No Paradise for the Fugitive
Neromeltia ducked low as she entered the narrow passage, practically crawling forward. The secret tunnel had been built for goblins, so even the Demon Lord found the going difficult. Only her formidable physical prowess allowed her to keep up the pursuit at all; catching Artis, who moved with surprising agility even in his own domain, was no easy task.
“Kh!”
This was already the fifth time her body had become wedged in a tightening section. Her ample, eye-catching breasts kept catching on the narrowing walls, forcing her to twist and smash the obstructing earth aside just to continue. She longed to simply blast the entire passage open, but doing so risked collapsing the ground beneath the Demon Lord’s castle and endangering the residents above. The sewers ran beneath inhabited areas; any mistake could drag sleeping civilians into an irreversible disaster.
“Electric Area!”
Once she drew close enough to see the threads fluttering on Artis’s flat cap, Neromeltia cast without hesitation. It was the same spell she had used to annihilate the giant isopods at the entrance to Under Barkus. A wave of lightning surged through the cramped tunnel toward the goblin.
Crack!!
No goblin, no matter how quick, could outrun lightning. Yet only a faint shattering sound reached her ears. Artis remained unharmed and vanished around the next bend. Following his trail, Neromeltia spotted fragments of a small gem lying on the tunnel floor.
“Another Dispel Magic tool…? How many of these does he have?”
The artifacts were relics scavenged from the ruins of the old Demon Lord Castle. When the human army had sacked the fortress a thousand years ago, they had looted everything. Anything left behind should have been damaged or weathered beyond use. Yet Artis somehow possessed several functional ones. It seemed every usable relic still hidden in the ruins had found its way into his hands.
Three spells cast during the chase, plus the one from Utopia’s hideout—four tools consumed in total. Each time, one of the accessories Artis wore—a necklace, a ring, a bracelet—shattered. At this point it was reasonable to suspect every piece of jewelry on him carried the protection of Dispel Magic.
She could have overwhelmed the tools with far stronger magic and struck Artis directly, but that would have killed the frail goblin instantly. That option was therefore discarded. The situation was proving thoroughly troublesome.
“How long do you intend to keep running?! Are you planning to leave the Demon Lord’s castle entirely?! If you do, you’ll truly die!”
Artis’s figure reappeared in the distance, and irritation crept into Neromeltia’s voice. If the goblin fled while on bad terms with the Demon Lord, he would have nowhere left to stay. Leaving the castle meant wandering the ruined continent of Astaris alone—an effective death sentence for a lone goblin.
“If the choice is between being caught and dying immediately or wandering until I die elsewhere, I’ll choose the latter! Even if it’s only a little longer, I want to leave behind one more work of art before I go. That is my fate!”
“I’m not going to kill you, so just stop already!”
“How can I believe that?! I am a traitor who committed an unforgivable offense against the exalted Demon Lord!”
“Then why did you do it if you knew that?! This is maddening!”
The chase seesawed, the two drawing close only for the tunnel to twist or narrow again. Neromeltia suddenly realized Artis’s path ended in a dead end.
“You took a wrong turn, Artis!”
There were no side passages. Once the goblin hit the wall, capture would be only a matter of time. Yet Artis showed no hesitation. He sprinted straight to the end of the tunnel, a triumphant smile on his face.
“Ohohoho! As if!”
With bare hands he began digging into the earthen wall. Soil crumbled away beneath his small fingers, revealing another passage beyond. The barrier itself was not thick, and goblins were natural burrowers; the roughly one-hundred-mentol-thick wall collapsed in moments. Artis dove through the new opening.
“A pity, but this is farewell!”
“Kh… You little—!”
The collapsed earth had piled up, leaving only a narrow gap. Even Artis had to wriggle through; Neromeltia could never fit. She frantically shoved the dirt aside to widen the hole while Artis gained more distance, glancing back with a victorious grin.
That infuriating expression finally exhausted her patience.
“I came down into this filthy hole to talk you into coming back nicely… but I’m done.”
Neromeltia had never intended to kill Artis. Distributing those vulgar drawings of herself and her loved ones had enraged her, yet she had never wished to take a life. That was why she had pursued him personally, trying to persuade him. That was why she had used only non-lethal magic, hoping to corner him until he surrendered of his own will. If he yielded sincerely, she had planned to resolve everything peacefully.
But the cramped, filthy tunnel, the endless chase, and Artis’s smug demeanor had worn her patience thin.
“Flash Move.”
Whoosh!!!
“Guh!!”
The fifth-tier spell Flash Move carried the caster forward at blinding speed. Neromeltia appeared directly behind Artis and seized his ankle. The sudden advance sent a blast of displaced air roaring through the tunnel. Artis, caught by the ankle, whipped around in shock, eyes wide even against the rushing wind.
“I really want to break every one of those fingers, but I’m holding back. Let’s talk first.”
Even after witnessing the fifth-tier spell, Artis refused to give up. While Neromeltia spoke calmly, he slipped his foot out of the boot she held, abandoning it like a lizard shedding its tail, and tried to flee again.
“Long live Utopia—!”
Crunch!!!
Rumble…!
Whatever triumphant cry he had been about to make was cut short as the ceiling collapsed, burying him under a heap of soil. Neromeltia stared in surprise at the sudden cave-in—until a pale woman’s arm reached down through the hole in the ceiling and clamped around Artis’s throat. Recognition dawned, and sympathy flickered across her face.
The arm belonged to Beatrice. The long white blouse sleeve with its distinctive cross-knot lacing and ribbon at the wrist was unmistakable. From the passage above the secret tunnel, Beatrice had sensed Artis’s location, smashed through the floor, and seized him.
In the pitch-black space, only Beatrice’s cold blue eyes glowed.
“To exploit the Demon Lord’s mercy for such disloyalty… You’ve soiled Her Excellency’s noble body with dirt.”
“Hhhkkk…!!”
“You require discipline.”
With those words, Beatrice hauled Artis upward. He clawed desperately at the edges of the hole, leaving only long nail marks behind as he was dragged into the darkness. A piercing, agonized scream echoed through the tunnel—far more desperate than one would expect from an elderly goblin. The sheer terror in his cries made it clear just how merciless Beatrice’s “education” would be.
Recently Beatrice had shown Neromeltia many softer sides, her growing emotions even extending a measure of warmth to those around her. It was easy to forget that her usual stoic nature could be utterly ruthless. Those who broke the rules received punishments severe enough to leave lasting trauma; to enemies she was a merciless killing machine. It was no wonder her nickname had once been “Killing Machine.”
“I told you to stop…”
Neromeltia decided to wait for Beatrice’s lesson to finish—however battered Artis might be afterward—and take a bath in the meantime. Covered in dirt and unwilling to remain in the cramped earthen hole any longer, she resolved to visit the hot springs of Under Barkus with Lusteria. The thought of the pleasant activities that would accompany the bath made her unwilling to wait even a moment. She cast a teleportation spell and vanished to the surface at once.
Left alone with the killing machine in the lightless dark, the goblin’s horrific screams were little different from the wretched wails of sinners burning in sulfur at the bottom of hell.