Chapter 7 - The Demon King's Bastard
At the same time the eighth match was finishing, an alert resounded across all of Aureatia.
For the citizens it was a simple order to evacuate, but it was widely known that for the hero candidates, and the people involved with them, it contained another, extremely severe implication as well—an emergency summons regarding a threat to Aureatia. So long as they all put forth their names as hero candidates, they bore a responsibility to go out and face off against any self-proclaimed demon king.
…Then at Flinsuda’s estate.
“YOU DON’T NEED TO MOBILIZE.”
The revenant controlled by Krafnir the Hatch of Truth stood barring the door to Tu’s room.
Hearing the alert, Tu the Magic was certain to go running out of the estate without thinking ahead. He needed to make sure to stop her.
“Outta the way, Krafnir! I gotta get going!”
“TU. AFTER YOU DISOBEYED ORDERS AND WITHDREW FROM THE FIFTH MATCH, YOU’RE CURRENTLY SEEN AS DIFFICULT TO CONTROL. IN OTHER WORDS, THERE’S A CHANCE YOU’LL BRING HARM TO THE AUREATIA CITIZENS IF YOU’RE ALLOWED TO RUN FREE.”
“Of course, I wouldn’t do anything like that! You know that full well, Krafnir!”
“YEAH. I UNDERSTAND. BUT THERE ARE OCCASIONS WHEN THE WAY YOU’RE PERCEIVED BY OTHERS DOES MATTER. IF THEY’RE GOING TO THROW YOU OUT ON THE FRONT LINES, WITH THE FEAR THAT YOU MIGHT LOSE CONTROL, THERE’LL BE NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN FLINSUDA AND ANOTHER IN THE TWENTY-NINE OFFICIALS…MOST LIKELY THIRD MINISTER JEL, AND YOU NEED TO WAIT UNTIL THERE’S CONDITIONAL APPROVAL FOR YOU TO ACT.”
“That doesn’t make any sense! People’s lives are on the line, aren’t they?!”
“THEY UNDERSTAND THAT EVERY SECOND COUNTS RIGHT NOW, TOO. THE NEGOTIATIONS WON’T TAKE LONG.”
“…Does that mean—”
Tu’s eyes, as she stood in front of the window, gleamed with a faint green luster.
“—it’s about getting money out of it?”
“……”
Tu possessed an almost childlike purity and innocence.
However, that didn’t mean she was stupid. She understood the meaning behind this current situation.
Flinsuda the Portent was using the suspicions about Tu the Magic’s wildcard behavior to try adding on conditions to the request for Tu’s mobilization, once an outright obligation. In order to lay the responsibility of Tu’s mobilization on the opposite party, in exchange for a sizable bribe.
“…TU. FLINSUDA IS DEFINITELY NOT A VIRTUOUS WOMAN. BUT SHE’S NOT DOING ALL OF THIS OUT OF HER OWN GREEDY SELF-INTEREST, EITHER. SHE’S BEING CONSIDERATE OF YOU IN HER OWN WAY. WHAT SORT OF CONDITIONS SHE WOULD NEED IN ORDER TO INTRODUCE YOU TO THE QUEEN, FOR EXAMPLE?”
“…That’s neither here nor there. Right now…that’s not what I’m supposed to do.”
“……”
Tu surely must have believed that her wish to see the Queen was selfish.
This was why even as she desired to meet the Queen enough to enter the Sixways Exhibition—she ended up putting others before herself, as she had done when she had been protecting the Land of the End and when she had acquiesced victory to Kuze.
If she kept this up, wouldn’t she run the risk of putting others before herself forever?
“When I learned that Sun’s Conifer attacked the almshouse…I felt so much regret. I wanted to help out Kuze, yet…I wasn’t able to do anything. I couldn’t be there at the kids’ side when they needed me the most.”
“THAT ISN’T WHAT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DO.”
“I don’t think so. That goes for anyone… Anyone still alive. Nothing makes me happier than helping someone else, and it makes me sad when I can’t. That’s all there is to it.”
Krafnir was aware of Tu’s good nature.
However, he didn’t think it was genuine.
“IF YOU GO NOW…TU, YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO LIVE IN AUREATIA ANYMORE. NOT ONLY THAT…YOU’LL LOSE YOUR PLACE IN ALL OF MINIAN SOCIETY ITSELF! OUR SOCIETY ISN’T BUILT TO TRUST IN THE GOOD NATURE OF MONSTERS! AT THE VERY LEAST, YOU HAVE TO MAKE THEM THINK…THAT YOU’RE REGULATED BY ORDER AND DISCIPLINE, OR YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO GO ON LIVING YOUR LIFE!”
“I don’t get it. I’m sure that you and Flinsuda have all these amazing ideas, and you’re way smarter than I am. Still…! There are still times when if you don’t act, someone might end up dead! If Rique was still alive, he’d definitely say the same thing!”
“……!”
Krafnir had regrets.
He thought of himself as smart. He believed that if he thought things through, without making incorrect choices…he would be able to accomplish his goals without exposing himself to any danger. He would keep sacrifices to a minimum.
But that hadn’t been the case at all.
Every time he experienced Tu or Rique’s innocence and youth, there was a sense of guilt somewhere inside his heart.
Being forced to acknowledge that this part of him remained was a terribly unpleasant feeling.
“TU THE MAGIC…I SHOULD HAVE NEVER INVOLVED MYSELF WITH YOU… THE TRUE DEMON KING, THE SIXWAYS EXHIBITION… I JUST…INTENDED TO LIVE IN PEACE…RIDING OUT THE TURMOIL IN SAFETY, AND YET…”
“Well, I’m glad we met.”
Tu’s eyes looked straight ahead at Krafnir’s revenant.
They seemed to be peering through to Krafnir himself on the other side.
“I despaired the whole time, too. I never had the courage to look out beyond the Land of the End. But…I’m glad the first people I encountered were you and Rique. It’s thanks to you both that now I can say, without any hesitation, that I want to go help others.”
