The Demon Realm Underground
After Shari stepped forward to protect me, the demons with mushrooms growing from their heads decided to take me into their village.
They were one of the countless tribes among the demon race, known as the Karia Tribe — an ancient people, they said, who had lived in the underground of the Demon Realm for more than several thousand years.
Shari used her unique method of communication to introduce me to the people here, so that the Karia Tribe would accept me. She told them everything: how she had been captured by Patton, subjected to unspeakable atrocities, and become a ghost; how I had listened to the illusions she showed me at Belle Epoque Mansion; and how I had punished Patton and given her a proper funeral.
As a result, I found myself the object of intense curiosity among the Karia Tribe, treated as a guest. In particular, a fact I hadn't even known myself — that Shari belonged to the same race as the one they called the Demon King of the Demon Realm — seemed to lend her words extra weight.
And so my status rocketed from "that bastard we should kill" to honored guest of the village, and I found myself invited into the home of Benos, the very one who had pointed a spear at me.
"We demons, you see, have more tribes than you could ever count. There are even cases of races that weren't originally demons becoming demons by receiving a transfusion of demon blood. But a human being friends with a Pureblood Demon? I wouldn't believe it if I weren't seeing it with my own eyes."
Benos, the Karia Tribe youth who had aimed his spear at me, offered me a cup of mushroom tea as he spoke. As it turned out, the girl named Kiki who had brought me here was Benos's little sister.
The interior of the house — converted from a giant mushroom — had a pleasantly springy floor that felt wonderful underfoot. Even the table, they told me, had been made by flattening a cave mushroom as hard as stone. The tea had mushrooms in it; the grilled meat of a beast-type monster had mushrooms in it too. Culture shock, in every direction.
"I'm really glad we could clear up the misunderstanding."
"Talk casual. No need to keep up human manners all the way down here — except with the village chief, that is. Ah, and that tea gets incredibly bitter once it cools, so drink it before it does."
"Yeah? Don't mind if I do, then."
I lifted the teacup and took a sip of the mushroom tea. The flavor... it tasted like a concentrated brew of red ginseng — earthy, medicinal, the kind of taste that practically shouted it was good for you.
Beside us, Kiki and Shari were playing. Whenever Shari flew through the air and slipped straight through Kiki's body, Kiki would burst into delighted giggles. When Kiki waved her hands trying to touch her, Shari would play along, pretending to be caught in time with the little girl's gestures.
It was the first time I'd ever seen a ghost playing with a child her own age, and even as an adult I found it so captivating I couldn't look away. The bit where Shari would sink into the ground, then pop up the instant Kiki let her guard down to startle her — that was funny enough to make me laugh out loud.
"A human coming to this village is a first. Even when the previous Demon King fell to the Hero, this village was unharmed. That's how deep underground we are."
Benos sat down across the table from me as he spoke. I was quite distracted by the mushroom growing on his head, nearly a handspan tall, but I decided to ask something more important.
"Hey — is there any way I could get back?"
I figured a tribe that had made this underground their home for so long would know a way out. But Benos shook his head.
"The direction you came from is a dead end. Even if there's a hole leading up, climbing it would be impossible. And even if you somehow managed to climb, the hole would collapse on you halfway. There's only one way out of here. But for a human like you, it would be a difficult thing."
"Tell me anyway. I can't live here for the rest of my life."
"The only path connecting this underground to the surface leads out near Kutranux. And since we haven't had contact with the surface demons in a long time, that passage is packed with every kind of monster."
"Kutranux?"
"Ah, the Demon King Castle. Currently under the rule of Demon King Bercella."
Benos said it as if it weren't even a secret.
So in summary, the only passage I could use to get out of here was a direct route to the Demon King Castle. And that passage was packed with every kind of monster, making it extremely dangerous. I could feel my hope of returning to Kubel fading by the minute.
How were things in Kubel right now? Mireia, Tina, Meruru, Silphy... were they all doing well? Was the guild looking for me, or had they simply written me off as dead? The thoughts tangled in my chest, unbidden.
"But aren't the monsters on the same side as you demons?"
"What are you talking about. Wild monsters are dangerous to anyone. Unless they're separately tamed and raised..."
