Someone to Buy Us Time...
He needed someone to buy him time.
"Filena! Gotaban! Get here this instant!"
Tolkai shouted it, his face drawn tight with urgency.
At the names, Duke Jonas flinched.
"Filena?"
He had already known Duke Gotaban stood with the Demon King. But Duke Filena? Had Tolkai turned her to his side in advance?
Duke Jonas let out a hollow laugh. He had suspected as much. No—more precisely, he had kept the possibility in mind.
Even so, I thought we still had a chance...
The Demon King's power was beyond anything he had imagined.
"......"
"......"
By now Yujun and the Demon King stood nearly even. No—in raw physical ability, the Demon King was well ahead. It was the gap in Swordsmanship that closed the distance.
The fight between Tolkai and Yujun dragged on.
Clang! Clang!
"Tsk..."
Tolkai shot an anxious glance toward the doors of the great hall. A long stretch of time had passed, and still neither duke had appeared.
"Who are you waiting for?"
Tolkai gave no answer. Simply staying focused on the fight was already more than he could manage.
"Filena and Gotaban—those are demon dukes, aren't they?"
"......"
"If you're waiting on them, don't bother. I killed them both on the way up."
"......What? Is that true?"
Tolkai's composure cracked, plain to see.
"The nerve of them, coming at me first out of nowhere. So I killed them."
"......"
Absurd. The pair he had counted as his hidden weapons, dead before they could even reach this place—and of all people, they had run into the Lich Lord. No. Into that human, on his way up.
"Wait. Duke Filena was supposed to have brought her own subordinates. More than two thousand demons."
"Yeah. They refused to run, right to the end, so I killed every last one of them."
"......Ha."
He was too stunned even to laugh. That things had come to this because of a single human.
He had obtained an EX-tier skill, Death Enhancement, and thought himself invincible. Five chances to rise again, and he grew stronger with every death. Of course he had believed it.
Where in the world did a monster like that come from?
The Demon Realm had been comparatively peaceful of late. Duke Jonas's plotting of rebellion had set it boiling once, but Tolkai had known of those movements beforehand and thought himself prepared. He had been more than confident in his own strength as well.
And yet look at him now. Dead four times in a flash, his life hanging by a thread. How had it come to this? All of it was the fault of the human standing before his eyes.
...Fleeing like this would be unsightly, wouldn't it.
Leaving the Demon King's Castle to scheme for another day made no sense either.
I'll see this through to the end.
The light in Tolkai's eyes changed. Four stacks of Death Enhancement. He could grow no stronger than this.
Clang! Clang!
The weapon he had drawn anew was breaking down piece by piece. Even among arms of the same Mythic grade, there was a difference in caliber.
Boom! Boom-boom-boom!
Tolkai erupted with Dark Demonic Energy in a sudden burst. Yujun answered with Space Domination, sealing the energy away.
"Insane...!"
Tolkai was aghast. It was true that magic did not work on him. That did not mean the brat could not use magic.
His magic is no less than his swordsmanship?
He could not understand it. Could a human this strong even exist? There was no weakness. Even with the advantage in speed, finding an opening was impossible. Humans suffered a heavy penalty upon entering the Demon Realm, and this was his own ground.
There was one other human this strong, wasn't there.
The man who had come looking for him not long ago had also driven him to despair. He had known there were abnormally powerful humans among them. But why now? Why was a human that strong standing on Duke Jonas's side?
It did not seem to be because Duke Jonas was so capable. Had the duke intended all of this and arranged the board himself, he would not be wearing that vacant look.
Tolkai threw every skill he possessed against Yujun.
Clang! Crack!
Tolkai's weapon shattered completely.
"Ha......"
He felt death coming.
"This is absurd."
"What is?"
Yujun did not end it at once. He wanted to hear what else the Demon King had to say.
"To obtain a power that shatters all common sense, and still have to kneel before a human yet again..."
"Again? What do you mean, again?"
The Demon King hesitated a moment, then spoke.
"Could you raise a barrier to shut out sound?"
"Sure."
It was not a difficult request. Yujun had Ancient Magic.
A barrier that cut off every sound spread at his hand.
"......Not long ago, a human came to see me. A human with the same accent as yours."
"A human?"
"Yes."
"What did he look like?"
"Well... I can say nothing more than that his features were alien, and his eyes were small."
Demons and humans certainly looked starkly different. It was not that demons were the strange ones. The Tower of Infinity held almost no one but Koreans. A step beyond the difference between an Eastern face and a Western one, perhaps.
Yujun tilted his head.
A Korean came here?
It didn't add up. The Demon King was stronger than the members of Coordination. A human capable of beating him? Honestly, he couldn't guess who.
Well, the world's a wide place. There might be a member of Coordination I don't know, or a player stronger still.
Either way, what mattered was that some Korean had already brought the Demon King down once. He was curious.
"Why did he leave without killing you?"
"Kill me? He had no intention of killing me. He meant only to make me submit."
"Submit?"
"More precisely, he said he would use me when the need arose. A fair amount of time has passed since he departed, and nothing has happened yet."
