novelraw Chapter 80 : Chapter 80
Chapter 80 : Chapter 80
Chapter 80
“You have something you're curious about?
Go ahead and ask!”
My head throbbed from the laughter that echoed resoundingly in the pitch-black space, but I endured it.
If he was going to grant my wish, noise pollution was a small price to pay.
“First, do you only grant one wish?”
“That's right.”
Hearing his confident voice, it seemed that his words about granting a wish were true.
Still, they say you should look before you leap, so…….
“Really?”
“……?”
“No, I'm not trying to doubt you, but your reputation is just so bad.
I've heard that sometimes you even grant wishes in reverse after being summoned……”
“…I am a count of the demon realm.
I am in a different class from those nameless low-level demonkin who respond to summons.
No one here could ever summon me.”
Seeing my face full of disbelief, he sighed—Ha—and continued.
“I swear on my name, Rihaltan, the count of the demon realm and the lord of nightmares.”
An oath of a demonkin.
It felt like some kind of double contract.
As if he had read my thoughts, he scrunched up his face and said.
“An oath of a demonkin is noble.
It's different from the promises of those bird-heads you call celestials.
A demonkin who fails to make an oath loses their class and falls.”
Hmm.
It was an interesting thing to say, but I still wasn't convinced.
After all, the opponent was a demonkin.
‘Could it be, is this how other people felt when they looked at me?’
The thought that suddenly occurred to me made me feel strangely gloomy.
In the eyes of ordinary people, the incarnation of a demon and a scoundrel probably looked similar.
After finding the cause of my -100 trust in an unexpected place, I clicked my tongue and asked.
“Tsk, then the next question.”
Ahem, ahem, I cleared my throat and loosened my hands.
Because the next question was important enough to affect my rock-bottom trust.
“…Is it free?”
“……?”
The beast, who didn't understand the question, tilted his head, then, as if he had read my thoughts, burst into a roar of laughter.
“Hahahahaha!”
The louder his laughter grew, the more the hand that was nailed to the empty air trembled.
***
Rihaltan was sweating profusely, but he couldn't stop laughing.
To ask if a demonkin's oath was free…….
He had seen a prince who had sold his country and a hero who had abandoned the continent for that oath, and yet, was it free!
Indeed, were they not a species more evil than demons!
“Heuk-heuk, heuk-heuk-heuk!”
The laughter that seeped through the boiling pain made the nightmare he was barely maintaining tremble, and he hastily adjusted his demonic energy.
“Heuk, heuk, free, is it free?”
It was a question he had never heard before, even after creating over a hundred million nightmares and asking the same question to over a thousand humans.
Because those who had succeeded in summoning a demonkin by paying no small price had not worried about the price.
-Yes, it's free!
Free!
Kuhahaha!
Rihaltan's voice was filled with a confidence and certainty that it didn't matter what the wish was.
Because he, who had been born as a low-level incubus and had created hundreds of millions of nightmares and had asked the same question thousands of times, was confident that he could grant any wish.
‘Humans are stupid.’
Kings, farmers, saints, and villains, regardless of their position and good or evil, humans were ignorant and stupid.
He had made a human who had said he wanted to be a king a king, and a bastard who had said he wanted to hold a new woman until he died had died on top of a woman.
If they wished for immortality, he gave them immortality, if they wanted the continent, he gave them the continent, and to those who wanted fame, he gifted them fame.
Among them, there was a bastard who wanted to kill a hero and become a hero, a bastard who wanted to become the master of the continent, and even a bastard who had wished for the death of ‘all demonkin’, but they had all gotten their wishes.
─In the depths of his castle, who was called the lord of nightmares.
Rihaltan had always invited the contractors to his castle, and the contractors could not refuse the invitation.
Because the moment they became a contractor and summoner of a demonkin, they became a traitor to the continent, and the castle of the count of the demon realm was, paradoxically, the safest place for them.
The human in front of him was not a summoner, but it didn't matter.
After making a contract, he would leave a large mark, and they would have no choice but to respond to the invitation.
-Let's stop the games here.
He squeezed the demonic energy that constituted the nightmare and pressured him.
-That's enough, tell me what you want.
After giving his final ultimatum, he gathered his demonic energy.
‘This won't be enough, but……’
The moment he made a contract with a being of this world, he was going to use the demonic energy he could obtain to return immediately.
‘First, I'll go back, trap him in a nightmare, and then talk to that bird-like minister bastard……’
As he was contemplating his future plans, Ian, in the nightmare, opened his mouth.
“I guess there's no choice……”
For him, who didn't know the situation outside, making a wish would be his only option.
The moment he was about to move his demonic energy to urge him on, the human in reality pulled out a dagger from his bosom.
‘Hmm……?’
At the unexpected reaction, he hastily moved his demonic energy to restrict his movements, but Ian's dagger was faster than his magical power, which was barely maintaining the nightmare.
‘Ha!
This body is an ethereal body!
It can't be cut unless it's a holy relic……!’
Just as Rihaltan was relieved that he couldn't be attacked unless it was a holy relic, he saw the dagger rushing towards the stake that was stuck in his shoulder.
Ku-deuk!
“Kiyaaaaaaaak!”
The human who had struck the stake stuck in his hand with the hilt of the dagger said proudly.
“I've decided on my wish.”
The voice of the one who had half-escaped the nightmare echoed in both the nightmare and reality at the same time.
Rihaltan, who had read the ‘longing’ in that voice, asked pleadingly.
