“That damn spell again…!”
Circe hurriedly cast a spell to resist it, but all she managed to do was slow it down by a fraction.
Once again, Spatial Restraint bound everyone except Gremory. There was simply no way for any of them to resist this magic.
Elia realized what Gremory was planning.
“Gremory…!”
“The Goddess still has another message for me~? She says I have to kill that human named Lola too before this can all be over~”
“Don’t touch her…!”
“Oh, right. There’s one more thing I forgot to mention~”
Gremory picked up the Soul Killer that had been tossed into a corner. She pointed it at Elia and smiled.
“Goddess Elysia told me that once everything was over, I could do whatever I wanted with ‘Elia’s body’~ The Soul Killer only destroys the soul, so it barely damages the body at all~”
“…What?”
“Now then, which one should I take care of first?”
On one side was Lola, burning with hatred.
On the other was Elia, crumbling beneath despair.
Both were negative emotions Gremory absolutely adored.
“But still~”
Of the two, Gremory preferred the despair that came from absolute helplessness.
More importantly, Elia might actually break free of her restraints.
Even now, the chains were grinding and cracking apart little by little.
“Well then, thanks for the meal~”
Gremory thrust the Soul Killer toward Elia.
Once the soul vanished, she would seize control of the body left behind.
With that, she would surpass both the Demon King and the Hero.
With that power, she would rule over every living creature and every demon.
She would not resurrect the Evil God.
She would become the Evil God herself.
She would even claim the ‘influence’ that stood at the very heart of this world.
And then she could kill that hateful ‘Brother’ of hers.
Snap-!
If only it hadn’t been for the sound of those fingers snapping.
***
Pope Rab was preparing for his official duties as morning dawned over the Deus Theocracy when a terrible sense of foreboding came over him.
And the one who understood the source of that ominous feeling better than anyone was not ‘Rab,’ but ‘Baal.’
“Dallyun, are you there?”
“You called for me?”
Dallyun, who had been waiting nearby, opened the door and entered.
Rab gave his order with an expression more serious than Dallyun had ever seen.
“We’re going there immediately.”
“You mean right now?”
“I will hear no objections.”
“Yes.”
Rab hurriedly lit one of the candles in the room.
The wardrobe slid aside, revealing a hidden chamber.
As they descended the staircase leading into the darkness, Rab asked urgently,
“You’re still tracking Berith’s movements, aren’t you?”
“We are, but we haven’t found anything definitive.”
“It seems Berith has made a move somewhere beyond our notice.”
“What?”
Dallyun and Agares were both taken aback.
How Baal knew Berith had made a move was one thing. What they couldn’t understand was why he was making such a commotion over the movements of a demon ranked only 28th.
Sensing their confusion, Baal opened the door before them and spoke.
“How much do you know about Berith?”
“That he is the 28th-Ranked Demon, that he bears the epithet of Lies, and that, rather unusually for a demon, he once indulged in some sort of ‘family game.’”
“He's always bored. That’s why I entrusted the next task to Gremory, the only one who still had any real connection to him.”
“That was the reason? I thought it was meant to bring Andras, who opposes that demon, to heel…”
“She isn’t worth that much.”
Beyond the door was a chamber resembling an altar.
It was filled with profane objects belonging to demons.
Baal picked up a square stone tablet and continued.
“Berith is an unusual creature. He possesses none of the direct combat power the rest of us have. Physically, he is barely stronger than a human.”
“But he is definitely known as the 28th-Ranked Demon…”
“That is how he is known. Think about his epithet.”
“The Demon of ‘Lies’… Don’t tell me…?”
“Exactly. His ability to falsify information is second to none. His very existence is practically a lie.”
Baal poured demonic power into the stone tablet, and an ominous glow began to spread across its surface.
“There is only one way to hear the truth from him. Once, and only once, through the restriction known as ‘One Truth.’ What I asked him was, ‘Do you intend to interfere with our grand plan from this point forward?’ And his answer at the time was…”
The stone tablet soon connected to someone else’s field of vision.
