Chapter 82
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 82
Chapter Title: Hell Count's Mansion (3)
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Kang Sa-hu's question was met with a tsk-tsk sound of someone clicking their tongue from the darkness.
"Huh. Who are you, you say? For a thief, you've got no manners at all."
Kang Sa-hu silently pierced the darkness with his gaze, fixing on the opponent's face.
Red skin, yellow eyes. And horns protruding from both temples. The figure embodied the 'devil' form people commonly imagined.
The unknown entity with a devilish appearance grinned, revealing sharp fangs that tapered from top to bottom.
"For a lowly worm like you to sneak into this Hell Count's mansion using a treasure you couldn't possibly understand how you even stole. I'll give you that—you've got guts."
"Hell Count...?"
Hearing the title, Kang Sa-hu glanced down at the great scythe in his hand.
The enigmatic title and name prefixed to this scythe's designation.
It was clearly 'Hell Duke Demadr.'
Easily connecting his weapon to the phrase 'Hell Count's mansion,' Kang Sa-hu regarded the opponent with a grave expression.
"Are you the Hell Count? If so, then you know about this entity called Demadr?"
As Kang Sa-hu probed, the opponent's face—which had been watching him with constant amusement—hardened in an instant.
"You dare."
Sensing a sudden wave of intense killing intent and pressure, Kang Sa-hu tightened his grip on his weapon. In response, the apes and orcs braced themselves, ready to charge forward at any moment.
"For a pathetic thief like you to utter that name. Do you have a death wish?"
"......!"
That one.
The response clearly implying knowledge of Demadr made Kang Sa-hu spin his thoughts rapidly.
'This being knows not just about the gates, but the entities that cross through them as well.'
The monsters beyond the gates he hadn't yet uncovered, and the reason gates manifested in the first place.
The realization that he could uncover those truths made Kang Sa-hu's heart pound with rare excitement.
'I need to take him alive.'
Even as a necromancer, extracting information from a dead soul was far from easy.
Commanding spirits—saryeong—to carry out tasks was one thing entirely separate from prying secrets from souls.
He had tried it when turning Kataku into a Death Knight through saryeong, but the soul hadn't responded at all. It sank into unconsciousness, yielding nothing. Kang Sa-hu thus judged the current situation with utmost caution.
As he prepared to cast a necromancer spell using only mana—Fear Imprint—
Fear Imprint
The devil's face, rigid and poised to lunge, suddenly relaxed.
"Well, what would a worm like you know about him anyway? You're just a moth fluttering in for Pandemonium's treasures. Out of curiosity and your brazen challenge, I'll let this one slide."
The devil spoke to Kang Sa-hu with utter nonchalance and keen interest, causing the skin beneath Kang Sa-hu's eyes to twitch.
After all the personality insults he'd endured from Choi Kyung-su during his time at the funeral home—a man whose face, voice, and memories had now faded—such petty barbs stirred no rage in him whatsoever.
But that unfamiliar word shifted Kang Sa-hu's intent to immediately subdue the devil.
"...So what's the reason Pandemonium keeps creating gates and sending them to Earth?"
Kang Sa-hu probed further.
Judging by the circumstances, this devil hailed from a place called Pandemonium, and since this was inside a gate, it surely knew about gates too.
But the reply shattered his expectations.
"Gates? What's that?"
The devil's face twisted into a look of bafflement so nuanced it was barely discernible without close scrutiny.
Though caught off guard inwardly, Kang Sa-hu pressed on, rationalizing that names might differ within the gate.
"It's a circular portal of light. Step through, and an entirely different world unfolds. Haven't you been invading our world by stuffing it with all sorts of monsters?"
The apes and orcs wore faintly wounded expressions at 'all sorts of monsters,' but Kang Sa-hu, utterly focused on the devil, ignored their sulking.
Muttering the gate's description to himself, the devil cocked his head.
"Does such a power even exist in this world? Sounds absurd. It vaguely resembles a description of spatial transfer magic..."
"Playing dumb, are you."
Kang Sa-hu's face hardened at the sheer absurdity of a devil inside a gate being unaware of gates themselves.
Yet the devil merely shrugged off the accusation.
"I'm the one who wants to ask. Are you just babbling nonsense to wriggle out of this? Delusions have their limits, you know."
The devil's features shifted slightly, contorting into disdain.
"Even spatial magic linking points in Pandemonium is a challenge, let alone connecting it to whatever world you worms live in? Preposterous."
"......"
Kang Sa-hu furrowed his brow, his eyes blazing as he stared down the devil.
He had already pierced the gloom earlier and confirmed the devil possessed a spirit, allowing him to discern lies through its form.
Yet even through his blazing gaze, the devil's spirit showed no tremor whatsoever—calm and serene, as if truly innocent of deceit.
That was compelling proof he wasn't lying, but to Kang Sa-hu, it brought only deeper turmoil.
'He really doesn't know about the gates? Then he doesn't even realize this place is inside one?'
The devil had plainly called him a 'moth sneaking into Pandemonium for its treasures.'
In other words, this devil believed this place was Pandemonium.
