The Hero Who Returned From Death Quits - Chapter 215



EP10. The Falling Twilight

Black magic flew at me. Before I could even react to it, my head exploded.

Fear creeps over me. I want to scream. But death keeps coming to me, regardless, and every time it does, I feel like I’m sinking into a sticky swamp.

No. I can’t lose myself again, the self I’ve regained. No matter how many times I shouted it in my head, those cries were blocked by the pain and fear that came in an instant, and only echoed as meaningless echoes.

… For now, it’s okay. I’ve only died about 100 times. I still have a lot of time to spare. Since I only live for a few minutes each time I regress, in reality, only a few hours have passed. All I’ve done in those few hours is have my whole body pierced by black magic, or have been writhing in burning pain, but I still have a lot of time left. In my mind, and in the power of the holy sword.

The Demon King looked at me like that, smiled, and said.

“Hmm, somehow your complexion seems to be getting more and more haggard.”

I was convinced by the look on his face. Clearly, the Demon King had noticed it now.

It means that you have noticed that there is a connection between why your complexion is getting worse and why your power is being destroyed.

The Demon King looked at me for a moment, smiled, and approached me.

“He continued to use his powers during the battle.”

It seems that the reason I was able to continue to hit the first attack was because I had been reading my actions with my power in advance. However, I returned to the past and avoided the Demon King’s attacks, and as a result, the past where I was attacked by the Demon King disappeared.

“But you never got hit even once. That’s strange. You’re not good enough to block it, you’re not fast enough to dodge it properly, and you don’t have the reaction speed to react to it. Why is that, huh?”

I looked at the Demon King. The Demon King smiled broadly.

“I will no longer use my power. It would be meaningless anyway.”

Instead of speaking, I raised my holy sword. The Demon King hurled black magic at me, and I was barely able to block it using my self-defense skills.

“But… even the power of the Holy Sword will have an end. The gods have limited the power that creatures can have. It will be fun to find out how far it will end.”

The Demon King I saw before my eyes looked more like a cat playing with its prey than fighting an enemy. I didn’t like the fact that he didn’t even see me as an enemy, but only as an object for his own amusement.

“What is the limit of that balance device? What is the limit of the spirit contained in that small head? So… I wonder how that heart can be completely broken and tattered and fall to its knees. I wonder. I wonder. I wonder.”

“…You have bad taste.”

“Aren’t all demons originally like that? Are the demons you met in Middle-earth different?”

“…but.”

I chuckled, because that face suddenly came to mind.

“It seems like having bad tastes isn’t that different.”

“Yes, that’s right… The Clan of Wrath was truly a pitiful mess, but at least their nature was not much different from ours in the Demon World. It’s just that they have become corrupted, either because of their continued failures or because of this terribly beautiful paradise.”

“It’s strange to hear the word ‘corruption’ from the Demon Tribe.”

I said that to buy a little time. Although I was physically fine, I was mentally exhausted and had a hard time recognizing my body as my own. Fortunately, the Demon King continued to speak.

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“Then what else should we call it if not corruption? The demons are those who follow the will of the demon god and must live in the flames of war. However, if they give up fighting just because the demon king is dead, and call their escape from the battlefield peace and indulge in comfort, what else should we call it if not corruption?”

The Demon King said, pointing to the battlefield.

“Look.”

The roar of the sky. The flurry of weapons. The blood and flesh that polluted the earth. All of it was mixed together in a chaotic manner, and the whole place was filled with disharmony. I looked at the scenery.

And then, the appearance of the demons appeared.

“Aren’t you smiling? In the midst of the flames of the battlefield, aren’t you smiling so brightly and enjoying blood, violence, and death? This is the nature of the demons.”

“…Is that so.”

“Yes. There was a demon on your side too. It’s so disgusting that she forgot her pride as a demon and sided with humans, acting as a puppet for the gods of heaven and chaos… She’s probably no different.”

At that moment, Grandis flew towards me and snatched me up in an instant.

“Hmm, how did you know I was talking and come all the way here?”

Either way, Grandis hugged me and looked at the Demon King with eyes full of caution.

“…Ainzel. You go somewhere else quickly. Damn it, those b*stards couldn’t stop one Demon King properly… I’ll stop the Demon King, so go quickly.”

As soon as I heard that, I looked at Grandis. She had a serious expression on her face, biting her lip. What is the reason she wants to fight now? Is it revenge, or is it to protect me? I don’t know.

“Ha, are you trying to do something? Do you think I’ll let my guard down just because you don’t have much black magic left in you? I’ve already read everything you can do. Each and every accessory on your body is a means of storing black magic. Did you think I didn’t know? If it weren’t for that man, no one can stop my power, so stop wasting your time and get out. You… I can’t stand seeing you lose your pride as a demon and cling to humans.”

Grandis didn’t even respond and just blasted black magic at the Demon King.

The Demon King reversed it and nullified it.

“…how?”

I said that without thinking. It is possible to break a spell that is being made with force. However, it is a whole other level to reverse the spell and nullify it. That means you have to know almost everything about your opponent’s spell.

However, that cannot be. Common sense dictates that it cannot be. The Demon King cannot possibly know so much about Grandis’s black magic. Of course, the Demon King was also a black magician, but the black magic used by Grandis in the Middle-Earth and the black magic used by the Demon King were completely different in terms of the basis of their techniques.

However, the Demon King spoke with a face that seemed to say that it was natural, as if he was laughing at the fact that I was thinking such a thing.

“Even if the spells I have seen countless times with my power are different from the ones I have used, if I cannot figure out the structure of even one of them, I am not qualified to be called a Demon King.”

“…”

Grandis continued to aim his black magic at the Demon King, but the Demon King countered each time. In the end, it was only Grandis who ended up unilaterally using up his black magic.

The Demon King looked bored and cast black magic at Grandis.

And then my body moved.

Why is it? If I were to return anyway, nothing would change, so why am I moving now? Just because I couldn’t see her dying, my body was moving on its own.

Bam, I pushed her away.

A black flame came towards me.

Grandis looked at me with a surprised expression, but I couldn’t see it for long.

Because soon a gust of heat rushed into my body.

I was swallowed up in the black flames.

I opened my eyes again. Grandis was flying towards me.

I yelled at her.

“Don’t come!”

Ah. It was obvious that my current appearance would be a total mess.

And she also knows what I mean by that. Grandis paused in midair for a moment, then clenched her fists until blood flowed from her hands, and then squeezed her eyes shut.

“…okay.”

She flew away with a very angry expression. The Demon King, who saw her, looked at me with interest.

“Hmm, maybe they exchanged some kind of signal? It’s amazing. Even if they sold their pride, it’s still amazing that the highest-ranking demon and a human have become so close.”

I swung my sword without any questions or answers. The Demon King smiled at me and then counterattacked me.

Once again, time slowed down.

And what appeared before my eyes was, unexpectedly, not the scenery of the battlefield, but the appearance of the Holy Sword’s ego.

And the words that came out of that voice were also very unexpected to me.