The Curiosity Demon

I was uneasy at first, but now I can say it with certainty. These little demons have no real intention of attacking me. For starters, it’s questionable whether those comically thin limbs of theirs could even harm a person. The one that looks like nothing but a grotesque tongue doesn’t even have limbs or teeth—just a tongue. Even if they were to “attack,” the worst they could manage would be a mild mental assault born from the supernatural presence unique to demons, the kind that simply leaves you feeling a little off.

I pay no attention to the unpleasant shapes trailing behind me and continue walking down the corridor.

The ceiling shows only faint traces of corroded metal frames. If a hallway like this existed on Earth, there would probably be gypsum board panels up there, with the metal frames for plumbing and wiring hidden above them… but after thousands of years, I doubt anything like that would remain.

No matter where I look, this place doesn’t feel like a mysterious relic left behind by some ancient race. Instead, it carries the heavy scent of a utilitarian office building that was built for a dry purpose and later abandoned.

After walking a few more steps, a clattering sound echoed from above the ceiling. I looked up to see what it was, only to find that the sliver of light leaking through the hatch had vanished. The stone lid had closed again.

An exit that had suddenly opened and then just as suddenly closed again. It was the kind of situation that should have sent chills down my spine, yet strangely, I wasn’t afraid. The only thought that crossed my mind was a dull, ‘If it doesn’t open automatically when I leave, I’ll have to use psychokinetic magic again. That’ll be annoying.’

The sound of the tiny demons’ tap-tap-tap feet—lacking any hostility as they follow me—echoes loudly against the cold, smooth stone of the corridor. Even though they are beings created without life, their presence here was proof that they cast a real shadow upon this world. Their hideous appearance aside, there was something almost cute about them in their own way.

Eyes, noses, ears, and tongues. What kind of place would create demons like these? Since they symbolize the senses, maybe it was some kind of theme park café built around stargazing?

With such thoughts in mind, I took a few more steps. The light from my magic now revealed an iron door on the far side of the darkness. Unlike the other doors leading to different rooms, this one was perfectly smooth, as if brand new—not a trace of corrosion.

A corridor that ended after only a few dozen steps. At most, it was no longer than the radius of the ruins I had seen from above. Perhaps everything had to be resolved within this single site. The scale was disappointingly small for a mysterious ancient relic, and I felt my excitement draining away more and more.

Without thinking, I reached for the doorknob—then paused, staring down at the cold metal. The shape of the handle was so familiar that I had nearly overlooked it, yet in truth, it was a structure that should have felt utterly alien here.

Still, a civilization capable of creating metal ladders and telescope mirrors that could endure thousands of years would hardly have trouble making a door handle with a spring lock. If this counted as an ultra-ancient civilization, then so be it. With that thought, I quickly pulled the door open.

Inside was a large, fan-shaped chamber. It felt more like an auditorium. The moment I stepped in, I felt the crunch of black, shattered glass fragments beneath my boot soles. Like the rest of the ruins, the room was almost completely empty and hollow.

Strangely, the walls of the chamber were obscured by shadows, making them hard to see. It was as if something was snatching the light radiating from me before it could reach the surfaces.

And the instant I set foot inside, I felt it—a massive presence emanating from the center of this empty, slightly chaotic space. Something on the raised platform ahead… some entity was calling to me.

Even after directing my gaze toward that unnatural presence, it took me a long time to process what I was actually looking at. I knew it was a demon. The problem was its shape.

I took a few more cautious steps closer, trying to make sense of what my eyes were seeing.

It was a pitch-black mass that looked as though it had been crudely molded from the dull mud of a swamp and left to harden. It was taller than it was wide, though not perfectly oval. Its lumpy, irregular form—resembling a potato kneaded without care—occasionally writhed like some grotesque living thing.

“Ugh. What the hell is that…?”

From about five meters away, the demon looked truly bizarre.

Its appearance was as if all the tiny demons currently following me had been gathered together and violently clumped into one mass. Ears, noses, and tongues sprouted haphazardly across its uneven, amorphous body. Hundreds of crudely protruding tongues flicked about at random.

Were there no eyes? The absence felt slightly off, so I carefully examined the demon once more. There had been small demons shaped like eyes, so it seemed strange that this giant one would lack them.

Its surface was so black it didn’t reflect light, but because my own magic was illuminating it, I could just barely make them out. There were hundreds of spots where eyes should have been, and every single one was closed—except for the single eye ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at the top. That one, naturally, was staring straight at me.

