Chapter 60 - Ugar's Realization

A Demon King's tower.

Once an object of terror, it was no longer something to fear.

For the past several decades, the Demon Kings had remained relatively quiet. They occasionally kidnapped royalty, but no major conflicts had broken out. Those princes and princesses could also be rescued with relative ease when humans made a concerted effort to organize a hero's journey or a raiding party. As a result, a relaxed attitude toward Demon Kings had taken hold throughout society.

A recent succession of incidents had begun to put people on their guard again, but as always, greed swallowed everything else. That was how the bands of heroes and humans hunting around the Adamant Tower had formed. Monsters gathered around Demon Kings' towers, drawn by demonic energy, and heroes flocked there for the materials they could harvest from them.

'Just how little do they think of Demon Kings...?'

The fact that they were doing this even after the incidents involving Drakson and Vivian made the Demon Kings' standing painfully clear. Berge gritted his teeth as he surveyed the surroundings. Suppressing his anger, he asked Roselle a question.

"What is the Adamant Tower like?"

"Don't tell me you're stupid enough to come raid a tower without doing any research first."

"What I know and what Roselle Charnt knows would be different."

"Looks like you've finally realized my worth."

He had merely been curious about what a Demon King's tower was like from a hero's perspective.

"Speaking as someone who's made it to the fifth floor of the Adamant Tower, it's quite a nuisance."

"A nuisance?"

"It's a bad matchup."

"I see."

Ugar Belbek was a titan, one of the Demon Realm's giants. Naturally, the demons who followed him were titans as well, and he favored large, brawny demonic creatures. Generally, large demonic creatures' abilities leaned toward the physical, and those physical abilities included powerful resistance—the type mages hated most.

"I'm not particularly fond of the Adamant Tower, but beggars can't be choosers, can they?"

"What is the interior like?"

"Exactly like what you're looking at now."

Uneven ground and rugged rock walls, with scattered monsters charging out between them, radiating killing intent.

"It's Roselle Charnt."

"Hillen Cargill's here too."

"The Crimson Hellfire raiding party?"

The heroes fighting those monsters recognized Roselle and Hillen and began whispering among themselves.

"There's something I'm curious about too."

"What?"

"Is Hillen Cargill the leader of this raiding party, or is it you, Pale?"

Roselle's remaining eye gleamed.

"Hillen Cargill, of course."

"Right? Normally, that would make sense..."

Hillen Cargill was one of the Ten Stars, even if he ranked near the bottom. Pale possessed remarkably pure mana, but he wasn't even a hero. The answer was simple.

"Then why does it feel like you're in charge?"

"Please refrain from making such strange remarks, Lady Roselle."

Hillen stepped into the conversation.

"I am the leader of the Red Hawk raiding party."

"You're awfully deferential for its leader, aren't you?"

"That is because Pale is not a member of the raiding party. He is simply a longtime acquaintance."

"A longtime acquaintance? How did you meet?"

"I have no reason to tell you that much."

"Playing hard to get, are we?"

"It is rude of you to keep pressing."

"People can afford to be rude a few times in their lives. Besides, aren't a few questions nothing compared to all the trouble you caused at the Beast's Tower?"

"It would be unfair to call that entirely my fault."

"I know. But I lost an eye."

"... I am not the same man I was then."

"You've gobbled up two Demon Kings. You'd better be different."

Otherwise, the unfairness of it would be more than she could bear.

"Otherwise, my missing eyeball went to waste. Didn't it?"

"... Allow me to apologize for that once again."

"Forget it. I didn't expect Drakson to be that strong either. Besides, even without that, how can you blame someone who did his best but just wasn't good enough?"

"How amusing."

Berge clapped.

"You've already given him shit, and now you say you can't blame him. Shamelessness is a talent too, I see. I still have much to learn."

"You're being sarcastic, aren't you?"

"I'm sincere."

"Sincerely sarcastic, then. Birds of a feather, is that it? You're taking his side?"

"I'm on everyone's side. For now, we've agreed to raid the Adamant Tower together."

"Fair enough. I'll roll out the red carpet for you, for the more important business that comes after the raid."

Roselle seized her horse's reins. As the horse surged ahead, the Crimson Hellfire raiding party fell in behind her.

"Clear a straight path to the Adamant Tower."

"At your command!"

