Ch.350Authorized NPC (6)

“Huhuhu! I’ve got something good. And…”

“Don’t get any unnecessary ideas. I have no intention of giving her to you.”

“That’s right! I belong to Jack!”

“Huh? No, that’s not it. Big brother is mine, and I am big brother’s, aren’t I?”

“Oh my♡ What a cute little sister~! Hey Jack, can I hug her too?”

“No!”

“She said no. Don’t reach out.”

The absurd situation where the Chancellor asked to see how Luxuria handled things, and Luxuria tried to take Ira away from me, was resolved surprisingly quickly. Right, if I don’t restrain the Chancellor, Luxuria won’t be able to do anything stupid.

“Ah~! What’s with this middle-aged virgin?! Stop it!! Do you think I’ll be contracted by your magic?!!”

“Hmm, that useless slave was caught easily though.”

“…I’m sorry for being useless.”

“Lili, what? You weren’t properly contracted but were just captured?!”

Perhaps because she knew the demon, Luxuria hadn’t shown hostility toward the Chancellor, but she frowned upon hearing that the pink demon was actually bound by a slave contract. Hmm, but that one deserved becoming a slave.

“Sob sob, I just came because the master of Lust told me to go.”

“Hmm. I certainly did order you to go to the human realm, but…”

“I see. Then, was it your decision to attack my disciple Ira, the sister of that man?”

“…Luxuria. Is that how it is?”

“Lili. No matter whose order from the ‘other Seven Deadly Sins’ it was, you shouldn’t have done that. I’m not sorry at all, but it seems right that you’re being punished like this♡”

“Master of Lust! Y-you, eek! T-trash!!”

Oh my, quick-witted, aren’t you? The speed at which she cuts ties after learning that a demon of her hierarchy has become a slave is no joke. I should have bestowed the name Kyaru on you instead of that Dolph guy.

“Well, anyway. When that man gets tired of you, come to me. I can’t give you regular energy, but if you contract with me and help with my work while receiving my magical power, I’ll help you live in the human realm.”

“Hmm, that’s quite a good offer. I’ll think about it when Jack gets old and dies?”

“…That’s not a good offer.”

“So, is that over now?”

Thinking the situation was more or less over, I gestured toward the high priest raid boss floating behind the Chancellor—no, not jerky. She nodded with a satisfied smile.

“Disciple. Do you know what measures I’ve taken on that thing?”

“Um, a magic recovery sealing formula, mind control magic, regeneration magic, and… I don’t know one of them!”

“Hoho. You did well to answer that much. The remaining one is a control formula for divine power and magical energy. Even if magic recovery is sealed, there’s concern that magical energy could recover in other ways, so I’ve set it up so that when a certain amount of magical energy recovers, it automatically transforms into magic power and is released. It’s my own creation.”

“Wow, that’s amazing! Master, please teach me too!”

“Yes, let’s study together when we’re done here.”

“Hehe! Yes!”

I couldn’t help but smile at the Chancellor’s natural suggestion to take Ira back to Neti. The way she looks at Ira really feels like a mother.

“Now, we should remove the barrier surrounding this capital.”

After ordering the demon slave to guard and monitor the boss who had become jerky, the Chancellor immediately started walking toward where the others were, and I got up from my seat with Ira in my arms and followed behind…

-Flinch.

“Big brother?”

“Ah, no. It’s nothing.”

When I flinched slightly, Ira looked at me with surprise, but I quickly smoothed it over by smiling and patting her head. No, what kind of looks are they giving me? It’s exactly the look carnivores in the mountains used to give when they were hungry. Could they be hungry? Gorg made sandwiches before we came in. Are they hungry after the battle? But even Gorg?

“Hey, husband. You’re going to introduce me to your women, right? They all look scary, like they’re really hungry.”

“Huh? You think so too? But how do you know they’re hung—”

“Big brother is married to me and our sisters, right? Why is the demon lady calling you husband when you’re not married to her?”

“Eh…?”

Luxuria, who had been floating along behind us, froze at Ira’s innocent question that cut me off.

Ira, I’d prefer if you didn’t say such things when the conversation gets twisted like this. It’s mostly—no, entirely my fault, but Ira doesn’t need to know about such messy adult circumstances yet. And brothers and sisters can’t get married.

“But we did! It was an imperial wedding ceremony!”

“Yes, yes. It was a measure to break through the barrier, right?”

When Ira tilted her head back in displeasure at my words, I tickled her until she burst into giggles. This kid, now she’s talking back to her big brother. You’ve really grown up, haven’t you?

“Big brother~! That tickles!!”

“If you say things like that, I’ll keep tickling you?”

“Waaah~!!”

Grabbing my wrist with her small hands and giggling, Ira persisted to the end without correcting herself, and I finally stopped first, thinking she might pass out. Goodness. Our Ira is becoming stubborn like the Chancellor.

“Actually, if I may say so, it’s not Chancellor but Master.”

“It’s you.”

