Ch.120Chapter 120: An Unexpected Invitation (4)

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The demon god Renium, who had judged me as harmless by his own standards, followed up with behavior that was the epitome of strangeness.

After his judgment, Renium, who had maintained a mischievous expression, suddenly hardened his face.

A strange light flickered in his eyes, which were as black as his hair, as he stared at something.

Although his expression had hardened, I was relieved that it didn’t show any hostility toward me.

Even though I was directly in his line of sight, he seemed to be observing something that I couldn’t see.

“Hmm…? It’s started. So impatient. How unlike its master…”

Judging by the incomprehensible words he kept muttering, he was clearly observing something.

What that might be, I couldn’t tell, which was truly regrettable.

I almost felt annoyed at him for doing something else while I was right in front of him.

But considering who I was dealing with, any thought of expressing displeasure quickly subsided within me.

Right now, I was only concerned with how to escape from this place without showing my emotions.

Being in front of a transcendent being and unable to do anything was extremely difficult for me to endure.

After bringing me here with a voice mixed with all kinds of malice,

He now displayed the bizarre behavior of treating me with casual indifference, as if asking what I had for dinner.

After silently observing me for quite some time, all he said was that I was a harmless being to him, nothing more.

And now he was pretending I didn’t exist, dragging out time with unnatural behavior.

The way Renium was stalling, acting as if he wasn’t doing anything in front of me, made me suspicious that he had some purpose for intentionally dragging things out.

You know what they say.

Always be wary of situations that seem suspiciously favorable.

Judging from my life experiences accumulated before my regression,

I had an intuition that whenever things seemed to be going well, there was always something behind it.

‘Fafnir.’

[What is it?]

‘Do you think something’s about to happen?’

[You think so too? I feel the same. These high-ranking beings with twisted personalities always have a habit of speaking in riddles.]

‘So, I have a favor to ask.’

[I’ll do whatever I can.]

‘Well…’

*Snap!*

My attempt to ask Fafnir for a favor in preparation for any contingency was interrupted by a crisp snap of fingers.

“You seem to have a lot you want to say.”

Renium’s expression returned from its hardened state to one overflowing with mischief as he spoke, rendering my attempt futile.

“Tsk…”

The displeasure of being interrupted made me click my tongue without realizing it.

“Don’t click your tongue in displeasure. Why not take a look around? For a human, observing such a mystical place is a rare experience.”

After lightly chiding me, Renium’s gaze quickly fixed back on me rather than some distant, unreachable place.

“You find it suspicious that I brought you to a place like this, acted like I was about to do something, but then did nothing? Well, I won’t deny that.”

…He seemed to have read the very doubts that had been rising in my mind, hitting the nail on the head.

Though his words were wrapped in a playful voice filled with baseless levity,

His statement accurately pierced through my psychology, which had been colored by anxiety and led to all sorts of imaginings after being dragged to this unknown place.

“…”

So I remained silent, temporarily halting my thoughts.

“I promise you this: No matter what happens, neither I nor my subordinates will directly harm you.”

Renium’s voice returned to a flat tone as he immediately stated that neither he nor his subordinates, the Ma-in, would harm me.

“To be precise, it’s not that we won’t, but that we can’t.”

“…Can’t?”

“Yes, we can’t anymore. I was planning to take care of some business while keeping a promise to a business partner, but it turned out I wouldn’t gain anything from it.”

…Sigh.

Despite having experienced being bound and exploited by Desire in the previous timeline,

Dealing with a transcendent being who casually talks about “taking care of me” right in front of me is exhausting, both then and now.

To be honest,

It’s best not to trust the declarations of a demon god and his subordinates.

Not only did they force me into an unwanted life as an agent,

But after I believed their promise to grant me one wish if I successfully completed the mission they imposed, and endured the role of a bystander who shed tears of blood without resisting the malice that invaded my body,

When I finally accomplished everything and was asked what wish I wanted fulfilled, they frustrated even my modest request to just let me die, saying I didn’t need anything else.

Even now, if I recall the moments of suffering at the hands of that being who should still be in deep sleep in that obsidian palace in this timeline,

And under him, a certain quasi-deity who inflicted all kinds of atrocities, my teeth still grind.

After his brief declaration, Renium’s expression remained unchanged even as he saw disbelief rising in mine.

“You must have been deceived a lot. But rest assured. Despite appearances, I am a being whose physical interference in the material world is restricted, unlike my other colleagues. Even just conversing with you like this and exerting some influence is extremely difficult for me.”

“So you won’t get involved with me because simply having a conversation is troublesome and difficult?”

“If you were harmful to me, it would be proper to restrain or eliminate you despite such trouble and difficulty, but that’s not the case.”

*Ahem*

After speaking at length, Renium cleared his throat with a fake cough, taking a brief pause.

Seeing a being wrapped in divine status, who should fear nothing, judging the harmfulness and harmlessness of a subject through criteria that I, not being the subject, couldn’t understand,

I almost found myself smirking bitterly, but,

“However, now that I know the miracle of you returning to the past with memories of your failure has nothing to do with my power, even I cannot arbitrarily restrain you.”

That bitter smirk turned into emptiness due to Renium’s subsequent explanation.

From the first day I experienced the miracle of regression,

From the moment I saw the Ma-in Laplace, who appeared to eliminate the precious person I had vowed to protect,

I had been building up my strength in anticipation of a confrontation with this demon god, who was also Laplace’s master.