A carpet was laid all the way to the Adamant Tower's entrance—a carpet of monster blood, corpses, and flames.

* * *

"The Crimson Hellfire raiding party is climbing the Adamant Tower."

Anyone could open a tower's doors. But not everyone climbed it. No matter how accustomed heroes became to demons, demonic creatures, and monsters, the pressure exerted by a Demon King and a tower was something else entirely.

Do not climb a tower unless you have a proper raiding party. Do not climb a tower unless you are on a hero's journey. Those were the unwritten rules among heroes—not to avoid provoking the Demon King, but to preserve their own lives.

Humans admired feats they could not accomplish themselves. Inevitably, the Crimson Hellfire raiding party's entry into the tower became a spectacle.

"How pleasant."

Hillen smiled.

"All this attention from the crowd."

"Attention can turn to malice in an instant. Like when you failed to kill the Beast Demon King on your first attempt."

"I believe all of that is part of the fate a hero must endure."

Roselle ignored Hillen.

"So, do we just go in now? Which floor are we aiming for?"

"The third."

"You've set your sights higher than I expected, with a group of this caliber."

Roselle's gaze swept over the Red Hawk mercenaries. Bark flinched, but could offer no rebuttal. The Red Hawk Mercenary Company and the Crimson Hellfire raiding party both had names associated with red, but the gap between them was as vast as that between heaven and earth.

Berge signaled to Hillen with his eyes. Hillen strode forward and stood before the doors.

"I will open them. Everyone, prepare for the demonic creatures."

"What's on the first floor?"

"Why do you keep asking me? Am I your guide?"

"You volunteered for the role."

"I'm your creditor, not your guide. Mile trolls."

Mile trolls were a case similar to Krutu. They had partially regained their original forms after a Demon King shared some demonic energy with them to put the monsters to use. But the amount of demonic energy and the extent of the transformation were small, leaving them far inferior to Krutu. Even so, ordinary trolls could not compare to them.

CREEEAK

Hillen summoned his aura and opened the enormous doors. With a harsh noise, the interior came into view. The first thing to greet them was...

"... Apparently, this is what mile trolls look like these days."

"... Who the hell is that?"

A woman lying atop a towering rock, her face pale and her eyes closed as though she were dead.

* * *

It was absurd. On the first floor, behind the doors, there were neither the mile trolls Roselle Charnt had mentioned nor the countless demonic creatures that should have been guarding the tower. There was a towering rock, and a princess lying upon it with her eyes closed.

"... Elena."

She was the person Berge had come to rescue. Ernyan's voice wavered, and she reached forward with a trembling hand.

Berge forced her hand down and whispered,

"Stay calm."

"... I'm sorry."

"Is that Elena?"

"Yes. Why is she here...?"

Was this just what one should expect from Ugar? Berge had told him to consider the consequences himself if he failed to leave Elena within the first three floors, and he had put her right at the entrance. The fellow always exceeded his wildest expectations.

"Who's that woman? What's wrong with the layout of this tower?"

Roselle Charnt shouted.

"She is a princess."

"A princess?"

Hillen, who had already heard about the agreement between Demon Kings from Berge, answered.

"Her Highness Elena Hilderan, Hilderan's Thirteenth Princess."

"That's Elena? This is hilarious. Has the Adamant Demon King suddenly decided to imitate the Demon King of Bitter Cold?"

"We must rescue her."

At Berge's signal, Hillen Cargill dashed forward. Quick on the uptake, Granada followed with the Red Hawk.

"Fine, you rescue the princess. We'll do something else."

Behind the rock where the princess lay, more than a thousand mile trolls were baring their teeth and growling. Everyone had been too distracted by the princess to notice them.

"Kill them all!"

The Crimson Hellfire raiding party charged toward the mile trolls.

Berge and Ernyan reached the rock a moment later.

"Her condition?"

"Her breathing is faint, but relatively stable."

"Granada. Go help Roselle."

"Yes."

Granada led the Red Hawk into the melee. Only four remained atop the rock, which afforded a view of the entire first floor.

"Hillen Cargill. Did you know the princess was like this?"

"Yes. I met her once. She was not this bad then..."

"She was using an artifact to conceal it as much as possible. Even heroes would have had difficulty noticing."

"I see."

["Do you know the spell called Child of the World Tree?"]

