“...”
Eugene waited in silence.
This might seem obvious, but Kristina really resembled Anise. From the first time that Eugene saw her face, he had already sensed a strong resemblance, but after Anise had woken up, perhaps because of her influence, even Kristina’s aura had begun to resemble that of Anise in the past.
Especially when she was sitting in a chair like this, her legs crossed, her head tilted to one side, her eyes narrowed into slits, her forced smile dripping with barely constrained emotions — a tide of irritation and anger that she was struggling to hold back. Except for the teardrop mole at the corner of one eye, Kristina looked so similar to Anise that it was enough to give him goosebumps.
Eugene remained silent.
It could even be Anise, for all he knew, the one who was currently in possession of the body that was sitting in front of him like this. Up until now, Eugene had never once confused Kristina with Anise, but right now, he honestly couldn’t tell them apart…. It was a different story once they actually said something, but so far, whether it was Anise or Kristina sitting in front of him, they had just kept glaring at Eugene with that same forced smile.
“...”
Eugene could only stay the course.
In fact, whether it was Kristina or Anise who was currently in front of him, Eugene had no intention of changing his behavior. Currently, Eugene was kneeling down in front of them without feeling any shame for doing so. It wasn’t just Eugene. Right next to him, Mer was also kneeling down, the corners of her mouth drooping as far as they could go.
The prolonged silence finally ended as Kristina opened her mouth and asked, “Why did you do it?”
They were currently in a family room of a downtown hotel. They had tried to get separate rooms, but Anise had insisted on the family room, arguing that in a dangerous place like Helmuth, it would be difficult for them to deal with any unexpected situations if they were in separate rooms.
Fortunately for them, this family room only had a shared living room and separate bedrooms. Deep down, Anise wasn’t very satisfied with this fact, but to prevent Kristina from overheating, she had to agree to settle for something like this.
This had all happened just yesterday. Until now, no, until the night before, there hadn’t been any problems.
But then Eugene and Mer had left for the Kazard Hills — no, the Kazard Mine — leaving Kristina in the room on her own. It was all for the purpose of potentially collecting more fragments of the Moonlight Sword.
“...That’s… ummm…,” as Eugene tried to figure out what to say, he recalled the conversation that they had just had before the silence began.
—Welcome back, Sir Eugene….
—Ahem….
—...Hamel, why aren’t you looking me straight in the eyes?
—Cough….
—You look too clean for a trip to a mine. Your skin, your hair, and even the coat you’re wearing look clean and fresh. Your shoes aren’t even stained with dirt, let alone any coal dust…. Your body even smells like it’s fresh out of the shower.
—That’s… my body odor is usually like this….
—Why don’t you look me straight in the eyes and try to say that again? I should have warned you about this several times already. If you lie, there’s no way that you can go to heaven. That’s just another way for me to say, I can and will personally send you straight to hell.
—...That’s… um….
—Mer Merdein, the same goes for you as well. Why aren’t you looking me straight in the eyes? I can detect a faint sweet smell coming from your lips. Ah, and please don’t make any foolish excuses, Mer Merdein. Did Hamel bribe you to keep your mouth shut by stuffing you with sweet treats?
—I… please let me explain.
—Just how many people have you killed?
At that point, Eugene had just meekly gotten down on his knees.
He didn’t really think that there was anything humiliating about doing so. Even in his previous life, Anise was the most bothersome person to deal with when she got angry, and that was still the case even now. Even someone like Sienna would just pout pitifully and fall to her knees when Anise got angry.
Hesitantly, Eugene tried to defend himself, “...I’ve already said this before, but I really couldn’t help it….”
When he had tried to explain himself earlier, Anise hadn’t bothered to listen to their story until the end and had just dragged them inside. Then, Kristina had kept looking at Eugene with that forced smile.
Up until now, Eugene had thought that Kristina was gentler than Anise. In fact, when the two of them went to the Samar Rainforest together, Eugene had been able to use that fact to tease Kristina several times.
As far as he could see now, however…what had been back then was just back then and what was now was now. The Kristina in front of didn’t look in any way gentler than Anise had ever been….
