Chapter 232

He regained consciousness from the darkness. No. His vision still remained sealed in darkness. He needed to wake up fast. His head pounded in intense pain. “Master Jelky! Master Jelky, stop! Please stop!” His head hurt. The voice pleading with him, if he remembered right, belonged to one of Sephite’s attendants. Were they the brand-new servant, just hired the other day? He could almost recall, yet for some reason, he couldn’t. He was sure Sephite would’ve been able to immediately say their name. “Master Jelky! Hurry and throw that away!” His head hurt. Right. What happened to Sephite? He needed to evacuate her from the royal palace immediately, or she’d be in danger. Jelky was supposed to have been in the middle of moving her… Why was he doing something like this? “Hrngh!” He let out a groan. Jelky the Swift Ink was gripping down tightly on a silver hairpin, enough for it to dig into his fingertips. His head hurt. Then, he understood. His descent into darkness wasn’t because Jelky had closed his own eyes. Jelky had twisted the silver hairpin in his right eyeball himself, scrambling his ocular muscles and nerves into a mess, of his own free will. “A-augh… Glrnk!” A sound echoed from Jelky’s throat that resembled bubbles gurgling. No. Right now, Jelky was screaming. The terror was so overwhelming, it caught in his throat, and gurgles were all that came out. His head hurt. Jelky’s arm, trying to jam the hairpin into his brain through his eye socket, was being held by the servant. They were trying with all their might to stop Jelky’s terrifying behavior. Right. He was doing this all himself. Terrifying. Terrifying. Terrifying. Terrifying. Terrifying. Terrifying— “Master Jelky!” “Q-Queen!” Trembling from a chill like his very soul had turned into cold air, Jelky struggled to speak. “I-is Her Majesty safe?” The servant shook their head in tears. The fact he could see the state they were in meant that his left eye was apparently still unharmed. Even still, the terror, the trembling, and the impulse to kill himself hadn’t subsided. Everything in the world was terrified of something. Something that had long since perished. “…Wh-where did she go?!” “We don’t know!” That moment. Those red eyes that stared at Jelky. She was watching. She was smiling. Terrifying. “Th-this can’t be… Qui…ck… Someone…the Queen…” Omnipotent Word Arts—Kia the World Word was going to attack the royal capital. A trifling threat like that fell far short of true terror. When the United Western Kingdom fell to ruin, the True Demon King, for some reason, left only young Sephite alive. Sephite wasn’t the Demon King. That was how it was supposed to be. What did she have implanted into her? “Save the Queen!” Jelky screamed in a pool of his own blood. The True Demon King had been slain by the True Hero. Everyone attempted to believe in this story, yet in the end, they were unable to shake off the fear. The terror, the world itself, would subjugate every heart-possessing life. The Demon King would be resurrected. They could not escape.