Eviction Notice
I let out a breath of relief after sending the two of them away.
That startled me.
The memory of the ceiling suddenly collapsing just moments ago came rushing back, and a cold sweat prickled across my skin.
Everything had been going smoothly, and then, right at the very end, disaster had to strike.
If an accident had happened there, all my hard work would have gone up in smoke.
Still, for now, the crisis right in front of me had been more or less settled.
I’d shown proper respect, kept every formality, and given a report that was as thorough as I’d prepared it to be.
After putting so much effort into presenting my dutiful side, there was no way anyone with a functioning brain could come away with a negative impression of me. First impressions were enough.
Hmm.
I sank back into my chair and fell into thought.
The immediate danger had passed, but it was far too soon to relax.
Now that I was the administrator of this cursed demon realm, I still had to survive at least five years, no matter what.
What matters now is the future...
My top priority remained the same as it had on the day I was first possessed: comfortable survival.
That had never changed once, from the moment I woke up in this body to this very day.
This was a world inside a novel.
If you classified it by genre, it was romance fantasy.
It should have been the kind of story where the cast was too busy falling in love to do anything else, yet the reason I, a mere extra, had to worry about survival was simple: this novel was dark fantasy wearing the mask of romance fantasy.
There had always been stories like that, no matter the genre.
Amid all the tired, formulaic knockoffs flooding the market, a few unorthodox works always existed—stories that twisted every cliché into something unexpected.
The novel I’d possessed was exactly that kind of beast.
I didn’t need to worry about the fate of the world; the original protagonist was there for that.
But by the time the protagonist finally appeared, Blackmore would already be a wasteland. That was the problem.
The biggest problem of all was the Seeds of the Apocalypse.
There were five people who bore those seeds.
They were scattered all across the continent, but according to the original story, as many as two of them would gather in Blackmore.
At least the third seed, Rudine, would no longer be a concern...
The other two are the problem.
I clicked my tongue and frowned.
Then I sank once more into thought.
Not just anyone, but Seeds of the Apocalypse.
As the name made clear, they were beings who perfectly embodied the concept of doomsday.
The fact that two such disasters were hiding in Blackmore was no trivial matter.
I can’t just stand by and ignore this.
Blackmore was not merely a demon realm.
It was a nest of demons, a den where aberrations bred in abundance, where death spread like mold, and where apocalypse itself took root.
At the same time, it was a battleground twisted together by countless competing interests.
For now it might be quiet, but the Seeds of the Apocalypse were the sort of things that, once they fell, could never be contained again. That alone was reason enough to keep them away.
This was my jurisdiction, the place I had to endure for the next five years. If anything, that made it all the more important.
Fortunately, I still had time.
The protagonist had not yet begun acting in earnest, which meant this was my one and only chance to respond before they fell.
In the end, it made me look like I was collecting the worst ticking bombs in the entire setting, but what else was I supposed to do?
It was an unavoidable sacrifice to protect my peaceful civil servant life.
So the priorities are clear.
Collect the apocalypse.
And reform it.
“First, the names...”
There were two seeds hiding here.
The Defector, Yutinia.
And.
The Fallen Cleric, Elfride Trivia.
...Unfortunately, I still don’t know where Yutinia is.
Elfride was the only one whose location I knew, and even that was only approximate information. Still, compared to the other one, Elfride was the easier target by far.
After finishing my thoughts, I called over the man standing by the door.
“Valkan.”
“Yes, sir?”
Valkan Kast, the chief executor belonging to Arkan’s monarch assembly, lowered his head at once in answer.
I motioned for him to come over.
After a brief hesitation, he approached and sat carefully in the chair opposite mine.
“I have a few questions.”
“I’m listening.”
“How deep have you ever gone?”
“...You mean Blackmore?”
I nodded.
I remembered that the executive agents from the main assembly were, by nature, the sort of people who roamed every corner of the demon realm.
“I haven’t gone very deep.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Even among the western districts, the areas beyond the boundary are strictly controlled.”
The boundary would be Kalmash, then.
The edge where light never reached, the line where chaos began.
I’d heard that in ancient times the elves drew that line themselves, and beyond it lurked aberrations on an entirely different level from ordinary beasts.
“Have you ever been close to there?”
“Yes, just once.”
“Do you remember the route?”
“...Roughly.”
The answer wasn’t exactly reassuring, but knowing even the route was enough.
