Chapter 63
Chapter 63
Chapter 63
First Terminal, Eldorado
Setting aside the handling of Asmodeus for now, it seemed necessary to at least understand the cause of that guy's actions.
'It was said that she started moving this directly about ten days ago?'
In terms of timing, it was when Rudian was just about to return from the north.
'No, if I had to force a connection, I should say it was from the moment Rigos was annihilated.'
Rigos was annihilated and Asmodeus moved.
Considering time and causality, it would be right to assume this.
'But why did she move?'
This part is the biggest problem.
There's nothing Asmodeus can gain by running wild.
Even if she destroyed and absorbed the forces of the 4th Prince and 1st Princess, those forces combined wouldn't even amount to 1/3 of the Delphione ducal house in the first place.
'Rather, it's just destroying his own political foundation.'
If he runs wild like this, naturally the 2nd Prince's faction will move, and if the 2nd Prince moves, Bellatrix will also move.
Unless the demons are prepared for their forces to be exposed, they cannot handle them.
'If I had to find a reason, it would be drawing attention... But.'
In this situation, there doesn't seem to be anything Asmodeus would gain by drawing others' attention.
Huh? Wait?
"Drawing attention?"
If I had to make one assumption, there's something that comes to mind.
Rudian's gaze momentarily turned to Adi on his right shoulder.
***
Having thought of it, Rudian immediately went into action.
The place Rudian arrived at was a small village about 15km away from the capital.
"Is that the place?"
-Yes, Master.
For a small village, there were quite splendid houses visible here and there.
'For a simple village, it has strong characteristics as a resort.'
Those are probably villas built by nobles.
However, the thick demonic afterglow felt throughout the entire village was enough to make one frown involuntarily.
'It's completely an otherworldly demon realm....'
Though it was developed like a tourist destination, precisely because of that, most of the village's constituents were outsiders.
Particularly, Rudian's eyes caught that many of those who appeared to be employees were demons disguised as humans.
In the first place, this entire village was a base established with intent.
'Here it is.'
A neat 3-story villa built at the end of the village.
It wasn't particularly splendid, nor did it have any distinguishing features that would catch the eye, but.
The Belstad family crest embedded in the entrance gate caught Rudian's attention.
From the maids organizing the garden around the villa and the butler commanding them, to the private security guards guarding the entrance.
'Everyone there are demons.'
Even a decent Great Magician wouldn't feel the specialness of this village.
At most, they would pass by feeling only a slight sense of incongruity.
But they couldn't fool Rudian's eyes, who was more familiar with demons than anyone else on this continent.
SWOOSH!
Rudian entered the mansion while concealing his form with Diablo's stealth ability.
'I even fooled Maria's senses, so this much should be easy.'
Still, there were occasionally formidable opponents that couldn't be ignored.
Especially....
"Hmm?"
'Eek!'
The man dressed as a butler who seemed to manage the villa suddenly turned his head sharply toward the place where Rudian was, as if he felt something out of place.
At that sight, one female demon disguised as a maid approached the butler.
"What's the matter, Lord Amdusias?"
The butler called Amdusias looked at the spot where Rudian had been, then shook his head.
"...No, it's nothing. I think I reacted too sensitively for no reason."
"Is that so?"
"You all shouldn't let your guard down either. Since the majority of personnel here have been deployed to the capital, we must be even more vigilant."
"Yes, we'll keep that in mind."
"Especially since Lord Rigos has been defeated, there's no guarantee that this place won't be discovered by enemies either...."
"Of course."
With those words, the female demon maid returned to her usual duties.
However, looking at her still relaxed expression and attitude, she didn't seem to have taken the butler called Amdusias's words to heart.
'Phew, that was close.'
Looking at how he instinctively caught Rudian's presence that had been relaxed due to carelessness, that guy seemed to be a powerhouse close to Demon King level.
'I need to be careful.'
Fortunately, Amdusias had business outside and disappeared from the mansion.
