Chapter 93: The Demon
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 93: The Demon
A colossal barrier crushes the city.
The city walls that seemed indestructible, the massive clock tower, the magnificent cathedral—all of it began to vanish, crushed beneath that single barrier.
When the barrier finally reached the ground, only three groups of people remained in the city.
The demon who had unleashed the barrier, the holy knights who could cleave through magic, and Yohan.
‘Shit, where the hell did a demon come from...?’
Yohan quickly dove behind some rubble to hide. All the surrounding buildings had been compressed, and even the people on the streets had been turned into square meat cubes, making it difficult to find cover. Fortunately, there were others to draw the demon's attention.
“You... you cruel demon...! I will never forgive you!”
The holy knights, trained to hunt witches. The swords they wielded seemed to be fatal even to a demon, for it grinned at them before soaring high into the sky.
A holy knight can imbue their blade with divine power. A blade filled with such power can cut through even magic and demons.
However, a sword cannot strike a bird in the sky.
“You cowardly bastard! Come down!”
“Get down here!”
The holy knights used crossbows and bows to target the demon in the sky, but arrows not imbued with divine power could not penetrate its magic.
Flutter— The demon, flying through theair, smiled faintly as it watched the holy knights struggling uselessly below.
[You're nothing but insects. And I happen to hate insects. Very much.]
His magic was ineffective against the holy knights, but that didn't mean he needed to fight them up close. Of course, the demon's physical abilities were far beyond human comprehension, but just as a human, though stronger than a hornet, wouldn't bother fighting one, the demon had no intention of tangling with the venomous-stinging holy knights.
Whoosh— At a gesture from the demon, the buildings that had been compressed into square cubes floated into the air. The levitating buildings were then launched straight at the holy knights.
Faced with this magic, the holy knights swung their swords at the buildings, but their blades had no chance of piercing the hyper-dense structures.
Splat—! Only after one holy knight, who had been swinging his sword at a building, was crushed flat and killed did the others start rolling on the ground to evade the attacks.
[Yes, just like that. Grovel on the ground. Like the insects you are. Show me a fitting display.]
After that, the buildings kept coming. The demon merely had to wave its hand and wait for all the holy knights to be killed.
They were holy knights who had reached the peak of human limits, but it wasn't enough to reach a demon who used magic.
Once all the holy knights were dead, the demon lost interest, casually scraping the nails of one hand with the other.
[You there.]
“……!!”
Yohan, who had been moving to avoid being spotted, flinched at the demon's call. Considering the possibility of a bluff, he remained silent. But the demon spoke again, pointing precisely in his direction.
[How did you survive? Are you a holy knight too?]
“No... If I'm not, will you let me live?”
[I can't do that. The contract was for annihilation.]
As if uninterested in how Yohan had survived, the demon unleashed another colossal barrier, slamming it down just as it had when it first appeared.
Watching the barrier plummet toward him, Yohan didn't move, as if he had given up. The demon, thinking he had given up, was about to turn its attention away when it sensed something and whipped its head back around.
[You... what did you just do?]
“If I tell you, will you let me live?”
[Hmm— No. I'll just find out for myself.]
Once again—the demon's magic erupted toward Yohan. But the moment it reached him, it began to crumble away like melting snow.
Seeing its magic nullified, the demon grinned widely.
[Not a holy knight, then. That method—what are you?]
“A witch's disciple.”
[Oh, a witch. I see. That would make sense for a witch. Those cursed mutants who use magic so imperfectly.]
Seeing the demon's interest, Yohan asked again, just in case.
“So, are you going to let me live?”
[No.]
“Then stop wasting time and come at me.”
Yohan gestured lightly, and the demon, taking the bait, pressured him using the same method it had on the holy knights.
Using magic to move physical matter. Even if the magic itself is nullified, the physical phenomena it creates cannot be erased.
A building, compressed to several meters in size and weighing hundreds of tons, flew toward him. Yohan gave up on blocking it. He wasn't a witch; he couldn't stop a super-massive object.
But he could dodge it. It was something even the holy knights at the peak of human limits couldn't do, but wasn't Yohan a being who had transcended those limits?
‘Come on—.’
His optic nerves burned as magic power surged through every nerve in his body. The magic granted him transcendent vitality.
Yohan dodged all the buildings flying at him and ran toward the holy knights' corpses. There, he picked up a few swords and immediately threw them at the demon.
The demon, which had maintained a leisurely smile as Yohan dodged the buildings and threw the swords, wiped the grin from its face the moment one of the swords pierced its barrier and lodged in its heart.