Eugene began retelling his story, “So we succeeded in seeing through the spell at the entrance and successfully managed to enter the tunnel, right? Up until that point, we really didn’t face any problems.”
Eugene had been able to get through the spell covering the entrance with Akasha. Since the dark power of demonfolk was destructive at its core, it was impossible to use it to create various different phenomena like ordinary magic could. So black magic had to follow the same framework as ordinary magic, but instead used a mixture of mana and dark power to fuel its spells.
In other words, black magic was also just a different type of magic in the end. It had various limitations compared to ordinary magic and it was a bit more complicated, but depending on the skill of the caster, it wasn’t impossible to interfere with a black wizard’s spells.
And in terms of skills? As someone who had created a Signature, which could be considered a symbol of all Archwizards, there was no way that Eugene’s skills would be lacking.
“Ahem.” Mer, who was kneeling right beside him, cleared her throat to draw attention to herself.
“...I did get quite a bit of help from Mer,” Eugene admitted.
Eugene clearly acknowledged these facts. However, he still felt that the fact Mer had enough trust in him to lend her help, the fact that he was able to handle Akasha freely, and the fact that he was able to successfully interfere with the barrier spell under all these conditions should still be considered as being part of his own skill set.
“Sometimes, you can really be disgusting, Sir Eugene,” Mer complained.
“Shut up,” Eugene growled in response.
“Why have you two started arguing on your own? That is not what you should be talking about right now, Sir Eugene,” Kristina said, her eyes flashing dangerously.
Mer, who had subtly shifted her legs so that she was lying down on one side, was startled by this gaze and quickly straightened her posture.
“...Well… after that, a problem occurred,” Eugene continued.
They got through the barrier spell at the entrance to the mine. That kind of spell would never be there just like that, by itself; it was inevitable that a series of spells would be laid out in front of them, but from his experience in his previous life, Eugene was accustomed to breaking through dungeons lined with such spells even back when he hadn’t learned any magic.
He manipulated his own mana to suppress all of his life signs to their very limit, and on top of that he added a spell. Having thus reached a state that was no different from complete invisibility, Eugene walked into the tunnel.
This wasn’t some place where rare treasures had been hidden, nor was it a black wizard’s dungeon. It was an open secret that the Kazard Mine was an arena frequented by low-leveled demonfolk.
“If that’s the case, then they could have just changed the name of the place to Kazard Arena. Don’t you agree, Kristina? But they actually had their own reasons for not doing that,” Eugene proudly revealed.
“What was the reason?” Kristina asked, briskly getting to the point.
Eugene trembled as if he had been caught in an earthquake as he stammered, “Ah-ah… well, that’s….”
Were they just trying to emphasize to their visitors that this was a secret, shadowy location?
That was Eugene’s first thought upon entering the mine and taking a look around. Dented ore carts were lying around here and there, some even with wheels missing. The rails were rusty and crooked because they hadn’t received any maintenance.
However, as Eugene slowly crept further down the tunnel, he realized that a lot of things seemed to have been purposefully altered. He had initially thought that it was a mine in name only, but the inside of the mineshaft was surprisingly well-maintained and in good condition. At some point in the middle, there were no more black magic barriers, so from then on, Eugene was able to focus on figuring out whether there were any fragments of the Moonlight Sword and what the true purpose of this mine was.
“So did you get caught by the demonfolk during all this?” Kristina questioned.
Eugene took offense to this. “Hey, who do you think I am? Even in my previous life, when I hadn’t learned any magic, I was a master of infiltration and reconnaissance—”
Kristina cut him off. “I heard that whenever you needed to do any infiltration or reconnaissance, you always went together with Lady Sienna. So in your past, you probably never needed to use any magic yourself, am I wrong?”
“Aargh!” Eugene unconsciously groaned in pain and clutched at his chest.
Krisitna’s irrefutable statement of fact had transformed into a dagger and stabbed into Eugene’s chest.
“I… I wasn’t… caught!” Eugene gasped out through the pain.
He wasn’t lying. While in stealth, he hadn’t been discovered by any of the demonfolk.
“Then what happened?” Kristina asked, her brow furrowing in a frown.
