Chapter 177
Chapter: 177
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>Translator: penny
>Chapter: 177
>Chapter Title: The Devil's Ledger (3)
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The demon's name was Glumgos.
He was a mid-tier demon without any particular rank, but thanks to opportunistically seizing a favorable position, he had recently been gaining influence among the demons. It just so happened that Delcross's guardian was bound by the [Accord] right when he formed a contract with a human.
Considering how the many demons who had contracted before him had been utterly shredded by the nutcracker without rhyme or reason, this was truly a stroke of luck.
His contractor was Wilhelm Schmidt.
At the time, he was a lowly administrator in the Merchants' Union, and for someone who had summoned a demon, his dreams were modest and his ambitions feeble.
Thanks to that, Glumgos easily granted his wishes and, not long after, succeeded in fully taking over Schmidt's body and soul.
From then on, it was smooth sailing.
He rose to the highest position an administrator in the Merchants' Union could achieve and amassed great wealth in the process. He even took a beautiful wife and recently had a lovely child.
By this point, he couldn't help developing a strong attachment to life in the human world.
But his current state was like a lamp flickering on the verge of extinction. There were plenty of demons bloodthirsty to kill him and seize everything he had.
The Merchants' Union, where relatively ambitious humans gathered, had an unusually high number of demon contractors, and among them were even humans contracted to demons of staggeringly high rank.
To maintain his edge among them, Glumgos resolved to create his own weapon.
Namely, a ledger listing the true names of demons and their contractors. That ledger would likely become the dagger to stab his enemies in a moment of absolute crisis.
The problem was that it violated the unwritten rule among demons not to infringe on each other's contracts—a taboo they must never break.
If any demon discovered the ledger's existence, Glumgos would be reverse-summoned to the demon world on the spot, and it might be better for him to simply perish.
And yet, this ultimate weapon he had staked everything on...
'...Of all times, while I was briefly away?'
Glumgos felt as if he were trapped in a nightmare.
Who would have thought the Holy Empire's prince would suddenly barge into his office, snatch the ledger that contained all his power, and point a terrifying holy relic right at him!
He rarely ever separated the ledger from his body, but he had no choice but to entrust it to a lesser familiar for a short while due to business near the church.
And this boy had exploited that exact timing!
'Should I just take it by force? No, but...'
The prince before him appeared to be an ordinary human without a scrap of holy power, but surely he couldn't lay a hand on him recklessly.
The implications of the nutcracker in that hand were clear.
Behind that human stood the terrifying Holy Emperor.
'Of all things to lose it to...'
Glumgos stared at the office ceiling, feeling a moment of despair.
But what was done was done. There was no other way now. He had to placate the boy well and get the ledger back.
"...I don't want any more commotion. Let's talk this out first."
"Talk?"
Meanwhile, for Glumgos's misfortune, Seongjin had felt the signs of a jackpot the moment he grabbed the book.
In an era where printed books were common, this was an archaic tome crudely bound from untrimmed parchment.
Especially the peculiar black aura wafting from the cover—it was clearly no ordinary item, no matter how you looked at it.
He shook it.
As he swung the book around, watching the demonic energy disperse into the air, the branch manager—or rather, the demon masquerading as the branch manager—continued in a trembling voice.
"C-Calm down and hear me out. For your own sake, please return that dangerous book to me. The demonic energy leaking from it is extremely harmful to humans. Prolonged exposure will weaken your body and eventually lead to death."
"Yeah?"
Seongjin stopped swirling the demonic energy and asked the Demon King.
'Hey, is that guy telling the truth?'
The Demon King replied with an oddly uneasy tone.
[He's not lying. Common sense says demonic energy can't be good for a living human, but...]
'But?'
[Something bothers me when I think about it. You see, a tiny amount of demonic energy has been steadily emanating from my soul too. Meaning you've been exposed to a constant level of it all this time.]
Hm. Seongjin rolled his shoulders but felt no particular abnormality in his body.
