I Didn't See This Coming (3)
Fine. Sure. Fair enough.
The sages of some ancient, cracked-leather scripture had said it plainly, after all: One day without labor, one day without food. By divine law, a creature that refuses to work deserves not to eat. And okay, sure — his eyes had gleamed a little at the thought of living off a diamond spoon without lifting a finger. Still. There were limits.
'Killing me is a bit much, don't you think?!'
The Skeleton Demon King cursed under his breath at the gleaming weapon brandished right before his eyes. What they had drawn was a razor-sharp stiletto knife. And the very instant he registered it as a weapon, that wicked blade came hurtling toward his heart.
Crunch!
The needle-like edge split through his clothes and buried itself beside his shoulder.
"Son of a—…!"
There had been no time even to be startled. 'Damn it all!'
The Skeleton Demon King rolled desperately to the side, spewing a double curse. It had been terrifying, but he'd dodged the blade — barely. Well, honestly, "dodged" wasn't quite right; the attacker had hesitated. But that detail wasn't the point.
'These bastards are seriously holding a knife on a nursing infant?'
He couldn't tell the exact age, but judging by the size of those hands, the baby in question was undeniably an infant. Which meant the flustered Demon King took a second, closer look at his would-be assassins.
Nothing flashy or expensive — just neat, beige capes, trousers, and skirts. Every single one of them wore the standard garb of hired help commonly seen in the hostile holy faction's territory. And judging by their vocabulary and their manner, they were no low-ranking servants either.
'I assumed they were nannies, obviously.'
No — more importantly, kill me? A citizen of the Holy Empire, trying to assassinate the Saint? Why?
Shaken, the Skeleton Demon King was forced to rewind what these lunatics had been chattering about earlier. Now, what had they said again? A Saint candidate? 'Something about the Saint needing to come from their own house?'
But he'd barely begun to think when the blade came flying again. Seeing it, the Demon King thrashed around like a madman.
Crunch!
Having evaded the knife once more, he spat out another double curse. 'Have these hopeless brats never learned the concept of conversation and communication?!'
The blade, having failed to skewer the child, withdrew once more. In the same breath, he heard a tongue click in irritation.
"Honestly, why is our young master thrashing around all of a sudden?"
Why? Because you lot won't feed me the food you promised, and you keep pulling stunts like this!
"Should we just tie his hands and feet down completely?"
As the audacity escalated by the second, the Skeleton Demon King squeezed his eyes shut. 'Magic is… probably out of the question right now.'
His body had only just changed, after all. He had the knowledge and the technique, but no way his newborn flesh could keep up with either. And this body, to begin with — sure, it was blessed by God to hold any kind of power, but that was a matter for later. It hadn't held anything yet!
'It'll take time to store mana…!'
Even a speck would do. Just enough mana to knock these fools unconscious!
That was when it happened.
"Um, isn't this going a bit too far, no matter how you look at it?"
"!"
Exactly! The youngest-looking attendant among the three was glancing around nervously, clearly troubled. 'So there was at least one sane person among them.'
Because no matter how you sliced it, the notion of Holy Empire citizens assassinating the Saint was not a normal thought to have. 'Yes, good, stop them—'
"The knife makes blood splatter. Let's strangle him instead."
This bastard just one-upped the crazy, didn't he?
The Skeleton Demon King clutched the back of his neck in spirit. What house on earth had these people crawled out of, that every last one of them was like this? If it were up to him, he'd have hunted down their house lord first and beaten him senseless — but the more urgent problem lay elsewhere.
'First things first — I need to build a Magic Core.'
The Magic Core was, simply put, a reservoir that stored mana — the driving force of all magic. And only with a Magic Core in place could one actually cast spells. For the sake of survival, and to slip the gods' watchful eyes, he needed magic, and he needed it now. If the deities caught wind of him, this time he really might be sealed back into that revolting insect prison — or, if the clergy found him first, erased from existence entirely.
'The problem is that magic was originally the innate power of monsters — demons, dragons, and their ilk.'
That was why monsters were born with a Magic Core already rooted in place like a second heart, while humans had to laboriously cultivate one over time. Of course, that was actually the better deal. Unlike monsters, whose core's size and shape were fixed at birth, humans built theirs postnatally — meaning there were no limits whatsoever. In a word, depending on the time invested, your core could become a vast lake or a cramped little well. In fact, what mages called the talent of "heaven-blessed bones" was decided almost entirely at that stage.
And now, in this situation, he was supposed to rush the opening of his mana channels? 'Why on earth would I build a mosquito puddle when this body could swallow the Five Great Oceans with room to spare?'
