When the Bitter Runs Out, the Sweet Comes In (6)
What the Skeleton King had discovered were three glass bottles.
Not that the bottles themselves startled him—it was what was inside them.
Good grief. They all look like dried meat jerky.
The bottles held what you might call dried demon specimens: a mummified hand, a withered heart, a shriveled tail. All three shared one thing in common—they were wound about with strips of cross-shaped cord and sealed tight. And as if that alone weren't enough to feel safe, seven more sealing sigils had been slapped on top.
The Skeleton King knew at a glance exactly what those dried specimens were.
Those are the corpses of demons.
Put plainly, they weren't well-cured delicacies—they were sealed demons. The usual practice was to burn a demon's body after killing it, but for a particularly useful specimen, this was the alternative.
That, in a word, was a Totem.
Well now. Every last one of them a high-rarity catch, aren't they?
Granted, being demon corpses, the clergy would normally never give them a second glance—but, curiously enough, they had a use that made them more valuable to priests, not less.
They make perfect bait.
Throw one out while being chased by demons, and the effect was simply exquisite.
They swarm to it like flies to rotting filth.
Given the choice between a few scraps of human flesh and the mana of their own kin, a demon would choose its own kind every time. The higher the demon's rank, the more its entire body—from muscle down to bone—was essentially a solid mass of mana.
Priests exploited that instinct, using totems deliberately to lure demons in. And then the summoned demons would be dispatched all at once—
Ugh, just remembering it makes my blood boil. Filthy clerics and their glorified hunting parties.
It was bad enough treating people like dogs. But the memory of the past—of even the Saintess luring him by rattling bones like a trainer tempting a mutt—made his fury spike all over again.
Skeleton or not, he had the dignity of a human being. What exactly did they take the Demon King for, waving things like that in front of him?
If you were going to rattle something, you should at least have rattled something top-tier!
In any case, there was only one reason a bishop would carry these things around.
Either he has some other purpose in mind, or the road has grown dangerous enough that even a bishop keeps bodyguards.
It was easy deduction. You needed protective gear when order was breaking down—which meant demons must be cropping up everywhere across human lands.
Having caught on to something, the Skeleton King curled his lip in disgust.
Ah, so that's why the bishop's been getting so strangely bold with the Emperor.
It seemed the power of the Pope and his clergy was swelling to the point where it leaked out in unconscious attitudes—the kind of situation where, say, the number of demons encroaching on human territory had multiplied. There were doubtless other reasons too, but the circumstantial one was plain enough.
What's certain is that in my absence, the clergy have grown stronger.
And throughout history, an advantageous position had always translated into power.
And the one who could ride that power to its very summit would be the Saint. Yes, the golden goose indeed.
But that was a worry for another day.
What matters right now is that corpses of demons are sitting right in front of me.
The Skeleton King's lips curled into a slow, wicked smile.
And with that smile, he let the rattle slip from his hand—down to the far side of the bag. As if by pure accident. Perfectly smooth.
Clang!
"!"
The moment the solid gold hit the floor, every head in the temple snapped toward it.
"Oh dear—such a precious item."
The priests hurried to retrieve the rattle.
"We did apply the weightlessness rite, but perhaps it was still rather heavy for the young lord…"
The rattle grew light in a grip, but from the instant it fell, it was a heavy lump of gold again. And just as the bishop's attention—standing right beside the bag—finally turned that way as well—
The grinning Skeleton King cast his spell.
Crack!
One-tenth of a second. That was all he needed—a single instant of everyone's attention diverted elsewhere.
BOOM!
"!"
With the Skeleton King's silent laughter, the glass bottles inside the bag exploded. In the same breath, the temple's interior dissolved into pandemonium.
"KYAAA!"
The bottles shattered, and the sealed demon tore itself free.
KUGUGUGUNG!
Black smoke swallowed the entire temple in the blink of an eye.
A dirge of malice spread through the hall, shrieking as if to peel the humans' brains apart.
-GOOOOOOH!
The grotesque wail circled the temple's interior, then congealed into the shape of a demon.
No face could be seen. All that was visible were fleshless bone hands and legs—as though a hooded cloak had been turned inside out and draped over nothing at all.
