Chapter 5: The Elves’ Sacred Treasure
The following day—
As they all went to sleep late at night after the dinner party, Diablo had just woken up after noon. He could hear music in the distance, and, sitting up in the bed, he could feel Rem’s breathing tickling his ear.
“Meow... Nnn... Ah, good morning, Diablo.”
“Hmm.”
“...It’s rather lively today, it seems.”
“I’m sure Shera will know the reason.”
A princess wasn’t allowed to spend the night in the same room as another man right before her wedding day. Shera wanted to be with them like always, but last night the queen insisted on spending the night with her instead.
Rose stood against the wall, as she didn’t need sleep and instead received her magical energy from Diablo.
“Good morning, Master. Rose awaits Master’s commands.”
“Hmm. What is the meaning of this disturbance?”
“Rose will proceed to purge and silence them.”
“That’s not what I meant...”
There was a knock on the door, and Rose walked over to welcome their guest. Rafflesia, the Dark Elf, raised her hand in greeting.
“Good morning, friends. I heard your voices and reckoned you were finally awake. Hohoho... You are quite the sleepyheads, given you are Adventurers.”
“Hmph... Being a Demon Lord is demanding work. Getting proper rest is part of my duties.”
“Well, our food has been prepared. Or do you still need more sleep?”
Rem jumped out of bed at the offer of food. Diablo adjusted his clothes and went out into the common room after them.
They all sat around the table, their meal consisting, as was usual in these lands, of different fruits. They were certainly good, but Diablo was surprised the Elves never got tired of them.
Rafflesia sat opposite of him, her massive breasts resting on the table. “My, this is convenient... Perhaps I should get a table like this for my room back home.”
“They’re heavy, are they?”
“Ohohoh... Would you like to try picking them up? They’re quite bountiful.”
“B-Bountiful!?”
Diablo leaned forward despite himself, only to feel Rem’s cold glare stab into him.
...Staaaaare.
“Master...” He could feel a terribly menacing aura coming from Rose as well.
Putting his best efforts forward to kill his sorrow, Diablo pretended to laugh scornfully.
“H-Hmph... I do not care for such frivolities. I’m a Demon Lord after all!”
“...Incidentally, do you know why there’s such a ruckus out there?” Rem shifted her gaze outside. “Is it like this all the time in the Elves’ country?”
“Singing and dancing are the norm here, but this is a rather special occasion. They’re celebrating the wedding.”
“...Wedding?”
“Princess Shera’s of course. Apparently the ceremony will be held the day after tomorrow... Did you not know? I’ve heard the Elves discuss it here and there.”
“That fast!?”
It usually took at least a year to prepare a program for a wedding, or three months if one were in a hurry. And with royal weddings, it wouldn’t be surprising for it to take many more years to prepare, especially with how long-lived the Elves are.
“It’s been half a month since the king passed away. If you were to neglect watering a flower for two weeks, what do you think would happen?”
“...So that’s why they’re in a hurry. How absurd. They’re tending to Shera’s life like it’s a garden to maintain.”
“Ohohoh... Leaders are essentially slaves. They’re expected to sacrifice themselves for the well-being of the people, and aren’t allowed to run away.”
“...This is far too impatient, even if it is for the good of the forest.”
“It could be more than just that, you know.”
“...I do not know very much about the Elves. Could you teach me about them, Lady Rafflesia?”
Rafflesia rested both of her hands on top of her impressive breasts, then rested her shapely chin on them.
“I’m not an Elf, so all I know are stories I’ve heard from the past.”
“...That will be more than enough.”
“Rumor had it that the Kingdom of Greenwood was entrusted with something very important from God, and ordered to defend it forevermore. The presence of a king was necessary to do so.”
“Something...important?”
Diablo bit into a nut, then crushed and swallowed it, before rising to his feet.
“I will not rely on rumors and hearsay. Let us have Shera and the queen explain it to us. Whether that will convince me or not is another matter.”
†
They all walked through the forest, guided by Shera. When they approached the queen’s room to ask for an explanation, Shera told them:
“I have something I have to show you. Could you follow me?”
For the past hour, they walked through the emerald forest. Eventually, they reached a mound made up of large rocks. It looked to be an Elven monument of some sort. Diablo inferred it had been there for many years, judging by the vines and moss covering it.