As the confusion swelled uncontrollably and Kang Sa-hu stood frozen, the devil noticed his bewilderment and snickered.
"So, have you exhausted every excuse you can muster? You didn't seriously think you'd step into Count Patametos's mansion and live to tell the tale, did you?"
Hell Count Patametos.
Sensing the shifting atmosphere upon learning the foe's identity, Kang Sa-hu intensified the glow seeping from his eyes.
Beholding that sight, Patametos grinned.
"Eyes brimming with fierce energy. And the color—simply exquisite. I'll kill you and harvest them with pleasure."
Words to chill the marrow, yet Kang Sa-hu remained composed amid the taunt, his lips moving to invoke his spell.
Patametos grinned once more, then bellowed in a thunderous roar.
"Is no one there?! You fools! If you don't haul ass over here and dispose of this worm right now, I'll grind your limbs to dust!"
His shout, like summoning servants, put Kang Sa-hu on high alert. He kept chanting while swiftly scanning the surroundings with his eyes.
If more enemies responded to the call, it was far wiser to finish Fear Imprint—which excelled against groups—than to interrupt and prepare for combat.
Glancing around, he saw Patametos smirking wickedly, lips curled up to his ears.
"At least you're not fleeing like a coward. For that courage, I'll show mercy and merely sever both your eyes and legs."
Patametos, intoxicated by his own magnanimity, leered at Kang Sa-hu's eyes with venomous greed.
Green and blue glows trailing sideways like smoke.
His gaze lingered especially on the blue one as he flicked out his tongue.
'It resembles...'
An icy, piercing chill, yet a blue so clear and transparent it mesmerized.
Of course, he harbored no delusions that this frail weakling—trailing orcs and god-knows-what monkeys—possessed eyes matching the ones in his memory.
Yet the mere visual similarity ignited a vicious pull and avarice within Patametos.
Any moment now, his vaunted demon knights would hear the shout, rush in haphazardly, seize the worm, and present those irresistibly alluring eyes to him. The thought alone drew a smile across Patametos's face.
However.
"......?"
No knights came rushing. Even the elevator behind Kang Sa-hu remained still. Patametos felt a twinge of puzzlement.
And that puzzlement swiftly ignited into fury.
"You brainless idiots! Useless gluttons! Are you deaf to my call?! Get here now...!"
As he drew breath for another bellowing roar—
Kang Sa-hu's lips stilled. The prepared spell completed.
From Fear Imprint onward, Kang Sa-hu unleashed three spells in rapid succession.
Reverse Blood
Blood flow reversed. Bones twist grotesquely.
Kwa-tuk-!
"Gahk!"
As Fear Imprint unfurled, Patametos flinched, instinctively sensing the danger from Kang Sa-hu.
Kang Sa-hu thrust out his hand toward Patametos, whose neck vertebrae began twisting in unnatural contortions.
At the same time, having invoked Reverse Blood to invert the blood flow in the devil's body, Kang Sa-hu issued commands to the orcs and apes awaiting his order.
"Capture him. Do whatever you want anywhere except the neck and torso."
-Kieeek!
-Chwiaaak!
They had barely contained their boiling rage at each insult to their master, and now they charged with furious shrieks.
"Grrruk! Y-you insignificant pests-!"
Patametos clamped his nape—swollen grotesquely as if bones might pierce through skin—and roared.
"How dare you crawl toward me!"
With a furious swing of his hand, countless black fireballs materialized and rained down on the orcs and apes.
It resembled water droplets scattering from a hand shaken dry after washing.
Yet each fireball was the size of a large apple, detonating massively on impact.
-Kyaauk!
-Chwikeok!
The basement of Patametos's mansion was vast enough for a soccer match, but armors, longswords, bows, and more cluttered the space here and there. Dodging every fireball proved impossible, even for the nimble apes—not to mention the orcs.
Surveying the summoned beasts struck by Patametos's fireballs, Kang Sa-hu was appalled.
Despite their size, the blasts packed immense power. No apes took direct hits, yet most bore wounds so deep their bones lay exposed.
But the orcs fared worse.
The apes, having devoured troll flesh via Divora's predation ability, possessed the Regenerating Flesh skill and were already healing. The orcs, lacking troll meat, suffered the full brunt of the magic's wounds.
Kang Sa-hu hurriedly converted the orcs writhing and screaming in agony into soul cores, then used psychokinesis to gather them.
"Kuhk, kuhluk! Y-you damned wretch!"
Struggling to stabilize his grotesquely fractured bones, Patametos glared at Kang Sa-hu with eyes brimming yellow fury.
"What the hell are you?! How did you breach my anti-magic resistance?! Why won't this spell dissipate?!"
"...Beats me."
Kang Sa-hu calmly readjusted his grip on the scythe, his glowing eyes locked on Patametos.
"If you're so curious, figure it out yourself."
With a taunting quip, Kang Sa-hu hurled the scythe.
Death that Rotates and Returns
The treasure he called a 'divine tool'—[Hell Duke Demadr's Blood-Drinking Scythe]—spun through the air toward Patametos.