“…WHY…?”
The revenant shouldn’t have possessed any ability to feel pain, but it was in anguish, reflecting Krafnir’s own mental unrest.
His Mind Arts control was falling into disarray.
“…WHY! WHY DID YOU END UP THAT WAY, TU?! YOU, THAT DEMON…! YOU’RE A WEAPON MADE BY THAT MONSTER IZICK THE CHROMATIC, AREN’T YOU?! SO WHY, WHY AREN’T YOU A MONSTER?!”
“There are infinite possibilities in this world! There are all sorts of colors! As long as you have a just and brave heart…then even a monster like me can get to see that sorta stuff, too! That’s what he taught me!”
“LIAR…!”
He could never forget.
The hand of his dying master had become terribly thin and frail. Enduring lasting agony from Izick’s bacteriological weapon, the woman who had been the beginning of everything for Krafnir died a young death.
He had seen the ruins of a city Izick had annihilated on a whim. He had seen the vestiges of a coldly efficient massacre, but beyond that, where the perpetrator gleefully tormented his victims as he killed them.
“YOU’RE LYING!”
Krafnir knew Tu’s inherent good nature. This young girl had never told a lie before.
But Krafnir couldn’t forgive him. Ever since he heard that Izick had challenged the True Demon King as part of the First Party, he remained unable to forgive him.
Don’t lie, Izick the Chromatic.
A tempest of winged insects surged through the open window.
Controlling a massive number of revenants through Mind Arts, Krafnir had finally surpassed the techniques of Izick the Chromatic.
He had to, or he would never find peace.
“Krafnir!”
“YOU CAN GO…AFTER YOU DEFEAT ME!”
In this world, before the appearance of the True Demon King, the words self-proclaimed demon king didn’t mean anything. Just a mere twenty-five years earlier, they were the ones referred to as demon kings.
The original demon kings of this world were demonic monarchs diametrically opposed to the true monarchs.
A demonic monarch couldn’t possibly become a king all on their own. At the very least, there may have been comrades who shared the same views, or people who were attracted by their ideals. There may have been some who wished for the good fortune of the subjects that followed them, or wished for a new kind of prosperity, or for world peace.
The demon kings of the past were destroyers of order, but they weren’t absolute evils.
He was different, however.
One of the seven members of the First Party, Izick the Chromatic was a man described as the wickedest demon king of all.
For instance, Izick was said to have been heavily involved in the events surrounding a particular city, Meeti Crossroads City.
The lord ruling the city, Rotegra the Scrupulous, criticized the faction of aristocrats who provided support for Izick’s research and carried out domestic reform. The two held a deep-rooted hatred for each other.
Opposing Izick the Chromatic came with considerable risk, but Rotegra avoided direct conflict, even negotiating with him on occasions, and dexterously protected himself.
One day came when Rotegra stood on a hill on the outskirts of Meeti, without a single bodyguard along with him.
“Impeccable as always, Lord Rotegra! Right on time! Welcome! Ha-ha-ha-ha!”
He appeared to be a relatively normal worn-out middle-aged man, adorned in traveling attire—
So long as one ignored the laugh that never failed to grate on the listener’s nerve.
Izick the Chromatic.
“You got here right as I finished eating my lunch! This deer meat pastry really is great, huh?! I heard this was Meeti’s signature dish, right? Ain’t too bad!”
Izick’s horribly cheerful voice instead only brought more mental gloom to Rotegra.
He mumbled with what sounded like the whispered voice of the infirm.
“…L-let me make sure…”
“Huh? What’s that? You say something?”
“Y-you promised…if I surrender Meeti…m-my daughter…you’ll give Selure back… I-in that case, I’ll hand it over. A-all of it…”
His voice was trembling.
It was fair to say that Meeti Crossroads City meant everything to Rotegra. It was a domain bestowed to his family as a reward for their great contributions to the True Northern Kingdom judicial system.
If he surrendered it to the world’s enemy, Izick the Chromatic, it would result in Rotegra losing all his honor and wealth. However, the man’s will had already been broken.
The people Izick targeted hadn’t been any of his capable advisors, or major players within the city’s political and business circles.
At first, the elderly librarian Rotegra was closely acquainted with went missing.
Next, his longtime friends from his youth began to disappear one by one.
His driver and servants disappeared, then his housekeeping matron did, too.
Not a single person vital to Meeti’s administration was included among them.
Then, finally, his daughter, Selure.
“I’ll tell my men…everything… Meeti, I’ll…I’ll hand it over…”
“Oh, good.”
Izick didn’t carry anything. He hadn’t brought anyone else along.
Yet it wasn’t numbers, or power, but his spite itself that was the most terrifying of all.
His eyes were cold. He gazed at Rotegra as if he were looking down at a flea.
“Hey, so do you mean, like, right now? From now on, this town is mine?”
“Where is Selure?”
“Listen here, Lord Rotegra. The thing is, I’m not too bright. I never went to school or church, so sorry if I’m misunderstanding something, but, um…who’s the person asking the questions here?”
“Wh-where is she?! Where is Selure?!”
“Aww, enough already… Just calm down a sec.”
Izick let out an exaggerated sigh, and then scratched his head.
He pointed at the hill behind Rotegra.
There was a young girl walking there. Looking from afar, there was no mistaking her.
“Ahh… Ahh…!”
“See? She’s fine, right?”
“…I-I’m, I’m not even part of the aristocracy anymore. My daughter and I, together…we’ll live hiding from the eyes of heaven itself…so I—I won’t do anything else to you. I can’t do anything more… Let’s put an end to this. Everything, both of us.”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha! Oh, that’s great! Tying a bow on this long relationship of ours, then! Peace is great, isn’t it? So from this moment on, this whooole city’s mine, huh?! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Loudly cackling with both hands stretched out, the demon king looked down over the city. The city that had been Rotegra’s.
Why did the Wordmaker give a man like him nightmarish power?
