“I… I won…”
Marius took a moment to catch his breath and drank the water in his glass. Emma had thoughtfully refilled it, but it had gone lukewarm. The chirping of birds outside indicated the passage of time.
On the bed, Barra, Lovisa, Zofi, Al, El, and Auraniess lay defeated. He had just taken down the last of them. Even at rest, the strongest Demon Lords were top-tier.
*(It was my mistake to go easy on them just because they said it was their first time.)*
His initial confusion had vanished, and he’d quickly adapted. What stung even more, Marius reflected, was being defeated by Zofi and El shortly after. From Auraniess’s perspective, though, it probably made sense to take down the strongest opponents first.
His back ached, and his whole body felt sluggish, so he cast a recovery spell. Marius hadn’t expected to need recovery magic at night.
***
Few people were unfamiliar with the name of the Evil God Tindalos. He ruled over the negative aspects of the duality, fought against Nyarla, who ruled the positive, and they both perished in mutual destruction. A myth tells of fragments of their power scattering across the world, giving rise to life.
“However, Lord Tindalos… is real…”
As an old man spoke with gravitas, the others nodded. They were in the basement of a building in a certain city, in a certain country on the Farmia Continent. The light of a candle on a desk cast an unreliable glow on their faces. For humanity, he was supposed to be the pinnacle of evil, the most wicked and terrible existence, yet some, like these men, worshipped him.
Without exception, their catalyst had been experiencing some form of setback. They envied the successful, resented the heavens for not making them successful, and hated Nyarla, who was seen as a symbol of those heavens. They declared:
“We became losers due to a difference in luck, despite having no difference in ability. Is such a thing permissible?”
They claimed that they were blameless, and that those who succeeded by pushing them aside were entirely at fault. Is it the foolishness of humankind that there have always been petty individuals seeking to blame others for their own failures? Or is it a flaw in human society?
Regardless, their predecessors, in order to achieve selfish desires and satisfy their twisted vengeance, secretly organized something called the “Tindalos Cult.” Tindalos, whom they detested and feared as an Evil God, was, in fact, their savior. These were the highest-ranking members of the “Tindalos Cult.”
“The time has finally come for our God of Salvation to return.”
As he declared this, hoarse voices responded, “Ooh,” from various places.
“Thanks to a man named Marius and that traitor Auraniess, the Demon Lords are almost wiped out… Hahaha, it’s truly comical.”
The old man, who appeared to be the chairman, laughed, and the others joined in with echoing laughter.
“Indeed. Little do they know that the death of the Demon Lords is the very condition for Lord Tindalos’s return. They diligently prepare for us.”
“Their faces will be a sight to behold when they learn the truth.”
Mocking laughter, filled with malice and venom, filled the air. They were speaking the true meaning of Rubens’s past words to his subordinates: “The Demon Lords are necessary.” That is, the Demon Lords were needed as offerings to Tindalos, and it didn’t matter if they were corpses. They had been told the truth by Rubens as a contingency. More accurately, one of those who had been told escaped from Taliant, crossed to this continent, and passed the knowledge on to those here.
“Rubens was surprisingly foolish. He shouldn’t have fought Marius.”
One of them spat out a contemptuous remark, and others agreed.
“Indeed. The more Demon Lords die, the better, so why were they so desperate?”
They only knew of Marius’s strength through hearsay and thus had not fully grasped its terrifying nature. They were also unaware that Rubens harbored concerns that “Tindalos, newly revived, might even be defeated.” Their conclusion, based on experience, was that information mediated by others was inevitably distorted. They acknowledged that Marius likely possessed the power to defeat Demon Lords but scoffed at the idea that he could stand against an Evil God.
“Then, let us begin the ritual soon. The time approaches when the human world will end, and our days will begin.”
Dark, cracked laughter filled the room. The malice that the Demon had sown in the past had not disappeared; it had merely moved and remained.
