Chapter 83
After saying everything she had to say, the Heavenly Demon immediately hung up the call.
Soon after, an unidentified message was delivered to my device.
It contained documents related to the mission I had just received.
When I glanced to the side, everyone’s expressions were a complete mess.
Joo Sarang had completely lost her wits and was sitting blankly on the floor, while Seo Da-hee—no, Lia—was still hiding in her spot, unable to even breathe properly as she tried to calm her trembling heart even after the call had ended.
It was probably because she had just witnessed the aura of one of the strongest beings in this world.
Or maybe, like me, it was for an entirely different reason.
Even though the call had ended, I still couldn’t quite get up as I sank deeper into thought.
Through her final warning and words of advice, I was once again reminded of my own position.
I needed to become stronger.
After a while, Seo Da-hee came to her senses and approached me.
“Sungwoo, are you planning to accept this mission?”
“It’s not really something I can refuse.”
As a former Hero Candidate of the Academy, she didn’t seem pleased that I was taking on a mission like this.
“I’ll make sure no one gets hurt.”
“But... the assassination target...”
Seo Da-hee was misunderstanding something.
Not all of Pandemonium’s targets were innocent or good people.
“There’s no need to worry about that.”
I handed her the file I had been reading.
This bastard had quite the colorful history as a former collaborator of Pandemonium.
He used his status and position to kidnap orphans—children who had lost their families to Pandemonium—and provided them as offerings to their lairs.
He wasn’t a Demon, but his deeds were far more atrocious than most Demons.
Aside from that, he was guilty of countless crimes—money laundering, murder, and more.
Seo Da-hee’s face turned pale as she read the file.
“T-This person did all of that? That can’t be…”
“You know him?”
“Of course I do. He’s one of the executives of the Association. In the past, he led an investigation into Pandemonium’s use of children for Demon-breeding experiments.”
Hearing that, I could easily picture what had happened.
When he realized his crimes might be exposed, he dumped all the blame onto the Hero Association and quietly slipped away.
And since he passed the blame, he must have hogged all the credit for himself, too.
The directive I received from Pandemonium was simple.
A few days later, during the banquet hosted by the Daehos Guild, I was to eliminate the target in the most brutal way possible.
The benefits Pandemonium would gain from this were significant.
First, by showing the gruesome fate of a traitor, they’d raise their reputation.
And since the execution would take place at the venue of one of Korea’s most famous guilds, the effect would multiply.
Above all, by revealing that an Association official had been secretly colluding with them, they’d weaken humanity’s unity.
Even the Hero Association’s prestige would take a blow.
It was a disgustingly efficient plan.
“By the way, didn’t they say they’d grant you a power as an advance payment for this mission?”
“They did.”
“Then isn’t a ritual and preparation needed for that kind of contract? There are only four days left until the mission date.”
Normally, contracts with Demons required extremely thorough preparation.
Since you were dealing with a higher-dimensional being, the groundwork alone was no small task.
Of course, in rare cases—like Park Min-seo’s—the Demon might take the initiative due to overwhelming strength, but that was an exception.
In general, such cases required a clear and powerful desire. But since I already had plenty of powers stacked up, ordinary desires wouldn’t even reach the Demons’ ears.
Just then, I felt an unfamiliar energy, and the room’s temperature seemed to drop as if the air itself was freezing.
Seo Da-hee sensed it too and looked at me.
“Sungwoo, did you feel that? Could it be an ambush?”
Hearing that, Joo Sarang suddenly burst into laughter.
“What are you laughing at?”
“If you’d been listening to the explanation just now, shouldn’t you have figured it out already?”
“Wait a second. It’s not that.”
Not wanting another pointless fight between them at a crucial moment, I calmed Seo Da-hee down.
Moments later, a sharp cracking sound tore through the air, and from that fissure came a low, ominous laughter.
It was a hoarse, gravelly, and muddy voice, like that of an old man.
“Are you sure this is really okay?”
Terrified, Seo Da-hee clung tightly to my arm.
The crack in the air widened, and a fracture appeared in space itself.
Then, from within, a thin, bony white hand suddenly reached out.
It looked more like a skeleton’s hand than that of a living being.
The white hand flicked something forward before disappearing entirely.
“What the…?”
“To put it simply, it’s Pandemonium’s delivery service.”
I examined the item it had left behind.
It was wrapped in a luxurious box.
When I opened it, the object inside revealed itself.
“This is…”
“What is it?”
Joo Sarang’s eyes widened as she peeked inside.
I carefully reached out and took it into my hand.
A thick demonic energy seeped through my palm.
An overwhelming sense of power flooded through my body, just like when I invoked a Power.
“M-Me too! I want to touch it!”
“No.”
“Why not!”
“I don’t want you getting drunk on power and losing control again like last time.”
What they had sent as payment was none other than a Demon’s Horn.
I hadn’t expected them to send something like this.
A Demon’s Horn.
As the name suggested, it was a relic directly linked to a Demon’s body—similar to the Heart of the Demon.
For Demons, their horns were as vital as their hearts.
If the heart was the core of their strength and the vessel of their soul, then the horn was the control center that governed that power—a crown symbolizing authority and dominance.
The larger the horn, the greater the Demon’s power and status.
Pandemonium must have spent far more power than expected to send this.
With a reward like this, I could gain a strong Power without needless sacrifice.
Even when I had the Demon’s Heart, a Demon who desired it had once made me quite an interesting offer.
The fact that Pandemonium chose to send such an artifact instead of demanding a human sacrifice of pure souls was likely because of the Heavenly Demon.
My Master hated unreasonable sacrifices—she was the eccentric among the ranks of Pandemonium.
