Chapter 5
Chapter 5
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: Duke Awik! Deployment!
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Rex's first glimpse of the man called D revealed someone almost feral.
It was only natural, really.
The man had arrived at the lab before Rex and endured half a year of starvation. There was no way he'd had access to grooming or haircuts.
Yet despite his ragged appearance, it couldn't hide D's masculine allure.
If Rex had been a woman, he would've fallen for him at first sight.
But Rex was a man with perfectly normal tastes in that department—and an introverted type who wanted to hide in a corner whenever he spotted an extrovert.
So when D burst through the door demanding bread, all Rex could do was nod.
"Mm..."
Duke brought the bread to his mouth.
After half a year without food, his salivary glands kicked into overdrive.
He wanted nothing more than to devour it in one bite.
But with his dignified knight persona locked in, he suppressed his hunger with superhuman willpower and began eating with refined elegance.
"Mm..."
Inside, his mind was a riot of frivolous exclamations like Great to see you after 200 years! or This is the best meal ever after starving for half a year! But outwardly, he was the picture of knightly poise.
As Duke ate slowly like that, Rex appraised his level.
Not with the system, but with this world's appraisal magic.
Appraisal magic was one of the basics for history majors, alongside clairvoyance and telepathy.
'Mana output and the weight of presence from his soul...'
Of course, it didn't go ding! with a calculation. It was done by mentally estimating based on criteria refined over thousands of years.
For Rex—the academy's top graduate and youngest ever—it was hardly challenging.
'Level... 33? Impressive.'
High enough to be a senior knight in a decent territory.
But Rex didn't trust appraisal magic.
With thousands of years of history came thousands of ways to fool it.
To Rex, it was nothing more than an alibi.
An excuse to dodge questions like How'd you know my level?—a way to thoroughly conceal his interface ability.
'Now for the real deal.'
With due diligence via appraisal magic secured, Rex immediately activated his possession perk.
'Peruse.'
He called it "perusal" rather than appraisal.
Rex zeroed in on the question marks after the level and stats first.
'Just like the chairman.'
The old monster at the academy was the same way.
There were rare people who could fool even the interface like this, but it didn't faze him much.
There were ways to peruse even in these cases.
'No need to bother with that now.'
Rex pegged Duke's real level at mid-60s—6th hierarchy.
The modified goblins from the 4th hierarchy had turned into meat paste without resistance. It was obvious.
'No way a 7th hierarchy being is holed up in this lab.'
7th hierarchy was basically dragon-tier.
No sane creature like that would sit quietly imprisoned.
'Around level 65, then...'
Rex scrolled down the profile, checking the stats.
Then he spotted a word he couldn't just gloss over.
[Madness S+]
'???????'
He'd never seen a rating like that, even in Hell Online.
The mustache-wearing berserker hero—the hardest to handle in the game—was only S...
'S-plus?????'
Madness didn't mean clownish giggling at people.
It indicated how far one could stray from common sense for a goal—and how warped their mind could become.
Innate or acquired, it was the same: a guarantee of mental issues.
A red flag screaming steer clear.
Horror washed over Rex's face.
He couldn't believe his next-door roommate was an unimaginable lunatic—or that he'd been exchanging letters with said lunatic.
'The letters were normal, though???'
Rex ran through some theories about Duke's circumstances.
The most likely: half a year of starvation had driven him mad.
The other traits backed it up: [Nobility A], [Passion A], [Indomitable S].
'So he was meant to be this world's Demon King type?'
The story fell into place.
Before meeting Rex, Duke's humanity had eroded amid the world's injustices.
Nobility, passion, and indomitable spirit kept him going, but half a year of hunger was enough to break anyone.
Eventually, that madness erupted...
'And somehow he escapes the lab to become the Demon King.'
A full light novel plot in the bag.
Rex roughly pieced together Duke's backstory like that and tried to speak to him.
"Uh..."
'Your name...'
...He tried, anyway.
The moment his lips parted, no sound came out.
Rex's jaw began to tremble.
He'd always had an inferiority complex as a commoner, giving him social anxiety even at the academy.
Then his classmates and the mayor who'd hired him betrayed him, piling on a deep distrust of people.
And thinking about it, he'd never actually spoken to the goblins—just stewed in silence.
All that combined meant Rex was...
'Ugh... Actually trying to talk is terrifying...'
An extreme communication-phobic.
Or, in other words, a mental illness gift basket: social phobia, panic disorder, mild depression, etc.
Rex's eyes darted around as he pulled out a sheet of paper.
He scribbled furiously with charcoal, completing the sentence.
With trembling hands, he held it out to Duke, who was midway through his dignified meal.
"P-please... look..."
"?"
Duke brushed bread crumbs off and read the note.
[Name...]
