Chapter 237 : Chapter 237
Chapter 237 - Demon Realm (7)
“Did you say your name was Amelda?”
“Huh? Oh! But I just remembered something urgent I have to do! I need to leave right now!”
Amelda, her face pale as death, hurriedly tried to leave. But there were still things I wanted to hear.
“Stop right there for a moment.”
“Did you not hear me? I said I am terribly busy right now!”
“The place you were originally going to was the Trinida Plateau, was it not?”
“Yes, exactly! The Trinida Plateau!”
“I will go with you.”
“What?”
“Were you not planning to go with the fellow who died by my hand? Since I have now exchanged ranks with him, I doubt there will be any problem.”
“No, I refuse!”
As she said that, Amelda quickly tried to leave in order to avoid me. Of course, I blocked her path.
“I refuse your refusal.”
“What nonsense are you saying? For your information, you can no longer attack me first. Our ranks have reversed!”
At Amelda’s words, Old Man Heo Gyeong-woo stepped forward this time.
“Young lady, you must know that my rank has not changed.”
“Young lady? Listen here, grandfather! I have lived at least four hundred years longer than you! Did you forget what I said about not aging in Pandemonium?”
“What importance does that have? I only wanted you to know that I have the right to challenge you.”
“Wow. Seriously! What kind of newcomers are you people?”
But the old man’s threat worked quite well.
Since she had already seen my abilities, she could probably guess that the old man was no pushover either.
In the end, Amelda agreed to accompany me to Trinida.
“This is absolutely not because I am scared.”
She emphasized that several times.
Meanwhile, I decided to split up from the old man for a while here.
This was Amelda’s condition.
Her intentions were perfectly transparent.
‘So she intends to attack me from behind.’
After all, surprise attacks and ambushes against higher-ranked people were privileges enjoyed only by lower-ranked people.
Of course, succeeding would be more difficult than the sky splitting in two, so I readily accepted her condition.
The old man also agreed gladly.
This place, Pandemonium, swarmed with all kinds of top-tier monsters. There could be no better place to enjoy hunting.
“I will not drag this out. I will see you once Pandemonium has been sorted out.”
“I will make sure not to worry. Having dealt with you, I have come to realize that the most useless thing in the world is worrying about you.”
I nodded with a smile.
***
My current rank was 2,664.
Even as I traveled with Amelda, that number did not change.
It meant there had been no fights at all among the rankers above me.
“Was Pandemonium always such a peaceful place?”
“It is called being cautious. This is a place where we do not age anyway, so there is no need to rush, is there?”
But it did feel far too quiet for a place called Pandemonium.
Apparently, even the current rank one had maintained his position for a full three hundred seventy years without challenging the Demon King.
“He will probably need at least another thousand years before he can challenge him. Though I do not know whether he will still hold first place until then.”
“Since he is the highest-ranked one, he must receive frequent challenges from those chasing after him.”
“Not necessarily. Unless someone plans to challenge the Demon King immediately, there is no real need to hold the first-place position, is there?”
True, it was certainly an exhausting position.
Back when I was Johan Raven, even though I occupied an overwhelmingly sovereign position, all manner of small fry would rush at me wanting to fight.
“What did you say the current rank one was called?”
“Abel.”
And apparently, his current whereabouts were unknown.
“Quite the coward for someone of his rank.”
After all, there was a high chance he was hiding somewhere in Pandemonium to avoid challenges from lower-ranked people.
“It has already been four hundred years since I came here, but I have never seen him myself, so I do not know.”
“In any case, the ones who know Abel’s information best must be ranks two through nine.”
Because they were qualified challengers who could go straight for rank one.
“Probably.”
The problem was that those eight individuals would likely be difficult to find as well.
During our entire journey, I had not even seen a single three-digit ranker, whom I needed to challenge next.
Most of these three-digit rankers, who were numerous and fairly strong, lived together in communities.
This was supposedly for defense against the lower-ranked four-digit rankers.
“Those three-digit bastards are disgustingly good at sticking together. They never fight among themselves either. Well, you can think of it as a Pandemonium tradition.”
Amelda had been telling me all kinds of stories about Pandemonium.
It was likely meant to make me lower my guard completely and become careless.
But my mind was always wide open, and I was ready to welcome her surprise attack at any moment.
After I had spent quite some time with my back to her, I felt a scorching heat behind me.
Amelda had fired a highly concentrated Fireball.
I had thought she had been looking for an opportunity for some time, and in the end, she finally put it into action.
FWOOSH!!
I reached behind me and neutralized the incoming fireball.
From the slight heat I felt in my palm, it seemed she had put all her strength into it.
“It was a decent attempt.”
“……Y-you, what in the world are you?”
“Just continue the story. Where can I go to meet those three-digit rankers?”
***
After that, Amelda launched no further surprise attacks.
She was still alive thanks to my mercy, after all.
Still, seeing that she remained as talkative as ever and her spirits had not fallen at all, I thought she was truly an impressive character.