At the sight, the Skeleton King burst out laughing.
"Daddyaah! (Hahaha! What a monster of a catch!)"
The frozen priests and paladins, meanwhile, could barely believe their own eyes.
"A Shadow Lich!"
"Why is a high-tier demon here?!"
The imperial paladins turned on the bishop with unconcealed revulsion. And small wonder—that thing had come crawling out of the bishop's own bag!
"Bishop Martha Verith! What is the meaning of this!"
"Releasing a demon inside the temple! Have you taken leave of your senses?!"
"To dare threaten His Majesty and His Highness the Crown Prince before the Imperial Knights—!"
All courtesy had long since evaporated.
Yet the bishop himself could only scramble in confusion, fishing the shattered glass from his bag. It was the bottle holding the twisted, withered hand that had burst. Which only deepened his bewilderment.
What in the world—!
Of all things, the seal on a demon captured personally by a Cardinal had come undone!
Wait—hadn't it been dead to begin with? How could it possibly—!
The Skeleton King snickered behind his hand.
Well, of course it looked dead. It was dead, technically.
But demons were a far more tenacious race than anyone gave them credit for.
Which is why, my dear idiots, you should have shattered the magic core no matter how much of the body you wanted to keep.
So a high-ranking cleric had killed it perfectly and processed it flawlessly—so what? So long as the magic core remained intact, there was always room for resurrection. Put simply, it was a fossil that was still breathing.
Granted, even with the corpse in hand, there was ordinarily no way to bring it back—which was precisely why things like these changed hands so safely in the first place.
Yes. Ordinarily, no demon would ever come back to life.
Ordinarily.
"Ayaah! (Well, whose fault is it for dragging that thing out in front of me)?"
You should regret ever bringing that thing into my presence!
And why shouldn't he say so? He was the Skeleton King, immortal lord of all demons. If he couldn't resurrect a single foolish minion, what right would he have to call himself the undying, imperishable king who had raised the demon race for hundreds of years?
You were all so eager to slay demons—well then, by all means, have at it!
The Skeleton King chuckled, fully intending to send the bishop straight to the grave. Whether by accident or design, a demon unleashed inside the Emperor's temple was a matter of gravest consequence, and the blame would be inescapable.
And sure enough—
"Bishop Verith! What in the world have you done!"
The imperial paladins hastily formed ranks and invoked a defensive divine art. A flash of blue light took the shape of a soaring eagle, wrapping the Emperor and the Crown Prince in its wings.
KWOOM!
But this was no ordinary demon. The struggling paladins raised their voices in alarm.
"Has the bishop lost his mind entirely?! To think he'd conspire with a demon of such rank! What are the Papal Court scheming at?!"
The bishop flushed crimson to the roots of his neck.
"Do not slander me! I did not release it—it revived on its own!"
"Revived? What manner of—!"
"The totem! The totem came back to life, I tell you!"
"A totem? The demon was already dead—how could it possibly revive?!"
At their looks of sheer disbelief, the bishop clutched at his chest. If anything, he seemed the one frustrated beyond words, and he peered down into his bag again.
Damn it all—what is going on?
There was no way a dead demon could break a Cardinal's seal by its own power and crawl free.
Then how in the—!
And it was precisely at that moment that the bishop's eyebrows shot upward. A strange residue lingered in the bag.
This is… mana?
There was no mistaking it. And not ordinary mana either—this was the mana of a demon.
In an instant, the bishop's gaze turned vicious—and locked directly onto the Skeleton King.
Don't tell me—that brat—!
Under that stare, the Skeleton King gave a soft chuckle.
There you go. You noticed.
He had deliberately left the trail plain enough to feel—of course it would be found.
For this, too, was part of the Skeleton King's design: a trap to send the bishop away forever.
Blissfully ignorant of that, the bishop's eyes turned murderous. So that's what the sneaky little wretch was doing—masquerading with paltry divine arts while secretly casting magic! And now this time, by some means I can't fathom, he's resurrected a demon?
That one must be handed over to the Papal Court without fail!
Did the brat think he'd simply let this slide?
I'll carve out his five viscera and six bowels and burn him at the stake, that insolent demon whelp!
