Let There Be Light
In the beginning, there was light.
In the past, a curious adventurer offered a sandwich as tribute to the Adventurer’s Guild’s longest-serving receptionist—a demon who presided over “Greed”—and cautiously asked her a question. In the present, among the demons living in the Dungeon City, who was the strongest?
“-Om nom nom. The strongest demon? Hmm, that would be….”
The answer that came back was….
“-That is…?”
“-That is….!”
“-That is….!?”
It was the case that even Regina Gura did not know!
“…Please hand over the rest of that sandwich.”
“-Ehh? Taking back what you already gave is illegal, it is the case!”
It was a completely useless answer. The adventurer grew furious with Regina Gura, who had devoured no fewer than fifteen sandwiches in the short time she had dragged the conversation out. Regina Gura, sweating bullets, continued her explanation in an attempt to soothe the sandwich shuttle’s rage.
“-Please calm down, Mr. Wilhelm! There is a reason it is the case that Regina Gura does not know!”
“-And what exactly is that reason? Let’s hear it.”
A demon’s power stems from the dark emotions of intelligent beings. In other words, its strength changes according to how much influence the source emotion exerts upon the world.
“-And?”
“-And? How can you still not understand, it is the case…?”
“-Please stop looking at my head with that pitying expression.”
What that meant was—
“-The power of us demons can grow or shrink according to the flow of the times, it is the case!”
“-Hmm… For example?”
“-Imagine if a great famine struck the middle world! A mother weeping as she boils her child’s bones for broth, yet still so hungry she bakes mud under the sun and eats it. That kind of great famine!”
“-The situational description is… disturbingly detailed…”
Yes, exactly as Lady Regina described, he had imagined it.
“-How does it feel, it is the case?”
“-Incredibly dirty. It feels like I just realized you’re trying to suck out the information fee and run.”
“Ei, not that! It is the case that I am asking about Mr. Wilhelm’s emotions in that situation!”
“-Ah, in that case, I’d probably just want to die.”
“-And?”
“-Depressed, irritated from hunger, losing the will to live… Something like that, I suppose?”
If so.
Assuming demons of “Anger,” “Greed,” and “Depression” existed in such an era—
“-Which of the three demons does Mr. Wilhelm think would be the strongest, it is the case?”
“-Ah, that…. I don’t know either.”
Was the most primal emotion for any living thing something that remained unchanged even as eras shifted?
“…I think I understand now.”
“Yes? What did you just……?”
“Hehe. It’s nothing. Enette. Perhaps it’s because I’m getting old, but I’ve been talking to myself more often lately. Ah. I’ll gratefully enjoy this tea.”
Wilhelm Arkanof, Bastion’s only 9-tier adventurer and an appraiser, set down the report a certain Sherpa had written and savored the black tea his colleague had left behind.
“He really is a difficult demon….”
He mulled over the last line of the report: ‘Green Zone 10th Floor, Torso Half-Destroyed.’
“Mutation.”
Shrrrrrk…!
The moment Raven finished murmuring the word, his shadow began to writhe violently. It spread outward as if devouring space itself. Like the eye of a storm expanding in a circle, the shadow rotated clockwise as it grew, then surged upward like a crashing wave and hurled Sion’s party far away.
“Raven-nim!?”
“Unyanyanyang! What is the crow trying to do nyang!”
“Uwaaah! Is it safe for this to touch our skin!?”
-Hans. In this situation, is that really what’s important?
Then, as he raised his hand, the shadow shot toward the sky like icicles growing in reverse. It looked exactly like a solid fortress wall built from black thorns.
Having isolated his party members from the fawn-like deer that were trying to kill them, Raven ordered Kkachi.
‘Kkachi. Protect the kids.’
Kkyu. (Yes, Father.)
Raven gave a satisfied nod at his reliable partner’s reply, then turned his gaze to the deer currently bound in shadows and chewing on a scrap of his coat.
“Hmm, you still haven’t come to your senses? I can sense fear, however faint, so you clearly possess some intelligence. Why are you so desperate to die? Does our little deer have a hobby of being murdered? Won’t you say something? Ah, can deer not speak?”
With no one else around and the deer constantly picking fights, the corner of Raven’s mind grew hot. A layer of his carefully maintained demon role-play peeled away.
The deer looked back at him with a smile so unpleasant it raised goosebumps. Raven, whose vision had gone red with anger, had not yet noticed, but the deer’s snout and pupils were trembling ever so slightly as it chewed on the black leather.
