Author Notes: 'Thinking in his mind' and "Actually speaking"
Karna's eyes widened in surprise; a look of disbelief covered his face, and he thought to himself, 'How could a fat being like him move so fast?'
Karna looked at the empty place beside the thin-looking demon. He then turned his gaze towards the fat-looking demon, who now held him by his neck.
As the height of the fat demon was a little shorter than his, he was not completely raised above the ground, but still, the grip of the demon's claw-like hand made him feel like his neck was about to be crushed in the next few seconds.
Seeing the look of disbelief on Karna's face, the demon sneered and strengthened his grip around his neck only enough to make Karna choke and cut off his air supply.
Karna, who could feel his esophagus closing, gasped for air and started to thrash; he even tried to wiggle out, but the demon's grip was too strong to wiggle out of. His face begins to turn a sickening color as his sight starts to close in on him.
But just as he was about to lose his consciousness, the demon let him free from his grip. Karna then slumped on the ground, trying to gasp for as much air as he could.
"Hehe, that should be enough to make it obvious to you that if you tried to do anything out of the ordinary, I would give you a horrifying death, and no one will tell a soul that you ever even existed in the first place." The dreadful voice of the demon reverberated in his ears.
Karna could only nod in fear and have a wishful thinking that he might just somehow come up with a way out of this situation.
He could only sigh in relief that he had not tried anything stupid like running; if he had, then these two demons would have definitely caught him in seconds and then taken him to that demon named Turukhan.
But he was still not out of the grasp of death, because if he quickly didn't find a way to get out of this situation, then sooner or later these two demons would realize that he was lying.
"Now get up and start guiding us towards the location of the passage." Ordered the fat looking demon while looking downward at Karna. The thin looking demon had also walked to now stand beside him.
The fat-looking demon had lived for years in this area because of his experience with the chain of titans, which even the Seven Demon lords couldn't cross with their strength.
He was sure that this man had found a passage through the mountain; he could never guess that the human in front of him was sent straight here from the celestial realm and was lying to him.
The demon's mind was filled with greedy thoughts of getting a great reward from his clan leader.
'Hehe, I might even receive a reward from the capital of the demon empire, where the Four Dukes and our great Demon Emperor resides.
Of course, he knew that he could only get a small part of the reward because he...' Thinking this, he looked towards the thin looking demon with a little bitterness over his face that only lasted a second.
Karna slowly got up from the ground, and he turned to his right and pointed towards a mountain that was not very far but also not very near to their current location.
The demon, seeing the direction, nodded his head, and then he started walking in that direction.
The thin-looking demon then gave Karna a menacing look before he shoved him and told him to start walking.
Karna, with the two demons—one in front and one behind him—walked on the base of the broad alluvial slop of the mountain range. On the uneven ground, walking in slippers was hard, but I still continued to walk to not anger the demons.
After hours of walking, they had covered a lot of distance and were about to reach the location of the mountain.
The fat demon was calmly walking in front of Karna, and behind him, the thin-looking demon also calmly walked.
For a while now he had been racking his brains, trying to find a way to escape this situation.
Abruptly, Karna came to a halt, causing the thin-looking demon to also cease his movements. Irritated, the demon spoke in an annoyed tone.
"You little shit!" "Why did you suddenly stop?"
Hearing his words, the fat-looking demon also came to a halt and turned back, gazing towards Karna.
Confronted by the cold gazes of the two demons, Karna hastily shook his head from side to side and stammered, "N-Nothing. I'm just tired."
"Don't waste our time, human!" "Or I promise I will rip you apart." Said the thin-looking demon with a threatening look.
"Keep walking, human! And don't worry; once we find the location of the passage, I myself will grant you the gift of eternal rest." saying these words the fat demon again started to walk steadily.
With renewed vigour, Karna resumed his stride, his demeanour appearing slightly more invigorated. If one were to observe him from the side, they would notice his unwavering focus on the back of the fat demon.
But in reality, Karna's gaze was directed towards a transparent green panel that displayed mysterious writings in an unknown language.
The panel hovered in front of his eyes, capturing his attention.
The unknown language looked like ancient runes to him. Just then, the ancient runes shimmered with a golden glow before turning into a language that was understandable to him.
He read the words on the panel, and they went like this:
There were a bunch of these notifications on the panel in front of him.
[Hello, host, I am the user interface of the World-Devouring System.]
As he read through the panel, A genderless voice reverberated in his mind. It was the same voice he heard when he started to feel that mind-piercing pain, but contrary to the last time, there was no such thing happening to him now.
Karna, seeing these words on the system panel, hurriedly chose the option "yes" in his mind. He had guessed that if the system talked to him in his mind, he could also command it that way, and he was right.
The moment he thought "yes" in his mind, a sharp pain attacked him in the brain yet again.
But this time he didn't respond in the same way; he did not fall on the ground, for he did not feel miserable for more than one-tenth of a second.
It was a good thing that the pain emerging from the centre of his brain vanished as soon as it came, because if it hadn't, he didn't know how the two "dear companions" of his would have reacted to his convulsing body on the ground.
'Huh?! Holy shit!'
Karna's eyes widened, not just because of the foreign memory that suddenly floated in his mind but also because he knew what this system thing inside him was.