What the Dread King Left Behind

Message windows kept rising without end.

I read every last character, then read them again.

Even as I did, I couldn't help tilting my head. Every sentence that had appeared defied common sense.

A star is supposed to scatter when its owner dies. Yet the Solar Star was reclaimed at once. …Because it's a Named Star? Or because it was Wilhelm's star?

It started with the first line — the claim that the Solar Star had been reclaimed. Brought back. That made the latter far more likely: kill whoever held Wilhelm's star, and it could be "reclaimed" on the spot.

…Or maybe it wasn't limited to Wilhelm alone.

The characters I transcended while playing. Could I reclaim every one of their stars?

I rubbed my chin and ran through the characters I had personally pushed past the limit.

MentaikoConan. PeopleAngler. ThunderGodDescent…

But MentaikoConan was dead, PeopleAngler's whereabouts were unknown, and ThunderGodDescent was currently with the Death God Religion.

If I could reclaim all of their stars? It was worth serious thought.

Wilhelm's memories. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sword art of Creation of Heaven and Earth has grown stronger.

Reinforcing Wilhelm's memories had affected the sword art as well. Reading consciousness felt far more natural now. Even without drawing the blade, Auryll and Karas's minds beside me came through with sharper clarity — especially Karas's, a demigod's consciousness that had always been hard to parse. Not anymore.

More than anything, I was starting to grasp ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a thread of the final stage: Byeok, Creation.

…Echo of the Past.

Echo of the Past was an additional effect granted by the Named Solar Star. Thanks to it, I could use two unique skills: the Heavenly Dragon Legend's Heavenly Dragon Kick, and MentaikoConan's Sword-Body Unity.

By the same logic, if I found the corpses of characters I had raised — or made corpses of them myself — I could strip their unique skills.

A monstrous ability.

I had raised hundreds of characters. Was I supposed to hunt every last one of them?

Looked at another way, though, it was an extremely useful tool against characters who turned hostile. Cases like Isabella or Isaac, who transcended and recovered their memories. Sooner or later, some of them might uncover my identity and come for me.

And if Echo of the Past triggered even from finding a corpse…

Worth looking into.

A few places came to mind at once — characters who had possessed useful unique skills and died unlucky deaths. Track down their remains, collect and combine those skills, and the picture might turn out better than expected.

…But why Greed instead of Gluttony?

Last of all — the most important and least comprehensible evolution of a Hidden Trait.

Glutton had evolved into Greed. But if a Hidden Trait built around devouring evolved, shouldn't it become Gluttony?

And it wasn't only the name that had changed.

It said I had acquired the trait of Greed. Nothing more. Figure it out by colliding with it and living through it — that was the message. Expecting detailed explanations in Pangenia had always been a luxury.

"…Of the Dread Clan, Wilhelm, and the Demon of Greed who devoured Jealousy. What else is in there?"

Karas asked from beside me. Having regained his wings, he had returned to a complete demigod. Even so, he seemed only half-convinced of my identity.

As for that — Glutton had indeed eaten the Demon of Jealousy, but…

"The Demon of Greed?"

"Don't play dumb. What sleeps inside you is unmistakably the Demon of Greed."

The Hidden Trait Greed. Karas was calling it the Demon of Greed — and with a distinctly hostile air. Until now he had covered for me as one of the Dread Clan, but if I were the Demon of Greed, that was a different story.

Some Hidden Traits double as racial traits.

There were cases treated as entire races. But a case locked to a single individual, like the Demon of Greed — this was the first. Setting aside Eternal Randolph as a Hidden Trait of my very existence, a Demon of Greed among the Seven Deadly Sins…

When Hidden Traits evolve, they reclaim their true form.

The Heart of the Eternal Lord. The High Druid's Great Nature. And now Greed. The High Druid's authority to rule over nature, and the Demon of Greed — those had been the original identities of the Hidden Traits all along.

Which raised a few questions. What, then, did the Eternal Lord point to? Could the true nature of Hidden Traits be fragments of some Great Authority?

I found myself intensely curious about the real identities of the Hidden Traits that had yet to evolve.

"What… are you?"

Karas asked in a tone of absolute seriousness. I had to answer carefully. Turn him into an enemy here, and leaving this tower would not be easy.

I shrugged.

"As I am now, I am Randolph. At the same time, I am Wilhelm, of the Dread Clan, and the Demon of Greed."

The plain truth. Lies wouldn't work in front of Karas anyway. Better to speak as things stood. Of course, there was no need to mention that I had eaten Baal, or that I held ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠other Hidden Traits.

Karas's expression shifted subtly.

"…You don't deny it."

"Denying it wouldn't change anything."

"What do you intend to do?"

"Finish what was left unfinished."

"The Great Expedition?"

