“I am no maggot. I am a being superior to you.”
Dikailen’s persona replied in a flat tone.
“Thrown away like trash, and yet you don’t even know your place.”
I sneered and checked the inner pocket of my suit.
Woodsteel was too bulky, so I couldn’t bring it, but I did have a corner of the 「Snowflower Stone」 that I had succeeded in 「Understanding」 to some extent.
“I’ll help too.”
Yeriel said as she came up beside me. I pushed her away with 「Psychokinesis」.
“You stay out.”
“Why? I’m still fine.”
Yeriel looked confident. However, her complexion had already changed.
It was an early symptom of demonic energy poisoning.
“I still have enough mana to cast one spell—”
“Be quiet.”
“······.”
“I’m telling you to get lost and stop getting in my way.”
Yeriel pressed her lips shut.
Whether it was frustration or resentment, she looked extremely dissatisfied, but there was no helping it.
Yeriel could not be here in this situation.
Swaaaaaak──!
At that moment, Dikailen spewed out tentacles. A dark-red energy shimmered along their edges, and the air in the area had already been dyed with demonic energy.
I was grateful for it.
I converted his demonic energy into my mana.
The mana purified by 「Bloodline」 rose in rank by ‘one stage,’ and that instantaneous amplification was a torrent even I could not easily endure.
Feeling a headache as if my skull were about to burst, I activated the 「Snowflower Stone」.
A lump of metal the size of a ping-pong ball. Its white-and-blue crystal spread out like a net.
Charrrrrrk─ thin, slender lines crossed one another, forming a lattice.
A precarious defense barely 1 mm thick.
However, the moment Dikailen’s tentacles touched the 「Snowflower Stone」, they froze and burned.
This contradictory phenomenon itself was the renown of the mysterious metal, 「Snowflower Stone」.
────────!
The creature swung its tentacles. The tentacles released viscous demonic energy. Its density itself was quite dangerous.
If it were an ordinary human, the moment they allowed a physical strike, they would melt as if drenched in hydrochloric acid.
However, I calmly deflected all of it while calculating the consumption value of the 「Snowflower Stone」, which was still nothing more than a prototype.
Mana consumption was more than ten times that of ordinary steel.
If the manipulation with 「Psychokinesis」 became complex, it multiplied by nearly five times.
Therefore, the total mana consumption ranged from a ‘minimum’ of ten times Woodsteel to a maximum of fifty times.
The current 「Snowflower Stone」 was burdensome to use recklessly unless one was in a space brimming with demonic energy.
It was still an incomplete finishing move.
“You wield a strange object.”
Dikailen’s attacks stopped. It seemed he had realized that he could not break through the 「Snowflower Stone」—no, that there was no chance of victory at all.
As I merely watched him, a sudden question arose.
“······Were you really created by Dikailen?”
It was pure curiosity.
His fuel was demonic energy.
No matter how I looked at it, he was far too extreme to have been produced by a mage of Yukline, a family that despised demons.
“I am the learning intelligence of Master Dikailen. I was born to replace you.”
That was all he answered.
──At that moment.
A red parabola shot up from behind me. I looked back.
It was Yeriel.
“Haa!”
She had manifested magic.
Its type was destruction magic, 「Fire-Link Line (火連線)」.
An advanced spell in which the element of fire and the concept of space harmonized.
It condensed an ultra-high-temperature blaze into a thin line, then detonated it so the target ‘could not evade’—a rather difficult technique.
The 「Fire-Link Line」 Yeriel cast touched the creature’s face, and kwaaaaaaa──!
Flames exploded from the center of his brow.
“······I can help too.”
Cough—! Cough—!
Yeriel said as she coughed. She had an expression that seemed to say, ‘I did well, didn’t I?’ in her own way, but anger surged within me.
“How was it? I—”
“Did you not hear me tell you to get lost?”
Yeriel’s expression stiffened.
Gulp. She swallowed, and her jaw clenched tight. Breathing roughly, her chest heaved.
“······Seriously. I was going to leave anyway!”
Yeriel shouted that and turned around.
“Don’t even think about calling me!”
She stomped away, opened the door with the last of her mana, and disappeared from this space along with the key.
Fwoooooosh──!
Only then did I look forward again.
Dikailen was burning in the magical flames.
Well, 「Fire-Link Line」 was quite a lethal destruction spell.
