Cockroach
Cockroach
What Krumelia felt was a violent fury.
She was furious, fully aware that the single inexplicable phenomenon had just completely warped every plan she had set in motion. Furious at the uncertain reality that she could not even tell whether the thing before her was truly human or not. Furious at the fact that if this kept up, her vessel's head would go flying without her even getting a proper move off, and in that same instant her consciousness would be forcibly ejected back into Manmajeon.
Faced with all that rage, Krumelia—to put it crudely—lost her shit completely.
[How dare you!!]
The sheer force of a fury she had not felt once in hundreds of years seemed to deep-fry her brain. She could not accept that a mere human plaything had suddenly kicked over the board she had painstakingly assembled piece by piece and trampled it beneath mud-caked feet. Krumelia, who had spent her entire life stealing from others and ruining their plans, could not acknowledge that she herself had now been put in that very position.
And so, with her reason blown away and driven purely by emotion, Krumelia neatly ignored every last risk she had to shoulder and threw herself into action in order to quell the rage boiling up inside her.
[You insolent little—!!]
Eldmia's sword sought Krumelia's throat but failed to cut it. To be precise, it only managed to slice through the mound of flesh that suddenly swelled and began to writhe.
Noticing the anomaly and instantly springing backward, Eldmia frowned at the sight of Krumelia's body explosively expanding in a sudden burst, swallowing its surroundings and inflating its bulk in the blink of an eye.
"What a goddamn shitshow."
But unlike him, who found it utterly disgusting and repulsively grotesque, the five demons—who had just suddenly manifested only to find their first priority was locating their own bodies—were more grim than they had ever been. They could not fathom why their heads had abruptly been separated, yet they knew all too well what Krumelia was trying to do.
Krumelia was now committing the equivalent of forcing her own body through the rat hole the demons had used to sneak into the human realm. Worse, she had even trashed the contracts and promises that were never to be violated, and was attempting to use them as inadequate substitutes for sacrificial offerings.
The problem was that the method by which they had incarnated into the human realm this time was far from standard.
The concept—incarnating by briefly evading the world's watchful gaze and then 'directly' gathering sacrifices to quickly construct a body for oneself, rather than the established method of shaping a body through pre-offered sacrifices—was an idea both antiquated and refreshingly novel. Krumelia had explained her brilliant new method of deceiving the gods' eyes with confidence and in exactingly exhaustive detail. It was precisely because she had that the demons were able to overlook one enormous, glaring flaw and still admire her plan enough to make the deal.
So what if they'd die if they got killed before collecting sacrifices? They hadn't left their hearts in Manmajeon, so what were the odds that mere humans could pull that off? They had all considered the caveat—that being alive inevitably meant you could die one way or another, a joke that wasn't really a joke—as essentially no flaw at all.
At least, they had until just moments ago.
[K-Krumelia! This is not what was agreed...!]
[The contract! Remember the contract, you addict!]
[You mad...!]
As a result, they met their deaths in a way they had never even imagined: absorbed by Krumelia. Watching the ironic spectacle of the very demons who demanded sacrifices and offerings from humans reduced to sacrifices themselves amidst despair and bewilderment, Eldmia inadvertently let out a snort of laughter.
Truthfully, it might not have been a situation where he could afford such leisure. While he had been able to guess that the demons and monsters would be buried in that revolting mass of flesh and absorbed, the outcome was completely unpredictable. Since the expansion alone could pose a threat, Eldmia kept his grip on his sword's hilt even as he stared at the colossal lump that had devoured everything that had been summoned and then, almost like a lie, ceased all activity.
Fortunately, the expansion did not resume. The grotesque meat mass, which halted its activity the very instant it swallowed everything it had summoned, twitched slightly before rapidly beginning to contract.
Needless to say, it did not look like a particularly good sign.
"Fuck, usually this is where phase two kicks in."
Eldmia empathized intensely with Siegfried's muttering from behind him, but that was no reason to charge in right then. Eldmia belonged to the school of thought that considered not attacking an enemy while they transformed to be a stupid mistake that only third-rate villains made—but the problem was the sheer mass of Magic Power contained within that grotesque lump of flesh.
If he had to recall the most comparable level of Magic Power, it would be the sphere beyond the gate of the abandoned dungeon where he'd taken his first commission with Gaendal's party. If that thing detonated from his attack, it might well produce an explosion on a similar scale to the one he had experienced back then. At the time, the afterblast alone had sent him bouncing away like a ball, but if he got caught in such a blast here, the waterway would undoubtedly collapse and everyone would surely die.
