Ch.181Sister (5)

Balder was confused.

He felt his heart stir suddenly while looking at Ash.

Of course, it wasn’t that Ash had suddenly become stronger or was emanating some hidden power.

As someone who maintained minimal familial affection and had offered him a chance to join the Demon King despite his refusal, Balder didn’t want to miss the amusing spectacle of his pathetic brother’s son being torn apart by his sister’s corpse. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Ash for a single moment, and Ash still looked weak and inadequate as he staggered and finally dropped to one knee.

However, Balder detected an unfamiliar yet somehow familiar energy flowing from Ash’s figure.

His heart stirred with an unidentifiable emotion that made him uneasy.

Is this fear?

Me? Afraid of Ash?

Why on earth?

Balder wasn’t underestimating Ash.

Looking at him coldly and objectively, it was difficult to feel any intimidation from Ash’s appearance.

Wondering if that crazy woman Alice might be plotting something, he glanced behind him, but Alice was still bound in midair, thoroughly wrapped in Balder’s threads.

At that moment, Balder noticed cold sweat running down his forehead.

“…What,”

Balder startled and focused his gaze back on Ash.

But Ash was merely slowly rising on his trembling legs.

“What did you do? No, you didn’t do anything…?”

Balder was confused.

This inexplicable fear felt strange and unpleasant.

He gritted his teeth.

Whatever trick this was, it must be just a deception.

Perhaps it was just the faint conscience remaining within him that made him reluctant to kill his only surviving blood relative.

Thinking this, Balder forcibly calmed his trembling body.

After letting out a small sigh, he commanded Maria’s corpse, which was controlled by the threads emanating from his fingers.

Maria’s corpse looked straight at her younger brother and chanted a spell.

Liquid swirled in the air, gathering into a massive sphere that continued to expand.

The sphere, which easily surpassed the size of a person, grew endlessly.

From Ash’s perspective, it would appear to cover almost the entire sky.

It was an amount equivalent to drawing in all the water from a vast lake.

A level that couldn’t be imitated by ordinary magic,

Balder smiled at Maria’s overwhelming magical power, befitting someone who had dared to challenge the Demon King.

Whatever trick Ash was trying to pull, it would be useless.

Without even approaching him or lifting a finger, Ash would surely drown.

As Alice’s spell ended, the massive water sphere began to fall toward the ground.

Ash still couldn’t move.

He just stood there foolishly, staring with an unwavering gaze at the overwhelming mass of water falling toward him.

Ash opened his mouth wide.

Balder thought he was about to scream.

But the words that came from Ash’s mouth were rather unexpected.

“I believe.”

Simultaneously, the water sphere exploded in midair.

“Argh!”

Balder and Maria were swept away by the suddenly exploding water that spread in all directions, tumbling to the ground.

Thanks to the new body bestowed by the Demon King, he didn’t die, but it was by no means a light impact.

Embedded in the ground and rolling roughly, Balder raised his head, enduring the pain to understand what had happened.

However, all he could see was a massive darkness.

“…What is this…”

It wasn’t darkness.

It was the ground.

A huge pillar of earth that hadn’t been visible just moments ago was now towering high.

This earth pillar had shot up instantly and burst the water sphere.

Magic? No, Ash definitely hadn’t chanted any spell.

Had Maria’s magic malfunctioned somehow? Had Alice done something?

No, all of that was impossible.

Balder felt fear again at the fact that he had no idea what Ash had done.

“…Ah, this fear…”

Balder finally realized the nature of the fear he was feeling.

This unfamiliar yet familiar fear.

It was definitely a type of emotion he had felt before.

For some reason, as blasphemous as it was,

“…Demon King…sir?”

This stirring was similar to what he had felt when he first faced the Demon King.

“What nonsense am I talking! That’s impossible.”

Balder shook his head roughly, denying his impudent thought.

Then he tried to check if the threads from his fingertips were still connected to Maria.

