Chapter 107
Even taking Aoji as the destination, it was over 600 kilometers from Seoul, so I needed to reach about Mach 2.5 to get there comfortably within 22 minutes.
I flew my ass off and barely made it there in twenty minutes.
Fortunately, this time we didn't have to argue our way in from the start.
I went straight through the Gate.
When I entered, I saw Gremory's face.
“Savior!”
“What in the world happened?”
“Over there...”
[Survive the massive storm. Demon Lord Gremory must survive.]
[Storm duration: 2 hours, 2 minutes]
What the fuck is that thing?
That’s terrifying.
“Why is everyone standing around instead of running?!”
If they seriously expected me to stop something like that...
These guys aren't right in the head, either.
A whole field of flowers, that's what.
“S-Savior!”
“What?!”
Why are you calling me? I'm exhausted from running!
When I turned around, Gremory, looking utterly crestfallen, said,
“This is my territory. If I lose it, I will lose both my authority and my right to be a Demon Lord.”
“That can't be more important than your life!”
“I'm sorry, but... to demons, their territory is the most important thing, something they must protect even at the cost of their lives.”
“... Damn it. But what can you do against that storm?!”
Should I just run off by myself?
No matter how important the mission was, it wasn't more important than my life, right?
“... Tch.”
Still, I couldn't run without even trying.
Especially when I was in my ten-times-stronger Bacteriaman state.
“Greed!”
─ W h y . a r e . y o u . c a l l i n g . m e.
“We need to make a bunker. Dome-shaped.”
Most bunkers seemed to be built that way.
Well, I'd heard that shape was good for aerodynamics and structural strength, too.
YouTube really is a godsend.
I'm sure there isn't a single bit of fake news on there.
“Can you make it cover this entire territory, using the strongest material possible...?”
─ T h e . w h o l e . t h i n g . i s . i m p o s s i b l e.
In that case...
“Gremory, it looks like I can't protect the whole area. Tell me what the most important part is.”
“... W-We have to protect the castle.”
“Then we'll focus on the castle.”
─ T h e . s t r u c t u r e s . a r e . t o o . t a l l . I t ' s . i n e f f i c i e n t.
“... The structures seem too tall.”
When I repeated Greed's words, Gremory burst into tears.
“T-The central spire, at least... That would be all right... I can rebuild it...”
Was it really worth getting that upset over?
And wait, was she really a Demon Lord?
Why was a Demon Lord so quick to cry?
Could you do it if we took down the central spire?
─ A l l . t h e . s p i r e s.
“... I think we'll have to remove every spire.”
“Waaaaah!”
“... I told you, we don't have time for this!”
“Y-You can take them down...”
As soon as she gave permission, I deployed the Gluttony Legion and had them dismantle the spires.
[Demon Lord Gremory’s castle is protected by her authority.]
[You have a stake in Demon Lord Gremory’s territory.]
[Protection has been removed.]
It seemed there'd been some kind of barrier, but it came down without Gluttony even needing to break it.
Gremory looked ready to burst into tears as she watched the spires being dismantled.
Well, I guess I'd be upset too if my whole house were getting taken apart.
─ I t ' s . p o s s i b l e . n o w.
“Hurry up.”
A dome-shaped shelter appeared over a fairly wide area, centered on the castle, which had been lowered by dismantling the spires.
“Let's get inside.”
Inside, Greed had driven a mass of tendrils into the ground to reinforce the structure.
The outer layer was something like concrete, with a layer of metal added on the inside.
“At this rate, you'd make a fortune in construction.”
─ T h a t ' s . a . s t u p i d . t h i n g . t o . s a y.
“Can't you take a joke?”
─ I f . y o u . w a n t . t o . m a k e . m o n e y . o f f . h u m a n s . t h e r e . a r e . p l e n t y . o f . w a y s.
“... You do?”
─ T h e r e . a r e . a l s o . p l e n t y . o f . r a r e . m e t a l s . i n . t h e . s o i l . h e r e . H u m a n s . a r e . f o o l s.
“Whoa, what kind of stuff?”
─ L i k e . t h i s.
[Star Relic Fragment]
Grade: Star Legacy
Description: A fragment containing the essence of a star.