Ernyan's whisper drifted through his mind.

Elena Hilderan's face was pale. Her life force was so feeble that it would not have been surprising if she died at any moment.

"It's just as you said."

"... Yes."

But within her, an immense quantity of mana lay coiled. An amount so great it sent chills down his spine.

"Child of the World Tree, hm."

Humans always wanted much. Once they had much, they wanted even more. That was how the spell Child of the World Tree had been created.

Just as the fruit borne by the World Tree was a precious elixir, the spell sought to make the humans who were born more perfect. It artificially strengthened a human from the fetal stage—a spell better described as enhancement than magic. That was Child of the World Tree.

At first glance, it was an extraordinary spell, but no spell created by imperfect humans could be perfect. Hilderan's royal family was proof. Elena Hilderan bore witness to it.

"Hillen, take care of her. You must be the one who rescued the princess, in every respect."

"Yes."

"Please be careful. She's a fragile girl."

"I will."

Hillen carefully lifted Elena into his arms. Even then, she did not open her eyes.

An orange glow made Berge turn his head. Hot flames shimmered where he looked. No—wherever he turned, there was nothing but a sea of fire.

"Ahahahahaha!"

Roselle Charnt's wild laughter rang out in the distance.

"The flames are spreading this way!"

"Shit, get out of the way!"

He could see the Crimson Hellfire raiding party sweeping through the battlefield amid the flames, while the Red Hawk mercenaries scattered in every direction to escape them.

"... She really is a crazy bitch."

He had known it from the first time they met, but she truly was in a league of her own. Who would have imagined she would set the entire floor on fire?

"This is going to sting Ugar a little."

Berge began calculating the demonic energy points needed to replace the dead mile trolls and restore the burned-out facilities on the first floor, then gave up. There was no need. Those losses weren't his to bear.

* * *

"... What did you say?"

Ugar had received a report that heroes had entered his tower. But that was all he had expected to hear.

Roselle Charnt and Hillen Cargill working together had come as a surprise, but he had placed Hilderan's Thirteenth Princess on the first floor as promised. She was in the perfect spot, plainly visible the moment they opened the doors. All they had to do was rescue her and leave.

And yet...

"They burned down the entire first floor!"

More than a thousand mile trolls had been wiped out. The environment he had created to help the trolls fight had burned away.

"Berge, you fucking bastard!"

Trolls ranked among the fastest-breeding and fastest-growing monsters, so obtaining mile trolls was relatively easy. But this was a full thousand of them. The thought of restoring the first floor made anger surge within him.

"Putting her on the third floor would have been a disaster."

The mere thought of that unrealized worst-case scenario sent a chill through him. He marveled at his own foresight.

Then, suddenly...

"But..."

Something struck him as strange.

"Roselle Charnt and Hillen Cargill came here?"

Weren't Roselle Charnt and Hillen Cargill also the ones who had killed Drakson? Was this a coincidence?

"... It is a coincidence."

He snorted at the absurdity of his own thought.

"Drakson died because he killed Ormus's Second Prince."

Roselle Charnt had taken command because Balaf Dislord had withdrawn, and because she had been competing with Hillen Cargill over the Tower of Bitter Cold until just before that.

"The two of them might have formed a connection there."

Hillen Cargill was a hero from Hilderan. There was nothing strange about him coming to rescue the Thirteenth Princess.

"... But."

Ugar murmured uneasily. The questions he had tried so hard to dismiss resurfaced.

"Drakson said it wasn't his fault. He said someone had sent a high-ranking demon."

He had protested his innocence, going so far as to take the drastic step of searching through the tower's records. What if he had been telling the truth, and someone had planned everything? And what if that someone was a Demon King?

"... Jason Cockmundo."

He himself hadn't done it. Reina Sordein was not the sort of demon who would. And Berge Deias had no high-ranking demons.

'Not none, exactly...'

But a tower's adjutant did not leave the tower.

"And Berge Deias has only been here a year. There's no way he has connections to the Star heroes. Someone must have helped him."

And there was only one person who would help a Demon King establish contact with heroes. The Demon King of Lies, Jason Cockmundo.

'Good heavens...'

Ugar clapped a hand over his mouth.

'It was Jason. Jason hired the heroes to kill Drakson.'

But why?

That night, Ugar could not sleep.