The Evil God of Darkness (8)
The first time I faced a knight, everything except my hearing was switched off.
All I could see was the scenery of the Burrow estate, and my sense of touch and smell didn't function at all.
So I was able to pour myself completely into the fight against the knight, and nothing else.
I struggled at first because I wasn't used to fighting by ear alone, but the moment I adapted, I cut the knight down with ease.
The battle that followed wasn't much different.
It began the moment I stepped into a room and the door slammed shut behind me, and once again every sense besides hearing was useless.
There was only one difference this time.
As the fight dragged on, a certain smell began to worm its way into my nose.
It was not the freshness of open air.
Nor the comforting scent of antique furniture.
Nor the fragrant aroma of tea.
And it was far removed from the musty staleness of an old, forgotten place.
The scent that filled the room was—
Blood.
That foul odor of something that used to flow inside a human body leaking out into the open air saturated every corner of the room.
Maybe it was because of that smell.
Even in a moment where I should have been focused only on the fight, the agonized faces of the two knights kept surfacing in my mind.
And the long line of corpses I had seen before entering the dungeon.
The one saving grace was that the things attacking me weren't particularly strong.
Weak enough that I could take them down without much trouble, even with my mind wandering elsewhere.
...God damn it. Seriously.
When the battle ended and the frozen tableau of the mansion dissolved away—
Once again, there were things there that looked like human corpses.
Maids' bodies.
Thick, viscous red slowly staining black maid uniforms, and several corpses whose faces had been smashed beyond all recognition.
I knew they were fakes, but even so, I couldn't stop my stomach from turning inside out.
Keep this up and my throat's going to give out before I can make a sound anymore.
«...Yeaya.»
After a long while, I rubbed my raw throat and forced myself to look calm, and Grandpa spoke up in a worried voice.
Ugh. Grandpa. Where's your sense of timing?
This is exactly the kind of moment where you're supposed to snap back at me, "Aren't you lucky you can't talk, then?"
And yet somehow it makes sense that you lost your woman to your own party member.
«It was not that I lost her—I merely fulfilled my duty as a cleric, how many times must I tell you!»
'Sure. Whatever you say.'
«This brat, I swear!»
In the battle that came next, Tariki pulled his tricks again.
The sense granted to me this time was touch.
The clammy feel of some viscous liquid squelching with every step I took.
Every now and then, the touch of weak, limp hands gripping my ankles.
The feel of something desperately throwing itself in my path.
If it had been nothing but sensation, I could have forced myself to ignore it.
But that touch was tangled up with smell.
The stench of blood.
The smell of the people blocking my way.
A revolting odor that should only drift from rotting corpses—
It drove me insane.
Looking back on it myself, the fact that I cleared out the monsters without taking a single wound was nothing short of a miracle.
If they had been even slightly stronger, I would already have been sprawled on the floor, staring terror in the face.
When the battle ended.
Naturally, the floor was littered with corpses.
The room was such a wreck—like the aftermath of an action movie hero's rampage—that a hollow laugh escaped me.
Strangely enough, though, when I faced it all, my stomach didn't lurch.
Maybe there was simply nothing left inside me to bring up.
Or maybe I'd already gotten used to scenes like this somewhere along the way.
Either way, it wasn't a bad thing.
Throwing up your guts is exhausting work, after all.
Tearing my gaze away from the ruined room, I forced my uncooperative legs to move and headed upward.
More battles followed after that.
Sometimes on a staircase.
Sometimes in some room.
Sometimes in a corridor.
The monsters exploited the fact that my sight was crippled to launch ambushes, and whenever a fight reached its peak, Tariki's malice always coiled itself around me.
Throughout my battles in the Burrow estate, the ground beneath my feet was always a mire of blood.
The nameless figures lingering around me kept trying to entangle my movements.
My nose was steeped in grotesque odors fit only for hell.
And by the time each battle ended, my surroundings always looked like the workshop of a serial killer, unmistakably so.
And every time I walked past one of those scenes, my steps grew heavier than before.
How long did that go on?
When I came back to myself, I was somehow standing in front of the office of the Burrow estate.
"So you've come?"
The instant I opened the door—praying with everything I had that this was the boss room—a voice rang out from the middle of the room.
It was a face I hadn't seen in a very long time.
A chuunibyou patient putting on a pointless, try-hard display of seriousness and cool.
A lanky scrub who was all height and nothing else, hollow from top to bottom.
The Apostle of Tariki.
Nakrad was seated behind the office desk.
...Ah. Correction—that should be a phantom of Nakrad. There's no actual body over there.
"The dungeon I went to such pains to craft for you—how was it? I should think you'd be delighted if you enjoyed yourself."
The moment I saw Nakrad laughing, buried in the back of his chair, blood surged up along my spine.
"Yep♡ It was a blast♡ Nothing like watching how pathetic the creativity of an evil god buried in a hole in the ground really is♡"
So I opened my mouth first.
I don't know whether this is a trap Nakrad prepared.
Heck, I don't even know if this is really the boss room.
It's hard to guess what consequences this provocation might bring.
But there was one thing I was sure of.
Nakrad's brow was furrowing—which meant this bastard could hear my voice.
