Chapter 215: Demon King (5)
Swish!
Evie’s sharp dagger slit ‘Death’s throat.
It happened in the blink of an eye.
‘Death’ tried to push Evie away and dodge the dagger immediately upon sensing her presence, but ultimately couldn’t stop the spurting blood.
The bastard, who got his arm cut while hurriedly pushing Evie away, perhaps because a muscle was severed, dropped the spear he was holding for a moment.
And I had no intention of missing that opening.
『Burn!』
Peo-eong!
The explosion of 「Hellfire」 soaring from my fist lodged in ‘Death’s abdomen blew the bastard’s body away as is.
‘Death’, blown away like that, was thrown to the floor along with the fragments of the wall that collapsed upon impact, but he got up from his spot casually in an instant.
However, unlike before, he didn’t show any signs of trying to extinguish the flames of the black 「Hellfire」 attached to his body.
Instead.
“…With this body, is this the limit?”
Muttering calmly, he just looked down quietly at the flames burning his body as if observing them.
Meanwhile, the flames grew fiercer, eventually covering the bastard’s entire body.
But even while his whole body started blazing like that, the bastard showed no signs of pain whatsoever.
As if this body was merely a doll anyway.
His gaze looking at us without revealing any emotion while his whole body burned was somewhat eerie.
“Truly, a meaningless resistance.”
In that state, ‘Death’ spoke.
“There are things you cannot avoid no matter how much you struggle. Death, which I govern, is also one of them. Whether sooner or later, whether here or not, as long as you are born as mortals, you are bound to face death someday.”
Without the pain of the body burning, without any emotion.
“Yet, are you saying you will continue that meaningless resistance?”
As if merely conveying facts that do not change.
“To delay it for a very short moment, you dare go against me, the master of the Underworld.”
Actually, what we burned right now was merely one possessed body, and ‘Death’ would bring another such possessed body anytime.
Although it wouldn’t be easy to find a possessed body with the ‘specs’ to be our opponent, anyway, it means it’s possible.
Unless we really kill that ‘Death’ himself, we haven’t truly stopped that bastard’s crazy acts.
And in a literal sense, death is also an unavoidable process whether sooner or later.
So, it was a remark that couldn’t be easily refuted.
In principle, it was correct.
“Well, because that’s what people are.”
But how could I not refute such bullsh*t.
“Even if we cannot avoid death, we can choose how to face it.”
Isn’t that what ‘Life’ is originally about?
If we are only going to argue in principle like that, why live if we are going to die someday anyway?
But we live.
We live our respective lives.
Someone would live for honor, to leave a name even after death.
Someone would live for precious connections, for those left behind even if they die.
Someone would just live, even if they can’t find that meaning.
Or there are definitely cases where they decide not to continue life themselves.
If asked whether all those lives have value, honestly speaking, I would answer that I don’t know.
For example, I’m not detached enough to affirm that even a life repeating only terrible evil deeds is valuable.
But even if the end is all determined, how we reach that end is entirely up to us.
At least for that right of choice alone, I would say it has sufficient value.
“It is absolutely not something a bastard like you gets to decide as you please.”
What that damn ‘Death’ bastard intends to do is to take away even that opportunity of choice.
Could I just stand by and watch that?
“And, let’s get the facts straight, you damn bastard.”
I continued speaking, scoffing at ‘Death’.
That is clearly nothing more than a possessed body, not the main body of ‘Death’, but at least he is listening clearly to what I am saying right now.
“Talking about being the God of Death, my ass. You are just another species from another world.”
I’m not saying this just to mock him on purpose; it is actually true.
The ‘Gods’ of this world, as I seem to have mentioned before, were existences with a slightly different concept from the ‘Gods’ of the world I was in previously.
“Among them, you just happened to possess the ability to kill opponents easily, so you came to be praised as the God of Death. The Underworld too, didn’t you just f*cking barge in and act as the master as you pleased?”
That’s right.
That bastard, although he says he governs ‘Death’, he absolutely wasn’t some transcendental or Ideal-like existence born together with the concept of death.
“You are just a damn invader.”
“…….”
Sure enough, ‘Death’ didn’t reply at all to my mockery.
He might be thinking to himself that it’s not even worth replying to, but I will just consider it as him being speechless because I hit the nail on the head.
Why?
Because not a single word of mine is wrong.
“Whether you came from the sky or somewhere in the universe, anyway, just because you came from another world and happened to possess slightly superior abilities, you made people serve you guys.”
In reality, as conquerors, it was no different from enslaving the people who were the subjects of conquest.
“I found that sight pathetic from the beginning, so I tried to make you bastards kneel before me. You damn invader bastard.”
Because I wanted to be the liberator of the people?
Honestly speaking, it wasn’t even such a grandiose reason.
