Chapter 33
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 33
Chapter Title: A Devil's Wager
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The moment he had plunged the dagger in.
At that instant, Chris had been hiding a dud pill, acquired beforehand, in the palm of his hand.
He had swapped it out when he pretended to take out the Black Dan.
A trick worthy of a magician.
For someone who had once made a name for himself as a top-tier pickpocket, such a feat was simple.
‘Heh heh. This Black Dan should solve my magi shortage to some extent.’
Chris wore a satisfied expression.
Meanwhile, Allos and the other Majin stared at Chris in stunned silence, their mouths agape.
Even after seeing it with their own two eyes, they couldn't believe what Chris had just accomplished.
“It seems you’re too moved to even speak.”
“!!”
“Now, Allos. Do you still think I am not qualified to attend the Sacred Black Ceremony?”
Allos’s face flushed red.
He had denounced the scoundrel Chris, claiming he was unqualified to attend the ceremony.
In truth, it was less his own opinion and more an instigation by Roin de Baron, a direct descendant of the Dark Magic House, but he had nothing to say for himself.
As Allos stood speechless, the corners of Chris’s mouth lifted into a smirk.
“Alright, then. Try calling me your big brother.”
“What?”
“You promised earlier, didn't you? That if I helped, you’d serve me as your big brother.”
“What kind of nonsense is that?!”
“Hoh, making a promise only to go back on your word. The County of Tiramin seems to take its honor lightly.”
“When did I ever make such a promise?! And I’m two years older than you!”
“What does age matter between brothers? The weaker one is the younger brother.”
As he shrugged, the cavern suddenly fell silent.
Everyone clamped their mouths shut.
It wasn't a coordinated action.
They had all felt a sudden killing intent.
A chilling presence filled the cavern.
No, it was a sinister energy, as if dragging them down into an abyss.
‘What?’
Chris’s eyes widened.
The source of the killing intent was clear.
The altar.
No, the crevice to Gehenna.
A suffocating malevolence surged from beyond the seal that blocked the crevice.
It felt as if it would burst forth at any moment.
‘Crazy.’
Chris swallowed hard.
A cold sweat unknowingly beaded on his clenched fist.
He knew this phenomenon all too well.
‘A being from Gehenna is trying to cross over from the other side of the crevice!’
He had experienced it countless times during the Age of Ruin.
‘Why? There’s nothing wrong with the magic circle.’
Chris wore a look of confusion.
And then.
*Kwoong.*
A tremor, like an earthquake in his pupils, shook the cavern.
Energy erupted from the crevice in a violent surge, and the space distorted, scrambling everyone’s vision.
Evil energy.
A wicked aura, distinct from magi.
A suffocating, viscous malevolence began to fill the cavern, and along with a smoke-like mist, a horrifying being descended.
A towering figure.
Three pairs of horns on its forehead.
Four arms.
A fiendish face, similar to a human's yet different.
It was a member of the ‘Demon Race,’ a species commanded by devils.
* * *
‘Crazy, a member of the Demon Race?’
There were two types of transcendent beings in the world.
The ‘Constellations’ of the Celestial Realm and the ‘Devils’ of Gehenna.
They symbolized justice and evil, respectively.
The Demon Race was a species commanded by the devils.
‘Dammit. Why did a demon suddenly pop out of here?’
Chris’s face turned pale in the face of this unexpected crisis.
One might think that since he was a Majin, he would be on the same side as a demon, right?
That was a misunderstanding.
The Majin of the Magitech Empire pursue the power of darkness. The values they revere are strength and the rule of the strong. This was clearly different from evil.
Of course, it wasn't as if there were no Majin who worshiped devils.
But just as not all humans on the outside worshiped the Constellations, only a fraction of Majin worshiped devils.
The end of devil worship was always a gruesome demise, so most Majin were wary of them.
‘What happened? Did someone tamper with the magic circle?’
He didn't know.
And he didn't have the leisure to figure out the cause.
The demon turned its head and looked down at them.
[Worms... human worms, I see.]
“!!”
Chris gritted his teeth.
The demon's aura was filled with a wickedness that corrupted the mind, and those with weak mental fortitude couldn't withstand it.
Indeed, most of the escorting Majin were trembling in terror, unable to endure the aura the demon emanated.
The only one who seemed relatively fine was Allos, the most skilled among them.
Chris spoke with feigned strength.
“What business does a being of Gehenna have here? Do you not fear the pact with the Celestial Realm? Return to Gehenna at once!”
The demon’s eyes glinted for a moment.
[You know of the pact between our Gehenna and the Celestial Realm?]
“…”
Chris fell silent.
He knew of it.
The pact that devils and Constellations would not directly intervene in the middle realm.
But Chris also knew something else.
He knew how empty and superficial that pact truly was.
The demon mentioned that very fact.
[Then you must also know. That there is no problem with me taking the lives of you worms.]
“!!”
[A little amusement like this should be fine.]
The pact existed, but it wasn't meticulously followed.
A demon crossing through a crevice and killing a few humans was a mere ‘transgression,’ not even considered a breach of the pact.
‘Dammit. What do I do?’
Chris clenched his fist tightly.
A demon was not an opponent that could be fooled with petty tricks.
‘It’s a low-level demon, but it’s still not something I can handle at my current level.’
Having seen countless demons during the Age of Ruin, Chris could gauge its rank.
