119 – Devil – 4
The whimpering stopped at my sudden question. Some of them even raised their heads and looked at me.
Of course, when I met Serena’s eyes with a bloody look next to me, I was startled and fell flat again.
I waited for a while to see if anyone would raise their hand, but no answer came back.
‘Did I ask the wrong question?’
Well, if someone suddenly interested in the devil with the front and back cut off is asked to raise his hand, he will wonder what kind of crazy thing he is talking about.
You might wonder if they are trying to catch those who raise their hands and send them to the heresy interrogation center of each religion, saying that they are heretics who believe in the devil.
The devil was a concept that definitely existed, and was often used in various religions as beings who opposed their gods.
The appearance of demons described in each religion was different, but they generally had one characteristic in common, which was that they were extremely weak against divine power.
Maybe even more than the monsters.
There were hundreds of variations of the story that the devil was purified by a saintess who squeezed out the last divine power after playing all sorts of games and was ejected into the demon realm.
In order to end the story with the conclusion that the evil demon was defeated after a bloody battle with the priest or saint, it was necessary to establish that they were weak against divine power.
It was because if the saintess held a sword and split the devil’s head in half, it would emphasize the powerlessness of the saintess as an individual rather than the power and sanctity of the god they believed in.
The public would be more enthusiastic about a hot-tempered saint who shatters the head of an enemy with a mace than a traditional saint who purifies demons with divine power, but it was also an unavoidable choice from a religious standpoint.
It was a story that demons would snort at if they heard it.
The fact that divine power exerted some effect against demons was not wrong. However, it did not show any more effect than that.
It meant that, like monsters, there would be no such thing as suffering as if burned as soon as they touched divine power, or being completely purified and melted away.
To be precise, it would have to be said that the divine power could not exert its proper effect on a demon who had descended to the ground with a proper body and sacrifice.
Like the World Eater that descended halfway with a whirlpool in the cellar of the Mage Tower, for example. Demons in such a state suffer great damage from divine power, just like other monsters.
However, the story is different if the demon completely reveals itself on the ground.
The demon that succeeded in fully descending was an existence that could no longer be purified. The only answer was to completely destroy the body from which it had descended and forcibly eject it.
divine power? Of course it will work. However, it means that it does not hesitate or melt even if it is exposed to a little bit of divine power.
And the one I chose as the means of suicide this time was the devil who succeeded in descending completely.
“Let’s change the question. Raise your hand if you want to become stronger here.”
I thought that if this happened, some people who were overcome with strength would raise their hands, but they were still lying flat on the floor as if they were dead.
“Why, if I were to find such people, would I catch them and hand them over to the Heretic Interrogation Center? Relax. There’s no such thing.”
It’s obvious what they’re doing, so why would they do that?
“Perhaps the one who answers first will have a great advantage. All but the one I mentioned will die.”
“I’ll do it!”
As soon as I finished speaking, one of them raised his arm. Beside them were the laggards, their arms half-raised, frozen in huddled postures.
“You’re going to do it? Then the rest will die. You come this way, and the rest just take care of themselves. Don’t run away instead.”
The first one who raised his hand walked this way hesitantly.
The rest seemed to be preparing to slip away. They die this way and that way.
“Serena.”
“Speak, lord.”
“Break the rest of the arms and legs first. It’s annoying to run away.”
“I will follow your orders.”
At my words, the faces of the rest of the thieves turned pale.
Serena raised the World Eater to its scabbard. He told me not to cut it, but to break it, so it seemed that he had no intention of swinging the sword.
‘I only said that I needed a living sacrifice, but I didn’t say that I should sacrifice myself.’
From far away, the sound of Serena’s blows shattering their arms and legs could be heard. Screams and cries broke out all the time.
Some of them were still trying to get up and run away, as if they hadn’t finished grasping the situation, but Serena appeared in a blink of an eye and dragged them with their arms and legs, as well as their shoulders and pelvis, smashed.
