Ch.150Turning Point (1)

# Turning Point (1)

Extra died.

That fact hit the hero party quite hard.

“Yes… I thought something like this might happen someday.”

The death of a comrade.

Whether their time together was brief or their interactions shallow, a comrade who ate meals together and blazed trails alongside them had died.

It was their first experience with this.

“…”

Esmeralda blamed herself.

She couldn’t help it. This was her first experience with loss.

And at that crucial moment, she hadn’t even been there.

She had fallen, her ankle caught.

And when she finally returned, all she could confirm was her comrade’s death.

“Hah…!”

Esmeralda questioned herself.

She had to doubt her qualifications.

She trembled at her own incompetence and had to once again face the weight of responsibility she carried.

“What a pathetic sight I am.”

It was a self-deprecating remark.

Words directed at herself, so shocked by what had happened.

Was this the extent of her resolve?

Had she only understood things intellectually?

“Garnet.”

“Yeah.”

Esmeralda called to Garnet with a suppressed voice.

Self-blame was enough. She could grieve later.

Her duty wasn’t to despair or suffer, but to meticulously refine their plans to prevent this from happening again.

Rather than hastily improvising strategies like they had, they needed to develop tactics that would allow them to move organically no matter what opponent they faced.

For that reason, she couldn’t afford to falter here.

Whoosh!

Garnet’s flames began to cremate Extra’s body.

They couldn’t just leave his remains behind. But they also couldn’t bury him in this wasteland.

At least not in a place he would want.

Yes, even though it was gone now, they should bury him at the site where Abaddon once stood. That’s why they were cremating him.

To continue this journey with him and see the conclusion at the end.

Esmeralda spoke with an expression even more solemn than usual.

“Things have become truly dangerous now. The proof is right before us. So… so let’s support each other more.”

The hero party needed greater unity. Although they assisted each other in battle, they needed to maintain that support during ordinary times as well.

“Because I don’t want to lose anyone else…”

***

A “sense” so sharp it bordered on future prediction. While considered Tina’s signature ability, the one who had mastered it to the extreme was none other than someone in the Demon King’s army.

“Still getting in the way.”

Legion Commander Second.

He pushed aside the overgrown vegetation with his hands as he made his way forward.

A place thick with plants. In the demon realm, vegetation symbolizes death more than life.

Due to the environmental characteristics of the demon realm, only poisonous plants adapted to demonic energy can grow.

The forest is a place of death.

And in the middle of this place of death, someone had made their home.

“Hmm… more decorations?”

In the middle of the forest stood a massive tent made of colorful fabrics.

Sparkling lights enhanced its splendor, and whimsical structures erected near the entrance seemed to hint at the tent’s identity.

Most would probably recognize it as a circus tent.

“Sigh…”

If only it weren’t for that deathly silence.

Sparkling lights and moving whimsical structures.

But not a single sound.

As if no one lived there at all.

Yes, why hide it?

“Just looking at this place could give someone depression…”

This was Legion Commander Third’s tent.

The home of an outcast, considered a heretic even among the Trickster race.

Though the Demon King’s army had provided her with a mansion, she seemed more comfortable in her tent, likely due to her racial characteristics.

“Oh! Robeno!”

Upon opening the tent, the first thing visible was the pitiful figure of Third, crouched in the center of the circus ring where all the lights converged.

But realizing Second had come, she immediately perked up as if nothing had happened and bounded toward him.

“You came?”

“I told you to call me Second, didn’t I?”

“Kyaang!”

Second muttered as he blocked Third’s face with one hand as she tried to throw herself at him with exaggerated enthusiasm.

For demons, names hold little meaning.

But it’s different when the name is given by the Demon King. It becomes both a shackle and an honor, as well as a symbol.

That’s why most Legion Commanders, including First, willingly accepted those somewhat ridiculous names.

The only ones who grumbled about accepting their names were either originally human like Garnet or those who harbored ulterior motives from the beginning.

