This is why he’s such a pain in the rear. Lara silently cursed at their archenemy. Though they had a bit of breathing room, they still couldn’t let their guard down against him.
Just like Ferd harbored the hopes of all mortals, the Great Demon King was drawn by the grievances and hatred born from the resentment of living beings who had killed their own kind and been killed by their own kind for over a thousand years. As a result, if the Great Demon King suffered too much damage, the impurities of mortals’ grievances inside him would disappear, and he’d start returning to a purer black, changing through several forms before reaching his final one. On the other hand, it was impossible to kill him without attacking him, so the Hero’s party of seventy years ago had been stuck with fighting a monster that kept growing stronger until reaching his final form.
He isn’t changing forms for the time being, and even if he does, I think he’ll only reach the second one at most, but we’ll see. Let’s pray that it’s impossible for him to assume any form from the third onward.
Lara’s assessment was, in fact, correct.
“Groaaaaah!” The Great Demon King screamed, vapor gushing out of the mass of black mist. The murky black figure regained a little of its purity, and started swelling into a massive humanoid shape. But...that was all that happened.
“What?!” Rapidly worsening cracks began to form in the body of this imitation—who wasn’t even himself aware that he was merely a copy. The artifact, which had already been spitting out error after error, was ultimately unable to re-create the Great Demon King in full.
It was now or never. Sazaki gripped his katana tightly with both hands for the first time in a while, swinging the bewitched red sword with every ounce of his strength. Lara pressed her hands together, unleashing an impossible wave of magic from her arms. Stein radiated a bizarre light as he threw a straight punch—the most basic of the basics. Max became one with his armor, exposing his dragon-man form to everyone around him, and thrust his spear forward. Elrica unleashed a light that was not the gods’ but her own. And finally...
“Raaaaah!” Ferd jumped up and slammed his brightest sword of the day once more into the Great Demon King’s head.
“Argh!” With that brief cry from the King, the world collapsed around them entirely. All of the mirrors had been shattered. The mist of darkness vanished. The calculations were over.
Really? That was all it took? The Great Demon King had nearly destroyed the world and had held his own in a literal life-and-death battle against the Hero’s party, the people whose very existences bordered on the impossible. Even though he was just a replica, could he truly be defeated so easily? No. No. No. Most definitely not.
“It will take more than that to defeat meeeeeee!!!” The mist, which had nearly vanished, coalesced back into a body.
This is bad. Lara was rarely ever anxious, but she was suddenly struck with a sense of impending doom.
Then, the Great Demon King heard a voice.
“War has broken out. This must be a business opportunity. For now, we’ll definitely be able to sell our entire inventory. If we navigate this well, we should be able to aim even higher.”
It was just a voice.
“I have good news. Our country was at a disadvantage, but it seems that we’re making a comeback thanks to the arrival of a great champion. Personally, I have nothing to complain about, since our business is going well. All that’s left is to be careful how we conduct ourselves after the victory.”
This voice...
“The places that became battlegrounds were a terrible sight to see. Everything was razed, not a single village spared, the villagers themselves massacred. There were even infants among the heaps of burnt corpses. As I looked upon those scenes, I realized: That’s what happens when you’re defeated. So, thank goodness we weren’t.”
...wasn’t from the great war.
“The occupied city had a terrible stench. Corpses littered the ground everywhere, and I couldn’t stay for long for fear of contracting some illness. Once my work was done, I came back immediately.”
It was from before the great war.
“I’m glad that the work ended early, but the women and children are walking too slowly. I have no idea when I’ll be home at this rate. Maybe I should whip the people at the end of the line. No, that would damage the goods.”
A voice from before he’d woken up.
“Skewering the babies of the foolish citizens who planned to rebel only made them angrier, but it’s laughable that people with one arm cut off would plot a rebellion. How were they planning to win? Killing half the villagers to make an example out of them was fine and all, but now I’m exhausted.”
Then he heard a different voice.
“I just can’t come up with any ideas for new torture implements. Is this what they call an artist’s slump? I’ve gone through something similar before, but this is worse. Last time, I got my ideas from torturing my siblings in various ways, so perhaps I should pick a suitable civilian as a canvas. Or should I go fox hunting instead? I’ll need to prepare a mother fox and her cubs. Last time, they just froze before me, begging for their lives, but it might work this time.”
And another.
“I’m absolutely certain someone’s after my life. Last year, I massacred the villagers in the south because they were targeting me, but the survivors escaped to the neighboring village. They hate me and intend to see me dead. I need to track them down and choke the life out of them. If none of them are found, it means that the other villagers are either hiding them or already let them go. I’ll need to torture them and make them spit out those fiends’ whereabouts. But then they’ll surely hate me too, so I’ll need to kill them as well.”
Another, and another, and another.
“The townsfolk were laughing and throwing rocks, so I went to see what was going on and found some kids from one of those outsider races dead. Apparently, the survivors were in hiding, and the townsfolk who found them chased them down and killed them. From what I heard, they died while calling for their mom. She might still be in hiding, so we need to find her too. But it’s such a pain. If they’re going to make me search for those filthy foreigners, I wish they would give me a raise.”
He kept hearing the voices, repeatedly, endlessly.
“Graaaaah!” came the voice of a man who had been framed for a sin and burned as a heretic.
“O great lord, I beg of you... Please forgive me... I beg of you...” sounded the screams of a woman who had been violated and tortured to death.
“Waaah! Waaah! Waah...” rang the cries of an infant who had been impaled on a spear and held aloft as a trophy.
“Nooo! Oh gods, please no!” were the screams of an elderly man who had been trying to put his wife’s entrails back into her body.
“It hurts. It hurts so much...”
“Mom... Mom...”
“My eyes! My eyyyes!”
The voices of villagers who had simply been living their lives yet were trampled underfoot echoed.
“Not my sister! Please, anyone but herrrrrr!” cried the brother who begged for his younger sister to be spared before he was tortured.
“Brother! Nooooo!” screamed the sister, who’d been forced to watch that horrific sight before being violated herself.
“Why?! We’re all human, so why?!”
“Stop... Stop throwing rocks at me... Plea...se... Oh, mommy... I can...finally...see you...”
These were the final whispers of children who had been stoned and chased to death simply for being different.
Voices, voices, and more voices. Grief, grief, and more grief. Endless.
He could hear more voices.
“Ha ha ha. You moron. That’s not the people’s money; it’s mine.” This was the voice of a priest who’d laughed as the screams of the fool who’d exposed his cohorts’ embezzlement were drowned in the flames.
“Aha ha ha ha ha ha!” Another man’s laughter echoed, much louder than the woman’s screams.
“Now the world is a slightly cleaner place!” crooned the voice of a man who’d been delighted at the death of an infant from a “filthy” race.
“You disgusting ignoramuses. You’ll be a little more comfortable with fewer mouths to feed,” came the voice of a noble who’d been delighted at the “cleansing” of all the useless elders in his land, sneering at the citizens who rallied against him.
“Ha ha ha ha ha!”
“Keep throwing!”
“Ha ha ha!”