Chapter 62 – Catastrophe (1)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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My heart pounded violently. An emotion of unknown origin surged all the way up to the crown of my head and stiffened the back of my neck.

The breath reaching my lungs felt as though it might be cut off at any moment. Twisting my arms and legs desperately, I barely managed to shake off the invisible mana that had been binding my body.

“Kgh.”

Bracing myself against the ground and retching several times as if I were about to vomit up my insides, I barely managed to raise my upper body.

Even so, the disgust that came over me involuntarily made me clamp my mouth shut and force myself to calm down.

What the hell kind of situation was this? The blood from the corpses formed a membrane and wrapped itself around Rei Shion.

And then the next thing to happen was this.

At first glance, it had looked like some final desperate move from Rei Shion, but judging from her reaction, this could not have been what she intended. Her expression had looked like that of a dead woman sinking into a bottomless abyss.

I lifted my eyes slightly and looked at Rei Shion, floating up in the air.

It was a grotesque sight, her arms spread to each side while her body drifted there.

The red blood membrane had already risen all the way up to beneath her ears, dyeing her as it climbed.

The light in her eyes was already fading, making it obvious that Rei Shion did not have much time left.

“What is that?”

My head was in chaos. And yet. ‘Dig through your memories, □□. Sometimes even a trivial fragment that seems useless can serve as a mirror reflecting the future.’ Why was it that my first master’s words were suddenly coming back to me now of all times?

In the middle of the confusion, I focused my scattered mind and carefully retraced the situation.

The greatest advantage I had in living in this world was the memory of when I had played Miracle’s Blessing M.

What had allowed me to glimpse the future ahead, to prepare for crises before they happened, was unmistakably my experience as a player.

I worked my brain rapidly.

Even while the sharp waves of mana scraped across my skin, my body did not shrink back. Instead, it straightened up to face the situation.

Being able to review this desperate situation with frightening calmness was probably thanks to the Blessing of the Sword God.

At times like this, true to the name blessing, it really did feel as if something was watching over me and helping me. Sometimes I even wondered if it was the very entity that had bestowed the Blessing of the Sword God.

After shaking off the stray thought, I went back over everything that had happened and pulled out only the key points from the scenes flashing through my mind like film.

The agitation that had been surging through me faded little by little, and cold reason settled into my chest. Then, a thought suddenly rose, and I muttered it aloud.

The progression of half-human, half-demon transformation?

No matter how you looked at it, there were only a handful of beings in this world that could emit such vicious energy.

“This catastrophe, where space itself was splitting apart and everything around me screamed.”

A current so malignant that it eclipsed all the things that had happened until now was swallowing the area whole.

Even the mana that the demonfolk mermaid had radiated felt like a small fry flopping around compared to this monstrous current.

Still, as far as I remembered, the effect of becoming half-human and half-demon was never this grand.

And it certainly did not make mana surge enough to warp space itself.

Even if it was a human who had contracted with a legion commander–class demon, a Villain was still fundamentally a person. There was no way a single contract alone would let them break through a clearly defined limit of strength. If this was not Rei Shion’s own secret art, and not an intended progression into half-human, half-demon.

…Then the possibilities narrowed down to one.

The bizarre five-point formation drawn from the blood leaking out of the scattered corpses, and the dark-red membrane gradually swallowing Rei Shion’s entire body.

A legion commander–class demon descending directly, using Rei Shion and her members as sacrifices.

…Fuck.

The moment my judgment settled, my emotions belatedly followed and returned to their place. And then the nausea rising inside me spilled out as a curse.

“This was not metaphorically bad. Literally, the situation had gone completely to shit. The force that had started rising in my chest seemed to falter for a moment in the face of the absolute despair of it.”

Meanwhile, the mana only grew denser. When I looked up at Rei Shion again, it felt like it would happen at any moment now. My breath was gradually being squeezed out of me, and my fingertips and toes had gone beyond tingling to outright burning.

Shit, it really was hard as hell to stay alive.

