Chapter 74 – Milene

Milene

“Cough…”
Helion coughed up blood with his internal organs severely damaged.

Did I go a bit too far? Well, he’s a demon, so he should be fine. Demons have unnecessarily good survival instincts. He probably won’t die.
‘Sorry to say this about Cherni, but.’
…I should take back the word ‘unnecessarily’. I’m sorry, Cherni.

“Damn it. What kind of monster did Erdas create…?”
“Monster? That hurts my feelings.”
Anyone can see that the one looking like a monster right now is Helion in front of me. It’s ridiculous. Do demons not know how to use mirrors?

“Keke…”
He laughed as if he had reached enlightenment and stared into space. Is he going to die without saying anything?
“Tell me what you know about Erdas. Then I’ll let you live.”

“Pfft. Saying you’ll let me live with those eyes. Even a passing dog would laugh.”
What’s wrong with my eyes? I’m still a bit angry, but not to that extent.
‘Should I use confession magic…?’

To be honest, I’m not very confident with memory magic and that sort either. It’s questionable whether I can extract the information I want, and I can’t be certain that the extracted information won’t be contaminated.
But the basics of negotiation start with inflating the cards you have.

“Anyway, if I use confession magic, you’ll spill everything. I don’t want to know the color of your underwear.”
“…Do as you please. It’s all over when I die anyway.”
“Really?”

He tried to maintain his composure, but his eyes wavered slightly when I mentioned confession magic. It means it’s working.
He might have some secrets he doesn’t want revealed.
Hearing my words, Helion sighed as if resigned.

“…Sigh.”
“Feel like talking now? I’ll really let you live.”
I’ll just let him live, that’s all. Wouldn’t it be better than dying even if he spends the rest of his life in the empire’s underground prison? I don’t know how he’ll think about it.

He closed his eyes as if deep in thought, then spoke with difficulty.
“After you killed the Demon Lord, there was no place left for demons to stand. After that, the only fate left for us was to wait for the extinction of our species.”

It was a bit out of the blue, but Helion’s eyes were lost in reminiscence. I guess I’ll listen for now.
“It was the same for me. As you put it, I became a dog who lost its master, hiding among humans and living a wretched life like a bug. Then one day, that man came to me.”

“Is that man Erdas?”
Helion nodded at my words.
“I don’t know how he found out where I was, but the words he offered me were quite a sweet temptation.”

“What did he propose?”
To my question, he continued with a complex expression.
“…He said he would resurrect the Demon Lord.”

“Huh?”
Hearing his words, I inadvertently let out a dumbfounded sound. Well, how could he resurrect the Demon Lord? The one who, to exaggerate a bit, didn’t even have a speck of dust left.

“Of course, I didn’t believe it at first either. I was even suspicious that the human was mocking me. But then, he took something out from his bosom and showed it to me. When I saw that, I couldn’t help but believe.”
“…What on earth did he show you to make you say that?”

Hearing my question filled with doubt, he continued to stare into space and spoke with a complex expression.
“It was… a part of the Demon Lord’s body that was gradually, but repeatedly regenerating.”

“…What?”
It was a statement that made me wonder if I heard correctly. I thought he might be saying this to trick me, but his face remained serious.
“What do you mean by that? Explain in detail.”

“He… cough. He had obtained a part of the Demon Lord’s body and was using it for his research.”
“Then he told me. That when the research is complete, he would help resurrect the Demon Lord. In the end, I accepted his offer, clutching at straws.”

“By research, you mean…”
“Don’t you know best? What kind of research he has been conducting all along.”
“Don’t tell me, he’s still doing that…”

To think he’s still doing that ridiculous thing of creating a god of magic. I thought I had completely burned down their base, the Tower of Truth, so they couldn’t do that nonsense again.
“As far as I know, it’s nearing the final stages now. Just at the level of finding a suitable test subject.”

“Recently, he’s been looking for a test subject with a similar level of magic affinity as you, for example, like the dragon that was with you… Wait. Haha. So that’s what it was.”
Helion suddenly muttered to himself and then laughed dejectedly as if he realized something.

‘Wait, what did he just say?’
The dragon with me… that’s Saya, isn’t it?
“Say that again. What did you just say? You, do you know Saya?”