In the underground tunnel of the Kazard Mine, in the depths of darkness, Eugene pulled out the Moonlight Sword. The gray blade shone even in the dark, but that ominous and mysterious sword wasn’t bright enough to thoroughly illuminate the darkness.
The hilt of the Moonlight Sword was able to resonate with its fragments. That was something Eugene had been able to confirm when he had first gotten his hands on the hilt. If there were more fragments of the Moonlight Sword left somewhere within this mine, he knew that he would be able to find them using the hilt.
While Eugene had wondered if it might be more reliable to try and find them using Akasha’s Draconic Spell, he decided that the risk was too great. He recalled the first time that he used the Draconic Spell that had been engraved onto Akasha, when Eugene had attempted to find Vermouth’s location through the Moonlight Sword.
It had been a failure. He had suffered a blow to his psyche from the unbearable strain of that ominous feeling. If the Demon King of Incarceration hadn’t pushed him away in the middle of his vision, Eugene’s mind might have been eroded by the ominous abyss within the Moonlight Sword and collapsed completely.
Even thinking back on it was a shitty experience, so Eugene didn’t feel any regrets in clearly tabling that option.
While he was in the middle of going down the tunnel, solely based on the expectation of some resonance from the Moonlight Sword, the light of the sword suddenly trembled. Without Eugene even telling it to do so, the light that formed the blade of the sword began to point in a certain direction, and the vibration of the hilt helped him to determine the location.
“The Colosseum was at the very bottom of the mineshaft,” Eugene reported. “It was just as the rumors described it. An arena where low-ranking demons would fight.”
Thanks to him deliberately picking a day when there weren’t any fights, the arena was silent. The only ones there were a manager and the guard demonfolk who were on patrol.
“The Moonlight Sword was pointing below the arena,” Eugene elaborated.
There weren't any apparent paths or doors in the direction that it was pointing to. Eugene checked again using magic. He immediately found a door leading to a basement that had been hidden using magic and various contraptions.
Eugene emphasized the importance of his finding. “Wasn't it extremely suspicious, even just by itself? But I didn’t just head in blindly either. I searched underground by using a spell first. There were more demonfolk swarming below than all of the demonfolk that I had passed while making my way down the tunnel.”
As long as he sent in the feathers from Prominence ahead of him, Eugene would have been able to clearly grasp the situation down there, but as a high-level spell, its mana fluctuations were too strong. As such, he had no choice but to use an ordinary detection spell, which only gave him incomplete results but was less likely to be discovered.
Eugene couldn’t help but consider the situation seriously. No matter how much he thought about it, if he wanted to break open this hidden door and head down further, he would need to give up his stealth.
But was that really all that big a deal? Both the hilt and the light from the Moonlight Sword were still pointing downward.
Eugene continued his story. “So I went down further. I’m just telling you this in advance, while I might have used a brute-force method to open the door and head down deeper, I didn’t kill anyone immediately after intruding. To start off with, I attempted to follow the resonance of the hilt at top speed, so that I wouldn’t even have time to run into anyone.”
The final destination of his search was the lowest floor of this underground area. Unlike the upper floors, this floor had the appearance of a proper mine. There were carts containing mounds of dirt and various ores, and the rails were also in neat condition.
“While they might not take anything out to sell it, they were still digging for something deep underground. So that’s why they must have stuck to calling it a mine,” Eugene finally declared.
“What exactly were they mining for?” Kristina inquired.
Eugene's face twisted in a scowl as he replied, “Silent Darkness Ore.”
Kristina couldn’t tell why he was making such an expression, but Anise immediately understood why Eugene would be making such a face.
[As expected from someone who used to serve the Demon King of Carnage,] Anise commented.
‘Sister, what do you mean by that?’ Kristina asked.
[The Silent Darkness Ore is just a whitish-colored ore. It isn’t mined anywhere on the continent and has no magical value. The only place where that ore is mined is in the territory of the Demon King of Slaughter in Helmuth,] Anise explained.
“This is a matter from three hundred years ago. The followers of the Demon King of Carnage used to shove the souls and dark power of their subordinates, or any other demonfolk, into the Silent Darkness Ore. They could make use of the stored power whenever it was needed,” Eugene informed her.
