Chapter 2 — 의문
Part 2, Chapter 30
Question
From the moment the carriage stopped.
In truth, Elric had already sensed the demons’ approach.
-Mephi. This is Lilith’s mana, right?
-Hmph! So one taste was enough for you to recognize it right away.
They were Lilim, Lilith’s devotees.
The aura they exuded was the same he’d felt the first time he met Mord.
And from the sounds outside, Elric could tell the demons weren’t trying to kill them.
If they meant to, they’d have done it already.
Besides, they had no real dealings with Elric yet.
Going so far as to put his party under hypnosis and take them alive meant they clearly had a purpose.
He couldn’t know what that purpose was right now, but one thing was certain.
They would capture all of them—including Elric—and head back to their base.
-So what’s the plan? Gonna let yourself get caught?
Elric grinned.
-Tempting.
Then he began wrapping bandages round and round his body.
-…And those are for?
-It’s easier to fake being hypnotized if I look hurt. Which, to be fair, I still am.
Doing it alone left a few spots sloppily wrapped, but that was no big deal.
His enemies weren’t going to scrutinize him anyway.
He waited a moment like that.
At last Kaniye opened the carriage, and Elric played along, pretending to fall under hypnosis.
“…After I went to all that trouble.”
Elric shot the baby dragons a reproachful look.
“This is your mess.”
They couldn’t care less.
Kkyuu.
Kkyuu-kyuu!
They paid no attention to the hatchlings either.
They only watched, amused, as Kaniye stood pale and shaking.
『This King has told you time and again. Dragons are not to be trusted, and they love to meddle for their own amusement… blah, blah, blah. Yadda, yadda.』
While Mephisto launched into a speech, Elric pushed himself up, brushing off his backside.
What can you do. It’s already happened.
He let out a long sigh and looked to Kaniye.
Flinch!
Whether because of the dragons or not, Kaniye shuddered even harder.
“Just to check—no chance you’ll tell me where your base is, right?”
“…If I go insane, maybe I’ll consider it.”
“Yeah, figured.”
Boom!
Elric lunged for Kaniye as soon as he finished.
A hard cold surged like a breaking wave.
Wasn’t he supposed to be badly injured from fighting the Golden Lion?
Kaniye was rattled. The aura rolling off Elric was far stronger than his intel suggested.
Thoooom!
An ice spire stabbed up where Kaniye had just tumbled aside.
He was instantly caked in dust.
The poise he’d shown so far vanished in a heartbeat.
Elric smirked at the sight.
“You good with this? This isn’t really your character, is it?”
“Shut… up!”
The man who’d been so polite until now suddenly dropped honorifics. He must have been desperate.
Elric reached out to pin Kaniye down.
He wanted to kill him on the spot, but he needed their base first.
Just as he began to cast—
“【Raging—! ”
Fwooosh!
The Neresta mages’ spells came flying from the side.
“Yikes!”
Elric hastily canceled his magic and leapt back.
Bang, bang-bang!
A glance showed Kaniye’s underlings puppeteering the hypnotized mages.
Right. They were a thing.
Realizing too late that the Neresta mages had been put under, Elric cut off his attack.
Kaniye curled a thin smile.
“Stop attacking and come quietly, Elric Mervinger! You don’t want them to die, do you?”
His voice brimmed with confidence—he clearly thought he had Elric cornered.
But contrary to Kaniye’s expectations, Elric looked relaxed.
“What are you on about? Hyul.”
He ignored Kaniye and called Hyul. A click of the tongue came, followed by Hyul’s voice.
What do you need?
“Hungry? Eat them all.”
Hypnosis? Big deal.
All you have to do is kill the caster.
And they were demons.
For Hyul, who wanted to become Demon King as soon as possible, they were nothing but tasty prey.
Music to my ears. Kahaha!
The shadow heaved, and a massive beast rose from it, hunting the demons one by one.
“Aaaaargh!”
“S-spare me!”
Kaniye couldn’t get a grip on himself.
A predator leaping out of the shadow to devour demons!
Even when they tried to fight back, it would snatch a victim and slip into the darkness in an instant, impossible to catch.
Crunch! Crack!
In moments, the air was filled with sickening sounds.
The Lilim fell into panic at once.
“H-hey! Wh-where are you going!”
“R-run…!”
“We have to run!”
Pale-faced demons began to break ranks. But Hyul wasn’t about to let that slide.