Of course, even Garnet accepted her name despite complaining.

The only exception might be Despair Undertaker, Legion Commander Six and Nine, the traitor, but the only person who knows this is Esmeralda, who confirmed it through the Emerald Tablet.

“Uuu…”

Third rolled on the ground clutching her face, then quickly wiped it dry before looking up.

There stood her childhood friend, looking as gruff and standoffish as ever, gazing down at her.

“I, I haven’t caused any trouble, you know?”

Like a thief with a guilty conscience, Third began making excuses despite having done nothing wrong in response to his stern expression.

But Second, apparently used to her behavior, simply shrugged, then sat down and patted her head.

“Lacrima.”

“…”

The word from his lips was none other than Third’s original name.

The name she had used before becoming a Legion Commander—her roots and her pain.

A clown given the name “Tears.” The mark of a heretic.

But at the same time, it was a memory shared only between the two of them.

“Second…?”

Despite him calling her by her birth name, Third—no, Lacrima—called him “Second” with a trembling voice.

Second had always insisted she call him by his proper name.

Because he knew what it meant.

And when someone who understood that meaning called her Lacrima instead of Third, it could only mean one thing.

“You were never suited for the military to begin with.”

“W-wait… Second? W-what are you saying?”

An innate sense.

A chill of unease. Feeling this, Second didn’t hesitate.

“You’d be better off discharged.”

He would save his friend. So he would sever the chains between her and the Demon King’s army.

They were a heretic and a promising talent from their respective races. A contradictory relationship that flourished precisely because they occupied opposite positions.

Second had joined the army for Third’s sake. The promising talent, predicted to be the next leader of his race, had abandoned his position for none other than Third, who was discriminated against even within her own race.

There were issues with accepting her among the werewolves.

But he couldn’t abandon her when she had been rejected by her own kind.

The only way for her to survive in that situation was to join the Demon King’s army, and Second, worried about her, gave up his position and enlisted alongside her.

He forcibly suppressed racial issues using the Demon King’s authority.

And now, as Legion Commanders Second and Third, the two of them were no longer disrespected by anyone.

Because they had built up that much strength.

“I’m sick of playing along with your unfunny attitude.”

“What…?”

They had joined the Demon King’s army for survival. More precisely, he had chosen that path for Third’s survival.

That was probably the right answer. He trusted his instincts.

And now those instincts were telling him to take the opposite path.

‘Force, Twelve, and Eleven.’

It hadn’t been long since the three of them went to subjugate Abaddon.

What happened to them didn’t matter, but what came next did.

If they failed to return and the army advanced into the human realm.

Yes, if that happened…

‘You will die.’

That’s what he sensed.

So he decided to remove Third from the Demon King’s army. It was certainly selfish, but his first priority had always been Third’s survival, not the Demon King.

Of course, it wouldn’t be easy.

The power and privileges Third possessed. And everything she had enjoyed.

Giving those up wouldn’t be simple. There was a reason why Leviathan, the King of Abaddon, denounced the Demon King’s army.

He could denounce them because he pointed out the system where, once enlisted, one could hardly leave before death.

And that problem was more pronounced for high-ranking officials. Garnet herself believed that if she returned to the Demon King’s army, there would be no place for her, and she would instead be purged.

“A brat like you who can’t respect discipline and does whatever they want will only hold us back in the future.”

So he would cut her loose.

He would free her through his decision, not hers.

“So it’s a ranking battle. Prove that you deserve that position. If you fail… never set foot in the army again.”

It was an arbitrary act.

Unforgivable. But Third—Lacrima—wouldn’t know.

She was never suited for the military and didn’t understand military discipline.

It was obvious just from how casually she used their former names.

“S-Second… Am I stupid? I’ll do better from now on… I won’t call you by your old name or joke around anymore…”

She knows nothing.

And it’s better that way.

“Not even funny.”

Yes, better that way.

‘I’ll take all the responsibility. So you…’

He just wanted her to live, even if it meant this.