Meeti Crossroads City, which Rotegra had once ruled over, was now destined to be turned into the base of operations for this wickedest of all demon kings. The vast, fertile soil, all the living, breathing people within, would become toys for Izick’s maliciousness.
Rotegra the Scrupulous’s fight against wickedness had ended with it all being for naught.
Evil had won.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha—oh.”
Izick’s roaring laughter was suddenly interrupted.
He almost resembled a windup doll coming to its abrupt stop.
It was eerie.
“Y’knooooow, that bakery where I got my lunch earlier, the staff there was really rude to me. They looked at their customer and clicked their teeth. What do you think of that, Lord Rotegra? That sorta thing is the worst, isn’t it? I mean, I’m the customer, right? I’m paying their wages and everything. So why’d they click their tongue at me, I wonder…? I don’t get it…”
“W-why indeed…?”
“Hmm… Y’know what? Forget it. I don’t need a city like this.”
Rotegra heard a sound splitting the air, like the rumbling of the earth…
A terrifying sound like nothing he had ever heard before.
And from the direction of town…
“I-Izick.”
…came screams.
The shrieks of the people he could hear from Meeti down below, all at once. Innumerable.
Overlapping in countless numbers, they reached all the way to this plateau so highly removed from the city.
They were the last gasps of the very city itself.
The townscape spread out before his eyes began to be dyed in a chilling black.
The swarm of something, appearing out of nowhere, was alive—or at least, appeared to be alive.
Unnervingly bubbling forth. Incessant and everywhere.
“A-ahh… e-eauuugh…!”
Rotegra could no longer keep himself standing, and he frantically moved back, dragging his waist along the grass.
There were countless red eyes mixed among the black clouds devouring the city.
An enormous sea of rat revenants…overflowing from the sewers, from the floorboards, and every other nook and cranny throughout the city, was greedily devouring the living.
The chorus of screams below him continued. They were making sure their victims could still use their voices as they killed them.
They were none other than the voices of the citizens of Meeti, having their flesh chewed away and devoured while they yet lived.
“Eeeeaaah, I-I’m sorry… Please, please forgive me…!”
“Weeeell, you gave me the city, right? That means I can destroy it if I want, right? Thanks!”
“Stop, it’s not my fault, it’s not—eeaauuuuuugh!”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ah, this is so much fun! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Even as the cackling and the screams tore his mind apart, Rotegra ran toward the hill.
His daughter. As long as Selure…
On top of the hill, his beloved Selure was walking.
With tottering steps, while her unfocused eyes looked at Rotegra.
“……”
“S-Selure.”
It seemed like something moved inside his daughter’s face.
Something…like a tiny swarm.
“Lord Rotegra.”
He heard a bone-chillingly cold voice from behind him.
Izick wasn’t laughing anymore.
“You remember what happened a little while ago, right? Right, right, it was juuuust before that girl of yours went missing, I think? You insisted on peace talks or whatever, but as I was heading there, along the way some bandits… Knights? I couldn’t really tell, but they came and tried to attack me, you see… Boy, did that give me a scare, let me tell you.”
“I—I don’t know… I…I didn’t know anything about that! M-my subordinates acted on their own!”
“Oh-ho! Your subordinates! So that’s how it is, huh? So it wasn’t your fault, then, Lord Rotegra? It’s fine; it’s fine! See, I’m really forgiving about that stuff. Besides, those men of yours…”
The earthshaking screams had already stopped.
Black.
Meeti Crossroads City was covered in black.
Now there was nothing but an eerie silence in the carcass of the metropolis.
The army of rat revenants didn’t raise a single squeak.
“…are already dead anyway.”
It was silent. Just like Selure was, walking before Rotegra’s eyes.
“Please… Y-you promised, didn’t you? I—I gave you the city already. Selure… Y-you promised to give her back… That was the deal…”
Selure’s head hung limply. She was still moving. Still walking, even.
A pink tail peeked out of her earlobe and disappeared inside her skull.
Rotegra prayed that the face still twisted in agony, and her repulsive driven steps, were all part of a replica made in bad taste by the demon king.
“Huh? Hold on. Was thaaaat the deal? Did I say I’d return her?”
Rotegra fell to his knees.
His daughter’s body burst from the inside, and a small black army swarmed him.
“Aww, too bad! I liiiiiiiied! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Listening to Rotegra’s dying breaths as the surface of his skin was shredded apart, Izick the Chromatic laughed with utter delight.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
A mere twenty-five years earlier, they were the ones who were called demon kings.
They didn’t need any companions. If they required an army, they could make one.
They possessed neither beliefs nor ideals. Without any clear objective to their massacres, they spread unbridled destruction and took joy in misery.
The malicious will to paint over absolutely everything in their color.
In the past, this world had a man called the wickedest of all demon kings.
He was the self-proclaimed demon king, Izick the Chromatic.
Four years had gone by since the destruction of Meeti.
On a mountain road in the Athiel noble family’s domain, there was something resembling a shredded minian corpse. In other words, it was not actually a corpse.
It crawled with its fingers as it painted a line of blood behind it. There were only two fingers on their right hand.
“Hah, hah…ha-ha-ha-ha. Kweh, hwak…”
All they could do was continue forward like this. The flesh of their left thigh was torn open, with the bone inside exposed.
There was nothing left from their right ankle down.
The laughter-like sounds escaping their lips were out of terror.
Their diaphragm was spasming in fear, and this was the only voice that came out.
“Hah…hah, haah, aah.”
Even the simple act of breathing tore the inside of their lungs.
Both their physical body and their mental state were unable to maintain the form of a normal minia.
There was no prospect of recovery. They would simply continue toward doom.
It was the final moments for the survivor of the First Party, Izick the Chromatic.
He had laid eyes on the True Demon King.
On true terror that no one in possession of a heart and soul could oppose.
“…I’m not giving up…”
No one knew what not giving up would even accomplish.
“Like hell I’m giving up…”
The bushes around him trembled. Revenants that he had employed for himself.