The Demoneye of Divine Glory possessed by the Blade of Incarceration, Gavid Lindman, was bestowed on him by the Demon King of Incarceration. The Demon Eye of Darkness that Rakshasa Princess Iris had was a power bestowed upon her by the Demon King of Fury.
It wasn’t just Demoneyes either. Each of the Demon Kings had their own different powers and abilities that they could then bestow upon their followers.
Eugene continued, “To put it in simple terms, they ground up the low-level demonfolk and infused their strength and essence into the Dark Silence Ore.”
[However, wasn’t that an authority granted by the Demon King of Carnage? All of the Dark Silence Ore used by the followers of the Demon King of Slaughter was directly gifted to them by the Demon King,] Anise muttered, with Kristina relaying these words to Eugene.
Eugene scoffed. “There’s no way that bastard Rhode could have reached the same level as a Demon King. He was just lurking underground, hoarding a lot of the Dark Silence Ore, and getting up to all sorts of nonsense. It seems that he was secretly dragging the low-class demonfolk who were defeated in the area into his secret mine below so that they could dig up more of the Dark Silence Ore for him; those who proved rebellious were ground up and chopped into pieces while he tried to somehow imitate his deceased master’s ability.”
“...Is that just your speculation?” Kristina asked as she narrowed her eyes in suspicion.
Unable to reply, Eugene averted her gaze.
Kristina rose up from her seat. She strode over and stopped right where Eugene was staring. At this move, Eugene quickly turned his head to the side. Kristina’s steps followed along with the movement of his head. Eugene tried to turn his head once more, only for Kristina to outright grab Eugene’s cheeks with both hands.
“Sir Eugene, please look me in my eyes when you’re talking to me,” Kristina requested.
Reluctantly, Eugene confessed, “Well, after tearing off both his legs, he started to cry and spilled everything out….”
“Did you really just tear off his legs?” Kristina pressed.
“Hold on, it feels like you see me as some kind of madman who will lash out at someone just because they meet my eyes, but you should listen to me first before you come to some kind of misunderstanding. I really wasn’t going to do anything,” Eugene protested.
This wasn’t just an excuse, it was the truth. He had discovered huge piles of the Dark Silence Ore and a facility that didn’t appear to have anything to do with mining. Some of the equipment there did remind him of the Fount of Light, and that had indeed made Eugene feel very uncomfortable.
Even so, Eugene hadn’t gone on a rampage. Whether it was dozens or even hundreds of demonfolk being ground up and chopped into pieces, it didn’t matter to Eugene. He intended to focus on his sole purpose of recovering the fragments of the Moonlight Sword.
However, what else was he supposed to do if he ran right into them?
At the bottom of the underground mine, the excavated soil and miscellaneous minerals had been piled up in large mounds within a huge underground cavity, the center of which was filled with crude magic circles that had been overlaid to appear complex.
Eugene had wondered what Rhode Lonick had been up to over the past three hundred years. Now that he was seeing this…had Rhode belatedly decided to learn some magic? But if that was the case, the results were far too appalling. It was at a level where Rhode didn’t seem to have any talent for magic, nor the persistence to train diligently.
In fact, the strength of the Rhode that Eugene finally found in that underground cavern wasn’t much different from what it had been three hundred years ago. Instead of having improved, his strength even seemed to have shriveled from the last time that he had seen Rhode on the battlefield.
Eugene recalled, “When I found him underground, he was squeezing the blood out of the corpse of a low-level demonfolk….”
Kristina hesitated, “When you say squeezed, what do you mean exactly…?”
Instead of replying, Eugene raised both hands up and twisted them in the air like he was wringing out a rag. Kristina’s lips twitched in disbelief, but Rhode really had been wringing out low-level demonfolk like rags and pouring their blood onto a pile of Dark Silence Ore.
The fragments of the Moonlight Sword were buried in a crevice filled with silt and other minerals.