It was a revolting sight, yet perhaps because its texture felt closer to an abstract sculpture than a living creature, I didn’t feel nauseated. It was like sniffing the strangely repulsive yet oddly addictive smell of a diesel engine for a long time—I simply couldn’t tear my eyes away and kept staring at the thing.

Just like the smaller demons, I sensed no hostility or murderous intent from it. Instead… I felt only an intense, burning curiosity that wanted to know everything about me—who I was, what I was. It didn’t feel like my mind was being read, yet somehow I understood, as if our hearts were touching directly.

I had heard that there were demons possessing intellect, even if they lacked life or souls. The demons of the Demon King’s army, obsessed with combat, slaughter, and numbers, were not like that, but the textbooks at the magic academy had described it that way.

Assuming that curiosity implied intellect, I asked the demon,

“Who… are you?”

There was no answer. Was it because it had no mouth to speak with? Or did it lack true intelligence? The single human-sized eye that was open blinked once. Its pupil rolled slowly toward the left wall, then the right, before returning to me.

Was it telling me to look there? Without much thought, I followed the demon’s gaze and scanned the walls. They had seemed oddly dark earlier, as if the light couldn’t reach them properly. Was there something there after all?

When I turned my head, I froze rigid on the spot.

“What… the…?”

I had assumed the shattered glass-like fragments on the floor meant there were monitors or something arranged there. But that wasn’t it at all.

From tiny rabbit-like creatures to massive ogre-like humanoids, countless animals—preserved through solid, materialized magic that only a demon could wield—were displayed as specimens. The magical light radiating from my body illuminated hundreds… thousands… perhaps even tens of thousands of preserved plants and animals. The entire wall surface of the wide, tiered chamber—designed like a grand auditorium—even the ceiling, was covered in specimens.

Some were displayed with their skeletons neatly stripped clean. Others were fixed in poses that looked almost alive, yet stained pitch-black by magical corruption. There was no smell of preserving chemicals, nor the stench of rotting organic matter. That only made it more horrifying.

I understood immediately. The master of this space had not created these specimens. Every single one of them emanated the same lifeless, deathless magical power as the demons. The collector had to be one of three possibilities: the small demons that had followed me, the giant demon before me, or both.

My body had gone stiff with terror and refused to move properly. Forcing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it to turn, I looked back at the demon. Even in a place filled with countless corpses, I still sensed no hostility from it whatsoever.

“Wh… what… is this place… exactly… and you… who… are you…?”

I barely managed to force the words out with a tongue that refused to cooperate. At that moment, the demon opened its eyes.

All hundreds of them.

“Ugh…!? Huh…?”

I flinched in fear and briefly squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them again, I was in an entirely different space. Somewhere filled with people dressed in practical, businesslike attire. It was a situation that should have left me in panic, yet once again, a strange curiosity washed over my mind first.

Thanks to that, I gained enough composure to calmly assess the situation.

The ancient elves of the old magical civilization, the ones who had withdrawn to the aerial city in the desert. So this was an illusion of the space as it had been used in its original purpose.

I couldn’t understand a word of the language the elves were chattering in, but perhaps the demon showing me the vision was injecting meaning directly into my mind, because I could grasp the general idea.

This ruin, just as I had guessed, was a place for observing the stars. The layout of the surface buildings had been designed as a circular observatory, incorporating a touch of mystical meaning and a touch of aesthetic intent. Considering their technological level, they had used incredibly advanced telescopes, but the purpose was slightly different from the observatories I remembered from Earth.

The ancient elves had known. From the movements of nearby planets to the motions of distant stars, the future could be estimated through the very same simple mathematical principles that on Earth were called Kepler’s laws or Newtonian mechanics. That was why they had built this observation equipment.

The only slight deviation was that they had never abandoned magic or superstition. They had created bizarre magical theories in an attempt to glimpse the future through the movements of the stars. Having memories of Earth, I knew such attempts were doomed to fail, but the elves had been obsessed with it nonetheless.

In the process, they had even developed something akin to applied magical spectroscopy. They had reached the stage of estimating a star’s past and future… Their level of technology was such that they could have built nuclear weapons if they had understood blackbody radiation or line spectra, yet the elves remained fixated on the future.

This room, as I had suspected, was a hall used for sharing such discoveries—lectures, performances, and events for the public. It had strayed a little from the path, but it was still an observatory at heart.

