The Demon King of the Ark
The Demon King of the Ark
Brrring—
I was still chewing on king crab leg meat when my phone suddenly rang.
This time it really was Ha-eun.
"Ah, unnie, the Association got in touch, so for now…"
I'd been fully prepared to pick up and yell what is it this time, but—
Contrary to my expectations, she spoke with the flat calm of someone who was slowly getting used to this sort of thing.
"Uh-huh. Uh… the Ark?"
"Yes. It's supposedly somewhere around Eunpyeong-gu, but even the Association hasn't managed to pin down an exact location."
At that, I muted my mic and answered.
"So they want me to clean it out?"
"Yes. It's pretty large-scale, and it looks like it's going to be dangerous."
"Hmm… Hold on. Bumping me from C to B and then dumping a mission this hard on me? Is that how they treat everyone?"
"Well, no… For most of us, a rank promotion takes about a week."
A whole week? What the hell were they even doing for a week…
"Also, they said they'll compensate us for every illegal item we recover and every arrest we make."
"Sounds like they stuck me with the garbage detail, hard. Well, whatever. I was starting to get bored anyway."
Thud—
I came back carrying a bowl of ramen I'd boiled with the king crab legs and kept talking.
"Oh, wanna come over? I've still got one whole crab left."
"King crab…?"
"Yep."
"I'm on my way."
Guess even Ha-eun couldn't say no to king crab.
The next day, Eunpyeong-gu.
"Got here faster than Incheon, at least."
"The roads weren't jammed. And honestly, this area gets Gate surges so often…"
"They said it felt half-slum already, and yeah—it really is different."
Compared to my own neighborhood, this place clung a little harder to the past. Old buildings everywhere. Signs for karaoke rooms and other businesses that had long since gone under.
Well… karaoke rooms weren't the only things that had vanished. In their place, a massive new market had sprung up around Hunters. Whether that was a good thing, I still wasn't sure. It just meant Earth had gotten that much more dangerous.
Becoming a dragon had changed almost everything about me, but every now and then I still found myself missing the old days. Looking at a street like this only made it worse.
…I wondered if my parents and my little brother were even still alive.
I'd never properly checked since returning to Earth. They'd supposedly gone missing at the same time I was dragged into the other world, but… I don't know. I'd changed this much—why wouldn't my family have changed too? Or maybe they were already… gone from this world entirely.
Maybe that was what I was really afraid of. Even for a dragon as great as me.
Thud—
Trying to shake those thoughts off, I started walking and said,
"So, where to now?"
"That… is something we have to find ourselves."
"Huh?"
"W-we know the Ark is somewhere in Eunpyeong-gu, but they say the entrance changes every time."
Some fussy security measure, then? Figures. Places that called themselves the underworld always came loaded with precautions. I'd visited a few similar dens back where I used to be, and they'd been a real pain.
"Asking people is probably out, right?"
"Of course it's out!"
At her sharp outburst, I snorted a laugh and glanced at Terra.
"You sensing anything?"
"I'm not sure… There's magic on it, I think."
"An Earth Dragon can't even handle that much?"
"…I'm sorry."
"Uh… no, no, I wasn't trying to make you that sorry…"
His shoulders and tail drooped as he snuck looks at my face.
…Had I just poked at something that actually hurt his pride?
Thud—
"Oh my… hello there?"
A voice from behind made all of us turn.
What filled our vision was a woman draped head to toe in a pitch-black robe.
"…Who are you?"
She looked suspicious as hell at a glance. And that robe—there was magic woven into it, too.
"Please don't be so wary. I only meant to help some poor souls who kept looking around as if they were lost."
A thoroughly alluring voice slipped out from between the folds of the robe. It reminded me a little of Thalassa last time, yet I couldn't feel any mana riding on it. Too strange to write off as just a pretty voice.
"You think I'm gonna buy that? Start talking prop—"
"You're looking for the Ark, aren't you?"
"…What?"
"Heh. I know the Ark rather well. I've even personally escorted guests there before."
Thud—
She took another step toward us. I pulled Ha-eun behind me, and the woman in front of us smiled faintly.
"Even for someone like you, finding the entrance wouldn't be easy, would it?"
"…"
She wasn't exactly wrong. Even Terra the Earth Dragon couldn't properly map the underground, and the entrance supposedly shifted constantly. Unless I was ready to rip the entire ground up, even Dragon Eyes would take time.
That said, handing the lead to someone this shady wasn't a great option either. If it were just me, maybe—but Ha-eun and Terra were here too.
"You don't trust me, do you?"
"Would you, if you were me?"
"Heh… Then allow me to show you something fun."
Beep—
Suddenly she turned her watch screen toward us, and my eyes locked onto it.
[Goldy]
There it was—my stream's standby screen.
"Most people in the Ark don't watch streams. Either they don't care what happens up on the surface, or they're afraid the brilliance of it all will only make them feel more pathetic."
And then she showed me the nickname.
[NotSuspiciousPerson]
That familiar handle—the one that always typed the weirdest crap in chat.
"Wait, hold on… Uh… so you—I mean, you're…?"
"Yes. Hello. It's nice to meet you as well."
