Chapter 192
Chapter 192
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 192
Chapter Title: Maou Rune Letters
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"Death Demon Cry Phase 1, 123rd Experiment.
Through Ghost, we learned that the 123rd experimental subjects possessed special characters.
While hearing the name of those characters, a demon sealed by Ghost went berserk, killing all the 123rd subjects.
'It says characters are needed to proceed with the contract.'
Death Demon Cry Phase 1, 127th Experiment.
Ghost's ability awakened during the experiment.
Thanks to that, we succeeded in four additional experiments related to the characters.
Characters for proceeding with the contract.
They call them 'Maou Rune Letters'.
Death Demon Cry Phase 1, 212th Experiment.
Successfully summoned a high-ranking demon using the Maou Rune Letters.
It was the first demon Ghost's sealing skill couldn't affect.
Half the underground lab was destroyed, but it was worth it.
212th Experiment.
Found a way to seal the high-ranking demon.
Death Demon Cry Phase 1, 220th Experiment.
The sealed high-ranking demon broke the contract on its own.
High-ranking demons can apparently use Maou Rune Letters freely.
Death Demon Cry Phase 1, 277th Experiment."
As Yong-un read through the experiment logs, his attention snagged on handwriting that differed from the rest.
The 277th experiment log carried the emotions of whoever had compiled this document.
The letters were thicker and more forcefully pressed than usual.
Even without looking closely, it felt like they'd achieved something entirely different from all prior experiments.
"After endless experiments, at last...
We've found a way to summon back that high-ranking demon we lost.
This proves the Maou Rune Letters weren't made just for contracts.
Some of the Maou Rune Letters can specify particular high-ranking demons!"
Yong-un's eyes widened.
'Maou Rune Letters... can specify individual demons?'
When he'd first encountered them, the letters had been as wondrous as any skill.
The power resided in the characters themselves, not the caster.
If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed it.
And now, to learn there were letters that could specify demons—unrelated to contracts.
Whoosh.
Yong-un immediately tore his gaze from the document and summoned his purple extreme intent.
The moment the gathering violet aura from around him touched the crown of his head...
Flash.
His eyes snapped open, gleaming with purple light.
And Yong-un's vision shifted from the living room of his family home to an entirely different scene.
It was the memories of Viscount Latrin—every last scrap of information extracted until his mind had completely shattered.
Among them, the unidentified male demon figure that stirred an uncanny sense of wrongness in Latrin's recollections.
Sheiks stood there.
"We meet again, human."
Yong-un's expression twisted.
This wasn't the Demon Realm or the human world.
It was merely the remnants of Latrin's memories, now gone.
In other words, fragments of time long past.
Yet how could this demon called Sheiks stare straight at him and converse?
"I told you we'd meet again."
Through Latrin's eyes, Sheiks wasn't perched arrogantly on some massive throne as befitted a smug demon.
For a demon of such extraordinary power, he sat humbly atop a shabby wooden table, gazing at Yong-un.
His mind, briefly mired in confusion, snapped back.
He decided to play along with this absurd phenomenon.
"How did you know?"
"How much have you learned about the Maou Rune Letters?"
"Can you see me?"
"How much time has passed between the you from before and now?"
Conversation wasn't getting anywhere, as expected.
Yong-un was about to stop speaking, figuring it was pointless—
"I can see you. I can hear your words. Don't stop talking. Human who ruined my plans."
Yong-un's brow twitched as he scowled.
To converse like this within what was essentially someone else's past memory...
Considering how much time must have passed since then—enough for this demon to have forgotten Latrin entirely—it was even more ridiculous.
"If you won't answer my questions, I won't answer yours."
"I'll answer. So don't stop talking."
"Very well."
"Ask away. I'll answer anything."
Sheiks suddenly flashed a sly grin.
Then he rose from the wooden desk.
"What are the Maou Rune Letters?"
"Simple. Runes used by the Demon King."
"Why can other demons use them?"
"Because the Demon King bestowed some upon us."
Answers came swiftly, so Yong-un kept firing questions as instructed.
"Can Maou Rune Letters specify particular demons?"
"You humans have your own writing systems to denote names, don't you? It's like that."
"What do you mean by 'bestowed some'?"
"You're making me repeat myself. Exactly what I said. The Maou Rune Letters we know are just a fraction. The Demon King knows far more."
Tick.
In the midst of the back-and-forth...
Yong-un suddenly felt an odd sensation.
It wasn't anything detected by presence or aura.
Just... a literal gut feeling that wrapped around him out of nowhere.
"I told you not to stop talking... If you're going to act like that, maybe I won't continue the conversation either. You don't seem curious who bestowed the Maou Rune Letters, do you?"
Caught off-guard by Sheiks' revelation, Yong-un furrowed his brow.
"They're the Demon King's runes... but someone else bestowed them? And then the Demon King passed them to demons?"
"Feeling like talking again? Heh."
Sheiks stepped away from the desk, approaching Yong-un one deliberate step at a time.
Tick.
That strange sensation hit again—
And suddenly, Sheiks thrust his face close.
"Talk."
At Sheiks' abrupt move, Yong-un stared intently.
