Chapter 98
#Chapter 98: Crown Prince Alondre (6) - High Capacity
“Then, please take care of the rest.”
“Of course, of course. Please don’t worry about a thing and go in peace.”
In response to Ernst’s greeting, the man dispatched from Brown Trading Company welcomed him with an extremely polite, deferential attitude.
That was because the company head, Travers Brown, had given him strict orders not to show the slightest rudeness under any circumstances and to treat the man before him with utmost respect.
After leaving the library, Ernst simply began walking in silence.
After walking and walking, by the time he finally reached the outskirts of the city and then a forest where he could sense no human presence at all.
Ernst took out a marble from the small pouch at his chest.
The surface of the translucent marble was packed full of all kinds of writing-like marks, and some of those letters began to move, the gaps between them widening before a voice heavy with resentment leaked out from within.
《You filthy human bastard! How dare you...! How dare you use my body for something like that!!》
The owner of that voice was pouring thick, murderous intent toward Ernst, and that was only natural.
After having his soul ripped out and sealed inside this tiny marble, and his original body used as material to make some grimoire, how could he not hold a grudge?
The demon Balzares threatened Ernst.
《Right now, get me out of here! If you don’t, I’ll give you an ending more horrific than anything you could possibly imagine!》
At Balzares’s words, Ernst tilted his head.
“You seemed to use a rather friendly and cheerful tone before. Have you given that up?”
《Are you mocking me!!》
“To take a question as mockery... you seem to have a very twisted mind.”
At Ernst’s impenetrable attitude, as if not even a needle could slip through, Balzares ground his teeth and then let out a long sigh.
And then, in a somewhat deflated voice, he spoke.
《Listen, friend. I’ll admit you have quite a bit of ability for a human. But that’s all it is.》
Softly, as if soothing a child.
《My lord, 『Deception』, is the king of kings who rules over countless demons in the Demon Realm. With the level of ability you have, you can’t even begin to compare to him. No, even without my lord making a move, there are plenty of demons under him far stronger than I am. If even one of them came looking for you, your life would become incredibly miserable, you know?》
Step by step, as if even a fool could understand.
《Your weak body will be torn to shreds and fed to the three-headed hounds, and your soul will be worked as a slave until the moment it disappears.》
Specifically, as if he were stirring the imagination.
《The gods of the Pantheon have dwindled so much that they can no longer flaunt their former power, the transcendent beings on the mortal plane have shut themselves away in their own domains and take no interest in the outside world, and the hero who protects humankind disappeared long ago. In a situation like this, if the demons were to set their sights on you, could you endure it? Hmm?》
With a faint murderous intent, as if he might bite down on him at any moment.
《You just need to let me go now. And if you restore my body to how it was, we can become friends. Forget old grudges and start over anew. How about it?》
And then Ernst spoke.
“That seems like it would be difficult.”
《...Do you still find my words hard to understand?》
“It’s true that the gift I gave her used part of your body, but that doesn’t mean it’s your body itself. If it did, the demon’s traces would still remain, and then it would be less a gift than a trap, wouldn’t it?”
Even if only a few people could sense demonic energy, it wasn’t as though there were none at all.
If such people were to look at the grimoire Eris possessed and interrogate her, wouldn’t that leave Eris herself in a bind and, in many ways, make the giver awkward as well?
Accordingly, Ernst made the most of the material’s properties themselves while removing every trace that could make one think of a demon.
“Even if you got out of this marble, you wouldn’t be able to return to her book. The connection would already be gone. So restoring your body is impossible. Well, it might be possible to make a new grimoire and let you inhabit that...”
The demon Balzares’s patience ended there.
《You lowly human scum!!》
Crack!
A crack appeared in the marble imprisoning Balzares.
As the writing etched on the marble’s surface vanished at high speed, black mist seeped out from the marble and took on Balzares’s shape.
