The sun over the Free City of Okafu was low in the sky, and the lights of bustling nighttime activity began to pop up here and there below him.
Looking down at the scene from the terrace of the central citadel, Hiroto the Paradox suddenly muttered.
"Miss Kazuki Mizumura said something."
At long last, even Kazuki the Black Tone had come to meet her end.
Thirty years ago. She was the champion who Hiroto saw potential in, already having shifted his base of activities to another continent and entrusting her with his guns.
"Mr. Morio Ariyama. She said she had something she wanted to inquire of you. Now I know…what she was frightened of and what she wanted to ask you." "…To us here in Okafu, Kazuki the Black Tone was a mortal enemy up until the very end. At that point, any sort of bargaining with her would've been totally
impossible."
"She probably thought as much, too. That was likely why she tried to fight against you as an enemy until the bitter end."
Hiroto's calculations didn't always play out perfectly.
He thought: If only he had prepared a place for negotiations on that last day he saw Kazuki.
For these past several decades, there were far fewer instances where he had been able to handle matters without losing anything than those where he hadn't.
"So then, what did that woman want to know?"
"She only gave me a few hints to go on. Why exactly have all the visitors who've shown up here recently been people from our country? Or perhaps, she might have been thinking that the conclusion my surmising has led me to was dangerous information."
"...That's right. You might have a point. You're different, but Kazuki, Yukiharu the Twilight Diver, and I—we've all arrived in these past twenty years."
"And that's why I had Mr. Yukiharu investigate things for me."
He placed a scrap of torn fabric on the desk. Almost all the inhabitants of the world would be unable to grasp the meaning behind the article.
Morio looked at him with a complex expression, not quite anger nor animosity.
A rotted section of a student uniform—a schoolgirl's sailor uniform.
"I likely don't need to go into the full account of how this was obtained from The Land of The End. Mr. Yukiharu Shijima. Zigita Zogi. I was the one who sent them both there. I took the liberty of joining in on Okafu's operation."
"...Information on the True Demon King... Kazuki was after it, too, then."
"That's right, Mr. Morio Ariyama. I believe you wanted to ensure that one piece of information wasn't known by anyone else, yes? That's why you feared The Land of The End the most of all. You were always tense, enough to intervene with a small farming village's request to clear out the land."
Hiroto immediately used the light of a candlestick to set the scrap of cloth on fire.
"Didn't hesitate to light it on fire, huh."
"Indeed. I felt that was the best thing to be done."
The existence of this material evidence had been his final trump card to get the self-proclaimed demon king Morio to agree to direct negotiations.
However, it was no longer necessary. It was an all-too-dangerous fact not only to Morio, but to Hiroto himself as well.
"The True Demon King was a visitor, weren't they?"
From a certain period of time onward, it was only individuals from their
country who were transported to this world as deviants.
…Hiroto had knowledge concerning the superhumans who were introduced here from the Beyond.
Pilots and soldiers who left inconceivable military exploits in the wars there. Or warriors in history who performed superhuman and unbelievably strenuous feats of battle. Drawing on individual concrete examples was beyond necessary. Even if their abnormality didn't reach the level of total world divergence, it still meant there was an environment there that birthed superhumans who eclipsed all human understanding.
Both Morio the Sentinel and Kazuki the Black Tone had been soldiers in the Beyond. It was these very wars, bringing chaos and death, these ages of chaos where no one would take any notice if someone disappeared entirely, that gave birth to these deviants from the world—these visitors, these shura.
In which case, it would mean the Beyond had to be in a continuous widespread maelstrom of war, beyond anything Hiroto could imagine.
"Let me make it clear that, even in this country, I'm the only one who knows. Even those guys I had sealing off The Land of The End weren't filled in on anything outside of the scope of their mission. I erased any of them who tried to find out themselves. Since this is something that concerns all of us."
"I know."
The True Demon King was a visitor.
This single fact being brought to light would be enough to upend the world once again.
The Word-Maker who guided visitors from another world and established the heavens and earth. The knowledge of visitors who had already permeated this society's civilization in various forms. The foundational base behind the sense of values held by all the current living beings in this world would be feared and expelled.
As a result, at the very least, it would no longer be a world where the Order or visitors could live.
Miss Kazuki Mizumura didn't intend on telling anyone about it, either, then. I'm just fulfilling my obligations to this world. As a champion.
Hiroto no longer had any way of knowing how exactly, when faced with this fact, in what way Kazuki planned to carry out her atonement to this world.
He knew, however, that in the face of a monumental disaster like the True Demon King, thinking so nobly was a very difficult thing to do.