With the most troublesome obstacle gone, Rudian slowly infiltrated inward following the path Adi had mapped.
Upon entering underground through the villa, there existed a very massive dungeon that appeared to be remnants of ancient civilization.
'Incredible!'
A place much more massive than even the catacombs in northern Nevan.
It was puzzling why such a dungeon near the capital hadn't been discovered.
The deeper he went inside, the more Rudian frowned at the gradually thickening concentration of demonic energy.
'They've really established a stronghold.'
In the underground dungeon, there were so many grotesque monsters scattered about that bipedal creatures were nowhere to be found.
It seemed that since demons and subordinates had been massively deployed to carry out business in the capital, they had filled the vacant positions with unintelligent monsters.
GRRRRR....
GROOOOOO!
Since the monsters lacked reason, they possessed strange detection abilities based on instinct.
When several monsters growled, it was heart-stopping.
-It's at the very end.
After carefully penetrating to the center of the dungeon for almost an hour, Adi informed him of the location where his terminal was positioned.
'There's no sign of people?'
The center of the dungeon was so unguarded that there wasn't even a common protective spell, let alone monsters or demons.
No matter how short-staffed they were, wasn't this supposedly the most classified area?
'...I thought they would have stationed at least one top-class demon like Amdusias, but this is strange.'
As Rudian was tilting his head in puzzlement, Adi raised a tentacle and pointed to one side.
-Look over there.
'...Huh?'
When Rudian looked at the distant corner, there were demon corpses piled up indiscriminately, covered in blood.
-These are traces of security activation. And not just once or twice.
'Ah.'
If they were stationed here, their level would have been guaranteed, but the fact that they turned into corpses like that is proof that the security's power is formidable.
Since they couldn't handle it themselves anyway, did they just leave it completely empty?
Though it's a careless thought, it's not incomprehensible.
It's just that such carelessness will return as poison to the demons.
-Ah, finally!
Adi let out an exclamation of emotion and flew toward the terminal.
However, when Rudian saw what form the terminal before his eyes had taken, he trailed off with a displeased expression.
'Wait, hold on. Is this the first terminal?'
Anyone would react this way seeing this personal computer that was 10,000 light-years removed from the internal atmosphere.
Main unit, monitor, keyboard, mouse....
It was regrettable that there were no speakers, but it was exactly the form of a home computer that 21st-century Rudian remembered.
'No, but still...!'
I was expecting something super-scientific, but this is a bit much!
-Master, what are you doing? Please activate the terminal!
'Uh, well....'
-Ah! Could it be that you don't know how to operate it? Don't worry! I'll tell you everything from one to ten in detail....
'Shut up for a moment.'
Who are you treating like a computer illiterate?
Rudian silenced the fussing Adi and carefully observed the computer surroundings in detail.
'...Surely it doesn't have Win× installed?'
The difference between the terminal before his eyes and a modern computer was that there were no wires.
Where wires should have been connected, invisible lines made of magic power were connected to a huge orb behind.
'That means essentially that orb is the main unit....'
He worried that if he turned on the main unit's power, the monsters or demons outside might notice, but Adi dismissed Rudian's concerns, saying there was no chance they would notice from outside.
CLICK!
Eventually, after some consideration, when he pressed the power button, the orb connected to the main unit began to slowly emit light.
-Activating terminal control!
The moment the light emanating from the orb was about to become too bright, Adi plugged a tentacle into the main unit and began controlling the terminal.
WHOOSH!
As if energy was being suppressed, the orb's light visibly dimmed.
When the light dimmed, the interior of the space had only a few torches installed for basic visibility burning, just like when Rudian first entered.
-Terminal control completed.
'Good work.'
-Activating the A.I. of Eldorado, 1st generation collection-type artificial intelligence.
"...Huh?"
Rudian momentarily fell into the illusion that he was watching a horror movie.
The moment Adi declared he would activate Eldorado's A.I., an eyeball monster similar to Adi popped out from the surface of the monitor that had been emitting a gentle light!
