I Got the Jewel
Jabberwock was gone. As if to prove that it had been utterly erased from this world, it never appeared again before the people gathered there.
The stench of blood stung my nose. Dark, filthy Jabberwock blood stained Behemoth's right hand.
It had taken ten seconds. After the strange noise had sounded, the Jabberwock had flown into a rage and charged toward the source—only to be exterminated by Behemoth in the span of ten seconds.
Who could have imagined it?
That there existed a creature capable of slaughtering the Jabberwock, a grotesque fusion of demon arms and legs, bat wings, a long tail, a pair of long antennae, and a fish's head.
At least, no one here had.
The dwarves stared at Behemoth with dumbstruck faces.
Why is Behemoth here…?
The dwarves did not offer Behemoth the kind of unconditional faith the elves and beastfolk did. Of course, they were grateful to him for defeating the Cyclops who had ruled the Golden Mine, but there was no guarantee he had acted for the sake of the dwarves.
“We elves were once helped greatly by Behemoth. And I doubt we’re the only ones.”
“That’s right! We goblins were helped by Behemoth too! He hunted down the man-eater that was slaughtering our kin. He took the blood vengeance we should have carried out ourselves. He did it for us without asking for anything in return!”
“Lord Behemoth didn’t come here to harm us. He descended upon this land to save us.”
The dwarves dismissed the other demi-humans’ stories as little more than embellished delusions.
Ancient monsters are afraid of Behemoth.
The monsters who used to toy with us like we were nothing are being threatened by Behemoth, a single beast….
The dwarves’ perception began to change, little by little.
The chimera fairy flinched. It could not understand Behemoth’s voice.
A monster capable of understanding every law in this world, and yet there was something I couldn’t understand?
As blue flame rippled from Behemoth’s mouth, the Dullahan raised its shield.
That flame wasn’t just hot. It would burn our souls to ash and erase us completely.
When Behemoth let out a thunderous roar, Arachne’s eight pairs of legs wavered.
If we don’t stay sharp, he’ll devour us.
Only then did the ancient monsters realize who had hunted the Manticore.
“The one who defeated the Manticore wasn’t some demi-human. It was you….”
“What in the world is that power? You’re not a demi-human, not a human, and not even a monster!”
“Too profane to call you a god, too blasphemous to call you a mere mortal—you are truly incomprehensible!”
Before an existence they could not put into words, the ancient monsters swelled themselves larger and raised their voices.
That was exactly the sort of thing the weak did before an overwhelming strong one.
And yet they still would not retreat, driven both by the cannibal urge to tear the dwarves standing before them into pieces and devour them, and by their pride as living creatures.
They had once stood at the top of the food chain in the Gehenna Great Forest.
The monsters who had always ruled and dominated could not accept losing to Behemoth.
That was their nature. Their instinct.
Even after facing the cases of the Manticore and the Jabberwock, they still had not properly learned fear.
Just like back when the ancestors of the demi-humans had sealed them away.
“Die!”
The battle of the beasts began.
The dwarves could scarcely even keep their footing against the shockwaves of the clash.
A storm howled through the mine. From the center of the fight, every kind of sound whirled together, creating a deafening roar.
Mana burst out from the monsters’ bodies. The darkest mana in this world, mana red as blood, and all manner of shimmering lights flashed together inside the Golden Mine.
Arachne was called a grotesque insect because of her overwhelming size. The monster with spider legs and a woman’s upper body now revealed its true form.
KUGUGUGUGUNG—!
With Arachne’s transformation, the Golden Mine began to collapse.
The dwarves screamed and hurried to dodge the falling rocks. Drower also tried to get out of the way in a hurry, not wanting to be crushed by stone, but the moment he spotted the young dwarf standing there in a daze, he had no choice but to bite his lip and take care of him.
“You idiot! Run!”
Just as Drower was trying to flee with the young dwarf, a massive slab of rock came crashing down from above. To their eyes, it looked like a meteor falling from the sky.
Damn it….
It was the moment Drower was about to sacrifice himself to save the young dwarf.
“■■■■■■─────!!”
Behemoth’s roar rang out once more.
The high-energy shockwave that spread with the sound shattered the falling boulder to pieces.
