This round is a story from the past, from before I met Blanc—Ria.
******
After reincarnating in hell, I found myself burdened with all sorts of questions about this world.
Was this world really built on exactly the same setting as the novel?
Were all the people here truly the same ones from the novel?
Should I accept all of this as fact?
...Questions like that. Fundamental, obvious questions.
But depending on the answer, a great many things were bound to change.
Even so, the unresolved questions only kept multiplying, and I still hadn't found any answers.
All I could do was think that maybe I'd understand someday. I had no way to actually reach the truth.
'Well, sooner or later I'll probably find out whether I want to or not...'
The thought I'd been using to shove my worries off for later was cut short by a single attack.
Boom!!
"..."
Boom! Boom!
The attacks kept coming.
They were simple, and not all that powerful, but they were more than enough to annoy me.
"......Haa..."
Booooom!!
In the end, all the tangled branches of thought in my head were snapped clean apart by that noise.
Seriously, couldn't they at least let me think in peace?
"......Don't you ever get tired of this? You'd be better off giving up and going on your way."
"Shut up!! Don't run your mouth when you're spacing out in the middle of a fight!!!"
"......"
...He wasn't wrong.
This really wasn't the time to be lost in thought.
"Kgh?!"
Because I was in the middle of a battle.
"You... you bastard...!"
A yellow-aligned Greater Demon, easily three meters tall.
This guy had shown up out of nowhere and challenged me while I was minding my own business, and unusually enough for a demon, he fought with his fists.
He didn't even realize I was an Arch Demon, and judging by how little magic power he had, he seemed like a fresh hatchling that hadn't been born long ago.
Of course, that didn't mean I had any intention of going easy on him.
"Aaaagh!!!"
The Greater Demon I had just smashed in the head flew into a frenzy and tried to counterattack—no, more precisely, just as he was about to,
'[Fighter].'
I moved first and used [Fighter], the skill that drove my own body into a berserk state.
Baaam!!
A heavy blow.
My fist, empowered by that berserk force, drove straight into the raving Greater Demon's solar plexus.
"Kuhup...?!!"
"Now get lost."
Thuuud... Baaang!!!
A moment later, with an explosive crash no fist should ever have been able to make, the Greater Demon went flying far into the distance.
"...Phew."
I had held back well enough, so it probably wouldn't take him too terribly long to revive. At least, by a demon's sense of time.
"Maybe about twenty years?"
I muttered that to myself and brushed off my hands, just as I was about to head back to my unfinished house.
"Heh heh heh. For a human, that would be long enough to reach adulthood."
An old man's voice rang out.
"...You're early."
When I turned toward the sound, I saw a gigantic old man—far too massive to be called merely elderly—walking toward me with a jet-black greatsword used as a cane.
Thud... thud...
He had the dignified face of a seasoned veteran, calm eyes, and a white beard he stroked as he smiled.
"Heh heh, did this old man interrupt you, perhaps?"
I knew the old man.
"Of course not. I was planning to wait for you anyway."
He was one of the very few people I was actually acquainted with.
.............
I had first met this old man a few years ago.
**
Back when I still wasn't used to hell, I spent my days holed up in a cave, doing nothing but wondering what I was supposed to do.
Then one day,
Ting!
by chance, I was drawn in by the sound of hammering.
Ting!
Maybe it was because it was a sound I never expected to hear in hell, but my soul practically screamed at me to follow it.
Ting!
A dull, steady ringing of hammer on metal. When I reached the source, I saw the back of an old man striking a broken sword with a hammer.
Ting!
But my gaze was drawn less to the old man himself than to something else.
......
A forge that looked as though only one piece of it had been cut out and dropped there—and all around the old man, the remnants of well over dozens of demons scattered across the area.
'......What the hell...'
Those remnants were the magic power left behind when demons died. Which meant that old man had slaughtered dozens upon dozens of demons by himself.
And he had done it so quickly that even I, an Arch Demon living nearby, hadn't noticed.
"Hmm. I thought there were no more demons left in this area, but to think there was one even my senses failed to catch... Who might you be?"
While I was still thinking, the old man had already turned to face me, his brown eyes piercing straight through me.
There was no bloodlust or anger in them, only stillness, yet they seemed to contain a force powerful enough to overwhelm any living thing.
"......"
"Don't want to say? Very well. I'll find out for myself."
And that wasn't just a figure of speech. It truly felt as though he were seeing through me, as if my insides had been laid bare.
Most likely, the old man had a skill like mine, one that could pry into another's information.
[Report. An unidentified entity is attempting to analyze the Master. Would you like to respond?]
And my guess was right.
'...Yeah. Block as much as you can.'
[Yes. Understood.]
Thanks to [Answerer], I seemed to have succeeded in deceiving him to some extent.
...To some extent.
"An Arch Demon, was it... Hmm? But how in the world are you 'holding' that...? And despite being an Arch Demon, you seem to have no lineage."
"......"
'Looks like he didn't see through my skills... but of all things, he noticed the one thing I least wanted exposed...'
If he was this strong, then he was almost certainly a close aide to one of the Primordial Demons. And if this old man reported that I was a demon with a strange soul, there was a very high chance I'd be turned into an experimental subject on the spot.
'......What do I do?'
Fighting was impossible. Anyone could tell the old man was a monster several levels above me.
Making a contract was impossible too. I had no idea what price he'd demand, so I had to be careful.
Which left only running away...
"Wait."
...Yeah, that was impossible too.
"I still haven't heard your answer. What exactly are you?"
Good question. I'd really like to know what I am myself.
"......I don't know everything about myself either. I thought I had died, but when I opened my eyes, I was here."
At this point, it was all or nothing.
I had to give up the bare minimum of information and find some way to survive.
"...After death, you were guided here... Could it be that you are a reincarnator?"
The old man grasped my identity with surprising ease.
"Yes... Though my previous life and my race now are different."
"Hmm... Hoh... So that's how it is... Then perhaps that thing in your soul could indeed be different."
The old man's gaze softened a little. It seemed he had realized I wasn't lying.
I had no idea what exactly he meant by 'that thing,' though.
"...May I ask you something as well?"
"Hmm, go ahead."
As though it were payment for my answer, the old man gave permission readily.
And once he did, I calmly asked my question.
"Which king's lineage do you serve...?"
"......Hah."
The old man fell silent as if he couldn't understand the question, then suddenly opened his eyes wide and burst into booming laughter.
It was the kind of reaction that said he had just heard something absurd beyond belief.
"Hah... hahahaha!! I see! From your perspective, there was no way you wouldn't misunderstand. My apologies—I haven't introduced myself yet."
He laughed to himself for several whole minutes before finally stopping when he noticed my baffled stare.
'...?'
While I was still standing there with a question mark practically floating over my head, not understanding what was so funny, an aura began to pour out from the old man's body.
Wooooong...
A majestic force that stirred a demon's instinct for survival.
'This is...'
[Report. You have been engulfed by the effects of the Extra Skill [Heroic Aura]. Magic power is being suppressed, and the mind is being interfered with.]
[Heroic Aura].
The mark of a hero, and a measure of the strong, granted only to a tiny handful of great champions among the races of the middle world.
The aura of a natural enemy—something demons and monsters could never learn—vibrated through hell.
And the one standing at its center was—
"My name is Gran Dwargo. In the world above, I am called the [Adventure King], a dwarf."
One of the great heroes beyond all question—the emperor of the dwarves.
'......No... why is a dwarf in hell...?!!'
...That was how I first met Gran Dwargo, the [Adventure King].
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register