'Shit! What a surprise!'
If he had forgotten that this place was underground, it wouldn't have been strange if he had let out a scream - it was that horrifying.
Fortunately, since it was a familiar appearance similar to Adi, he barely managed to prevent sound from escaping.
-...........
'...What's this?'
For some reason, the awakened Eldorado was just looking at Rudian with vacant eyes, not taking any particular greeting or action.
When Rudian looked back in puzzlement, Adi was also breaking out in cold sweat and began manipulating various things.
-Uh... Actually, this is my first time directly controlling a terminal too.... Looking at it directly, the A.I. hasn't been installed yet.
"......"
Can I trust this guy?
Faced with Rudian's deep distrust, Adi hurriedly made excuses.
-B-but still, I was able to confirm what commands the demons tried to input into Eldorado.
'Oh, really?'
-Of course, since control itself was impossible, it was nothing more than simple typing practice, but at least records of that remained.
Rudian fell into contemplation after hearing the interpretation of the commands written in Eldorado's terminal.
'...As expected, they planned to use this to open a Demon Gate.'
The enormous power the terminal itself possessed, and computational ability sufficient to open a super-massive dimensional gate that would be impossible even with dozens of Great Magicians working together.
If they had sufficient sacrifices in addition to this, they really would have succeeded in opening a Demon Gate.
-Master, there's one problem.
'What is it?'
-It's about the most recently input command....
'......'
Rudian's expression hardened after checking the command input into Eldorado.
It was definitely not content that could be ignored and passed over.
'A small-scale Demon Gate to summon four top-tier Demon Kings?'
It may be called small-scale, but if they're top-tier Demon King class, they're definitely not something that can be ignored.
'What's the possibility of this being realized?'
-Since it's not controlling Eldorado's power itself but only borrowing computational ability... If energy can be procured from outside, the possibility is quite high.
"...So this is how they'll come at us?"
Asmodeus's aim was obvious.
There's no need to summon all seventy-two Demon Kings.
Already more than ten Demon Kings have crossed over to the middle realm, and if they bring a few more high-ranking Demon Kings here, she judged that a decisive battle with Adora, where Rudian belongs, would be sufficiently possible.
'Baal, Agares, Bassago, Gamigin... If they succeed in additionally summoning just these guys, they won't need to worry about Heaven's attention either, so it would be killing two birds with one stone.'
What Rudian was particularly paying attention to was Baal, who came from the Seven Seats and is currently the #1 in the demon realm hierarchy.
Though it wasn't specified which of the high-ranking Demon Kings they would summon, the possibility of Baal being excluded from this wasn't very high.
-What shall we do? We can retrieve Eldorado immediately.
"......"
Adi seemed eager to retrieve Eldorado right away.
After pondering for a long time, Rudian shook his head.
'It's too early to retrieve it yet. If we retrieve this here, it'll be an all-out war immediately.'
-The monsters here and such can be quickly annihilated if we borrow Eldorado's power.
'Then the capital would be swept away. Asmodeus aside, Marbas is definitely not an opponent that can be ignored.'
If they learn that this place has been raided, those guys will definitely run wild without regard for consequences.
Particularly Marbas, who ranks among the top tier of the seventy-two Demon Kings, must be lured outside the capital like Rigos before being dealt with.
He was a powerhouse that even Diablo acknowledged, strong enough to challenge for supremacy even during the Seven Seats era.
The reason Rigos could arbitrarily rush out of the capital to pursue Rudian was probably because Marbas, who served as a restraining force, had left his position due to his disguised identity in the military.
-Ugh... Then what do you intend to do?
Adi grumbled and expressed dissatisfaction.
"What do you mean what? Still, we can't just retreat, so we'll have to pull at least one trick."
Since they're trying to backstab us first anyway, there's nothing for us to be concerned about either.
Now it's about time to drive the demons out of the Morian Empire.