Chapter 167 : He Must Be Killed
Chapter 167: He Must Be Killed
Berje spread his wings and flew through the sky.
The dragon’s wings, which should have been black, were coated in a faint crimson glow.
He gazed down at the ground with calm composure.
Below, he saw a gigantic city that looked small from above. Within it, he saw the headquarters of a certain merchant company.
At the sight of the foolish humans who did not know that their peaceful daily lives were about to be shattered, the corners of his lips curled upward.
Berje swept his hand through the air.
Space split apart.
A massive subspace opened its greedy maw.
Several hundred ice statues—no, monsters that had been frozen into ice—poured out.
Snap-
A light snap of the fingers.
At their master’s will, the essence of flame clung to each monster.
It began gnawing away at the cold ice that bound them.
Krrrraaaaah-
By the time they fully reached the ground, they were no longer statues. They were complete living beings—monsters filled with the urge to destroy.
“Now then, let’s see how this goes. Future Crown Prince.”
This time, would you win—
or would I?
“And behind you.”
Would Jason Kokemundo be there?
Or would he not?
Freed from the need to worry about what lay behind him, Berje, for the first time since his regression,
Revealed his true nature.
---
“Yaaawn.”
Jerry, an executive of the Black Toad Merchant Company, stretched to shake off the drowsiness creeping over him.
Feeling the bitter taste of warm coffee, he refocused on the documents once more.
“Tsk, still stubborn to the end. As if that will do any good.”
The documents listed matters related to the Golden Moon Merchant Company. A series of ongoing processes.
The Iasince royal family had withdrawn their investment, and the nobles who had poured money in alongside them had done the same.
Once the nobles pulled out, even the wealthy commoners began leaving one by one. With massive amounts of investment funds draining away, the merchant company was reeling, and although it had managed not to withdraw the investment from Hilderan as its sole remaining hope, the prevailing opinion was that it too would soon be pulled out and the merchant company itself would go bankrupt.
“Hero Hillan Cargill isn’t an idiot. There’s no way he’ll keep carrying garbage with no business ethics like that.”
That Hillan Cargill had invested in the Golden Moon Merchant Company was already a rumour known to anyone who cared. They should have milked it while they could.
But now, it had become poison.
How long would a hero bearing the banner of ‘justice’ remain entangled with a trash merchant company that had kidnapped craftsmen from other companies?
In Jerry’s view, not long at all.
A hero who could fly on wings had no need to step into filth.
The investment from Hilderan that he had brought in would likely be withdrawn soon. On top of that, the funds he himself had invested would have to be repaid. That would be the end of the Golden Moon Merchant Company.
That was when—
─!
A faint tremor. The coffee cup quivered.
“What was that?”
His confusion lasted only a moment.
──!
This time it was stronger than before. The coffee cup fell to the floor. With a clatter, its contents soaked into the carpet.
“Sir Jerry! This is bad!”
“What on earth is going on!”
“M-Monster attack! Monsters are appearing all over the city...!”
“This is the heart of the empire! It’s been ages since monsters in the vicinity were wiped out—what kind of nonsense is tha—!”
Kwarrrrr-
The ceiling collapsed. Amid the falling debris, Jerry and the merchant screamed as they were knocked to the ground.
A shadow loomed.
Grrr-
“...M-my goodness.”
What he saw atop the half-destroyed roof was a head. Bright yellow pupils.
A drake. Why was a monster that should have been ruling the mountains here at the merchant company’s headquarters?
Crunch-
In the blink of an eye, the enormous maw swallowed Jerry whole. Blood burst forth. Jerry’s body, with only the lower half remaining, collapsed pathetically.
“Aaah...!”
The merchant ran out in tears, desperate to escape. But the flames spat out by the drake reduced him to ashes, and he vanished along with his scream.
Krrrraaaaah-
The drake roared as it smashed buildings with its tail. The same scenes were unfolding throughout the headquarters.
---
“Does this even make sense?”