The centipede-like revenants crawled out in an agitated stir and forced their way into the man’s mouth, his eye sockets, biting and tearing away tissue as they went. He screamed in the agonizing pain of certain death but was unable to with the bugs filling his esophagus.
“Gnrgh…gahk…glrgh…urngh…”
He suffered just like people he had killed in the past, unable to even let out a scream.
His legs and arms feebly wriggled and struggled until the movements became slight spasms, and bit by agonizing bit, over time, they began to stop.
“…………”
Izick could no longer move.
From his mouth and nose flowed red, but eventually it changed over to a dark brown.
Even after the sun fell, and it turned to night, not even the lowliest beast approached the unsightly carcass.
Then the sun rose.
The next day, and the day after that, the man once referred to as the wickedest demon king of all rotted away without anyone paying him any mind.
All his blood and moisture had completely dried up, and falling leaves accumulated on top of his body.
One day, it rained.
Izick the Chromatic was half submerged in a puddle of water.
At last, for what must have been the several dozenth time, the sun rose into the sky.
A beast-like silhouette approached his corpse.
It was abnormally colossal compared to the beasts in nature, with an uncanny glow of intelligence about him.
An elegant, multipedal, wolflike beast.
“YOU FINALLY MET YOUR END, TOO. DIDN’T YOU, IZICK THE CHROMATIC?”
The chimera created by Izick the Chromatic bore the name Ozonezma.
He murmured at his creator, now dead, just one single sentence.
“A FITTING END.”
Feeling no more words were necessary, the beast went to leave the scene behind.
Ozonezma’s hind leg was grabbed by that man who was supposed to have breathed his last.
“……! I-IZICK…!”
“Ga-ha, hak, kahak, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
The corpse cackled.
“That’s right! It’s Izick!”
With strength that seemed impossible from a formerly dead man, he dug his fingers into Ozonezma’s leg.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! That’s awfully cold, Ozonezma! Your ole master just came back to life, y’know! C’mon…you could stand to look a little bit happier, right?! Right, Ozonezma!”
“HOW…HOW ARE YOU ALIVE IN THIS STATE…?!”
“…Kahak, hak! You can’t tell just by looking? I made revenants slip into my injured areas…and merged the swarm to create an artificial organ system. Connected the insects’ nerves, digested with the insects’ stomachs, revived my cells with the insects’ blood— Well, if I’m being honest, I’m mostly bug at this point. As a minia, I’m essentially dead still. Disappointed? Yeah, right! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
“IMPOSSIBLE… A PROCEDURE LIKE THAT, WITHOUT ANY FACILITIES AT ALL… BUT THEN…THAT WOULD MEAN YOU’VE BASICALLY BECOME A REVENANT YOURSELF.”
He hadn’t learned his excellent techniques from anyone.
However, the Life Arts of self-proclaimed demon king Izick had been clearly abnormal from birth.
He could bring together the cells of different organisms without causing any rejection response.
Sending signals to his nerves with the swarm that had slipped into his corpse, he could even move himself as if he were still alive.
“I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU WOULD ALTER AND REMODEL YOUR OWN BODY.”
Making a mockery of all living things and trampling over even the barest ethics and morals, despite it all, he continued to have a flesh-and-blood body for himself—up until now.
There was no question that Izick the Chromatic, called the wickedest demon king of all…had challenged the True Demon King in order to remain who he was.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! What do I care anymore? Ozonezma… When I sent off Fralik and the others, I told you that I didn’t have any more use for you, right? Yeah, that was all a big lie. I take it back. I mean, Fralik’s dead either way. You’re going to work for me again.”
“PISS OFF. LIKE I HAVE ANY DUTY TO YOU!”
“…It’s useless to refuse. Ha-ha-ha-ha! After all, you can’t disobey me, right?”
“……”
“Nope, nope, no sirree! You’ll be that way forever. At my beck and call! Since I never gave you any innate courage after all! I bet you thought, with me dead, you were free, right…? Aww, too bad. I’m aliiiiive and kicking! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Ozonezma could split open Izick’s head with his strong forelegs. However, for Ozonezma, Izick’s orders were absolute. That was how he had been made.
While he despised this demon king, now weaker and frailer than a baby, Ozonezma would never be able to kill him. Izick always gave his creations a sense of self solely to make sure they were able to suffer.
Ozonezma drooped his head, bit down on his fangs…and then he asked a question.
“…HOW MUCH?”
“Huh?”
“HOW MUCH LONGER WILL YOU LIVE?”
“Ha-ha…”
Since he had thrown away his proper existence as a minia and depended on heretical Word Arts to remain in this world…Ozonezma wondered how much longer Izick would be able to stay alive.
He had lost to the True Demon King. While he may have survived, the scars must have been fatally gnawing at him.
Without any doubt, it was a life far more hopeless and horrific than death.
“…Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.”
Izick laughed morbidly while crawling along like an insect.
“Who the hell would give up? Never, never, never, never, I’ll never give up…! Ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha! I’m Izick the Chromatic, dammit! Right, Ozonezma?! Aren’t I right?! No way this is enough to get me to throw in the towel, you hear me?!”
“……”
“I’ll make…the strongest construct ever; just watch. Strong enough to break that stupid little girl’s neck with a single punch! I’m one who can do it! I’ll do what Neft, Fralik, Lumelly, and that damn brat Alena couldn’t do! I’m the only one left! I can do it…! I can…! Me!”
“…Izick.”
He was pathetic and unsightly, without the slightest shadow of his past might.
Ozonezma was unable to flee from that blazing glare… Was that because he was a creation that was never given courage? Or perhaps…
“Material. We need real cells, mountains of them. Koff, koff. O-Ozonezma…bring me the bodies of champions. Doesn’t matter who. Whatever you can get your hands on.”
Several years passed.
Izick was still using the domain of the Athiel nobles as his base of operations.
After coming back to life, his body was no longer able to endure long-distance movement.
Given he was unable to move his physical body from where he was, his only choice when it came to the materials and base bodies for his creations was to employ constructs for long-distance work, amassing them all from his basepoints across different regions.