Not much was actually known about Vermouth’s Moonlight Sword. There was nothing about it in any of the historical records, which was nothing strange — after all, it was a weapon that hadn’t been used outside of the most important battles, so most opponents who had seen the Moonlight Sword were dead. It was only natural that Rhode, who had fled from the battlefield in fear for his life, had no idea about it, especially since Vermouth had only acquired the Moonlight Sword after defeating the Demon King of Carnage.
Eugene revealed his presence and tried to quickly retrieve the fragments of the Moonlight Sword. Rhode, who was in the middle of wringing out some more demonfolk, was naturally able to notice Eugene running past him.
Naturally, he had been shocked. How could a human randomly end up in that place?
In Helmuth, it wasn’t against the law for a demonfolk to kill another demonfolk. But that said, everything that Rhode was getting up to down here wasn’t anything to be proud about.
After a brief and casual conversation, Rhode naturally tried to kill Eugene in order to silence him. Helmuth’s laws were merciful to humans, but that didn’t mean they one-sidedly sheltered and protected humanity. So what if one tourist went missing? Rhode was confident in being able to handle the aftermath of an incident of that scale.
“That bastard was the one who tried to kill me first,” Eugene burst out. “So what was I supposed to do, just stay still? If you really look at it, this is a case of self-defense. So if we could all just pretend that nothing even happened and move on from this, that might be for the be—”
Kristina cut him short. “Please don’t say such nonsense.”
Sulkily, Eugene resumed his argument. “In any case, it was Rhode who tried to kill me first. I didn’t want to die, so I resisted.”
Rhode’s hands were reaching out to grab him, so Eugene took care of them first by cutting said hands off at the wrists. Rhode backed off in a panic. His severed wrists began to regenerate, only for Eugene to slice them off again a little further down from the line of regeneration. Repeating this process, he pared Rhode’s arms down with hundreds of slices.
In a battle against demonfolk who were skilled in regenerating their bodies, the most effective and efficient way to attack was to shatter their minds. Continuous pain that included slight changes with every repetition showed the best effect when it came to breaking their spirits.
That was why Eugene just kept slicing. Rhode tried to run away, but Eugene refused to let him. After slicing one arm down just past the point of regeneration, Eugene did the same with the other arm before alternating once more.
Even a demnoflk’s ability to regenerate wasn’t unlimited. Once their minds were shaken by continuous pain, it would slow down their regeneration. Also, the process of regeneration naturally consumed mana. So once all of their mana was consumed, it was no longer possible for them to regenerate. In other words, by slicing enough bits of his arms, Eugene could render Rhode unable to regenerate any longer.
Eugene had then torn off the fallen Rhode’s legs. There wasn’t really any need to, as Rhode wasn’t in any state to escape, but Eugene just tore them off anyway. Rhode must have also realized that Eugene had torn his legs without any particular reason, as from then on he eagerly answered all of Eugene’s questions.
“I asked him why he was doing this, and he said it was to get revenge on Noir Giabella,” Eugene relayed.
“Huh?” Kristina grunted questioningly.
Why had the name of the Queen of the Night Demons popped up here? Both Kristina and Anise felt rather puzzled.
Back then, Eugene had also felt the same sense of bewilderment. Thinking that it was some made-up nonsense, Eugene had slapped Rhode a couple of times for good measure. Then, while shedding tears of sorrow, Rhode explained the reason why he was looking for revenge on her.
After the war ended three hundred years ago, three of the Demon Kings may have died, but some of their retinue still survived. However, most suffered a decline in fortune. A lot of the remaining followers of the deceased Demon Kings lost themselves to pleasure over the following long years, eventually falling into decrepitude and collapsing, never to rise again.
This was all due to the Queen of the Night Demons, Noir Giabella. Rhode lost a hundred years in vain after being caught in the dreams of the high-level night demons who came to him and offered him comfort. Most of the power that he had once boasted, back when he had been in his prime, had been lost during that period when reality and his dreams seemed to have gotten all mixed up.
At the very least, Rhode ended up with one of the better outcomes. Amongst the other servants of the fallen Demon Kings, there were many who were forced to pledge allegiance to Noir Giabella, and had their souls taken as collateral.
