Serengeti's Resurrection
Maxim, left with nothing but his body the moment he died—the Golden Rule and every piece of gear he wore all gone.
Where the hell was I supposed to put this guy to use?
At least he counted as a Raid Boss monster, but Maxim was nothing more than a meat shield with inflated stats.
I stroked my chin, turning over how best to exploit him, when—
‘Hidden Trait Quest: Iron-Blooded Lord’ has been completed.
By ‘Eternal Randolph’, the Hidden Trait ‘Heart of the Iron-Blooded Lord’ evolves into ‘Heart of the Eternal Lord’.
……The Hidden Trait Heart of the Iron-Blooded Lord.
It had evolved into the Heart of the Eternal Lord.
The instant I confirmed the change that evolution brought, a shiver ran through me.
Duke Scien tilted his head.
Why hasn’t there been a single word from Maxim?
The man should have returned long ago. Fetching Serengeti from Marquis Weiser had been an absurdly simple task.
Was he wasting time chasing women again?
Or… perhaps…
Had he fallen so hard for Serengeti that he’d gone completely off the rails?
“Lord Maxim has arrived!”
“Oh! Excellent—send him in at once!”
The knights at the door announced it, and Duke Scien answered with open delight.
Moments later Maxim stepped into his chambers.
“Maxim! My fine successor. Perfect timing. But where is Serengeti?”
The problem was that Maxim had returned empty-handed.
“He… told me… to deliver… this.”
“He? Who is ‘he’?”
“You’ll know… when you see it.”
Maxim’s speech was strange—almost as if he’d been injured somewhere.
Duke Scien paid it no mind. Maxim being odd was nothing new.
Maxim was his successor, one of the Eight Heroes, a trusted vassal. If he couldn’t trust the man, who could he trust?
Maxim approached and drew something from his coat.
A dagger.
Duke Scien’s eyes flew wide.
Thud—!
In that instant the blade sank cleanly into the duke’s heart.
“Guh! How could you—to me…!”
Duke Scien groaned, staring at Maxim as if he could not believe it.
“What is happening!”
“Ma-Maxim! You bastard!”
Hearing the duke’s cry, the knights waiting outside rushed in.
They cut Maxim down at once, yet they could not stop Duke Scien from dying.
……Maxim—one of the Eight Heroes and the official heir of Duke Scien.
The news that he had assassinated the duke spread across the entire continent in a heartbeat.
A heavy silence filled the chamber.
Six figures sat in a circle around the round table, offering one another nothing more than mutual silence.
This was the Ruins City of Rundela in Pangenia.
The “Round Table Meeting” held here was open only to the Eight Heroes.
And the five gathered now were all unparalleled talents known as the Eight Heroes.
War God Master.
Thunder Emperor Drakestar.
Nine-Tailed Fox Obsidian.
Corpse Queen Ban-hee.
Lucifer.
“……Is Gracia skipping again this time?”
After a long stretch of quiet, Master finally spoke.
Sword Saint Gracia had once more failed to appear at the Round Table Meeting.
With Maxim and Wilhelm dead, everyone except Gracia was present.
“Probably wants to play the lofty crane all by himself again.”
The man with a black band across his eyes—Drakestar—sneered.
Gracia’s absences were no longer rare; he almost never attended and always acted alone.
They dressed it up as the dignity of a solitary crane, yet everyone knew exactly whose footsteps he was trying to follow.
Knight King Wilhelm.
Wilhelm, who had stood at the absolute peak of solo play.
Gracia was still chasing the trail of legend and myth that man had left across Pangenia.
Even in reality.
“Is the rumor true? That Maxim killed Duke Scien?”
Obsidian asked, her nine tails swaying.
She simply could not understand how the official successor could murder the duke.
“It is true.”
Master nodded in confirmation.
He had verified it himself—this was no mere rumor.
Maxim had attacked Duke Scien and killed him.
As a result the Balan Kingdom was in complete uproar.
Because one of the Eight Heroes was involved, the entire world—not just Balan—was shaking.
“Earth’s affairs are already a mess, and now Pangenia too. Master, didn’t you claim everything rested on the ‘board’ you built?”
The massive man whose long black hair hid his face gave a quiet laugh.
