Chapter 292: translated
I Killed the Demon King. It was a Mistake.
Chapter 292
Luca stared at Caesar with bloodless eyes.
"……This can't be happening."
Who are the Baptized? Are they not the highest-ranking knights recognized across the continent, beyond the Dre Order?
No one can match Luca in strength, No one can match Yo-heum in stamina. And that's not all?
There's Mila, with her special ability language command, who can bring even the goddess's enemies to their knees, and Nivia who has never been wounded no matter how much she is struck.
When these four gathered, there was no devil they could not defeat, no challenge they could not overcome.
But now, Luca could feel a wall for the first time. Caesar spat and glared at the Baptized.
"Damn, persistent bastards."
Persistent? Were they not even skilled enough to be called persistent? It was humiliating that the highest military force within the Dre Order could not overcome a single person, and yet the opponent was irritated that they could not break through. Luca did not know how to process this situation.
"Yo-heum, let's go again."
Yo-heum tightly gripped his heavily dented shield and moved forward. They could not bear the disgrace of being unable to defeat a single knight.
Now, it was no longer about whether there was a devil inside or not, but whether they could break Caesar.
At that moment, a bright light burst from Giggs' house.
"……?"
The Holy Knights, the Baptized, and even Caesar all turned their heads to look towards Giggs' house. They could feel with their entire bodies that the light that had just erupted was not an ordinary light.
Luca stared at Caesar and said,
"What the hell did you do?"
"How would I know?"
"If you don't know, who would?"
"That is... Huh?"
Caesar touched his necklace. The devil's call that had been crying continuously for the past two weeks had stopped. Other Holy Knights also looked at the blue flame's token.
"Huh...? Why is this?"
While the others were distracted, Caesar broke down the door and entered Giggs' house.
The front yard of Giggs' house was filled with Holy Knights who had fallen unconscious. Caesar looked towards the workshop. There, Gloria was standing in front of the workshop door, confronting the Holy Knights.
"Master!"
Caesar examined the workshop door. There were no traces of intrusion. But the devil's traces had disappeared......
'Raven with spatial movement? No. Because of the Anti-Wizard, high-level magic like spatial movement cannot be manifested.'
Then how did the devil's traces suddenly disappear?
The Holy Knights and the Baptized began to crowd into Giggs' house.
"Caesar! Where did you hide the devil?!"
"Didn't you just see? We were fighting. When would I have had the chance?"
Luca raised his great sword towards Caesar.
"You must have bought time until the devil could escape."
Luca's words were half correct. If the sword was completed, Caesar was planning to buy time to guide Giggs through a secret passage to escape.
However, he could not precisely determine whether Raven had acted independently without Caesar's call, or what had happened inside the workshop.
"I never did such a thing. Want to bet on it?"
"You vile creature! Right now...!"
Creak!
At that moment, the workshop door opened, and three people walked out. The person at the front was Raven, followed by Pesson and Giggs.
"What in the world is this commotion?"
Giggs looked around at the Holy Knights and spoke.
"Why are you causing such a disturbance in my house?"
The Holy Knights began to look around awkwardly. The Holy Knights were one hundred percent certain that Giggs had become a devil.
After all, Giggs was the only one left in this house after the sealing. But now that Giggs had walked out completely fine, the Holy Knights did not know how to react. Luca was also flustered like the other Holy Knights but quickly regained his composure.
"……We heard that a devil appeared in this house and came to investigate."
"Well, so have you finished your investigation?"
"Not yet."
Luca said while glaring at Caesar.
"Blocking those suspected of devil worship from entering the house."
"Who is suspected of devil worship? Surely you're not talking about Sir Caesar?"
"Yes, Caesar blocked us."
Giggs glanced at Caesar before speaking.
"I think I know what misunderstanding occurred. The reason Caesar blocked this house was because of my personal request."
"……Request?"
"To prevent anyone from entering this house during the sealing. Here, even the wizard Raven has accepted my unreasonable request."
When Luca saw Raven, his heart felt heavy. He could not accuse Raven, a companion of the hero, of devil worship. But he could not retreat now either.
"Master Giggs, I'm sorry, but may we search the interior of the house? There might be traces of the devil remaining."
"Will you leave if I refuse?"
Luca clenched his fist at Giggs' sharp gaze.
"I'm sorry, but I cannot do that. I am a Holy Knight, and I have the duty to track and hunt devils. If demonic signs have appeared here, I must find them."
"In that case, so be it. Do as you wish. But if you cannot find traces of the devil, you will have to take responsibility for today's events."
Luca had never felt the word ‘responsibility’ so heavy before.
But I have already crossed a river that cannot be returned to. Luca said, looking at the holy knights.
"Search quickly! The devil's trace has been cut off here, so it must be remaining somewhere!"
"Yes!"
The baptized ones, including Luca, also began to directly search and rummage through the workshops.
In the meantime, Caesar approached Raven quietly.
"What on earth is going on? What happened to Giggs?"
"I'll have to hear about it to know the exact details."
Giggs approached Caesar.
"Thank you for protecting me. Thanks to you, I was able to complete the sword."
"I was just fulfilling Pesson's request. More than that..."
"I know what you're curious about. But there are many eyes here, so I wish we could move to another place."
At that moment, Pesson spoke.
"If it's a quiet place, there's nowhere better than my workshop."
"Your unpopular workshop seems to be useful at times like this."
"What? Are you making fun of me now? Are you trying to fight?"
As Pesson and Giggs started to argue, Raven intervened.
"Don't do that and let's go quickly. Because there are really many things I'm curious about."
"Hmm! Then let's go."