Before long, sobs and moans of pain filled the surroundings. The expression of the only limbs looking at it turned blue.
“Look. You’re a really lucky guy, right? You’re still attached to your limbs, and you’re not destined to die like them. That’s why people have to move fast and see.”
The thief nodded his head with a frightened face.
“Do you have anything else to do, lord?”
After finishing all the work, Serena came back in front of me and knelt on one knee. He gestured to Serena and extended her finger towards the World Eater.
“Can you give me some World Eaters?”
Serena held the World Eater upside down and held out the handle to me. I received it and shrank, handing it to the thief standing next to me.
“catch.”
“yes?”
“Don’t make me say it twice, grab this sword.”
The thief trembled and gripped the handle of the World Eater.
“Hey, do you see your comrades with all their arms and legs in shambles? Go in between them and pull out that sword.”
“Say, save…”
“I’m not going to kill you? Did I tell you to raise your hand on the one you want to live or to raise your hand on the one you want to die? Shut your mouth and go in quickly. If you don’t want to be dragged around somewhere broken.”
At my urging, he groaned and cradled the World Eater in his arms, and went among his comrades who were groaning on the floor with limbs shattered.
“Serena.”
“Yes, lord.”
“If the devil comes out, can you win without a sword?”
Serena pondered for a moment at my question. Then he slowly shook his head left and right.
“I don’t know, lord. I guess I’ll have to try.”
There was a different reason for asking Serena such an out-of-the-box question.
Because I don’t believe in the devil that dwells in that World Eater.
It was because the true intention of the action of asking for a sacrifice for the complete advent without properly telling me how to kill me was unclear.
I’m going to give it to you because it’s worth it to lose money, but I couldn’t completely erase my doubts about him.
That didn’t work either.
“Huh…? Huh…?”
“Ah, it seems to have begun.”
The thief, who had taken out the World Eater, panicked as if he noticed something unusual going on as he watched the red aura that began to surround his sword.
I waved my arm around to throw away the knife, but the World Eater did not fall. It was a sign that the devil had already begun to encroach on that body.
“aaagh!”
Along with the thief’s scream, red vine stems rose through the back of his hand. It was exactly the same as the vine stem that pierced the back of my hand in the magic tower.
The only difference is that the thief doesn’t have the means to shake off the vine stems encroaching on his arm.
The vine split into four branches, each digging into the thief’s forearm. His palms were completely covered with something red before he knew it, and vines climbed up his forearms.
“Hey, take this off! Help me! Help me!”
“Don’t worry? You’re not going to die. For the devil to dwell in humans, the humans to be sacrificed must remain alive.”
The red aura became stronger. Trembling, the bodies of the other thieves scattered around stiffened in an instant with small convulsions.
“Instead, the rest will die.”
“Turn it off?”
“Keuheop, wow?!”
“Quaaagh!”
The thieves whose limbs were shattered let out various screams. Their bodies, which had stiffened for a while, soon shook like crazy.
Then, blood was drawn from every orifice in his face.
The thieves couldn’t even scream anymore. A man’s worth of liquid, which escaped the world through all the pores in his face, gathered in the World Eater.
The red vine that had been digging into my forearm had gone over my shoulder and encroached on my chest, waist, and neck.
All the blood drawn out was sucked into the red jewel. The red light emanating from the jewel became even stronger.
The human body, which had sucked all the blood, turned into a withered, twisted mummy. As I said, all but that one were destined to die.
The scream that flowed from the mouth of the thief holding the World Eater stopped. The guy bowed his head.
“Hey, are you done?”
“…”
“I know that his body has completely engulfed you, so you answer me? Is it over?”
After I pressed once more, a slow reply came back.
“Yes.”
It was a voice that could not be found at all high or low, exactly matching the voice in the whirlpool heard in the Mage Tower.
“That’s great. Now, as promised, the sacrifices were brought, and preparations for descending were over, so now it’s your turn to keep your promise. So, what’s the way you said to kill me?”
