episode_0054

*

Kunaat, who had been running down the hallway with Lucia, gradually began to slow his pace, eventually stopping completely and standing still.

He realized that no matter how much he ran, it was no use.

The hallway of the small monastery, which should have ended long ago, never seemed to end no matter how far they ran.

The opposite wall was clearly visible and so close, but no matter how hard they ran, they couldn’t reach it.

Turning back, the Thorn Lord was grinning, his grotesquely distorted head twisting.

The six or so doors on either side of the hallway opened slightly, and grotesque eyeballs were densely packed in the gaps between the doors.

Only one of those, the Priest’s room, was intact.

Thanks to the spell Kunaat had inscribed, the Priest’s room was not visible to the demons’ eyes.

Kunaat only vaguely remembered the location of the Priest’s room, and the door that should have been there was nowhere to be seen.

Kunaat carefully lowered Lucia, whom he had been holding in his arms, and sighed.

“…This is quite a rush, isn’t it?”

Kunaat murmured.

Usually, when a demon caused such an anomaly, the purpose was to slowly pressure the opponent or drive them insane by instilling fear.

But not now. This was close to a declaration of intent to kill them right here.

The hallway slowly began to be covered with filthy blood vessels and disgusting flesh.

It was as if an evil, unclean, and utterly immoral painter from Hell was using the hallway as a canvas to paint a hellish landscape.

“Really, it feels like coming home.”

Kunaat clicked his tongue and recited a hellish spell.

But the sound of hellish music flowing from the gaps in the doors easily scattered Kunaat’s spell.

Lucia was completely frozen, as if her whole body was paralyzed, thanks to the Ebony Wolf instinctively sensing the presence of a demon of a higher rank than herself.

Kunaat patted Lucia on the back and said softly.

“Stand up straight.”

“… Kunaat-ssi.”

“The battle between demons ultimately comes down to asserting one’s presence. It’s best not to face them head-on, but once it comes to this, the moment you get scared or run away, you’re defeated.”

“But my body…”

“The Ebony Wolf seems scared. Well, it’s just a beast that demons in Hell keep as a pet.”

“…”

“But you’re not, are you?”

“Pardon…?”

“You have to overcome it.”

Lucia shook her head and said,

“How can I… I’m so scared.”

“…”

Kunaat sighed silently.

He knew he was asking too much of Lucia.

With the demon exuding fear with all its might, how could any human easily overcome it?

If it were that easy, people wouldn’t be so afraid of demons in the first place.

But the fact was that there was no other way.

And Kunaat also knew one human who actually exuded presence in front of a demon.

“Think of Father Theodore.”

“…!”

“He’s not afraid of demons, so you can do it too.”

“I…”

Lucia paused for a moment, then slowly opened her mouth in a trembling voice.

“…Tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Swear to me that I can do it. Father always swore to me when I was anxious. I believed in that oath and moved forward. So please swear to me too, Kunaat-ssi.”

“Demons don’t easily swear oaths.”

Especially not oaths that are unlikely to be fulfilled.

“I guess… I…”

“However, I can say this.”

“…?”

“If you don’t make it, you’ll die here and be dragged to Hell… And if you die, the Priest will kill me and send me back to Hell.”

“…”

Kunaat took a step forward and continued.

“So if you don’t make it, we both die.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Kunaat grabbed the demon’s neck, which flew at him like lightning, and slammed it to the ground.

A ball with six pairs of wings struggled under Kunaat’s palm before going limp.

Kunaat quietly murmured.

“Here it comes.”

“…What’s coming?”

“What do you think, you idiot?”

Kunaat swung his arm.

“It’s a demon.”

*

The battle between demons was not a simple physical clash.

Fear, dominance, cruelty, impurity, lewdness.

Each asserts their own nature and desires, and the one whose assertion is strong enough to overwhelm the other’s presence wins.

For example, Lilith, as a Succubus, is a demon who asserts a lewd nature and endless lust.

However, Lilith’s presence was insignificant in the face of Kunaat’s nature and desires, so she had no choice but to go under Kunaat.

The Thorn Lord was a possessor of sadistic nature and a cruel desire to endlessly torment others.

His desire did not distinguish between friend and foe, nor did it discriminate between men, women, young, and old, so he had an intense presence that was not inferior to Kunaat’s.

The battle of demons is ultimately determined by who has the more intense nature.