'I'm fine, though? Maybe because I'm already dead?'
I'm a vengeful spirit, after all.
The Demon King replied uncertainly.
[Who knows...]
In any case, the demonic energy didn't seem to pose any threat to him. With that judgment, Seongjin decided to examine the book at his leisure.
"D-Don't... don't open it! The demonic energy wrapping the book carries a powerful death curse! If a human touches it...!"
"Hm?"
Seongjin, who had opened the book to the center page, looked up at Glumgos.
"If a human touches it, what?"
"...N-No, nothing."
The demon, staring at the perfectly fine boy, averted his gaze while breaking out in cold sweat.
Lame.
Seongjin shot the demon a glance before slowly turning the pages. The branch manager demon peeked at him and spoke in a crawling voice.
"...That ledger is useless even if you take it. Can't you just return it?"
"Why's that?"
"Because it's not something humans can read. It's written in the demon world's language!"
Sure enough, as he said, the writing in the book was unfamiliar to Seongjin.
Bizarre characters like twisted thorns were scribbled unevenly, accompanied by incomprehensible complex patterns.
Hm. Demon world language, huh?
[That crazy bastard...!]
He heard the Demon King mutter in his head.
'Can you read it?'
[Of course. It's demon tongue. But I can't read it aloud and teach you the contents.]
'Why not?'
[Because it's full of demons' true names lined up! Reading even one would summon that demon here! Who makes something this dangerous? Is that guy sane?]
True names?
[Yeah. This is a ledger of demon contractors and the demons they're bound to. If this gets out, he's as good as dead. He'd be public enemy number one in the demon world.]
Hm. That explains why the branch manager demon looked so pale watching him.
And there were this many demon contractors in Delcross?
Seongjin flipped through the pages and soon made up his mind, snapping the book shut.
"I'll just take this with me."
The branch manager demon jumped up in place.
"What? It's useless even if you take it—why?"
"I don't care if I can't read it. It looks antique enough to make a perfect souvenir for Dad from my trip."
Giving the Holy Emperor the demons' ledger?
Glumgos felt his mind go blank for a moment.
"You madman! Why in the world would you...!"
Whoosh.
Reflecting his agitation, black demonic energy surged violently before subsiding just as quickly.
Now the demon was trembling pathetically.
"C-Calm down! We can still fix this before it blows up!"
The branch manager demon spoke in a quivering voice, but he seemed the one who needed calming most.
His unstable hands fidgeted endlessly, and his body was soaked in sweat long ago.
'No way...'
A thought flashed through Seongjin's mind.
"Just to check, can our dad read this ledger?"
"Kuhk!"
The branch manager demon, pale as a ghost, spat out demonic energy from his mouth.
Bingo.
[Whoa, this is a total wipeout scenario. A ledger like this generates powerful karma just by existing. More than enough reason for your dad to act, right?]
Seongjin brightened.
"Dad's gonna love this! Whenever he's bored, he can read a line at a time, and every time a demon gets summoned, he can just lop off its head right there..."
"No! Stop!"
Screaming like a banshee, the demon began pleading desperately with Seongjin.
"If a demon perishes, its contractors can't escape death either! And everyone listed is in a key position in the Merchants' Union! If they all vanish at once, what do you think happens to the continent's economy?"
"Well, Dad'll handle it. He can take them out slowly without overdoing it, right?"
"The ledger's existence will come to light! I'm done for!"
"That's not my problem."
"But if I perish, the ledger I created with my power will vanish too?"
"Hm, that'd be a problem. Ah! I'll protect you, so wanna come to the capital with us? Don't worry about the divine grace."
The Demon King had survived in there just fine, so asking the Holy Emperor for a barrier should be easy.
Glumgos despaired, collapsing to the floor and shedding bloody tears. "Kuhuhuheuk!"
"Please spare me! I have a rabbit-like wife and a fox-like kid!"
"......"