《Good! Then I’ll just take your body!!》
Balzares’s keen senses accurately told him that the power Ernst currently possessed was pitifully low.
-He can only wield 6th-tier power inside the library.
Even if he couldn’t pinpoint Ernst’s abilities exactly, he could tell that Ernst currently had no more than an ordinary person’s strength.
As the writing on the marble disappeared bit by bit, the seal imprisoning Balzares weakened little by little, and just as Balzares’s form was about to fully take shape—
“Eek, eek, so noisy.”
Along with a voice from somewhere, a white finger picked up the marble containing Balzares.
《What?》
Balzares turned around in alarm.
And he saw it.
A woman with black hair and red eyes, fair skin, and a seductive body was holding the marble that sealed him between her fingers like it was a piece of candy.
《A succubus?》
Balzares muttered that at the woman’s appearance, but the woman, Lucid, did not answer.
Her gaze was fixed on Ernst.
“Do you need this?”
“Hmm. I would have liked to hear a specific plan for what you were plotting on the surface, though.”
“Is that all you need? The rest doesn’t matter?”
“Yes. It’s awkward to move it anywhere else anyway.”
“Don’t go changing your story later, okay?”
At the conversation continuing as though he didn’t exist at all, Balzares was so dumbfounded he lost his voice.
Humans, well, fine.
Right now, for some reason, that power seems to have been greatly reduced, but even so, he was the one who had beaten Balzares head-on.
That meant he had enough of a track record to back up his arrogance in front of Balzares.
But this woman?
《You bitch, which faction are you with? How dare a lowly succubus like you!!》
What kind of being is a succubus?
Among the many races in the Demon Realm, they’re one of the weakest and most lowly, so much so that you’d be better off counting up from the bottom.
At best, they’re pathetic beings who serve as concubines to powerful demons or drain humans of their vitality.
For one such as her to ignore him, someone receiving direct orders from a great lord, left Balzares utterly speechless.
“Thank you for the meal.”
But Lucid didn’t care in the slightest.
Ignoring whatever Balzares said, she put the marble containing his soul into her mouth and swallowed it whole.
The form Balzares had finally escaped from the marble dispersed again like mist and vanished.
Feeling the sensation of dropping down the back of his throat, Balzares let out a bitter laugh.
‘What a stupid woman, too stupid to understand words. But that’s good.’
A demon can increase its power by devouring other souls.
But that only matters when it’s done to someone far weaker than oneself.
Just like a predator that gorges itself on too much or too large prey can burst and die, trying to forcibly devour a soul beyond one’s capacity is impossible to absorb.
No, rather, there’s a far greater chance the soul that invaded from within will end up devouring you instead.
He would absorb this foolish, stupid succubus in return, and then kill that arrogant librarian Ernst or whatever his name was too.
As Balzares prepared a counterattack with that thought in mind, he soon realized something was wrong.
A normal succubus’s vessel is at best something like a cup that can hold a glass of water.
So if you try to absorb Balzares, whose scale and mana are like a swimming pool’s, it will inevitably break, or else be buried beneath the pool.
But.
What is this vessel?
It’s huge.
And not just huge.
Even if Balzares spread his senses out again and again, it was so vast that he couldn’t tell where it ended.
Although much of the vessel’s contents were empty at the moment, by capacity alone it was at least on par with an upper-ranking demon.
No, no, beyond that.
Impossible as it was.
His lord, one of only three absolute rulers in the Demon Realm.
Comparable to 『Deception』—
Plop.
Balzares’s soul fell into a gigantic pool of water.
《Gah! H-help! Please save me! Please save me! My lord!》
He struggled desperately and screamed, but the pool remained still.
Compared to the size of the pool, that uproar was far too small.
The marble, and the shape of Balzares seeping out around it, became soft and limp, like paint dissolved in oil.
His memories, his mana, his power, his existence—all of it melted away and was absorbed into the pool as part of it.
And at last, silence came.