Too Many Abysses (3)
Kriel had no trouble realizing that the place he'd washed up was the world from the Tirnanog RPG.
First off, the monsters wandering around were all ones he'd seen at least once somewhere before. Next came his own appearance. Finally, his looks were exactly like if the graphics of the character he'd created in the game had been brought to life in reality. The fact that it had to be a Dark Knight character—a class that went increasingly insane the more you used its skills—wasn't exactly pleasing, but he had his own sliver of hope. In all those isekai game-possession novels, wasn't the usual goal beating the original final boss? There was something like a system imprinted in his mind with the skills, so he believed that someday, if he defeated the Demon King, he could return home.
That belief didn't last long.
He soon learned that Maou Balor had already been slain by heroes long ago.
"Hero" was the title players called their characters in the game. Kriel tried to track down a hero for clues on returning home, but after the Demon King's defeat, the heroes' whereabouts became a mystery. There were plenty of rumors about their disappearance, but Kriel didn't believe a word of any of them.
They probably went home.
Letting out a hollow laugh, Kriel shifted his goal to "just stay alive with a healthy mind and body" from then on…
[How many of the Seven Great Demonic Weapons are still unaccounted for?]
"They're artifacts that keep trying to escape even when sealed. Rather than hunting down the missing ones, it'd be quicker to count the ones properly contained."
He was pondering whether a life sandwiched between a unicorn-head ghost and a self-proclaimed witch could really be called healthy.
Endless pointless arguments followed, like "Why is the Holy Kingdom so lax on security?" and "It's because we're short-staffed normalizing trash spirits like you."
"Instead of you two bickering, why not round up the other saints and hold a proper debate?"
Kriel cut in with a joke to stop the quarrel. He had no idea why these two were so desperate to devour each other.
[Oh.]
"We're all heading out together anyway… Might as well give it a shot?"
But Orishin and Morgina took the joke seriously.
Kriel was sipping water in the corner of the debate hall.
He had no place in a logical conference based on decades of accumulated abyss observation data, rather than intuition or raw senses to pinpoint locations. Morgina sidled up to him quietly. It was a far cry from her earlier fervent debate over spear tips or blade edges.
"What, no more debating?"
"It's in a lull. Turns out, since you conceded so generously, we don't need to split up for individual actions."
Originally, the first step would have been locating where the relic's true body was hidden. That was why the Priest-King had summoned multiple saints—to fan out and search for hiding spots. But thanks to Kriel, they could charge straight at the main body now, skipping the tedious scouting.
"So we're each prepping countermeasures for whatever demonic weapon abilities we think it'll be."
Kriel let out a dry chuckle. They'd blabbered for a couple hours straight, and still no consensus.
"Even saints have trouble agreeing, huh. Do your church get-togethers go smoothly at least?"
"You ever been to the Festival of Light's Birth? By the time everything wraps and we gather to eat, the fights start. Fish or meat first, then the vegans insisting on grass since we can't eat meat—"
Morgina's grumbling complaints eventually circled back to boasting about her own church.
"But our Eve Kaha Cathedral has no such annoying restrictions. Booze, meat—whatever! Join now and keep your Champion rank?"
"Don't evangelize."
Kriel brushed off Morgina's nonsense. The first time he'd heard similar pitches was on the battlefield. She'd been yelling at blood-soaked soldiers swinging maces, "Join our church for free strawberry jam bread every weekend!" He'd known from then she had no talent for it.
Grikenkos's vanguard, the demonkin Satranyak, gazed at the constellation map spread in the air.
The glowing constellations in the darkness differed from real stars. The stars stitching the void were equivalents to the abyss power structure.
Six constellations, each claiming the sky in their own colors, proved it. Symbols of the great demons.
The stars representing Grikenkos clustered into the shape of scales. That Libra constellation held unrivaled authority no nameless stars could challenge—but compared to the other five, its presence fell short.
As demons were wont to do, Grikenkos sought to shatter the balance among the abyss stars and reign as the unchallenged overlord.
Satranyak had offered a scheme to realize his master's will: mass-producing abyss apostles using the Demon King's legacy.
By plan, the fragments of the Seven Great Demonic Weapons should have slowly grown by devouring the world, blossoming amid the soil of corpses.
But things had gone awry.
Despite scattering so many shards, not one had ascended to demonkin like him—none had even reached beast level.
Two possibilities: the humans he'd so carefully selected were utter incompetents too dim to kill even family, or the machine-worshipping idiots had sniffed them out.
Satranyak twitched a fingertip.
The constellation map vanished, replaced by screens illuminating the world's corners. Feeds from his worshippers.
They unanimously reported the Holy Kingdom had "secretly" summoned saints.
Humans are animals obsessed with each other's secrets.
His worshippers offered up secrets without knowing—or perhaps ignoring—who they served. The sweetness of the secrets they gained in return was reward enough.
The summons for saints. Satranyak intuited they'd march to thwart his plan. But even saints would draw blanks. He'd scattered the Seven Great Demonic Weapons' shards across the world without pattern, evenly everywhere.
The pursuing saints might prune branches, maybe reach the trunk. But never the roots.
Satranyak turned to the mummy with a blade impaled in its heart.
The sword's blade in the mummy was skeletal as bone. But closer inspection revealed it regenerating, flesh swelling onto it.
Over years, he'd restored the sword via this mummy, but limits loomed. Regeneration had visibly slowed.
If the sword devoured the last drop of soul in this corpse, he'd abandon the hideout without hesitation. Even if saints razed it, nothing would remain.
"…But a bit more elaborate camouflage wouldn't hurt."
Satranyak selected worthless worshippers as sacrificial decoys. He'd summon them here, implant false memories, then vanish.
Once the saints tallied the "success" and forgot the incident, he'd advance elsewhere. Next time, with abler devotees. More secretly.
"The main body of the abyss shard is there."
He pointed at the stone structure precariously perched beyond the cliff.
Kriel had led the saints through layer upon layer of mountains. Deep in peaks few humans could reach.
But hard-to-access places weren't ideal for hiding abyss. This world, long at war with the abyss, dotted even remote mountains with monasteries or chapels.
A demonkin popped from a peak? Bury it, burn the corpse, build a monastery to purify the site.
The place Kriel indicated was one such monastery. The saints' faces hardened.
These mountain monasteries sent regular reports on monitored zones to Holy Capital Temris. Abyss emanating from one meant either monks corrupted to the marrow… or everyone inside stone dead.
Either way, no ordinary matter. Mass corruption or a mystery foe wiping them out silently.
"First, I'll—"
"Me too."
Before Kriel could finish, Morgina cut in. He shot her a glare, then continued.
"…We'll scout disguised as wandering priests. If no word in thirty minutes, everyone charge in."