“It should be here...”
Shera walked behind the monument, her face unusually serious. There, she found a stone door with a peculiar pattern etched on it. Diablo couldn’t see it clearly because of the moss covering the door, but it did seem familiar.
—Isn’t this the same as the holy mark from Lumachina’s church?
When Shera laid her hands on it, the stone door opened to the sides with an ease Diablo wouldn’t have assumed from its aged appearance. A staircase leading down had revealed itself.
It was similar to Diablo’s personal dungeon, the Demon Lord’s Labyrinth. Could this be the Elves’ dungeon? If so, there could be monsters lying in wait. He had the Tonnerre Empereur in hand, just in case.
They descended down the stairs. It was dark, so after confirming with Shera that there were no problems doing so, Diablo cast a Light spell.
The staircase led underground, with brick-like, triangular stones—set together so as to leave no gaps—making up the walls. It was clear to see this wasn’t a natural cavern, but an artificial structure. It was quite wide, so while casting spells in a cramped space was usually dangerous, as it could hit himself and his allies, that wouldn’t be much of a problem here. Diablo had become used to unconsciously confirming these things, which he never had to consider when playing the game.
The ceiling drew an arch, and was also made of painstakingly carved stone. Unlike the structure’s exterior, there were no vines or moss there.
Lowering his gaze and examining along the walls, he saw an oblong stone. It was roughly at waist height, and was too low to be a work table. So what could it have been used for?
“...Isn’t this a bit strange?” Rem asked, looking up at the ceiling. “I’d assume an Elven structure would have tree roots serving as the ceiling.”
“That may mean this place wasn’t built by the Elves.”
“Huh? But isn’t that odd, Diablo? This place is in the depths of the Elven territories...”
“Hmm. Maybe...”
He was going to jokingly suggest that the map designer probably got lazy, but realized that joke would go over Rem’s head. Diablo just decided to leave it as him being cool by “saying something suggestive and leaving it at that.”
Rose was walking behind them silently...though Rose always had her eyes on Diablo and no one else.
Rafflesia’s gaze was fixed on the depths of the underground chamber. The Light spell’s illumination didn’t reach that far, but her night vision allowed her to see despite that.
“I believe you are correct, Sir Diablo.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The far wall has God’s holy mark etched on it. And not just that. I can’t find the Kingdom of Greenwood’s crest anywhere here.”
Had the Elves built this place, they would surely put their crest somewhere to mark it as such. For example, Faltra’s church had not only the holy mark on it, but also Lyferia’s flag.
“Are you saying God made this place?”
There were many traces of God’s existence in this world, and Diablo believed it was an entirely different sort of existence from the God he’d heard about in his world.
“Yeah.” Shera nodded. “God definitely made this place.”
“...Back in the capital, I recall hearing the Grand Cathedral’s Inner Sanctum was made by God too.”
“Right, there was that as well.”
“...Is this some sort of Elven church? Is this where you’ll hold the wedding?”
Maybe Shera had come to terms with the wedding, and brought them here to say she was intending to go through with it?
“No, it’s not.” Shera shook her head. “We hold our weddings in much brighter places than this. We all gather up on top of the tallest tree in the kingdom, where we sing, dance, eat, and have fun.”
“...Then what’s this place?”
“It’s a grave.”
Diablo felt chills run down his spine. Looking around, he saw oblong stones set along the walls which he thought were work tables of some sort... But they were containers with the holy mark etched on them.
These were sarcophagi.
Shera said these were the tombs of past Elven kings, and, stopping before one of the sarcophagi, she brought her hands together. Unlike the other ones, this one was covered with a new, black cloth.
This was the deceased king’s, Shera’s father’s, tomb.
Realizing this, Rem also brought her hands together, and Rafflesia followed suit. Diablo closed his eyes, and wished for the king’s peace in the afterlife.
“Haaa...” Shera raised her head, wiping her eyes. “I finally got to visit his grave. Thanks, you guys. This was my main goal, but it took a pretty roundabout way to get here.”
“...We know the situation didn’t allow for it. Are you ready to tell us what you wanted to say?”
“Hmm, I didn’t intend to keep anything secret. I just didn’t know where to start.”