Even in a space completely overtaken by darkness, the deer continued trying to provoke the demon with the crow’s head.
‘Please. Please kill me, O demon… grant me salvation……’
Only then could it escape that thing’s control and attain true death.
In the past, an adventurer who had fallen to that thing’s grasp—forced to slaughter his beloved lover and party members, twisted beyond recognition, and turned into its slave—now smiled brightly at the demon glaring at him with red eyes.
He prayed that the demon would grow angry with him, that he would be granted eternal rest.
‘Aah! Grant me salvation too!’
‘Look at me, demon! Kill me!’
‘Uwaaaah! Uwaaaaaaah!!!’
‘Please kill me. Please kill me. Please kill me.’
‘Bite that bastard! We have to bite him to survive! No—we have to die!’
The moment one deer took the extreme step of actually biting Raven—
“Kiiiik! Kiiiiiiik!”
“Kiiiik!”
“Kiiiiiiiiik kiiiiik!”
The other deer, who had been too terrified by Raven’s horrifying appearance to touch him, began convulsing in unison.
“…It’s so noisy I could die.”
Raven tried to cover his ears against the shrieks of the shadow-bound deer herd, but then belatedly remembered he was wearing the Plague Doctor Mask. Cursing Terraforming’s developers, he loaded fear into the Injector he was holding.
“Filling.”
Ekrixiphobia (Fear of Explosions): The fear of explosions or the sound of explosions.
Injected Fear: Ekrixiphobia
Injected Mana: 10,000
Remaining Mana: MP: 28,415,098
Click.
If he couldn’t cover his ears, he simply had to eliminate the source of the noise. With an even louder one.
An eye for an eye, a sound for a sound. I am the demon of floor-to-floor noise complaints, you lovely antlerless bastards.
Taht!
Raven loaded a single fear bullet, spread his wings wide, and soared into the sky.
Whoosh!
“Kiiiiiiik!!!”
“Kiik!!! Kiiiiik!!!”
The deer twisted their bodies in every direction, scattering cries full of resentment as they watched Raven abandon them and fly upward.
‘Where are you going, demon!!! If you’re leaving, at least kill me first!’
‘Aah, please don’t leave us behind!’
‘Don’t run, you coward!’
‘Uwaaah! I don’t want to live like this!!!’
Rage and despair swirled in their empty eyes, flowing along blood vessels.
But—
-BANG!
“Kiik…?”
“Kiik?”
“Kiiiik?”
A massive sound like thunder shaking the heavens echoed across the Green Zone.
‘…Ah?’
The moment one deer, who had been smiling a twisted smile, was pierced through the torso by something flying down from the sky, spilling its guts and dying instantly—
‘It’s so bright.’
‘It’s warm….’
‘Oh, God…!’
‘Ooh, let there be light……!!!’
Together with a brilliant light that drove away darkness.
‘…Fuck. I’m finally dying!’
Salvation had come to them all.
Beeeeeeeeeep───────────
A blinding, obscenely loud salvation.
“Hmmm.”
From just below the gloomy gray clouds, Raven savored the beautiful explosion and the fear that overflowed from it, then lightly flapped his wings and landed.
Whoosh.
The wind pressure from his large wings scattered the black smoke that had been layered over the pure white fog, revealing a land of death where all life had withered.
Raven quietly took in the sight of trees burned black and red like charcoal and the deer (or what had been deer), then murmured a magic spell.
“Did I get them?”
Then.
Rattle rattle rattle.
The scattered deer corpses began to shake violently as if experiencing postmortem convulsions. One by one, the deer bodies—some of them barely retaining any shape—started to rise. The fact that even those with almost no remaining form were floating into the air suggested it was not the flesh that lived, but some mystical power at work.
For example, something like mana.
But it didn’t feel like ordinary mana.
“It’s cold.”
The mana emanating from the deer corpses carried no warmth. It felt like the chill of winter itself.
“Haa….”
Steam rose from the beak of the Plague Doctor Mask, fogging the black lenses white.
Crack, craaack.
The deer had frozen pure white into ice statues, and the blast zone that had been nicely warmed was now freezing cold. Raven stood dazed in the newly arrived winter forest, breathing out white puffs, then gave a small smile at the massive shadow visible through the thick blizzard.
“Yeah.”
Are you the deer boss?
-AAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!!
…No, are those not deer but water deer?