The Great Hall Where the Sky Castle Lord Dwells...
Just because it was the great hall where the Sky Castle Lord stayed—his very bedchamber—did not mean Yujun found any items there. What he did find, though, were enormous lumps of gold in staggering quantity, and that alone left him thoroughly satisfied. Then he got down to the real business.
He let a faint thread of the presence he had been concealing leak out and approached the Lord. The man had been too far gone to keep his wits about him, yet whatever skill he had once possessed had not abandoned him; he reacted at once and opened his eyes.
"Wh-who are you?"
"You the Sky Castle Lord?"
"I am... but a human who isn't even of the faithful—how did you get in here...?"
"Can't you see my face? Look properly. There's no way you wouldn't know me."
Yujun wiped away the elven face he had been wearing and briefly showed his true appearance. A Lord tangled up with the Demon God Worshippers could not possibly fail to recognize him. And he was exactly right.
"Shin Yujun?"
The Lord struggled to push his upper body upright, only for his strength to give out at once. He sank back onto the bed.
"You can't even sit up? How did you end up like this? An hour ago you looked perfectly fine."
"..."
The Sky Castle Lord said nothing.
"This has something to do with the Demon God Worshippers, doesn't it?"
Yujun said it like a probe, but the Lord did not take the bait.
"You understand that if you just lie there and say nothing, I become your enemy?"
"...What is it you want?"
"Information."
"Information about what, exactly... cough!"
The Lord hacked violently. Fortunately, there was no blood.
"You still haven't answered my first question. Why are you in this state?"
"I hardly know how to explain it, but the man you saw in the banquet hall was not me."
"...Huh? What kind of nonsense is that?"
"What you saw was a Demon God Worshipper. Wearing my face."
"...He looked nothing like you do now."
"They planted some nameless affliction in me. In truth, I cannot tell whether it is a curse or a disease. If it has twisted me into something this hideous, a curse is the likelier of the two. I sought out countless elixirs and swallowed every one of them, and not a single one took effect."
"So you're about to die?"
"No. This damned curse does not take one's life. You will not believe me when you hear it, but I am not in poor health. I am perfectly sound."
"..."
He did not seem to be lying. Even so, the claim was almost impossible to believe.
"Is there a doppelganger among the Demon God Worshippers? How is he walking around in your skin?"
"An item... or some secret art of the Cult. One or the other. The details are beyond me as well."
"What do the Demon God Worshippers want?"
"Dominion over the Heavenly Realm. Their highest-priority target was Sky Castle—isolated, and yet possessed of tremendous influence throughout Heaven. In a sense, it was only natural."
"You didn't call for help?"
"Every channel was cut. There is already a man performing my role. What more could I do from in here?"
"Why haven't the Demon God Worshippers killed you?"
"Because they require a power the fake cannot imitate."
"A real power?"
"My authority as Sky Castle Lord. It cannot be transferred to anyone until I die, and when I die, one of my children will inherit it."
"So you're nothing but a puppet, and you don't actually have much to do with the Demon God Worshippers?"
"A puppet... I am nothing more than a pitiful old man taken hostage. Nothing more, and nothing less."
An old man. Yujun had known the Lord was older than he looked. The curse had simply aged him past recognition.
"Your pride's hit rock bottom. Didn't see that coming."
"Put yourself in my place, just once. Who would ever have imagined that the Lord of Sky Castle, a man of absolute power, would live out a life this wretched?"
"The Demon God Worshippers probably imagined it."
"...So obvious that I have nothing to say."
"Honestly. You should have been more careful."
"..."
Yujun was the one who had killed the man's third son, but now that he understood how things stood, he decided to help the Lord.
No. Helping the Lord was not the goal. Eradicating the Demon God Worshippers was. It amounted to the same thing, though.
"What do you intend to do?"
"You know who my enemy is."
"You mean to fight the Cult?"
"That's what I've been doing all along."
"I would call it reckless... but I suppose you have your own confidence in your skill."
"When does the Worshipper wearing your face show up? Or does he not come at all?"
"When night falls, he enters this place, absorbs the negative energy that has built up in my body, and leaves."
"Negative energy? Why?"
"It seemed he must be constantly supplied with that energy if he is to maintain my appearance."
"Every single day?"
"Yes. But it does not take long. He only stops by briefly... If you mean to target him, aim for the moment he draws the energy out of me. That will be your best opportunity."
The Lord was even offering tips to a Yujun he was meeting for the first time. How was he supposed to refuse? The man was only doing it to save his own skin, of course.
"So you want me to wait and ambush him?"
He wasn't sure it was strictly necessary, but if he could take down that powerful Demon God Worshipper—the one who had worn the Lord's face in the banquet hall—in a single blow, so much the better. When dealing with the Worshippers, it paid not to get careless. There was no telling what bizarre measures they might have prepared.