“I just need to encroach on your body.”
“……What?”
“I just need to encroach on your body.”
“I heard you right, so why don’t you say it twice?
He kept his composure by forcibly pressing the corners of his mouth and the corners of his eyes that were about to distort. If I made a mistake, it seemed that I would start pouring out insults first.
“That’s the way you said you could kill me? By eating into my body?”
“Yes. I want your life. If I eat your body, I will take it and you can die. It’s a simple deal.”
“Fuck a simple deal. Fuck a deal. Did you think I wouldn’t have that much knowledge?”
“Human knowledge is inferior. It cannot be compared to the knowledge of demons. I have lived many years longer than you.”
“gibberish.”
I cut off the devil.
‘Evading my body?’
In a word, it was fucking bullshit. Because I have already confirmed through World Eater that my super-regeneration ability forcibly restores even the act of being possessed by demons.
And as I said to the thief who held the World Eater, a human possessed by a demon never dies until the demon leaves.
With all the initiative of the whole body being robbed by the devil, you have to be controlled like a puppet, feeling every consciousness clearly until the devil is purified and disappears or your body is broken.
In a word, the devil controls the body, but it means that the human who provided the body must bear all the pain.
In other words, that devil didn’t want to kill me, it was the same as wanting only my super-regeneration ability.
It wasn’t the death I wanted.
I wonder if it can even be called death in the first place.
“What about my consciousness if you encroach on me? I want you to lock yourself in the depths and just watch your bastard move my body on its own? Are you kidding me right now?”
“Death has many meanings, mortal. This is what I mean by death.”
“Don’t talk bullshit. I must have said in a previous transaction that I wanted not a conceptual death, but a death that was acceptable to human society, both physically and mentally.”
“I didn’t say that this time. The deal at that time was over at that time.”
It was a pun round and round. He said he was told not to hit him with his fist and kicked him out.
I didn’t fully trust it from the beginning, but I didn’t know that it would try to hit the back of the head so blatantly.
I knew you would lie a little more subtly.
Whatever it was, Serena was already fully prepared to fight the devil, assuming that he had done some bullshit. He took out the sword he had brought as a spare and infused it with mana to confront the demon.
“I ask again. Is that really your answer?”
“Yes.”
Yes, I will come out like this until the end.
“Serena.”
“Can I cut it?”
“I’m not going to end it with that. Just destroy it completely. Everything, even the World Eater that it resides in.”
“I’ll accept it.”
Serena drew the sword in her right hand and aimed it at the demon. The thief whose body was now covered in red vine stems, or more precisely, the demon dwelling within him, lifted up the World Eater.
And the next moment, Serena’s sword melted away.
“…!”
Serena stared at the metal trickling down her palm in amazement. It is said that he has fully descended into the form and gradually exhibits such ability.
“It seems like he’s determined to attack you, so it can’t be done with a normal sword. That’s why I asked you earlier. Can you fight him with your bare hands? It was the worst case we could have imagined, but it turned out like this.”
“If my lord tells me, I will do it.”
Serena clenched her fist lightly.
As I said earlier, I had no intention of ordering Serena to fight the demon with her bare hands.
Why would I bother to leave the sword behind and have him fight with his bare hands? I’m not a pervert who gets excited watching Serena suffer.
I opened the bag I had strapped to my waist and handed something out to Serena.
“Take this, Serena.”
Serena looked at the outstretched hand, and a bit of bewilderment appeared on Serena’s face. He looked at my face and palm alternately, wondering if I was playing a joke.
Yes, because the top of my palm was empty.
I was just embarrassed. He handed me something to receive, so I wondered if it was a new sword, but he was holding out his empty hand out of nowhere.
Serena’s bewilderment didn’t last long, as if she noticed that I had an infinitely serious expression. Serena’s hand stretched out with a determined expression on her face.
And I grabbed something in the palm of my hand.