It was Gremory’s view of the interior of some ancient ruin.
Through Gremory’s eyes, they could see a human lying collapsed on the ground.
“‘Not at the moment.’ That was his answer. As impossible as it was to believe.”
“I still don’t understand. Even so, do we really need to be this wary of a demon who’s nothing more than a liar?”
「Interlopers should know when to disappear.」
Snap-!
Bzzzzzt-!!!
The instant the fingers snapped, the image on the stone tablet vanished.
An artifact that was extraordinarily difficult to acquire went completely dead without even putting up a struggle.
“This is bad. He didn’t possess someone. He performed a Descent.”
For a demon to descend directly meant its power had not been diminished by possession.
A descended demon could wield 100% of its original abilities.
“…Did you say he was nothing more than a liar?”
“What in the world…”
“Certainly, when it comes to direct combat, that creature is as useless as they come. And yet there is a reason none of us have ever managed to force him into submission.”
Baal ground his teeth as memories of the past resurfaced.
No matter how much power he unleashed, he had never once managed to land a meaningful blow on Berith.
Every time he came back to his senses, the only things around him were his own subordinates, shattered by his own attacks.
The only way to force that creature into submission was through ‘words.’
Yet when it came to ‘words,’ no one could defeat him.
“His ‘ability’ itself is the strangest and most aberrant of all demons. In his presence, lies and truth trade places. Yes… if we were to rank demons solely by their abilities…”
Baal narrowed his eyes at the stone tablet, now completely unresponsive.
“You could call him Rank 0.”
***
Gremory knew that sound.
She knew it far too well.
So well that her mind simply stopped.
‘…No.’
A being who should never have been here was about to appear.
‘Why are you here…?’
The Spatial Restraint that had dominated the entire area had already vanished.
In this place, where even time itself seemed to hold its breath, someone rose to his feet.
He stretched as though waking from a long sleep, then muttered,
「Hm. That was close.」
It was Ex.
No.
To be precise…
“…Why are you here, Brother Berith…?!”
He was Berith, the 28th-Ranked Demon.
The Demon of Lies.
“You didn’t even possess a human! Why did you descend directly…?!”
「So it is my little sister, Gremory. You still play such boring games.」
Already losing interest, Berith glanced around.
Circe, Lola, and Elia were all half-conscious, staring blankly into empty space.
They had been trapped inside Berith’s False-Aspect Prison, each gazing into a false world of their own.
「Humans still haven’t changed. Always the same.」
As Berith started to walk away, someone caught hold of his body.
It was Lola.
“…Don’t… go…”
Even inside the False-Aspect Prison, Lola clung desperately to Ex’s body, refusing to let him slip away.
「I suppose there are a few humans who can still catch my interest.」
Berith carefully loosened Lola’s hand and placed it back on the ground.
She was someone Ex cherished, so he handled her with care.
Then he looked at the ring on his left index finger.
The Soul Trap Ring.
Inside it rested Ex’s unconscious soul.
「The damage is severe, but he won’t die.」
Berith let out a long sigh.
「Yes. He can’t die. Things were finally getting interesting.」
And just as Berith was lamenting that fact,
“DIEEEEEE-!!!”
Stab-!!
Gremory drove the Soul Killer into Berith’s back.
Apparently one stab wasn’t enough. She plunged it into him over and over again.
Berith merely yawned, his eyes dull with boredom.
「Are you having fun, Gremory? I hope you are.」
“Huff, huff… If you hadn’t stolen ‘lies’ from me!! If it weren’t for your goddamn family games…!!”
「You should have thought more carefully before signing that contract. Who else is there to blame?」
“Urgh…!”
Berith grabbed Gremory by the throat as she continued stabbing him.
“Wh-What’s with those eyes…?”
Gremory stared into Berith’s eyes.
One was an empty black.
The other was a hollow white.
And Gremory knew exactly why those eyes were glowing.
“You… You’re trying to take something from me again? Wh-What else could you possibly want from me now? Are you going to take ‘truth’ this time? Y-You can’t…”
「Don’t worry. I have no intention of taking truth from someone whose lies I already stole. What interests me isn’t you…」
Bzzzzzzzzzt-!!!