Private fury fueling him, the bishop lunged to seize the Skeleton King by the collar—but that was the moment.
-GOOOOOH!
"Ghkk!"
Buffeted by the demon's rampage, the bishop decided that thing came first after all, and turned to cast an exorcism.
"You wretched demon! How dare you—out of my way! I will take it myself!"
And at the very instant the bishop unleashed his exorcism upon the demon—
the Skeleton King, as if he'd been waiting for exactly this, hurled the ornament tucked in the priest's arms.
The ornament flew straight toward the demon's shadow. And then something astonishing happened.
KWAAAANG!!
"AAAGH!!"
The demon began to react with frantic violence. A holy object plunging into its very body—the shadow that formed the Shadow Lich's flesh—sent it into a full convulsion.
Pffthah. I provoked it on purpose, so of course it's going to be spectacular.
As the Demon King, the undocumented quirks of his own kind were an open book to him.
Sure enough, the provoked demon thrashed like something possessed, rampaging harder than ever. The exorcism failed utterly, and the paladins and priests were thrown back in disarray.
The paladins exploded in fury.
"Bishop! Did you just provoke the demon on purpose?!"
"Why would I possibly—ghk!"
Deciding an answer was beside the point, the paladins bound the bishop where he stood.
"That settles it. It's perfectly clear now that you are the demons' spy!"
"What—on what grounds?!"
At the sight, the corner of the Skeleton King's mouth—still cradled in the priest's arms—curled upward without the slightest restraint.
"Daah! (Serves you right)!"
It was all thanks to that demon doing its job so admirably. A stranger to him, true—but he'd place it around the 5th or 6th Tier. Being able to rampage at that scale inside the temple meant it was a serviceable high-tier demon, all things considered.
Whoever had made it into a totem must have been a genuinely senior cleric, of course—crafting a totem was a harder feat than simply obliterating a demon outright.
And judging by how it flew into such a fury the moment it revived, its grudge against the clergy must have run very deep indeed—
-Kill the Saint. Kill the Saint!
…I'm sorry, what?
At the voice pouring from the demon, the Skeleton King's eyes went round.
Hold on. Kill whom, exactly?
That was the moment. The rampaging demon, swinging its fury in every direction, met the Skeleton King's eyes dead-on.
!
The demon flashed red light from the shadows within its hood, as if to say found you at last.
It launched itself at him, murderous intent streaming off it, in the blink of an eye.
-KILL THE SAINT!
Damn it! Why does the aggro ALWAYS come straight to me?!
"My lord!"
The imperial paladins rushed to the Skeleton King. The priest holding him bolted in the opposite direction, dodging the demon.
"That fiend really is after the Saint!"
"That treacherous, despicable Skeleton King! So he DID order his minions to kill the Saint!"
You son of a—I never gave any such order!
As of right now I'm supposed to BECOME the Saint and swallow this country whole—so why in the hell would I kill ME?! Do I look like a suicide king to you? And for that matter, I don't have a habit of laying hands on babies!
The Skeleton King's brow furrowed. Come to think of it, some dimwitted captive had babbled something strange to the clergy after being caught—something about the Skeleton King commanding every demon to slay the Saint.
So there'd been some truth to it after all.
But which of them dares impersonate ME?
It couldn't be one of his own followers. If it had been, they would never have dared issue orders under his name.
Not that that was the pressing matter at the moment.
-Kill the Saint! Free your imprisoned King!
As the demon stretched out its lethal hands, the Skeleton King heaved a sigh of pure resignation. No hard feelings—but what an idiot, lunging without even reading the room, without any sense of where it stood.
Fool.
In a heartbeat, the Skeleton King's eyes went cold.
And then it happened.
Those eyes, like gems of crimson blood, gleamed with a skin-crawling light—as though a demon's eye had just opened.
It was not a spell.
They say the eye is the first gate through which the world is received. He had simply let his mana flow out through his gaze, straight into his opponent.
And through it, he made one thing unmistakably understood: which of the two stood above.
It was a kind of ritual of dominance—the way demons sorted rank among their own kind.
And sure enough—
SHUUUUNK!
-?!
The demon flinched back violently, as though it had just seen something impossible.