Chapter 250: Jealousy (20)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 250: Jealousy (20)
What an idiot. He could’ve just ended this with Reinforcement.
Why go through all this trouble? I mean, if the fake gets taken down, it’s better for me.
Is a promise made to some dolls really that precious? Can you really not bring yourself to give up? Serves you right.
I’m right here, so why do you keep trying to move forward?
I wanted to give up, so why won’t you?
I was clearly ahead of you at first, so why are you standing so much further ahead of me now?
Are you really not going to give up until the very end? Even if it kills you?
Seriously.
You’re a total fool.
It’s not like anyone’s going to appreciate it, yet you’re a fool who hasn’t changed a bit since the old days, stubborn in all the wrong places.
That’s why. Because you’re that kind of fool.
[Are you truly certain? To use a remaining wish on something like this. You only have two wishes left. I believed you wanted him to fall.]
“It’s my wish, I’ll use it how I want. Besides, this is a classic. You see it in manga and novels all the time. ‘I can’t let anyone else defeat you but me.’ That sort of thing. And we needed the Demon King’s body anyway, didn’t we?”
[…There is no need for such excuses. I simply thought…]
“Simply what?”
[That for the first time, it looked as though you were making a wish you truly, honestly desired.]
* * *
[Saving you is a story for others to tell. Therefore, the story she and I must tell is one of helping them arrive before it is too late.]
“Uh, so…”
[Well, there is no need to overthink it. We are not the ones you believe in, nor the ones you wish to have that faith returned from, are we?]
The Red Butler continued speaking as she effortlessly blocked the Demon King’s attacks.
…Honestly, I felt like she could probably just finish this herself.
[The role of a supporting character on stage is always to help the protagonist shine their brightest. That is the nature of the story this time.]
“Who the hell are you now…?!”
[It is a tedious tale. A story so common that some have grown sick of it. Perhaps there are even those cynical enough to believe such things never happen.]
For some reason, I got the feeling she was smiling behind her mask.
[And yet, even if it is a forced, stubborn, foolish, and utterly cliché story found everywhere…]
“I was almost there…!”
[I happen to think those common happy endings aren’t so bad.]
* * *
After devouring the Demon King of Sloth and ascending to the next level, Leviathan didn’t even have time to savor her new power before she was plunged into despair.
Precisely because she was now stronger than before after claiming another Demon King’s power, she could tell.
The being currently standing in her way was not someone she could dare to challenge.
No one said something like this would interfere…!
If there was one small mercy, it was that this monster—who could likely tear her apart with ease—seemed intent on keeping her word. She focused entirely on defense and never shifted to the offensive.
In that case, wouldn’t it be better to conserve Demonic Energy and look for an opening?
If she couldn’t win even by exhausting all her power, she had no choice but to hope the creature would stick to its word.
[Come to think of it, I forgot to mention something.]
Whether she sensed the Demon King’s fear or not, the monster turned her back toward the boy she was protecting and spoke in a remarkably relaxed tone.
Leviathan felt a surge of fury at being so utterly ignored, but that emotion vanished without a trace in an instant.
It was because the moment the woman thrust her fist forward, a red flash erupted, hurtling straight for Leviathan’s heart.
[You did well not to lose control and defeat that thing yourself.]
However, the red light did not pierce her body.
The trump card Leviathan had planted in Belphegor’s body specifically to deal with Lucifer—a power forged from Authority that could ‘reflect any single attack back at the opponent’—had protected her.
[As you can see, she left quite a clever little trick behind. Had you self-destructed, you likely would have been hit by the counterattack.]
The woman, who had changed her torn glove while blocking her own reflected attack, continued calmly.
A clever little trick? The trump card she had created by twisting the very Laws of the World to defeat the strongest Demon King?
It was an attack that clearly carried the threat of death, and she had seen it reflected perfectly.
Yet she blocked it.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Did that mean the attack that had just made Leviathan fear for her existence was nothing more than an ordinary blow to that creature?
[The boy who used to drive himself into a corner under the pretext of doing it alone, claiming he would stand in for the others… has become a bit of an adult, I see.]
A hand clad in a white glove stroked the frozen boy’s head.
[Seeing as you’re staying still while I pet you, I’m glad to see you’ve become able to trust someone, even if just a little.]
Watching this, Leviathan—despite the gravity of the situation—couldn’t help but have a thought she really shouldn’t be having.
…I think he’s just frozen stiff because he’s terrified?
* * *
I’m terrified.
An entity far more powerful and frightening than a Demon King is stroking my head; it would be weirder if I wasn’t scared.
And yet, while I definitely felt fear, how should I put it?
Part of me felt a strange sense of comfort.
As if reading my conflicting emotions, her hand pulled away, and she bowed her head.
[My role ends here. From now on, it is time for the protagonists’ story to begin.]
What did she mean?
The Named legions should be launching a full-scale assault elsewhere, so no one should be able to make it here yet.
Was there a sector with relatively few enemies?
“<Bite her.>”
The first thing I felt was heat.
A tiger made of roaring flames lunged toward the Demon King as if to protect me.
Elder Sister?
It was unexpected, to say the least.
I had thought the sector assigned to her and the Association would take the longest—no, I’d even worried they might lose and that I’d need to send reinforcements.
The heroes’ assault began, and the Flame Tiger summoned by my sister pounced on the Demon King. However, there was a vast difference in both elemental affinity and raw strength.
The Red Butler was simply an anomaly; Leviathan, now merged with another Demon King, was no ordinary foe.