Even then, as long as he obtained the most important part of all, for the genius Izick, that was plenty.
“…The fundamental theory’s the same.”
He had spent his whole day experimenting, eating cultivated insects, and hiding himself in the corner of some ruins.
To the man once lauded throughout the world as the wickedest demon king of all, this countryside, already destroyed by the True Demon King and unbeknownst to anyone, was his final domain.
“Ozonezma…had been the strongest combat organism possible, pieced together with the most powerful parts I could find. But it can’t be like that defective prototype… I have to start over from square one. I’ll construct something that’s been perfectly designed; just watch.”
The mass of cells in the glass bottle, immersed in preservatives, was the true cornerstone of Izick’s research.
A deviant species of unthinkable embryonic cells that weren’t even differentiated by race.
Discovered mostly by accident by a self-proclaimed demon king long, long ago, it was a construct capable of transforming its own physical body and imitating any and all entities, referred to as a mimic.
How many more trials were left before he would incubate the organism he sought from these cells?
However, the completed organism that Izick was aiming for was not a normal mimic.
“Simply patching together the bodies of champions isn’t enough. I don’t have the Greatshield of the Dead with me, but…I did completely analyze its Word Arts theory-based mechanism that interferes with spatial phases, and I can even reproduce it, too…!”
The Greatshield of the Dead was the name of a magic item Izick had previously possessed, which bestowed absolute defense. By interrupting a minuscule spatial phase, it rejected any and all interference from outside. However, at the same time, the warped space would corrode the structure of the user’s cells like poison, a dangerous magic item that induced severe pain and degeneration.
Nevertheless, he believed that a mimic could even conquer this heavy toll.
“…thirty-seven trillion cells, every single one, without exception, as strong… No, it’s theoretically possible for their structure to even surpass the Greatshield of the Dead, both structurally and conceptually. Same with the degeneration reaction from its defense; the mimic cells themselves could immediately respond and reset everything back to the way it was initially…! I’ll design a homeostasis managed through the mimic’s transforming abilities! All that’s left, ha-ha…are its physical capabilities… I have mountains of material to work with…! Champion muscles, champion nerves, champion bone! I can even fully sequence the invincible cells… I can do it!”
Reproducing a magic item with a living organism, and this idealistic sequencing and preservation. A truly preposterous dream.
Izick himself had thought as much before challenging the True Demon King and shelved the plan.
Testing this was his only option. If it was in order to defeat the True Demon King, there was significance in completing it, even if he sacrificed everything to do so. Exhausting resources, exhausting lives, in the thousands, and the tens of thousands.
Terror and obsession had begun to drive the extraordinary genius toward acts of madness. Though, of course, to Izick the Chromatic, there may never have been a borderline between sanity and madness to begin with.
“Hah, ha-ha-ha…! Damn demon king…! You’re nothing at all… Terror, fear, I just gotta excise all that stuff from the start…! I’m not connecting any of those nerves together… A living weapon made specifically to kill you!”
Thus, he set down a grueling path.
Life Arts. Chemical treatment. Introduction through bacteria. Coaction with magical items. He tried all the methods at his disposal.
The experiments were as if he were etching an extremely detailed sculpture out of a tiny grain of sand and then applying the same process to all the grains of the sandy seaside beach.
Eventually, Izick even replaced the arm on the side of him that was still intact with a wire-like prosthetic arm meant for precision work.
A large portion of the motor functions in his brain, rendered unnecessary by the loss of his physical body, were replaced with a nervous system composed of fungal hyphae. This nerve circuit made him able to automatically handle the complex initial work of treating the cells.
The constant alterations to his own body gnawed at the memories from when he was still minian, but even then, he stubbornly protected his sense of self in order to complete his final creation.
The two moons cycled many, many times, and his work remained undiscovered by anyone.
A long time. Longer still.
The light of success would appear only to vanish, without even providing him with the darkness of resignation long enough to give up.
At the end of a repeating cycle of thousands of miracles and thousands of inevitable failures…
“…A name. I gotta think up a name at some point.”
Izick had always been a talkative man, but he was talking to himself more and more.
The only person for him to talk to was the mass of cells being cultivated inside the glass tube.
“…Minia-shaped. It’s always the minia…who can create the strongest society of all… I’ll borrow some help from them and make this one even stronger. In that case, guess I should make them a man—”
Absolutely all of it was part of a long-shot future…
“Nah, nah, a woman! If I make ’em a man…I’ll be forced to stare at a naked guy the whole time, right? Ha-ha-ha-ha! That sounds awful…”
…Time passed.
How many years had gone by?
The cells that had started to grow could no longer fit inside the glass tube and required a square aquarium.
With Izick’s Craft Arts, creating it was a painless endeavor, but with the increase in volume, he now struggled with the adjustments to the preservatives suppressing their mutation.
Returning with a supply of champion bodies, Ozonezma, too, set eyes on his successor for the first time.
“…THAT IS YOUR OPUS?”
“Yup. Actually, in a sense, y’know. It’s the ruined remains of all those guys you’ve been slaughtering. Ha-ha-ha!”
It didn’t seem like the disordered mass of cells he was looking at would shape into a minia, but if Izick declared they would, then Ozonezma figured it was likely so.
While he was generally a truly loathsome man from any and all perspectives, he had never been wrong when it came to construct creation.
“You better not get in the way here, Ozonezma. Finally… With this, my life’ll finally begin…”
“RISKING YOUR LIFE ALL FOR YOUR MASTERPIECE, YOU SOUND ALMOST LIKE KIYAZUNA THE AXLE. YOU’VE NEVER ONCE SHOWED ANY EMOTION FOR YOUR CREATIONS BEFORE… YOU’VE CHANGED QUITE A BIT.”
“Huh? Sounded like you were getting smart with me there. Almost like who?”
“THIS MIMIC, SHE’S VERY IMPORTANT TO YOU, THEN.”
