The wolf, which had suddenly grown massive, carried me on its back and kicked off the ground as if it were flying. In the blink of an eye, we left the village where the domain’s people lived and arrived at the outer castle wall. With just three powerful leaps, the wolf climbed onto the top of the wall, then cleverly scanned the surroundings once before letting out a short howl.
“Awoooo!”
It was the signal that it had found the prey it was looking for. I patted the wolf on the back of its neck. “Sorry, but could you hurry?”
“Grr!”
A wolf’s sense of smell is extremely sharp; sharp enough not to lose a target trying to escape.
Thud!
The wolf leapt down from the wall and landed lightly on the ground. Spread out before us were countless corpses of soldiers. Those who had died standing stared straight ahead, eyes wide open, as if unable to accept their own deaths.
The wolf ran swiftly through the bodies, and then…
Crunch!
The wolf stomped on a pale shape crawling along the ground. It looked like some grotesquely formed insect, or perhaps a lump of cells that had yet to become human. The bug, startled by the wolf, wriggled frantically, trying to escape—but the wolf was faster.
Crushed beneath the massive animal’s paw, the bug writhed and spat out curses, “You damn beast!”
Its appearance was even more hideous than I’d expected, and a dry laugh escaped me without thinking. “Oh my, how uncivilized.”
“That voice is…?!” Only then did the bug seem to notice me riding on the wolf’s back, its eyes widening. “You againnnn!”
“Yes, me again.”
“How?! Weren’t you supposed to have returned to your world?!”
“As you said yourself, there are loopholes everywhere.”
I’d long since mastered ways to deliberately cause system errors to delay my return time, and this time, surprisingly, the system stayed quiet. I’d expected it to rage again about my intentional tampering. I don’t know why, but as long as nothing troublesome comes of it, it works in my favor. I looked down at the bug pinned beneath the wolf’s paw.
“How did you even know to chase after me?!”
“I never once thought you’d obediently bind yourself to the Soul Contract.”
No matter how powerful an item is, it always has its weaknesses. Yu Hanul must have known there was some risk involved. He simply chose, with the little time the system allowed, to reassure the anxious villagers instead. And I knew he would do exactly that. Good intentions are founded on the belief that the other side will improve.
Malice assumes betrayal from the start.
“I figured you’d learned how to separate your soul.”
No matter how absolute the Soul Contract is, there are always those it can’t completely control. As much as I hate to admit it, my opponent is a fairly high-level mage, so I assumed she’d know some trick to escape. Besides, the method of separating one’s soul was something I’d taught Orbis myself. Back when I dreamed of immortality, it was magic I’d shared even with my own kin. If Orbis created this barrier called “Foolish Honor”, then they would surely have passed on the method of soul separation to this mage as well.
“Though I didn’t expect you to turn into a bug.”
That wasn’t what the spell was meant to be used for, after all. After all that talk about justice and grand causes, crawling disgracefully along the ground; it was truly laughable. Most likely, she succeeded in separating her soul and escaping the contract, but had no proper body to contain it. In her haste, she must have possessed a nearby monster corpse and fled in a panic. If she’d delayed even a little, she would’ve been completely bound by the contract without a chance to split her soul, so the urgency was understandable, but still.
“No matter how rushed you were, what is that pitiful state? Didn’t you go on about being a count, of noble blood and all that?”
“Y-you really have a filthy mouth!” The mage, now trapped in the body of a bug, wailed bitterly, “If this was how it was going to end, then why bind me with a contract in the first place?! It would’ve been easier if you’d just killed me outright!”
“Isn’t it obvious?” I smiled. “It was so I could give you hope that you might survive…and then take it away.”
What truly breaks a person is having even that faint hope stripped from them. I simply wanted to let her taste the worst possible despair. She was someone so obsessed with living that she stole others’ lives to prolong her own, so I didn’t think it was fair for someone like that to escape straight into death. That was why I made that suggestion to Yu Hanul.
If we’d killed her immediately and the barrier collapsed, causing all the domain’s people to vanish as well… That part was of slightly lesser importance.
The bug froze stiff for a moment, then spoke in a hollow voice. “Y-you demon… where on earth did something like you crawl out from…?!”
“I hear that a lot.”
I realized it anew.
“I truly,
truly
hate people like you.”
I really don’t belong in this world…or with the humans of this world at all.
“If you leave this barrier right now with your soul separated, the barrier will vanish at that instant. And all the domain’s people will die.”
“Yeah, that’s right! So what?!” The bug twisted its body, trying to crawl away, shouting wildly, “Keeping me alive is their only use! Why should I be blamed for that?! If it weren’t for me, they’d have died long ago anyway! They should be thanking me—aaagh!”
“Grrr!”
Thankfully, the wolf pressed down on the bug’s head with its other paw, sparing me from hearing any more nonsense. I let out a deep sigh.
“As expected, the right thing to do with your kind is just to kill you.”
If Yu Hanul had been here, he might have searched for another way. Perhaps he would’ve followed the law, the bare minimum of morality humans invented to coexist, or he might have listened to lofty values like mercy, conscience, or compassion.
But I am not like that.
“I will judge you.”
In the end, I am a demon.
“Don’t make me laugh! What right do you have?! Who do you think you are?!”
“No right, no qualification, of course.”
"What?!"
“Why would a demon like me bother caring about things like that?”