Flash!
Hyul’s thought-form erupted from their fleeing shadows, jaws gaping wide to clamp down on their necks.
A true beast, plucking prey in a single motion.
“W-what even is that…!”
His subordinates were dwindling before he could lift a finger.
Kaniye was left trembling, helpless.
Meanwhile, Hanabi and the Neresta mages were shaking off the hypnosis.
“Lady Tasha!”
Hanabi blinked as she came to, then spotted Tasha groaning in pain and sprinted over.
“Lady Tasha! Are you all right?”
“Hanabi…!”
Kaniye’s fists trembled as he watched.
This was a disaster for him.
Their lady, Lilith, was not a Great Demon King built for head-on battle.
She mostly seduced and brainwashed people, then hid among them.
Because of that, she’d rarely shown herself even during the Great Demon War, and unlike other demons, she lived quite deeply embedded within the human world.
The flip side was this: once her seduction and brainwashing were broken, her forces could be eradicated faster than anyone’s.
Sure, they were demons—their physical abilities were excellent—but not on the level to take on trained mages like Elric or Tasha.
At this rate, Lady Lilith will definitely hold me accountable…!
He knew better than anyone what “disposal” awaited a failed butler in the Lilim.
So he had to do something, anything—
“【Bind】.”
But before Kaniye could react, ice chains burst up from the frost underfoot and wrapped him round and round.
“Ghh…!”
“Easy to come, not so easy to leave. Where do you think you’re going?”
“N-no!”
The more Kaniye thrashed, the stiffer the chains grew.
Thud!
One knee finally slammed into the ground.
Hoarfrost spread across his skin. The frost toxin that had already crept into his body began to freeze him solid.
Soon he couldn’t speak or move properly through the ice, only roll his eyes frantically.
Step.
Elric approached with a wicked smile.
“Fun a minute ago, wasn’t it? What? Playing with people make you feel like a god?”
Uu! Uuu!
Kaniye clearly had a lot he wanted to say.
His face said he wanted to know how Elric could recover so fast.
Elric read it and answered nothing. He just rolled his stiffened knuckles to loosen them.
How am I supposed to say it’s thanks to the Sigil of the Divine Child? Right?
He didn’t understand the mechanics.
He only knew that this sigil Arseus had left behind, said to fortify body and soul, was doing something very positive.
He suspected the more he pushed his body to its limits, the more the sigil evolved in tandem.
The World Tree’s essence was “life,” after all.
Thanks to it, Elric had shown a recovery rate that shocked Tasha and the other mages while he was unconscious.
Before long, he’d returned to a level where casting felt completely normal.
On top of that, his mana capacity has skyrocketed. I can use almost ninety percent of the mana stone now.
That was an enormous windfall he hadn’t expected.
Of course, just because he could handle that much mana didn’t mean his realm had deepened; he still needed progress.
Even so, at this point there weren’t many on the continent who could stand on equal footing with him.
“Why aren’t you answering? Fine. Until you answer properly, you’re getting hit.”
The moment Kaniye’s eyes locked on him, Elric drove a fist hard into his jaw.
Crack!
“Ghah!”
The ice blocking Kaniye’s mouth shattered, and a cry of pain burst out.
“Just tell me where your base is. Then I’ll make it hurt less.”
“Th-th-that…!”
“Hm? Don’t want to talk? Aw. Then there’s only one way.”
“W-wai—!”
Kaniye’s jaw had only just regained enough freedom to speak when—
Thud-thud-thud.
Smack! Crack!
Elric pummeled him without pause.
* * *
“Urrrgh… j-just kill me…!”
By the time Elric stopped, Kaniye’s face was so wrecked it was barely recognizable.
He’d been a flashy looker fit for a Lilim.
Now he looked like a burst dumpling.
“Still not talking, huh?”
“Of course… not…! For a Lilim… to betray Lady Lilith… such a thing… is… impossible…!”
Elric nodded as if he’d expected as much.
“Yeah, figured.”
“…?”
Kaniye stared as if to ask, “Then why beat me?”
“Because.”
“…?”
“Just because.”
“…”
In that moment, Kaniye realized the mage before him was crazier than he’d thought.
『If you ask me, he’s the demon here…』
Mephisto clicked his tongue.
“Huh? What was that, Mephi?”
『Nothing.』
The Talent-Swallowing Magician