…Miss Kazuki Mizumura. You were exactly the champion I expected you to
be after all.
To Hiroto the Paradox, unable to become champion himself, it was impossible.
Though, I'm sure you would deny it yourself.
The True Demon King.
Yugo the Moving Decapitation Blade understood the moves he needed to bring an end to his enemy.
Throw his short sword low, skimming the ground, and cut her ankle. From his low throwing stance, like he was crawling on the ground, immediately jump to the ceiling. Force her attention on the ground and use that chance to split her skull with a descending sword slice. A technique he called Smoke. That would kill her.
If she tried slashing at him from the front, he'd be able to take the initiative. He had a technique, Darkness, where he slashed sideways while deceiving his enemy to think he was swinging his sword down from above. That could kill her, too.
In the back of his mind, he imagined his various moves. Opening. Soot. Sleep. None of the numerous techniques Yugo had mastered would fail to kill this girl in front of him...
I should be able… to kill her.
Yugo the Moving Decapitation Blade's feet weren't budging a single inch.
It wasn't that they were restrained. Nor was it from pain or exhaustion. He stayed kneeling down on one knee and wasn't able to fully stand up. He was supposed to move faster than anyone else in the party, and yet he hadn't at all.
"C'mon, now… I mean, c'mon, guys."
From behind him, Izick the Chromatic was mumbling.
"Say something, would you?! For this whole damn time, I was acting weird, wasn't I?!"
His voice was mixed with laughter like usual, however, he was emphatically terrified.
"Why…didn't any of you notice? It's strange, right? I mean, the moment I realized where the enemy was… Why didn't I, y'know…tear down the whole
town with locust revenants or something?! I'd totally do that, right?! Of course I would, you all know!"
"…Izick."
"I-it's almost like… Ha-ha... Like I got cold f-feet or something… Must've thought trying would've been pointless, that it'd be the end for me, and chickened out… Right?! Quit screwing with me!"
He tried to send out a fleshy tentacle from the inside of his sleeve. A living weapon that corroded any living creature and disintegrated them—but this, too, came to a stop without reaching the girl.
She hadn't done anything. It was Izick himself who prevented it from reaching his target.
Though the tentacle had no will of its own, its wielder dreaded it. "...Gotta be kidding... Impossible…"
Lumelly was also dumbfounded by the scene in front of her. Even while seven champions stood before the True Demon King, not a single one of them could even attempt a single, misguided attack.
None of them was capable of doing what they needed to do. As if they were nothing more than a gathering of fools. "Word Arts!"
The shouting voice seemed to belong to Alena.
"Lumelly, overwrite things with your Word Arts! With you Word Arts, just maybe!"
"Th-that's not it… That's not what this is! What're we even supposed to do…?! This—this isn't from Word Arts at all!"
Yugo's thoughts raced as he desperately tried to bring his breathing under control.
That's right. This isn't Word Arts or any kind of special technique. This phenomenon isn't some compelling force. It's simply...our minds feeling this terror. That's all there is to it.
He could move his body. He could feel hostility toward the True Demon King.
Just my fingertips is enough. Two fingers to lob a needle at her. That's enough to kill her. It's clear now that the True Demon King possesses no fighting abilities. This is the perfect chance. Right now… I have to kill her quick. Yugo's physical constitution would have revealed if this was the result of a vampire infection or any type of poison or illusion. Naturally, it wasn't Word Arts, either. There wasn't a single reason why he couldn't kill the True Demon
King on the spot. "…Hey, you there."
The True Demon King bent down in front of him and looked up into his eyes. She had approached him with the footsteps of any normal young girl. In the time it took for her to stand up from her chair and walk over… What had Yugo
been doing while he watched her?
Her thin fingertips gripped his hand, and she handed over a small metallic rod.
Into the hands of a man who boasted of speed faster than the eye could see, who had never let any enemy get close to him, into Yugo the Moving Decapitation Blade's hand.
"You want to try stabbing with this?"
Yugo looked at the item lying in his own palm. It was some sort of something, its point crushed and stained with blood and brain fluids. It was an implement originally known as a ballpoint pen, however, even for someone with knowledge of the items of the Beyond like Yugo, it was difficult to identify it at all.
If I'm this close. Her eye. My weapon's in my hand. Finger… I just need to move one finger. Then I can kill her. Her black eyes. Her voice. Kill… Kill the True Demon King. The true. Terrifying, terrifying. She's terrifying.
His breathing was staccato. He couldn't maintain his breath control. He couldn't hear the world around him. He could see, and yet it was only her dark pupils that were visible. Terrifying. He wanted to escape. There shouldn't have been any reason to feel such dread. She was looking at him. She was smiling. It was frightening enough to tear out the back of his brain, to make him go mad. Scary. Horrifying. Terr—
A sensation of something popping open ran through his body.