“...We’re well aware your memory, sense of judgment, and communication skills are worse than a common rat’s.”
“Rude...!?”
“...Let’s try to put things in order.” Rem suggested. She sighed, wearing a pensive expression. “The Demon Lord Krebskulm was sealed inside my body. And we removed the majority of it through a certain ritual. You two already know this.”
They nodded. They did, however, keep it a secret that they hid the gluttonous Klem in Faltra. If the king of Lyferia were to learn of that, her current way of life would surely be lost.
“Some faint remains of the Demon Lord remained sealed inside me...” Rem continued. “And however faint these remnants were, there was still a chance they could awaken. That was when Celes’s letter informed me the Dark Elves may have a ritual capable of extracting the Demon Lord’s soul.”
“That happened while I was sick in bed, so I don’t know the details about that.”
“...The details don’t matter... Anyway, we visited the Dark Elves’ village...and with Miss Rafflesia’s ritual magic, finally removed the Demon Lord’s soul from my body!” Rem raised her voice dramatically, which showed how important that was to her.
She placed a hand on the pouch dangling from her waist. That was where the Divinity Crystal containing the Demon Lord’s soul was.
“...But the promise Shera made to enable that has put us in a complicated position. Which brings us to you, Shera.”
“I still think the Elves and the Dark Elves getting along is a good thing!”
“...I won’t deny that, but do settle down. There is an order to things. Firstly, your objective was to return home. Even if you ran away again, you can’t leave your mother be now that she’s left all alone after your father passed away.”
“Yeah, I think so too.”
“...Regardless of that, you made a promise to the Dark Elves. An oath. You swore on God and your life that you’ll give the Dark Elves part of Greenwood’s forest.”
“So the Elves and Dark Elves would be able to live together.”
Rafflesia, who stood nearby, nodded. “I’m sure everyone has their own thoughts on the matter. And it would be hard to have everyone change their minds immediately. But I believe that if we are allowed to live in this forest, we would surely be able to coexist peacefully.”
“That’s right!” Shera smiled happily.
“Nnnn...” Rem crossed her arms, moaning in exasperation. “You did promise that the Elves would relinquish some of their territory to the Dark Elves to regain that peace.”
To begin with, the reason for the dispute lay with Lyferia’s king from three generations ago. He sent an army called the Crusade against the Dark Elves, suspecting them of being Demon Lord worshipers. That was because they possessed knowledge regarding the Demon Lord which was entrusted to them by God—the very same ritual magic that saved Rem.
It was an unforgivable act of foolishness, but that was all in the past. Diablo couldn’t do anything to change that now. And when the Dark Elves were subjected to that attack, the Elves abandoned them. They didn’t fight. Doing as much forced a wedge between the two races...
But the truth was, the Elves had no choice but to obey the Crusade, as their king was taken hostage. So said the queen, but alas, there was no proof to her words. And yet, Rafflesia still chose to accept them as truth.
“...I think that’s a very good thing...” Rem stated her feelings on the matter. “Especially since the Demon Lord awakened in the west. The races will have to fight for their existence again very soon. It’s important we unite our powers. Having the grudge between the Elves and the Dark Elves clear up would be a very joyous thing.”
Shera nodded enthusiastically.
“I think so as well,” Rafflesia agreed.
“...But without a king, the transfer of territories can’t be arranged. The Kingdom of Greenwood still follows many old traditions, and this is one of them... No, I’m sure it’s the same for the other races too. It’s impossible for a nation without a ruler to delineate territory. Convincing the people to agree is too difficult without one.”
Decreasing a country’s territory made it harder to live in, and it was a king’s job to defend his people’s way of life.
“I’m also sure there are those among the Elves who hold a grudge against the Dark Elves as well.” Rafflesia cast down her eyes.
“...Let us put that idea aside for now. Whatever the case, the Kingdom of Greenwood needs a king. Based on what the queen says, he is necessary to maintain the forest... To fulfill that old promise, they have to crown a king.”
Shera pouted. “Mother just keeps saying ‘An Elven country needs an Elven king.’”
“...Well that’s obvious.”
“Whaaat!? Nooo!”
“It is quite obvious.”
“Very obvious.”
