Miyamoto Ken (3)
As Ken quietly gazed down, he murmured softly, “…It can’t be.”
Although he appeared emaciated, there was no mistaking that this was indeed his own visage from his human days.
There was no way he wouldn’t recognize the face he had lived with all his life, right?
He still maintained the basic base of that appearance, and it was a face he often used when disguising himself as a human.
‘Plus, this outfit… it’s exactly what I wore right before falling into the trap of those black magicians.’
While lost in thought, his mind began to tickle slightly.
Then, it quickly morphed from mere tickling to a throbbing headache.
With a violent pain stabbing at his head, a whirlpool of enigmatic memories surged within him.
His face twisted into a grimace as he grabbed his head.
‘Wait a moment.’
Then suddenly, a chilling realization struck him down his spine.
‘…What was my original unique skill again?’
No matter how hard he thought, he couldn’t recall.
Even stranger was the fact that he hadn’t even harbored doubts about it in the first place.
He had inadvertently become a settler, completely losing all the abilities of an awakened one.
Everything tied to the system, including his status and skills.
But the fact that he didn’t recognize anything related to that and felt no oddity was clearly unnatural, right?
‘Who am I…?’
Dizzy from the confusion of his identity, Ken deeply inhaled and quietly gazed at another version of himself, lying lifeless.
Though his skin was severely sunken, he seemed to still be around twenty years old.
Gulp—
Swallowing hard, he instinctively stretched out his hand as if entranced.
And finally, the moment his hand touched the other’s forehead.
“…!?”
His body twitched as if struck by lightning.
As if it had been waiting for this moment, the memories he had forgotten—and distorted—began to pierce through his mind.
“Cough! Gah!”
Stumbling back, he collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath.
After a while of squeezing his eyes shut and regulating his breathing, Ken slowly opened his eyes and looked around.
The magnificent white shrine stood tall, embellished with golden inscriptions everywhere.
It felt oddly familiar as if he had been here before.
“…I see. So that’s how it was.”
Miyamoto Ken’s unique skill was “Thought Transfer.”
It allowed the transmission of his thoughts via telepathy or, inversely, reading the thoughts lingering on others through psychometry…
To survive as a mercenary, he had sought more combat-oriented powers and developed it in a different way.
He infused his thoughts into the magical equipment he possessed, creating “Ego Weapons” that shared his will with the main body.
Simple defensive magic engraved in magical gear evolved into treasures that autonomously protected their owner, regardless of whether they were offensive or healing items.
Ego swords that moved freely along unexpected paths to slay foes and potion supply devices that injected various potions into his body at the right time, depending on the situation.
Thanks to those, Ken, a world-class mercenary, reached a level where even if he suffered severe damage and lost consciousness, the magical tools he wore would move on their own to deal with threats.
“And I…?”
Ken, glancing at his hand, clenched his fist tightly.
“Am I just a doll implanted with the ego of that Miyamoto Ken…?”
That was the truth of him.
The true identity of Ken, a demon of count rank from the Demon Realm.
*
In a deeper place within the shrine than where Ken was grappling with the shocking truth, something long asleep began to stir violently.
Though “it” was now completely immobilized and could do nothing by itself, the current situation was different from before.
Finally…
Finally, the key to set “it” free had appeared!
The barely there consciousness began to awaken little by little due to external stimuli.
This promptly stimulated its instincts, urging it to act.
If this opportunity was missed, there would be no second chance.
With the situation unfolding as hoped, there was no longer any room for hesitation.
Kurruru—
A shallow vibration echoed upward from deep within the shrine.
The entity’s movements relied solely on the few remnants of thought that were left.
Revenge against those who deceived it and left it in this condition.
To reclaim its lost power and reclaim its rightful place.
The understanding that it needed greater strength to tear through the heavens.
To achieve those goals now required ascending further up and seizing the key.
To complete its exceedingly unstable self.
To fill its deficiencies and be reborn in a more complete form.
[————!]
The shape trapped in the black nest cried out fiercely.
*
Ken was neither an earthling nor an awakened one.
He was merely an existence that inherited those memories.
A patchwork doll crudely stitched together from various missing pieces of information during the transmission process.
“So, you gathered all your egos for a final gamble.”
It didn’t take long for Ken to accept the fact that the Miyamoto Ken, forcibly transported to the Demon Realm, could not escape from here.
In this worst environment, he was merely a weakling who couldn’t ensure victory even against a baron-level demon.
Thus, to escape the crisis, he sought solutions externally and pooled his thoughts into one to cast them away to another place.
“Of course, he never could have imagined he would come back twenty years later like this.”
In truth, that attempt was a gamble for Ken too, making the distortion of his missing memories unpredictable.
He had come wandering into the Dark Nest on his own volition, but due to the thorough security, he had wasted time without finding this place.
“Hoo, now it’s all meaningless.”
Ken gazed down at his true self, his expression complex.
It would be a lie to say he felt no shock, but he wasn’t tormented by his identity either.
Perhaps his body, now completely a demon, was influencing his mindset.
“It seems it’s already too late to save me.”
It was evident at a glance how far gone he was.
Though it was barely alive now due to some consciousness, it looked more dead than alive.
The flesh and spirit were like ashes devoid of any trace, and the pre-set unique skill showed no signs of activation.
The absence of aging was merely the remnant of a wicked consciousness; his body had long since transformed into a true settler.
After all, it had nearly been thirty years since he arrived in Auterica.
As he turned his head slightly, the corpses on the small altar caught his eye.
They must have been earthlings like Ken.
The thought that his own true self would become like them filled him with unease.
“The condition of those still alive is mostly similar. Such a cruel method. What the hell were they trying to accomplish?”
In the moment Ken sank into thought.
Kaha-ha!
Kah-hah! Kah-hah!