Details: A precious material used to repair or enhance relic-grade items and certain special items.
Holy crap...
I hadn't seen one since I found one in Russia.
There was one here?
Of course, it was only a tiny amount, but still, what a find.
Just as I was marveling at this new discovery,
“Um, Savior...? Will this be enough...?”
Gremory looked at me anxiously as the sound of the storm drew closer.
I didn't know, either...
Just as I thought that,
Bam! Something exploded above the bunker.
Gremory and her retainers all flinched.
And they were demons, with a Demon Lord among them...
“It'll be all right. Let's hold out here.”
There should be about an hour and fifty minutes left on the storm now.
[Storm duration: 1 hour, 52 minutes]
As expected.
I think we'd spent about ten minutes building the bunker.
Now we just had to hold out against that thing...
[Storm duration: 2 hours, 52 minutes]
“What?”
That wasn't the end of it.
[Storm duration: 3 hours, 52 minutes]
[Storm duration: 4 hours, 52 minutes]
.
.
.
[Storm duration: 142 hours, 52 minutes]
Messages suddenly flooded into view, completely covering my vision.
... What the hell was going on?
─ T h a t . S l o t h . b a s t a r d.
“... Did you say Sloth?”
─ I t . s h o u l d n ' t . h a v e . b e e n . h e r e . i n . t h e . f i r s t . p l a c e.
“Then why is it here?”
─ B e c a u s e . I . d i s a p p e a r e d.
I had no idea what this cryptic nonsense meant,
but in any case, this strange phenomenon was Sloth's doing.
─ Y o u . h a v e . t o . s t o p . i t.
“I'd like to stop it, too.”
If only I could.
─ I t ' s . a . s t o r m . c a u s e d . b y . a . d i s t o r t i o n . i n . s p a c e - t i m e.
A storm caused by a distortion in space-time?
The Storm of Space and Time... ?
─ Y e s.
Yeah, even the name sounded ominous.
So how do we stop it?
─ W e . h a v e . t o . r e s t o r e . t h e . d i s t o r t e d . t i m e.
“How are we supposed to do that?”
─ I . d o n ' t . k n o w . O n l y . t h a t . S l o t h . b a s t a r d . w o u l d . k n o w.
Are you kidding me?
... Still, if that was the only way,
I had to think about it as hard as I could.
“Gremory.”
“Yes, Savior...”
“Have you ever heard of the Storm of Space and Time?”
“Yes. I understand it's a storm that rages across the twisted lands at the northern edge of the Demon Realm.”
“... Why does it happen there?”
“That's the territory of the Demon God, so even the Demon Lords don't know much about it.”
That wasn't helpful.
“D-Don't tell me that's the storm?”
“It seems like it.”
“... Oh, my.”
Gremory and her retainers panicked even more.
I felt like their panic was starting to get to me, too, so I closed my eyes and ears for a moment and thought.
... I only had one time-related item left now.
[Time Fragment (One Piece)]
Grade: Creation-grade usable item
Description: A fragment containing a minuscule amount of the power of Chronos, the god said to have created the concept of time at the beginning of creation.
Details: With this fragment, you can turn back time by 10 seconds. This power is limited to a single world.
A Creation-grade item I'd never even heard of.
A Time Fragment.
But...
There was no way turning back time by a mere ten seconds would solve this.
Then Greed said, looking unusually startled,
─ W h e r e . d i d . y o u . g e t . t h a t.
I got it as a reward. Why?
─ T h a t . s h o u l d . b e . e n o u g h . t o . u s e . i t.
Well, it did feel like a waste.
But there wasn't much I could do by going back ten seconds, anyway.
“Can't be helped. I'll use the Time Fragment.”
Then...
The small fragment vanished in a brilliant flash of light.
[Using Time Fragment (One Piece).]
[You are in a space-time distortion zone.]
[The power of time is absorbed by the space-time distortion instead of turning the world's time back.]
[The space-time distortion has disappeared!]
At the same time...
The storm's remaining duration began to plummet right before my eyes,
[Storm duration: 1 second]
and at last, the storm disappeared completely.
