[Miyamoto Ken (2)]
In a brief moment, many events crossed paths and occurred.
This ritual hall was a workshop perfectly under the control of Sodiane.
The hidden mysteries inside were all imbued with her will.
Thus, it could immediately exude its presence in a sudden crisis without hesitation.
Boo-dud-deuk—
Countless roots burst forth from the ground, covering the entire underground barrier, twisting and distorting the internal space right away.
As the shackles activated to restrain the intruder’s body, a terrible curse was unleashed upon that place.
Countless magical barriers rose to block the outlaw’s path of attack, and a black magic array interlocked like gears, completed in an instant to exclude the opponent.
Kwaaang!
A perfect response that thoroughly sealed the sudden ambush.
Indeed, it was the overwhelming presence of a high-ranking demon, far surpassing any typical transcendental-level sorcerer, walking the path of magic for thousands of years.
“Kaha-hahat!”
“Kheu-heung!”
However, it was an unfortunate situation for Sodiane.
Blocking it at the level of “almost perfect”… was simply not good enough against such an opponent.
Gwa-ddeug— Chwa-aak!
The curse was completely devoured.
The barriers blocking the way were ripped to shreds by sharp teeth, and the seals regulating the distance with the opponent began to creak.
The shackles, struggling to hold on, burst under the rough movements, and even the black magic flying towards the monster could not inflict significant damage.
“Kugh! Ken, how dare you do this…!”
Yes, it was literally a monster.
It didn’t care about anything blocking its way.
Only one target in its sights, charging straight for Sodiane.
“Eradicate! This is my domain! Do you think I’ll go down easily?!”
“Kaka-kak!”
“Kau-uuul—!”
Though a furious battle was fought on her part, how long it would last was uncertain.
With the help of the workshop’s environment, she was barely holding on, but against this fierce onslaught, that resistance wouldn’t last long.
‘…Impressive, huh? I knew Davidson was strong, but not to this extent.’
Ken, watching from a distance, closed his eyes tight.
Davidson, bouncing around like an excited puppy on a walk.
Seeing the entire ritual hall turn into a wreck due to his antics triggered a sense of PTSD, reminiscent of the beagle that used to wreak havoc at home.
‘No need for me to intervene. I can just leave this completely to him and get on with my own tasks.’
Calming his mind and taking a deep breath, Ken turned his body.
He was ready to join in if needed, but seeing the situation now, it seemed he didn’t even have to go that far.
“…Is this it?”
Thanks to the barrier’s shaking from Davidson’s rampage, finding his way wasn’t too difficult.
Above all… it was simply about following the strange pull that felt like it was calling out to him, just like last time.
Passing by the giant Balrog, Duke Tumah Karakul, who was bound head to toe, he approached the door set against one of the column faces.
Duke Tumah could wait.
Right now, it was a priority to check the inside first.
Thump-thump—
As he got closer to the door, his heart began to race even more vigorously.
Along with that, a feeling of tension slowly bubbled up from deep within his chest.
Crack!
Ignoring the fierce opposition, Ken thrust open the door with his hand filled with magic power.
What met his eyes as he stepped through the opened doorway was…
“What is this…?”
An expanse so wide it was unimaginable to have been inside a pillar.
A large shrine, entirely white.
With massive pillars and statues erected on either side, and a grand painting adorned across the high ceiling.
Moreover, there were inscriptions in unknown languages, gleaming in pure gold, all over the surroundings that even Ken, who had lived quite a while in this world, could not recognize.
It seemed to be some kind of scriptures for a deity.
Furrowing his brows, Ken examined it closely, shaking his head in disbelief.
‘A shrine? Here? And it doesn’t look like it’s dedicated to a demon lord either… What on earth is the Duke of Maru thinking?’
Ken’s steps, having entered inside, naturally proceeded in one direction.
So naturally that he himself only realized it later.
But he didn’t stop and quietly crossed the shrine’s corridor.
After all, since he had decided to investigate this place thoroughly, it wouldn’t matter much where he explored first.