Even Diablo thought the queen was in the right.
“...If we are to summarize our situation,” Rem began wrapping up the discussion, “we have multiple issues, like the oath to the Dark Elves and the forest’s condition. But it all comes down to Shera marrying an Elf. But, with the way things are, she’ll have to marry Drango.”
“Auuugh...” Shera let out a peculiar moan.
“You don’t like him? He looks to be a very capable Elf. Though I’ll admit he looks more like an Orc than an Elf.”
“Uuu... It’s not about it being Drango... There’s someone else I want to be with forever...”
“...You mean Diablo?”
“Y-Yeah...” Shera gave him a fleeting glance.
Diablo almost blushed in response.
—No, no, no, no...
He remembered his past experiences, and would never misunderstand things and think someone had fallen in love with him.
Never.
—I mean, it’s Shera. She’s probably thinking something like, “I want to go on adventures with him forever.” This isn’t romantic love. If I fool myself into thinking she does love me, once it comes down to doing adult business, she’ll just back off and say, “I didn’t mean it that way.” Shera may have a mature body, but mentally she’s still a kid!
“...You do realize Diablo is a Demon?” Rem furrowed her brows.
“I-I do, but—”
“...It’s just one dumb thing after another with you... Are you a crossbreeding fetishist? To think you’re a pervert on top of being dumb. Yes, a lewd Elf...”
“Th-That’s not it! The person I always want to be with just happens to be from another race!”
“...You are aware of what a king and queen are supposed to do together, right?”
“Huh? They pray to God to make the forest bountiful. Then they listen to people in need, and protect the ‘important thing’ God left us.”
—Rafflesia did mention that. What exactly is this “important thing”?
“...Those are important, yes, but isn’t there an equally significant duty they have to fulfill?” Rem shook her head. “You can’t be this ignorant... Royalty and nobility have the important duty of producing their progeny.”
“P-Progeny!?” Shera took a step back, blushing profusely.
“...They have to make children. Or do you intend to let the Greenwood dynasty end at your generation?”
“I don’t, but...I really thought this through!”
“...An Elf and a Demon can’t produce children together. That is purely fact.”
“It is, but that’s not absolute.”
“...They can’t normally produce children. That’s why no matter how much affection and kinship you feel toward someone from another race, it can never blossom into romantic love. In many cases, it’s the same as someone being the same sex as you. But maybe you’re simply misunderstanding your own feelings because Diablo has saved you so many times.”
“I’m...misunderstanding...?” Shera seemed confused at her own budding emotions.
Rem took a deep breath, grit her teeth, and clenched her fists.
“...I realize this must be painful, but I’m telling you this directly, exactly because we’re comrades: Shera, you should pick an Elf man to marry. If you don’t like Drango, you should tell your mother that. But for the sake of the kingdom, and for your own sake, you should pick a husband everyone will respect. That’s what I think.”
“B-But, but I... But...” Shera stood with her breath stuck in her throat, her eyes darting about.
“...Just calm down. Think this over carefully. You may be dumb, lacking in foresight, and utterly shallow, but you do know what matters most. I’m sure you’ll come to the right decision. I believe in you.”
“But does that really count as believing in me!?”
“...Do you really understand? Even if you are royalty, you can’t give away land without the people as one with the decision. Do you intend to forfeit an oath you swore your life on!?”
“Aaaaaah... I know, buuut...”
Shera looked to be at wits’ end. She was never a clever one, and was now torn between her feelings and her duties on top of that. Up till now, Diablo may have wandered through this inescapable maze alongside her, sharing in her anxiety. But he wasn’t troubled any longer.
“A question, Shera. Answer me truthfully: Do you truly wish to walk alongside me? Put aside your duties to the kingdom and this oath. Declare here and now if these are your true, honest feelings.”
“Erm... I don’t really know yet... But I want to see just how much I can do, and how far I can go. And I don’t want to do it alone. I want you and Rem to be by my side. I mean, we’re comrades after all!”
She hadn’t changed since the day he met her. There was no end to her desire to challenge herself, seek out new frontiers, and be among her friends. She was a lonely Adventurer who craved the company of her comrades.
“I see.” Diablo nodded. “I understand perfectly. That was all I wanted to... No, there’s actually something else I should ask you. You just said it’s the Elven king’s duty to defend an ‘important something.’”