Alphonse, Commander of the Red Lion Knight Order, let out a hollow laugh. His symbolic red armor had long since been dyed black, drenched beyond red in the blood of monsters.
“Cleanup is complete.”
“Casualties?”
“171 dead and 715 injured.”
“Unbelievable. The knight order?”
“Two Red Lions are dead, and fourteen are wounded.”
“Tell the wounded ones to return to the territory and be prepared. Anything else?”
“Most of the surrounding buildings, including the merchant company, have been destroyed. Civilian deaths are currently estimated at around one thousand, but considering that more than three thousand are missing....”
“This is driving me insane.”
The Black Toad Merchant Company was a direct affiliate of the Osrian Ducal House. It was operated by Count Britan, a vassal of the Osrian Ducal House, and its headquarters was likewise located within the ducal territory.
That merchant company had been attacked. No, it was not just the merchant company. The monster assault that swept beyond it and ravaged the surrounding area plunged the city—Britan—into panic.
The security forces were annihilated, and all magical defensive arrays were destroyed. Citizens were massacred, and the city was left completely defenseless.
Duke Osrian quickly formed a subjugation force together with the Red Lion Knight Order and dispatched it, but it was impossible to completely prevent the damage that had already occurred.
Because there had not been a single monster in the surrounding area, the city’s security forces and magical defenses being utterly inadequate only led to even greater damage.
“Where in the world did those monsters come from?!”
Alphonse ground his teeth.
There were easily several hundred of them, and each individual one was far beyond comparison with mere orcs.
Such creatures had attacked the city as if they had fallen straight from the sky. Even after searching the surrounding area, there were no traces suggesting where they might have come from.
“...They fell from the sky.”
“What?”
“What kind of nonsense is that!”
“It sounds impossible, but it’s true.”
“...Are you messing with me right now?”
“All survivors are saying the exact same thing. They say several hundred monsters poured down from the sky like rain.”
The knight wore a wronged expression. He himself found it absurd, but with everyone telling the same story, he could not simply dismiss it.
“...Damn it, how does that make any sense?”
Alphonse scratched his head irritably.
Astronomical casualties and property damage had occurred. More than anything else, the count who governed the merchant company and ruled the territory was dead.
And yet, they could not even determine where the monsters had come from, and they were expected to submit a preposterous report claiming that they fell from the sky.
“No. If you think about it, isn’t this only natural?”
Alphonse sought his subordinate’s agreement.
“Yes. That’s all there is to it.”
Thinking it through, it was obvious. Monsters had fallen from the sky—high-ranking monsters that could casually tear apart orcs or trolls.
Under normal circumstances, something like this could not happen.
Under normal circumstances.
So what if it was not a normal circumstance?
What if someone had deliberately attacked the Osrian Ducal House?
The answer was simple.
“It’s the Demon King. The Demon King dared to bare his claws at the Osrian Ducal House!”
“But which one...?”
“Does that matter? What matters is that the Demon King has stirred. We will report to His Grace the Duke and await his judgment.”
Alphonse shouted resolutely.
“...We will have our revenge.”
---
The enormous damage suffered by the County of Britan, and the annihilation of the Black Toad Merchant Company’s main headquarters.
It did not take long for that news to reach Duke Osrian and the First Imperial Prince.
Kwaaang!
The table shattered, unable to withstand the impact. Rufus Zespine could not contain his boiling rage.
“Are you certain? That the monsters fell from the sky, and that it was the Demon King’s doing.”
“Yes. Every survivor is saying the same thing. Unless they were all collectively subjected to mental magic, there is no other explanation.”
And there were no signs of mental manipulation.
“What is His Grace the Duke doing?”
“He has dispatched troops to restore the damaged area. He has also declared that he will behead whoever among the Demon Kings was involved in this incident. And he has entered the imperial capital to meet His Majesty.”
“Of course he did. Of course!”
Crunch-
Blood seeped out from between his crushed lips.