"Is that so... like, the way your little sister keeps a mimic?"
"You mean Arong-i. Yeah, even I think her taste is a bit unique."
Benos said this looking at Kiki, and I could feel the affection for his sister in that gaze.
After that, I exchanged various bits of small talk at Benos's house. He told me that until I found a way out, I was welcome to stay — since I had nowhere else to go. It was such kind treatment I could hardly believe this was the same guy who'd tried to run me through with a spear at first sight.
My conviction that demons weren't all that different from humans had been right after all.
Something was deeply wrong with this world.
Why had demons and humans ended up so desperate to kill each other? There were plenty of kind, decent demons, and plenty of human scum. At the very least, I didn't think I could pick a fight with someone just because they were a demon anymore. Shari, who was a demon herself, was watching over me, after all.
Well, if it was someone like Bloodstain from Horn Canyon — the kind who'd made up his mind to kill me first — that would be a different story.
What's more, we humans were wrong to assume that monsters and demons were always on the same side. From what Benos said, monsters seemed to be something like the wild animals of the Demon Realm. Just as human lands had ordinary wildlife as well as livestock people raised themselves — dogs, cattle, horses — the Demon Realm distinguished between wild monsters and tamed ones.
The thought that demons and humans were fundamentally no different, despite their appearances, settled even more firmly in my mind. It seemed to me they could get along perfectly well if they wanted to. So why were they so desperate to tear each other apart?
Well, it wasn't as if I could overturn a concept of this world that had been set in stone over thousands of years of history. Not much I could do about it. I set the headache-inducing thoughts aside and decided to start with the practical problem: how was I going to get out of here?
The Karia Tribe was one of the oldest races even within the Demon Realm, having lived in its underground for a very long time.
They had existed in the Demon Realm even before the concepts of Demon King and Hero first appeared in this world.
The Narration began reciting information about the Karia Tribe to me.
The mushrooms growing on the heads of the Karia Tribe were an indicator of how long they had lived.
The older a member of the Karia Tribe, the larger the mushroom growing on their head.
If their health declined, the mushroom on their head would also deteriorate, and if they lost their life, it would rot away.
In particular, cutting off or pulling out the head mushroom of a living Karia Tribe member would result in death, just like ripping out a human's heart.
So that's why Kiki had been so shocked to see I had no mushroom on my head. From Kiki's point of view, it must have been like watching a human walk around with their heart ripped out. No wonder she was startled.
But my skin color was different too — did she not even consider that I might be a different race to begin with? Well, the world as seen through a child's eyes isn't always something an adult can understand.
Anyway, I was getting along quite well in the Karia Tribe's village. Surprisingly, the food — monster meat and all manner of mushrooms — suited my palate just fine. Of course, there were still members of the Karia Tribe who regarded me with suspicion. Naturally. I wondered if this was exactly how the demi-humans living in Kubel had felt.
And so, as I passed the time in the Karia Village turning over thoughts like these, there came a day when—
"Th-this is bad!"
Benos, the Karia Tribe youth who'd gone out to pick mushrooms, came rushing into the village and shouted.
What's going on?
"Kiki... Kiki's gone!"
Kiki should have gone out with Benos for sure. But Benos had returned to the village alone.
"I took my eyes off her for a second looking at mushrooms, and she vanished! She didn't come back to the village, did she? I-I-I have to find her quickly! If she went into the Passage of the Abyss alone... ah... ahh!"
Benos was extremely flustered, explaining the situation to the people around him in a disjointed rush. From the atmosphere, it was clearly a serious situation. Several villagers heard Benos's words and hurriedly grabbed their weapons. They seemed to be forming a search party to find Kiki.
Kiki. If that child hadn't brought me here, I might have withered and died in the underground of the Demon Realm. I was also grateful to Benos for letting a human like me stay in his home.
"Benos, do you happen to have a spare sword in the village?"
I approached Benos and asked. He looked at me with a restless expression — so panicked he kept clenching and unclenching his fists, stamping his feet in place.
"I'll help you find your sister, too."
I said it with a hand on Benos's trembling shoulder. I ought to earn my keep, after all.