“Now, let’s move on to the awards ceremony.”
“It’s just annoying if it’s too long, so let’s do it quickly.”
Laughter erupted from the audience.
“The individual winner is Marius, and the national winner is the Kingdom of Filat. Trophies will be presented.”
The entrance gate opened, and a young girl walked in with the trophy.
“It is Princess Catherine of Boltner who will present the trophy to Marius. She is twelve years old.”
“What was the point of mentioning her age?”
“There was none.”
Laughter echoed again.
Marius watched the girl walk towards him, smiling.
Then, feeling a familiar instinctive warning of a tingling sensation on his neck, he took a step back and activated “Read Sink.”
The information gained from the instantaneous activation was fragmented, but it still revealed a bloody past that could not be attributed to a mere twelve-year-old girl.
Marius readied his staff and spoke in a low voice.
“Who are you?”
His sudden demeanor stunned everyone, who then sent him accusatory glances. Only Lucas, Barra, and Hemrooth sided with Marius.
Princess Catherine’s expression was one of momentary confusion, but she quickly donned an eerie smile.
“As expected. You saw through my true nature so easily.”
Catherine’s outline blurred, transforming into that of a young man. He had golden hair, blue skin, and horns protruding from his temples.
“I am Samuel. Demon Samuel. The very demon who will kill you, Marius Tuban.”
No one could react to the demon’s sudden intrusion. Marius was the exception.
“…What did you do with the real Princess Catherine?”
“She’s asleep at the royal palace. It’s my principle to avoid killing anyone other than the target.”
Marius’s worst fear was unfounded, but he still couldn’t let his guard down. Demons were higher beings born from evolved monsters, formidable opponents possessing special skills.
“You plan to defeat me alone?”
Marius tried his best to remain calm, showing no weakness. Samuel seemed to see through him and grinned.
“It will be very easy.”
Samuel’s body flickered, and he multiplied. Within seconds, tens of thousands of Samuels appeared throughout the venue. Each one stood beside an audience member.
“You may be superior in raw combat power, but my skill is ‘Division.’ I can create clones with attack power equal to my own, and I can create up to 150,000 of them.”
Samuel spoke with pride.
“I investigated you, you know. You’re a remarkably kindhearted fool. Even if you possess magic that could kill me, you can’t use it in this situation, can you?”
Indeed, that was true. Any magic powerful enough to defeat a demon like Samuel would kill the surrounding people.
“How did you change your appearance?”
“Oh my. Isn’t it something found in human Magic Items? Unlike Gerik, I don’t possess skills for shapeshifting or mimicry.”
Samuel chattered on without hesitation, convinced of his victory.
“If I’m going to reveal my secrets, I might as well say I took this from a human who was planning your assassination. You’re quite disliked, aren’t you?”
Marius didn’t understand what Samuel was talking about. The idea that someone had plotted his assassination, and that they had already been killed, was beyond his imagination.
“Well then, shall we get this over with?”
Samuel cheerfully pronounced his death sentence.
“Hmph.”
King Bernhard III and the people of Filat believed Marius was in a desperate situation. They knew Marius couldn’t unleash his full power now. Samuel had employed the perfect strategy to seal Marius’s abilities. Asteria, too, broke out in a cold sweat, thinking, “I never imagined a demon would resort to such tactics.” If Marius’s power was a threat, then the solution was to prevent him from using it. Asteria had contemplated a similar strategy. She had abandoned the idea of prioritizing measures to avoid making an enemy of Marius, but…
While everyone around him despaired, Marius simply commented,
“No, you’re an idiot.”
He used “Transmission,” a type of teleportation magic. It forcibly moved anyone other than himself, transporting everyone in the venue to the distant royal palace. Only Samuel and his tens of thousands of clones remained.
“…Huh?”
“If I just want to defeat you, I just need to move everyone else to a place where they won’t be harmed.”
“Wh-what…?”
Samuel was dumbfounded. No one knew about this ability because he had never used it before, but Marius could teleport others. This rendered Samuel’s entire plan meaningless.
“Flames, burn everything! Exharatio!”
He unleashed a first-class fire magic at full power. It was one of the strongest spells, not designated as forbidden magic only because it didn’t affect the surroundings, but its destructive power was almost unmatched. White inferno engulfed the entire venue, burning it to ashes. The ten barriers that had been deployed vanished without even a moment’s resistance.
“Gah!”
Samuel cried out in agony and collapsed. The massive swarm of clones he had created disintegrated instantly. When the white light faded, only the fallen Samuel and Marius remained. The tournament venue had vanished, leaving only a barren wasteland.
“I overdid it… No, I didn’t. You’re alive.”
“As expected of a demon,” Marius continued.
Samuel moaned but couldn’t stand up. No matter how Marius looked at him, he appeared to be on the verge of death. Marius frowned, bewildered.
“Why are you near death…? As a demon, aren’t you too weak…?”
