novelraw Chapter 99
Chapter 99
Episode 99
"That's right, hahaha. I don't know why He favors the souls of young children, but if that is His desire, we must act as His faithful servants."
'Faithful servants?'
As a noble of the Empire, the one he should serve is the Imperial Family, but if that were the case, he would have used the precise terms 'Emperor' or 'Imperial Family.'
"He will surely look favorably upon this devotion and grant our wish. Just as it is written in the scripture! It is the right naturally granted to the first followers!"
'Scripture, faithful servants, wish, followers, right...'
She was listing the suspicious words in order to organize her thoughts when, at that moment, something flashed through her mind.
'Wait, could it be...?!'
These men are not simply members of the subjugation force.
'Subjugation force, my foot! On the contrary... Wait, why is my head so dizzy?'
Just as she tried to continue her train of thought, it felt as if stones had been placed on her eyelids, and her eyes began to feel heavy and close.
"Her breathing has changed. It seems the drug is starting to take effect now."
"Even with it smeared inside the box like that, it's a rather slow reaction."
She hadn't expected them to use drugs like this.
"Sleep well, child. Consider it an honor to become His nourishment and die."
As her consciousness faded, a memory from her time as Mors flashed by.
A massive village engulfed in flames, and a man screaming, surrounded by people, his appearance horrifying as he neared death.
〈Damn demon worshippers! Drop dead, all of you!〉
The memory ended with Mors's gaze watching the fragile soul, who struggled and screamed with all his might before ultimately being killed by the people's hands, and then her consciousness was completely severed.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · · · · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Inside a room where quiet music flowed.
As Mors sat leaning back on a sofa, quietly with her eyes closed, someone quietly revealed themselves.
Swish, the moment he swung his sword, the blade in his hand was deflected.
Not just the sword; the man himself flew toward the wall, crashed into it with a loud noise, and fell to the floor.
〈Is this the 998th failure as of today?〉
〈It's the 999th.〉
In response to Mors's question, asked without even opening her eyes, Janet, who had smoothly appeared from the shadows, served her tea and spoke.
〈How can he be so pathetic.〉
〈It's embarrassing to call himself a direct junior demon under me.〉
〈Shut up!〉
The man, her servant who had failed in his 999th attempt to assassinate the Great Demon today and who refused to acknowledge himself as a demon, screamed with his magenta hair.
〈Why on earth do you pretend to sleep, pre-pre-tend! Do you think you're human or something?〉
〈You're the fool for falling for the pretense of sleep.〉
As if unable to bear the injustice, the man screamed and then choked up and spat out blood.
Seeing the blood pooling in his hand, perhaps overwhelmed by misery, he slumped on the spot and began to sniffle.
Seeing this, Mors asked with an indifferent face.
〈Is it because you were originally human? You're so emotional. Why do you always cry like this whenever you see me?〉
〈You're asking because you don't know? It's because I want to kill you but fail every time!〉
〈So why do you fail every time?〉
As she asked impassively, Mors opened her eyes.
The moment he met her gaze, the magenta-haired man instinctively felt fear and tightly closed his mouth.
〈I even personally gave you the chance to try and kill me, but you've never succeeded. You should give up by now, but you don't. You just cry every time; how long am I supposed to tolerate this?〉
〈...As if you've ever tolerated it.〉
〈It's a bit unfair to say that. Unlike with the humans I dealt with before, you are my demon, which is why I'm giving you this chance.〉
Mors reached out her hand, and the man was instantly pulled before her.
〈When I first created you, the first thing you said was that you wanted to kill me. I told you I would give you 1000 chances for your pitiful sake. But it's been 999 times, and I see no sign of you succeeding.〉
〈It's not over until it's over! I still have one chance left!〉
〈Do you really think so? If you sincerely believe that, then nod.〉
He wanted to nod right then and there, but damn it, the man couldn't do it.
〈My foolish demon. Your petty pride will not save you. It will only consume you.〉
〈...Damn it! I really hate you!〉
The man gnashed his teeth in rage.
He, originally human and now a demon, recalled the time of his death.
He had three precious younger siblings after losing his parents early.
The unruly triplet boys, ten years younger than him, required a lot of care, but they were kind, cute, and lovable children.
It was his siblings who saved him from despair when he was drowning in grief after his parents' death, and he resolved to live on, if only for their sake.
That was, until his siblings went missing.
The missing siblings, the suspicious villagers, the truth about the kind village that he never wanted to know.
Demon worshippers. They called themselves that and said they had offered his siblings as sacrifices for the Great Demon.
The truth uncovered after a desperate pursuit was cruel.
His precious siblings had died because of those maddened by the demon.
Driven mad by grief and despair, he set the village on fire to kill the worshippers and was subsequently surrounded and killed by the people.
Had he known he would end up in the clutches of a demon like this when he opened his eyes again, he might have dealt with the villagers in a slightly wiser way.
Mors was a strange being.
For some inexplicable reason, she made him into a demon without even erasing his memories from his human life.
