Just Start by Taking Hits (3)
The original Olivia, for whatever reason, had fallen to a magic scroll that turned her into the Demon King’s vessel—thanks to the black mages Clanis had unleashed. She nearly died as that vessel. Noah helped her then, barely keeping the existence called Olivia alive, but when Noah died alongside the Demon King, the two fused into the me that now exists.
And then, on top of that, the fragment of the Demon King that Clanis created got absorbed as well.
In other words, the one who made me what I am today is none other than this bitch.
“What the hell kind of hybrid abomination is that?”
“Exactly. You should at least learn the lesson. You reap what you sow. And your magic’s weaker than mine, too.”
There was no need to explain my circumstances. This was a private little joy, known only to me.
“If I were some Hero brat, maybe. There’s no way I’d fall to a technique like that. After all, I’m the Demon King, and you’re just one of the Four Heavenly Kings.”
By this point, the title of Demon King had become nothing more than a word game.
The Four Heavenly Kings are weaker than me, so I stand above them as the Demon King. And then I laugh about it. In short, the entire Demon King and Four Heavenly Kings hierarchy itself had become a joke at my expense.
For Clanis, who adored the Demon King, nothing could be more sickening.
“Haa… haaah…”
“So, is that it? Got nothing else? Come on, Clanis, try to entertain me a little.”
“You damned Ashtar bitch and that detestable mage fused into one, and you’re telling me I made you? What kind of sick joke is this?”
I’d hit her a few times already; the clothes she wore were torn to shreds. Considering those clothes were woven from demonic energy, it was clear she was being pushed hard—physically and mentally.
Yeah. Yeah. She must be furious. She must want to kill herself right about now.
From the way she despised the Empire and the Ashtar name, she really did seem to be a descendant of Kart’s ruling class.
Even just that would be enough to drive her insane while fighting me. And now she finds out a piece of the Demon King she loves is mixed into me as well.
She’s going to lose it completely.
My luck’s been ridiculously good lately.
I caught Berna with this body, and against Clanis—the absolute worst matchup—my existence itself was even worse for her.
“Why not call out some of your underlings? You’ve got plenty of those fancy modified humans, right? The Mains. No? Why can’t you bring them out?”
I needled her even though I already knew she couldn’t.
Of course she can’t. She never expected things to turn out like this.
Ah, I’m genuinely happy. Leaving behind that sweet-potato-feeding Hero Party really did fill my life with nothing but good fortune.
Fighting Clanis without a Hero Party I had to protect made the battle easy enough, but my very existence was her worst nightmare.
“You filthy bug of a woman.”
She could even curse me now, but the fact remained: I was hard for her to handle. So then, how should I humiliate her further?
When was this bitch going to pull out her trump card?
I needed to see those rabbits or whatever every time we fought. I had to observe her even for future battles after she inevitably ran away. From where I stood, she wasn’t just taking hits from me.
She wasn’t fleeing as readily as expected, which meant she was trying to gather information until she could finish this for good.
In short, this was a psychological war.
A contest over who would reveal their techniques first.
“Don’t tell me you were stupid enough not to bring any Mains? Or maybe you were underestimating Noah? Underestimating the Saint?”
“Shut your mouth!”
“Mmm. Yeah, that’s how it looks to you, doesn’t it? Then how about this?”
Sure, my birth was layered with pure luck. But it also wasn’t wrong to say I was born from the things this bitch had scattered around.
In other words—
“What else have you got to humiliate me with?”
If she kept trying to hide it like this, it would be a problem. I found it dirty to say out loud myself and would rather have held back, but I needed to enrage her enough to force out her last resort.
I smiled more brightly than I ever had before.
“Thank you for making me, Mom?”
Crack.
I thought I heard something snap in her throat.
Yes. The sound of her reason snapping. The sound of my victory in this tedious, bothersome psychological war.
Honestly, I wanted to vomit right then and there, but looking at her face made the filth that had dirtied my mouth feel completely washed away.
No—beyond that, it was actually fun. Look at those eyes. Moments ago they still held pain; now there was nothing left in them at all.
Krrrrrrrkkk—
A vicious killing intent flooded the grandmother’s office.
Sorry, Granny. The Papal Palace might get wrecked pretty badly.
KWAARRRRRRRK—
That foolish bitch was finally revealing her true form.
Pope Glacia was staring out the window of the inn toward the Papal Palace with eyes that had already attained enlightenment.
Well, she had no choice.
Olivia, who not long ago had charged off to the Papal Palace brimming with confidence, declaring she would thrash her grandson and drag him back, had finally caused an incident.
I knew something felt off.
The malevolent energy rising from the direction of the Papal Palace—that belonged neither to William nor to Olivia. A new fight had broken out.
The early plan hadn’t been bad. The teddy bear sent by the next Magic Tower Master had already reported that the Papal Palace was under control, so the Saint couldn’t possibly have lost to that worthless grandson of hers.