There was no reply; he seemed genuinely close to death. Marius put away the two items he had taken out of his pouch without equipping them: the Necklace of the Archangel and the Ring of Divine Words. Even powerful magic like “Exharatio,” when cast while only wearing a simple robe, shouldn’t be survivable by a demon.
(Is this world genuinely this weak?)
He knew not to let his guard down, but with such weak opponents, it was hard to stay vigilant.
Samuel’s face contorted with humiliation and pain at Marius’s thoughtless criticism.
“D-don’t get cocky… I… I’m the weakest demon… but I have many strong allies…”
He feebly boasted while lying on the ground.
“In other words, you were a pawn to test my strength.”
Marius’s accurate guess caused Samuel’s expression to stiffen for a moment, but then he burst into laughter.
“Th-that’s right… I am the foundation for your death… Lord Rubens and the others will… kill you soon… Serves you right…”
(What a typical stepping stone.)
Marius, though exasperated, decided to finish him off quickly. He would have preferred to touch Samuel and use “Psychometry” to view his past, but demons often possessed multiple skills, and some had terrifying abilities unrelated to combat.
“Maelstrom.”
He ended it with a third-class magic. Samuel’s body dissolved, leaving no drops.
(This is bad… Why did he disappear?)
Marius felt a flicker of frustration. He then felt a sense of unease about his own lack of hesitation in killing the demon. He had killed goblins before, but Samuel’s appearance was far more human-like. It seemed he had no qualms about killing monsters, even humanoid ones.
(This is disturbing…)
He felt confused but decided to move on, telling himself there was nothing he could do. He presumed some “Sage’s Correction” was likely at play.
(Now, the problem is the utterly pristine tournament venue…)
He pondered how he would explain it and quickly decided to blame Samuel. Since he had teleported everyone to the royal palace to avoid collateral damage, they wouldn’t know the details of the fight.
“Samuel caused a lot of destruction…”
Marius explained to the returned crowd with an apologetic expression. They all believed him, albeit with shock. No one pointed out that Marius himself was unharmed.
(It must be Marius’s doing! Because there’s no demon corpse!)
Barra was not fooled. The other people, rather than being deceived, were simply too stunned to think. The fact that a demon had appeared and no one died was astonishing. The dazed looks on many faces were not a coincidence. Princess Catherine was found unharmed at the royal palace, but she was so terrified and crying that the King presented the trophy. After Marius received his trophy, Lucas accepted the trophy for the national victory. The people of Ranleo, who had lost the championship after a long time, were mostly in a daze. In the past, when they lost, they would have begun to interrogate the participants. This time, too many shocking events had occurred for them. Barra’s abnormally cheerful demeanor was perhaps the truly abnormal thing. Even the people of Filat, the victors, seemed somber. Asteria, who had seemingly predicted most of the events, had facial muscles twitching.
(Even so, I could never have predicted this… That his potential surpassed Melinda’s was impossible to foresee, I was foolish.)
To obliterate even the demon’s corpse was beyond imagination. Although she had honestly admitted her oversight and succeeded in rebuilding her mental fortitude, she was undeniably lacking in composure. Based on the information gathered from this incident, her revised predictions indicated the possibility of an even worse outcome than the worst-case scenario.
(To have come this far, I want to believe Marius still possesses unrevealed powers, and that they will bring about a good outcome.)
Marius’s display of power had altered even Asteria’s perspective, forcing her to question her cruel and ruthless realism. The Demonplay festival concluded, and people from various countries returned to their homelands. After a one-month grace period, it was possible they would clash on the battlefield again. It was now clear that Filat possessed transcendent combat power. Nations would need to re-evaluate their strategies regarding Filat. Currently, marriage diplomacy was the primary approach, but realistically, not all such arrangements would be successful. Whoever succeeded would hold the key to the future balance of power on the continent.
“Wow, that was interesting this time.”
“You’re the best, Barra.”
“To not break mentally against a monster like Marius, you’re a true goddess.”
The common folk dispersed, chatting about the tournament with relative ease.
In reality, not only Barra and Asteria were not deceived.
(Samuel’s failure… and the fact that even his corpse didn’t remain. On top of that, his growth rate is absurdly high… I must report this to Lord Rubens and rethink our strategy.)
Gerik, a demon who had infiltrated as a spectator, pondered this. He believed Marius’s “Read Sink” was a threat, but that it would be difficult to pinpoint him in a crowd. His prediction had been correct, but the outcome was terrifying.
(We can’t handle someone like that. At the very least, we’ll need Decarabia to be revived.)
The problem was how many would believe such an unrealistic notion. If their leader, Rubens, believed him, there might be a way forward, but he held little hope. Gerik doubted he himself would believe it if he were in another demon’s position. He hadn’t felt truly safe since his infiltration. He felt that even Decarabia would be in danger, but Gerik gambled on the fact that Decarabia was “still developing.” He hadn’t witnessed Samuel’s defeat firsthand, so in a way, his disbelief was natural. If Samuel possessed a skill to warn the living after his death, he would have desperately corrected Gerik’s misunderstanding. He would have warned him that “Even Auraniess would be in danger, let alone Lord Decarabia.”
