Service (2)

Service (2)

Demons are a race that grows by feeding on the negative emotions of living beings.

Regardless of individual demon temperaments, they are known to bring ruin once they become involved.

‘So even if a demon seems good at first glance.’

There’s a high chance that deep down, they’re only thinking about dragging humans down to the depths.

No matter how pitiful or kind they may appear.

Espin once said it’s best to kill demons on sight.

‘Well, there’s no need to worry about this since I’m already beating them to death or kidnapping them on sight anyway.’

Amber once made the absurd remark that I’m more like a demon lord than a hero because of my behavior.

I think that’s crossing the line no matter how you look at it.

In any case, I can pride myself on living a relatively good life while… well, slightly crossing the line.

‘They’re trying to kill me in the first place. So there’s no need to treat them kindly.’

Thinking that compassion and consideration should be reserved for normal people,

I approached the frozen archbishop in front of me and continued speaking.

“Why are you silent? Are you mute by any chance?”

“……”

I’m not sure if he’s like this because he can’t assess the situation or if he’s paralyzed with fear.

Either way, thinking he’d make excellent prey for me, I was about to bring down my mace when…

– Kwoooooooooooor!

A strange and enormous creature’s roar could be heard.

Below where I was standing, a giant monster resembling an anglerfish opened its mouth, trying to swallow the place where I was.

‘It seems they were being quiet to summon this thing.’

I, who had been wondering why they were silently standing still, as it didn’t make sense otherwise.

Quickly turned my body and escaped using space compression magic.

Then, smiling, I teabagged the archbishop again.

“I thought you were going to do something impressive, but is that all you’ve got?”

“……”

As I kept taunting him repeatedly.

Finally, it seemed to have gotten under his skin, as the archbishop gritted his teeth while looking at me, and then.

He stretched out his hand towards the anglerfish monster and started muttering something.

‘I can’t hear what he’s saying, but I guess he’s telling it to kill me.’

As I was about to respond to such a reaction, thinking it would be fun.

I smiled, thinking that something quite interesting had come to mind.

‘I have to destroy this cathedral anyway.’

Rather than destroying it alone, it might not be bad to use the power of that anglerfish or the archbishop.

I decided to drag the anglerfish around and destroy all the facilities here.

‘Well then, shall we begin?’

The first thing to do is to make the anglerfish and the archbishop lose their minds.

To do that, I decided to use lightning and point explosions to irritate them as much as possible.

I deliberately cast spells at them with moderate power to avoid killing them.

– Arghhhh!

I lowered the power, but didn’t eliminate it completely.

Especially when hit by point explosions, the Agwi would let out extremely loud screams and start twisting its body in all directions.

I was feeling satisfied watching all the surrounding structures get completely destroyed by its movements.

The Archbishop, seemingly realizing this wouldn’t do, took out a bow from his chest and tried to keep me in check.

‘A bow, huh. He’s brought out something interesting.’

Thinking that this was my first time facing a bow, I scattered mana around the area.

‘In this world, bows are nothing but an inferior version of magic.’

When one reaches the peak, everything becomes similar.

Considering that there are only a few who have reached the peak, most bow users cannot escape a certain level.

To put it in perspective, they can become experts, but that’s about it in most cases.

‘In other words, there’s no middle ground.’

There are various reasons for this, but among them, the main ones are:

First, using a bow instead of magic itself means they haven’t received high-level education and investment.

Second, in the case of swords, one simply needs to imbue aura into the sword, but for bows, one needs to imbue aura into the arrows being shot.

The difficulty is much higher compared to swords.

‘Because of that, while there are many experts, those beyond that are extremely rare, creating a strange weapon type with no middle class.’

Well, whatever the case, what’s important now was to think about how to use this situation.

For now, I kept watching and avoiding the attacks.

The arrows that were embedded far away rose into the air and began attacking me again.

‘Could it be that once fired, they keep attacking until they break?’

Judging by the fact that the Archbishop’s magical energy or mana wasn’t connected to the arrows themselves.

It seems that once mana is infused, they move independently as if they have their own will.

I showed interest in the arrows that were continuously multiplying while the number of arrows being shot at me remained the same.

‘If done right, this could be useful in magic as well.’

Thinking that the method seemed similar to undead magic, I was observing this when.

Suddenly, magical energy gathered and shot towards me like a huge beam of light.

I quickly dodged it using space compression magic and my eyes sparkled.

‘A beam?’

I’m not sure about its power, but if used well, it could be quite good.

As I was showing interest, thinking strangely that it felt like I was out shopping.

I saw the Gashadokuro in the distance open its mouth wide, preparing to shoot an even larger beam than the one I had seen earlier.

‘The method itself seems simple: gather magical energy in one place, condense it, and then shoot it out.’

The interesting thing here was that this beam ‘bounces’.

‘In terms of bullets, it would be correct to say it ricochets.’

Watching the beam bounce around and shoot towards me again, I smiled brightly and said to Luna.

“Close your eyes, it might make you dizzy.”

[Ah, you’re trying to research magic again, aren’t you, Master!]

Blatantly ignoring Luna’s words, I began researching this magic and the self-willed arrows I had seen earlier.

‘It seems like it would be quite interesting to apply this to Lightning Mare after acquiring it.’

The biggest drawback of Lightning Mare is that it’s shot to one place and then needs to hit.

If the opponent quickly runs away, it becomes too difficult to land a hit.

‘That’s why I only used it when I was sure I could hit.’

If this works, I wouldn’t need to worry about such things anymore.

‘And if I add the bouncing property to it.’

Originally, there would only be one point explosion.

The moment I apply that, after the explosion, the remaining magical residue would continue to attack…

The power would likely increase by at least double compared to now.

I think this is when you use the phrase ‘mouth-watering’ as I quickly absorbed this while thinking.

The Archbishop, probably thinking this wasn’t good enough,

Pulled out black wings from his back and started to fly upwards.

‘… Oh.’

I couldn’t hide my smile as I found another good spell and felt my eyes rolling again.

Then, taking a deep breath, I made a decision.

‘I really need to capture that guy.’

He probably knows quite a few other spells besides the ones he’s shown so far.

Deciding to raise him like Luna to learn all of these, I loosened my shoulders.

‘First, after checking what spells are available overall.’

I decided to take him to the Illusion Library to extract information and experience.

I was trying to draw up and organize my mana when I heard the Archbishop taunting me with his provocations.

“I’ll grind up all your family and friends and feed them to you every morning!”

In response to those words, I left him with an answer.

“You?”

“……”

Since I was already in a state of anger, even such a trivial provocation seemed to work quite well.

With a roar close to a beastly cry, he began to charge at me while releasing magical energy in all directions.

I looked at him and slowly drew out my mace while manifesting ‘Time Distortion’.

When he tries to approach, he goes back.

If he doesn’t move, he goes back to an even earlier distance.

I enjoyed watching the Archbishop on the verge of death from rage, then.

Thinking it was about time to destroy the cathedral and leave, I manifested Lightning Mare.

‘I should probably catch that guy first and check what’s inside.’

Since an Archbishop was no longer such a difficult opponent for me.

I manifested the spell and stuck it into the Archbishop’s head, then flew forward and spoke to Luna.

“Keep maintaining the search magic.”

[Yes, I’m doing it!]

“Well done. Have you found anything?”

[Nothing except that a massive amount of magical energy is flowing out from the cathedral you blew up earlier.]

“How much is this massive amount of magical energy?”

[At least much more than that Archbishop.]

“That’s right.”

Judging that the real enemy is still likely to be inside that cathedral.

I decided to put the slowly collapsing Archbishop into the mace first.