Duke smiled the instant he saw it.
'Acting like you don't know, huh.'
Duke knew about Rex's ability.
He'd already been perused—real name and level included.
But Duke played it cool, nodding solemnly as he stated his name.
"Duke Awik."
Rex nodded and thrust out another note.
[Rex. No surname.]
"Lord Rex, then."
Nod nod.
Rex scribbled on the dwindling blank space of the paper.
[Request]
"Gladly."
Rex, puzzled, scratched charcoal on the wall instead of paper.
[I didn't even say what...]
Before he finished, Duke spoke.
"Any request from my benefactor, I shall fulfill."
At that, Rex hesitated, then wrote his reply.
[Then, how about a temporary contract with me?]
Duke nearly burst out laughing.
It evoked an image of a white critter offering a magical girl pact.
Of course, the Rex before him was an honest contractor, not some scammer.
"Let us swear it now."
Duke dropped to one knee right there.
*
"Kweeeek!"
A support squad goblin croaked its last like a frog.
The squad had rushed over at the commotion from Rex's floor, only to get swept away like leaves before Duke upon arrival.
"You cannot pass this corridor."
Duke guarded Rex's hallway, massacring the support squad.
As Duke wreaked one-man-army havoc on them, Rex huddled in his cell, watching via the screen.
'Whoa...'
It wasn't his first time seeing a hero fight.
He'd controlled them like this in games plenty of times—not exactly novel.
But Duke's rampage was art.
Rex didn't know much about magic or martial arts.
Yet Duke's combat—restrained to perfection—stood out crystal clear.
His sword never missed. No wasted steps.
Magic spells hit only vitals, used with absolute minimalism.
If restraint incarnate in battle had a form, this was it: Duke's style.
'Whatever his level, the skill is real...'
Rex felt awe toward Duke's rampage.
And that was exactly Duke's intent.
'First fight—gotta make a strong impression.'
To leave Rex no choice but to recruit him, Duke calculated every move as he butchered the squad.
Crunch.
Duke caught a goblin's axe barehanded, then crushed its windpipe with an elbow for instant death.
Arrows flew at his back next; he halted them midair with psychokinesis and flung them back at the archers.
"Retreat! Fall back!!!"
Faced with one hero, the support squad panicked into flight instead.
But Duke permitted no escape.
Creak—
He extended a hand, and the ceiling groaned ominously.
Boom!
It collapsed, sealing their retreat completely.
Trapped, the squad turned back in terror.
Thud. Thud.
Death in human form methodically slaughtered them from the front.
Terror spread like a virus through the squad.
"Aaaah! Open it! Uwaaaah!"
Shattered by fear, the support squad fell to Duke one by one.
Watching it all on the screen, Rex couldn't help clapping.
'Kyaa... Refreshing.'
Terror for them, but pure catharsis for Rex after two months of their abuse.
A bit scary even from afar, but the thrill outweighed it.
As Rex cheered Duke on, the man returned from wiping out the squad—to Rex's cell.
"Any further orders?"
Rex summoned a translucent typewriter in midair and began typing.
Tap tap tap.
Rex's message transmitted straight to Duke's mind.
Along with it appeared a translucent arrow pointing somewhere.
Duke nodded and followed it.
A door outlined in red appeared in his vision.
Rex's neighbor's room.
"Understood."
Duke ripped the door off with psychokinesis, effortlessly.
Rex scurried out of his cell in quick little steps, heading to the now-open room.
'A...'
Just in case A was still there.
But only the stack of unanswered notes from the past fortnight greeted him.
Thinking of the friend whose face, voice, and name he didn't know soured Rex's mood.
Then Duke pointed to a corner.
Rex's eyes widened following his finger.
A shoe.
Rex gingerly picked it up and asked Duke.
"A's... shoe... maybe...?"
"High likelihood."
D—Duke knew of A too.
He'd chatted with A via Rex as a go-between at times.
R—Rex and D—Duke locked eyes.
Their goal was set.
"Duke. Let's get out of here first."
With resolve firm, Rex's words flowed smoothly.
Duke backed his determination.
"Find someone whose foot fits the shoe, who knows its shape, and who knows you and me."
Duke recited verbatim the method Rex used to find A in the original story.
(Naturally, to sound intellectual.)
Thanks to that, Rex's objective sharpened.
"Duke. I leave it to you."
Duke stepped out toward the floor's exit per Rex's orders.
But...
Three seconds after stepping out, Rex was scampering back to his cell.
Seeing resolve crumble in under three seconds, Duke barely stifled a chuckle.
'Yeah. That's the guy.'
But Duke knew how to handle Rex.
"You sure that's wise?"
"One corridor now, but lower levels will have guards I miss. If they head your way, I can't protect you."
The reply took a noticeably long time.