And if Nakrad could hear me, then Tariki was listening to my voice too.
That was enough.
Consequences can wait.
_rewarding the bastards who tormented me matters more right now, doesn't it?
"Honestly, I expected nothing from you bottom-feeders♡ And why would I? One of you is a bottom-feeder evil god who got smacked down by a human and buried in a hole in the ground♡ And the other is a bottom-feeder's apostle who ran away bawling his eyes out after getting thoroughly educated♡ Of course I figured you'd be trash♡"
"Two years, you—"
"PUHAHA♡ But you exceeded my expectations♡ You were so~ unbelievably pathetic it was actually fun!♡"
Nakrad tried to cut in with a rebuttal halfway through, but I crushed him with sheer volume.
My voice, backed by the Mesugaki Skill, cuts clearer than anyone else's.
No matter how loud you shout, there's no talking over this voice.
"Stealing my five senses to torment me—what is this idea, straight out of a frustrated degenerate's fever dream♡ Too cowardly to win face-to-face, so you go after my mind—how very craven of you, you bottom-tier chicken♡ And on top of pulling this subhuman garbage, you've got the audacity to stick your face out here and provoke me?!♡ So THIS is what it takes to become a petty, piss-poor piece of trash and the moron who worships one?♡ I'm genuinely impressed, you know?♡"
Hooked by the bait, Nakrad slammed the desk and shot to his feet—but there was no sound. His body has no substance, after all.
"What?♡ Gonna hit me?♡ Can't win with words, so you're reaching for violence?♡ Wow~♡ Impressed AGAIN!♡ How do you pull off such moronic behavior so naturally?♡ Is it. Talent?♡"
"You shut your m—!"
"What's the matter?♡ Why won't you come at me?♡ Ah~♡ No confidence you'd win, huh♡ You're scared of one tiny little girl, aren't you♡ Aren't you?♡"
"..."
"Pfft♡ Cowardly little shit♡"
Ha. Seriously, why would you ever pick a war of words with me?
A subhuman whose one and only talent is bullying the weak—pathetic doesn't even begin to cover it.
Perhaps he couldn't bear my contemptuous gaze any longer, because Nakrad vanished without another word.
Hmm. Since no retaliation came, this clearly isn't the real boss room. If something had been waiting in here, he wouldn't have been able to stomach the provocation and would have hurled an attack at me.
In the end it was a wasted trip, but I'm glad I came here first. Watching that bastard Nakrad's face crumple improved my mood considerably.
Slipping out of the office, I stretched my back and sketched out the layout of the Burrow estate in my mind.
If this wasn't the boss room, there was only one place left.
There was no hesitation in my steps as I pressed forward.
After countless battles, the picture-perfect scenery of the Burrow family had long since collapsed into ruin.
With blood and corpses filling every vista, leaving no gap unaccounted for, what reason was there to move carefully?
When my brisk pace finally brought me to my destination, it was the very spot where the entrance to Nakrad's dungeon had stood.
The room of the Burrow family's eldest son, dead and gone.
The moment I opened that door without a flicker of hesitation, a grassland spread out before me.
A vast plain lying behind the Burrow family's territory.
Only two people occupied that enormous expanse.
On one side was a young child who looked not yet ten.
The boy swinging a wooden spear shaft slightly taller than himself wore an expression that seemed faintly touched by unspoiled innocence.
And the one facing the boy was unmistakably a man who had already come of age.
As he slipped past the shaft the boy swung so lightly, offering praise alongside bits and pieces of advice, the man's fondness for the boy was plain to see.
Any normal person, meeting strangers for the first time, would wonder who they were.
But I wasn't the least bit curious about their identities.
As long as this place was framed against the Burrow estate—
And as long as I had opened the door to the eldest son's room and stepped onto this grassland—
The two of them had already been decided.
The smaller one was Jackal Burrow.
And the larger one was Jackal's older brother, already dead.
Ahh. So his memories of his brother became his lingering regret, and that's what serves as the wedge anchoring this dungeon?
Well, of course. What else would you expect from the pathetic little young master who can't live without his big brother.
Letting out a snickering laugh, I readied myself for battle.
I took my mace in hand again.
Gripped the strap of my shield tight.
And wrapped Divinity around my body.
After sprinting all the way here without a single moment of rest, I had more broken parts than intact ones.
But it doesn't matter.
If it means I get to drive my fist into that bastard Jackal's face, a penalty like this is well worth it.
By the time I'd finished every preparation I could make, the Burrow brothers had stopped their sparring.
Both their gazes locked onto me.
"You there. Who are you?"
Watching the eldest son of the Burrow family approach with wary eyes, and Jackal Burrow cowering and hiding behind him, I got a good sense of what form this boss fight would take.
Given how this dungeon has spent the whole time trying to gnaw away at my mind, I can guess exactly what kind of ending it has prepared for me.
"Answer me!"
I can predict everything, so I can more or less see how to clear this boss fight, too.
But whatever.
That can wait, can't it?
"If you do not—!"
"Or else what?♡"
First, I'm going to beat on you for a while and then think about it.
Until everything that's built up inside me has drained away a bit.