“What is it!
What is it!
Tell me!
I can grant you whatever it is!”
At his desperate shout, the human who had smiled whitely said in a slow and articulate voice.
“You, go to heaven for sure.”
With those words, the hilt of the dagger struck the stake like a hammer.
***
I struck down the dagger on the hand that was already crushed beyond recognition.
Kwa-deuk!
“Keuk……”
A groan escaped through my clenched teeth at the pain that shot up from my hand, which was no different from a piece of minced meat.
‘It's okay.’
A Stimpack wouldn't be able to heal it, but divine power would turn even a piece of minced meat into a perfectly good hand.
Kwa-deuk!
…Probably.
The moment I hesitated because it hurt so much, Rihaltan shouted.
“How dare a mere human!”
His voice had changed.
It had been a scraping low tone befitting a demonkin, but the pitch had gone up by three tones.
Was the pitch going up as much as the stake was being driven in?
Kwa-deuk!
-Kiiiiit!
A scream-like cry echoed from somewhere, and he shouted in a frantic voice.
“You, you will never escape the nightmare!”
Well…….
He is strong.
I can be sure of that.
None of the Knightly Order had noticed him, and if it weren't for the holy water, I wouldn't even have known his location.
Driving in the stake and pouring the holy water were all just acts of desperation.
To leave at least a small wound on the bastard who was trying to mock me by freely bringing out the fears I had hidden in the deepest part of me.
“This fucking game is like this.
It's definitely an absurd difficulty, and it seems like it was made to fail, but……”
Every game has a strategy, and that's the same for Locke.
“Strangely, if you look for it, you can find a way.”
For example, like a stake that hadn't been pulled out to the end.
“You should have either pulled out the stake, even if it hurt like hell, or at least cut off my hand.”
He had hidden his voice, smell, and appearance in the nightmare, but he couldn't hide the trembling he felt at his fingertips.
The pain, the laughter, the sigh of relief he felt through the trembling.
“Do you think I, Rihaltan, the count of the demon realm, would be moved by a mere piece of wood like this─!”
The enraged beast shouted as if roaring.
Judging by the cave-like echo in his voice, it seemed he could endure it, but he couldn't stop the trembling of his body.
No, maybe I was the one trembling now.
“Hoo……”
I gathered my heart and raised the dagger in a reverent posture.
Stabbing my own hand with my own hand was very unhealthy for my mental health, but isn't everything a matter of how you think about it?
Looking at the stake, which was no different from a blunt nail, it seemed that the god of this land had also lived a very eventful life, and maybe he would even give me a blessing out of empathy for our shared suffering.
“Human!
Human!”
As if he wanted to see heaven as soon as possible, he urged me on frantically.
“Don't worry, one of us will definitely go.”
…….
“If you happen to go first, put in a good word for me, okay?
Hmm?
That I even drove a stake into my own hand.
Got it?”
Come to think of it, they probably wouldn't believe a demonkin… ah, but there are the priests who went first.
He even caught a demon for them, sent a delinquent employee himself, isn't this almost a saint?
***
“Keu-reu-reu……”
I clicked my tongue at the sight of him on the verge of death.
The body of the beast, which was no different from a giant bat, was split from shoulder to heart, revealing its throbbing heart.
My foot was stepping on the stake that had stopped right in front of that heart.
“So, this is the ethereal body?”
“…That's right.”
“All of it?”
“Y-yes.”
Feeling a sense of pride that I had succeeded in teaching the bastard who had self-taught his family education to use honorifics, I held up my dangling arm.
“Then what about this?”
“…When you return to the material world, the wound will also heal naturally.”
“And you can't heal.”
“…Yes, since I could not bring my manifested body to this world, this ethereal body is in place of my physical body.”
Seeing as tears were even flowing, it seemed to be true.
“I just can't trust you.”
As I put a little strength into the tip of my foot, the pale-faced beast let out a silent scream.
“Keu-reu-reu-reuk!
You definitely said, you said you'd let me live if I just answered!”
“So, give me some trust.
I'm really tired too, so I want to go to sleep, you see?”
“So how on earth……!”
“If you explain everything nicely and neatly on your own, I'll send you home.”
At the situation that had been repeated several times, the beast glared at me with venomous eyes, as if to tear me to pieces and kill me.
“So, you can't heal if I pluck out your eyeballs, is that right?”
The beast, who had turned its head with a hiss, nodded slightly.
“Now, let's start from the beginning.”
“Really… really, are you going to let me live?”
At the question full of disbelief, I proudly placed one hand on my chest and answered.
“You don't trust me?
I'm swearing an oath.
Here, an oath!”
“Ha, what meaning is there in a human's oath……”
…This bat bastard?
“Then I guess it's heaven for you……”
“Stop!
Stop!
I'll tell you!
No, I will tell you!”
Just as I was about to put strength into my leg, the beast, who had shouted in a tearful voice, opened his mouth, crying.
***
[Unbelievable Achievement!
You have defeated Rihaltan, the count of the demon realm.]
[Calculating rewards.]
.
.
.
[Error - No player exists to receive the reward.]
[Error - No player exists to receive the reward.]
[Error - No player exists to receive the reward.]
[Loading previous playthrough's records.]
[Error - No record of the previous playthrough exists.]
[……Partially correcting manipulated information.]
[The reward will be given to the designated player.]
[Player: ‘NPC’ acquires the trait ‘Eye Opening ’.]
***
[Partially loading previous playthrough's records.]