Letting out a breath, I cursed.

“Then, with a firm grip on the sashimi knife speckled with drops of blood, I swung the blade as though trying to shake off the emotions flooding in along with it.”

Well, if I’ve made it this far, what was there left to do but die if I must?

“I couldn’t just give up. The situation was absurd and unreal, but all I could do now was thrash around to the end, as if performing one last sword dance.”

‘About nine seconds left.’

I had wasted far too much time, forty-one whole seconds, slicing down the Undertakers. Not that I had been careless, but who could have predicted that one deadly situation after another would keep crashing down on me.

…If I’d known this would happen, I would have saved even five seconds. Well, regretting it now was pointless, since it was already far too late.

I had to hold on to my consciousness. My instincts were telling me that if I tried to run, I would die without even managing to resist once. In that case, all I could do was try something.

Kwarurururung.

Suddenly, a red bolt of lightning tore through the dry clouds. The weight of the air pressed heavily on my shoulders, and even the gold of Yggdrasil dimmed.

‘It’s here.’

Then Rei Shion slowly opened the eyes she had shut, only halfway. Just from the half-lidded look in those eyes, I could tell that thing was no longer Rei Shion.

Those long, stretched red pupils.

Instead of the clothes Rei Shion had originally been wearing, the dissolved blood had been woven like silk into the shape of a thin red dress clinging over her skin.

Just exchanging a glance with it sent a mental shock deep into my bones. It was an indescribable sensation, like being trapped inside a nightmare. Fear surged up inside me hard enough to make all the courage I had forged through everything so far seem meaningless, but.

Hoo.

“I exhaled.”

Despite the sweltering early-summer heat, a white breath spilled from my mouth and scattered.

Srrk.

The feet of that thing, which had been floating in the air, touched the ground.

At that moment, the flow of the wind, the current of the brook, and every sound of life stopped all at once.

Only a skin-crawling silence settled low over the whole area.

“Ah…”

That thing let out a single syllable.

“Then it opened and closed its hand a few times, and suddenly burst into laughter wide enough to split its mouth.”

Puhahahaha!

Laughter full of ecstasy. Even a small gasp from it was little different from magic. There was hardly any difference between that and an insect crawling on the ground being crushed under a human’s careless step.

The moment I heard that sound, my eardrums felt as if they had torn, and blood streamed down my earlobes. I had no free hand to clamp my burning ears shut. Instead, I tightened my grip hard on the sashimi knife to drive away the fear.

“After laughing for quite some time, it slowly looked around, and then its eyes met mine. Rings formed faintly in its eyes, and it waved at me in a friendly manner.”

“Hello, little one?”

“……”

Hmm, was that not how people greet each other? It’s been seven hundred years since I last came out beyond the demonic realm, so I don’t really know what customs humans follow.

“Speaking in a languid, beautiful voice, it glanced over a few corpses rolling on the ground, then pulled up the corners of its lips into a smile.”

Did you see this, little one?

“As though my answer did not matter at all, it continued on by itself.”

That’s impressive. The fact that you’re still sane after seeing me like this already proves you weren’t an ordinary human.

“Its voice echoed at the edge of my hearing like tinnitus. As drowsiness washed over me, I forced my eyes wide open to keep my head clear. Seeing that, it let out a small laugh as though it found me amusing.”

Wow, I even used a mental spell, and you endured it? You really aren’t a normal child, are you? How about making a contract with me while we’re at it? Hmm, you were still just a little bloodling by the look of you, but I think you might turn out well later.

“As it said that, it ran its tongue slowly across its red lips. Then, as though it had suddenly remembered something, its eyes brightened.”

Ah, right, I never asked your name. Hmm, humans introduce themselves first, didn’t they? I was Agor, commander of the Fifth Legion. Nice to meet you! So then, would you tell me your name? I was a kind master who remembers the names of most of my slaves, child.

The moment I heard that name, I swallowed dryly.