"What was he planning to use you for?"
"I cannot be certain, but I believe he required the authority of a Demon King."
To the man about to kill him, Tolkai offered what he knew without resistance.
"Why tell me everything?"
"Because I have no reason to hide it."
"You didn't think of bargaining with the information?"
"Hm."
He found himself oddly reluctant to kill the man. Even so, he could not spare him. Only by killing him could he obtain the Transcendent Stone. And the Demon King was by no means a decent sort. There was no need to feel guilty.
The Demon King fought without surrender, to the very end.
Yujun's sword knew no mercy.
The blade seemed to kink at a grotesque angle—and then it passed through, taking Demon King Tolkai's head.
Shhk!
Intimidation inflicted upon all opponents, except gods, increases by 300%.
Except gods? Does that mean gods exist?
The title's effect did not end there. By gaining one more Legendary title, all of his stats had risen by two percent.
"Hoo......"
Yujun closed his eyes.
The day he would put an end to this long journey was not far off.
I've killed even the Demon King. About time I got my hands on the Transcendent Stone.
But once again, all he had gained was a clue. It had not yet come into his hands.
The Demon King was dead.
Duke Jonas, braced for another revival, widened his eyes.
"Is it... over?"
"Your Grace. Was the Demon King not able to keep reviving?"
A demon marquis asked.
"So I had understood. From the look of things, that does not appear to have been the case."
"Then who on earth is that man?"
"The Lich Lord from earlier, I should think."
"Pardon?"
"Regard his air. Is it not much the same?"
"Even so, the undead have never once become human. That is why they are spoken of as cursed."
"Which is why I, too, am only half convinced. Still, the circumstances suggest they are one and the same."
"I can hardly believe it."
"Nor can I. And to think he would grow stronger still upon taking human form. It seems he had been hiding his strength all this time."
Duke Jonas could not stop marveling. A human who had disposed, with ease, of a Demon King revived four times over. Honestly, it was impossible not to be astonished.
And then it happened.
"Aaaaaagh! Agh!"
Manuela, who had been standing well apart, suddenly screamed.
Yujun rushed to her as she thrashed in pain.
"What's wrong?"
"Aaah... it hurts!"
It didn't look as if Duke Jonas had done anything. And even if he had, a pureblood witch like Manuela was unlikely to go down so easily.
Then what?
Yujun set a hand to Manuela's wrist and poured mana into her. The mana rode her veins and swept through her body.
"Agh!"
The moment it neared her heart, Manuela's body convulsed violently.
So this was it.
Something black and unidentifiable had taken root in Manuela's heart. It was not particularly large.
Not poison... some kind of curse.
Not an ordinary witch. A pureblood witch, caught by a curse. Yujun didn't know the particulars either. He had played the game for years, but there was not much he had actually experienced.
In any case, Manuela's condition was critical.
"Looks like there's a curse on you. Any idea where it came from?"
"Ugh... I-I don't know."
"Think carefully."
Yujun tipped a precious potion to Manuela's lips. It did not improve her condition, but it dulled the pain.
"This doesn't have to do with the Demon King, does it?"
"M-maybe."
The pain had eased compared to a moment before, and Manuela's expression brightened considerably. Given time, though, it would come surging back. He wiped the cold sweat from her face in a rough pass.
"Do you know how to treat it? You're a witch. You ought to know curses inside out."
"I don't really know either...... ugh."
Yujun frowned.
Did the Demon King plant the curse beforehand?
The odds were high. She had seized up the instant he died.
Would an elixir do any good?
He didn't begrudge an elixir for Manuela in the slightest. Just in case, he asked.
"Think an elixir would fix you?"
"......No. Hhh... aaah!"
Manuela clutched at her heart.
Duke Jonas approached.
"What is the matter?"
"She's cursed."
"A curse? By whom?"
"The Demon King seems to have planted it ahead of time."
"Is there a way to undo it?"
"Hard to say. Not right now."
"A pureblood witch ought to be well versed in curses, should she not? I have seen them lift curses laid upon themselves readily enough."
"Then it must not be an ordinary curse."
His face perfectly calm, Yujun opened his inventory.
The solution was always in the inventory.
Blessed with the trait of Equanimity, he kept his composure.
Let's see...
An item to treat Manuela. His eyes moved busily in search of it.
I really do have a lot of items.
There were still plenty he could not equip.
Once I hit level 400, I'll have to swap my gear all over again.
His current level was 398. Unallocated stat points alone had piled past three hundred.
Come to think of it, I fought the Demon King without even distributing my stats. Well. So long as the result was good. Ah—found it.
Thinking as much, Yujun rummaged through his inventory until he found what he wanted.
◈ Randomly alters any given property.
This is as precious as an elixir... Tsk. I'll have to make her find me another Transcendent Stone later.
Yujun crushed the herb in his hand and let it run into Manuela's mouth.
"Swallow."
The herb held between her lips, Manuela's throat moved.
Gulp.
After that, Yujun simply stood and watched.
An unknowable energy sat rooted in Manuela's heart. Whatever property it changed into, it would be better than what it was now.