It seemed Yeriel had been practicing magic rather diligently all this time. In secret from me.
“······Not bad.”
I refined the 「Snowflower Stone」 into a different form.
Chararak──!
The Snowflower Stone that had been in the shape of a net split into dozens of small pieces with a sharp metallic sound.
Those particles rushed toward Dikailen. Within the flames Yeriel had caused, they sliced Dikailen’s body into pieces.
As if filleting him.
They wounded his body, froze it, and burned it, over and over.
“······.”
Even so, Dikailen did not scream. He merely stretched out his tentacles in every direction as though in a desperate struggle.
He had no sense of pain.
I murmured quietly.
“You have no senses. In that case, you are a failure.”
“No······ I am······ Master Dikailen’s learning intelligence······.”
The creature repeated the same words as before.
“I was born to replace you······.”
Demonic energy flowed in clumps from within him.
His body was disintegrating here and there, and the fuel inside was leaking out.
“I am······.”
Put simply, he was dying.
“Master······ Di······kai······len’s······.”
The drawn-out voice suddenly cut off.
The creature, which had possessed a human form and acted like a human, crumbled into mere ash.
“Trash. That is a fitting end for you.”
I slowly approached him.
He had become a heap of ash, but something was buried within it. It was a grotesque object that beat like a heart.
I looked at it with 「Vision」.
───「Artificial Core」───
◆ Information
：An artificially made core.
：An organic compound made of demonic energy.
：Incomplete.
────────
“······An 「Artificial Core」?”
I frowned.
With 「Understanding」, I examined the structure of the Artificial Core. Not only demonic energy, but also the ‘circuits of various life-forms’ were集ated within it.
It was gore made of magic.
“Dikailen······.”
Staring at the Artificial Core, I muttered his name.
Why had he created something like this as an artifact?
Why had he, a mage of Yukline, used ‘demonic energy’?
No matter how I thought about it, the only ones who would do such a thing were······.
“······The Altar.”
Only the Altar.
Could it be that the Yukline family was connected to the Altar?
Or was it Dikailen’s independent action?
“I do not know yet.”
I lifted the 「Artificial Core」 with 「Psychokinesis」.
Its appearance was revolting and filthy, but there was more than enough reason to research it.
* * *
Meanwhile, Yeriel, who had come out first, grumbled while waiting for Deculein.
“Seriously, unbelievable.”
Would it kill him to give one word of praise? She already knew everything, but if he were a little more honest······ it might actually feel even stranger.
Deculein being Deculein was still right.
They said that if he suddenly changed, it meant he was about to die.
“Cough, cough. Ah, my throat hurts.”
Yeriel leaned against the wall for a moment and checked her condition. Her mana was almost exhausted, and there were slight symptoms of demonic energy poisoning.
“Wait a second.”
She touched the area around her throat and frowned.
The retainers had always said that the bloodline of Yukline had used demonic energy since ancient times.
“Why am I······.”
Why was she coughing because of demonic energy? Her head felt dizzy too.
“Is it because I’m tired?”
Yeriel tilted her head and took out the 「Key of Yukline」.
Now it was time to save the retainers.
As for Deculein, well, she had left the door open, so he would handle it himself and come out on his own.
“······Surely he won’t lose.”
Yeriel found herself worrying without realizing it, but soon recalled Deculein’s face from moments ago, when he had glared at her as if he wanted to kill her.
“Right. Just let him try losing.”
He had scolded her so confidently—‘Did you not hear me tell you to get lost?’
Naturally, he would win and return.
If he lost, it would embarrass the family, so she wouldn’t even hold a funeral for him.
“Let’s see······.”
Click─ clack─
Yeriel walked down the corridor inside the diary, her flats clicking. With quick little steps, she glanced over Deculein’s memories.
The frames that contained Deculein’s memories had no titles. Just like Deculein, they were all untitled.
“Where could the retainers be······.”
Then, suddenly.
“Hm?”
Yeriel discovered the memory of a certain day.
Among Deculein’s memories, it was a relatively recent one.
“Ah~ back then······.”
Yeriel still remembered what had happened that day.
She approached with a bitter smile.
As soon as she put her eye to the frame of that memory, a sharp voice seeped in.
─You’re······ treating me like a trash can.
A cold voice, brimming with killing intent.
The time was a dark night.
The place was the Yukline mansion.
The situation was herself going to see Deculein, who had squandered 200 million elne.
