have survived, even if they had to hide or beg.”
Even if the demon hunter had the ability to do so, hunting every demon king in a short period of time would be impossible even if Akshan were revived.
As if he had been waiting, Lust answered.
“Exactly. You weren’t unconscious for even a day.”
“As expected, you’re deceiving me……!”
“But the demon kings weren’t hunted down. They were swallowed by the Bad Omen.”
“……
The Bad Omen? Swallowed?”
She could not understand what on earth he was talking about.
But Lust had no intention of kindly explaining it.
Gremory, the demon king who had avoided the Bad Omen.
With this, it was certain.
“As expected, one must not be confined by a frame, Claudi.”
“Not be confined by a frame? What are you talking about?”
“It means my blood is flowing inside your body.”
“……
Wh-what?!”
“Do you not feel the change? You saw blood and retched. That is clearly different from the mongrel instincts engraved into your flesh, isn’t it? If anything is proof of the change, that would be it.”
Lust murmured in satisfaction.
“As expected of Claudi.”
Gremory, a demon of the Demon Realm.
Lust, a demon of the Arcana Continent.
When the blood of two completely different demons was mixed, a mixed-blood demon was born.
Throwing himself into the rift, taking that gamble, had been worth it.
“And I quite like it.”
This land was a world whose outside and inside differed even more than the Arcana Continent.
It looked plausible on the surface.
But inside, it was festering and bursting.
Above all, he could obtain high-quality sacrifices called adventurers without much difficulty. He could guarantee it. There was no place more suitable to carry out his plan.
Lust looked at the sprawled corpses of the players and said coldly.
“Gremory, from now on, it will be in your best interest to struggle with all you have.”
“Struggle? Me? Why?”
“By now, Claudi will be……. No, a mongrel would not understand. Yes, Akshan’s last survivor will be tracking you. I mean, do not recklessly waste the blood and life I have given you.”
“……!”
Lust turned and disappeared down the path.
‘Even thinking about it again, it is excessive.’
To think a survivor of the Claudi family existed.
And that Claudi had entered Akshan.
And then become Akshan’s last survivor as well.
“There is a limit to fate’s pranks.”
Tremble.
Lust trembled in fear merely from recalling that fact. Yes, there was a reason Lust had no choice but to make such a gamble.
“It is time to make a decision.”
At this rate, he would be hunted before long.
Lust had realized it.
He threw away his pride as a Great Evil, as the deadly sin of lust.
Then a path of survival came into view.
If it was a mixed-blood ritual…….
To be precise.
‘If I can mix blood with a high-ranking demon king.’
There was a chance he could seize the power to oppose the man who bore both Claudi and Akshan at once. Of course, Gremory, who was nothing but a test subject, could not know that.
Gremory shouted at Lust’s retreating back.
“You damned bastard. Where the hell is this place that you’re telling me to struggle in? If it were the Arcana Continent, maybe, but……. The world of adventurers? What am I supposed to do in this wretched land……!!”
“What do you think being mixed-blood means?”
“?”
“Was it not the power you longed for, mongrel? My authority.”
“!”
Gremory’s pupils expanded.
It was not because she bristled at being called the Queen of Mongrels.
Lust’s authority.
Something that stimulated primal instincts so powerfully
that even she, a demon king, could be made to submit.
If she had come to possess that power of fascination……?
Gremory looked down at her blood-soaked body and murmured.
“……
It might not be so bad?”
For the first time, color returned to her face.
*
I stood before the mirror and straightened my clothes.
From my, Lee Hoyeol’s, point of view, the outfit and the perfectly sharp creases were still excessive.
But humans were creatures of adaptation; I had even grown used to this sort of thing now.
Flutter—
Lastly, I draped the Dawn jacket over my shoulders and turned around.
If you asked whether I was going out from the early dawn to live up to the name of Dawn.
I would have no way to refute it.
When I was already busy enough as it was.
I had unintentionally taken on yet another burden.
‘I have to watch over it. The Great Mage training.’
Jessie and Mary.
As of today, the Great Mage’s class quest would begin in earnest. I had yet to hear the specific quest objective from Jessie. But considering Mary had chosen the Zero Mountains as the location, it definitely would not be an easy quest.
‘It’s not just any class, but Great Mage.’
A hidden class of a different caliber.
Even the demon hunter’s class quest became unimaginably difficult in its latter stages. Of course, I was absolutely not accompanying the two of them because I was worried and wanted to meddle.
Slide—
I left the office and looked down the stairs of the Magic Tower.
The Magic Tower’s stairs were generated in real time with each step I took. Since it was early dawn and no one was around, nothing blocked my view down to the lowest floor, so I could see the portal at once.
That was my top priority.
That very portal.
To be precise, its modification.
─Progress Toward the Strange (In Progress)
●Identify the source of the Magic Tower. (Success)
●Track the unknown source, the Bad Omen. (Failure)
●Pioneer a new solution. (In Progress)
Since I had seen the possibility in twilight magic.
It meant I had to find a way to add twilight to the portal’s interference process.
‘To be honest, I was trying to get a free ride.’
On my last day on the Arcana Continent.
As I repeatedly exhausted and recovered my mana, I was able to return to reality with Mary’s assistance. So I wondered if Mary might be able to modify the Magic Tower’s portal with ease.
—“Exploration, interference, manifestation……. So such a foundation existed.”
But after even a brief conversation, I thought it would be impossible.
To give a simple example, twilight was primordial magic.
It was more fundamental, and because of that, it meant twilight magic and mana ran wild all the more intensely.
So I made an estimate.
‘Rather than Mary learning present-day magic.’
It would probably be far faster for me to learn twilight magic instead. That was why, even while faithfully carrying out my duties, I was moving my feet from the crack of dawn to learn, even if only by looking over her shoulder.
The Magic Tower in the early dawn was quiet.
The mages of the Magic Tower were people too, so they had to sleep.
Were they closer to superhumans than people, so maybe they did not need sleep?
‘There is an excellent counterexample to that question.’
The Tower Master, that cat who does nothing but nap all day long.
Of course, I, who was suffering from the effects of the [Blessing of the First World Tree], was an exception. My body was always maintained in its optimal state, without even a chance to complain of fatigue from lack of sleep.
Thanks to that, I did not miss it.
“……!”
Creeeeak—!
The quiet Magic Tower at dawn.
A presence moving impurely.
There really was no time to be at peace, even from the crack of dawn.
Swallowing my sigh lasted only for an instant.
As Chief, I could not ignore something happening in the Magic Tower.
“I trust you are prepared for obstructing the procedure from the very beginning.”
Without delay, I moved.
To the lowest floor of the Magic Tower where I had sensed the presence.
To the Avici (無間) beneath the Magic Tower.
Click—