“It’s Jack. I’ve never met anyone more stubborn than Jack in my life?”

No way! Who lives as gently as I do?!

“People never realize their own stubbornness.”

“That’s right. Ragni is really speaking the truth.”

“So, isn’t the low-level demon who’s frozen behind us going to introduce herself?”

“Huh! Oh, hello? I’m Luxuria, in charge of Lust among the Seven Deadly Sins…”

“Hmm. Speaking informally at first meeting?”

“How rude for a demon!”

“She needs education. We need to teach this level 300 demon some awareness…”

“No, it was my fault, so don’t be too hard on Luxuria…”

“Jack, defending that demon now is not right?!”

“Sob sob, I’m sad! We were first!! I’m so sad I feel like stabbing something with my sword! Like that demon!!”

“Eek?!!”

“Master. This seems to be Master’s fault.”

“Hehe. Big brother did wrong!”

“……”

…Ira, are you really saying that knowingly?

I strongly feel like they’re doing this on purpose, but in any case, they’re probably not really going to do anything to Luxuria. Although Rei’s waving her sword with the [Swift Blade] skill activated has made Luxuria’s already blue skin turn even paler, I patted her shoulder with one hand to reassure her.

“Luxuria. The one swinging the sword is Rei. The one who speaks informally while telling you not to speak informally is Ragni, and the golem here is Gorg. For now, they’re all ‘my women’ and they’re good people, so try talking to them.”

“No matter how I look at it, they have the eyes of lionesses wanting to devour a cat who came to steal their lion!”

That’s a strangely appropriate expression?

As Luxuria looked at me with pleading mystic eyes, I smiled at her as kindly as possible and then moved ahead to follow the Chancellor who had gone ahead, while behind me screams erupted as the three women grabbed Luxuria.

I’m sorry!! In a pride of lions, the females are stronger, so I really have no way to help!!

“Big brother.”

“Yes?”

“Are you a bad man?”

“Eh, I don’t think so. Where did you hear that?”

“Grace said so! She said a man who keeps multiple women and runs away when it’s important is a bad man!”

“I see. But since I won’t run away when it really matters, I’m not a bad man. Do you trust your big brother, Ira?”

“Yes! Big brother is definitely a good man!”

As Ira hugged my neck and rubbed her forehead against me, I gently stroked the back of her head and moved forward, ignoring Luxuria’s screams. Now, our business in the Empire is nearing its end.

*

“Disgusting.”

“Is this why you told us to leave Ira outside?”

“Ugh… damn it.”

After following the Chancellor into the imperial palace where the holy law had been almost completely dispelled, Ragni led us to the underground chamber where the ancient relic was located. Ira, Gorg, Rei, the priest we had healed earlier, and Luxuria were waiting outside, while only I, Ragni, and the Chancellor went underground. This is definitely not something Ira should see.

“This must have consumed at least 5,000 people, excluding the Emperor’s lifespan. I don’t know how many times they’ve benefited from this, but if it was like this every time they used it, the number of humans ground up by this device would be incalculable.”

“”……””

The device known as the ancient relic, which had only appeared as text in the game, looked like the inside of a giant pocket watch. The barrier had disappeared after Queen Ragni’s death, but it seems it’s now connected to her father, the Emperor. And the power source for this device is…

“Chancellor, just destroy this. I knew about it from what I’d heard, but if the Empire has survived until now using a device like this, I think the Empire should just disappear into history.”

“…That’s not an easy thing to say. However, I too think this device’s existence is meaningless. Even without such a ‘defective product,’ if one hones spirit magic, even humans could create barriers like the Spirit King’s barrier spread over Neti.”

I had heard about human lifespans and magic power, but seeing how they actually “squeezed” that lifespan and magic power to operate the device, honestly, I want to go outside right now and throw up.

Ah. I momentarily forgot that Eit was originally a dark fantasy world.

The giant gears are visibly tangled in a mess, and the first massive gear that turns is receiving “human blood” from a huge waterwheel-like structure outside and rotating very slowly. And the method of accumulating that blood is to put humans in experiment tubes as large as buildings, physically compress them, and draw only the blood up to the waterwheel. The sight of flesh chunks, bones, and human byproducts floating in that beaker that couldn’t become blood is truly grotesque beyond madness. Fuck, who the hell made such a device?

“I’m sorry. If only the Empire hadn’t found this device.”

“…Assistant, did you not know about this device either?”

“I knew it existed. I knew as knowledge that the power source was human lifespan and magic. I just… I’m seeing how it operates for the first time now.”

“Chancellor. I understand the feeling of wanting to blame Ragni for being royalty, but she’s not lying. If she says she didn’t know, she really didn’t know. So…”

“Yes, I’m not particularly blaming her.”

Just that, if she had known, I would have hoped she’d tell us sooner. After saying that much, the Chancellor deployed hundreds of magic circles at full power toward the device that had protected the Empire for hundreds of years by dyeing its skies with blood.

The ancient relic that had protected the Empire by staining the sky with blood ended today.