“…This is all for me. My toy. I’m not like that old hag…! I’m living entirely for myself. I’ll kill anyone that tries to look down on me; they’ll regret ever being born. That’s who I am!”
“IZICK, YOU CAN NO LONGER WIELD THE POWER YOU ONCE HAD. YOU HAVE NO CHANCE OF RECOVERY. YOU MUST UNDERSTAND THAT MUCH…!”
“Yeah, yeah, forget it. Y’know, I don’t need you to do anything ’cept bring me more material. Don’t you dare get close to this one… That’s an order from your master. Got it?”
“…UNDERSTOOD.”
Before two small months had passed, the mimic shriveled and died.
This tiny sliver of hope disappeared, and from there, another ten years went by.
Izick lived another ten years, all just to glimpse that light once more.
“Do you understand me?”
“…Uh-huh.”
“Perrrfect. We’re good as long as you’ve got a soul that comprehends Word Arts, no matter how dumb you may be at the start. Oh…right. Should we start with my name?”
“…Uh-huh.”
“Izick the Chromatic. Better remember it, okay? Ha-ha-ha! It’s the name of your master.”
“Uh-huh.”
At long last, his creation was complete.
This mimic, having its perfected form engraved into it from the beginning of its existence, didn’t undergo any of the maturation process of a normal life-form, possessing the body of a young girl right from the start.
Although she was born as a mimic, capable of transforming her body at will, her figure wouldn’t change for the rest of her life. She was a life-form shouldering such a fate.
“Your name is Tu.”
“Tu.”
“Mhm, Tu. Tu the…Tu the Magic. Ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Izick laughed. The freshly born life-form had no idea this laugh was one of scorn, looking down on his ignorant servant.
“First, I’m gonna go ahead and teach you the most important things of all.”
“Uh-huh…”
“Justice and courage.”
She was innately unable to fight because of a defensive response to fear. He had made her that way.
A sadistic heart was unable to stand against an enormous menace like the True Demon King.
For example, it was possible to rephrase things such as justice and courage.
“Tu. It was an incredible stroke of luck that you were born, okay? There are infinite possibilities in this world. All sorts of colors. A world where you can take hold of any future…just as long as you have a just and brave heart. So now, as for what that really means, well…”
Which was precisely why the wickedest of all demon kings taught her about the heart, first and foremost.
Things that he himself, in the past and still now, never once believed in at all.
The days and months went by.
Tu hadn’t yet stepped outside of her tank, but her condition appeared to be stable.
However, there was still a problem Izick hadn’t anticipated.
“Izick! Izick!”
“Ah, shut up…!”
For the past big month or so, this was how he had been woken up.
“You have to get up early and make sure you eat a good breakfast! Why can’t you take proper care of yourself?! You haven’t washed up at all, either! You’re dirty!”
“Dammit… Gah, I can’t get your damn voice outta my head…! I’m free to do whatever I want. It’s my damn life I’m living.”
“You’re not free! You’re the one who taught me to hold all life precious!”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha! Why the hell do I gotta follow my own rules anyway, huh?”
A year had gone by since he had begun training her personality. Tu was growing exactly as Izick had intended—too much so, in fact.
A living weapon that would pledge to overthrow the True Demon King, fighting with a just heart.
With this came something that Izick himself hadn’t anticipated in the slightest… The interpersonal compatibility between someone raised to be an ally of justice and the wickedest demon king of them all was, frankly, absolutely awful.
“Listen to me! This isn’t just about you, Izick! You have to treat all other lives as precious, too! You don’t need all that material for experiments anymore, right?!”
“Oh, you don’t think so? Then, why don’t you try to stop me, hm? From inside that tank of yours! Those cells of yours aren’t invincible. On my slightest whim, you could dissolve away and die in there, you know.”
“Go ahead and try it! I’m not scared at all!”
There were many like Tu out there.
Trite justice. Trite anger. Trite sadness.
Izick never understood why they would act under such worthless pretexts.
He thought that if he instilled in Tu the exact same ideals the rabble talked about, he could create a blindly devoted soldier, like the ones who had challenged him before.
He had been too successful.
Unlike Ozonezma, Tu, completely lacking the emotion of fear, couldn’t be brought to his heel.
…Son of a… Why did I end up like this? I’m Izick the Chromatic, aren’t I?!
It was the True Demon King.
Their presence had thrown everything in their world out of order. Both justice and evil.
Every time his thoughts turned to the one who had ruined his life, he was never able to let it go.
No matter what price he had to pay, he wouldn’t die until he got to see the True Demon King fully suffer and perish.
“Ah, whatever. I’m sure that determination of yours ain’t worth shit. Study time, study time! Gonna hammer a bunch more knowledge into that brain of yours, got it? Up first, going over the theory behind a mimic’s construction!”
“Nooo! Nooo! No way, no how! I’m not shutting up until you listen to me!”
“Mimic cells divide at super-high speeds, and using a form exactly as they remember it… Shut up, already!”
“No! More! Murder! No! More! Murder!”
“Gah, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!”
Izick had slaughtered, all for his own pleasure.
Each of those victims had had their own life and a heart just like Izick’s. He had seen plenty of people smugly relate this to him before.
Izick had killed every single one who did, without exception. They had all been fools not worth keeping alive.
It was inconceivable that Izick wouldn’t understand something so obvious and natural. It was this heart and the senses like Izick’s own that made his victims cry out in torment and scream when in pain. It was because they possessed such a heart that it proved entertaining.
There may have been children just like Tu among his victims. He didn’t remember every single person he killed.
It was only natural that they all died. They had been weak.
Even if Izick hadn’t laid his hands on them, they would have still been awaiting the suitable recompense for their own weakness.
I haven’t lost… Not to anyone. Eventually, not even to the True Demon King, either.
Izick the Chromatic was different from all of them.
At long last, Izick moved the base of operations he had remained at for almost twenty years.
From the True Northern Kingdom to the United Western Kingdom. It would be a long journey.
“…YOU’RE MOVING YOUR BASE OF OPERATIONS, IZICK?”