“Of course. Isn’t she the pet dragon you’re raising? I’ve been watching for a while. …Anyway, quickly return to your house in the forest. They might have already arrived.”
‘What is he saying now?’

“…To put it simply, I was just bait to catch you.”
“Bait?”
“Did you know? The younger a dragon is, the better its magic affinity.”

‘If what he’s saying is true…’
The children are in danger.
Without even taking time to process his words, I immediately started casting teleportation magic to the house where the children were.
Hoping desperately that his words were lies.

———-

“To leave without finishing things off.”
Helion, left alone in the place Ariel had departed, muttered quietly. His abdomen was a mess of blood from the wound Ariel had inflicted, but the size of the wound was small compared to that. Thanks to the demons’ unique regenerative ability, the wound had healed.

Probably if he stayed like this for a few more hours, it would heal completely. Unless Ariel suddenly returned and cut off his breath.
‘Well, what should I do now?’

Returning to Erdas was not an option. From the moment he told Ariel to return home, it was as good as betraying him.
Moreover, Helion himself had already realized deep in his heart.
…Even if he continued to follow Erdas’s words, that man would never resurrect the Demon Lord.

‘If he had any intention of keeping his promise, he wouldn’t have used me as bait.’
The reason he continued to follow Erdas’s orders despite vaguely realizing this fact was because it was the last hope a dog who had lost its master could hold.

“Hey, Helion. I hear the heroes are going to storm this place.”
“…I guess we should prepare to meet them.”
“No, you should run away. You’re too valuable to die here. Besides, you’re weak. You won’t be of help.”
“Pfft. What value does a dog who’s lost its master have?”

…Recalling his last conversation with the Demon Lord, he then got up with a heavy body and disappeared into the darkness.

I immediately used teleportation magic to return home after hearing Helion’s words.
“Oh, no…”

What I saw was literally a house in ruins. As if a storm had just passed through, debris from the building was scattered everywhere, and what used to be the door was crumpled beyond recognition.
And two figures slowly walking out from behind that door.
…They were both people I had seen once before.

“As expected, Heleon was not enough. Oh, was it Helion? Did you kill him?”
“It’s been a while, Ariel.”
One was the purple-haired maid who had disappeared when I infiltrated with Marian before. And the other was someone I could never forget─Erdas.

“These bastards… what have you done?”
Beyond them, I could see Pfel and Cherni lying collapsed. Fortunately, they seemed to be alive as they were breathing, but they were unconscious.
Although there were no visible wounds, they might have internal injuries.

Moreover, Saya, who was presumably their target, was nowhere to be seen.
“What have you done with Saya? Tell me right now.”
“Hmm. Who knows? Maybe I ate her up with a crunch?”

“You bastard!!!”
Whoosh─!
A wind blade formed from my fingertips flew towards them at high speed.
Magic that unfolded with casting speed close to instantaneous.

“Kyahat. That’s dangerous!”
The wind blade flew towards them with enough force to split them in half… but it was helplessly scattered by the barrier the girl deployed.
“You, you’re exhausted right now, aren’t you? Right? Kyahat.”

“Milene. I’ll be going back first. Play moderately and come back.”
…Erdas left those words and made a motion to cast teleportation magic.
“Stop right there!!!!”

Of course, I wasn’t going to just watch that happen, so I tried to block his teleportation magic by fixing his dimensional coordinates to this location, but,
“Let’s play. Successful product! Kyahat.”

The girl beside him—Milene forcibly twisted the dimensional coordinates.
“It was nice to meet you, Ariel.”
Eventually, Erdas disappeared.

I couldn’t believe it.
Not only did she easily block my wind magic, but she even forcibly twisted the dimensional coordinates?
Even though I was in an exhausted state, it was an unbelievable situation.

“You, what exactly are you?”
Unable to comprehend the series of events, I asked the girl in front of me with puzzlement.
Then she said with an expression that showed no seriousness at all, rather one that seemed unable to contain her joy,

“I’m Milene! I was a test subject just like you.”
…That appearance was somehow distorted, truly the look of a madwoman.
“I came to kill you!”