Yet the very person in question showed no hostile intent toward me whatsoever.

“For someone who boasts of governing the concept of time, you don’t seem capable of much.”

“That’s my dilemma.”

Even when I deliberately provoked him to gauge his true intentions, instead of showing anger, the demon god’s response was almost agreeable, making him seem incredibly frivolous.

“While I can do whatever I want with time, something that no great being in the world can manipulate freely, I’ve been assigned the role of an observer who can do nothing proactively except eliminate threats related to my continued existence.”

“…Threats related to your existence?”

“Yes…”

*Ahem*

Clearing his throat again with a brief fake cough, Renium shed some of the playfulness he had maintained throughout our conversation.

“From the first day you experienced the miracle of defying time, my loyal subordinate intervened in this timeline to eliminate the woman by your side, and that was related to this matter.”

He shifted the atmosphere with words that subtly irritated my nerves.

“…What?”

The content of his words was so shocking that I unconsciously frowned and responded with a brief question.

But my frown didn’t seem to bother him at all.

“She’s just too strong. Your fiancée, I mean. If left alone, she would become a formidable being that even my colleagues and I couldn’t touch, threatening us.”

Renium merely shrugged his shoulders after saying this.

Though his words were still ambiguous and difficult to understand in some aspects,

I couldn’t deny that they were the most pleasing words I had heard since being transported to this unknown place.

“That’s good news.”

I sneered at Renium, who had shrugged his shoulders.

It was literally truly good news.

Shizu, who as a Holy Sword Knight was destined to shoulder the mission of driving away the darkness that had fallen over this land and restoring light.

How could I not be pleased to hear that in the not-too-distant future, she would admirably fulfill her mission and drive beings like the demon god before me from this land?

That’s why I responded without a moment’s hesitation to Renium’s fragmentary revelation about Shizu’s future.

“…Khuhu. A natural reaction, I suppose.”

“To beings like you with excessive power, this world is no different than something made of fragile paper.”

“That’s correct. Absolutely correct.”

*Clap clap clap*

Despite my hostile response, Renium showed no anger; instead, he kept clapping his hands with an expression of admiration.

As I said before,

This demon god’s reactions to each of my words are extremely dramatic yet biased.

He continues to display behavior that seems to contain only joy and pleasure, two of the basic elements of emotion possessed by intelligent life forms, namely joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure.

“But you know, as you said, while this world is somewhat fragile for beings like me to manipulate, for us who have nowhere else to go, it’s the only remaining escape and sanctuary.”

Of course, he’s not just expressing admiration toward me; he’s also making his own points, so should I call him diligent?

“Among those who most annoyingly interfere with our attempt to establish our ideal in this sanctuary, your fiancée ranks among the most troublesome throughout all time.”

“I’m glad to hear she grows so admirably that you find her annoying.”

“Is that so? Hehehe, of course you would think that way. Well, anyway, that’s why I personally sent my subordinate to eliminate her to ensure a comfortable and peaceful future, but thanks to you, it failed.”

Renium’s mouth continued with a lengthy explanation of why things had unfolded differently from what I remembered since my regression.

From dispatching his loyal subordinate Laplace to eliminate Shizu,

To lamenting how the plan, which he had believed would surely succeed, ended in failure due to an unexpected ‘irregular’ like me, derailing the first step toward a peaceful future,

To how, after experiencing failure, he investigated me with burning anger for interfering with his plan, realized I had traveled back in time,

And how he had summoned me here intending to eliminate me, identified as someone who had reversed time outside his jurisdiction,

But upon facing me, found himself in a very troublesome situation as he had no grounds to restrain me, who had experienced a miracle using power unrelated to him.

Listening to this story that continued without pause, from one word to the next,

I could only conclude that despite the twisted deity before me showing no hostility and even displaying subtle goodwill,

I would eventually have to confront this twisted deity.

Even in the moment when I had let go of everything and calmly accepted death,

How could I accept and respect a being who declares they will eliminate someone precious to me, someone who only wished for happiness, because she is an obstacle to building their ideal?

[Young one. Your heart is being stirred. Stay calm.]

Fafnir, who had not spoken a word during my conversation with Renium, was now speaking in my mind to steady my wavering heart, but,

*Thump thump*

Despite my deliberately composed expression, my heart wouldn’t stop pounding, commanding me to regard the being before me as an enemy.

And Renium, watching me closely, seemed to sense this as well.

“Oops, you’re angry, aren’t you? Well, it would be stranger if you weren’t upset when someone openly talks about harming someone dear to you.”

He continued speaking in a flat tone, still not dropping his mischievous expression.

Words that would continue endlessly if I didn’t take any action.

This is troublesome.

While his declaration not to harm me seemed genuine,

Nothing good could come from staying too long in this suspicious space completely cut off from the outside.

“It seems your business is done. If you can’t do anything more to me, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me leave here without wasting energy…”

So I subtly requested to be released from this suspicious place.

“I’d like to, but I can’t right now.”

His response was frustratingly ambiguous.

What’s that supposed to mean? Either you can or you can’t.

I was about to frown and press Renium more strongly for his ambiguous answer, but,

“If I release you now, it’s obvious you’ll ruin the grand festival that’s about to take place there.”

The chilling words that came from his mouth, though metaphorical, were immediately understandable.

“…!!”

They made me draw the dragon sword from my waist and point it at his neck.