I nodded. The one thing I had never completed. If I had a single lingering regret in Pangenia, it was the Great Expedition and nothing else.

"…I'll take you at your word."

Karas turned his back and continued.

"Follow me. There's something I want to show you."

Auryll still hadn't recovered from the chain of events.

A single sword that had annihilated a demon in one stroke. Then the talk of the Demon of Greed.

Lord Randolph is the Demon of Greed?

If what she had just heard was true, this was a catastrophe. Most of the Seven Demons had vanished or gone into hiding. But after Ruin's appearance — after countless gods were extinguished or left barely clinging to existence — they had begun to run wild. It had grown far worse after the two goddesses died. Tempting humans and planting Demon Hearts, spreading plagues, starting wars — their malice had long since crossed every line.

The Demon of Greed…!

And Randolph himself had admitted it. That he was the Demon of Greed. Greed — the one said to have vanished in distant antiquity, yet the most feared among the Seven Deadly Sins.

Lord Randolph holds the authority of a High Druid. How can a High Druid's authority coexist with the Demon of Greed?

She couldn't make sense of it. Karas seemed unaware, but Randolph was a High Druid as well. How could a High Druid who tended the great natural world be Greed? Two mutually annihilating existences sharing one body was impossible.

And… Wilhelm?

That wasn't all. Wilhelm! Even Auryll the elf knew the name of the Knight King, protagonist of the Great Expedition. Nearly every elf living in the Forest of Beginning knew that name.

Until now she had taken Randolph for something like Wilhelm's successor. Everyone in the Marquis Weiser household had called him that. And yet he claimed to be him?

—I hear some human named Wilhelm is marching to conquer the Demon Realm?

—He's completely lost his mind. He's bound to fail.

At first, the elves who heard the rumor had mocked Wilhelm. That was before they knew who he was. The queen's single remark had silenced the noise.

—Wilhelm is one the World Tree has taken an interest in.

One the World Tree watched with care. Which meant the queen herself was watching him closely. Someone the World Tree and the queen both observed with such attention could not be an ordinary human. In the end he had failed, yet the queen had called it a half-success.

If everything I've heard is true…

Randolph was Wilhelm, a High Druid, of the Dread Clan, and the Demon of Greed. Was that even possible? These were identities no one could hold without becoming a god.

Then is Lord Randolph a god?

Her thoughts refused to settle; the world started to spin — and then:

"Can you read this?"

Karas led them both before a massive stele. The writing carved into it was something even Auryll had never seen. Randolph shook his head.

"I can't."

"…The script on this stele can be read only by the Dread Clan."

Karas's expression hardened slightly. He had believed with absolute certainty that Randolph was of the Dread Clan. Yet the man could not read writing every member of the Dread Clan could read? It was something one was supposed to grasp by instinct, without ever being taught. Failure meant Randolph was not of the Dread Clan.

"Is that so?"

Randolph only shrugged. Then:

"In that case, I'll try again."

A soft rush of shadow.

Randolph's body began to change — into a form like pure black shadow. Auryll and Karas both froze for a moment.

"Ah…!"

"…"

Auryll went rigid with shock. Karas looked as though he had seen something that should never be seen. A shape so dreadful it projected itself as the most horrific form each of them could imagine.

Regardless, Randolph read the stele again.

"…One of the steles the Dread King left behind, it seems."

"…!!"

Karas's eyes went round. This stele was as good as the Dread King's own will. Could that dreadful form truly be of the Dread Clan?

If so, this was no ordinary member. Among the Dread Clan, the one considered most terrible of all — the Dread King's direct bloodline, the one who had effectively ruled the clan. The one who commanded the Black Sun, death itself. So dreadful that even divine beings were said to have avoided him.

Don't tell me… the Dreadful Omen…?

Ha. First the Demon of Greed, and now, of all things, the Dreadful Omen? The sheer absurdity forced a hollow laugh out of Karas.

It was a curious thing.

The moment I became the One Who Blooms Darkness, the characters on the stele became readable. Writing only a specific race could read, perhaps.

Something like the Dread King's diary?

The content was nothing special — entries in the style of a journal the Dread King had left to praise himself.

What an ego.

"I am the greatest" — five words stretched across five hundred characters. Reading it was pure labor; the self-love was staggering.

At last I finished the five-hundred-character stele.

A dark rush of air.

Black smoke began to pour from the stone. Then:

The stele burst apart, and every thread of black smoke was drawn into me.

In that instant — bubble, bubble, bubble — the absorbed smoke seethed beneath me, forming bubbles. The bubbles rose and took a definite shape: a black body, black wings, a black beak.

—Caw! Caaaw!

…The crow that had left home when I became the One Who Blooms Darkness had, at last, come home.