With his free hand, Berith reached out and seized something directly in front of Gremory’s eyes.
Something visible only to her.
The ‘system.’
“…That shouldn’t be possible.”
Berith had just grabbed Gremory’s ‘system.’
「Hm. System, status window, the Goddess’s power… You people certainly have come up with all sorts of strange names for a curse made entirely of lies…」
“N-No… Wh-What are you trying to do…?”
「What did that human call this again…? Hm…」
Gremory had never even heard of someone interfering with another person’s system.
Even for Berith, something like that should have been impossible.
And yet something that could only be called a lie was unfolding right before her eyes.
「Ah, balance. We ought to balance things out. Don’t you agree, Goddess Elysia? It isn’t any fun when one side has too much of an advantage.」
And at that same moment,
Crash-!!!
Berith tightened his grip.
The system shattered.
And in that instant, every power supporting Gremory disappeared.
“Ah… Aah… Ah, my… my power… My plan…”
「A demon relying on the power of some Goddess whose true nature she doesn’t even understand… What a painfully boring joke, Gremory.」
Berith tossed Gremory aside like a piece of garbage.
The crushing emptiness of having lost all her power drove Gremory into despair.
“Why…? Why are you suddenly doing this…? This has nothing to do with you… You said you had no intention of interfering with our grand plan…”
「That was true at the time.」
“Are you saying you changed your mind…?”
「Even now, I couldn’t care less about that boring nonsense.」
Berith answered while keeping his attention fixed on the Soul Trap Ring.
「I found something more interesting.」
He summoned the system, and a warning appeared before his eyes.
『Access attempt by unregistered user.
Authorization denied.』
「How bothersome…」
Berith reached out and grabbed the system window floating before him.
The messages began changing wildly.
『Emergency shutdown procedure— Authority recovery— Unused— Authorization-』
Countless messages flashed across the system.
It struggled to repel Berith’s intrusion, but in the end, it surrendered.
『System Level 0: ‘Administrator’ privileges authorized.』
After confirming the message, Berith closed the system.
There was something else he needed to deal with first.
「Gremory, I will grant you ‘One Truth.’ Ask me anything, and I swear upon my very existence that my answer will be the truth.」
“Y-You’re suddenly offering to tell me that…? Why…?”
「Is that the truth you wish to know?」
“N-No!”
Trembling uncontrollably, Gremory forced herself to think.
What truth did she need most in this situation?
Impossible as it was to believe, Berith was now bound to tell her the truth.
There was only one thing she could ask.
“Wh-What are you planning to do from now on…?”
「Is that the truth you wish to know?」
“Yes! Tell me what you’re going to do now…!”
If she could at least learn Berith’s plan, she might be able to prepare some sort of countermeasure in advance.
Even if Berith had descended directly, perhaps they could still subdue him if they committed everything they had.
But that was nothing more than a delusion.
「What I intend to do from now on, hm.」
Berith raised his right hand high.
He positioned his fingers to snap them and said,
「I think I’ll bring ‘destruction’ a little closer.」
— Because that sounds like fun.
“…That’s a lie.”
It was a truth too unbelievable to accept.
Snap-!
***
“…What just happened?”
Circe finally came back to her senses.
She had heard the sudden snap of someone’s fingers, and then her consciousness had simply vanished. Her mind was still hazy, as though she had just emerged from a brief waking dream.
“What in the world is this…?”
By the time she regained her senses, everything around her had changed.
Ex’s corpse was nowhere to be seen, and both Elia and the black-haired girl had disappeared.
She had been too overwhelmed to realize it before, but only now did the name of that student come back to her.
She was a first-year student who attended one of Circe’s classes.
‘Her name was Hilde… I’m sure of it…’
But now there was no one left in the room except Circe and Lola, who sat there staring blankly into empty space.
Ex, Elia, and Hilde had vanished as though they had never been there at all.
–TL Notes–
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