Maria was a puppet corpse.

A special undead created by the Demon King, who had forcibly bound her soul and trapped it in that body because he valued Maria’s abilities.

Even without Balder’s control, she could fight to some extent, but that would be no more than an animal without intelligence randomly casting spells. She was a doll that could only fulfill her purpose with Balder’s control.

So Balder sent magic through his threads to sense Maria.

“…Good, still connected.”

Having located Maria, Balder ran toward her, circling around the massive earth pillar blocking his view.

However, what Balder saw was something he could never have anticipated.

“…Ha, good heavens.”

Ash was burning Maria.

Balder let out an involuntary laugh.

The nephew Ash he knew was a kind-hearted fool.

Just like his pathetic father, he was a boy without ambition who considered greed a sin.

When the Demon King learned that such an Ash was coming toward him with Alice and Silvia, he ordered Balder to use Maria to kill Ash, and Balder thought the Demon King’s order was justified.

He believed that the weak Ash would surely be unable to harm his sister.

However, it seemed Balder had misjudged him.

Balder slowly approached Ash.

From the sensation of the threads connected to his fingertips, Maria could still move.

Whatever Ash had done, it didn’t matter.

He wasn’t an immortal being after all.

Planning to divert Ash’s attention for that brief moment and then ambush him with Maria’s magic, Balder slowly moved toward Ash and clapped his hands.

“You have more guts than I thought, Ash.”

Despite the clapping sound, Ash’s gaze remained fixed on the burning Maria.

Ash’s expression was frozen, almost cold, and Balder found satisfaction in it.

Of course, even Ash couldn’t remain unaffected after burning his own sister.

Ash was surely in mental turmoil.

Balder began to provoke him, mocking Ash’s transparent expression and trying to draw his attention.

“…Ash, I didn’t know you were such a madman.”

“Balder…”

“You should call me uncle, didn’t you use to call me that when you were little?”

“…”

Ash didn’t answer.

Balder decided to escalate.

“Even so, to burn your own sister.”

“…”

“You have no blood or tears.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“Look at your manners. Well, your father was such a pathetic man, so it’s not surprising.”

Ash’s face slowly turned toward Balder.

Balder smiled, baring his teeth.

“Still, you had more guts than your father. Your father just begged me to save him while he was dying.”

“…”

“When I told him I’d spare his life if he licked the spit I spat on my shoe, he crawled over and buried his head in my shoe to lick it. Hahaha, I wondered what he’d been eating to get so fat, but it seems he was just a fool who ate whatever he saw.”

“…You,”

Ash’s face, which had been stiff, began to contort fiercely.

That night when they fled with Laila, leaving their parents behind during the attack by unknown people.

He must have just realized that Balder had been there.

“Don’t look at me like that, insolent nephew. I kept my promise.”

Balder spread his arms dramatically, like an actor on stage.

It was cheap acting, solely to provoke Ash.

“Yes, I didn’t kill your father on the spot. He and your mother became nourishment for the weakened Demon King.”

“…!”

Balder slowly raised both arms as if feeling ecstasy.

Though it was an act to provoke Ash, the ecstasy was genuine.

He truly believed that offering up that pathetic man he didn’t even want to call family had given him a more dignified end than he deserved by hastening the Demon King’s revival.

“Why…”

“Hmm?”

“Why did you do such a thing?”

“What do you mean? Betraying the kingdom? Using my niece like a doll? Or killing your parents?”

“All of it!”

Ash’s shout had considerable force, but it fell far short of the fear Balder had felt earlier.

So it was just an illusion after all.

The rising earth pillar must have been just a pre-set trap.

Balder looked at Ash with some relief.

“Ash… unlike those foolish humans, I saw the truth.”

“…Truth?”

“The truth that humans will eventually be defeated, the truth that the Demon King will ultimately rule this world.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, the Demon King was on the verge of death at Silvia’s hands. Humans weren’t weak enough to lose to such a pathetic being,”

“And yet, the kingdom you lived in collapsed with just a little instigation from me.”