Lucky for me.
I channeled my mana and formed a barrier that enveloped the entire one-room apartment.
“From now on, I’ll be forming a contract with a Demon. I don’t know what might happen, so both of you—set up your own barriers and stay alert.”
At my words, Seo Da-hee and Joo Sarang both nodded, each spreading their mana outward until three layers of overlapping barriers surrounded the room.
That should be enough preparation. Now, shall we begin the contract?
I immediately activated the 【Lamb】 skill.
There were two ways to form a contract using the 【Lamb】 skill.
The first was to offer a price and search for a Demon willing to make a deal.
The second was to contact a specific Demon and offer payment according to their demanded terms.
This time, I chose the first method.
【Skill: Lamb has been activated.】
【Confirming the offered price.】
【Searching for a Demon desiring a contract.】
【Loading……】
【Search complete.】
Soon, a long list appeared before my eyes.
“Oh…”
Perhaps because the offered price was so tempting, the number of Demons wanting a contract was quite high.
Of course, this list only displayed those willing to make a deal, so roughly 80% of them were low-grade Demons I had never even heard of.
From this massive list, I needed to find a useful power worth contracting for.
First, I excluded all the ones whose strength didn’t reach at least the intermediate level.
With that, the number of remaining Demons dropped by more than half.
Then, I filtered out powers that lacked even basic morality.
For instance—abilities like devouring a corpse’s brain to gain its knowledge or eating hearts to increase one’s stats.
I also excluded mental-type powers.
As I continued narrowing it down based on my conditions, only about ten powers remained.
“Hm.”
Even with all those restrictions, the remaining ones weren’t exactly impressive.
The Demon’s Horn might have been an appealing offering, but it still wasn’t enough to catch the attention of high-ranking Demons.
Compared to something like the 【Dark Relic】 or 【Flames of Gehenna】, its appeal definitely fell short.
At that moment, one particular power caught my eye.
【Mask of the Deceiver: Grants the ability to freely alter one’s appearance. Mana will be continuously consumed while the power is active, and no other powers may be used simultaneously.
This power may also be used on others, but mana consumption doubles when doing so.】
Though it came with a few restrictions, it was the perfect power for my current mission.
The best part was that it could also be used on others.
The description didn’t specify how much mana it consumed, but still—
With this, Seo Da-hee, who had been confined to the small one-room apartment, would finally be able to move freely.
Which meant I could utilize Seo Da-hee externally, and even if I had to leave the Academy, I’d be able to create an alibi.
Yeah, no need to overthink it.
This was the best choice.
“I’ll proceed with the deal for the Mask of the Deceiver.”
【Connecting to the Demon who offered the power.】
The moment that message appeared, my vision went dark.
Even though my eyes were open, I couldn’t see a thing.
“What the…?”
From what I remembered, it varied from Demon to Demon, but during a contract, one usually spoke briefly with the Demon’s projection.
So why wasn’t anyone here? This was a first.
As I looked around, my vision slowly cleared, and something began to take shape.
A group of people holding weapons.
They were covered in wounds and looked utterly miserable.
Each and every one of their faces was familiar.
“What kind of sick joke…”
The ones standing before me were none other than Park Siwoo, Helena Raiders, and Dan Chun-woo—people I had met throughout my time here.
Even Yoo Iseo, Seo Da-hee, Joo Sarang, and the Heavenly Demon were among them.
All of them stared at me with eyes full of hatred and betrayal.
What a disgusting sense of humor.
Summoning these people just to perform such a farce during a contract?
I recognized this scene.
It was one of those nightmares I sometimes had—vivid and recurring.
A bad ending.
Everyone died, and in the end, I died too.
Even if the world was saved, it was an ending where no one could be happy.
It was the very ending that had tormented me endlessly before I possessed this body.
But what I was seeing now was even worse than a dream.
A dream at least felt like a dream—this felt real.
Their agony, their despair, their anger, and their sense of injustice—I could feel them all too vividly.
Knowing what was about to happen next, I clenched my eyes shut.
The scene faded to black, and a new one unfolded.
The figures who had been standing before me now lay dead on the ground.
Only Park Siwoo remained, barely conscious, kneeling before me.
I shouted toward the void.
“Enough! Stop it before I cancel the contract and leave!”
In that instant, everything around me froze.
Then, a soft voice echoed.
It was impossible to tell whether it was male or female, but it carried a faint, amused tone.
[Oh my, you don’t like my little gift?]
“Gift? You call dragging out someone’s nightmares and making them feel real a gift?”
[Do you truly think that was a nightmare?]
At the Demon’s calm response, I fell silent.
If not a nightmare, then what was it?
Don’t tell me… was it implying that this would actually happen?
[Humans tend to think of dreams as mere phenomena produced by the brain to process information. They’re not wrong, but… that doesn’t mean dreams are meaningless. The subconscious is sometimes connected to certain things—and it can manifest in many forms.]
“So, you’re saying that was… a vision of the future?”
The Demon let out a quiet laugh.
[At least, that’s the future I saw.]
“Then why show it to me?”
[Because someone far greater has taken an interest in you.]
“What the hell does that—”
“That’s enough questions. As you said, the contract is what matters. Our time is up.”
“W-Wait!”
But the Demon vanished without another word.
The darkness faded, and the familiar one-room scene returned.
Joo Sarang and Seo Da-hee looked at me with worried eyes.
Almost at the same moment, a system window flashed before my eyes.
【Your contract with the Demon has been successfully completed.】
【‘Mask of the Deceiver’ has been added to your available powers.】
【The contracted Demon is satisfied with your offering.】
【Corruption Rate has increased by 1%.】