While he was reluctantly forced to stand by and watch the unknown movement, the repulsive lump of flesh—which had been writhing at roughly the size of a person—began to crumble away.
And then a woman who looked as though she had been molded from red clay stood there with her eyes closed. At the bizarre sight—as if both her clothes and her body had been made from clay—Eldmia merely tilted his head. Sheryl and Teneasi, watching from behind, instead shuddered under a crushing pressure so immense they could barely control their bodies.
Struggling against the sensation of something incomparably more horrific than when the demons had revealed themselves—as if some dreadful force was dragging their bodies down to the floor—the red clay woman's mouth opened.
[I am the one who savors knowledge, Archduke of Manmajeon, Krumelia.]
Even though it was nothing but speech, Sheryl felt the strength drain from her knees.
The one comfort she could take was that this was not her problem alone. Teneasi stood trembling, reciting a prayer of the Imperial Divine Council with her hands clasped together. Even Siegfried, who always wore a perpetually indifferent or leisurely expression, was holding his greatsword with a brutally serious look, poised to leap out at any moment.
Her knowledge told her that this thing had not manifested in this world in anything resembling a normal form.
That was enough for her to infer that the being must have a weakness and was by no means impossible to kill.
Even so, its inexplicable presence and overwhelming pressure seemed to proclaim to the entire world that it stood on a completely different level from Sheryl as she was now.
"Arch...demon..."
Even Siegfried was sweating from the tension.
The demons they had killed while assisting the Holy Light Cross Order hadn't exactly been pushovers either. Just as they themselves had prepared extensively before committing to battle, the demons and demon-worshippers had likewise made various preparations while cannibalizing the order, and his honest assessment was that even if those fights hadn't quite reached the point of threatening his life, they had still been among the most overwhelming battles he had ever experienced.
Because he had that experience, he felt no fear when he saw the possessed demon. Even watching the five demons emerge from the gate had not frightened him. When the heads of the monsters and demons all suddenly dropped off, he had been shocked enough that his eyes nearly popped out, but he still hadn't worried as the abrupt change swallowed them all into the twisted mass of flesh.
Whatever happened, he had judged it manageable. Not out of baseless confidence, but because he had trusted his own judgment, which was thoroughly grounded in experience. It took fewer than ten seconds for that judgment to collapse.
The instant the fleshy mass that had been little more than a cocoon shaped a demon, its presence changed.
Siegfried, who had snorted derisively every time he heard words like 'pressure' or 'presence' ever since possessing this other world, had no choice but to acknowledge that it truly existed this time. It was an oppressive weight that made him realize once again that in this world—which was no game—he had only one life to live.
At the same time, the knowledge that the countless deaths at the Holy Light Cross Order's own headquarters might be the very reason such a being could incarnate here pressed heavily on Siegfried's shoulders. True, the cause could be some new method that even the holy knights—not just a stranger in this world like himself—had failed to anticipate, but as the Hero, it felt no different from him having personally lured the threat all the way here.
If that demon rampaged out onto the surface, a literal massacre would ensue. Even if people stronger than him were eventually mobilized and brought her down, the loss of life would be impossible to ignore.
A moment passed where a single utterance seemed to splinter an instant into an eternity, making countless thoughts race. At last, the Archdemon Krumelia, her shut eyes snapping wide open, glared at Eldmia with fury. Then, as if savoring each word, she continued.
[Upon my name and my soul, I swear I will tear you apart and kill you.]
Only then did the three of them realize that Eldmia still stood facing Krumelia, not having budged an inch. True, distance had been created while evading the expansion, but did distance truly hold meaning against an existence like that? Even when that thought struck her, the reason Sheryl did not run to Eldmia's side was not because he told her to stay put, nor because she was afraid.
He was still in the same stance he'd taken after drawing his sword.
From before until this very moment, he had faced Krumelia with exactly the same unruffled composure, without changing at all.
Whether it was because she considered herself in an absolutely superior position or for some other reason, Krumelia looked down at Eldmia with an arrogance beyond measure and waited for his reaction. At this, Eldmia—who had been glaring crookedly at Krumelia with his head tilted to the side—suddenly unfastened his scabbard and settled into a stance as if about to sheathe his sword again.
The moment even Krumelia stared at him, utterly unable to comprehend what bizarre behavior this was, Eldmia spoke.
"Try it."
The instant he slid his sword into the scabbard, Krumelia's perfectly intact head slammed into her own body as though someone had hammered it down with a mallet.