Lucifer. He bared his teeth at Master without the slightest pretense of courtesy.
Master’s brow twitched.
True enough—everything on Earth and in Pangenia had once sat neatly on a carefully prepared board.
Yet at some point it had begun to go wrong.
Precisely after Wilhelm’s death.
I managed to paper over the Earth side somehow…
The first dimensional rift.
Every person on the planet had seen with their own eyes the other dimension—Pangenia—hanging in the sky.
After that, gates should have opened and monsters poured through… yet the “King of the Dimensional Rift” suddenly died and the quest cleared.
And the one who cleared the main quest was none other than Randolph.
The man they were certain was Phantom.
He had cleared it alone—before the rift even crossed over.
Because of that, the people of Earth were beginning to doubt.
Perhaps the prophecy, the warnings of the other-dimensional warriors, had been wrong.
—It is a sign of invasion. The monsters checked our strength, took fright, and fled.
—Invasion from the other dimension is inevitable.
—The warriors simply held the monsters back to some degree before they could reach Earth.
The warriors all began repeating the same story.
In any case, everyone had seen the continent called Pangenia with their own eyes, so doubt had nowhere to take root.
Moreover the players were under the thorough control of the heroes gathered here; nothing would leak.
Aside from the players themselves, no one knew that Randolph had slain the King of the Dimensional Rift.
So long as the players kept their stories straight, it was fine.
The problem… was Pangenia.
Master shook his head.
“This is no problem either. We will simply declare him a ‘Sinner’.”
Sinner.
The possessed ones the Death Gods were desperate to kill.
Everyone present was a possessed one—sinners, in the Death Gods’ terms—yet few people knew the Eight Heroes were sinners.
In fact, most of Pangenia’s humans did not even understand what the word “sinner” meant.
Therefore, if they intended to brand Maxim a sinner, they would first have to make clear exactly what a sinner was, what a Death God was, and what a possessed one was.
Drakestar’s lips trembled.
“Isn’t that far too dangerous a gamble?”
“It will come out eventually anyway. Better we strike first. None of us has a ‘Death God’ attached, do we?”
“We can’t know that. They’d hide it with everything they have.”
A player targeted by a Death God hid that fact with absolute desperation.
The Eight Heroes were no different.
Perhaps someone sitting here was already being hunted.
The reason they never spoke of it was the Death Gods’ relentless nature.
Anyone marked by a Death God would, without fail, die by a Death God’s hand.
And anyone nearby would inevitably be affected—especially another player. When the Death Gods came to kill someone, they might notice the others as well.
Even for them, everything about the Death Gods remained unknown; caution was mandatory.
Master spoke in a cold voice.
“It will also be a perfect chance to confirm whether those who command the Death Gods truly are the imperial royalty.”
If there was one group that raised suspicion, it was the Empire.
The Empire was the sole unknown world the players had never reached.
Nothing was known of its royalty.
They had not even appeared during the Great Expedition.
They were so closed-off they never showed themselves in public, and every player who had ever been connected to the Empire had been murdered.
It was only natural, then, to assume that the Death God Religion and the control of the Death Gods belonged to the imperial bloodline.
Use Maxim’s death in reverse.
By revealing the truth of Death Gods and the possessed first, they could drag the Empire into the open.
The continent would fall into chaos, and suspicion toward the Eight Heroes would vanish in an instant.
Stirring the pot here was far easier than on Earth.
“It will also serve as a restraint on Phantom. Once we start receiving information on ‘Sinners’ ourselves, tips will pour in from every corner of Pangenia.”
“Whew…!”
Drakestar clapped his hands.
The picture Master had drawn.
He was declaring that they themselves would take charge of the Death God Religion’s affairs.
The veiled Death God Religion would be left either stamping its feet in frustration or forced to step into the open.
Moreover, by revealing the nature of sinners first and gathering reports from across the continent, they might finally step on Phantom’s tail.
Above all, the mad rampage of that man would be reined in to some degree.
“Not a bad method.”
“……Certainly.”
Everyone offered a short murmur of admiration.
None of them had imagined they could knock back the fastball Phantom had thrown quite like this.
Master put steel into his voice.