Even with the body change… no. Losing to that grandson with that body would just make her look like an idiot worth mocking.
And Elias was watching the same scene beside her.
“Uh… over… over there. C-can you see it? That black pillar rising from the P-Papal Palace.”
At Elias’s words, Glacia had no choice but to acknowledge the reality she desperately wanted to deny, even though both her eyes could already see it clearly.
“Yes. I can see it perfectly well.”
That wicked Saint… the new battle was obviously with the Mains William had brought, and they would be rather strong ones at that.
If she was fighting them inside instead of dragging them outside, then perhaps Clanis herself was there.
Yes, that would all be fine, except—
KWAARRRRRRRK—
Her own office was collapsing. Thoroughly, completely, under that mass of demonic energy.
Her sacred space! The Pope’s office! The sanctuary where she could rest at ease was crumbling away into nothing!
“Aigoo, my Papal Palace!”
The building she had lain down in for decades was collapsing. Tears genuinely blurred her vision.
If they’d just dragged the fight outside, nothing would have needed to fall!
“I won’t let that human get away with this!”
Elias, realizing the Empire’s Saint had finally caused a disaster, looked ready to charge over and grab the Saint by the hair.
“Don’t. You’ll just get crushed between whales fighting.”
No matter what, someone of your level has no business going over there.
At Glacia’s words, Elias slumped dejectedly.
Hmm. Her appearance had been half-decent, but her true form looked like that, huh.
A massive black monster. Ah, of course the female form remained. The problem was that it had swollen into an enormous black mass.
Her hair writhed like tentacles, and gigantic crimson pupils—like the embodiment of nightmares—swarmed everywhere.
I had no idea what power those eyes held, but one thing was certain: they weren’t ordinary eyes.
“That’s your true form? Mom?”
I decided to keep the provocations going.
Olivia nearly died as the Demon King’s vessel, Noah’s soul got tangled up inside, and even a Demon King fragment went in to create this existence. It was forced as hell, but hey—if you made me, you’re Mom, right? If she didn’t like it, then neither the Demon King fragment nor the cursed scroll related to the vessel should have had anything to do with Clanis.
Unfortunately for her, every single one of them was Clanis’s.
“You damned bitch! I’ll kill you! Who the hell is your mother?!”
Crackle! Crackle!
Black lightning suddenly struck right beside me.
She was too worked up to fight me properly. She was just flinging magic around wildly.
The way she trembled was almost pitiful.
Which meant I would provoke her even more.
Once you’ve drawn the sword, you have to cut something—even if it’s just a radish. I’d just pulled the radish out; time to cut it.
Judging by the look of her, she was strong enough that even I would struggle.
I had a feeling about these things.
That unfathomable mass of abyss. I was certain it would bring me nothing but harm.
If I knew anything about it I could counter it, but her magic deployed faster than mine, and those bizarre eyes were a complete mystery.
So right now, there was only one thing I could do.
“Mom, what’s wrong? You made me, remember? Of course, all you scattered were the seeds, but in the end the things you sowed—through your underlings—combined Noah, Olivia, and the Demon King into one existence. So aren’t I your daughter?”
I would use provocation to make this damned woman use her abilities recklessly.
It looked dangerous at a glance, but that only applied when the opponent had some measure of skill left. Once she lost her reason and ran wild, landing a solid hit on me would become difficult.
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
She let out a monstrous scream and swung those black claws wildly in every direction.
At this rate our grandson might die, so I flung him outside with magic.
Celia would probably find him and deal with him appropriately.
To summarize once more: this woman harbored intense grudge against the Ashtar name and was hostile to the Empire as well. She might be a descendant of Kart, but I suspected she was something more.
This woman was worse than Zerato.
She truly seemed like a being who still carried the sorrow of having her nation stolen fifteen hundred years ago. The way she seethed against Ashtar and the Empire made that clear.
In the end, among the Four Heavenly Kings, if you looked at the suspicious past, this bitch was no different.
Perhaps Berna was nothing more than a lovesick kid who fell while playing romance games in front of Clanis.
“What’s wrong, Mom? Why?”
So I hammered the point even harder.
“How can you even say that?!”
Her aura grew even more ferocious.
Every swing of those black claws sliced through the surroundings. But it wasn’t merely cutting.
To be precise, wherever they cut simply vanished.
As if it had been erased.
If I got touched by that even once, it would get dangerous.
But not yet. I could still handle this much. I wanted to see just a little more—how far this woman would fall.
I wasn’t doing this for nothing.
Looking at that power alone made me feel I might have to go all-out, but I was curious about this woman’s true identity.
If I learned what Clanis really was, I might be able to approach the history the Four Heavenly Kings carried.
“I don’t plan on having someone like you as my mother either. After all, a woman who falls short of me in neither looks nor magic couldn’t possibly be the daughter of a monster like you.”
She needed to say something that actually made sense.