She pushed the hood back from her head and held out a hand.
A strikingly beautiful face came into view, along with a small pair of horns rising from her pink hair. At the same time, I began to feel a faint trace of mana.
Judging by the shape of those horns, she was a demonkin. And that faintly metallic edge to her mana…
"A succubus…?"
"Oh my, you recognized me right away."
"The mana I can feel—"
"Shh~ That's our little secret."
NotSuspiciousPerson raised a finger to her lips.
I hadn't planned it, but this was already the second viewer I'd met through my stream. Were all my viewers like this…? An elf queen and a succubus? Talk about extremes…
As that thought flickered through my head, I remembered a chat message from not long ago. Something about how everyone here except me was a beautiful girl.
Could that actually be true? Well, I couldn't check every last one of my viewers, so who knew… but for at least two of them, it was spot on.
Anyway. A succubus.
"Earth actually let succubi in?"
"They let a dragon in. Why would that be a problem?"
Hmm… fair enough? I didn't go on rampages, so I was fine, but succubi were different, weren't they? They couldn't even survive without vital essence.
"Heh. Of course, they only accepted the ones among us who don't do that sort of thing."
As if she'd read my mind, NotSuspiciousPerson—NotSus for short—answered.
"Though some of them still do it in secret. That's why I came looking for you."
I snorted a laugh at that.
"Got good instincts, huh?"
"You could say that. People like you are… quite tempting to me as well."
"What do you want?"
"The destruction of the Ark. And the extermination of my kin who've gone feral. Even I can't stop them all on my own."
"And the reward?"
As if she'd been waiting for those exact words, she slipped a hand into her robe and drew out a single pink, heart-shaped gem.
"The Gem of Love. A Succubus Pink Sapphire."
"That's gotta be worth a fortune."
"Of course. It's a treasure of our people."
She was just handing over a treasure of her own kind? That was fishy as hell.
"For a raid on the Ark, a reward of this caliber is only natural. For us, it's a matter of life and death."
"Life and death?"
"You really don't know, then."
She put on a sorrowful, heavy expression, then tucked her face back into the robe.
"Someone inside the Ark is trying to control our kind."
"Huh?"
"Someone who wants to become the Demon King of the Ark. Down here, underground."
…Demon King?
I looked over at Ha-eun. She immediately exploded.
"W-why are you looking at me?!"
"Uh… no reason."
"As you know, succubi are a race that feeds on vital essence. But simply saying we 'eat' it falls short."
Filling their stomachs was a given. Through essence they also felt pleasure, happiness, fulfillment. That was how NotSus explained it.
"Which is why the lower-ranked ones—or those desperate for essence—have already fallen into his hands."
"So the job you're asking for includes arresting or killing that guy too?"
"That's correct."
This was getting more annoying than I'd expected. I'd figured I'd just smash things up like the Association wanted, but… hunting a would-be Demon King? That ballooned the scale of the whole thing.
Still.
"Mind if I take a look at that sapphire?"
"If it's only looking, then by all means."
If treasure was on the line, there wasn't much I couldn't solve. Besides, he wasn't a real Demon King—just some self-proclaimed one.
◈ A jewel formed by condensing the emotion itself when the primordial succubus first felt love.
◈ Causes the target to fall into absolute love.
◈ Warning — May increase Karma value.
Oof. Dangerous gem.
And "Karma value," huh. That part felt like a joke, but it probably meant abusing it was a bad idea.
Anyway, that wasn't the important part.
"It's the real deal, all right."
A gem. And one with "love" right there in the name—about as intuitive as a treasure could get. What collector wouldn't go starry-eyed at the words love and jewel side by side?
Heh. True to its name, I was already halfway in love with the thing myself.
"Your face is flushed. That excitement of yours… I'd love to take a bite, but…"
She pressed a hand over her heart as if holding her feelings down, then let out a breath that was already starting to heat up.
Somehow she looked more worked up than I was…
"Let's put that off for a little later."
"…I don't think 'putting that off' is the issue here?"
"Heh… No, no. I like women too, you know. Someday, on a bed, I absolutely must hear the sounds you make when you—"
"Don't you dare put a charm on me."
Smack!—
"Hngh…"
Ugh, leave it to a succubus. Give her half a second of room and she goes straight for the charm. If I didn't have my level of resistance, that just now could've gone very badly.
And how the hell do hearts even form in someone's eyes…?
"Ugh… I'm sorry. Looking at you, it's hard to hold back. It's been so long since I've felt anything like this. Down below, I'm already—"
"Nope. Stop right there, please. Let's just get to work already."
Before I lost it and incinerated the entire succubus race with a breath attack…
"This way, then. I'll explain while I guide you to the Ark."
"…Fine. Just don't stick so close."
She started walking at an unhurried pace as she said it. And yet she kept edging toward me, little by little, like she was about to reach for my hand…
Should I seriously just rip her arm off first?
"Oh, I should tell you this first."
"Hm?"
"About the person I mentioned earlier—the one who wants to become the Demon King."
Her voice dropped, turning serious all of a sudden. I wondered what she was about to say.
"He's a Hunter. An active, officially registered Hunter, no less."
Tsk…
Was the Association even doing its job?