Arriving at a space that looked like a hospital, with beds lined up.
“Is this a place for offerings?”
No, upon closer inspection, those weren’t beds but small altars.
It didn’t seem too different when considering that people were lying one by one on top of them.
‘…I had somewhat predicted this.’
The appearances of the offerings varied widely.
Gender, age, and even race were all different.
The common point was that they all seemed to be adults and were all thin, lying there seemingly dead.
‘It’s surprising that some still have a breath left.’
Thanks to some special means, there were those who were barely hanging on, yet most looked like they had long since passed away.
Some had even completely turned to skeletons.
‘Correction: This looks more like a morgue than a hospital.’
And there, Ken—Miyamoto Ken from Japan, and also the count-level demon Ken from the Demon Realm.
He was about to find out what had drawn him here.
He looked down blankly.
“…Huh? What’s this?”
Among the dozens of small altars lined up was a man lying, gaunt and barely drawing breaths, who bore a strikingly familiar face.
“…Why?”
Despite his emaciated state, he looked exactly like Ken in his human days.
*
“It must be quite a reunion, but have you already come back? You could have stayed a bit longer.”
Sitting in the office, the cold-looking vampire, Heinz II, tilted his head slightly.
Where his gaze fell was on a boy who looked to be in his late teens, sitting on the reception sofa with his fingers laced behind his head, pretending to look away.
However, the new master had initiated a conversation, so he couldn’t just ignore it.
Letting out a small sigh at the boy’s scrutinizing gaze, he straightened his hands and cautiously opened his mouth.
“We won’t have much time together going forward, after all. We have many things to do, and a few days of catching up should be enough. I imagine mother is quite busy with the presidential election approaching.”
“Hmm, is that really all?”
In response to Heinz’s repeated questioning, Temiran McClair pouted his lips.
Then, avoiding eye contact, he muttered softly.
“…To be honest, I feel a bit uncomfortable. I’m a grown son now; I certainly can’t stay in mother’s lap forever, right? But I think she still sees me as that little kid from back then…”
So that’s why he had fled here using work as an excuse.
Heinz couldn’t help but chuckle at the privileged whining.
Who would see him as an adult looking like that?
No matter how you looked at it, he was just a boy hitting his teenage years.
‘Well, considering he must have been brainwashed while being trapped until recently, that makes sense.’
People don’t simply mature with age.
What’s more important is interacting with others, learning, and accumulating various experiences.
Just like how a child living with the internet can be more cunning than an old man who lived in isolation.
Temiran’s time had finally entered a normal trajectory.
‘Well, seeing as I’ve taken care of him to this extent, he should be able to handle the rest on his own. After all, he’s not just an ordinary kid anymore.’
As a former apostle who navigated the shadows of the world and now a high-ranking member of the Purebloods as a vampire, there’s likely no one else in this world who could treat him like a child aside from his mother, Kayla McClair.
“In that case, let’s talk business. Let’s delve a bit deeper into what we discussed about the Demon Realm.”
“Ah… are you talking about that?”
“Yes, I heard it briefly last time, but there might be things I missed.”
With Heinz’s command, a serious Temiran, bowing slightly, continued speaking.
“Just to reiterate, I only did a minor cleanup, so most things were already sorted out by previous generations before my time. Therefore, there isn’t much I know.”
Moreover, the revolutionary had died before properly handing things over, leaving Temiran to step into the world as an incomplete apostle.
It was only natural that he lacked knowledge in many ways, but…
Still, as an apostle, he wasn’t entirely ignorant.
To proceed with tasks, a general understanding of the broader framework was essential.
“They kidnapped otherworlders and forcibly sent them to the Demon Realm…”
And one of those cases was the abduction of awakened beings from Earth that had secretly continued until just a few years ago.
“What was the purpose?”
“Of course, they intended to use them as mediums. I’ve only heard about it, but they say that if you utilize the characteristics of these otherworlders well, it becomes much easier to bypass the laws of the world. If that can be achieved, the possibilities become endless.”