“How far is it?”
“It’ll take about a week.”
A week?
That was longer than I’d expected.
“Is there any faster way?”
“...There is a method.”
“What is it?”
He glanced at me for a moment, then continued.
“You can go through the main assembly.”
“How long would that take?”
“One day.”
That was it.
Only after hearing his answer did I finally rise to my feet.
Then I got straight to the point.
“I’ll need a guide.”
I could at least pretend to find my way around Westmarch, but Kalmash was a different matter.
It was the deepest part of Blackmore, and more importantly, an unknown district at the very edge of the realm. I absolutely needed someone to guide me.
Meeting Elfride wasn’t dangerous enough to cost me my life, but without a proper guide, there was no telling how many days it would take to reach her.
“Surely you don’t mean to cross the boundary?”
“Well, sort of.”
“...”
His eyes widened.
It was the look of a man staring at a lunatic.
Meanwhile.
“Derek Baldwin?”
The woman facing the man let out a sultry smile.
Her identity was Selena Lugrite, the principal of the Academy, the empire’s foremost institution of learning, and the deputy tower master of the Red Magic Tower.
“What brings the esteemed captain of the Special Task Force all the way out here?”
She spoke with a wicked grin.
Just as the Academy and the Special Task Force were closely tied, the two of them also knew one another well.
Very well indeed.
“Long time no see.”
“Yes, it really has been. If you came personally all this way, I assume it must be something urgent?”
Exactly as she said.
He needed information on Luke Richter.
Yet strangely enough, his past was spotless.
It was as though someone had gone out of their way to scrub every trace of it clean.
The only record left behind was his five years at the Academy.
But even that was so ordinary it was suspicious in its own right.
There was a strange sense of déjà vu to it.
That was why he had come in person.
He intended to ask the principal about Luke Richter and probe for anything useful.
“How shameless. You ignored every message I sent you all this time, and now you just show up out of nowhere.”
“I was busy.”
“Oh, really? Well, I’m busy too, so why don’t you go on and leave now?”
“...You’re awfully sharp with your words.”
“And you’re still quick on the uptake.”
At her reply, Derek clicked his tongue inwardly and looked at her.
She was as difficult as ever.
Thinking that, he opened his mouth.
“I have something to ask.”
“Oh? Ask away. Of course, I’m not going to answer, so don’t get your hopes up.”
“Enough with the jokes.”
“Hah.”
At that, Selena laughed as if he’d said something ridiculous.
“Jokes? Do you really think I’m joking?”
She gave a dry chuckle, sounding thoroughly fed up.
“What, did you leave something with me? Are you the kind of person who can just come barging in and expect answers?”
“Then let’s make a trade.”
“...A trade?”
Interest flickered in Selena’s eyes.
“Go on.”
“I’ll give you a mana stone.”
“What?”
A mana stone.
It was a rare ore occasionally found in the corpses of high-grade magical beasts.
It was the only ore capable of conducting mana, and one of the most prized research materials in any magic tower.
“...You’ll give me a mana stone?”
“I’ll hear your answer first.”
“You’re serious, then? Fine. That’s more than enough for a good deal. Ask me anything. I’ll answer with complete sincerity.”
Selena’s eyes glittered.
Seeing that, Derek let out a sigh and got to the point.
“I need information on a student.”
“A current one?”
“No. He graduated last year.”
“Oh? And the name?”
She sipped her tea as she asked.
Derek parted his lips.
“Luke Richter.”
...What?
For a moment, Selena’s mind stopped dead.
The woman, who had been happily imagining the many uses she could get out of the mana stone, now wore a blank expression.
“...Who?”
“Luke Richter.”
At Derek’s words, Selena set her teacup down on the desk with a sharp clack and suddenly released her mana with a face gone deathly pale.
Gooooo.
It wasn’t magic.
She had simply unleashed mana into the air.
Randomly. Instinctively. A burst of raw power flung outward without direction.
And yet, even that alone was enough to press a massive weight down upon the room.
As if an earthquake had struck, the floor, the desk, and everything around them began to tremble.
Selena’s face twisted horribly.
The way her lips trembled made her look exactly like someone who had just heard something they were never meant to hear.
And then—
“Get out.”
She said it in a shaking voice.
“What exactly is this supposed to mean?”
“Get out.”
“...What?”
“I said get out. Now.”
It was, without question, an eviction notice.