At the same time, Greed withdrew its tendrils, and the bunker dome instantly crumbled into dust.
Gremory's territory was utterly devastated.
Even so, Gremory and her retainers cheered at having survived.
Instead of celebrating with them, I hurriedly used Mician on the spot where the storm had raged.
[You have discovered the remains of a new entity, ‘Sloth’.]
Remains, huh.
I could just bring it back to life first.
“Undead Rise.”
[Would you like to use the Undead Rise skill?]
[Target: Approximately 100,000 Sloth corpses.]
When I nodded,
a faint light appeared...
and microscopic things, so tiny that even Mician could barely sense their existence, became my retainers.
Now I had Sloth, too.
After Gluttony, Pride, and Greed, this made four already.
Unexpectedly, I'd acquired two kinds in the Demon Realm alone.
What a huge haul.
I had no idea where I'd find the remaining three, though...
Still, four was already incredible.
Right?
“... I guess so?”
I hoped Sloth wasn't useless or anything.
(4) Sloth (Authority Restricted)
─Entity count: Approximately 100,000
─Description: Rather than microorganisms, these entities are closer to particles that impart and retrieve the concept of time. They are said to exist in small amounts in the Immortality Herb and in Xi Wangmu's Peaches of Immortality. They are the rarest of the fundamental particles that have existed since the beginning of time. Having died, they have almost entirely lost their power to control time. Though they have lost all their authority, they were revived through the caster's powerful control and can use a tiny fraction of their authority.
─Details: This entity cannot be unsummoned and can only coexist inside the caster's body, affecting the caster in various ways. (Authority currently restricted)
─Detailed information:
1) The caster does not age and gains an infinite lifespan.
2) The caster can maintain a level lower than their current level for up to 5 hours (base duration: 3 minutes; 250% control effect). After the duration ends, they return to their original level. While maintaining a lower level, their stats are reduced by a certain percentage.
... I hadn't misread that, had I?
I rubbed my eyes
and read the description again.
1) The caster does not age and gains an infinite lifespan.
“... Holy crap.”
Immortality.
I was nowhere near old enough to worry about dying of old age, but...
Gilgamesh, Qin Shi Huang, and countless others...
I had obtained the one thing every powerful figure in the world had desperately wished for.
Could I... handle this?
The second ability was less clear to me than the first.
Maintaining a level below my current one...
It said my stats would decrease, too. What was the benefit?
“Ah... Aaaaaah!!”
Holy crap.
It meant that once my level went up, I could clear the Gates I hadn't been able to tackle before.
On top of that, it meant I no longer needed to control my level at all.
I could move up to Level 70 right now.
I could just lower my level and clear the Gates I couldn't otherwise tackle at my leisure.
[Epic Saga Mission 54/70, ‘Gremory’s Survival,’ has been completed.]
As I marveled at Sloth's incredible abilities,
the completion message for Mission 54 appeared.
Oh, right. You were here, too.
“As expected of the great Savior... You've saved us once again!”
“......”
For someone who's a Demon Lord, aren't you letting me carry you through everything?
“I don't even dare imagine how I could repay you...”
“Oh, don't worry about that.”
I think I'd already gotten a pretty generous reward, though.
Who could've known Sloth would be this powerful?
Just then,
[By completing the mission in a way other than the usual method, Missions 55–68 will not proceed.]
[Epic Saga Mission 69/70, ‘The End of Eternity,’ continues.]
[The Cycle of Eternity has been bound to ‘Kim Segyun’.]
[All beings of the Demon Realm must kill ‘Kim Segyun’ and obtain the Cycle of Eternity.]
“... What?”
[Demon Lord ‘Gremory’ has been given a choice.]
[First choice: Kill ‘Kim Segyun’ and become the owner of the ‘Incomplete Cycle of Eternity’.]
[Second choice: Help ‘Kim Segyun’ open a new Demon Realm.]
When all those messages had ended,
another message appeared before me.
[You cannot leave the current Gate until the ‘End of Eternity’ mission ends.]
[Use all your abilities to survive.]
I was celebrating the fact that I could coast through this...
and then, all of a sudden,
it became Man vs. the Demon Realm.