This had been ongoing since the time Earthlings began to be transported to this Auterica dimension until just a few years ago.
Because it was executed discreetly to hide their identities, the kidnappings weren’t random; however, considering the duration, the number of victims wouldn’t be small.
‘The number of Earthlings who suffered during that time must be tremendous.’
It likely had significant influence on the belated revelation of the dimensional existence known as Auterica.
Since it hadn’t been long since the transmissions started and not many had been dispatched, if even the slightest hint came out, one would be snatched away without a trace, resulting in a limited number of returnees.
‘I wonder if I too… if Hans had started his first transmission from a different location, would I have suffered the same fate?’
Being ignorant of this world and possessing peculiar items from Earth would surely have caught attention in some way.
At that moment, the image of Ken flashed through Heinz’s mind.
From what he heard, it was clear that he was also one of the victims of the abduction.
So then, what led him to become a demon and a settler in this world?
“Huh? Demonization? What does that mean?”
The question that returned was another mystery.
“Furthermore, completely eliminating the characteristics of the otherworlders… If that’s the case, wouldn’t their value as offerings decrease? I don’t know of any method to entirely strip those characteristics away. The previous revolutionary is likely clueless too.”
Ultimately, what he found out was that Ken had indeed been sent to the Demon Realm, but the rest was completely unrelated.
‘Hmm, what’s going on here? Could it be that the guy lied?’
That could be a possibility.
At the time, his relationship with Hubert was merely that of two people from the same region meeting for the first time.
While he did check the truth through Analyze, the significant disparity in their levels meant it couldn’t be deemed perfect.
‘No, later I talked with Hela and confirmed it again. Plus, now we’ve both revealed our identities as Earthlings, so there was no need for such a lie…’
Heinz frowned, feeling overwhelmed with thoughts, shaking his head.
Overthinking only complicated things further.
In moments like this, he needed to think more simply.
For example—
Like Harley, who acted before speaking.
‘Honestly, living in the Demon Realm is surprisingly enjoyable.’
Recently, Harley, vivaciously living his monster life as Davidson.
Though he usually acted on a whim, after completely replacing his body, including his brain, with the genes of a monster, that tendency became even more pronounced.
‘The fight is over, so should I start moving soon?’
While he hadn’t felt anything particularly strange during their time together, sticking close to observe should yield something.
And if nothing seemed to appear, there was always another approach.
‘A high-ranking demon can quickly regenerate even a finger.’
A chilling smile formed at the corners of Heinz’s mouth.
Temiran, cautiously sensing the atmosphere, discreetly stepped away.
It seemed like staying home was the better choice.
*
A massive tree laying sprawled across the floor like it had been felled.
Davidson, sitting atop it, was chewing on branches with his three heads.
“Kheu-heung~!”
“Kah-hat!”
Then, stretching his limbs while lying down, he set off toward the door Ken had entered.
Leaving behind a wrecked ritual hall and the pitiably destroyed remnants of the Earl-level demon, Sodiane.
However, Davidson didn’t rush into the room immediately.
He stopped right in front of it.
Before him lay the massive Balrog—Duke Tumah Karakul, tightly bound.
The three pairs of eyes gazed up at him, who was barely clinging to life.
The emotions reflected in those eyes were neither admiration for the powerful demon nor sympathy for its plight.
Gulp—
Only one thing existed: hunger.
Saliva dripped in streams from the three maws.
Having just had an unplanned vegetarian meal, he was feeling quite hungry now.
With such a delicacy laid before him that was hard to come by, how could he possibly just pass by this sumptuous feast?
That would be an insult to the Gourmand!
‘Yes, I’m busy, so let’s just have one bite.’
To be exact, it would be one biteeach, but that didn’t really make a huge difference.
Chwak—
In an instant, all three heads puffed up massively.
Unlike before when they had adjusted size for efficiency in battle.
Focusing all the variation energy solely on size.
Crack! Crack! Chomp—
Just to note.
It was inherently impossible for Harley to leave any meat behind.
[Miyamoto Ken (2) End]