He hated her, was filled with rage, and wanted to kill her. So he tried to kill her, and failed every time.
As the man was trying to control his rage, a small, soft hand was placed on his head.
The affectionate touch, as if petting a companion animal, stroked his fluffy magenta hair, and his face flushed redder than his hair color.
The man hated this Great Demon who had created him.
The demon, the monsters, the demon worshippers who had led his siblings to death were all utterly, horrifically terrible.
〈I like your tenacious spirit, so I have no intention of giving up. It's just that I don't plan to let my guard down even for that one last chance.〉
Yet, at times like this, when he received such a kind touch, his hatred for her wavered.
〈My foolish demon, won't you finally acknowledge me as your master?〉
No matter how many times he steeled his heart, reaffirmed it, and steeled it again, every time, it was like this now.
Mors was not as monstrous an existence as the wretched villagers had worshipped.
Though she herself wouldn't admit it, she was, in fact, more human and kinder than them.
〈Damn it. I suppose there's such a thing as hate-born affection.〉
His siblings were dead, and now only Mors remained for him.
The man sensed that even that one chance he had clung to like a hope was about to end. He was lonely, afraid, and utterly exhausted.
The last shred of pride he had held onto as a human crumbled to dust under his master's touch.
The memories from his time as a human were erased by Mors's demonic energy like an eraser, vanishing without a trace.
Watching him as he smoothly closed his eyes, Mors smiled, feeling that he had now fully become hers.
〈Good boy. From now on, your name is ---.〉
It was the moment of the birth of the second demon to assist Mors, the demon of destruction that humans would fear the most.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · · · · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Outside the box where Flora slept, Count Tassen and his knight were hiding among the bushes, watching over the box.
'Time is running out, so why is He still silent? Should I have killed her after all?'
He had trusted the scripture that stated a preference for live sacrifices and had offered sacrifices placed in boxes until now, but perhaps that method was incorrect after all.
Count Tassen chewed on his thumbnail, unable to hide his anxiety.
The reason he began worshipping the demon was trivial.
The businesses his family was running were failing one after another, and he, a devout believer, cried out to Beshart and offered prayers.
But prayer alone couldn't avert the crisis of bankruptcy.
Days filled with such chaos that he considered fleeing in the middle of the night continued, and the prayer he offered, that he would sell his soul to the demon if his family and business could be revived was done in a fit of desperate impulsiveness.
Had he not miraculously overcome the crisis of bankruptcy after that, his belief in a demon or such would never have taken root.
However, the more he prayed to the demon, the more he escaped crises and his business sailed smoothly, and by the time he had rebuilt his former wealth and gained fame, he had become a fervent demon worshipper.
Count Tassen wanted to welcome the demon who had saved him from a life in the abyss, prove his loyalty, and receive even more fitting rewards than he had now.
Because he was greedy, he did not give up on this and began secretly searching for information about the demon, evading the eyes of the Executors.
Whether his desperation reached someone, he managed to discover a foundation that had once served a demon, and he believed that obtaining the scripture later was also part of the great demon's design.
However, the old scripture, unable to withstand the passage of time, had many pages torn and worn, making the text difficult to decipher.
The remaining scripture contained the characteristics of demons from various regions and methods to summon them. The contents regarding demons from other regions were illegible, but fortunately, the information about the demon residing in his eastern region remained intact.
The demon of the east was a faithful servant of the Great Demon and considered the souls of children to be the source of His power, His driving force.
The faithful followers summoned Him by offering 100 living children under the age of ten as sacrifices, and He, looking favorably upon their devotion, granted the followers' wishes.
Of course, this part was also incomplete and hard to interpret, and the latter part was stained with blood and unreadable.
However, even this mangled book was a scripture, and the phrase written on the very last page resonated with his heart as a demon worshipper.
O comrade who has found this scripture, our faction has been suppressed by the treacherous inquisitors and faces the crisis of annihilation.
If you have obtained this scripture, become a first-generation follower who serves Them and become the chosen humanity that survives the doomed future.
If you become Their faithful servant, you will be able to achieve all you desire.
The scripture, which survived the harsh crisis of annihilation, felt like a gift meant for him, and luckily, he possessed sufficient ability to summon Him.
He didn't really want to engage in the barbaric act of human sacrifice, but for the development of his territory, he felt not a shred of guilt about targeting the children of his territory's people.
Relying solely on the territory's children proved insufficient, so he eventually targeted children from other territories, which caused the matter to escalate and led to the formation of this subjugation force. But since the end goal was so close, everything would surely be resolved well.
'Since the northern demon is dead, how wonderful would it be if the eastern demon seized this opportunity to take over the northern Demon Forest as well and expand His influence. And it would be even better if He entrusted the management of the northern forest to me.'
A weak demon could not be an object of his worship.
How wonderful it would be if Count Tassen, which still worshipped demons unlike the Lucifers who lived lives of atonement, were to take charge of the now-vacant north.
'I heard the wealth in that forest is immense.'