"They won't let it slide in the demon world! They'll rip them to shreds in my place!"
Surprisingly, that offhand plea moved Seongjin.
He silently watched the demon pour blood from his eyes for a moment, waiting until it calmed a bit before speaking.
"Fine. I'll give it back."
"...G-Give it... back?"
Glumgos looked up at Seongjin in disbelief.
He had been debating whether to charge at the boy and take his chances with death by the Holy Emperor's hand if it came to it.
And now he was changing his mind so easily?
"But not for free. I have some conditions instead."
Seongjin then clearly conveyed his demands to Glumgos, one by one.
* * *
Top floor of the logistics relay station.
Even after Seongjin sneaked into Wilhelm Schmidt's office, the building's corridors remained utterly silent.
Inside the office, the demon rampaged and demonic energy flared and subsided like explosions, but not the slightest shock leaked outside. Thanks to the barrier Glumgos had set up in advance.
The guards stood cluelessly by the door, and the assassins wandering the halls passed by the office without detecting anything amiss.
Only one person.
Only the one person quietly sitting on the relay station's roof had watched the entire scene from start to finish.
He was an exorcist with raven-black hair, gazing endlessly at the flow of the long Breeze River stretching north of the building.
Like her hair, her pitch-black eyes occasionally flickered with eerie silver-gray light before fading.
"...Your Majesty."
Suddenly, she quietly spoke.
"Is it truly alright to leave it be? If we secure that ledger, we could eliminate a huge swath of those corrupt forces gripping the continent's economy in one fell swoop."
The Holy Emperor replied after a brief silence.
[Lady Sharon. Do you know how many demon contractors there are in the Merchants' Union?]
The exorcist shook her head. She vaguely assumed there were many, but she had no way to identify them at a glance.
Demon contractors were ultimately ordinary humans. Unless they summoned a demon into reality or performed overt miracles with demonic aid, they didn't emit demonic energy themselves.
That was why, even in a continent full of priests who believed in the Lord God, demons could easily infiltrate the world through contractors and scheme from the shadows.
Only the demonic brand etched on their souls—and only the Holy Emperor, who could see it with his own eyes—knew the exact number.
And his answer was shocking.
[We must consider nearly all those in key positions in the Merchants' Union as contractors.]
The union members and administrators, who had been expanding their influence for decades, were suffering from internal competition far more cutthroat than it appeared from outside.
To compete against the entrenched demon contractors, newcomers had no choice but to contract demons themselves.
"...Then!"
[So if we remove everyone on that ledger, more will rush in to fill the vacancies, becoming new demon contractors.]
Even if they luckily uprooted some demons through the karma gained from the ledger this time, they'd still be helpless against the new ones.
The Holy Emperor would remain bound by the [Accord] indefinitely.
In that case, it was better to let that modest mid-tier demon maintain the status quo.
The wishes humans in the Merchants' Union made to demons were mostly for wealth and power.
As long as Wilhelm Schmidt firmly held his branch manager position, the day those people fulfilled their wishes would be delayed.
In turn, that naturally limited the number of demons who could fully inhabit human bodies and move freely.
[Trust Morres's judgment. That child will surely extract the maximum results possible from that ledger.]
"Is it thanks to His Highness's oracle ability, as expected?"
As Lady Sharon tilted her head curiously, a faint echo resounded in her mind. It sounded like a low chuckle.
[It's a slightly different story. Do you know? Morres has been instinctively gifted at calculations since childhood.]
Well, that made sense, Lady Sharon thought.
Morres's father was the Holy Emperor, who managed a vast empire flawlessly, and his maternal grandfather was Asaine the Grand Duke, reputed as the most ruthless on the continent. Where else would the blood from such parents go?
The exorcist lifted her dazed eyes to the sky, then suddenly smirked as some thought struck her.
"By the way, how great a fortune this meeting must be for that demon? Following Red, this nobody demon becomes the fourth one permitted to exist by Your Majesty."