Sirbert van Ernhem.
An “Enlightened One” who had appeared like a comet.
A man who, the moment he became known to the world, was invited to the Academy as a full professor through the tremendous network of connections he had built up.
A man who had the president’s boundless trust, and about whom rumors were rife that he had already been appointed as the next dean.
Authoritative public magazines, “Sirbert—The 50 Most Influential People in the Empire,” and so on.
Sirbert, whose stock was currently soaring, was in fact letting out a sigh.
“Hoo… It is going according to plan, but…”
Using information from when this world had been a game, he had built connections and quickly gained fame, then used that as a foundation to build yet more connections.
And in the end, he had succeeded in entering the very heart of the Academy.
Compared to the other former rankers, he might be a little lacking in martial strength, but in terms of political power and influence, he could be called the best.
The transmigrators still had not reached the level of the existing strongest figures, so no one could treat him carelessly.
“It makes me uneasy.”
Even so, he was still uneasy.
Because he knew just how powerful the calamity that would soon begin would be.
“Where on earth is that bastard, and what is he doing?”
After being possessed into this world, the first thing he had done was to determine the whereabouts of the rankers and make contact with them.
Of course, excluding those he judged would be of no help or would only be harmful, he had prioritized the rankers within the top ten, who would have received the greatest benefits.
Before even that, he had identified the locations of the immovable rankers within the top five, and though it had taken a long time, he had ultimately succeeded in establishing a communication network.
With the exception of one person: the Supreme Heavenly Demon.
“He was always the type to play alone, but…”
Separate from that, his game sense and knowledge had been incredible.
Sirbert himself was someone who could say he was good at games, but against that guy, he had always had no choice but to concede a step.
“Even if it’s still the early stages, it would be nice to know where he is and what he’s planning.”
He should know better than anyone just how disastrous the game’s difficulty was.
Was it confidence that he could do it alone without joining forces? Or arrogance?
Because Sirbert knew nothing, his chest felt stifled.
Knock, knock.
“Come in.”
The ornate door to the room opened, and Assistant Professor Hopen entered.
He was holding a piece of paper in his hand.
“A letter has arrived for you, Professor.”
“A letter?”
He took the paper Hopen handed him, briefly puzzled.
Considering how broad and splendid his network was, most letters should have been filtered and handled before they ever reached him.
Moreover, there was no elaborate seal or emblem stamped on it.
“Where did it come from?”
“Um… they said you would know if I told you it was from the place you have recently been putting so much effort into…”
“…What?”
There was only one place Sirbert had been putting effort into recently.
An organization that controlled the Empire’s shadow.
The place where all information on the continent gathered.
The head of the assassination and information guilds, and the king of them all.
Jason Clarok.
A mysterious existence whose face had been hard to see even for Dick Incoming, whose passion for NPCs had been utterly sincere.
If he could form a connection with Jason, his plans for the future would become tremendously easier, so he had been putting in what could be called an excessive amount of effort.
“Has a response finally come!”
Seeing Sirbert’s face brighten, Hopen also smiled brightly and offered his congratulations.
“I don’t know what this is about, but congratulations, Professor!”
“Mm. Yes, yes. You may leave now.”
“Yes, sir!”
Once Hopen left, Sirbert maintained his bright expression as he hurriedly tore open the letter.
“…!”
And it took only an instant for that expression to spread into astonishment.
—Two days from now. Come to Delphir Village.
The letter contained a sentence that was very short, yet far too intense.
—zlzon☆Heavenly Demon★ is looking for you.
Sirbert sprang up from his seat.
* * *
For Sirbert, two days passed as swiftly as an arrow.
Because there were many things he had to prepare.
He had been excited at the name “Supreme Heavenly Demon” for the moment, but if he thought about it even a little, there were quite a few strange points.
‘That guy was quiet for two years, and now he’s looking for me?’
The fact that he was looking for Sirbert, and not someone else, was suspicious yet, admittedly, pleasing.
It was proof that he trusted him that much, or that he was useful.
‘Still, I have to be careful.’
Sirbert was not the only one who knew the name Supreme Heavenly Demon.
Because he had been such an overwhelmingly dominant number one, almost all of the ten thousand rankers likely knew that name.
It could be a trap meant to lure Sirbert out.
‘For those who earn points through infamy, it’s the best bait.’
If they could summon Sirbert, whose stock was currently soaring, and kill him, their infamy would spread rapidly.