While I was thinking that, the scene changed. It showed elves concentrating excessive magical power, causing a spatial rupture and the summoning of a demon.

The demon’s birth had been catastrophic. The facility, which had demanded far too many sacrifices, was abandoned immediately afterward. But the demon itself had not been born from destructive impulses, so it quietly remained in place. The core concept that had become the catalyst for its creation from magical power was…

“Ugh…”

Information flowed in from the demon. Something dryly explaining the essence that had given birth to it. It was different from that damned voice that had once tried to steal me away, a voice now faded even in memory. That entity had imitated human language, but what flowed from this demon was pure concept, transcending language itself.

I clutched my head. Now I understood why I had felt no hostility from the demon. It had no other emotions. It had never been designed to feel emotions in the first place. It possessed intellect, but nothing but intellect.

And then the illusion faded.

The information forcibly planted in my mind was too much to bear. I staggered in pain. When I finally managed to steady myself and open my eyes, I found myself facing the hundreds of gazes from the demon born of the elves’ dangerous curiosity.

I see. The Curiosity Demon. A demon born from the desire to explore. When an intelligent being tries to understand the outside world, the most basic tool it relies on is none other than its own five senses. The demon’s appearance faithfully reflected that essence.

“What… do you want… from me…?”

I asked with difficulty, but there was no reply. Maybe I needed to bring up a more stimulating topic to get an answer. I changed the subject to something I thought might provoke a reaction—the question that had been bothering me right before the vision appeared.

“…You don’t have any limbs… or any organs for movement. So how did something like you… manage to collect all those horrifying specimens…?”

My voice trembled. Because I was genuinely afraid. A room containing a demon that showed an eerily complete lack of hostility was filled with far too much death.

This time, an answer came.

“What…?”

When I tried to ask something more, a headache struck.

And then…

An emotion bloomed. The desire to know more about this demon. An endless curiosity directed at the being before me.

Only then did I understand. These specimens in this place…

They had been seduced.

By the prank of a demon born from curiosity—one that forcibly stimulated not only its own curiosity but that of nearby living beings. Who could imagine that the curiosity wriggling in their hearts was not their own, but an emotion manipulated by a powerful external entity?

I barely managed to interpret the mental resonance the demon had sent as something resembling language, and a hollow laugh escaped me.

I remembered how the stone lid had closed by itself. It had been an obvious trap, a dangerous situation, yet the thought of danger had never crossed my mind. From that moment on, my emotions must have already fallen under the control of curiosity.

There could be no such thing as hostility or malice. An experimenter who cuts off a fly’s head to observe the neural structure in its brain would feel no hatred toward the fly.

To this demon that didn’t even possess life, I was nothing more than a single fly—one more specimen to be used.

I checked the ring on my left hand, the one Viran had given me. It was a large demon. I had cast magic on my sword before entering this room, but swordsmanship alone would probably not be enough. Still, I felt no hostility. I had to neutralize this demon somehow before it attempted its “experiment” on me. With tense eyes, I slowly scanned the demon’s body, searching for a weak point.

No matter where on its huge, amorphous form my gaze landed, its eyes…

Teacher’s eyes…

Met my own gaze…

I gasped and squeezed my eyes shut.

It couldn’t move, and it showed no intent to act hostile, yet it was clearly a powerful demon. Did it possess strength similar to what Karik or Bishop Lumina used? Making eye contact with those eyes was dangerous. It was probably some kind of brainwashing ability that obtained “consent” from its experimental subjects.

I was weak against mind-affecting magic. I knew that all too painfully from past experience. I must not open my eyes. I had to come up with a solution like this. Keeping my eyes closed, I gauged the demon’s position and reached out with my left hand, fiddling with the violet ring Viran had given me.

Fortunately, because some kind of resonance had spread from the teacher, pinpointing its location was easy.

Aiming at the teacher, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I felt the humming vibration echoing from my body through my skin and ears. The moment I realized that resonance was pleasantly vibrating my skull—

I opened my eyes.

“Yes…”

Test subject Kaira answers. She removes the backpack slung over ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her shoulders—nearly as tall as she is—and sets it down. Because what the teacher wanted to analyze was only test subject Kaira’s body and mind.

“Understood… Ehe… ehehe… Kaira… will remove… the foreign… contaminants… known as… clothing… that would… pollute… the specimen…”