“Give Duke Osrian our full cooperation and have them identify the culprit. Send requests for cooperation to the Hero Guild as well.”
“Yes.”
“You may leave.”
The count withdrew. Rufus manipulated the bookshelf behind him. With a rumbling sound, a gap opened.
Rufus put his body inside. In the secret chamber at the bottom of the stairs, a communication device was installed.
He infused mana and waited for a response.
『Your Highness.』
“Have you heard the news? No—there’s no way you haven’t.”
『I have heard.』
“You insolent Demon King bastards. Know your place. I let you off easy, and now you dare try to grab me by the hair and tear it out!”
『First, it would be best for you to calm your anger.』
“Shut up!”
Rufus growled.
“Be grateful that I am not wiping out your tower right now.”
『Of course, Your Highness.』
“I’ll ask you directly. Was this your doing?”
『How could that possibly be the case?』
“Then who was it.”
『Berje Deias.』
『The one humans call Dark Flame.』
“You’re spouting pathetic lies to wriggle out of the situation. Balraf Dislode and the hero party went to hunt him down. You expect me to believe that someone who can barely protect his own tower dared to smear the empire’s honor with filth?”
Rather than that,
“It sounds far more realistic that *you* pulled some underhanded trick.”
『You must calm yourself and trust me.』
“Trust you?”
“What am I supposed to trust about you—the one who incited Korzen and Horton into war barely a hundred and fifty years ago? I heard your skill at fabricating nonexistent evidence and manipulating and inciting others was truly masterful.”
『That was an affair led by the empire.』
“No, it was you. That’s why you earned the alias ‘False,’ wasn’t it?”
『It was also the empire that spread that name. It was Zespine that branded me as False.』
The one who joined hands with me and then struck me from behind was Zespine.
『In fact, Zespine suits the title of an empire of lies far better.』
“So that’s why you struck me from behind? Because you thought I would betray you first?”
『There were precedents, but I am absolutely not the culprit.』
『The past is the past. I strove to restore relations with the distorted empire, and that is how we arrived at the present.』
『I would never destroy that with my own hands.』
“Your words are always so polished.”
『And above all.』
『I do not possess the capability.』
『Not only myself, but also the Demon King humans call Frost, and the Demon King they call Gold-Steel, are incapable of such a feat.』
『Only the Demon King humans call Dark Flame can do this.』
“What do you mean?”
『Subspace is a high-dimensional form of magic—a supreme spell that twists space itself. Unless one is a mage specialised in spatial magic, even among demons, its scale and performance drop drastically.』
A subspace large enough to contain several hundred monsters at once was something no Demon King could possess, no matter how powerful.
It was not a matter of strength, but of direction.
“That’s ridiculous. Are you saying the Demon King of Dark Flame is actually some kind of Demon King of Space? Plenty of people have witnessed him using black flames.”
『That is certainly true, however, there exists a race that possesses subspace not as magic, but as an instinctive authority.』
『A race that is born with overwhelming authority and power.』
『So greedy that they hoard every treasure in existence.』
『An arrogant race that fears nothing and believes itself to be the supreme existence.』
“...Don’t tell me.”
『In Arein, they are called dragons (Dragon).』
“You’re saying the Demon King of Dark Flame is a dragon?!”
『Dragons do not exist only in Arein.』
『Of course, one cannot say that the dragons of Arein and the dragonkin of the Demon Realm, Berje, are completely identical.』
But regardless,
『The Demon King of Dark Flame, Berje Deias,』
『is a Demon Dragon—the strongest race in the Demon Realm.』
Only he.
『Can store hundreds of monsters within subspace.』
Only he.
『Is arrogant enough to wage war against the empire.』
Therefore,
『He must be killed without fail.』
“...!”
Rufus unconsciously took a step back. Cold sweat ran down his skin.
The eyes of the other party beyond the communication device, lifting his monocle,
They were far too cold and alien.
Because killing intent that should not have been perceptible filled the secret chamber.
『Do you understand?』