Just, the sight of them serving them as gods without even realizing the fact that they became slaves to those bastards was damn unsightly.
That was all.
…Well, now there are parts where my thoughts have changed a little.
If it’s a god like Sistina whom Lily serves, okay.
At least I won’t curse.
I don’t intend to acknowledge them truly as ‘Gods’, but if someone acts like an existence worth serving, and thanks to that, if there are those who actually receive ‘Salvation’ like Lily, I won’t deny even that.
To be precise, I used to think they were all the same bastards, but not anymore.
Because I am Yubin.
But if the opponent is a bastard like that ‘Death’, the story is different.
“I will make you kneel before me.”
That this bastard is not a god or anything, not an existence to decide on people’s lives,
“I will show it clearly in front of everyone.”
That our lives are determined by us.
“…Fine.”
At my declaration of war, ‘Death’ finally opened his mouth again.
“If you are going to rally the mortals like this and challenge me, that wouldn’t matter either.”
It wasn’t a bluff; it was a tone that really didn’t matter.
“Since it will save me the trouble of finding and reaping them one by one.”
Naturally, because it wouldn’t be a bluff.
“Besides, making you, who became the center of meaningless resistance, kneel before me and imprinting it eternally on the souls of mortals wouldn’t be bad either.”
“Try it if you can.”
“I will.”
With these words as the last, the possessed body of ‘Death’ disappeared from before our eyes.
The burning body soon became ashes and scattered.
Of course, ‘Death’ himself would be fine in the Underworld.
However, as the bastard said, it wasn’t an entirely meaningless fight.
“…It, it disappeared.”
Now, only we and the corpse of the Demon King, who met a futile ‘Death’, remained in this Audience Room.
And for a while, it would continue to be so.
As I said earlier, no matter if he is a guy called a god, it would be impossible to keep sending possessed bodies with the performance, in other words, ‘specs’ to deal with strong people like us as if printing them out from a factory.
At a glance, that possessed body──labeled as 「Reaper of Death」 was naturally Level 20.
The class before possession was probably a Cleric.
Because possession is ultimately wielding ‘Divine Power’.
Such Level 20 Clerics aren’t exactly overflowing in this world, are they?
Honestly, if such a thing was possible, why would he bother sending just one possessed body to try to kill us?
He would have just spread them in this world immediately and killed hundreds, thousands of thousands as per his objective long ago.
And this very fact was the proof that those bastards aren’t truly omnipotent ‘Gods’ as people think.
Of course, it cannot be denied that they are strong existences.
Didn’t he actually kill the (now former) Demon King bringing just one possessed body?
In short, with this fight right now, we bought the minimum amount of time.
To prepare to deal with the bastard properly.
“Did you just declare war on a god?”
“Seems so.”
I asked back as if asking if that was a problem.
“But you tried to kill that god earlier, so are you surprised by such a thing now?”
“Ha.”
Then, Evie let out a scoff as if she had no words to refute.
“That is true.”
As if asking what to do about spilled milk.
“N, now what do we do…?”
But that meant it was now a situation where we had to prepare countermeasures for after spilling it.
For now, just a moment ago, we fought because it was a situation where we would helplessly die if we didn’t, but thinking about the future, it would be a natural reaction to worry.
I would be lying if I said I had no worries either.
Of course, I didn’t intend to stay still just because of that.
“First, we have to let everyone know.”
That the war with ‘Death’ is just around the corner.
***
The first thing we did was to open the ‘Passage’ through which we could come to the Demon King’s Castle.
Lilith said only she could open this door with her magic power, but the current me was virtually no different from the source of that magic power.
It is no exaggeration to say that the magic system used by demons today all came from me.
Because they were either subtle failures or successful improvements from copying the magics I used in the past, essentially they were not much different from mine.
This was the same for the magic that activates the ‘Passage’.
Thanks to that, we were able to open the ‘Passage’ and return to Lilith’s castle.
“…! E, everyone…!?”
Seeing us return like that, Lilith showed a very flustered reaction.
She had a very confused expression, not knowing whether she should be happy that we returned alive, or surprised that we returned already, and even through the ‘Passage’ she assured we absolutely couldn’t open, or astonished by my appearance which was quite different from when we left and the indescribable… ‘kinship’ felt from that appearance.
“I, I’m back… Mother.”
“…!”
Seeing Lily entering behind me, she finally decided to put all those thoughts aside and run to her and hug her tight.
“Since you all returned, the Demon King is…”
“Yes. He has fallen.”
I continued speaking immediately.
“However, it wasn’t us who defeated him.”
“Yes? What does that…”
“It’s a long story to explain.”
But I had to explain, and I did.
“The God of Death has descended.”
And that the damn ‘Death’ will come to find us all.