“Mmm? Yeah, I did.”
“Just what type of ‘thing’ is that?”
“Aaah... I don’t know actually.”
“You never change, do you...” Diablo shrugged.
“...I swear!” Rem shouted in annoyance. “How can you not know about something that influences your life so much!?”
It seemed harsh, but Rem was this angered by Shera’s carelessness because she truly did care for her.
“Ahaha...” Shera’s ears drooped in dejection. “Mother told me once that I’ll ‘understand when I see it.’ At the time, we didn’t think I’d be queen...”
“...If you’re so curious, you should first be interested in what’s around you. Did you really run away from home without even understanding the circumstances?”
“When I was still here, all I did was run away from my brother...”
“Yes... He was a very troubling person, so I can’t say I blame you. I see life wasn’t all that easy for you either. I sympathize.”
Shera smiled sadly at Rem’s words.
“Why don’t you check now then?” Rafflesia suggested. “If the queen said you’ll ‘understand when you see it,’ that means you’re allowed to see for yourself. I don’t think checking what it is will do any harm.”
“You’re right! Since we’ve come all the way, I may as well find out!”
Surprisingly enough, it seemed the ‘important thing’ was right in their vicinity.
“...Isn’t this a burial mound?” Rem cocked her head in confusion.
“It is, but the important thing is here too.”
With an expression that seemed to have completely forgotten her doubts from a moment ago, Shera walked into the deepest part of the underground chamber. She was one who fundamentally loved exploring new and unknown things. She was optimistic, assertive, and brimming with curiosity.
“...Should you really be doing this with the wedding being only two days away, and you still not having made a choice?” Rem asked with an unpleasant expression on her face.
“We shouldn’t let such trivialities bother us.” Diablo tried to soothe Rem’s anxiety. “If there is a legendary treasure in this place, it’s only natural to want to see it.”
“...You’re right. I, too, am an Adventurer.”
“In the end, whatever comes will come. And, no matter what...”
“...Diablo?”
Shera reached for the furthest wall.
“Here I go...”
She placed her hand against the holy mark on the wall, then began reciting words in a language Diablo hadn’t heard before—like an incantation for a spell.
“Rood terces nepoi.”
In Diablo’s ears, the language of this world sounded like his own mother tongue, but what Shera just said didn’t sound even remotely familiar. The logic of how it was all translated was beyond him, to begin with... Those could be utterly meaningless words, for all he knew.
But, if this was where the Elves kept their ‘important thing’ hidden, it made this place a vault. That meant whatever Shera just said was the password.
A shrill sound echoed through the underground chamber. Diablo felt a dull pain inside his ears. A pale blue light began emanating from the holy mark on the wall, magical energy flowing through it like water filling up a ditch. The blue light curved, split, and intersected, drawing an intricate pattern over the wall.
“...Is this a magic circle?” Rem whispered.
Rafflesia narrowed her eyes. “I’ve never seen this type of magic circle before...”
“Mmm?”
The pattern struck Diablo as somehow familiar. He recalled the magic circle that appeared in Faltra’s skies when Krebskulm had awakened.
—It’s so similar...
Resembling a magic circle that appeared when a Demon Lord had awakened...
But despite being of a similar type, there were some differences to it. Diablo was a Sorcerer capable of incredible spells, but that was only because he’d increased his in-game level. He wasn’t actually knowledgeable about this world’s magic, and couldn’t derive any information from a magic circle. All he could do was stare as things unfolded, as if watching a game’s event movie, and marvel at its quality.
The magic circle seemed to have been completed, having spread over not only the four walls, but the floor as well.
Then, their field of vision completely changed...
†
A desolate, barren field spanned before them. A red, rust-colored land spread out for as far as the eye could see. Cracks ran through the soil, without a single blade of grass to be seen.
The sky was dyed crimson as well. It wasn’t just a sunset; the clouds themselves were red and cast a gloomy shadow over the surroundings.
“What...is this place...?” Diablo looked around nervously.
“Mother calls it the ?Terminus?,” Shera answered. “It’s my first time here though.”
