Chapter 64. The One Who Contracted with the Demon Clan.
Chapter 64. The One Who Contracted with the Demon Clan.
"How do you know about Magi?"
"Would it suffice to say I know about the contract as well?"
The man stared at me with deepening disbelief, then nodded as if conceding the point.
"That strength... so you're the same kind of scum as me..."
What a laughable fool, deluding himself. Perhaps because he thought I was the same breed as him, he proposed an alliance.
"Would you not form an alliance with me?"
"You're spouting nonsense."
"Why? I've created a paradise where the strong can have everything!"
"Do I need one?"
"You're being unreasonable. Do you think you can fight while protecting everyone? We are six in total!"
"How absurdly convenient that the numbers match."
I told my group, who had learned martial arts and magic, to each take one and fight. Then I quietly asked Terion, who was concealed, to protect them if they were ever in danger.
Perhaps enraged that I'd dismissed them as opponents fit only for my group to train on, the bastards charged all at once.
— Clang! Clang! Clang!!!
I toyed with them appropriately, like handling children, but honestly, the purity of their Magi surprised me. Still, perhaps because he was the leader, the one man seemed stronger than all his subordinates combined.
'Perhaps because their bodies initially lacked Mana, there's none of that murky sensation of being mixed with Magi.'
While dealing with the man, I glanced at my group. They were struggling in their own way, but this too would become experience.
"Just who in the world did you contract with?"
"No one."
"Don't make me laugh! How could a human possess such power...!"
There were types like this on Titan too. Those who, utterly unable to accept something, would rationalize it away as sorcery or black magic.
— Shhk-shhk-shhk-shhk!
I carved countless shallow cuts all over his body.
"How truly foolish. To see you puff up with arrogance and rampage like a bull just because you've gained a speck of power, as if you already own the world..."
"Kgh... I have no choice. Everyone, permission granted!!!"
So saying, the bastards each drew a dagger from their chests. The moment I confirmed the presence of an object that could absolutely not exist on Earth, my interest sharpened.
"A Sacrificial Dagger..."
"You who know of that... yet you claim not even to have contracted? Are you mocking me?!"
Their life force was draining away through the hands gripping the daggers. Their life force was draining, but ironically, their Magi was amplifying in turn.
A child cannot defeat an adult just by picking up a twig from the ground. And their strength was so trivial it was embarrassing even to call them children.
"Kgh... I tried not to use this method...! But at this rate, it's a dog's death! Everyone, do it...!"
Suddenly, the men we were fighting put distance between us, each striking the back of their own hand with their dagger while chanting an incantation. At the same time, my group members who had been fighting gathered in front of me.
An amount of life force far greater than before began to drain out and converge upon a single point. Their skin grew haggard, losing its vitality.
The gathered energy caused a crack to form and split open in the empty air. Soon, a man with a pure white snake coiled around one hand walked out from within.
My group's bodies began to tremble at the aura the man emitted, and even those who weren't Awakened started feeling chills from the unknown energy.
Having completed their summoning, the men steadied their crumbling resolve and knelt before the being, begging.
"Oh, oh Demon... we need your help and have summoned you, discarding formalities."
The being called a demon kicked the head of one of his subordinates beside him, bursting it, and answered in a bored voice.
"You need my help?"
"I, I apologize..."
"Hmm, there shouldn't be anyone in this dimension capable of matching you..."
"Th, they are clearly bastards who contracted with the Demon Lords, just like me...!"
He looked over my group with bored eyes and spoke in a voice tinged with faint interest.
"For Awakened Ones, their power is remarkably refined. I've grown interested in using them as test subjects. And those two are unusually beautiful for humans. Enough to rival a Dream Demon."
After gazing at my group, he eventually looked back at the man and clicked his tongue.
"Tsk tsk... you fool. They are not ones who have made a contract."
"Th, then could it truly be..."
"I don't know how they obtained such refined Mana in a dimension like this, but with Lord Leviathan suddenly having vanished, this shall be entertaining."
The demon smiled sinisterly and reached out a hand. The pure white snake coiled around his hand crawled up it, opening its mouth wide as Magi began to pour out. I could no longer stand and watch, so I brushed past my group and stepped forward a few paces.
"I can tolerate this no longer."
"Hmm? Are you trying to put up a futile struggle...?"
Fear.
The demon felt fear. An incongruous thought — and yet anyone watching could see the demon was undeniably afraid. His pupils shook, his jaw trembled, his upper and lower teeth chattered and clashed together. And soon his whole body was trembling.
Even the snake sensed his fear. It closed its mouth and slithered into his sleeve to hide.
"Andromalius."
"H, how is this..."
"A demon who barely manages to list his name at the very bottom. Think about why I spared your life."