Drower looked at Behemoth’s back, hard as meteoric iron. He was far smaller than the giant Arachne, but in Drower’s eyes Behemoth stood higher than any mountain.
Drower met Behemoth’s eyes. At the center of those jewel-bright golden irises was a single black slit.
Just watch.
It felt as though Behemoth was telling him exactly that.
Drower fled with the young dwarf.
Even as he ran, he kept turning back to watch Behemoth.
The Dullahan’s blade, said to rival the sword strike of a Swordmaster, could not pierce Behemoth’s scales. The Chimera Fairy, born from chaos with the features of every fairy fused together, could not even cast its magic. And Arachne, the insect king who had spread across the Golden Mine, was brought down by Behemoth through brute force alone.
“What an incredible battle….”
At the muttered voice beside him, Drower found himself nodding without thinking.
Today, he had witnessed a scene from myth.
My blood surged.
When the heat blazed hot, the demon inside me began to speak.
Kill them all. Kill them and get drunk on it. Get drunk and devour them.
When the demon’s voice reached me, black thorns spread over my scales. The world turned a bright, vicious red, and energy began to rampage wildly through my body. A bottomless anger seethed deep inside my chest.
This was what happened whenever I got excited.
The faces of the dwarves begging me desperately to save them vanished from my mind. Soho’s adorable cries disappeared too, along with my important promise to Satania. Worries about tomorrow’s meal, worries about a warm bed to sleep in—they all vanished.
What was I doing again?
Whenever I wandered off and got lost, the demon would come close and prod me on. It would tell me who I should fight.
The enemy you must fight is everything in this world.
What enrages you is this world itself.
If you want to relieve this unbearable rage, destroy everything.
Your role is calamity.
No one can escape the calamity that is you.
You have the power to do so.
Because God created you that way.
Who dares stand against you?
Who dares block your path?
You are the beast of disaster, the destroyer who will bring the world to ruin.
Who would deny your existence when even God has affirmed it?
Behemoth.
Leave your mark upon the world.
Leave behind your terror.
Bring everyone to their knees.
Turn this world into hell.
Turn it into emptiness.
Turn it into nothingness.
Do not deny your own existence.
It is the end that you were born for.
The demon’s voice was sweet. It sounded true. It made my mind as pliable as reed.
But…
“You’ve been walking carefully ever since a little while ago, making sure not to step on the flowers.”
“I may not be able to see what lies ahead, but I can see something more precious than that. The heart.”
When the voice of the blind girl, clear as a blue sky, reached me, my mind became calm again. Into the world stained with ugly colors, a golden light like the color of her hair began to shine.
I closed my eyes.
Then I opened them again gently, and the world came into view.
Under the broad, open blue sky, white clouds drifted lazily along. The sun stood higher still, and birds flew beneath the clouds. A soft breeze carried warmth as it drifted quietly toward me.
Only then did I realize, once again, just how beautiful and graceful this world was.
Is it over…?
I looked at the dwarves.
Before the battle with the monsters, they had been standing in trouble at the collapsed entrance of the mine. I had noticed that dwarves were trapped inside and helped them.
At first the dwarves had looked horribly flustered, but soon they realized what I meant and helped me too. Together, we cleared away the rocks piled at the entrance and went into the mine. Then we rescued the dwarves inside.
The monsters that had threatened the dwarves no longer moved.
That was because I had slaughtered them all with my own hands.
Some of the monsters felt like intelligent beings who could think and speak, much like the demi-humans.
And yet the reason I could be so ruthless was simple.
My emotions and my reason both told me that those things were evil—evil because they hurt people.
Saving the dwarves had been an accident. That was why this whole thing would probably count as a miracle.
I was truly relieved that lives so precious had not been lost.
Inside the collapsed mine, I gathered up the Cyclops’s hoard.
Judging by their miner’s clothes, the dwarves must have been working in this mine for a long time and had seen the treasure with their own eyes, so why hadn’t they taken it? They must have thought it belonged to someone else.
I shared about half of the treasure with the kind dwarves.
Then I waved to the dazed dwarves and left the mine.
“Maybe I should try farming next time. I’m craving carbs today.”
As I wandered through the Great Forest and drew in a breath, the pleasant scent of nature filled my lungs.