Chapter 788
"…"
A long silence passed.
After a while, the stiffened Demon King asked back with a bitter expression.
"Save me? You?"
His voice was full of unprecedented bewilderment.
"What nonsense are you talking about?"
"…"
I took another deep breath.
"Don't misunderstand, Demon King. You must receive due punishment."
"…"
"My world has suffered irreparable damage from your vicious game. It has been wounded in a way that can never be healed. You must certainly pay the price for your evil deeds."
To him, who was showing an even more incomprehensible expression, I clearly uttered the next words, one by one.
"However— on the path I'm about to take, your salvation happens to overlap. The path to save my world and the salvation you seek lie on the same line."
"…"
"So I'm saying I'll save you, Demon King."
I slowly raised my hand and clenched it to show him.
"If you prove your usefulness and do your best to help me, that is."
"…Hah."
The Demon King, who let out a hollow laugh, jerked his chin.
"What nonsense… Do you even know what my salvation is?"
"…"
"Well, go ahead and explain. What exactly is this path you're going to take, that you say has my salvation at its end?"
I stared intently at the Demon King.
"I'm about to depart for the spirit realm. And there, I will save one person."
At the words that followed, cracks spread across the Demon King's composed face.
"The very person you've been searching for through eons of time."
"…What?"
He let out an angry cry.
"That's impossible, don't talk nonsense!"
"…"
"She wasn't in the human world, nor in the afterlife, nor in the spirit realm in between, nor anywhere! Do you think I didn't search? I scoured every heaven, sea, and land in this world. But she didn't exist!"
I quietly listened to the Demon King's frantic shouting.
"So, it's in the nightmare. She must be sealed in the cesspool of monsters collected by this cursed country!"
"…"
"Because the humans of this country defined her as a 'monster' and 'exterminated' her! Because the humans of this country kept all the monsters they killed in their nightmares!"
"…"
"That's why I deliberately plunged this country into hell! And I've been searching through the nightmares collected by the humans of this country for eons of time! To find her and save her…"
From the Demon King's body, a terrifying evil energy that I had never experienced before spread in all directions.
Covering the entire royal castle with his pitch-black aura, the Demon King roared.
"To find her, and this time, to corrupt her soul completely without a trace!"
"…"
"But, what? You say you know her whereabouts that even I don't know? Stop talking nonsense-"
"A thousand years ago. That person was certainly called a 'monster' and exterminated, but."
I explained with a bitter smile.
"Now she's called by a different name."
"What…"
"The name by which that person is called in this world now is…"
To the bewildered Demon King, I slowly uttered her identity.
"…'Goddess'."
I slowly recalled…
The very old tale I had heard directly from that person when I visited her recently.
A thousand years ago.
A small village by the lake.
Here, humans formed a small settlement and lived.
Humans couldn't even form a proper country and were torn apart, living divided into settlements and villages.
This was because they were in a position of being oppressed and enslaved by other powerful racial nations.
Other races could use magic, but humans could not.
Races chosen by foreign gods received mana from their respective racial guardian trees and rapidly developed their civilizations. But the human race was not chosen.
In the end, the human race was barely surviving at the very bottom, taking on the menial tasks of other races, as the smallest and weakest race.
The woman was born and raised in this small village by the lake.
Catching fish from the lake, gathering firewood from the nearby forest. Tending to livestock in small fields and a few pastures. It was such an unremarkable small village.
Although other racial nations would often demand excessive taxes and come to cause trouble.
The woman had no particular complaints about this reality.
Because she was already used to living like this. Because everything was a natural sight.
Because humans were born as slaves.
The woman married a simple and kind man who was born and raised in the village with her, and they had a cute son.
The woman thought she was happy and had no complaints about her life.
There was only one worry.
Her father who suffered from madness.
After her grandmother, who had also suffered from madness, passed away, her father inherited her grandmother's madness… and turned into a madman who always mumbled strange nonsense.
Now he was living alone in a small hut built in the corner of the lakeside, with no one visiting him.
Only the woman periodically visited her father to deliver meals and check if there was any inconvenience in his life.
Her father's symptoms worsened over time. The inside of the hut was filled with parchments covered in incomprehensible symbols and spell formulas, covering the walls and floors.
Although she was worried about her father's condition, the woman was basically bright and cheerful in nature. So she spent her days without much concern.
That day was the same.
The woman visited the hut where her father lived, bringing a meal. She opened the door energetically.
"Father, I'm here! Have you eaten? Today I cooked a new…"
The woman had to stop mid-sentence.
In the center of the hut.
Her father was quietly dying in a pool of blood, having slit his wrist.
"Father?!"
The startled woman ran over to try to stop her father's bleeding, but it was already too late.
Her father, even as he was dying, seemed to recognize his daughter and mumbled in a fading voice.
"I'm sorry, my daughter…"
"Father, no! No…!"
"I'm sorry for passing on such a terrible curse…"
Thud.
Her father's head tilted forward.
The woman stared blankly at her dead father. She didn't know what to do in this sudden, unexpected situation.
It was then.
"So this is as far as it goes."
A voice was heard from behind.
When the surprised woman turned around, there was… a huge figure made of shadows, bending over, looking into the tragic scene inside the hut.
"He had more grit than his mother, but still couldn't hold out for long."
The startled woman crawled backward and asked in a trembling voice.
"Wh-who… are you…?"
"Ah. Come to think of it, I should greet the new sacrifice first."
