Albert’s battle was shockingly intense, much more than I had expected.
I had rarely been hit this hard by a human. In fact, it was the same for all creatures.
Who would have thought one single human could drain my stamina like this?
“…”
I recovered my stamina by sucking Albert’s blood, healing my wounds in the process.
Broken bones healed, burned skin returned.
Of course, I couldn’t fully recover. During the final moments of the combat, I had pushed myself too hard to expand my domain.
My body was under heavy strain.
Not only did I deplete all my magical energy, but in the end, I also showed Albert some vivid hallucinations.
Maybe that’s why my eyes hurt, and my vision had turned red.
Something was flowing from my eyes, and when I wiped it away, I found it was blood.
Was this the second time I bled?
Showing humans a dream wasn’t without its limitations. When I overused it like this, I had to pay a price.
The Empire was stronger than I had anticipated. If there were a few more humans with skills similar to Albert, I couldn’t predict a win for myself.
I pressed onward, enduring the pain. This was where Albert had blocked my path.
As I moved forward, I felt magical energy flowing from everywhere.
Breathing became relatively easier, so I wasn’t feeling too bad.
Wiping away the blood from my eyes, I surveyed the area.
This was the seventh underground floor of the Empire headquarters. It was close to the bottom floor but wasn’t the lowest level.
However, magical energy could still be felt here. Looking around, I saw small monsters locked in iron cages.
So, they were capturing monsters alive and locking them up! This was the atrocity the Empire was committing behind the scenes.
They seemed no different from a slave market to me, keeping living beings in cages.
Aren’t humans and monsters both the same kind of life?
Why is it illegal to imprison humans, while imprisoning monsters is legal?
The concept of good and evil I felt now seemed a bit different from that of humans.
Killing the same life, if a human is killed, they go to prison; if a monster is killed, they are hailed as a hero.
Are humans who kill monsters the good beings, while monsters who kill humans are the evil ones?
I couldn’t understand the standards of good and evil they had set. Maybe it was just a different way of thinking.
The monsters looked feral, perhaps out of hunger. They growled at me, their red eyes glowing, making it clear they’d attack if it weren’t for the bars.
Do monsters attack their own kind when they’re starving? Was that why the shadow monster attacked me before?
I didn’t know.
Right now, I had too little information.
I knew too little about monsters.
So, I moved forward.
There had to be a monster below who knew at least more than I did.
Perhaps they might even know about my existence.
*
With my eyes closed, as I passed through the corridor, the cries of the monsters became more vivid.
Did their sobs sound sad because I was the same kind of being? It was a little difficult to just ignore.
Can’t the humans hear that wretched, torturous scream?
Should I set them free? I briefly thought about it but ultimately decided against it.
Right now, the monsters were freaking out from starvation.
I knew this well; I had been there myself. In such a state, it was always better not to stir them.
If I ignored them, they probably wouldn’t rush at me.
So I moved on, as they weren’t my actual concern.
Finding the path to the bottom floor was harder than I thought. This building seemed like the seventh underground floor was the bottom level.
The eighth floor must be hidden.
If I hadn’t read Albert’s memories, I would probably have had to smash my way down.
Knowing the way down prevented such disasters.
Using a secret path, I went down the stairs.
The very bottom floor of the underground was like one giant room.
There wasn’t a corridor leading elsewhere; it was just one huge open space.
It felt distinctly different from before, like an area created to confine a single being.
Once I reached the bottom, a massive iron cage blocking my path stood out.
It was much thicker than the cages containing the other monsters, sealed tightly with magical inscriptions.
This would be tough for me to break.
When I shook it with my hands, I could clearly tell how strong it was.
Well, after all, the one they needed to keep was no ordinary being. I was just observing the inside of the bottom floor for a moment.
“…Who are you?”
In the depths where no one ever came, a female voice echoed.
I turned towards the direction of the voice.
“…”
As I had anticipated, the entity speaking to me wasn’t a human.
She had golden hair resembling Rena’s and red eyes.
While resembling a human, there was a slight difference. Humans usually don’t have horns on their heads.
I was finally able to meet a monster that could speak for the first time today.
It had been quite a difficult process.
She was a bit different from the monsters upstairs.
There were several different points, but the biggest one was that she didn’t show any hostility towards me.
It would be accurate to say she wasn’t in a frenzied state. She was looking at me with her full sanity intact.
When I expressed my curiosity about that, she answered.
“The ones upstairs are disposable test subjects, so they don’t get fed.”
“…”
So excessive starvation was indeed the condition for frenzy.
I learned something I hadn’t known. I had to be careful since I could become like that at any moment.
It seemed she was being treated specially here. Just the fact that she occupied her own floor was part of it.
It looked like she was also provided meals.
Of course, that didn’t mean her life looked easy.
Her body was in no condition even to say it was “good.” It was covered in bruises and filled with needle marks.
Most of her clothes were torn, leaving only ragged scraps over her body.
And above all, you could tell just by looking into her eyes.
Today, my eyes were too fatigued to read her deep memories, but overall, her gaze was dull.
She probably suffered through things that were nearly impossible to express in words. All the monsters captured here were said to be test subjects for vivisection.
I read in Albert’s memories that the Empire was researching the powers of the Demon King.
They wanted to know how a single entity could wield such vast power and what the source of that immense might was.
The nameless monster standing in front of me seemed to have been a subject of that research.
“D-don’t come any closer!”
She looked incredibly wary as I approached, but I had no intention of harming her.
Eventually, I took a step back and maintained a safe distance before smooth conversation became possible.
“How did you get here? It must be hard to find a place this deep…”
“I came to see you. Humans won’t come for a while.”
“For me?”
I nodded.
She seemed to increase her wariness towards me, but I wasn’t too concerned. I planned to leave immediately after getting the answers I wanted.
This time, I asked her a question. There were many things I wanted to ask.
“Do you know who I am?”
“…How would I know that?”
Was the question wrong?
I slowly corrected my question.
“I’m also a monster like you. Do you know what kind of monster I am?”
“You? A monster? I don’t really see it… Aren’t you a human?”
She tilted her head in confusion. It was a question I had as well.
If I were a human it would be great, but typically humans don’t eat other humans. They also can’t handle magic, and it wasn’t just blood or flesh they could consume.
That’s why I wasn’t a human.
Unfortunately, I had to tell her that I was not a human.
“A human can’t wield magical energy.”
“Is that so…? Then what are you?”
“…?”
“I think you’re misunderstanding something. You’re not a monster. Something must have mixed in. It’s certain you’re not a pure monster.”
I was struck with shocking words from the start.
Her eyes weren’t lying. There was no reason for her to say something like that.
I listened closely to her words.
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