"Guess you're not curious."
His face pulled back.
The words echoed in Yong-un's mind: the Maou Rune Letters weren't created by the Demon King.
This was a mystery even scouring Viscount Latrin's every memory couldn't uncover.
"Go ahead and ask. I'll answer any question."
Sheiks gazed down at him with utter nonchalance, clearly aware of that fact.
But then—
Sneer.
Yong-un, who had been silently glaring with a grave expression, suddenly smiled.
Sheiks' smug face stiffened.
"Why the smile?"
"Not sure if you demons have it, but us humans have one crucial weapon."
Sheiks scowled at Yong-un's sudden odd remark.
And then the follow-up.
"An inexplicable instinct we can't quite define. We call it a hunch."
"I don't follow, but didn't you have questions?"
The greatest weapon that had protected Yong-un through his fall into the murim via some unknown scheme until now.
His hunch.
With just that one massive tool, Yong-un had survived the hell of the Heavenly Demon Cult—the epitome of supremacy of the strong and the food chain.
Tick.
That's why he knew better than anyone what this inexplicable feeling meant right now.
Even as they conversed leisurely...
Unseen danger was closing in.
"You sensed it."
"Answer me."
Sheiks' focus wavered slightly as he pressed for questions.
"So you knew. Luring me in with info to buy goodwill and keep me talking—that was why."
"......"
Sheiks fell silent for the first time.
And with that, Yong-un was certain.
Now that he was inside Viscount Latrin's memory...
Something was happening outside it.
"Come again."
This time, Yong-un threw out the line Sheiks might say.
With a smile, he slowly withdrew the extreme intent tethering him to the memory.
"Where do you think you're going!"
As the scene darkened, Sheiks thrust his hand through the blackening void.
But Yong-un severed his extreme intent faster, escaping Sheiks' grasp and Latrin's memories.
Back in the living room, Yong-un immediately looked straight ahead.
Roar.
There, across the cramped dining table, sat a familiar face.
"Hey there?"
The Royal Class speaking in American English.
Ignito waved at Yong-un.
"Can you see me now?"
And surrounding him, the others.
"Supreme One!"
The Guihon of Ghost Slaughter Annihilation and the Ma-ryong squad members.
Staring at them, Yong-un steadied the emotions Sheiks had rattled, then turned back to Ignito.
'So the God of War talked after all.'
Otherwise, they couldn't have pegged him as a suspect this quickly.
Spello standing behind Ignito, and beside Spello, another man who wasn't Royal Class.
Whirr.
He locked eyes with the Alpha Team leader, dubbed Reverse Gaze.
Natalia.
'So that's how.'
During his final clash with Ignito, Yong-un had summoned the Demon-Slaying Sword from Korea to GHO's US HQ—something he'd sworn never to call.
To hide the Demon-Slaying Sword that could identify him, he'd used extreme intent to swiftly relocate.
But in that process, Yong-un couldn't shake a nagging unease.
The moment he'd vanished at extreme speed via extreme intent on his body...
Natalia's eyes, matching that velocity as closely as possible, had planted a seed of doubt.
And now.
'Just as I feared.'
The "what if" had become reality.
Natalia and Ignito's gazes fixed on the Demon-Slaying Sword.
Followed by Ignito's question, brimming with conviction.
"It's you, right?"
Yong-un met Ignito's eyes and replied lowly.
"No idea what you're talking about."
"It's you. Where'd you hide it?"
"Speak plainly."
"The documents you swiped from GHO Basement Level 4. That clear enough? Where are they?"
Documents?
Yong-un should've been shocked by Ignito's words.
The Death Demon Cry experiment files were definitely...
'Gone...?'
They'd been spread out on the table.
But now, with Ignito here, they were all vanished.
The oddity lingered only briefly.
Mu-hee, encircling Ignito and his group from the shadows, poked Yong-un's back.
'Me.'
He let out a deep inward sigh of relief.
"Where'd you put 'em? No tricks—just come quietly, yeah?"
Yong-un chuckled at Ignito's words.
No smoking-gun documents.
And despite their confidence, no show of force.
Meaning they couldn't yet confirm him as the Basement Level 4 intruder.
So if he could just deal with the Demon-Slaying Sword giving them certainty, he could slip this crisis.
"I have no clue what you're on about..."
Having fully regained his composure since returning from Viscount Latrin's memories...
Yong-un assessed the situation, sorted his jumbled thoughts, and set his plan in motion.
"I really have no idea what you mean."
He reached out and yanked the Demon-Slaying Sword to him.
As it flew into his grip—
Roar.
Ignito's fierce flames shot straight at Yong-un.
Boom!
The crimson blaze that seemed ready to incinerate everything scattered before Yong-un.
And in Yong-un's hand was the Demon-Slaying Sword—with a blade different from its usual form.
".....!?"
"Who the hell are you, attacking out of nowhere!"
Yong-un bellowed in outrage.
Spello and Natalia's eyes widened at the altered Demon-Slaying Sword.
As he began easing off the suspect list—
A thick smile crept across Ignito's lips, the one who'd unleashed the flames.
"Knew it. It's you."