The shadow spread its arms and gave a polite bow.
"The devil who grants wishes, the owner of the monkey's paw, the fallen constellation… Well, I have many nicknames. But they all tend to call me this."
A white mouth cracked open like a fissure on the shadow's face, showing a long smile.
"The Demon King, they say."
"De-Demon King…?"
To the woman who was just trembling, unable to understand the situation, the Demon King babbled in a kind voice.
"Your distant ancestor begged me. He said he had something he absolutely wanted to accomplish, so he asked for 'endless time' to be able to do it."
"…"
"Anyway, why are there so many fools who end up wanting immortality, giving all sorts of reasons!"
The Demon King, who got slightly annoyed, pointed his index finger at the woman.
"So I counter-proposed to your ancestor, how about giving 'endless time' to his descendants for generations to come, and your ancestor gladly agreed. Thus, your clan gained endless time… the 'curse of regression'."
"Curse of… regression…?"
The woman mumbled dazedly in front of words she couldn't understand well.
The Demon King nodded.
"Now you have inherited the curse of regression. You, your son, his child, and so on… must continue to pay the price for the mistake your ancestor committed, forever."
The woman still couldn't understand the situation well.
"My ancestor, and my father, what did they try to do with that time they obtained…?"
"Hehe, that's another interesting part…"
The Demon King shrugged his shoulders playfully.
"It wouldn't be fun if I told you. Your father seems to have left records, so look for them well."
"…"
"Now then, I wonder what tragedy, and what corruption you will show me… I'm looking forward to it."
The Demon King's huge body slowly disappeared.
"I'll always be watching. To see what destruction you'll head towards…"
After all the shadows disappeared.
The woman could only alternately look at where the Demon King had been and at her father's dead body with a dazed expression.
After her father's funeral.
The woman visited her father's hut again.
As before, her father's hut was full of parchments covered in incomprehensible diagrams and characters.
The woman carefully organized the parchments and stacked the books.
In the process, she found a bundle of memos written in readable characters.
"Did father write this…?"
Whether it was written before her father's madness worsened, the memo written in relatively moderate handwriting began like this:
[For the human race to escape slavery]
"…"
The woman traced the following sentences with her hand.
Although she had learned to read from her father when she was young, she hadn't used writing since then and was practically illiterate. Reading each sentence was a struggle in itself.
"For the human race to escape slavery… we need the light of magic too…"
Just as she was about to read the next sentence.
Waaah-
The cry of a young boy was heard from afar. It was the woman's son.
Startled, the woman covered the memo and ran back to her house to take care of her son.
To her, her young son and her life of working and eating day by day were more important than these difficult-to-understand memos.
…
Time passed.
The woman tried to retrace her father's research several times, but failed each time. She had little knowledge and no sense of mission regarding the research carried on by previous generations.
The number of visits to her father's hut gradually decreased. Once a week, once a month, once every six months…
Life was harsh, the child grew up quickly, and time flew by in the blink of an eye.
Before she knew it, the woman forgot about her father's hut. She forgot about the curse of regression. She forgot about the existence of the Demon King.
She sealed and forgot that day's events in the hazy memories of her young days.
…
Decades later.
Lying in a warm bed, the woman smiled peacefully among her grandchildren and great-grandchildren surrounding her.
"You all came because it's time for grandma to go…"
It wasn't a bad life.
It was ordinary but peaceful. There were people she loved, and she worked hard to build her life.
She had several more children, and those children had children…
The clan prospered.
And as if to prove that she had lived diligently, her descendants flocked like clouds to attend her deathbed.
With a sense of satisfaction, the woman examined one by one the people who had come to see her off in death.
And, among them…
Grin.
Showing a white mouth opened in a smile.
She belatedly discovered a shadow-like figure.
"…!"
The woman's face instantly turned pale.
She pointed at that shadow with a trembling hand.
"Y-you… you…!"
Everyone at the bedside looked in that direction in surprise, but they couldn't see anything.
The huge, evil being spreading its shadow with its arms wide open, smiling wickedly… was completely invisible to them.
"What are you saying, mother? There's nothing there…"
While her son was speaking with a smile, the woman couldn't breathe.
Because the Demon King, who had suddenly approached, pressed his face close to hers and whispered like a snake.
"Did you enjoy your ordinary life?"
"…!"
"Well then, it's time to go back."
As she opened her eyes wide, the woman took her last breath and…
Click. Click. Click.
Gray mana rotated, and there was a sound like some mechanical device engaging backwards.
"-Gasp!"
The woman who opened her eyes wide exhaled roughly.
"Gasp, gasp, gasp?!"
She looked around, barely catching her breath while breaking out in a cold sweat.
She was definitely lying on a bed surrounded by her family just a moment ago.
But now this place was… that hut where her father had slit his wrist and committed suicide.
"H-how…?"
Unable to believe it, the woman muttered weakly.
Checking her young hands without a single wrinkle.
Then looking at her father's corpse dead in a pool of blood.
"So this is how your clan's curse manifests… Indeed, you return to 'this time' when you die."
A familiar voice was heard.
Startled, she turned around to see the huge shadow — the Demon King — laughing quietly.
"I told you, didn't I? This is a curse."
"…"
"You don't even have the right to die as you wish."
Looking into the trembling woman's eyes, the Demon King laughed maniacally, full of joy.
"Now then, during this 'endless time', let's see what you can do… what tragedy of despair and frustration you'll write your endless life with!"