Despite the power gap, my furious sister didn’t care, continuously erupting her Mana.
She didn’t seem to have lost her mind, but what was she going to do if she got hit by a counterattack?
The answer came quickly.
“Na-hyun, were you trying to do everything by yourself?”
A familiar woman became a flash of golden light, swinging her fist at the Demon King.
It was Professor Cathy.
The Professor too?
The professors could certainly handle anything below a Demon King without much trouble, but even so, this was far faster than I expected.
“Wow, Kang So-hyun, you look like a mess. Where’d you get beaten up this time?”
“I was worried when I heard you were isolated, but it seems you’re safe, thankfully.”
With the following attacks from Professor Park A-ram and the Chairperson, the Demon King finally took a step back.
Since they arrived so early, I wondered if Professor Park A-ram had pushed herself to reveal her true form, but that wasn’t the case; she was still in her usual little-girl form.
“…Huh? I feel like you just had a very rude thought about me.”
No, they weren’t the only ones.
“Hey, you bastard, you just looked away, didn’t you? I saw everything. You think you can just brush this off, but I never forget stuff like this.”
…They weren’t the last.
The bullets and vortexes of Demonic Energy that Leviathan fired in a desperate struggle were blocked by the leaping figures of Lilac and Cheon Yu-hak.
“It seems we weren’t too late.”
“Right? Now we can keep our bet going with peace of mind.”
“Do you remember how many you’ve taken down so far?”
“Who knows? Why don’t we just keep it simple?”
“Simple?”
“Looks like there’s one big one left.”
“The ‘school retreat’ meta? That’s not like you.”
“You in or not?”
“No, I like it very much. Let’s say whoever finishes off that last devil wins!”
Leviathan screamed in resistance, conjuring a massive tidal wave.
“Hey, who said you guys get to handle that? Not after what you did to our So-hyun.”
“Mm, I love that my juniors are so motivated, but I’m a bit angry myself, so it’ll be hard to step aside.”
A blade imbued with frost and a blade imbued with plum blossoms clashed, creating a massive wave of Sword Qi that split the tide. Through the gap in the waves, I spotted a girl flying through the sky.
Fluttering a black cloak lined with white fur and wearing a rather embarrassingly designed outfit was Ga-eul, the girl who was supposed to be in the infirmary.
“So-hyun! I brought everyone!”
Somehow, she was wielding the Mana I had entrusted to her for her treatment.
Worried she might have been tricked into another contract by a devil, I quickly checked with my Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils. She was in a contract, but for some reason, Ga-eul was the one in the superior position.
Based on this, I realized how they had all gathered so quickly.
Now that my own contract with the Touch of the Devil had deepened, I could tell.
The energy I felt from the devil Ga-eul had contracted with was weak, but it was unmistakably the Demonic Energy of Sloth, very similar to what Leviathan had stolen and used.
It seemed the devil Ga-eul contracted with was Belphegor, who had survived through some means. Naturally, just as the devils were utterly subservient when I showed the mark on my arm, the devils wouldn’t have been able to easily oppose Ga-eul now that she was the Demon King’s contractor.
They must have defeated the devils one by one, helped other sectors, grown their forces, and made their way here.
I had intended to help them, but I ended up being the one saved.
“Stop it…!”
Leviathan screamed as if she couldn’t believe it.
Just minutes ago, she had the overwhelming advantage, but this sudden influx of Absurdity had flipped the situation so drastically that her rage was understandable.
And while my feelings were different from hers, I was also experiencing a somewhat awkward sensation.
How should I put it? Having allies in every direction I looked was a very foreign feeling to me.
Being protected by someone was something I had almost never experienced.
It made me feel… warm, I suppose.
“No, no. That’s right. I have no reason to be angry.”
Leviathan, who had been enduring the onslaught, stopped denying reality and claiming something was wrong. She deactivated her defensive barrier.
“Let’s just think simply. That monster is gone now. I just have to think of this as clearing out insects. My body might get a bit dirty, but that happens sometimes.”
In a final act of desperation, the Demon King surged her Demonic Energy.
She really doesn’t get it.
In times like this, it’s perfectly fine to exit with a cliché line like, “I was defeated?!”
Looking at me with eyes full of some inexplicable resentment, the Demon King screamed and finally began to use more than what was allotted to her.
She could have used her remaining Demonic Energy to try and escape, but instead, she burned her remaining life force to generate more power, scraping together and forcibly swallowing the remaining fragments of Authority.
However, she could not transform into her true form, the Sea Dragon.
Whether it was because she lacked the strength, because she had devoured Belphegor’s flesh, or because of the side effects of swallowing the Authority…
What appeared was something entirely different.
A monster resembling a giant, melting black serpent glared with its eyes and opened its maw.
A breath filled with all manner of curses and malice gathered in the serpent’s throat, and as it mixed with Demonic Energy, it became a literal scream.
“Now that looks like it’ll be fun to smash! Yeah, it’s gotta be at least that much!”
“I see. The vegetables are telling me. You’re a very picky eater too, aren’t you? Let me help you with that.”
And the ones who blocked the curse just before it erupted were the world’s strongest muscle duo.
The War Demon, whose face was hidden by a mask but whose identity was blindingly obvious.
And Ban Gi-san, who I really wished would hide his face with a mask, and who was for some reason glowing with golden light.
And behind them, the others stood ready to face the giant serpent.
As the two men punched the cascading curse aside, the war against the Demon King began its final descent toward the end.