Was it teleportation magic that brought them here? Or was this an illusion? Diablo’s field of vision shifted altogether, but the others were still here. Not just Shera, but Rem, Rose, and Rafflesia too.
“...The Terminus. I’ve never heard of this sort of mechanism being in an Elven burial mound.”
“This is amazing. I can’t hold back my surprise...”
“...Just to make sure, there are no problems with you showing this place to members of the other races, like Diablo and me, right?”
Shera’s face froze in a shocked ‘Ah’ at Rem’s words.
“Maybe it isn’t!?”
“...You didn’t ask the queen for permission to bring us here!? Aaah... Fine... We’ll pretend this never happened.”
“Thanks. It should be fine so long as you don’t say anything though! You keep it a secret too, Rafflesia!”
Rafflesia said nothing, merely looking off in the distance in a daze.
“Rafflesia?” Shera walked up to her, waving a hand in front of her eyes.
“Whoa!?” Rafflesia jumped with a start. “Wh-What is it...”
“U-Umm... Are you all right?”
“Y-Yes... But of course. I was just a touch surprised it seems.”
Rafflesia and Shera laughed nervously.
Diablo lowered his gaze, looking at something half buried into the ground. He picked it up, finding it to be a giant crystal.
“Master,” Rose approached him. “That is a Summon Crystal for a ?Force Hydra?.”
“What!?”
“It has no level restriction, but it does for race. Only Elves may use it.”
“What is this doing...”
Rem also knelt down, digging up a rapier from the ground. Despite being covered by red dirt, its intricate design was still easily noticeable.
“...What about this one?”
“That is an ?Acid Orion?, a sword enchanted to have its attacks inflict the ?Corrosion? effect. It requires a level of 160 to wield.”
Rem’s eyes widened in shock. Diablo was startled as well.
—A level 160 restriction!?
The max level in Cross Reverie was 150, so no existing player should be able to equip this sword.
As Diablo suspected, this world wasn’t based on Cross Reverie at the time he’d played it. The level limit was bumped up once every six months or so, and his initial suspicion was that this world was based off the game. So maybe when the game implemented its next set of features, this world would be updated along with it? Which would mean the level limit was much higher than Diablo imagined. Whether a limit even existed was dubious at this point.
“...Is this an Elven treasure vault?” Rem looked around. “It’s different than what I imagined. If anything, it looks more like a waste disposal site to me.”
“The Elven royalty must not understand what these treasures are. There’s no list documenting them, and you have to dig up the items first. But there’s normally no way to appraise an item by sight. We can only do it thanks to Rose.”
Rose was the only Magimatic Maid that existed in this world, as far as Diablo was aware. He doubted the Kingdom of Greenwood even had one of them.
“Rose is happy to know Rose is of use to Master.” She bowed her head respectfully.
“Yes, your work is commendable.”
With her body still bowing, Rose’s shoulders shivered. Her breathing turned nasal and wild. Diablo’s words seemed to have put her in a state of excitement.
“Diablooo~ Over here! Here, come here!” Shera called out from afar.
“Hmph... It seems the items lying around here aren’t the ‘important thing.’ These are no doubt Elven treasures however.”
“Though it’s hard to understand why Elves would treat them this carelessly.”
As Rem and Rafflesia spoke to themselves, they and Diablo moved toward where Shera was currently standing. They could see that the ground suddenly cut off ahead of them.
A cliff.
A great chasm was open before their eyes, forming a large valley. While it could only be described as a valley, its other side was so far away they could hardly make it out. It was so deep they couldn’t make out the bottom either.
“Th-There!” Shera pointed downward. “That’s the ‘important thing’!”
Looking at the bottom of the ravine, they saw something black. At first, Diablo thought it was a water deposit, but he soon realized he was wrong.
Monsters.
At the center was a mysterious sphere, several times larger than Diablo. Cable-like wires were coiled around it, squirming over it like tens of thousands of serpents.
“...I-Is...!? Is that...a Demon Lord!?” Rem took a frightened step back from the cliff.
“What!?”
“...Ah... I, hmm... I’ve never seen it before, but that’s what it feels like to me... Maybe because one has always been so close to me?”
She touched the pouch on her waist, as if to affirm it was still there. The remnants of the Demon Lord sealed within her had been transferred to the Divinity Crystal stored inside.
