Chapter 51
Chapter 51
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 51
Chapter Title: Shaking (1)
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Late at night, the Hero sat alone in his cabin aboard a ship gently rocking at anchor along the drizzly seaside, lost in thought.
He still believed the Pathetic Eyes were in the Great Demon King's possession. Knowing he had to grow even stronger, he pondered the ways to do so. But in the end, the Hero broke down crying.
"Khuk."
A crushing pressure like the sky collapsing on him, and longing for all those he had lost.
The Hero wept without a sound.
He didn't yet know what the backlash of inheriting the sword was, but he was receiving it in full. There in that tiny space, Bulki now clamped his hand over his mouth and began sobbing uncontrollably.
"Hup. Hic, kuk, hik, heuk..."
Grandfather, Lije, Elis, Riu, and everyone else he had forgotten but wanted to protect. Even Iven at the center of them all.
He could only cry in that moment when no one was by his side.
The backlash from inheriting the horns through the flames of sin in the Pathetic Eyes manifested as the Demon King's desire to kill himself appearing.
On the other hand, the backlash from inheriting the sword through the Holy Brazier was this.
All those the Hero truly loved would die.
Unaware of this, growing even more miserable, the Hero sharpened his sword once more and prepared to draw forth the power of the inherited blade.
His armor, his book, his sword. Nothing had changed except that his loved ones were no longer by his side, but like a ritual, he wiped away his tears and spoke in a voice even more wretched than before.
"I'm getting lonelier and lonelier."
***
In the collapsed valley, the Demon King devoured himself whole and rose again. And he realized he wasn't hurt at all. As if the battle had never happened.
"Was it an illusion?"
"It wasn't an illusion. If you hadn't overcome it, you would have certainly died, Iven."
Iveldra answered.
"Then we move out right away."
Iven hadn't changed, but he spoke with an even greater air of solitude.
"I'm getting more and more miserable."
The Hero and the Demon King both accepted even more deeply the sin of what they had inherited.
The Demon King gained even stronger conviction, the Hero an even deeper abyss. At this moment when their flames began to distort, I didn't know yet-but would later record it myself.
Because of that princess, the Hero would have to kill his friend, and the Demon King would have to die by his friend's hand. Neither of them knew.
***
Meanwhile, the princess was planning her own festival once again, just as before.
But this time, one more magnificent than any she had ever seen.
"Iven, Iven, Iven, Iven, Iven."
In the castle's highest and deepest place, her private chamber, the princess whispered her curse. She had ordered no one to enter her room and then attempted to summon a manifestation.
Manifestation. Calling a god literally into her own body.
In an instant, pale patterns appeared on the princess's body, and her pupils vanished.
Something like a deer's antlers or wings shimmered like a mirage above her head, and in the vision, she conversed with her god as if intoxicated.
"Ah, my Miflas."
It was a power she had possessed ever since being born as a saintess. Of course, if Neshef or Orga had been whole, the Hero and Demon King could have done it too.
"That day, I stirred discord, but I witnessed the absurdity that made it vanish so easily. What in the world is the Hero? Why is he escaping the curse?"
Mariel Sonain raised both hands as if beholding Miflas, then writhed in agony as if burned by something scorching. No, she moaned as if deriving pleasure from the pain of that day when everyone was dying.
"Ah, Neshefra. Has the Demon King begun to be consumed by that abyss?"
The princess grasped Miflas's will. A good Demon King had been born, and at the same moment, the Hero had begun sinking into that jet-black abyss toward him.
"Both of them could break the gods' pact and kill me."
But Miflas's will sought to exploit even that.
"Ah, and they could kill each other too?"
By Miflas's authority, the Demon King could not kill the saintess. But he was a Demon King who no longer followed the already-dead Neshef. In other words, the newly born king of humans.
"My trial is to make the Hero mine to kill him."
With the manifestation ended and returned to her original state, the princess couldn't hold back her bursting laughter as she devised a plan.
"Kuk, kekeke."
The Hero was already in her grasp, so reasons to deceive him were endless, and the Demon King had such a clear goal that twisting just one thing would suffice.
Thrilled by the Demon King's killing intent toward her, the princess came up with a reason why the Hero would have no choice but to kill him.
"Just make it so he can't save the world without killing the Demon King. I need that plant from the witch. A few cities turned to ash? No big deal."