Caesar looked at Luca searching inside the workshop. Looking at Luca's impatient expression, it seemed impossible to find the devil's trace even if they searched all day.
***
Giggs bowed his head to Caesar, Raven, and Gloria.
"I need to say it properly once again. Thank you sincerely for protecting me and allowing me to complete my work even after seeing me turn into a devil. I truly don't know how to repay this grace."
Gloria waved her hand and said. "Oh, no. I thought that if it was Giggs, he would definitely be able to purify the nameless sword."
"The result may have been so, but wasn't it a really dangerous decision? Protecting a devil... Honestly, I would have just pretended not to know."
Honestly, it was a crazy judgment. Protecting a devil in the middle of Dre Province. Even when the baptized ones directly came, not backing down but rather confronting and fighting. Even if he were immediately executed as a devil worshipper, he would have nothing to say.
"How on earth did that happen?"
Giggs touched the teacup and chose his words before speaking. "I don't even remember the exact details. I was just fighting against the demonic nature dwelling in the nameless sword. Honestly, I didn't even know I had become a devil."
"You didn't know even though you were only hammering for two weeks?"
"It felt like only a few hours to me."
Giggs opened the long wooden box he had been leaning against. A sharp silver-white sword revealed its elegant form. The dark Pesson's house seemed to brighten when the sword was revealed.
"I had to concentrate all my mind to turn back my mistake."
Caesar focused on the words 'Happy Ending' embedded in the middle of the sword.
"Why did you name the nameless sword 'Happy Ending'?"
"At that time, the only thing dwelling in the nameless sword was the blood and destruction instinct towards the demon race. Because the hero wanted it, I made a sword that matched that."
Giggs caressed the engraved letters of 'Happy Ending'.
"But that was a mistake. The end of revenge is sweet, but the aftertaste is empty. I thought I had been making swords that heroes wanted, but I had never truly listened to what knights genuinely wanted."
"What do you mean by what they truly want?"
"Why would a hero want revenge? Isn't it because the pain is unbearable if they don't take revenge? In other words, Yan just wanted to escape from pain, and revenge itself was not the fundamental purpose."
Revenge is an incredibly unique goal among achievable objectives. While most people expect a sense of achievement when they accomplish something after effort, revenge anticipates the liberation from pain and anguish.
"So, I engraved my own solution into this sword. I hoped that Yan would be completely liberated from pain through this sword and reach a happy ending. And on the day he reaches that ending, I hoped he would no longer hold this sword, so I engraved it."
Giggs lifted the Happy Ending.
"This sword is only for those who end things. It is a sword that grants miracles only to those who can let go of the sword without regrets when they find true happiness. It is a sword that absolutely cannot be used by those without qualifications."
"What exactly does that mean? What do you mean by those without qualifications cannot use it?"
"The ability contained in this sword is similar to the existing 'growth' blessing. The only one who can hold this sword is one with a clear goal. This sword will continuously grow you to achieve that goal. However, on the day you achieve that goal, it will return all the efforts you've built up to that point to zero."
"...What? What do you mean by returning everything to zero?"
"Ability is merely a tool to achieve the goal. Since the goal was achieved with the sword, it is no longer needed. That's also the reason I could return from being a devil." Giggs looked at Person and spoke. "As a member of the great Hampton family, I believed I had to be the most outstanding blacksmith. However, I harbored an inferiority complex that no matter how hard I tried, I could not surpass Pesson. No matter how much self-hypnosis I tried, I kept thinking that Pesson was a more remarkable blacksmith than me."
Pesson was speechless at Giggs' confession. Though Giggs had told a similar story when drunk, this was the first time he admitted his fault while in his right mind.
"The reason I created this nameless sword was also to make a much more remarkable weapon than Pesson..."
"It was to prove that I was a master blacksmith. However, in the end, I became that black magic sword, and I almost turned Yan into a devil."
"But now it's different. I no longer harbor an inferiority complex towards Pesson. I'm not even thinking about the honor of the Hampton family. I don't need to prove that I'm a better blacksmith than Pesson. I am simply a blacksmith who makes weapons for knights."
"The only lingering attachment I had was to purify the only magic sword I created, the nameless one. Having fully achieved that purpose, the happy ending took away all the strength I had honed to become the best blacksmith until now."
Giggs lifted the hammer and inserted the aura. But there was no reaction from the hammer.
"...Could it be that I've lost all the aura?"
"That's right. My dantian now has only an ordinary person's level of aura. The Hampton family's technique of infusing emotions into aura and hammering it into weapons can no longer be used."
Pesson was so surprised that he jumped up.
"What?! You have no aura in your dantian?"
"That's correct. Now I'm just an ordinary blacksmith."
"Then can you not handle Terra? To forge Terra, aura is absolutely necessary...!"
"But didn't I purify the nameless sword and create the happy ending? I'm satisfied with just that."
"How are you going to live from now on?!"
"That's something to think about later. I have no regrets at all."
Caesar couldn't understand how to view this Happy Ending. A sword that helps you achieve your goal but takes everything away the moment you achieve it.
"...It seems to be a sword that only those with true resolve can wield."
"That's right. It's also a sword that only those with a proper goal should hold. If some crazy human wants to destroy the world, this sword will provide the appropriate power for that."
"Isn't that problematic in its own way?"
"That's why this sword is ironically a sword that needs to disappear. It's too dangerous."
Giggs handed the Happy Ending to Caesar.
"So when you hand this sword to Yan, explain it properly. If one is not prepared to lose everything, they must absolutely never hold this sword."
Caesar made eye contact with Raven. Though they didn't speak, the question in each of their eyes was the same. Will Yan truly use this sword?