“Wait, by Demon Lord, you mean a Demon Lord!? A real one!?” Shera asked, as if clinging to them in fear.
Even Diablo himself was disturbed.
—It’s a new monster, so I don’t know what it is if its name isn’t displayed!
Unfortunately, this world didn’t come with any convenient features that made a window pop up with the monster’s profile and information. He turned his gaze to Rose for help, but she just looked down at the ravine silently. She was his treasure vault’s guardian, so she was keen when it came to items, but probably wasn’t as knowledgeable when it came to monsters.
Rafflesia, however, opened her mouth to speak, as if whispering to herself in the vacant expression of someone wandering through a daydream.
“The ?Demon Lord of the Heart, Kardia?... They are the origin, that which brings upon the flame of life... The power to reshape this world...”
“Hey, if you know what it is, speak up!”
“Huh!?” Diablo’s voice seemingly made Rafflesia come to, as her expression was washed over with confusion. “Ah, no... I was merely recounting an old story I’d heard once... That’s the name of the Demon Lord once sealed in these lands.”
“So that truly is a Demon Lord after all. The Demon Lord of the Heart, Kardia, you said?”
“In all likelihood.”
Hearing their words, Shera’s face lost all its color.
“A D-D-Demon Lord!?”
“Please calm down, Princess Shera. While that is indeed a Demon Lord, they are still sealed.”
“R-Right...”
“They do seem to be stirring, if only a little... But if they were revived, I doubt we would be unharmed. So I speculate.”
“I’m so happy it’s sealed...”
“...So the important thing God entrusted the Elves to protect was the Demon Lord,” Rem said, her gaze fixed on the Demon Lord.
“So it seems. The seal itself should probably be somewhere nearby.”
“Err, I think it’s this? Elosnoc.”
Shera spoke in that odd language again, and a rainbow-colored jewel orb, roughly the size of a basketball, appeared in mid-air. A multiplex of rings surrounded it, like the rings of Saturn.
“Ah... This...is amazing...” Rafflesia said, her eyes wide. “I’ve never seen such a large Divinity Crystal. Truly fitting for the container of a complete Demon Lord!”
“Ah...” Shera looked at the rainbow-colored orb.
“What’s wrong, Shera?”
“Well, this seal is like Greenwood’s forest. God gives it power. But now that Father is dead...”
“Wh-What!? Isn’t that bad!?”
“The seal shouldn’t break today or tomorrow, but it is getting weaker.”
Shera said it lightly, but it was a fairly big deal: The Demon Lord’s seal was weakening! If Greenwood went without crowning a new King, the seal would eventually break.
“...I now understand why the Queen is forcing her daughter into marriage and is being this impatient about it,” Rem said, wiping sweat from her forehead. “This has to do with more than just the forest’s blessings.”
Diablo was in agreement.
“It’s not just the Elves. The existence of all the races is on the line here.”
“...Despite that, the fact that they never told us anything about this must mean it’s some sort of Elven secret?”
“Or maybe just the Elven royalty are in on it. The more people know of a secret, the likelier it is to come to light.”
“...True, there’s probably no need to tell the common civilians. I think it also explains why the Elves haven’t come to collect all the treasures lying around here.”
No one would want to willingly come near a Demon Lord, even if it were a sealed one.
The Demon Lord of the Heart, Kardia was far more grotesque than any other monster Diablo had met so far. And just how strong could he be?
The players always grew gradually stronger; that was how MMORPGs worked, so monsters featured in newer events were as a result progressively stronger as well. If Diablo didn’t know about Kardia, it must mean they weren’t implemented. Basically, it was probable Kardia was set to appear in a future event.
In the game, he’d beaten the ?Demon Lord of the Mind, Enkvaros? solo, but Kardia was likely on a higher level. Unlike Lyferia, the Kingdom of Greenwood wasn’t as prepared to face this type of threat. The races’ defensive lines were in the Demon Lord’s domain to the west, but Greenwood was deep in the races’ territories. There were no large defensive strongholds between it and the capital.
Diablo thought back to Alicia in the capital, Lumachina in the Grand Cathedral, the Firebird Inn’s employees, and the many people he’d met in the capital.
—If this thing awakens, they’re all going to die...
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