Conversely, if Sirbert killed such a villain, he would be able to earn a large number of fame points.
That was the nature of his relationship with transmigrators who grew stronger by accumulating infamy.
“Professor. Preparations are complete.”
Sirbert, having finished his thoughts, turned around.
“The coordinates are set, and we can move immediately at your command.”
The one speaking to him was someone who could not normally be seen with ease, and who possessed an ability that could never be used for private purposes.
Ios, a user of a large-scale movement skill.
Ios belonged to the imperial family, and Sirbert had used his personal connections to bring him in for this matter.
And below the two of them stood dozens of knights in gleaming armor, lined up in orderly ranks.
They, too, were not people one could ever see easily.
An upper-tier knight order composed entirely of aura users.
He had completed all of these preparations in just two days.
By mobilizing all his connections, he had assembled enough force to break through by brute strength even if the place he was going turned out to be a villain’s trap.
‘…It’s true I pushed things a bit, but it’s worth it.’
It was only two days.
There had been no time for proper explanations, persuasion, or procedures, so he had forced things through somewhat unreasonably.
But this was a summons from none other than the Supreme Heavenly Demon.
He would not have called him for something trivial, so there would surely be appropriate results. And even if it was a trap, capturing a villain of that caliber would be a result in its own right, so it was more than worth taking the risk.
“Let’s go.”
Even so, he could not stop a certain degree of tension from rising within him.
He had mobilized his connections to bring an upper-tier knight order with him, summoned a state-affiliated user of a large-scale movement skill, and Sirbert’s own martial strength was fairly powerful as well.
Even then, the weight carried by the name Supreme Heavenly Demon was immense, and tension surged over him on its own.
“Then I will begin.”
Ios stretched both hands straight toward the sky.
At the same time, a cluster of light descended brightly from far above.
That multitude of light enveloped Sirbert, Ios, and the knight order, and soon space began to ripple.
Ios’s exclusive skill, Large-Scale Spatial Transfer, had activated.
The time it took to move was only a brief instant.
Of course, it could only be used twice a day, but for those two times, it was a tremendous ability that could move them anywhere on the continent.
The fact that Sirbert had mobilized Ios meant that he, too, had staked everything on this matter.
‘Why did he tell me to meet him in a rural village in a corner like this…?’
The moment that thought ended, his vision slowly began to return.
That was how long it took to move from the center of the Empire to its outskirts.
“To your positions! Carry out defense, vigilance, and search simultaneously!”
Before Sirbert’s vision had even fully returned, the knight order moved.
They were people who had not awakened their own skills, but had trained their bodies and swords to the limit.
By the time Sirbert’s eyes were fully open, the knights had spread out widely, keeping watch in all directions with a menacing air.
And then.
Clang—
“Who are you!”
Among them, the knights in charge of vigilance had drawn their swords and were pointing them at someone’s neck.
A middle-aged woman with red hair, and a girl with similarly red hair.
Sirbert flinched for a moment, but soon regained his composure.
‘There’s no way the Supreme Heavenly Demon is a woman…’
It was such an absurd thought that he shook his head to drive it away, then slowly approached the two women.
“Who are you, and why are you here?”
The beauty of the girl, who looked like she had only just become an adult, was unusual, but that was all.
There was no particularly powerful strength or any sign of special qualities to be seen.
Rather, the middle-aged woman was trembling violently, utterly terrified.
She looked exactly like a country woman, which made Sirbert all the more suspicious.
There was no way the people present at a place the Supreme Heavenly Demon had called him to could be ordinary.
These two women had to be assassins of the century seeking infamy, or subordinates of the Supreme Heavenly Demon with some special quality.
“Speak. Where did the Supre… ahem. Where did he go, and why are you here?”
The knight’s sword moved even closer to her neck, and the two women’s complexions grew even paler.
There were no other signs of people nearby, nor any peculiarities.
Only these two women stood there alone.
“I’m… Claire!”
And soon, an unexpectedly spirited voice rang out.
“The person you’re looking for… told me to wait here.”
Her frightened voice trembled faintly, and her face had gone pale, yet there was a fair amount of strength in her words.
And in the two eyes that stared directly at Sirbert, a certain yearning stronger than fear wavered.
Feeling intrigued, Sirbert asked the girl who had introduced herself as Claire,
“You’re saying the person I’m looking for told you to wait here?”
“Yes…! He said that if I waited, someone would come and take me away… Th-though I never imagined you would come like this…”
“My girl. I very much dislike lies.”