At the sight of the demon terror-stricken, my group and the other men all stared in confusion.
"Oh, oh Demon...! Please kill that bastard...!"
"S, shut your mouth... you ignorant fool... do you even know who that person is to say such things...!"
"A mystery even to me. To suddenly run into you in a place like this."
My reason for sparing Andromalius? Nothing special. Simply put, keeping him alive would brand him a traitor and a coward, making him spread my notoriety and preventing annoying situations from arising.
Yes, a clown. I kept the bastard alive to use him as a clown.
But perhaps that's demons for you, after all. You never know if they're shit or soybean paste until you taste it, so he wasn't much help.
"The Demon Kings you serve, and even the Demon God himself, kneeled before me and groveled for their lives. So why do you remain so stiff?"
Rather, as befits beings faithful to desire, when their lives are in danger they're the type to throw away all pride and dignity, slam their heads to the ground, and beg for their lives. There are exceptions, but mostly, that's how it is.
— Boom!
The moment I finished speaking, the bastard slammed his knees into the ground with tremendous force, bowed his head, and begged for my forgiveness. He struck his knees so hard that the floor cracked.
"Your contractors put me in a foul mood. They even made pathetic threats against me."
Then, at a speed invisible to my group, the heads of those men burst almost simultaneously.
"Clown... clown... clown..."
Muttering to myself, I strode toward the bastard. And when my foot entered his downcast field of view, he trembled even more violently.
"Do you know who those two people you were eyeing with lecherous intent are?"
"...?"
"They are the companions I have chosen to spend the rest of my life with."
Demons have no concept of marriage. The strong simply meet and impregnate each other. Theirs is an utterly unique custom of breeding superior genes together to create even stronger offspring. Still, they roughly understand human marriage customs. Though they find it distasteful.
"I, I apologize... 'Calamity,' no, Lord of Ten Thousand Demons, Heavenly Demon..."
"What should I do with you?"
"I, I'll do anything if you spare my life... please..."
"There are many things I want to hear from you..."
"Anything! I'll tell you everything...!"
I gestured for my group to come this way. They still seemed unable to shake off their fear, approaching hesitantly.
"Everyone, it's fine. You may come over here."
At that moment, Andromalius had a strange thought to himself.
'That person is using honorific speech...!? I can't feel his aura at all... Just how many powerful beings exist in this dimension...!'
I usually speak formally unless someone picks a fight first, but demons, accustomed to speaking down to those weaker than themselves, wouldn't understand that. The President, mustering his courage despite the fear, spoke up.
"I ask this as the President. Just what are you scheming...!"
"P, President...?"
"Think of him as the king of a nation."
'As, as expected... a king of a nation... so it wasn't for nothing that I couldn't sense anything from him...'
This strange misunderstanding(?) kept deepening.
Through my group asking numerous questions, we confirmed the facts. They said they had sent the Sacrificial Daggers through the dimensional rift. A kind of seed. If a human takes the dagger and contracts, they are gradually corrupted.
"Are there any Demon Kings or demons who crossed over separately from you?"
"N, no... the Demon God and several Demon Kings passed away, and we split into several factions... so I don't know about the others either..."
"Factions?"
What he told me was unexpectedly interesting. The Hawkish Faction that wants to immediately begin encroaching on this dimension, the Moderate Faction that insists on focusing on building strength for now, and the Neutral Faction that has no interest in anything to begin with.
They're called the Hawkish Faction and the Moderate Faction, but regardless, both groups plan to cross over into this dimension. The difference is whether it's sooner or later. And this bastard was a member of the Hawkish Faction.
"Hmm... I know that Titan's Mana is leaking into the dimensional rift. So what are the Neutral Faction bastards doing?"
"I don't know much about that either... I was merely told to scatter the seeds...!"
"Then what about the other beasts of the Demon Realm, excluding Leviathan?"
"I don't know about the others... So then, of course, Lord Leviathan too... perhaps...!"
"Yes, I killed him."
"...!"
After finishing the conversation, I tapped the bastard's knee with the tip of my foot as he kneeled, signaling him to get lost. He warily eyed the situation and began slinking toward the rift split open in the void.
"You are sparing me...?"
Showing how tiresome it was to speak further, I frowned and pointed my chin at the rift.
"Don't make me repeat myself. Get lost. And never come back to this dimension again."
His expression soon filled with ecstasy as he turned his body toward the rift. As I watched him silently, I said one thing and thrust my sword into the bastard's Origin Essence.
"Well, you can't go to any dimension now anyway."
Without even a moment to register death, his Origin shattered and he died instantly. And I thought to myself.
'A clown who failed to prove his usefulness must be disposed of.'