“Ah… Aah,”

Lucia was on the floor, tearing at her hair.

This was because Lucia’s mind was the first to be crushed by the aftermath of the battle between Kunaat and the demons that was unfolding in the middle of the hallway.

All sorts of cruel tortures, horrific tools that deformed the body, and various filthy desires and lewd warnings that poured out towards Lucia and Kunaat.

And Kunaat’s terrifying ambition to repel all of those things filled the hallway.

Lucia felt suffocated.

The essence of Hell and demons was piled up in the hallway, almost to the point of drowning.

Lucia, with the mind of an ordinary human, could only lie on the floor and wait for this time to end.

Often, souls that fell into Hell reacted like Lucia.

No matter how heinous an evildoer they were, they could not withstand the raw malice that the demons exuded.

“Ah… Father, please save me.”

She couldn’t even fathom how much time had passed.

At the same time as an utterly distant sensation that felt like at least ten years had passed, a terrifying premonition that felt like less than a second had passed at the same time swept through her head.

Lucia remembered the Priest’s face and prayed.

If she could fix her broken body, she didn’t care if she fell into Hell.

Lucia desperately realized how arrogant and foolish that thought was.

At the same time, she was feeling great despair that this was a future that would come to her someday.

Lucia’s weak soul was already tattered like a rag just by tasting a mere glimpse of Hell.

“I can’t stand it… This… Never…”

Lucia peed on the floor and shed tears.

Her urine smell was fragrant compared to the stench of Hell.

However, that smell rather caught the attention of the demons.

“Oh dear,”

Kunaat found that the gaze of the demons attacking him was slowly turning towards Lucia.

A virgin’s urine.

That was exactly the kind of smell that demons would like.

Some lewd monsters were already stiffly erecting their genitals and looking at Lucia, smacking their lips horribly.

Kunaat was sweating for once.

That was when it happened.

Far away,

Someone was walking out of that room at the end of the hallway, which now seemed so distant.

“That’s definitely… the Prayer Room?”

Kunaat stared at the pitch-black shadow slowly walking out of the end of the hallway shrouded in darkness.

He felt something was wrong.

It was an intense demonic presence.

Although he couldn’t recognize it because it was hidden in the deep shadows, he could feel its overwhelming authority from the fact that the surrounding demons, who had been eyeing Lucia, were only watching and slowly backing away.

“This is a big problem. I thought the Thorn Lord was a big shot, but… I guess I was really annoying them.”

Kunaat slowly backed away.

He thought only humans feared the darkness,

But unexpectedly, Kunaat felt an indescribable fear from the unknown figure standing in the darkness.

“Ah…”

However, Lucia recognized the figure at once.

She couldn’t fail to recognize someone she had lived with for over ten years.

“…Sola?”

Slowly, Sola approached from the darkness.

However, the closer she got, the more different she looked from Sola.

Her usual playful expression had disappeared without a trace, and her expression was firm, even solemn.

Her disheveled red hair, which looked like a burning sun, had turned gold, as if it had become the sun itself, and her green emerald-like eyes had also turned bright yellow like gold.

A change in her body.

Lucia knew what that meant.

“No… Sola.”

Kunaat laughed in disbelief, as if he were fed up.

“You’re all crazy.”

“Kunaat… Sola is… possessed by a demon…”

“Lucia. It’s all right now.”

“…Yes?”

Kunaat lowered his head.

“I never thought they’d come here in person.”

“…?”

Kunaat grabbed Lucia’s hand, who was confused and couldn’t keep up with the situation, and slowly backed away.

Lucia screamed in horror.

“Kunaat-ssi, why are you going backwards? Behind us… behind us is that monster…!”

“Lucia, that’s more dangerous than the Thorn Lord.”

“…What?”

Sola’s hand slowly moved forward.

At the same time, Kunaat and Lucia felt a strong sense of weight.

A sensation as if something heavy was grabbing their whole body and pulling them down to the ground.

They felt a sense of weight, as if they were wearing dozens of layers of water-soaked cotton clothes at once.

Lucia collapsed helplessly on the floor, and Kunaat also fell to his knees.

“…Damn it,”

Kunaat tried to resist, but it was no use.

If Kunaat was ambition, this was dominance.

If Kunaat was a trick, this was the law.

If Kunaat was a sharply honed dagger, this was a solidly built fortress.