I’d more or less expected it in that brief instant, but hearing it directly made it feel unreal beyond mere strangeness.

Agor, the ruler of the succubi known as dream demons, and the Fifth Legion Commander of the Demon King’s army.

A demon who wielded fire magic among the five magical attributes. Her sheer martial force was not especially prominent compared to the legion commanders who were practically transcendental beings, but in the setting, she was said to be the best of them at mental magic.

Of course, that only meant she was not especially prominent among monsters of that level. The existence of that monster itself was no different from a natural disaster. A single one of her could wipe out a small nation, which did little to comfort me in the current situation.

She was a dream demon who moved purely according to instinct and desire, tempting humans through dreams and sucking away their life force as nourishment.

“I had dropped the game midway through, but because she was a succubus, the kind of thing men fantasized about, I had at least skimmed her setting on namu wiki.”

“Hehe. It’s the first time in seven hundred years that I’ve personally gone out of my way to speak to someone like this, so consider it an honor. As a special favor, I’ll grant you the honor of becoming my slave, little one.”

……

“Agor let out a suggestive moan while playfully lifting the hem at her thigh. I could feel a dense concentration of mana that tried to shake my inner self.”

After all, you humans pretend to be noble, but in the end you judge one another and arrange yourselves in ranks, didn’t you? You kill people, you hurt people, all while pursuing your own advantage. In that case, why not dream a glorious dream with me instead?

Tapping one of the Undertaker corpses lightly with her toes, Agor continued speaking. The rich voice made my mind drift between hallucination and reality second by second.

Yes, if I thought about it, what Agor said was true.

Humans judged others and arranged them into hierarchies for the sake of personal benefit. The strong took profit and gave nothing to the weak.

The beings called human were the kind who ignored wrongdoing, and even started wars when it benefitted them.

The memory returned of how my family in my previous life had collapsed in an instant because of my father’s debt guarantee.

The bank had plastered red stickers all over our home, and society had robbed my family of any chance to recover.

‘But…’

I sliced through the enchanting voice. No, I sliced through the mental magic itself with my knife.

Something seemed to snap.

And in that instant, my mind cleared sharply.

“I cut away the useless thoughts and readjusted my grip on the hilt.”

“With the intent to sever both the seductive magic and the rising fear all at once.”

“My, why doesn’t the spell seem to be working? That was a higher-order spell than the one from before.”

“……”

Could it be because of this pitiful body? Honestly, that’s what I get for answering that fool’s whining and making the contract. How was I supposed to do anything with a vessel like this?

Ha, haha.

“Standing in front of Agor while she muttered to herself, I let out a short laugh loud enough for her to hear.”

“After staring at me silently for a moment, Agor tilted her head to the side.”

Did you just laugh?

Yeah. The way you keep going on with all that nonsense was funny.

The moment those words left my mouth, silence dropped over the whole area.

Rage fierce enough to suffocate surged through Agor’s eyes.

To be honest, if I wanted to survive this moment, taking Agor’s offer would have been the correct choice.

And if my ultimate goal was simply to survive, then attaching myself to the Demon King’s army would certainly make that much easier.

But that thing was a demon.

Not just any demon either, but Agor, commander of the Fifth Legion of the Demon King’s army and empress of the succubi.

A demon race that deceived humans with honeyed words and sucked away their life force.

And a devil that treated even its own kind like insects.

Did I seriously think she’d treat me kindly?

No. I was deeply skeptical.

“If she got irritated, she’d probably kill me with a flick of her finger.”

Rather than living such a miserable life of subjugation, I’d rather struggle to the end.

With that, I firmly settled my resolve. Then, wiping down the sashimi knife I had drawn about a handspan from the sheath, I said, “About that thing you said. About making me your slave.”

Kiririrring.

Unlike before, a bleak light formed thinly along the edge of the sashimi blade.

“Why was it, in a situation where death was staring me in the face, that a laugh kept slipping out of me? Keeping my gaze fixed on Agor, I said, “Go fuck yourself.””