I gripped the Sword of Rest tightly, and the first opponent I chose was a goblin. The King Mihu was slightly ahead in a one-on-one, but those zap strikes of his had a bigger impact on the battlefield than I expected.
“Oh, oh my master!”
“Honestly, I never thought there’d be a day I’d feel happy about your nonsense.”
Elise greeted me with a bright smile as she swung her sword. She had managed to bind the feet of the fleeing goblin, making things easier for me.
“Get away from me…!”
Thud.
The long-lived goblin’s time froze. Elise gasped and muttered, “You really do stop time.”
I sliced through the goblin’s tough skin as smoothly as cutting through soft tofu. It fell lifelessly to the ground without even realizing how it had died.
“The lightning is gone!”
“Let’s go! Charge!”
With Eris raining arrows down, three ancient magical beasts that had dominated the space were swiftly taken down.
I could say the tide had turned in our favor in an instant. From a situation of perfect defeat, suddenly, hope of victory emerged.
‘The beasts struggle outside the forest much more than I thought.’
I had assumed that the beasts living in the Forest of the Demon Realm would easily swallow a knight squad whole, but since they were fighting on a plain that knights favored, they weren’t so powerful here.
“Elise, command them well. This could be an opportunity for humanity to conquer the Forest of the Demon Realm.”
“That’s an enticing bait.”
With a wink, Elise swung her sword even more fiercely and began leading the knights.
“Kyahhh!”
At that moment, the trident of King Mihu swung over my head. Seeing the other ancient magical beasts die, he seemed to realize that running away was useless and had come to kill me instead.
“Are you the heir of Kurika? Is that it? Did that damned monster create another monster?”
Listening to his endless, broken-record questions, I couldn’t help but chuckle.
In my past life, I couldn’t kill a goblin.
The lightning he unleashed was never something a normal human like me could withstand.
Demon Belton couldn’t even think about fighting. I was inherently weak against flying monsters with wings.
However, I could catch that first red serpent, which felt very much like a beast, with my own strategies and traps.
King Mihu, on the other hand, was the opposite.
He was too human-like; that’s why I could hunt him down.
“Back then, you were spitting and flapping your jaw like a fool.”
“Stop talking nonsense and answer! Did Kurika choose you? Not me, the king?”
“Your dying face looks the same. Not much different than I imagined. I was expecting a bit of freshness.”
He had been furious that he underestimated me and allowed a sudden blow. But deep down, he knew too.
He lost purely by skill, and that was a pathetic excuse.
“I am the king! I will sit on the absolute throne that rules the Forest of the Demon Realm…!”
“To be frank, you’re not at that level.”
There was no need to stop time. The Sword of Rest smashed through King Mihu’s trident and penetrated deep.
Even at the last moment, the self-proclaimed king trembled, unable to accept his own death.
He had a face that was different from any sovereign or tyrant I had seen.
“What kind of king loses to some lowly guide?”
Blood from King Mihu sprayed everywhere. He thrashed his hands in vain until he finally collapsed onto the ground.
I shook off the blood on my sword and took a deep breath.
If it ended like this, it would have been great, but I knew this was just the beginning.
Because from within that forest, there was a sound that was pulling me in.
How should I say this? If a castle were pulled away with ropes, would it not create such noise?
It was coming toward us, devouring all the trees in its path, with not a shred of doubt.
In a way, I could say that the being now approaching was far more suited to be a king than King Mihu, who had just been so obsessed with his throne.
“There are a few beings in the Forest of the Demon Realm that could be called specialties.”
Once, when I first met Eve, we had a conversation about a love novel related to the Forest of the Demon Realm.
In it, there was a scene where the protagonists reached a beautiful silver lake in the forest.
I never told Eve back then, but the truth is, it wasn’t a lake.
It was an incredibly huge mountain slime that simply looked like a lake.
“I never expected you to move too.”
The silver lake, being an ancient magical beast, was uniquely close to the village of witches rather than deep within the forest.
I don’t know why.
It wouldn’t react to any beasts unless they came close, remaining completely still.
So, I expected it to stay still even as the other beasts moved, but the thought of the silver lake, a specialty of the Forest of the Demon Realm, moving made me feel a real sense of impending doom.
“What the hell is that!”
“Holy, how are we supposed to catch something that huge?”
“Run, everyone! Just run!”
“Mage! Can’t you do something?”
Panic ensued among the people facing the giant slime. Despite all this, Elise calmly ordered a retreat in a loud voice filled with mana.
She immediately realized that sending knights against such a slime would just be wasting forces.
Thanks to that, a bizarre scene unfolded.
People and beasts were fleeing together. In front of such an overwhelming presence, they weren’t human and beasts, just living beings that wanted to survive.
They didn’t look back as they ran.
But I was different.
Looking at the silver slime, which seemed to have been the elder of the Forest of the Demon Realm, I let out a pained voice.
“My body…”
The once glorious silver body of the slime was tainted black, and I knew exactly what that meant.
It was evidence that the Earliest Apocalypse had consumed it.
“So that’s why it came this far.”
Being devoured by the Goddess of Death, the ancient tree that had never moved was now forced to move out of the forest.
And it wasn’t just the slime.
From the path opened by the silver slime, the Army of Death poured out. Starting from the beastmen forces I had seen last time, including the beast king.
Ancient magical beasts that had died inside the forest and witches lain in tombs came pouring out.
It was truly a scene that felt like a total summoning.
“They’re making a fuss.”
With Kurika and Sharcarl dead, it felt like a powerful force had been bolstered in the empty Forest of the Demon Realm.
Certainly, from the perspective of the Goddess of Death, who could resurrect the dead and use them, the Forest of the Demon Realm in a way could be considered a treasure trove.
The darkness was gradually coming out of the forest, conquering the land with its army. It was swallowing up the dead knights and beasts, further strengthening their forces.
Even those ancient beasts like King Mihu, the red serpent, and the goblin I had just slain were rejoining their ranks, rising again without even consciousness.
This was the reason I couldn’t prevent the Earliest Apocalypse in my past life.
An army that didn’t die even when killed.
An ally beside me had already become one of their ranks, stabbing a blade into my back just moments ago.
It was practically a matter of time before certain destruction, but—
“This time it won’t be like that.”
I felt the touch of the dagger I had safely tucked away. One of the legacies left to me by Kurika. As soon as I stabbed this into the apocalypse, everything would end.
I was confident I could do it.
“For now, I’ll open a path.”
Both hands gripping the Sword of Rest, I raised it high.
The green mana pulled from the ground surged up to the blade and flew into the sky.
What an odd sensation this was.
Mana had always been something I struggled to scrape up a little of, but—
Kurika had entered me.
As if he was watching me from behind, I smiled slightly for the first time in my life.
I wielded the sword as if to channel a blade of energy, and the silver slime, which had given the illusion of being a lake, split in half, bursting apart like rain and began to die.
The silver slime’s slime began to dissolve everything it touched, disappearing like a nasty acidic substance, and the nearby Army of Death melted away.
Of course, they would soon reappear in pristine condition from the darkness, but I at least stopped their advance, even if just for a moment.
“……Wow.”
But to me, that wasn’t very important.
Instead, I chuckled as I sensed the abundant mana still in my hands.
“You’ve been the only ones using something this good all this time?”