An intangible pressure wavered from Sirbert’s body and spread outward.
The first basic skill he had received, “Intimidation.”
And the current skill he had strengthened and developed from it: “Killing Intent.”
If she was an ordinary girl, she would never be able to withstand the immense pressure of that killing intent.
“I will ask you once more.”
The killing intent circled faintly around Claire with a fishy air.
“Do you know who the person I’m looking for is, as you say this?”
Claire, standing before Sirbert, could not move a muscle, as though her body had frozen solid.
Was this how a mouse felt when placed before a beast of prey?
Sirbert’s eyes, which had seemed ordinary just moments before, now flashed sharply like those of a snake.
The killing intent was not even being fired fiercely at her; it was merely circling around her. Even so, her breath caught, and cold sweat began to flow.
Still… still, what wasn’t true wasn’t true, and what was unfair was unfair.
She really had only followed Hio’s words.
However, if someone appeared, Hio had told her to say a different name instead of his own, so Claire barely managed to open her mouth.
“Sup-Supweme Heav’nwy Demon?”
The moment Claire spoke, the lapping killing intent vanished as if washed away.
But Sirbert’s suspicion had not been dispelled.
To begin with, the letter had had the name Supreme Heavenly Demon written on it, so that suspicious girl might very well know the name.
And toward Sirbert, Claire slowly raised her hand.
“This… He told me to show it to you when you came…”
In her hand was a paper that looked like a letter, neatly folded. One of the knights still aiming a sword at Claire’s neck accepted it and delivered it to Sirbert.
Sirbert carefully unfolded the letter, and his face crumpled violently.
—Dick Incoming. I’m the Supreme Heavenly Demon. I heard you became a professor at the Academy? I knew you would.
In that letter, written as if it had been dashed off, was a secret between the two of them that no one else could possibly know—no, that no one else should know.
—I’ll say it again, but I never thought you were weird or anything just because you felt affection for NPCs. At the time, well, even if they were just bits of graphics…
This…
He had written out Sirbert’s dark history in the continental common language, openly, not even in Korean!
Even if, after being possessed into this world, the continental common language felt as natural as his mother tongue, there was no way the Supreme Heavenly Demon had written those words without thinking. This was a warning.
A warning delivered even as he proved he was the real one.
He was saying he could reveal Sirbert’s dark history at any time.
Sirbert’s neatly combed-back hair fell into disarray, and his hands trembled.
With this, it was certain.
The person that girl named Claire had met truly was the Supreme Heavenly Demon.
Naturally, because that fact was something Sirbert himself had once gotten drunk and poured out to the Supreme Heavenly Demon back in the days of Bentair Online.
Of course, Bentair’s NPCs were nothing more than graphics beyond a monitor, but their actions and reactions felt not like programmed inputs, but as if they were truly people. Sirbert had fallen for the NPCs, and in the end, he had come to feel an affection toward an NPC named “Rebecca” that was no different from what one might feel for a real person.
And because he kept feeling self-loathing and pathetic over that fact, he had gone and logged into Bentair after drinking heavily.
At the time, it had been the mid-to-late stage of the game, so he could often run into the Supreme Heavenly Demon, who played alone. Perhaps it had been the alcohol.
Or because they were both Korean? Or because of the Supreme Heavenly Demon’s taciturn and cautious personality?
Perhaps he had simply wanted some comfort from the overwhelming number-one ranked player.
And so he had ended up spilling the worries he had been agonizing over alone, and as he had hoped, he had received some kind of advice from the Supreme Heavenly Demon.
Though he had drunk so much that he could not quite remember what had been said.
- Have you met Rebecca? Knowing you, you probably just agonized over it without even confessing... Well, anyway, don’t worry. I didn’t tell anyone. I told Claire not to open the letter either, so she probably didn’t see it. Mm... probably?
“...Hoo...”
He smoothed his disheveled hair back into place, carefully folded the letter, and tucked it into his breast.
- It’s nothing else. Take Claire with you and raise her. She’s a child with outstanding talent.
He looked at Claire with eyes filled with many complicated emotions.
Unable to understand the meaning behind that gaze, Claire stood frozen, only her eyes rolling about.
‘That child... is worth causing this much trouble for.’
Enough that a man who had not revealed himself for a full two years would cause this commotion?
No, that was that.
“Child. Don’t lie, and answer me properly. Did you read this letter?”
This was the most important thing.