Ash closed his mouth.

Balder didn’t close his at all.

“I seduced the prince. That violent fool fell for it when I told him that if the Demon King created chaos, people would want a radical leader rather than a peace-loving king. That alone greatly damaged the royal authority.”

“…”

“I cleverly revealed that the Goddess Church was hiding the truth about the Demon King’s revival. The church, which had been focused only on building power in place of the unstable royal family, collapsed with that one blow, and the kingdom, having lost both order and faith, began to collapse under its own weight—by human hands, not by monsters.”

“…”

“I cannot understand how such pathetic creatures could be better than the Demon King.”

“That’s not what I asked, you bastard.”

Ash growled, baring his teeth roughly.

He looked like a small fox-like animal.

“I asked why you hurt our family.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why did you do it, why did it have to be our home? We were your family too. I called you uncle and followed you. Sister Maria too!”

Balder spoke with a genuinely contemptuous expression.

“Why? Ha, our dear nephew seems to think he’s some special being. You fool, someone like you wasn’t even a consideration in my story.”

“What…?”

“It was just that the territory I was familiar with was easy to invade. As a relative of the Staff family, I wouldn’t be suspected. And I clearly gave your father a chance. As you said, we were brothers after all. But that fool flatly refused. He was an idiot who was satisfied with the position of a mere count’s cook rather than reigning alongside the Demon King.”

“…”

“Well, in the end, that’s all the caliber of man he was. Once I knew that, I didn’t feel much guilt about sacrificing him. What could he have accomplished if he had lived anyway? Could he have left any achievements? At best, he might have baked some amazing strawberry tarts.”

Balder spat on the ground.

He genuinely found his brother, Ash’s father, so contemptible that he didn’t even want to mention him.

“…I’ll kill you.”

Ash’s body slowly turned toward Balder.

Balder slightly twitched his fingertips so Ash wouldn’t notice.

Maria was ready.

If he gave the command, Maria could immediately fire magic at Ash.

Balder decided to provoke Ash a bit more, smiling with satisfaction.

When he completely turned his back on Maria, he would unleash her magic on his back.

Dying at the hands of his sister, who was also a historically renowned great mage—like his father, Ash too would meet a death beyond his station.

Balder spoke while suppressing his laughter, his lips twitching.

“Am I wrong? If your father had the kind of courage you have, willing to burn your sister, he wouldn’t have died so miserably. Ah, come to think of it, on the day you abandoned your parents and ran away, I remember there was an incredibly ugly little brat?”

“…!”

Ash’s face and body completely turned toward Balder.

“From now on, watch your mouth.”

“Oh?”

“If you utter even one word about Laila, I’ll burn your tongue to the root.”

Balder laughed until his mouth split and clenched his fingers.

Behind Ash, Maria, engulfed in flames, quietly rose.

Balder shouted mockingly at Ash.

“What happened to that brat? Did you burn her to death like your sister!”

In that moment, Maria’s body was once again engulfed in flames as if exploding.

The hellishly hot flames rose as if they would never extinguish, and they traveled along the threads connected to Maria.

Startled by the flames that instantly reached his hand, Balder cut the threads.

“Ugh!”

At that moment, Balder was hit by what felt like a massive hammer of wind and flew backward.

He tumbled on the ground but didn’t roll.

Before he could roll, Ash had already approached and stopped him by stomping on his head.

Ash pressed down firmly on Balder’s head.

Feeling his forehead being crushed against the small pebbles in the dirt, Balder let out a small groan.

Through the groans, Ash’s low voice could be heard.

“Yes.”

“…”

“I burned Laila to death.”

“…What?”

“Maybe that’s why I didn’t feel much resistance to burning Sister Maria.”

“…”

“Should an uncle be any different?”

Balder’s heart stirred violently.

.