Chapter 59
Chapter 59
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 59
Chapter Title: Reunion with the Curse Demon King
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The World Forest, centered around the World Tree, Yggdrasil.
Among the massive trees that formed this World Forest.
A being was swiftly passing through them.
A crimson shadow wolf.
It was the wolf Syria had created.
"Syria, how much farther?"
"We're almost there."
Syria increased the wolf's speed as she answered Leyzon's question.
Right now, they were heading out at the request of the Agrasil Elves to stop the Curse Demon King.
Dark clouds had already blanketed the sky.
At the same time, a black mist-like fog began to settle between the trees.
"Ugh, something awful is in the air."
Even from within the shadow, the massive presence was palpable.
Hanok wrinkled his nose and huddled his body.
Darkness began to fill the surroundings.
Before long, the area was so pitch-black that one could forget it was a forest.
Nothing but inky blackness existed.
And this darkness was no ordinary kind.
'A curse.'
The power of the curse embedded within the darkness was vividly felt.
Layer upon layer of curses that anyone could see were extremely dangerous.
Yet Syria's wolf didn't stop and pressed onward.
"Lord Leyzon, this darkness mixed with curses..."
"Yeah, I can feel it too, roughly."
When Syria called out to Leyzon, he too had an inkling of what this situation meant.
"Something must have happened."
The curses permeating the darkness were all born of rage and resentment toward the world.
When Leyzon heard that the Curse Demon King was coming this way.
He had naturally assumed it would be an easy victory.
And for good reason—the Curse Demon King was one of Leyzon's undead.
But it had been 100 years since he left them to their own devices.
More than enough time for something to go wrong.
Syria had been used in the Empire's schemes.
The Dragon Sovereign, Estelle, had been chased down after uncovering the Empire's secrets.
And the Curse Demon King.
Something irreversible must have happened to him as well.
Even Leyzon, who always thought positively about everything.
'This might not end easily.'
He always accounted for worst-case scenarios.
Including the possibility of having to fight his own undead.
'It's fine.'
If things didn't go smoothly, he'd handle it himself.
He always had, and he would in the future too.
Leyzon shook off the negative thoughts and smiled faintly.
"Anyway, whatever the circumstances."
Leyzon cracked his wrists.
"First, I need to calm down my undead a bit."
It seemed the time had come for him to fulfill his role as their creator and parent.
"Lord Leyzon."
Syria called out to him.
Hearing her voice, Leyzon stood up.
The shadow wolf ejected him to the outside.
The ground he stepped on showed nothing but pitch-black darkness.
With nothing but darkness around, it felt like his eyes had lost their function.
Soon after, Syria stood beside Leyzon.
A crimson shadow surged from beneath Syria's feet, pushing back the darkness.
Thanks to that, their field of vision cleared a little.
"What about Hanok?"
"I moved him to another shadow."
"Good thinking."
Hanok would be an important trump card moving forward.
Step...
At that moment, footsteps echoed from within the darkness.
Through the gap Syria had carved in the darkness.
A man appeared, barefoot.
Old clothes soaked entirely in blood.
Long hair in a sunken blood-red hue.
A gaunt body.
Anyone could see he was someone who had suffered some kind of accident.
Yet the presence emanating from him was not to be taken lightly.
An absurdly enormous giant tilted its head in acknowledgment of his existence.
As the giant's gaze fell upon them, their shoulders were crushed under invisible weight, knees trembling uncontrollably.
His presence squeezed their lungs shut.
It felt as if even breathing was not permitted.
'I see.'
Leyzon realized why enemies who faced Syria couldn't even breathe properly and writhed on the ground.
The primal terror of death.
It gripped Leyzon's throat in an instant.
Thud!
At that moment, Syria stomped the ground.
The pressure binding Leyzon vanished in a flash.
"Don't you dare."
Syria glared at him with sharpened eyes.
She could not forgive him for pressuring Leyzon.
Hummm...
Syria's killing intent clashed and canceled out with the Curse Demon King's own.
Only then did his eyes reveal themselves through the strands of hair.
His dark eyelids framed eyes that were vacant and unfocused.
Eyes that seemed to have lost their reason.
But the moment a certain half dark elf reflected in those eyes.
A faint light began to return, little by little.
Before long, his pupils slowly widened.
His cracked, withered lips parted.
"...Lord Leyzon."
A voice poured out, crushed as if pressed in the depths of hell.
Whoosh!
The next instant.
He was right in front of Leyzon's nose.
Syria raised her hand, but Leyzon stopped her.
