I was once, the human closest to the realm of the gods

Not long after Molan left, a youth stepped in through the open door.

“Hello, emissary girl~” He brought his suitcase to a stop at one side and bowed to Tess.

“After seeing you for real, your beauty is far more what is far more than what I’ve heard.”

Tess cautiously sized him up. His age appeared to be the same as Molan, his hair was long and tied together and his looks were androgynous. He wore a clean, speckless white formal wear and a strange scent wafted from him.

“I don’t know you.”

“I too, have only met you tonight.” The youth shrugged, “When I was small, someone invited me to the Oracle Plenary but I didn’t accept. I not, I would have known you earlier.”

“What do you want.”

“I heard from Pete that an elven girl with a sakura pink mark between her eyebrows attacked their facility. I was pleasantly surprised. I didn’t think I would be able to meet the noble emissary, and so I sent people to follow you.” The youth then walked to the room opposite, “I stay here.”

“Pete?”

“Ah, my subordinate. You taught him quite the lesson.”

Tess remembered.

“So it’s you who kidnapped Molan?”

“Uwa~ Don’t look at me like that, it wasn’t under my order. I only gave them the freedom to do whatever to get some money. Choosing kidnapping and robbery was out of my control.”

The youth squinted his eyes.

“The time you have left isn’t long, maybe… 3 days?”

Tess was shocked.

“How do you know.”

“Of course I know~”

The youth grinned, looking very pleased with himself.

“Since you’re going to die anyway, why not give me hand?”

“With what?”

“Wu, it’s a long story, why don’t you come with me first and I can slowly tell you?”

“No, I’m waiting for Molan to return.” Tess shook her head, “And I hate you.”

“So straightforward? I’m so hurt.”

The youth made a show and clutched his chest with a painful expression, like a comedian doing an exaggerated act. When he was done, he tidied his hair, and his lips curled into a smile.

“Well, I never expected you to come with me obediently.” He threw a tiny glass vial in the air and caught it, “How is it, this hallucinogen smells good right? Those guys at the Pentacle made it, though it has no use on me.”

“Are you okay? Can you see how many this is?” The youth’s figure seemed blurrier.

That was the last memory Tess had before she lost consciousness.

Tess had a sharp headache as she sat up on the bed.

The youth moved a chair over and folded his hands on the back rest as he sat on the chair backwards, sizing her up with an interested look.

“You’re awake, beautiful, welcome to the ‘Demon Lineage Sect’, this is my private room.”

“Wu.”

Tess began her incantations with the intention of blowing the youth away. But nothing happened, and her body felt soft and weak, with no sense of the flow of mana.

“Eh.”

“Coming at me with a spell full of killing intent, how moody can someone get on waking up.”

“What, happened?”

“Can’t use magic?” The youth grinned, “Because I sealed your mana, that’s why~”

He reached out and pointed. Tess touched her neck, where she found a black collar held together by a sturdy lock. The collar was very strong, and no amount of pulling had any effect.

“Don’t waste your strength. The present you can’t tear it. This was found from the coffin, a 10,000 year inheritance with a performance guarantee from the demon race. It was specially made to deal with emissaries, and seemed to have been made just when the demon race surrendered.”

“Why do you have this sort of thing.”

“This toy and the guy in the coffin was originally with the Pentacle and I stole it from them afterwards.” The youth said as he waved his hand, “Don’t bother asking about them. Thos idiots couldn’t decipher the inscriptions on the coffin and didn’t even know that such a great existence lay there in the coffin. Yet they had the nerve to carry out research, and extracted a great deal of blood to use as mana enhancer potions… Come on, that is an ancient demon king for crying out loud!”

His tone was playful as if he was talking about something funny.

“And so I drained them dry, and extracted the precious blood of the demon king from the compound materials.”

“What do you want.”

“Revive the demon king,” The youth’s eyes suddenly gleamed with maliciousness, “I will use the power of the demon race and take back all I lost.”

“…”

“Speaking of which, you really are beautiful. When I finish my first step that is to conquer this nation. Why don’t you be my concubine~ But it’s a pity you are going to die soon, so you can only be my concubine for a few days.”

Tess was silent.
The youth continued, “You have activated the ‘transition’ spell. All the preparatory steps are completed but the last one. The spell cannot be cancelled halfway and you set the ending to be in 3 days’ time. Once the time comes, you will disappear completely, with no trace at all,” He nodded, “And then, a new emissary will be born.”

“… Why are you so knowledgeable about the ‘transition’ spell? That is a secret of emissaries!” Tess stared at the youth, “Who are you?”

“Ah, I haven’t introduced myself yet.”

The youth patted his head, and got up from the chair.