She left her room and slowly descended the stairs toward the Holy Brazier. The great flames warmly illuminated the world, but it felt as if they were all obscured by the princess's darkness.
"This war will be started by me, Iven."
Then, to kill the demons, the Hero would ultimately have to kill the Demon King. She knew too much through Miflas. That the Pathetic Eyes and Holy Brazier were mere shells, and the backlash from them, and even about the gods' kin.
"I'must prepare with utmost, utmost, utmost joy."
It would take a very long time for the Hero to return. The princess decided to fully enjoy this time. Hoping this diversion would bring her even greater pleasure.
***
Iven, whom the princess cursed endlessly, flew over the valley without sleep and headed straight for Midvar, home of the Red Blood Savages. A land where a single mountain gave way to endless plains encircling the horizon. Nothing but bare earth.
"There's really nothing here."
And he realized once more. There was no life here. If any life appeared in sight, it died immediately.
Squeee!
At the hands of the Red Blood Savages.
"Interesting."
Iven lightly dodged the incoming arrows and landed in the barren wasteland.
"Cease fire!"
Red Blood Savage archers rose from pits in the wasteland soil. The one who seemed their leader rushed to Iven, prostrating himself on the ground and trembling.
"Chanherk, was it?"
"I am the second prince of the Red Blood Savage king who follows the great lord's will. The one who just fired doesn't know the Demon King, so I shall bring his head at once."
Iven looked at him and his kin. They all trembled at the sight of Iven, who had overcome the backlash. They seemed starved for a long time, most bearing wounds.
"Wounds from the demon invasion last time, I suppose. No need for heads."
"Most were struck by the dwarf king's army. Thank you for your mercy."
"Where is your blood kin?"
At the Great Demon King's oddly altered tone, Chanherk Gurimson hesitated to answer. Iveldra, who had followed, bowed beside him and said,
"Shall we head inside? They have at least managed to form a village."
"Understood, Iveldra. Gurimson, lead the way."
At Iveldra's words, Iven responded as if devoid of emotion and simply followed the guide. The so-called village they arrived at was merely a cluster of hovels.
"The state they're in..."
Caves carved from rocks of slain Mountain Giants, or crudely built structures from the soil they left behind. Clothes pieced together from bones and hides of beasts or animal-folk.
"It's dire."
But the gravest issue was their extreme hunger. And Iven, who had devoured his own sins, felt the same.
"Um..."
Then a naked Red Blood Savage child approached Iven. The child placed something in Iven's right arm, the one like a Red Blood Savage's.
Of course, when Kirumin Jay had previously shaped it, it had been scaled down, so only the color and pattern resembled them, but this innocent savage child clearly thought Iven one of their own.
"This is..."
Iven looked at what the Red Blood Savage child had placed in his hand.
It was bread made of dirt.
And at that moment, a massive Red Blood Savage warrior-none the wiser how he approached-tore the child's upper body apart with a huge sword.
"How dare you show such insolence before the Great Demon King. Forgive us, my lord."
It was Gihuk Gurimson, Chanherk's brother and current representative of the Red Blood Savages.
Iven could have stopped his action easily but didn't. Why? Even he himself didn't know. Now, too, he felt strangely unbothered by his lack of anger.
"I see."
He ate the dirt bread before the child's corpse. He tasted nothing. He just thought: Perhaps there's nothing left to call me Iven anymore.
"Iven."
At Iveldra's call, Iven finally snapped out of his reverie.
"How large is your force?"
"If we gather all in Midvar, about a million. Half of them are warriors fit for battle, my lord."
As Chanherk explained, Gihuk interrupted with gritted teeth.
"Don't make me laugh! We are all warriors as one, so a million means a million will fight to the death."
"All you've done is fight and die! Father too!"
As the two who should first receive the Red Blood Savages' horns grew increasingly hostile, Iven felt crushing fatigue.
The Red Blood Savages' biggest problem was that their leaders' wills weren't united. Of course, the reason was purely hunger.
"What a hassle. No, wait..."
Like Lucifer, Iven raised his hand as if to kill them both, then reconsidered.
How did I end up like this? Bulki, what would you say if you saw me now? I'm afraid of that.
His vision blurred and shook, and he collapsed.