Accompanied by bizarre howls, a three-headed dog the size of a large dog walked into the space where he was.
Despite having a dog’s face, it radiated an overwhelming aura of satisfaction and gluttony.
“Davidson? How did you get here so fast?”
Ken’s eyes widened as he observed him in disbelief.
His presence here meant that he had dealt with the Sodiane.
The magician type who had built a workshop as his dwelling— and to handle a marquis-level demon so quickly?
Moreover, it looked like he hadn’t sustained much damage either.
“Wait, have I wasted more time than I thought?”
Nonetheless, whatever the case, it was still impressive.
Even against a similarly ranked adversary, it would take all day to draw any conclusion under those conditions.
“Perhaps this guy had eaten the essence of that Duke of Beasts and inherited its power.”
As Ken thought in awe, Davidson sniffed around, diligently moving his three heads.
He observed the golden inscriptions engraved everywhere and the dozens of offerings on the small altar, one of which resembled Ken exactly.
“Kah-huh?”
As Davidson looked back and forth between the two, his eyes narrowed.
Simultaneously, a strange authority began emanating from his small body.
Perhaps due to the clear hierarchy already established?
Without uttering a word, Ken had a feeling he understood what the creature desired.
“Ahem… It’s hard to explain, but I just learned that this seems to be my true body. My original body had the ability to move consciousness elsewhere, but now I…”
As he rambled on like reporting to a superior, his speech suddenly halted.
Then he merely fluttered his lips, unable to articulate what came next.
“Now I…?”
‘Why couldn’t I have thought of this sooner?’
He grasped the situation of how it had happened.
The problem was what came next.
Where did this body, imbued with the consciousness of the “Thought Transfer” used by Miyamoto Ken, come from?
‘It’s just like before. The essence of that matter is just as significant as uncovering the truth of this affair, yet I couldn’t bring it into question until speaking.’
The extraordinary power he felt in his grasp.
The count-level demonic power reaching transcendent realms erupted from deep within him like a volcanic eruption.
This body he had taken was anything but ordinary.
By simple calculations, it ranked among the top twenty powers across the entire Demon Realm.
And above all…
‘…I’ve had this power since the moment my memories as a demon started.’
To suggest that the “Thought Transfer” which gambled with such a formidable body was stolen made no sense.
It would have been normal for the host to be torn apart upon contact with the opponent’s consciousness.
‘If that’s the case, it means this immense body was just lying around without a master.’
At precisely the exquisite timing when he attempted the gamble.
Coincidentally, it was a body perfectly in sync, with no significant discrepancies to the original.
How could a body powerful enough to elevate him to that level just be waiting to receive the drifting thoughts of Ken?
Such a fortunate turn of events seemed impossible…
Kurruru—
Then, a delicate tremor shaking the entire shrine registered in his sensitive senses.
As time passed, the quake intensified.
Soon, he would learn it was caused by something rising from below.
“Don’t tell me the Sodiane was all there is to guarding this place? Davidson! Can we still fight…? Ugh!”
Turning his head to look at Davidson, Ken couldn’t finish his sentence.
Squirm—
One head, staring at him with significant meaning, promptly bit his hand.
“Ugh! What are you doing all of a sudden?!”
Ken frowned at the sensation of his energy being torn away.
The wound would heal quickly, so it wasn’t a big deal, but he couldn’t just let it slide since he had been attacked by someone he thought was an ally.
However, his anger didn’t last long.
“Ah, just as I thought.”
Because a deep voice suddenly rang out.
“…Who are you?!”
Ken hastily increased his guard and looked around.
The only ones present were himself, Davidson, and the sacrifices barely breathing.
In addition to the unexpected sequence of events raising his anxiety, the sudden appearance of an unknown voice startled him further.
“Kuh-huh! What is it looking at?”
Kaha-ha! I thought from the start, it’s a bit slow-witted!”
“How unfortunate. If only it had three heads like us, it might have been better.”
However, the next words made Ken’s expression sour.
Unlike the previous ambiguous moment, this time, he was sure he had heard them clearly.
As he dazedly looked down, there stood a three-headed dog, gazing up at him with a sullen expression.
“You… can speak?”
“Forget that for now,” it replied in a disinterested tone.
Ken’s past humiliations flashed through his mind.
Days of being outordered by a dog and having to sleep on the floor after losing the bed, moments of having to beg for meat, and more.
There were so many things he wanted to say, yet he swallowed them down, closing his eyes softly.
He did possess the sense to judge the right timing and place.
“Anyway, so right now that body isn’t yours, correct?”
“…That is true.”
Ignoring Davidson, who still seemed disgruntled, he looked around, nodding.
The inscriptions everywhere should have been erased completely from existence, yet it was a non-issue for him as a world traveler with “Zenoglosy.”
“Kuh-huh! This… it seems like…”
Surveying the surroundings for a brief moment, one head labeled the scents, sniffing eagerly.
“The presence approaching now seems to belong to the original owner of that body.”
“What?”
Kaha-ha! How peculiar! The flavor was definitely count-level, yet that scent approaching now is hardly just that!
His senses, rivaling even Diana’s when it came to identifying aroma, went wild in a frenzy.
Someone was approaching, an entity stronger than the sodiane he had devoured before, or the duke-level demon Karakul.
“How interesting! I wondered where it had gone, but it had been hiding in a place like this?”
“What do you… oh, wait. Could it be?”
Boom! Crash—!
The quaking intensified, finally reaching them.
A dark shape began to come into view from afar.
“Kuh-huh! But this is troublesome; even with that scent, there’s no way I can muster my strength.”
However, there was one significant problem.
““There’s no meat!””
That being was an incorporeal entity with no flesh to be found, a blend of curses instead.
[————!]
An empty cry resonated throughout the surroundings.