For Izick, Ozonezma had already served his purpose, but he still continued to use him as a convenient slave.
Ozonezma was stuck acting like a horse, carrying a large amount of research materials, but his only option was to obey.
“Well, I mean, I’ve really gotten accustomed to this place and all. At first, it was just supposed to keep me outta the elements, but at some point, it ended up becoming my personal lab.”
“THAT IS BOUND TO HAPPEN, GIVEN HOW LONG YOU HAVE REMAINED HERE.”
“Wait, I guess I’m testing to see if I can even move this body properly for the first time, huh? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I haven’t had anything to eat but bugs, weeds, and roots for the last twenty years!”
“ARE YOU GOING TO THE WESTERN KINGDOM ON TU’S WISHES?”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Is that a joke? Thing is, I’m guessing most people have forgotten my face by this point, so I figured they all might be a little lonely! I’m just so damn excited to see how I kill all those worthless worms, I can hardly contain myself!”
Ozonezma didn’t pursue the thought any further.
He knew the Izick would pursue creating this one single construct, even if meant sacrificing absolutely everything.
“…IS TU DOING WELL?”
“Oh, curious, are we? When you’ve never even met her? I had a different construct carry her, so there’s no need for you to know anything about her.”
“THAT’S RIGHT… THOSE WERE YOUR ORDERS.”
Ozonezma was incapable of disobeying Izick’s directions.
While Izick himself may have forgotten, he continued to kill champions, exactly as he had been ordered to long ago in the past.
To ensure that he wasn’t idly sacrificing preeminent intelligence and wit, there was only one method for Ozonezma to utilize. He only killed champions who were destined to die.
Therefore, he reigned as the True Demon King’s keeper and continued to slay champions.
He had been doing this the whole time, even after the birth of Tu the Magic had rendered this order meaningless.
Even while he possessed such strength, he was forever unable to challenge the True Demon King himself.
He didn’t have any innate faculty for courage.
“…IZICK, I HAVE A REQUEST.”
However, a small hope was born inside this manufactured chimera’s heart.
Perhaps a single encounter was enough to change a cursed life like his.
This was why he had purposely come to see Izick once more.
“Huh?”
“I WISH TO END MY JOB WITH THIS. I…I WANT TO GO ON MY OWN JOURNEY.”
Ozonezma had come across a man named Olukt the Drifting Compass Needle.
A simple bard, weak, and wholly incomparable to any champion. Yet Ozonezma thought he seemed to possess a certain something that could defeat the True Demon King.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Izick simply sneered at his creation’s show of will.
“Wait, hold up. Were you still killing people this whole time?! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Well, isn’t that admirable?! Sure, go right ahead! I already finished Tu’s body anyway! I don’t have a use for you anymore. You’re disposed of. Dismissed. Go and do whatever the hell you want.”
“…I WILL DO JUST THAT, THEN.”
Killing the True Demon King.
This venture was sure to be a far more difficult path for him than killing the wickedest of all demon kings who had long held absolute control over him. Now, with his hardened resolve…he thought perhaps he could have killed Izick standing in front of him.
In the past, he should’ve done so. But as for now…
Even if it was possible, he thought he likely wouldn’t.
“IZICK.”
“What now?”
“YOU LIVED FAR LONGER THAN I HAD PREDICTED YOU WOULD. AT THAT TIME, I ASSUMED WHAT LITTLE LIFE YOU HAD LEFT…WOULDN’T EVEN AMOUNT TO FIVE YEARS. GIVING YOURSELF WHOLLY TO YOUR RESEARCH, WITTLING AWAY AT THE ALREADY SCANT LIFE YOU HAD LEFT…YOU LIVED. I BELIEVE…I UNDERSTAND THE REASON WHY.”
“…Don’t talk like you know a damn thing about me. That’s obviously ’cause I’m the wickedest demon king ever.”
“THAT IS NOT IT, IZICK. YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT REASON JUST AS WELL YOURSELF.”
“……”
“IZICK, YOU…”
—were a minia after all, the same as any other.
“Ohh, so these are people…! Living, breathing people!”
“…Ha-ha-ha-ha, is it really that much fun? Must be nice to be so simple, huh?”
“But I can see them…up until now, I had only ever heard about them from what you told me, but wow…! There really are parents laughing with their children… Even when one of them gets hurt, they all support each other… Everyone’s just living their lives…”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha! Yeah, well, I guess they are all alive, aren’t they?”
Izick laughed vilely as he thought about numerous cities he had once brought to ruin.
He wasn’t able to do anything else with the life exhausted from the long journey.
This hillside base of operations situated with a view down over the city could be discovered at any moment.
It won’t take time… The only things left are her combat skills and the cruelty to smash her enemies. Once that’s over, I can release her…and I can take everything back. Everything I’ve lost in the past twenty years.
What should he do after that? he wondered.
It wouldn’t be bad to rampage like he did in the past, taunting and playing with simpleton fools.
For instance, if he were to annihilate the vast kingdom before their eyes, what sort of face would Tu make?
That was certain to prove very fun.
“…Ha-ha, ha-ha.”
“People…real people… Ah-ha…ha…”
Tu was crying.
Her tears became tiny droplets, dancing and floating inside the preservative.
For the next day, and the day after that, she pressed her face up against the tank glass and tirelessly gazed out at the people’s activity.
The United Western Kingdom did not fall in the flames of war. Nor was it trampled underfoot by some colossal monster.
Yet everything died. Each individual person died in fathomless terror and despair.
The True Demon King reached the center of the Western Kingdom much faster than Izick had thought.
At this stage, there were several things he still needed to teach Tu.
“Shit. Shit. Shitshitshit.”
Even on top of the faraway hill, he could see the same presence he’d felt back then.
The presence of terror. The unmistakable presence that brought an end to everything—the presence of the True Demon King.
Despite the many years that had passed since, despite excising the memory storage area in his brain, even after Izick had tried all possible means to forget it all, logic seemed to have no effect at all. He still remembered.