Instead, Leyzon looked up at the man who towered at least three heads taller than him.
"Finally, finally, finally, finally, finally."
Twisted words spilled repeatedly from his mouth.
Leyzon wondered if he was facing a madman.
"You came. You came. You came to keep your promise with me."
A promise.
Leyzon quietly looked up at him upon hearing those words.
The Curse Demon King.
His original name was Eden Yfera.
Of course, this wasn't his original form.
'Curse Doll.'
Eden was a doll undead.
A small doll that handled darkness and curses.
That was the Eden Leyzon remembered.
But what about now?
The Eden before him was unimaginable as a curse doll.
His current form was incredibly close to human.
"Eden."
Leyzon called his name.
"What happened to you?"
Ten years since he logged out of the game.
A hundred years had passed in this now-real world.
Leyzon had no idea what happened to them during that time.
That was why he asked now, wanting to know.
Crack...
Eden's neck twisted to the side.
An angle impossible for a human.
"...What happened?"
Crack...
Eden's neck twisted further.
"What happened, what happened, what happened, what happened, what happened."
With each word from Eden, his neck snapped further.
Finally, when it had twisted a full 180 degrees.
"Ah."
Eden said.
"Lord Leyzon, you're still pretending not to know."
It's coming.
Kwaaaaaang!
Crimson shadows surged around Leyzon.
Pressing down on those crimson shadows was Eden's darkness.
Curses rained down.
Even Syria's shadows would struggle against layered curses.
"Eden, you're not in your right mind."
Syria reacted with disbelief.
Leyzon silently watched Eden thrusting his head through the rising crimson shadows.
One of the undead he created was attacking him.
Witnessing this, Leyzon fell deep into thought.
'As expected.'
The undead Leyzon created were different from those handled by ordinary necromancers.
They possessed their own wills and could live independently.
From that moment on.
"Even if it's my undead, it wouldn't just blindly become an enemy."
There are those who gladly kill even their parents for their own greed.
The undead were no different.
"Skills that are too powerful can backfire."
Thanks to that, he learned one solid fact.
"You promised me. You promised, and I waited all this time!"
Eden rambled incoherently, muttering madly to himself.
From within Syria's shadows, Leyzon called out to him.
"Eden, I have no memory of the past 100 years.
If you and I made some promise, I don't know what it was right now."
Leyzon spoke the truth to Eden.
Flinch...
Eden's body reacted once.
The surrounding darkness began to flow strangely in response.
"Then."
Black tears dripped from Eden's eyes.
The deep resentment and curse contained within them seeped out intensely.
Eden harbored endless resentment toward Leyzon right now.
'No.'
Not just Leyzon.
That resentment was directed most deeply at Eden himself.
"You're not keeping the promise."
Leyzon realized.
"Syria."
In his hand, he gripped both the Staff of Abundance and the Undying Life.
"Take down Eden."
Eden had to be subdued.
The crimson shadow swallowed Leyzon in an instant.
Darkness crashed into the spot where Leyzon had just been.
Darkness normally held no special power.
But Eden's was different.
Darkness infused with curses even cursed the space itself, crushing it.
The crimson shadow shot out of there like an arrow.
Pak!
At that moment, the crimson shadow split into multiple streams and scattered.
Eden didn't miss it and dispersed his darkness.
"Promise."
Eden clutched his face, endlessly shedding black tears.
"You said you'd keep the promise."
The promise Leyzon now knew nothing about.
Crying out that promise, Eden pounded his own chest.
"Please, please, Lord Leyzon."
With each sob from Eden, the darkness and curses wavered.
"You can do it, Lord Leyzon. The one who made us can do it."
He begged Leyzon.
Begging him to fulfill the promise, over and over.
Before Eden's eyes appeared a single girl.
A girl he could no longer see.
A girl he couldn't revive despite every method at his disposal.
The doll that was himself.
Had first wished to become truly human because of that girl.
The daughter I bore in my heart.
Surge!
At that moment, a crimson shadow erupted from beneath his feet.
Eden's face snapped downward upon seeing it.
Beneath the shadow's space.
There was Leyzon, whom he thought had fled moments ago.
He was aiming the Staff of Abundance at Eden.
Before the staff.
A sphere of fierce poison blood mixed with purple turned pitch black.
"Eden, I don't know what happened to you."
Above the Staff of Abundance.
The branches of [Undying Life] coiled around the staff's shaft.
"But if you want to talk to me, get a grip on yourself first."
With those words, Leyzon activated the spell.
"Fierce Poison Eruption."
The fierce poison explosion roared within the darkness.