Even a low-level demon possessed power equivalent to a 5-Star or higher by human standards.
As he pondered his options, the demon said something unexpected.
[But simply killing you would be rather dull.]
“What?”
[Opportunities for this kind of amusement don't come often, you see.]
The demon spoke with a cruel smile.
[You, how about you make a contract with me?]
“!!”
The demon raised one of its arms and pointed at Chris.
[Kill all the other humans with your own hands and offer them to me as a human sacrifice. In return, I will not only spare your life but also bestow my blessing upon you.]
“!!”
The Majin of the County of Tiramin widened their eyes, agitated.
Chris let out a hollow laugh.
‘This bastard.’
The reason the demon made such an offer was obvious.
Because it was fun.
Devils and demons were that kind of ilk.
They were the pure crystallization of malice.
The more pain and suffering others experienced, the more pleasure they felt.
Chris glanced back at Allos and the Majin of the County of Tiramin.
They wore faces of utter despair, devoid of any hope.
They believed Chris would accept the demon's offer.
After all, there was no other way to survive the demon’s grasp.
However.
‘It’s not like I’m particularly fond of the Tiramin guys.’
Far from fond, he couldn't care less whether they lived or died.
But Chris spat on the ground.
“Shut up.”
[…What?]
“I said shut your filthy mouth. I’m not doing that.”
The Majin of the County of Tiramin stared wide-eyed.
Allos shouted with difficulty.
“What, what are you doing?! Do you think we’ll be grateful just because you say that?!”
“Then should I just offer my neck to that demon?”
Allos couldn't answer and fell silent.
Chris chuckled.
“It’s not for you guys. It’s just my personal creed not to associate with the spawn of Gehenna, no matter how precious my life is.”
He was being sincere.
Chris vividly remembered how the world had turned into a horrific hell because of those fiends from Gehenna.
There would be absolutely no compromise.
Above all.
‘There is one way.’
“Instead, let’s make a different wager.”
[Hmm?]
The demon looked intrigued.
It was the余裕 of one with absolute superiority in power.
No matter what scheme an ant cooked up, it could never defeat a lion.
[What kind of wager are you proposing?]
“Before that, just a moment.”
Chris extended his hand towards the Majin.
A curse-type black magic manifested.
[Curse of Sleep]
The Majin, already half-unconscious under the pressure of the evil energy, fell asleep in an instant.
Only one person, Allos, shouted in bewilderment.
His resistance to magi was strong enough that the Curse of Sleep didn't work on him.
“Wh-Why?”
Chris frowned.
For his plan to work, he needed to knock them all out first.
“…If you’re awake, you’ll be negatively affected by the evil energy, so just go to sleep.”
“I-I can’t just…”
“Just sleep.”
*Thwack!*
Struck squarely by Chris’s fist, Allos let out a yelp and collapsed, unconscious.
Chris didn't stop there.
He pulled a dagger from his clothes and threw it like lightning towards a certain spot.
*Puk!*
A bat perched in a corner of the cavern was impaled by the dagger.
Surprisingly, the bat dissolved into a mist of blood and vanished.
It wasn't an ordinary bat!
‘I knew there were watching eyes.’
He had a rough idea where the surveillance was coming from, so he had deliberately left it alone.
But not anymore.
The method Chris was about to use must never be seen by others.
[How amusing. What are you plotting?]
The demon watched Chris as if observing an entertaining toy.
“I, Christian, will wager my soul on a single bet. You will take just one of my attacks. If you withstand my attack, I will admit defeat and offer you my soul.”
[What? Hahaha. Are you insane?]
The demon burst into loud laughter.
[Very well. I accept your proposal. I will not retaliate, so attack me with whatever you have.]
The demon's eyes shimmered with greed.
[But, your soul will become mine. Even after death, you will find no rest, becoming my plaything to suffer for all eternity.]
A chilling tale.
But that was the fate of those who sold their souls to devils and demons.
It was a condition one should never accept, better to die instead, but Chris inwardly sighed in relief.
‘Bingo.’
Did that demon have any idea?
What kind of trap it had just fallen into.
Chris had a way.
A way to defeat that demon with a single blow.
[I don't know what you're scheming, but you are truly foolish.]
“Well, we’ll soon see who was the foolish one.”
Chris took an item out of his dimensional pocket.
It was his trump card to turn this situation around.
As expected, the demon’s eyes widened.
[That is…?]
Its voice was filled with agitation.
Naturally.
It was a sword, heavily rusted and snapped in half.
What Chris had taken out was the broken holy sword, Grunade.
A weapon with an absolute advantage against beings of evil.
* * *
“Damn it!”
In a forest far from the forbidden grounds.
The vampire Simon shot up from his seat with a vexed cry.
‘To think he would see through my concealment.’
The bat that had been pierced by Chris's dagger in the cave was a clone of Simon, created through his Blood Art.
With the bat gone, he had no way to teleport into the cave.
‘This is bad. I was planning to stop the demon at an appropriate point.’
Simon was the one who had summoned the demon.
But of course, he never intended for Chris to actually die.
It was just a ‘prank,’ after all.
He had pulled this stunt out of curiosity to see what Christian would do when pushed to the absolute limit, and he had planned to step in just before the worst could happen, but his plan had gone awry.
At this rate, not only Christian but everyone else in that place would be killed by the demon.