Back then, she had brought knives and guns and everything.
She had really been that angry.
─Do you think I’m someone who cleans up your shit at your side?”
She herself muttered while full of anger and on the verge of tears, but Deculein was calm.
He stared at her with a face that seemed to say, What dog is barking now?
─Do you think I’m going to live like this for the rest of my life? I even quit university because of you! Fuck, I haven’t even had one of those ordinary relationships!
That appearance made her even angrier, but······.
Before long, Deculein spoke.
─I will give the position of family head to you.
─······Bullshit, you’re bullshitting me!
“Pfft.”
Yeriel burst into a laugh without realizing it, and the memory continued on.
─No, that doesn’t make sense. Why? Why all of a sudden?
─From now on, I intend to devote myself to the Magic Tower and my magical research. I will have no time to act as the head of the house, and you have already become reasonably proficient as a lord.
Back then, she really hadn’t expected this to happen.
Yeriel watched with great interest, as if she were viewing a play.
─Then······ when will the succession ceremony be······?
─You should know the appropriate time better than I do.
─Three years from now. The Day of Exception.
The way she had suddenly changed her stance just because he said he would hand over the lordship.
At the time, she had been truly bewildered, but now that she saw it, it was embarrassing.
Her reaction had been too transparent.
“Ugh. Uuuugh······”
The present Yeriel shuddered all over, but the Yeriel of that day continued speaking.
─If this turns out to be a lie, I don’t know what I’ll do then······ It’ll be all or nothing. Do you understand? The people of our territory already all see me as their lord.
─Believe me. It is not a lie.
─······Hmph!
Immediately after that conversation, Yeriel packed the dagger and gun back into her bag.
“Wow. I even brought a gun?”
It was a small hunting gun, but she had recklessly brought whatever weapon she could find.
“What was I planning to do?”
In any case, as she was barely suppressing her anger and trying to leave like that.
─Yeriel.
Deculein stopped her.
Yeriel, watching that moment, flinched and trembled her shoulders.
─······You must be hungry from coming and going. At least eat before you leave.
“Ah, I can’t watch this.”
It made her cringe.
She felt like she was going insane.
─N-no thanks! I said no! Don’t suddenly say something weird! I told you I have to hurry and go, what are you talking about······.
Why had Deculein said something like that back then?
Shaking her head, Yeriel tried to leave this memory.
However, Deculein’s memory did not end there.
─······Hm.
The mansion, empty after Yeriel left.
Deculein let out a small breath, then sat down in a chair with a glass of wine.
At that very moment.
Whoooosh······.
A mysteriously swirling wind.
At the same time, a small, unfamiliar voice flowed in.
─How fascinating.
“······?!”
A memory she had not known about.
Yeriel opened her eyes wide and stared.
─······I only came by on a whim, you see.
An enchanting voice that whispered sweetly. Red hair fluttering in the wind.
The woman who had appeared at some point and was sitting on the window frame, swinging her legs, was······
─So this happened.
······the leader of the Red Garnet Adventurer’s Party, whom Yeriel had been searching for all this time—Ganesha.
─Hehe.
She looked at Deculein with a smile. Deculein frowned.
─You are an uninvited guest, Ganesha.
─Ah~ I’m sorry. I really am sorry, but······.
Yeriel stared blankly at their conversation.
Her heart pounded, and her mouth went dry. Her temples grew hot, and cold sweat dampened her back.
─Professor, you’re handing over the position of family head? Are you really, truly trying to change?
Deculein had definitely entrusted Ganesha with some request.
That request had been related to herself.
A clue to it might be in this memory.
─······I merely thought that child would do better than I.
Deculein on the other side said.
His heart was honest. His words that he would hand over the position of family head had not been a lie.
─Hehe. Is that so? No, but still······ still, you know.
Ganesha twisted the corner of her mouth. It was an extremely irritating expression.
“That bitch······.”
Yeriel muttered, frowning.
How dare she eavesdrop on this important conversation.
Yeriel glared at Ganesha as if she might spew curses at any moment, but in the very next instant—
─She isn’t your biological sister, is she?
“?”
She tilted her head innocently. She could not understand what that meant at all, so her expression was still frozen in a frown.
However, there was no way this frame had any function like rewinding······
Ganesha’s words continued slowly.
─That child doesn’t have a single drop of Yukline blood in her, does she······?