At some point, without him realizing it, he had stabbed the ballpoint pen into his own eye socket. He gouged the live eyeball and scraped it out with his own hands.
Despite knowing it was horrifying, even though his conscience was screaming that he needed to stop, he continued, unmistakably doing so of his own volition.
Frightening. Terrifying. Why exactly did he have to do something like this?
"Ah, aaaah… Aaaaaaaah! Hngaack! Aaaaaaah?!"
"There we go. I'm glad. Tee-hee."
The True Demon King looked at him and laughed, whatever she found so
amusing an absolute mystery.
It wasn't from relief or joy, but an innocent and pure laugh, like a child's.
"Y-you… What the hell're you…?! Dammit, d-dirty coward… If I just… If I could just use Word Arts! M-my voice, so hoarse, dammit… Daaaaamn you…!"
Lumelly's voice hadn't actually gone hoarse at all.
It was but a very mundane phenomenon—her voice caught in her throat from her dread.
The True Demon King strolled among the champions, frozen where they stood.
"I'm just human."
She then turned her sights on Neft.
"It's okay. You don't need to be scared at all. Feel free to relax... Okay?" "Stay away. Grrngh… Stay away...! Stop! D-don't look at meeee!"
Neft rent his stomach with his arms. Not even using his axes, completely with his bare hands. He spat up blood, regenerated with Life Arts, and tortured his body even further.
His live viscera dribbled onto the floor, and as he continued to reduce his cellular life span by his own hands, Neft continued to writhe in the anguish and fear his own immortality tormented him with.
"Hraaaah! G-gahk, gwaah… Aaaah…!" "Aw. And what do you want to do?" "Ah… Eek…!"
The black pupils turned Alena's way next. He couldn't even sit himself down, still with his spear in his hand. He simply remained standing, looking at the True Demon King.
With a giggle, she took his hand.
"Look. You can do whatever you'd like. You all are my guests here." "F-Fralik… I—I want…"
Alena raised his spear. Despite knowing he definitely didn't want to do anything like it. That a simple thrust of his spear would put an end to the terror for good.
The fact that he didn't do so in front of her… That he couldn't stop himself from being tainted by the greatest despair and tragedy he could think of—was terrifying.
"…t-to kill him… Help… L-let me, kill him…" "…Is that so? Well then, go right ahead."
The True Demon King gently smiled.
She never gave a single order.
It would have been so much more of a saving grace for them all if she compelled them with commands like "kill yourself," or "kill your comrades."
Izick the Chromatic was making his own revenant's tentacle choke up his windpipe, and he didn't move.
Yugo the Moving Decapitation Blade continued gouging out both of his eyes with the ballpoint pen he was handed.
Romzo the Star Map crushed Lumelly's bones as she remained unable to move.
Every one of them was in tears shrieking. Driven mad under their own will, they injured themselves.
"Hnngh…! Mrn…unh..."
Even Fralik the Heaven was crying, his voice unable to scream.
Alena tore the honorable man to pieces, turning him into eternally unspeaking flesh. The one performing such a deed was none other than himself. It all felt like a nightmare. Alena was terrified.
Aaah. Why—why did people convince themselves to try being brave?
Why did they know the terror and still try to confront it? Even when they themselves knew most of all that terror was there waiting for them?
They went and actually reached their destination. Despite every single instinct as a living being shouting at them nonstop to avoid it, not to come in contact with it.
"Sorry… I'm sorry, Fralik! E-eeaaaugh…!" "Mnnnh! Mng, aaugh! Augh!"
"No, no… I hate it, I hate it, I hate it… I can't take it anymooore!
Aaaaaaugh!"
The sensation that came to him through his spear shaft was unmistakably Fralik's flesh. It was fat. The spinal cord and blood vessels tangled around his red spear were severed.
Alena possessed the skills necessary to avoid killing someone in one stroke, to make them suffer as long as possible before they died.
It was hell. He wished that the always righteous Romzo would guide him once again.
"Aaah… Aaaah… Easy. Easy. Easy. Easy. Easy."
The Romzo who still continued to punch Lumelly long after her head had been torn off.
The elf, the ultimate Word Arts caster as far as Alena knew, died unable to do anything whatsoever.
Neft continued to die in unending toil. Izick's cursing was long gone. Terror. Terror was all there was.
Terror. Terror. Terror. Terror. Terror. Terror. Terror.