Perhaps she finally realized there was nowhere left to run. The bug spewed curses in a final, desperate outburst.
Instead of answering, I stirred my mana. A tremendous flow of power poured into my still-weak, fragile mana circuits. Having absorbed all the mana except the bare minimum needed to sustain this barrier, my reserves were overflowing, and so, for the first time in a long while, the conditions were met to cast another incantation magic.
Boom, boom, boom!
The air around us shook violently.
“Wh-what are you doing?!”
Pain tore through my body as if every blood vessel were being ripped apart, but I endured it. To bring forth the miracle called magic, one needs a body capable of withstanding mana that defies natural order, and a mind able to articulate precisely what it desires. Only then can a miracle be made. And what I desire now is…
“That the sprouting of this evil seed is due to my own carelessness.”
Fwoosh!
Blue flames of overwhelming density bloomed at my fingertips. Staring at those flames, I continued my declaration.
“And that my failure to cut down that sprout sooner is due to my own negligence.”
The bug’s eyes shook violently as it noticed the flames rising from my hand.
“That spell is…the Sacred Flame of Purification? You can’t be… you are… no, that’s impossible!”
The bug let out a heartrending scream, unlike anything before.
“As I bitterly reflect upon my lazy arrogance.”
“Why are
you
hereeeee?!”
I did not answer that scream. In truth, it wasn’t asking me for an answer in the first place.
“Even now, I shall carry out my remaining duty.”
Instead, the flames blooming in my hand finally swallowed the grotesque insect body in which the soul had briefly taken refuge.
“Aaaaaah!”
The body was quickly burned away, leaving only the soul behind. A crimson soul flew above the flames, shrieking in agony. It was the form of a soul core.
What is the human soul made of? I still haven’t found the answer to that question, but a soul on the verge of death is, at the very least, honest. Just as the last moments of a woman who threw away her life for hatred were filled with pity.
And this soul…
“I want to live, I want to live, I want to liveeeee!”
“You really had nothing, did you?”
There was no remorse for her sins, no regret that she should not have done what she did. There was only the desire that any living creature naturally possesses. If such primal craving is the root of the soul, then I truly don’t know whether someone like that even deserves to be called human, let alone of noble blood.
Crunch!
The blazing purifying flame swallowed even the soul’s final scream, and then, nothing remained.
The Flame of Purification is magic that completely annihilates a sinful soul. It was the empty end of a mage who had devoured hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives.
“After all, nothing remains once you die. Isn’t it ridiculous?”
“Grrk?” The wolf, who had watched everything unfold, tilted its head. The situation clearly puzzled it. That was understandable. Its master, whom it had reunited with after so long, now looked nothing like before and was doing things she never would have done in the past.
“It was just a bit of venting.”
The mage had separated her soul and fled, but the body bound by Yu Hanul’s contract would still remain inside the castle, so just as he wished, this barrier would be maintained for the time being. The domain’s people would break free from their endlessly repeated lives and reclaim lives that were truly their own.
Perhaps Yu Hanul might really return with a way to restore souls and bring salvation. However, the mage’s soul I just purified will remain as nourishment for this barrier. Even if Yu Hanul truly finds a way to revive those souls, this mage alone will never be saved.
“She doesn’t deserve to be saved by a hero anymore. Don’t you think so?”
The wolf, not understanding my words at all, tilted its head a few more times.
My old familiar bond, the overflowing mana, and the ruined land. Perhaps because this was my previous world, or because I’d recited incantations I thought I’d never use again, old memories came back to me.
There was a time when I believed that if you gave, trusted, and waited, things would slowly get better. I learned far too late that it wasn’t so. Seeing how, even in a world already so broken, there are still those who would sacrifice others just to survive proved that much.
Yes, there truly is an evil in this world that can never be eradicated. Can such evil be defeated by good? I can say with certainty: no.
Evil can only be punished by a greater evil.
I realized that far too late.
“If I’d rooted it out earlier, it wouldn’t have come to this… though it’s all too late now.”
“Grr!” The wolf nudged me with its large head as if to comfort me.
I roughly stroked its thick, coarse fur.
At last, the system displayed a message to me.
The system has corrected the intentional error.
The system informs User “Jeong Daon” that preparations for return to Earth are complete.
The system issues a warning to the “Destroyer of Worlds”.
It seemed uneasy about me having used another incantation magic. After all, it probably thought it had me on a leash with the “Doing Good Deeds Will Bring Blessings¿” quest, so it likely hadn’t expected me not only to exploit loopholes, but to regain my power like this. Honestly, tricking that arrogant system some more might be an option, but…
“Don’t be too upset. Me regaining my power isn’t necessarily bad news for Earth’s humans either.”
As long as Jeong Dajeong is on Earth, I still need to placate the system to some extent.
“I had another purpose besides venting.”
Now my kin from a past life, Orbis’ goal has become clear. They intend to siphon Earth’s mana into this world to breathe life into a world already dead. Just like this mage did, they plan to offer Earth as a sacrifice, and the lifeless idols are the tools that steal mana from Earth’s humans.
“Orbis… as the ‘Destroyer of Humanity’, will soon realize that one lifeless idol has disappeared.”
If a lifeless idol of this scale loses its function, Orbis will undoubtedly return here to assess the situation, and then they will realize that their plan has been completely shattered.
I pulled the corner of my mouth upward. “I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of face they make then.”