After draining most of his strength and life-force, the night demons threw Rhode away. It took him decades to complete his rehabilitation after becoming a cripple, and well over a hundred years just to rebuild some strength. However, no matter how hard he worked, it seemed like it would be impossible for him to try and defeat the Queen of the Night Demons through force, so Rhode instead tried to reproduce one of the authorities of the late Demon King whom he had once served.
Of course, that was also a failure. There was no way that Rhode, who wasn’t all that impressive in the first place, would be able to reproduce one of the abilities of the Demon King of Carnage.
Eugene continued, “Setting Rhode aside for the moment, I went to retrieve the fragments, but… um… while reabsorbing the fragments, something unexpected occurred….”
“Something unexpected?” Kristina repeated curiously.
“The cave began to collapse,” Eugene admitted.
Regarding this, Eugene felt it was completely unfair to place the blame on him. He had no intention of demolishing the mine. He had only planned on killing Rhode and casually making his escape.
Unfortunately, as the fragments were recombining, their power momentarily went out of control. Once it had begun, Eugene couldn’t do anything about the collapse, so he didn’t even bother to try and stop it. Instead, he decided it would be better off to just bury everything cleanly.
Eugene annihilated Rhode with a swing of the Moonlight Sword. Then, before the tunnel could completely collapse, he managed to escape outside. His whole body was covered in dirt, so Eugene washed the dust off with magic.
Mer then made a fuss about what they were supposed to do given the events that had just transpired. She also conveniently recalled a high-class dessert being sold in the cafe on the first floor of their hotel that she had been eyeing. Thus, after feeding Mer some sweets to seal her mouth, they returned to their hotel room.
…And now they were here, kneeling in front of Kristina and Anise.
[...It’s fine as long as he managed to retrieve the fragments of the Moonlight Sword,] Anise eventually conceded.
Kristina hesitated. ‘But…Sister….’
[It might have been dangerous and reckless, but compared to the recovery of the fragments of the Moonlight Sword, it was just barely worth it,] Anise decided after some serious consideration.
Had Eugene’s retrieval failed, then she would have also gladly agreed to raise their flail in punishment. However, since his retrieval had been successful, Anise no longer had any desire to scold Eugene, so she returned full control of their body back to Kristina.
“...Ahem.” Kristina also carefully sorted through her feelings.
At first, she had been just as enraged as Anise. This was the Devildom of Helmuth. It might be an empire with incredible levels of civilization, but this was still enemy territory for both Eugene and Kristina. As such, they needed to be cautious with each action that they took, so Eugene’s behavior had been far too reckless.
“...I’m begging you,” Kristina said after a long sigh as she allowed Eugene to get up. “Please don’t make me worry so much.”
Even she didn’t really know why, but out of nowhere, Kristina pulled Eugene into a hug.
Eugene stiffened at this sudden action. He had been about to tell her how many fragments of the Moonlight Sword he had been able to retrieve, but Kristina’s sudden move had left him speechless.
[Oh my god…!] Anise also let out a scream.
This scream finally served to snap Kristina’s mind out of her frozen state.
This… This was definitely just her pure concern. Like a mother hugging her child when they were about to go out — no, not like that…. Like a woman’s concern for her lover who was about to go to the battlefield….
[How unscrupulous!] Anise chided her.
Kristina stammered, ‘I-it wasn’t me. S-s-sister, it was you wasn’t it, you’re the one who made my body—’
[I beg your pardon! If I really had taken control of your body, I would have kissed the idiot instead of just ending it with a hug,] Anise corrected her.
Kristina squeaked, ‘Eeeek….’
The words echoing inside of Kristina’s head were so cheeky that she hurriedly let go of Eugene. Mer, who was looking at Kristina with scornful eyes, refused to sit on her knees any longer. She switched to sitting cross-legged in a huff and glared at Eugene and Kristina.
“Stop playing around, when exactly are we going to the Dragon-Demon Castle?” Mer demanded.
However, there wasn’t any reply. Eugene just shut his jaw that was hanging open, and Kristina spun around, slapping her own steaming-red face.
“I said, when are we going to the Dragon-Demon Castle?!” Mer screeched loudly.