"Oh, that's right. I need to read what happens next in my book," the True Demon King said as though nothing had happened.
Amid a scene of complete waking hell, she alone remained a normal young girl.
There had to be some reason.
Some thoroughly mastered psychological technique—an undiscovered system of Word Arts or superpower would have been enough.
It must've just been because they weren't strong enough. That's why they wanted to believe they could lose. There was some unfathomable contrivance at work, that she herself had some sinister motive, and was thus spreading terror over the whole world.
That was what it had to be. There was assuredly some reason to it all. If there wasn't, then what could anyone hope to do?
"Psianop."
The body that had preserved its youth long past its prime in a single day was pushed to the limits of decrepitude and senile decay.
Romzo. Alena. Izick. Even bringing the others—who weren't beyond saving
—with him as he escaped, he had been able to survive. Since the True Demon King hadn't even tried to finish them off.
However, he wouldn't be able to escape for the rest of his life.
The True Demon King's terror would always haunt his mind.
Forever sullying his champion's pride and heart… A genuine terror too hideous to speak of.
"You shall not challenge her. You cannot beat her. That monster..."
He measured the vitality of the cells that were being continuously revived with his Life Arts. Two years, no, less than one year left.
"…Th-there isn't anyone who can beat her anymore…"
Neft the Nirvana. He went on to stand watch in the Gokashae Sand Sea and protect the only comrade he had left in this world.
Protecting him not from outside enemies. He was protecting him from the same hopeless death they met, challenging an opponent he had no chance of defeating.
There was the shabby-looking figure of a man wandering on the outskirts of the Assiel Fiefdom.
"Piss off… Ha-ha…! I… I'm the Demon King Izick, dammit…! Hrnk, y-you think this is enough to make me give up?!"
It was a self-proclaimed demon king, at one point called the evilest in all the land.
He continued on aimlessly, the whole while vomiting up the viscera he had burned raw with his own techniques.
What he could do by not giving up, no one knew.
"I'm still alive… I-I'm… I'm gonna kill you, got it…? Ha-ha… I'll create the strongest construct of all time…! Next time… N-next time, for sure…! Koff, bleeeerg."
Coming out from the mountain road appeared a group with a similar appearance as Izick.
Stained in the blood of their own family, smeared with tears of despair, they were monsters wearing the same expression Izick now had on his own face. All of them were originally minia. They were still minia even now.
"Ha-ha-ha… Don't play with me…" He wore a stiff, twitching smile.
As if drawn in by his fear, the Demon King Army flocked to him.
"Come on! Come and get it! Like some ignorant gutter trash like you, don't make me… Ngh, hahk, gauuuuuuuuugh!"
"Oh… Easy. To think it was s-so easy... Hee-hee. Hee-hee-hee-hee." Romzo the Star Map returned to the city, looking hollow and empty.
No one's words seemed to reach him, and he simply repeated the same mumblings over and over again.
He was the only one who returned back to civilization from the fight with the True Demon King without any injuries. Together with Neft the Nirvana, they were designated the only two survivors of the First Party.
However, unknown to others, in Romzo's case, his psyche had broken down.
Three years later, and despite outwardly appearing to have recovered his senses on the surface, this remained so.
"It was—it was this easy."
Ever since that day, any minian coherence had disappeared from his heart.
As it was gradually reduced to the heart of an unruly beast, unable to believe in any sort of faith or justice, he eventually began living a life of retirement, casting away everything.
"K-killing one's comrades, was so easy. Tee-hee."
Within Romzo's eyes, he always saw his own hands, stained with blood.
"I'm scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared—"
A sole silhouette tottered along as he walked through the lifeless ruins.
His mouth was dirtied with human flesh and blood, telling a story of a fall into depravity he could never recover from.
He had been reduced to the same state as every other living creature in this land. Dragging a red spear wrapped up in entrails behind him, it let out a hollow rattling sound.
"Scared… I'm scared. Help. Someone... Someone!"
Save for the two sole survivors, none of the champions who challenged the True Demon King were considered to have survived. All wound up like him.
Those whose true genuine courage led them to be confronted with true genuine terror.
"Scared… I'm scared! Scared! The Demon King's watching! I can hear that voice!"
Therefore, there was nothing more to be told about this man's story.
The whereabouts of Alena the Benighted White Wind were unknown to all.
She was without any past or motive, endowed with no power or skills.
She didn't possess any Word Arts or superpowers, without even the power of magic tools at her disposal.
She was just one single minia, and not every and all phenomena had a reason behind them.
Nothing more than a ghost from the past, long since defeated. She was already dead.
Archenemy. Minia.
Shiki, Enemy of All.