Chapter 145 – The Lord of Endless Evolution (5)
“Isn’t that wrong? You definitely…”
“Shut up. Can’t you see this?”
“Wh-what?”
“What you’re facing isn’t an ordinary Magical Girl.”
Inside the nest, the Chairman Zhao Zhirin, upset by a de facto defeat, immediately sought out Razak. However, it was Razak who scolded him instead. He was currently extremely agitated.
“Look at this. This trace. Why didn’t my poison gas, which melted one of your Magical Girls alive, work? The answer is simple. That silver-armored Magical Girl was something entirely different.”
“Cough…cough…”
Razak pressed something tentacled against his face.
The almost lifeless figure barely clinging to consciousness was the Magical Girl Seirin. She was in a horrific state, her body splitting apart from the Holy Power gradually spreading from her half-charred throat.
And Razak, studying Seirin in such a condition, became aware of the existence of the Holy Power.
“Damn it, what kind of absurdity is this?”
“This power has extreme resistance against our abilities. In other words, we were at a disadvantage from the start. But now that I’ve identified the essence, it’s different. More data, more resources. With that, I will evolve further and compensate for weaknesses.”
Razak grinned as he plunged a writhing tentacle into Seirin’s abdomen. The mysterious liquid sloshed inside her, and the damage from her throat to her belly slowly began to heal and diminish.
“We become stronger.”
Razak looked around the nest. All the Magical Girls injured in the previous battle were once again being modified by him.
Naturally, their screams and groans filled the air. The intense pain from forcibly disassembling and modifying bodies designed with the power of Yggdrasil was more than mere discomfort.
“You can endure it. After all, this is for the country and for family.”
He murmured while looking at the faintly conscious face of Seirin. Seirin, with her ever-changing murky eyes watching him, remained silent.
Of course, the answer had already been predetermined. He didn’t feel the need to hear it.
“I guarantee you, having evolved from experience, I won’t fall for the same trick again.”
“…Alright. I’ll trust you one more time.”
Zhao Zhirin gritted his teeth as he left the nest. After all, Razak was their only hope. Having come this far, they had to secure definite gains.
Behind him, Seirin’s scream erupted horrifically.
“Where is that girl now?”
“We lost track while tracing. However, the last observed location was in the direction of Shanghai.”
“That girl! Is she trying to go there!?”
Outside, Zhao Zhirin gasped upon receiving the report.
The enemy who had devastated them was suddenly shifting directions to a place where they couldn’t take revenge.
“What’s the possibility of her heading towards North Korea?”
“It’s not impossible, but if that were the case, we speculate she wouldn’t have veered her route otherwise. Chairman, could it be that girl came from Korea?”
“No way. That can’t… that’s impossible.”
He muttered as he rubbed his head. It wasn’t the same as before; Korea was now a no-go area. The politicians and bureaucrats who had established connections were wiped out, leaving their influence weaker than ever.
With many local politicians, who were supposed to act as intermediaries by moving citizen groups bought off according to their orders, being ousted, it was no longer feasible to stir public opinion.
“For now… for now, focus on defense. Unless that girl returns here, the overall plan is more important for the time being.”
Finally calmed down, he offered a realistic solution.
After all, their objective was to achieve great accomplishments. Until that was accomplished, they needed to divert attention elsewhere and concentrate solely on maintaining their position.
Regardless of her intentions, there was no reason to chase after a punishment that had left their grasp.
“So hurry up! Faster!”
He urged his subordinates more frantically, throwing aside the calculations of lives. He needed to increase the pace of resource allocation by any means necessary.
And the resource Razak wanted was, of course, what was obvious. If the tail is long, it gets stepped on. The publicly denied human experimentation led by the Chinese government was slowly starting to rise again.
“Revenge. Chairman, we must take revenge.”
Then, the Magical Girls who had been modified again by Razak, those who had been defeated by Shia, emerged with glinting eyes then.
*
“The Saint has become Aria’s sidekick, huh? Hahaha!”