Kunaat was an evil demon, but this was one of the six Demon Kings.

“Am I… that scary?”

As if in response to Kunaat’s sneering, Sola slowly opened her mouth.

“Not you.”

“…!”

“Where is the Priest?”

A deep voice, reminiscent of a man’s, flowed from Sola’s mouth.

Kunaat managed to raise the corners of his mouth, enduring the weight pressing down on his skin.

“One of the six Demon Kings, descending to Earth because you’re afraid of just one human?”

“You too, didn’t you try to keep that human as your right-hand man?”

“Well, for my plan…”

“I didn’t give you permission to speak.”

Kunaat’s neck was cut off in an instant.

Lucia was startled, but could only swallow her breath without even screaming.

Kunaat’s severed head slowly rolled to a stop in front of Lucia’s knees.

The head of Kunaat only moved his lips.

‘Run away.’

Lucia slowly hugged Kunaat’s head and slowly raised her head.

Sola, or rather, the demon possessing Sola’s body, was looking down at Lucia indifferently.

Lucia felt goosebumps, as if ice picks were stuck in her spine, at the sight of her so different from Sola as usual.

“Sola…”

“Ebony Wolf.”

A cold, inorganic voice that didn’t sound like a human voice at all.

Unlike the exaggerated and theatrical tone of Kunaat or the Thorn Lord, it was a dignified yet mechanically strange voice.

Lucia cringed at the strangeness.

“Ugh,”

“I grant you permission to speak. Where is the Priest?”

“The Priest is…”

At that moment, Lucia shut her mouth.

The Priest was definitely in his room,

The Priest’s room was right next door.

Right now, Lucia could even knock on the Priest’s door with her hand.

Then why couldn’t the demons find the room?

Could it be that his room was not visible to the demons?

“…”

If so, she could never say it.

The Priest had risked his life to save the nuns, and she herself could not sell him out.

Lucia closed her eyes tightly.

This was not because of fear, but because she was worried that the demons would notice the location even if her trembling eyes just glanced around the Priest’s room.

Rustle,

She heard a sound as if something was brushing against Lucia’s body, and Lucia’s body slowly began to float.

“Ugh…”

“If you don’t speak, I’ll send you to Hell right away. The Thorn Lord is coveting you.”

She heard a chuckling sound behind Lucia’s back.

She shuddered, recalling the terrible appearance of the Thorn Lord, who had grabbed her a little while ago.

“I won’t wait. The opportunity is over. Girl with the Ebony Wolf. You will go to Hell.”

“…!”

Lucia hugged Kunaat’s head in her arms and steeled herself.

That was when it happened.

Squeak.

Next to Lucia,

She heard the sound of the Priest’s door opening.

“…Father Theodore. You’re there…”

She heard a sound like something exploding.

Lucia slowly opened her eyes, which she had been tightly closed, at the sudden roar.

“Father…?”

She saw the Priest, properly dressed in a well-ironed Soutane and even wearing a Stole.

The Priest was grabbing Sola’s neck with one hand and lifting her up.

In an instant, golden flames spread to Sola’s body.

“There’s no need to go out.”

No one answered the Priest’s words, which he spoke in a low, calm voice.

Neither Lucia nor Kunaat, nor any of the other demons,

They were just trembling and looking at the Priest.

“The Convent of the Goddess does not stop those who enter.”

The Priest continued calmly.

Rosaries were wrapped around both of his hands.

“Under the Goddess’s mercy, I will give each person the salvation that is right for them.”

Lucia wanted to call the Priest and hug him.

She wanted to be comforted and reassured in his arms.

But she couldn’t.

This was because her body was trembling and shuddering non-stop.

It was a shudder caused by fear, not emotion.

The Ebony Wolf residing in her body must have been feeling fear.

Kunaat, who was embraced in her arms, also had a shocked expression on his face.

The demons packed in the hallway, and the Thorn Lord.

Even the Demon King dwelling in Sola’s body opened his eyes wide and silently stared at the Priest.

The Priest slowly raised his fist wrapped in the Rosary and swung it towards Sola’s face.

Sola’s small body flew through the air and was thrown to the end of the hallway, where the Thorn Lord had popped out.

“To put it simply,”

Physical collisions are meaningless in a battle between demons.

However, that only applies to battles between demons.

“Not a single one of you can escape.”