That wasn't all, either. The Magic Core was an absolute vital point — destroyed in a monster, it meant instant death; in a human, a permanent vegetative state. His enemies and the gods alike would obviously target it first. Which was exactly why a core should absolutely, without question, be forged from an indestructible-grade material. 'Not that I can afford even a standard core right now, let alone a top-tier one.'
The reason was simple: an infant's frail body couldn't withstand a Magic Core — it would rupture and kill him. It wasn't for nothing that even rising-star mages refused to so much as glance at children under three. In other words, this meant no magic until age three… 'but that's other people's problem.'
The Skeleton Demon King was a Grand Sorcerer whom even the God of Magic feared. Dragons, the acknowledged masters of magic, shunned the precision-crafting of cores — but the Skeleton Demon King could design one flawlessly. This body didn't seem to be a brand-new lump of flesh anymore, so five days should be plenty of time… but five days, my ass.
'By then I'll be dead — caught by the clergy or killed by these fake nannies….'
And then, at that very moment—
"Wait!"
"Yes?"
"Put him down. I'm sensing something strange — demonic energy, coming from the child."
"!"
In that instant the Skeleton Demon King's heart lurched, and the servants — for whatever reason — hurriedly set him down, their expressions twisting.
"Demonic energy, from a Saint candidate? Don't tell me he's a fake planted by the demons—!"
"Wait, then what do we do? The house lord ordered us to bring back the Saint candidate's eyes and heart, no matter what…."
"Irrelevant. It's an order, so we carve them out anyway. Everyone, cover your mouths."
"Yes, sir."
Thud!
'Goddamn it! This is child abuse!'
The Skeleton Demon King, who had been laid out on a chair, threw himself off with every ounce of strength his nursing body could muster — and crashed to the floor. His forehead smacked the ground. Tears welled up, as a bonus. Sure, feeling sensation for the first time in centuries was nice, but did the very first sense he got to savor in full have to be pain?
'How touching. So touching I'm weeping buckets.'
If a plush carpet hadn't been spread across the floor, it wouldn't have ended with tears alone. Thank goodness for a rich family's carriage. But that reprieve was brief.
Slap!
A tiny, fern-tender hand planted itself against the carriage floor as if it had been waiting for exactly this moment. And at the same time, the baby Demon King's crimson eyes flashed.
Then—
Kugugung!
The instant the Skeleton King's palm pressed the carriage floor, light erupted from beneath it. The nannies, lunging to scoop up the child, shrieked and recoiled.
"What the—!! …Agh!"
The burst of light swallowed the carriage's interior whole, and a raging fire began to bloom. In the blink of an eye the flames roared up to the ceiling, bearing down on the servants.
"What are you doing?! Put it out!"
"It won't go out!"
"What?!"
Watching the servants descend into chaos inside the fire, the Skeleton Demon King's lips curled into a snicker. 'If I don't have a Magic Core of my own, I'll just borrow someone else's.'
Every faction had its everyday utility magic. And this was a carriage luxurious enough to have a carpet laid on its floor? 'Then it's guaranteed to have installed magic.'
Lighting, climate control, warding — the household conveniences. And to keep those running at all times, a fuel-supplying Magic Core had to be installed in the carriage as well. This one was no different. As for locating the core — even in a baby's body, that was easier for him than closing his eyes. 'With a little time and mana, driving it berserk is trivial.'
Proof enough: the heating spell was now raging out of control, menacing the assassins.
Fwoooosh!
And when a fire breaks out in a cramped, sealed space like a carriage, what does an ordinary human do—?
Bang!
'Yes, yes, that's it.'
The moment the carriage door swung open, the Skeleton King's eyes curved into delighted crescents. Living creatures in an emergency always seek their easiest exit first. However well-trained a person might be, in a sudden crisis tied directly to survival, instinct drives them toward the door — whether to escape or to vent the smoke. Sure enough, the instant it opened, the Demon King — who had counted on exactly this — wheezed and crawled toward it with all the strength his suckling body could muster. He was the one who'd caused the rampage, so steering the flames away from himself was child's play.
'Escape!'
But then—
"You little brat."
"?!"
Thwack!
A razor-sharp sensation tore up his back. 'Kgh!'
A sword. As if the blade had sliced across tender skin, an unimaginable pain detonated through him. The warm trickle running down his back was unmistakably blood. Sure enough — when he twisted his head, he saw the burn-scarred servants. And at the same moment, the Demon King realized his mistake: the raging flames had vanished. The Magic Core supplying the mana had cracked.