It was unmistakably the terror from that time.
…Can I not beat her?
Thus, it was at that moment when he realized this fear.
It was the question that he should’ve clearly realized from the outset.
Was it even possible to defeat the True Demon King in the first place?
The True Demon King’s terror sheared away the will to try defeating it.
In which case, did the mere fact he was able to complete the creation of Tu the Magic mean that she wasn’t enough to defeat them?
Hadn’t Izick been aware of this for twenty years?
“Tu…! We gotta escape, or we’re in trouble! You want me to leave you behind?! This country’s finished!”
“No way!’
Tu raged inside the tank.
Below her eyes, the kingdom she had constantly gazed at day in and day out was falling into ruin. They couldn’t be saved.
Even if Tu headed off to save them right at that moment, it would’ve been too late. The terror of the Demon King extinguished all hope.
“We can just look for a different city, can’t we?! We can find more of those minia you love so much! There’s still plenty of ’em, tens of hundreds of thousands of them all over the world! But if we die here, it’ll all be for nothing!”
His only option was to convince her. If he ignored Tu’s will and forcibly carried her off, he would never be able to control her again. However, if he released Tu from the tank right now, she’d never return to Izick’s side again.
Once he took her out of the preservative liquid, he couldn’t dissolve her away and dispose of her, either. Izick had created her to be an invincible organism.
“No…! No! No! No!”
“Why can’t you understand?! You can’t win the way you are now! Your heart… You gotta become the perfect weapon, right down to your heart, or you won’t be able to kill her! There’s still time! I’m not… Listen, okay?! I’m not dying until I perfect you! You understand?! I can’t die yet! So stop talking back and listen!”
Right. If he could just complete Tu, then she could defeat the True Demon King.
Even if, perhaps, he had merely convinced himself of this and could do nothing but put it off forever.
“But you were the one who said it, Izick!”
Tu the Magic was different from any of the constructs Izick had made up to that point.
For him, only ever having underlings who obeyed every word he said, it was almost as if she was…
“You said that the most important things in this world are justice and courage!”
“Obviously all that shit was a big fat lie, dammit! You’re a weapon! A weapon solely meant to kill that True Demon King!”
“No! No…! I get it!”
Inside the tank, Tu looked hard at Izick in front of her.
She had beautiful eyes, sparkling green.
Her appearance, the ways of the heart, were practically the exact opposite of the demon king said to be the wickedest of them all.
The fact she was even created by a man like Izick the Chromatic seemed like a bad joke.
“Defeating the True Demon King, saving the world… I don’t want to think that I had to abandon someone else to do it! If I was made to be a champion, then I want to live in a way that won’t make me ashamed to call myself one! I want to believe in justice! I want to believe I have the courage to fight!”
“Dammit…! Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit!”
There was neither the time left nor the possibility for Izick to create another specimen.
He was going to die.
Tu the Magic was going to challenge the True Demon King in her incomplete state, and it was all going to end up meaningless.
I failed.
Tu the Magic, whom he staked his second chance at life on making, was a total failure.
Why? Why? Why?
Why had he made something that he knew couldn’t win?
Why had he taught someone so useless?
…Why did he do that?
“Curse you…! What the hell was I… I just…ha-ha… My life, it’s…n-nngh…ngh…”
“…Izick.”
Tu placed her palm against the tank as she spoke.
“You raised me up until now, Izick. Even if it really was all a lie…to me, that world you told me about was the real one! All the colors that you gave to me when I was blank white slate! This heart you instilled in me, that was true righteousness!”
“Enough, you dumb asshole! Piss off! Don’t you dare take me for a fool! I’m the wickedest demon king of ’em all! That’s who I was! Me! I—I…”
Izick the Chromatic touched the tank structure with a trembling hand.
He would dissolve Tu the Magic and dispose of her.
In that past, that’s what Izick would have done. He was surely able to, even now.
The fluid began to drain from the tank. Everything, in that moment, had gone to waste.
Izick shouted in order to avoid looking at Tu as she stepped out into the world for the first time.
“Fine…go on, then! Dumbass!”
He wasn’t going to look at her, no matter what.
Her body should have felt unbelievably light.
She should be able to breathe. Be able to walk.
Because, after all, she was the greatest creation of Izick the Chromatic.
“Thank you.”
…She must have been smiling.
The fact he could tell was the worst part of it all.
“Thank you, Dad!”
With her braid fluttering behind like a tail, she disappeared far into the distance.
Then in the present.
The only thing left in the room Tu the Magic had stayed in was the aftermath of tremendous destruction.
Most of the destruction had been caused by the construct army Krafnir had unleashed. He used up all his might in an attempt to stop Tu.
…This was all completely pointless.
The revenant Krafnir used as his terminal was twisted apart and leaning up against the wall.
Even after pelting her with an attack powerful enough to damage himself in the process, Tu never stopped. He knew.
He also knew that the reason she didn’t stop wasn’t because she possessed an invincible body.
I knew…
The fifth match. She had conceded victory to Kuze the Passing Disaster, who had a reason for advancing through the tournament.
However, it was definitely not because Tu was weak of heart. At the time, Tu did exactly what she believed she was the right thing to do.
I understood…what Tu held in her heart.
A Mind Arts caster, capable of controlling the mind, heart, and soul.
This reputation that Krafnir the Hatch of Truth had earned for himself seemed all too ironic.
Even though he had systematized the creation of constructs that acted in accordance with a set structure and had devised unmatched and peerless technology to project his own heart and soul into a construct…never once had Krafnir been able to create a construct like Tu, with the same sort of heart and mind as any other person.
“AH… RIGHT, TU…”
Tu was going far away and might never return to him.
That was why Krafnir was able to say it.
“…PLEASE, TU…KEEP GOING …”
She could simply continue forward, without listening to whatever anyone else had to say. To the ends of the earth, as far as she could go.
Since that itself was the life for those with hearts and minds of their own.
“…SAVE EVERYONE.”
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