“Just call me Maruko, a pure and proper member of the human race.”

(TL: I left it in its Japanese romaji because translating it into English is just weird because 丸子 just means ball, while leaving it in hanyu pinyin makes it seem like a Chinese name. Note that the author’s handle is 丸子大魔王.)

“You know too much for a human.”

“I’m not an ordinary human.”

The youth didn’t make a sound in reply but various emotions flashed across his face; pride, anger and frustration. Finally, he let a single cold laugh, and he finally opened his mouth.

“I was once, the human closest to the realm of the gods.”

“… What does that mean?”

“You can take it at face value~ Just remember that I’m freaking cool. What can I say, being too awesome makes people jealous, and some bastard separated me into a thousand pieces, resulting in me looking like now.”

“The me that is standing before you is a thousandth of my original self.” Maruko supplemented.

Tess could not comprehend his words. Separate? How? Use a sword to cut into a thousand pieces? Isn’t he a complete person now…

“If you don’t get it, never mind. You aren’t me anyway, how could you possibly understand?” He said gleefully.

“From what I know, the emissaries were humanoid weapons the gods used to destroy the demon race. With the end of the demon race, so too did the emissaries lost their reason to live. Some died in the crusade, others destroyed themselves in accordance to the will of the gods granted to them by an oracle after the crusade ended. Only 2 gods did not impose a death oracle on their emissaries. One was the god of fate.”

Maruko gazed at Tess’s expression.

“One is… Who? Haha, I don’t know either.”

“…”

“God did not destroy the emissary probably because he had a mission for the emissary. But emissaries grow old and die, moreover they have extremely short lives as a weapon of mass destruction. So god created the ‘transition’ spell and created a link between the emissary and the most long-lived race, the elves, so that when the emissary died, the linked elf would inherit the role of the emissary and carry on the mission. From ancient times, the elven emissaries of the god of fate have had short lives, not because their natural lifespans were short–Elves are oractically undying! Actually its the god of fate who likes changing emissaries from time to time, and so the emissary dies whenever he grows bored of the current one.”

Tch tch tch, Maruko clicked his tongue.

“And you, have you bored him already? You can see the future in your dreams, shouldn’t you be the one that god loves the most? I heard you carried away a dying girl at the Oracle Plaza and said you would save her… Are you going to link to her?”

Tess did not answer.

“No healing spell exists that can revive the dead. If something can do it, that would be fate.” Maruko said softly, “If the gods have a deed they need someone to accomplish, even a dead man would open his eyes and crawl out of his grave to live once more, until he completed his mission.”

*Pa pa pa* , Maruko clapped.

“Nooo~ Wayyyy~ Throwing your life away to save others? I’m so touched by you?”

“You are too long-winded.” Tess said coldly, “Let me return.”

“That I can’t do. Without you, how can I revive the demon king?”

“Don’t you have the blood of demonic beasts.”

“Yeah, I do have them,”Maruko touched his forehead, “But there is no soul left in the blood.”

“Every member of the Pentacle has more or less drunk the demon king’s blood, and more of less been taken over by the soul that was living in the blood. The one who was taken over the most was the green haired elf who initiated the attack in the Oracle Plaza. You compressed him into a ball and destroyed him, and the demon king who was about to awaken inside, by throwing him into the pool of holy water.”

“But you didn’t actually succeed.” Maruko said.

“I’m guessing that you opened the wind shield for a single moment to let the ball touch the holy water. And in that opening, the demon king’s soul separated from its blood and escaped. After that, the soul fragments in the bodies of the other Pentacle members also disappeared. Aiya, I killed them for nothing.”

The demon race really is admirable. Even the unexplainable things that almighty gods can’t do, they can. Maruko had endless praise for the demon race.

“Speaking of which,” He stared into Tess’s eyes, “You don’t seem surprised huh… You’ve seen this far already?”

“Un.” Tess nodded honestly.

“Then do you know who the soul is possessing now?”

“Not telling.”

“Hmmmmm~ Just curious. If the soul comes back looking for his body, then that would be troublesome for me. Our plan is to install a false soul into the body, to make it easy for us to control. The original plan was to infuse human blood into the body but alas, the body rejected it.”

Maruko reached out and lifted Tess’s chin.

“But it’s good you are here. Emissary and demon, both originally have similar souls.”

Tess swatted his hand away.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Is there such a need to hate me so much~” Maruko lifted his head to look at the wall clock, “About time we wrapped up, they should have gotten things ready for the ritual.”

He stepped back, and bowed down while he stuck his left hand out, in a pose to invite Tess.

“Let us be off, to awaken the lord who has slept for 10,000 years… And begin our revolution!”