Hearing the news on a bright day, I laughed uncontrollably, not at all girlish. The one bringing the information, Rene, had a serious expression.
“The Saint recognized the Hero. Are you really alright?”
“After all, we wanted peace.”
It seemed Rene couldn’t understand why the Demon King like me was so indifferent to the Hero and the Saint. But as long as they maintained peace and didn’t fight each other, they posed no threat to me. Instead, they might become great resources for my growth.
In fact, Rene coming to the Demon Realm also served as a price for that peace.
“Instead, they will probably focus more on the other side, right? Am I wrong?”
“…That’s not it.”
“Isn’t it nice? They can handle everything on their own.”
Having neatly resolved domestic issues, I was genuinely enjoying a proper vacation lately.
A life of truly doing nothing and relaxing. The homework and summer project pale in comparison to checking dozens of documents with my tentacles simultaneously.
“See you later.”
Waving goodbye to Rene, who provided me with good information, I dropped my transformation and returned to my room.
Kim Soo-jung was already waiting in the room.
“You’re coming back from work, right?”
“Yeah.”
Kim Soo-jung only knew that I was a Magical Girl. It seemed she thought I had come back from a Magical Girl activity after meeting with Rene.
“Hehe. Then, you can find out.”
With a devious smile, she grabbed her phone and started wrestling with it. She seemed to be trying to figure out my identity.
Since finding out was impossible anyway, I let her do whatever she wanted.
“By the way, have you prepared everything? We need to leave in two days.”
“I’ve already packed!”
But at this moment, there was something that excited her even more than my identity. She stroked the silver suitcase she had placed on the floor.
That suitcase, full of our belongings, was the one we would be taking to the airport in two days.
Kim Soo-jung was so thrilled about her first overseas trip that she couldn’t sleep.
“You’re going to have fun in this time of turmoil…”
“Of course. I came here to have fun.”
While Kim Soo-jung hummed to herself and went to the bathroom, I sighed at Ren, who looked pitiful, shaking my head in disbelief.
Even though somewhere terrible experiments, monsters, saints, and justice were causing a chaotic stir, most people continued to live their lives normally, completely unaffected.
I, too, was no different. An unaffected and ordinary person… I wanted to continue living this way.
“Just as I mentioned earlier, the director will personally come to pick you up. The others will find their way to the airport on their own.”
“You bragged about visiting many places, but you seem quite excited yourself, huh? Calling me daily.”
That night, while lying on my bed, I received a call from Park Tae-jun and couldn’t help but smile.
After all, this trip was planned and led by Park Tae-jun. The plan to go to a resort overseas during the break.
Having received support from his older brother, it was obvious he wanted to take me alone, but that was impossible. It had turned into a rather large trip, tangled with not just Kim Soo-jung but also several of her friends from the same class.
“I am excited. What about you?”
“Not really. I could care less.”
I didn’t deny Park Tae-jun’s question. Although I had explored every corner of the Demon Realm, there weren’t too many places I had visited on Earth.
The same was true for overseas travel. I wasn’t one to particularly enjoy traveling, but I wasn’t wholly uninterested either.
“Yeah, it’s Park Tae-jun.”
“That’s right.”
Once I hung up the phone, suddenly, a head came down upside down from above. Kim Soo-jung, with her head flipped over, furrowed her brow.
“I don’t like this.”
“Isn’t it thanks to that kid that we’re going on this trip?”
“It’s not that I dislike Park Tae-jun. I just don’t like you talking to him.”
“I’m not your possession.”
I scoffed at her words.
She had previously revealed her feelings to me and was rejected, but perhaps my lukewarm response made her a bit more proactive lately. She even behaved more confidently.
I was beginning to worry about her values and such, but my role was merely to help her stay on the right path.
The rest was something she had to handle on her own.
“Can’t you just let me treat you like a possession?”
“Stop spouting nonsense.”
I gave her another playful punch on the head as she crawled back beside me.
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