He hid himself again after hearing the Lord out, but he did not wholly trust the man's words. This, too, might be a trap the Demon God Worshippers had laid. If the Lord's acting was absurdly good, it was entirely possible. Evening was not far off, so Yujun decided to wait quietly, and he did not forget to watch the Lord's condition in real time. If the man suddenly dropped dead, nothing could be more inconvenient.
I've got time to spare. Might as well try Golden Mammonism.
There was something the Lord had yet to realize: Yujun had already taken every last piece of the golden furniture, and all of that gold was about to become his mana. After offering the whole of it up as sacrifice, he opened his status window to check.
What? It only went up by thirty-three?
Then again, the mana gained from sacrifices had been shrinking for some time. Even this much was something to receive with gratitude. Yujun moved to a spot well suited for ambushing the fake Lord once he approached the bed, closed his eyes, and extended his senses.
Time passed quickly. The sky darkened, but the great hall of Sky Castle, flooded with light, remained bright. Yujun opened his eyes.
He's here.
The intruder did not come through the door. He could hardly stroll through a place still—no, formerly—bristling with every kind of trap. There was a small passage in the ceiling of the great hall, and the intruder entered through it. Yujun had expected that as well.
The intruder, the one who had worn the Lord's face in the banquet hall, approached the Lord lying in the bed as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The instant his hand touched the body, Yujun—who had been waiting for precisely that opening—moved. Without a sound he slipped in behind the fake Lord and swung his sword like lightning.
Shhk.
The impostor never even registered that Yujun was there. His neck parted, and his head tumbled across the floor.
Was his level that much higher than mine?
It wasn't often that his level jumped by two at once. Yujun stared down at the fake Lord's corpse. Strange, that the form did not change even after death. What kind of magic made that possible? His mana had scattered in every direction the moment he died, and still the appearance held...
I kind of want that.
The Lord, who had been feigning sleep, cautiously opened his eyes.
"D-did you get him? He may have been imitating me, but he was a master on my own level. To cut down such a man in a single stroke... I can only call it remarkable."
It was praise bordering on rapture, but there was nothing to be pleased about. The Lord of Sky Castle had been toyed with this helplessly by the Cult of the Demon God Worshippers. Would anywhere else be any different? And he had said they meant to seize the Heavenly Realm. Yujun had known the Worshippers were undertaking plenty of large-scale schemes, but he had never imagined they intended to take the whole of Heaven in their grip.
Then again, these are people trying to summon the Demon God. Nothing they do should surprise me.
Yujun stripped the fake Lord of every piece of equipment. The man had been wearing quite serviceable Legendary and Mythic gear, and that was not something he could leave behind.
"Mmm..."
At the sight of the naked body—the fake, still wearing his own likeness—the real Lord swallowed a groan.
"Sorry. Not a pretty sight, is it?"
"N-no. It is not."
"I'll get it out of the way."
Yujun was about to burn the corpse with a fireball when he hesitated.
...What if he's some unusual race, or a monster? Maybe I should take him to Manuela.
If anyone could put the body to use, it would be Manuela, who had a real talent for crafting chimeras. It might not amount to much, but it was better than simply burning it. A corpse could not go into his inventory, so he used a subspace pocket.
Stashing a corpse where I keep the food is a little unpleasant... but it's only for a moment. It should be fine.
Yujun stored the body in the subspace and approached the Lord.
"You really don't know any way to lift the curse?"
"The Demon God Worshippers might. I do not."
"Must feel hopeless."
"What can one do? I showed an opening in a world where the strong devour the weak. This is merely the price."
"Is that so?"
The Lord's way of thinking struck him as peculiar. Most people in a situation like this would have resented the Demon God Worshippers. Knowing just how meticulous they were, Yujun felt sorry for him. Had his own strength fallen short, he too would have been caught in the ordeal-traps they had prepared and met a hideous end.
Even so, what the Lord had just said was not wrong. If anything, nothing could have been more accurate. Had he truly possessed power no one could approach, the Demon God Worshippers could never have wandered Sky Castle at will and schemed like this. That did not mean Yujun could blame him, either.
I doubt it's only the Heavenly Realm that's like this.
The Demon Realm had fallen into their hands long ago, and the Continent was probably not much different. He had wrecked a great many of the Cult's major plans and dragged their work to a crawl, but all he had bought was a little time.
Well. This is more efficient than killing a few branch leaders.
Simply killing Demon God Worshippers could not be said to deal the Cult a serious blow. But if he stopped the plan they had struggled so hard to carry out—and went further, reducing their scheme to seize Heaven to nothing—he was certain it would be a heavy blow. And the Sky Castle Lord was unlikely to be fool enough to fall for it twice.
"I'm going to try lifting the curse, so let your body go completely slack."
"Lift the curse? You? You have an ability like that as well?"
"I can't promise anything. But I've almost never failed, so you're welcome to hope."
He did not know how powerful the curse was, but right now Yujun trusted his own ability. First, Touch of Healing.
Touch of Healing
His hand settled on the Lord's chest.
Heart first.