'Damn it, this carriage's core is such cheap garbage it couldn't take it!'
He had tampered with the spell architecture installed in the carriage to drive it berserk — but he'd pushed too hard. Simply put, he'd temporarily forced a first-tier spell to perform at second-tier level, and the installed core was far too shoddy to bear the load. 'And I factored that in when I scaled it up, too.'
It hadn't been a mistake on his part — a 10th-tier mage like him didn't make mistakes. Even the lowest-grade cores used in the demon faction were never this pathetic. There was clearly a gap in quality between the demon and human factions. He'd grant that a holy faction wouldn't prioritize Magic Core development, but still—
'Damn it, and there's no other core nearby.'
No more magic. That instant, a servant's iron-grip hand seized the Skeleton King's arm.
Grab.
Damn it. The Demon King furrowed his brow. Holy arts were still beyond him. And if it came to this, he'd have to force open his mana channels immediately — accepting the strain on his body and giving up any hope of a quality high-grade core—
But then—
Flash!
"Gah…!"
Sacred light burst from the Skeleton Demon King's body. The servants who had been reaching for him recoiled in open shock — and no wonder. There was only one kind of light like this in the entire world.
"Divine power…!"
No — he wasn't simply venting divine power. 'Holy magic?'
If magic was the arcane craft that harnessed mana, then holy arts were the sacred craft that harnessed divine power. And this, without question, was—
'Body Reinforcement?'
That was why the Skeleton Demon King couldn't help but find it fascinating. These fools hadn't yet realized what the spell actually was — but he was different. 'A spell that reinforces the body and boosts self-regeneration.'
Roughly second-tier — the level that already earned one recognition as a low-ranking cleric. Sure enough, the searing pain from his back was fading. 'The wound is healing.'
And so he was delighted — and, at the same time, more bewildered than ever. Because holy arts were, without question, the craft of priests and paladins bound by contract to a god. Could this body already be contracted to a deity? No, that couldn't be. If it were, there was no way he wouldn't have noticed.
'Granted, it's a low-tier spell — but it can cast holy arts without a contract with any god?'
It wasn't for nothing that he'd assumed divine power was still beyond him. If a Demon King's soul signed a contract with a god without any camouflage whatsoever, he'd be found out instantly. That was why he had genuinely agonized over it — whether to live as an incompetent grasshopper of a young lord, incapable of holy arts, until a certain age. But if this was real, the whole equation changed. 'So you're telling me I can use holy arts without a contract?'
Because this body was already drenched in blessings? Well — a cleric's oath of faith or contract did, at its core, mean becoming the god's servant in exchange for receiving that god's blessing, so it made a certain sense. Either way, it was good news.
'If I can cast Body Reinforcement here, everything changes.'
The five-day estimate for forging a core inside his body had accounted for how fragile this breakable infant frame was. But if the body wouldn't burst— 'Five minutes!'
Besides, a second-tier holy art like Body Reinforcement ought to shrug off ordinary bladed attacks, at least for a little while!
Just as he thought this and reached out his hand, the servants suddenly dropped their swords.
Clang!
"!"
The Skeleton King flinched at the sight. What — why throw away your swords and close in bare-handed? Don't tell me they really did intend to strangle him to death. Well — fair enough. From their perspective, he was an unknown entity that appeared to wield holy magic. If he might cast something like Weapon Disarm, then crushing a child's neck with overwhelming physical superiority before that could happen was, admittedly, the surer bet!
'Damm—'
But then—
"You're contradicting your own orders! You said he was just a Saint candidate—!"
"That's right! Casting holy arts before even receiving baptism — that's proof he's the true Saint!"
At the servants' flustered reaction, the Skeleton Demon King's eyes went round. Uh. What. He hadn't intended it, but these people were Holy Empire citizens, so… was this actually turning in a good direction? His lips curled upward.
'Well, the original plan was to finish these bastards off with magic and make a run for it.'
But if things went this way, he was willing to overlook this whole affair. Not out of forgiveness — as a substitute for hands and feet. Wandering off to find a home whose location he didn't even know, in the body of an infant, was profoundly absurd and irrational to begin with. Besides, he had, for the time being, entered the body of the Holy Empire's Saint. It was about time he learned to adapt to logic rather than brute force.
"We will not kill this child."
At the assassins' words, the Skeleton Demon King smiled warmly. 'Yes, yes. Unnecessary fighting is bad. If you've had a change of heart, then—'
"We will not kill him. We will abduct him."
Yeah. Let's just kill all of you.
Light flared from the Skeleton Demon King's body.