The Demon's Core
“Answer me already!”
“Are you a necromancer?”
“A necromancer… How dare you compare me to such lowly creatures… Gah!”
Without a second’s hesitation I drove my sword straight into the monster’s skull.
How dare it insult necromancers right in front of me?
Anyway.
“Not a necromancer, then. Undead? Whatever. What matters is this: what happened to the people of House Merlin?”
“Heh heh… and if I said they were all dead?”
“Then you die too.”
At my signal the Minitons swarmed in, swinging their cheap iron maces.
Thud! Thwack! Crunch!
The merciless sounds rang out as the monster screamed.
That was the moment.
Sssshhhk—!
Be careful!
I raised my shield at once. Beyond it came a sound like hailstones striking metal—clang, clatter!
When I lowered the shield the scene that greeted me was fairly gruesome. Zeke and Milo had managed to dodge, but Golgol and the Minitons lay shattered and scattered across the ground.
“You little bastard…?”
“W-wait! Listen to me! They’re not dead—I swear they’re not dead! Rina and the Merlin bloodline are still intact! And I wasn’t the one who attacked those humans!”
Anyone can see this is no ordinary evil. There’s no point in talking to it.
I agreed.
Still, I jerked my chin, telling it to keep talking.
“Go on, then. So?”
“A deal. Let’s make a deal.”
“A deal?”
“Yes. I’ll hand over the two women if you withdraw right now. Promise me that and we won’t touch you again either.”
“Before that—what about the Death Knight?”
“There isn’t one. I made that up. But there’s something far worse than a Death Knight. Please believe me.”
“Hmm. Is that so.”
It could still be lying.
Yes, of course.
But I trust my own eyes, and the sincerity I see reflected in them. Even if the other party is a monster, race and species are nothing more than wrapping paper before the essence of a soul.
There was, however, a minimum condition.
“Bring the two of them here first.”
“What?”
“I said bring them. Once I have them back, I’ll leave quietly. You’re not saying you can’t, are you?”
“N-no… I was just surprised you accepted so readily. Are you serious?”
“Of course.”
“Th-then… let’s make a contract.”
“A contract?”
“Yes. We’ll each stake a portion of our souls. That way we can trust each other.”
“I’d rather not.”
“What?”
“You don’t trust me, do you? That’s why you’re suggesting this. Right? If we truly trusted each other we wouldn’t need a contract.”
That was my personal creed.
If two parties truly trust one another, contracts become unnecessary.
The other party might be a monster, yet I believed without a doubt that this absolute trust would open a new horizon between humanity and monsters.
Apparently the monster did not share that belief.
“You… never intended to keep your promise from the start!”
“I said I would keep it.”
“Then why refuse the contract?! It’s a contract that harms no one so long as both sides keep their word!”
“If we keep our word we don’t need a contract either.”
“What kind of wordplay is this—!”
“Golgol, attack.”
Golgol, only just restored from its shattered state, charged with its greatsword. Moments later the revived Minitons thundered after it.
“You bastard—you planned this all along!”
“You’re the one who refused to trust me! Sir Zeke, Milo—beat it down!”
“You’ll regret this!”
Slashed by Golgol and hammered by the Minitons, the creature soon melted into a liquid mass and began to flee. Even as it ran it spat spines like a pufferfish—annoyingly persistent.
But.
“I’ll take the lead!”
I charged forward, shield first.
What about Golgol and the Minitons?
Who cared?
They were undead. As long as my mana held out, those friends could recover as many times as needed.
A one-sided chase!
Of course I wasn’t entirely free of worry.
No Death Knight… but something even more monstrous than that?
Still.
It’s best not to believe the words of a wicked being.
Hmm, true enough.
That aside, this is truly bizarre. It doesn’t seem to be undead… I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.
Same here.
I’d never heard of a sentient creature that could turn into liquid sludge.
But the monster’s true nature hardly mattered.
My task was clear.
Rescue the survivors and destroy the minions of evil—!
How long did we run?
“Young master, over there…”
At last we arrived.
At the origin of the mist.
The origin of the mist was a cave.
“What will you do, young master?”
“We go in, of course.”
We had already watched the monster disappear inside. Justice would not allow us to turn back now.
Naturally we would have to watch for traps.
“Tiktak.”
Tiktak!
Tiktak lined the Minitons up and sent them into the cave one after another.
This is the good part.
Using Golgol or Tiktak as bait would have felt a little wrong—they had egos—but the Minitons were different. If Golgol and Tiktak were elite undead, these little ones were just normal undead.
Ah, before that.
“Herben, stay outside with the soldiers. Someone has to guard the entrance. You too, Milo.”
“Yes, understood.”
“Please be careful.”
I entered the cave with Zeke.
Fortunately—if one could call it that—there were no traps.
We reached the end of the cave without much difficulty.
“You son of a bitch… you actually chased me all the way here.”
The monster, once more wearing Rina’s face, ground its teeth at the sight of us.
Instead of answering I calmly took in the surroundings.
It certainly looks like a necromancer’s laboratory… though it’s a complete mess.
Agreed.
And is that the source of the mist?
Yes, I think so.
I stared at the jewel in the center of the chamber, radiating an eerie light.
Shatter that and the mist would vanish.
There was just one problem.
Hostages.
That’s Rina over there… and that one must be Merlin’s third child.
So its earlier claim hadn’t been a complete lie.
What now?
“Don’t come any closer. If you do—”
“No more talk!”
You madman!
I ignored its words and charged straight in. Zeke, Golgol, and the Minitons followed close behind as if escorting me.