“From this moment the real fight begins. He hindered us once—there will not be a second time.”
That was the instant Phantom—Randolph—was officially named by the Round Table Meeting.
The Eight Heroes already possessed no honor.
Even if Wilhelm’s name was counted among them, it made no difference.
Having none yet pretending they did—better to shove the whole lot into the gutter.
‘Indulgence’ has been used.
Bad karma has been purified.
After cleanly recycling Maxim, I used an Indulgence and washed away every scrap of bad karma.
Then I returned to the Knight’s Garden and bestowed a blessing upon Serengeti.
“Wi-will she wake?”
Hudson swallowed hard, his face a portrait of pure anxiety.
Bruises mottled every visible inch of him.
It was clear how much he had suffered after Maxim arrived in the territory—protecting Serengeti, nursing her back.
Those efforts had borne fruit: Serengeti’s lost lower body had been completely regenerated.
All that remained was for the blessing to bring her awake.
Honestly, even I was not certain.
My holy power had risen considerably after the trip to Kramdel, but a Demon King’s curse was not called that for nothing.
Moreover, it was a curse cast by sacrificing half the Demon Realm as an offering.
Granting ‘Blessing of the Star’.
All holy power is consumed.
Holy power is insufficient to lift the Demon King’s Curse.
‘Limit Curse’ has been temporarily lifted (56 hours).
As expected, complete removal of the curse was still far off.
Yet the duration of the temporary lift had clearly lengthened compared to before.
If my holy power ever surpassed one hundred, full release might become possible.
“Umm…”
“Ah…!”
Serengeti opened her eyes once more.
Hudson’s entire body trembled at the sight.
Marquis Weiser was no different.
Both men had poured everything into protecting her.
Had I arrived even a little later, Serengeti and the entire territory would have been gone.
Serengeti, now awake, looked around her.
“Hudson… and… my lord.”
This was the second time.
At her address, Marquis Weiser spoke.
“Call me Father.”
“……Pardon?”
“If that is difficult, the old way is fine.”
Marquis Weiser was the lord of the city.
As a noble he was proud, and in raising his daughter he had been relentlessly strict.
From her earliest years he had devoted himself solely to forging her into a knight; never once had he permitted her to call him “Father” even when she stood by him.
Serengeti’s pupils wavered.
She had never expected the marquis to say such a thing.
Her entire life had been nothing but the sword and training; not a single grain of father-daughter affection had ever existed between them.
“…………Father.”
“…My daughter. How is your body?”
“Ah…”
Daughter.
Had anyone ever called her by that word?
Serengeti slightly furrowed her brows and asked,
“Am I still… trapped inside a nightmare?”
The Demon King’s curse had forced endless nightmares upon her.
It had been devouring her mind.
If this was not reality but still the middle of a nightmare, her first worry was how the curse would next twist itself.
“This is reality.”
“Wil… no—Successor.”
Seeing me, Serengeti hastily corrected herself.
She knew I was Wilhelm, yet there was no need to announce it to those around us.
At my firm assurance, however, her eyes finally softened with relief.
Reality.
Not the curse’s nightmare—the true world.
“……It seems a great deal happened while I slept. Just who…?”
Serengeti could not help the fury rising in her.
Hudson’s bruised face.
And the marquis’s suddenly altered manner.
Someone had clearly put them through hell.
Killing intent surged.
Objects around the room began to float.
She was a Transcendent who had properly consumed a Star and broken past mortal limits.
The feeling she gave off was a hundred and eighty degrees different from Maxim.
It was qualitatively incomparable to a transcendence state cobbled together with something as crude as a Demon Heart.
Of course Maxim had known that—which was why he had struck while she slept.
“Don’t worry. The bastard has already paid for his crimes.”
“……Had it not been for the Successor, this territory would have fallen to Maxim and Duke Scien.”
Marquis Weiser added.
His attitude toward me had completely changed as well.
This incident had rewritten his thinking.
Especially since he had been the sole witness to my killing of Maxim.
Watching me casually dismantle one of the Eight Heroes had apparently settled his resolve.
Serengeti tilted her head.
“Maxim…? That coward Maxim? What connection does that man have with Duke Scien?”
Marquis Weiser answered.