Grand Duke Damian (2)

The pale-faced man, Damian, quietly sat down and opened the wooden box.

Inside were various items including bread, dried meat, and jerky made by thinly spreading that meat.

There was also fish jerky, which had been smoked with charcoal smoke to remove moisture and dried thoroughly.

Although humble, it felt like a composition that had its own assortment.

Damian picked up one of them, a piece of jerky, and slowly pushed it into his mouth.

A salty taste — should be felt, but no taste was perceived at all.

There was nothing wrong with the jerky.

What was wrong was him —

*

“My, you look healthy!”

This was Ceres’s first words when Damian appeared in response to the summoning.

Damian, a monster who had drunk millions of lives — known by various names such as the Immortal King, the Blood Walker, and so on.

However, he was human after all.

The spell granted him a life close to infinity — all the lives that existed in the territory where he had reigned as king, but he was still human.

Setting aside whether an eternally undying human can still be called human, even after hundreds of years had passed, he hadn’t aged at all, nor had he died.

Such a human, Damian, who was secretly worshipped as an object of local faith with a mixture of awe near the Great Desert.

“…Your uncouth way of speaking remains unchanged, priestess. State the reason you called me first.”

A pleasant baritone voice.

Damian looked at Ceres with a slight frown.

Although Damian had become a Grand Duke of the demon realm with the power that dwelled in him after the death of the False Celestial God, such things held no value to him.

He had been a king, and now lived regretting the past while carrying the lives of his people. What meaning could being a Grand Duke of the demon realm or anything like that have for him?

“Well, shall I?”

The blood that had been gushing from her wrist had now stopped.

Ceres, wiping off the blood that had clotted on her gradually healing wrist, grinned at Damian.

“It’s time to fulfill your long-cherished wish. The enlightenment of all your people, and even your own death.”

Damian’s eyebrows twitched at those words.

The position of Grand Duke of the demon realm, the banner of the demon realm’s continuation, none of these held any meaning for him.

Deceived by an unknown evil sorcerer, he had ruined his entire kingdom, and his people had melted into a handful of blood with screams. The lives of those people all became Damian’s, and as a result, Damian now lived in regret and remorse, carrying those numerous lives.

The enlightenment of the vengeful spirits of his people who had perished due to his mistake —

And the death of Damian who had made such a mistake.

These two things were like a great long-cherished wish for him.

He had unwillingly become an object of faith, and because of that, he had received a share of the False Celestial God’s power and became a Grand Duke of the demon realm.

Such things held no value for him; his only great undertaking was to fulfill that long-cherished wish.

“Speak the truth, priestess. Since you’ve spoken of my long-cherished wish from your mouth, there must not be even a shred of lie. Speak only the complete truth.”

“I’m not lying… When have you ever seen me lie? I’ve only told stories beneficial to you Grand Dukes.”

“Your introduction is long.”

Unnecessarily wordy.

Lacking dignity, not refined, and inelegant.

Having such a woman as a priestess only lowers the dignity of the demon realm, providing no help at all.

— Thinking this inwardly, Damian glared at Ceres.

“A Saint has appeared. A Saint. You know?”

“— A Saint.”

At those words, Damian closed his mouth.

A Saint, a Saint — the very Saint who is said to be the agent of the Celestial God.

He doesn’t have much knowledge about it, but he has vaguely heard of it.

“You’ve seen her before, in Semek.”

The great tragedy that occurred in Semek was also Damian’s doing.

And he had been quietly watching them from within the shadows cast over Semek —

Ceres simply sat down right in the center of the inverted pentagram.

It was somewhat rude behavior in front of Damian, who had been a king of a country, but seeing Ceres sitting cross-legged, resting her chin on one hand and grinning, even the thought of getting angry disappeared.

Trying hard to ignore Ceres’s attitude, Damian searched his memories.

Living for a long time indeed makes one’s memory not what it used to be. Whether something that happened yesterday was really yesterday, or the day before, or about a week ago, or a year ago, ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years —

After searching his memories for a long time, he finally remembered.