Of course, even if she had read the letter, she would not have understood things like NPCs or scraps of graphics, but he had to make certain.
“He told me not to read it... so I didn’t.”
“Hoo... I see.”
Sirbert gave a look to the knight.
“Lower your sword. I will vouch for her identity.”
“Yes, sir.”
Only after the sword that had been touching the edge of her throat was withdrawn did Claire seem able to breathe a little easier, taking in a deep breath.
Beside her, the middle-aged woman looked as though she were on the verge of fainting.
“I see. You said your name was Claire. Then who is that beside you?”
“This is my mother, Selly.”
“...I have done something I should not have.”
In any case, this was a request that the Supreme Heavenly Demon himself had directly named him for.
He had never heard the name Claire before, but there had to be meaning in what that man was trying to do.
Straightening his clothes, Sirbert took a business card from his breast and handed it to Selly.
A golden name was engraved upon it, harmonizing with a firm blue-green border.
「Imenia Public Academy Full Professor: Sirbert van Ernham」
Selly barely managed to accept the business card with trembling hands, then collapsed to the ground on the spot.
For an ordinary woman, it had been brief, but far too difficult a time to endure.
A group of ominous knights and a noble she had never seen before had suddenly appeared along with a shower of light from the sky.
Then there was the experience of having a sword pointed right before her throat, and the killing intent of Sirbert she had felt, even indirectly.
“Oh dear... Sir Bern, would you help the lady up?”
With the knight’s support, Selly barely managed to stand, and Sirbert’s gaze turned back to Claire.
Unlike her mother, the girl’s eyes were covered with a little fear and mostly curiosity.
“Am I going to the academy now?”
There was even anticipation in the voice with which she asked Sirbert.
Did she even understand that if she had seemed the least bit suspicious, her head might have been cut off on the spot?
“Before that, tell me everything you know about the one who sent you here. Where is he now, how did you meet him, and what is he doing?”
However, seeing how she immediately clamped her mouth shut at Sirbert’s words, he thought it was not that she lacked sense, but that she had backbone.
“That... I can’t say.”
“Even though you don’t know what will happen if you don’t?”
Sirbert’s killing intent began to creep up once more.
Even so, Claire desperately shook her head.
“I absolutely... absolutely can’t say. Because I promised.”
At that, Sirbert withdrew his killing intent and could not help but let out a faint laugh.
“You do have some backbone. You’ll have to keep being that way from now on. The losses I took today are no small matter.”
If he took only Claire back with him without gaining anything else, the losses would be enormous.
The knight order and Eos, a high-ranking imperial asset, whom he had borrowed recklessly in just two days without even going through proper procedure.
“Depending on what you do, what happened today will change.”
Even so, the reason he was putting a thread of hope in her was because of the immense existence behind this girl: the Supreme Heavenly Demon.
Just how talented was she, for him to reveal that name himself?
“...Yes!”
Perhaps understanding the meaning of those words to some extent, Claire nodded with a firmly resolved expression.
“And from this moment onward, erase everything about him from your memory. Do not try to forcibly recall it either.”
The name of the Supreme Heavenly Demon was absolute among the possessors.
Although the possessors had not yet reached the ranks of the strongest on the continent, that too would not be long.
The possessors, who grew stronger far faster than the residents of this world, had already infiltrated all manner of places regardless of good or evil, so caution was necessary.
The moment it became known that Claire was connected to the Supreme Heavenly Demon, she would surely become a target for possessors trying to make use of that fact.
“That is the way for you to survive.”
No matter how well she hid beneath Sirbert’s shadow, even that had its limits.
Each and every top ranker was either a powerful figure comparable to him, or a giant belonging to some large organization.
“...Yes.”
Thinking she must have understood roughly, Sirbert lowered himself and met Claire’s eyes as he asked.
“Forget the rest. Will you answer just this one thing?”
This, at least, was truly pure curiosity without any other calculation.
“What... was he like?”
Just how far had he climbed?
It was a question that could have felt somewhat vague, but Claire, understanding its true meaning, answered without the slightest hesitation.
“He was strong.”
If she closed her eyes, she could still see it vividly.
The dark clouds that had gathered.
The thunder that had rumbled low.
The lightning that had filled the sky, and Hio’s figure surrounded by it, as though he were the god of thunder.
“...Like a god above the sky.”
At that, Sirbert let out a faint chuckle.
Still, a god?
He thought it was merely the exaggeration of a sensitive young girl.