Unless every demonfolk in Pandemonium was like this.
In any case, she told me we might be able to meet a three-digit ranker if we went to our destination, Trinida Plateau.
At times, they would descend in groups on places where lower-ranked people were gathered and seize the rewards.
“They are like thugs! They trample the seedlings like this to make sure we never even think of challenging them.”
In Earth terms, it was kicking away the ladder.
From this perspective, I thought demonfolk had many similarities to humans.
“But would you not become the same kind of person if you became a three-digit ranker someday?”
“Are you insane? What do you take me for?”
“You were quite good at stabbing people in the back.”
“I may stab people in the back, but once I have a conviction, I never change it!”
That would be known only when the time came.
If I had to bet, I would bet on her changing, but even if she did, I had no particular desire to criticize her.
In the meantime, we arrived at our destination before I knew it.
The broad expanse of Trinida Plateau stretched out before us.
A Gate had opened overhead, and sparks were still flying from it, so it seemed we were not very late.
Beneath it were roughly a hundred demonfolk gathered to raid the Gate.
‘None.’
Unfortunately, there were no three-digit rankers in sight.
All of them were four-digit rankers like me.
Still, there was no reason to be disappointed.
Experiencing a Gate in Pandemonium would not be bad either.
CRACKLE CRACKLE!
As time passed, the sparks grew larger, and eventually, the Gate began spewing out monsters.
It looked as though it were spawning them.
“Th-they are coming out!”
“They are Griffins!!”
“What is this? There must be at least a hundred of them!”
The demonfolk grew excited as they saw the monsters emerging from the Gate.
‘Griffins…….’
Enormous flying monsters.
Their appearance was that of a hybrid, as if several monsters had been mixed together.
I had never seen them before, but I could tell they were monsters beyond even Wyverns.
“So once the raid is over, the rewards are distributed according to contribution?”
“Yes. And by using those rewards as nourishment, we can grow stronger.”
That was the simple reason why Pandemonium’s old hands were bound to be stronger than newcomers.
“But are you going to keep just watching?”
Amelda grew impatient.
The Gate raid had already begun, and the demonfolk and the Griffins had started clashing.
Since she had to raise her contribution to get even a little more of the spoils, she was growing anxious.
“Go ahead. I will wait here.”
Since they were monsters I had never seen before, my interest was stirred a little, but not enough for me to move personally.
By my standards, there was not much difference between Wyverns and Griffins.
“You truly are a strange newcomer!”
Amelda immediately prepared a Fireball and threw herself into the Gate raid.
All sorts of magical attacks were already embroidering the sky, and the Griffins’ shrieks filled the air.
Indeed, the combat strength of Pandemonium’s demonfolk was substantial.
If monsters of that scale had poured out on Earth all at once, even a prestigious Sword Family would be unable to suppress them alone. But the demonfolk gathered here at random, while a rabble, were still overpowering the Griffins’ forces.
Moreover, since the demonfolk were competitively pouring their power into the battle to contribute even a little more, even an army of top-tier monsters had no way to endure.
In the end, when the last remaining Griffin crashed down under Amelda’s flame attack, all the monsters were annihilated.
‘Impressive.’
But none of the demonfolk gathered here seemed to relax.
Rather, it felt as though their tension was rising even higher.
‘So it is not over?’
The demonfolk’s gazes remained fixed on the Gate.
At that moment, the previously quiet Gate began sparking once more.
As expected, there was more to come.
To my surprise, the waves of sparks continued growing larger.
They were easily several times larger than when it first released the Griffins.
Eventually, the Gate writhed as though it were giving birth to something, then spat out a monster of enormous size.
As if by agreement, the demonfolk shouted at once.
“Griffin Lord!”
The boss monster’s identity was finally revealed.
It was only one creature, but the demonfolk’s tension surged at once.
THOOOM!
It landed with such immense weight that the ground shook the instant it touched down.
The demonfolk stepped back and quickly widened the distance between themselves and the Griffin Lord.
A taut sense of impending battle hung in the air.
Yet not one of them attacked rashly.
It was as if both sides were simply glaring at each other, probing the other’s strength.
The voice that broke the silence came from an unexpected direction.
“How long do you intend to keep staring each other down?”
Then a group of about a dozen appeared out of nowhere.
Wicked smiles filled their lips.
“You hyenas!”
One of the demonfolk facing off against the Griffin Lord shouted.
With a huge catch right before their eyes about to be stolen, it was understandable that they felt wronged.
But that was not what mattered to me.
What mattered was that three-digit numbers floated above all of their heads.
“Hyenas? Does that not describe you lot, with a hundred people clinging to a single Gate?”
As he said that, they all raised the corners of their mouths and amplified their demonic energy.
‘Not bad.’
It was clear they were on a different level.
If these newly appeared fellows unleashed attacks simultaneously, even the Griffin Lord would be reduced to bones in the blink of an eye.
Of course, that would not happen.
Because they would die by my hand before then.
Thank you for showing yourselves.