“That white-haired…”

“No, no. Not her. There was a small red-haired girl, wasn’t there?”

Was there?

There certainly were a few people.

Red hair, red hair… There was.

He remembered seeing her walking with a tall, manly-looking man — a man carrying a spear who looked quite like a warrior.

“You’re saying she’s the Saint?”

“Yes. She’s the Saint. The first Saint to appear in hundreds of years since the first Saint.”

The first Saint, Sonia.

Even Damian is well aware of that name.

At that time, Damian didn’t yearn for death like this, and he wasn’t particularly interested to begin with.

There were all sorts of things happening with the demon realm and whatnot, and after the False Celestial God disappeared, the suddenly appeared Celestial God didn’t pay any attention to the demon realm at all. Now it seems they’re busy trying to sort out the demon realm and whatnot, but it’s already too late.

“A Saint, a Saint…”

A Saint, is it.

Damian muttered that word several times.

A word that gives a strange feeling.

“Yes, a Saint.”

Ceres, who had been sitting, stood up with a grunt and started circling around Damian.

It felt as if her emotions were being transmitted to Damian.

A strange joy, and a feeling of excitement —

“Eat the Saint.”

“Hmm.”

The Saint is the one who directly uses the Celestial God’s holy power.

Damian is a human, not a demon, but the foundation that constitutes him is that of sorcery.

Something wicked and evil.

Sorcery is actually something that has an even more extreme repulsive force to holy power than demonic energy.

“You’re practically the essence of that sorcery. So eat the Saint. Since the Saint is like the Celestial God descended to earth, your long-cherished wish will be fulfilled.”

At those words from Ceres, Damian closed his mouth.

‘Eat… the Saint.’

If asked whether Ceres’s words had no possibility at all, that wasn’t the case.

Literally, since the Saint is a being bestowed power by the Celestial God, it would be fair to say she’s a lump of holy power. Holy power is something that can be said to be very incompatible with sorcery, so it could be said that the Saint and Damian are also incompatible. Therefore, if he were to eat such a Saint —

“If holy power is poured into your body, even you would die. If you couldn’t die after trying all sorts of methods, isn’t this about the only thing left?”

Ceres said to Damian with a broad grin.

And because those words were quite convincing, Damian closed his mouth without giving any answer.

He can barely remember when he ever had a sense of taste to begin with.

The rough texture, and the feeling of chewing.

The alien feeling of it going down his throat when swallowed.

Damian quietly looked at the Saint — Bigrind, recalling such sensations.

She is truly a bright girl.

Bright like sunlight, and the way she scolds those clergy following the Celestial God is truly befitting of a Saint.

Although her appearance had changed dramatically from when he had seen her before, compared to the girl from that time, the girl now could be said to have undergone a complete transformation.

‘Is this a Saint… Truly, beautiful.’

A woman should have such a small frame to be truly feminine. Damian stared at Bigrind for a long time, her appearance matching the ideal of beauty from the era when he was alive.

‘Is it now time for me to end as well?’

He couldn’t be absolutely certain, but it was the highest possibility.

The Saint’s blood would be like poison to him, so if he were to suck her blood, it would be like drinking poison himself.

If a large amount of the Saint’s blood enters his body, he will suffer extreme pain.

The millions of lives he carries will begin to perish one after another, and in the pain of that continuous extinction, eventually even Damian’s life will be burned and dried up.

The death that will come at the end.

How sweet will that death be?

The silence of all things, the stillness of all things, the quiet of all things, the desolation of all things —

The end he had been searching for so long is now revealing itself before him.

Damian closed the wooden box.

Putting down the closed box right beside him, Damian slowly rose to his feet.

Damian, dressed in a dark navy tailcoat, stood up, but no one paid any attention.

Damian walked towards the Saint one step at a time.

Damian approached that red-haired Saint.

Under his tailcoat, something with a sticky consistency like black mud slowly flowed down.

With each step he took, wherever his steps touched, something black and sticky began to spread.