[Human, human— I'll kill you—!]
More shamed by the fact that it was wounded by a human it considered less than an insect than by the fact that it was bleeding, the demon went berserk, unleashing magic everywhere.
As the already hyper-dense ground was compressed even further, Yohan realized that whatever had been blocking his movement was gone.
“Hey, if you're pissed, follow me.”
[What?]
Then he immediately used Margaret's teleportation scroll to travel to the cabin.
Seeing Yohan vanish before its eyes, the demon chased after the lingering traces of his magic.
[A witch's disciple, you say?]
Crunch—!
The demon compressed the city into a single small ball, then flew toward the location where it sensed the magic.
“Teacher—!!”
Returning to the cabin, I desperately called for my teacher. My teacher, who had been resting in the living room, came running at the sound of my urgent voice. I fell into her arms and told her about the humiliating things that had happened to me.
“...So, you went to the city, and some bastard called a demon showed up and tried to kill you?”
“Yeees... It said it would take my ass, that it would rip me to shreds and kill me... I managed to escape somehow, but it said it would chase me to the very end....”
The demon hadn't actually said those things, but I exaggerated its actions as much as possible. I didn't explain how the demon had destroyed the city or how many people it had killed.
To a witch, such things were as uninteresting as an earthquake in Africa. The only thing important to them was ‘me’.
How much danger I was in, how close I came to being hurt—that was what mattered.
“I see, so that's what happened. A demon... Hu, huhu- huhuhuhu—.”
Just as I'd planned, my scheme worked. My teacher began to burst out in strange, eerie laughter. As she laughed, I looked at her with a worried expression.
“Teacher, it's dangerous.”
“Don't you worry. Your teacher is the strongest. —Besides, I'm not the only one here, am I?”
Evangeline said this as she looked around. Four other witches, who had heard my story and were preparing for battle, were looking our way.
Seeing their belligerent expressions, I lowered my head deeply and smiled.
‘Just as planned.’
I wasn't afraid of some demon anymore. I just felt sorry for its future.
After moving Yohan to a safe place, the witches gathered to hold a meeting.
“A demon... Do things like that even exist?”
“Are you saying Yohan is lying to us?”
“I'm just saying I've never actually seen one.”
The other witches nodded in agreement with Hekaterina's doubt. For beings who had lived for hundreds of years to have never seen such a creature meant its very existence was questionable.
It was like dinosaurs—their existence had been proven, but they were no longer around. If one were to suddenly appear, how many people would immediately believe it? The witches also considered the possibility that Yohan had misunderstood something.
“Regina.”
“—The city he visited has indeed collapsed.”
“So, that means there really is a demon?”
“Whether it was a demon or a witch, it seems to be true that he encountered a being powerful enough to destroy a city.”
At her words, the witches let out troubled groans. Among them, only Evangeline could use magic powerful enough to destroy an entire city.
Of course, that didn't mean the others were weaker than Evangeline, but everyone has their own specialty, don't they?
And if the demon was a being capable of destroying at least one city, it was a fact that it would be a very difficult opponent.
“Hekaterina.”
“...What?”
“Here, drink this.”
Evangeline said, handing a potion to Hekaterina. Realizing immediately what it was, she grinned at Evangeline.
“Are you sure about this? I could betray you.”
“You can't betray us now. Who would suspect a witch who makes a face like a bitch in heat every morning she sees Yohan?”
“...Fucking bitch.”
Hekaterina cursed, but drank the potion Evangeline offered. The magic that had been binding her body instantly vanished like melting snow, and her immense power returned.
Normally, she would have immediately killed everyone present and fled, but Hekaterina didn't.
Seeing the now-docile Hekaterina even after her curse was lifted, Evangeline grinned and immediately explained the next part of the plan.
“First, we need to find a way to intercept the demon while protecting Yohan....”
And so, the witches waited for hours, then days, for the demon to appear. In the meantime, their curses even returned.
But no matter how long they waited, the demon never came.
As if such a being had never existed in the first place.
[I... to end so... futilely...]
“That's why you shouldn't rely on such old-fashioned magic. Right?”
“...Yeah.”
The demon was crawling on the ground before two witches.
The twin witches, who looked surprisingly identical except for their hair length and chest size, gave the demon's head a swift kick before returning to their base.
“Aah, isn't there a man out there who can make our hearts pound?”
“...Yeah.”
“Can't you say anything besides 'yeah'? Why are your answers always so short?”
“.......Yeah.”
“You little shit!”
Watching the two witches bicker, the demon returned to Hell.