What if the hostages get hurt?!
The ancestor shouted in panic, but my thinking was a little different.
A hostage situation?
That only works if both sides can still hold a conversation.
Even if you grab hostages, once the fighting starts before the drama can begin, what can you do?
A cold-blooded psychopath might still kill the hostages without flinching, but luckily this monster was nowhere near that calm.
“You son of a bitch…!”
It kept shifting between solid and liquid, dodging our attacks. Spines formed and shot toward us, but against our group they had little effect.
I had a shield, and Zeke was far too skilled a knight to fall for such one-dimensional attacks.
As for the rest?
Golgol!
Golgol fully exploited the advantages of the undead, tanking whatever hits it could afford and pressing the assault.
Still, how to put it…
Hmm. The matchup isn’t great.
Yeah.
We were hacking away mercilessly, yet it felt like we weren’t landing any real damage. The creature kept regenerating its upper body like endless liquid.
Hmm. What if we tried aura?
In this world aura was supposed to be an all-purpose technique, after all.
“Sir Zeke, would aura do anything?”
“It would be effective against spirit-type undead, but from what I can see that thing isn’t undead. I doubt it would help much. If you order it, I’ll try…”
“No, it’s fine.”
No point wasting strength needlessly.
For now we would just keep fighting.
It didn’t seem completely meaningless.
Look at it now.
“…Th-this…”
Only moments ago the creature had been thrashing about like a freshly caught fish; now its movements had grown sluggish and its words fewer.
Of course my own stamina would run out first…
Who am I?
A necromancer.
And the basic rule of necromancy is that as long as mana remains, an undead’s stamina is infinite.
“Sir Zeke, let’s rest a bit.”
“Mm, yes.”
We left the auto-hunting to Golgol and Tiktak and stepped back to secure the hostages.
Fortunately both were still alive.
Meanwhile I pondered the monster’s identity.
“What on earth is that thing?”
“I truly don’t know. I’ve never even heard of such a being… Could it have been born of necromancy?”
“I don’t think so.”
Anything born of necromancy would inevitably carry the aura of death.
The creature before us was completely clean.
Then what was it?
I was still turning the question over when the end of the battle finally arrived.
“I… I… in the end… after all the chances I seized—”
Its strength spent, the monster slumped into a quivering liquid mass and sobbed.
I would have liked to ask what it really was, but it no longer looked capable of conversation, so I simply gave the order.
“Golgol, Tiktak—finish it.”
Golgol!
Tiktak!
The two undead butchered the monster without mercy until it could no longer restore its body.
How long did that take?
“Did we get it?”
I uttered the magic words and waited a moment, but the absolute phrase proved unnecessary—the thing stayed quiet.
We had gotten it.
“Well done, young master.”
“It was nothing.”
In truth it had been close.
My mana was nearly gone.
Anyway.
Time to wrap this up.
I shattered the jewel in the center of the chamber without hesitation.
As a fellow necromancer I felt a flicker of scholarly curiosity, but there was no way I was going to carry something that ominous around.
And so—
Crunch!
The jewel broke. The oppressive aura blanketing the area thinned, and the space that had felt like someone else’s filthy room became a little more bearable.
But.
The necromancer never showed up till the end?
Breaking the jewel should have drawn him out, shouldn’t it?
Had that psychopath who was once a candidate for my master really been the owner of this place, and had this entire mess simply been an accident caused by Ren and Wilhelm’s sloppy cleanup?
Hmm. No idea.
I could ask Ren once we returned to the estate.
“Well then, let’s head ba—”
Descendant. Look over there.
“Yes?”
I followed the direction the ancestor indicated—specifically the pool of liquid where the “monster” had died.
Something’s in there.
“Something…? Oh, you’re right.”
Just as the ancestor said, something lay submerged in the puddle.
I had Golgol fish it out.
It was a jewel.
A pure, pitch-black jewel.
What is this?
Not a soul stone… and the feel of it was different from the purple gem I had used to create Tiktak.
I was examining it closely when Zeke spoke.
“Young master, may I take a look as well?”
“Ah, of course.”
Zeke took the jewel from me, studied it for a moment, then exhaled a soft “Huh.”
As though he had realized something.
“What is it?”
“This… is a Deep Core.”
“A Deep Core? What’s that?”
Zeke answered.
“The heart of a demon. I’m certain of it. I’ve seen demon hunters carry them.”
“What?”
This world… actually had demons in it?
Then the thing we just fought was a demon?
At that very moment—
Descendant, something is coming—!
“What? What do you me—”
“Young master!”
Before I could react Zeke wrapped himself around me and threw us both aside. Something sliced through the space we had occupied a heartbeat earlier.
What was that?
I didn’t know.
But one thing was certain.
…I almost died.
What exactly had just brushed past us?
I lifted my head and looked at the attacker.
The attacker’s identity was—
“A dark elf?”
Black skin, pointed ears. It looked exactly like a dark elf, yet the ancestor corrected me at once.
No. A demon. And a rather high-ranking one at that.
Huh.
I thought something felt off. That earlier demon wasn’t weak, but it wasn’t strong enough to wipe out Merlin’s forces either. There was more than one of them.
I had no idea what was going on.
But one thing was crystal clear.
We were fucked.
“….”
The demon that looked like a dark elf regarded us with indifferent eyes, then raised the cheap iron sword in its hand.
An indescribable sense of danger made every hair on my body stand on end.
The ancestor shouted.
Descendant, give me Golgol’s body—hurry—!
The demon’s sword split the air.