Chapter 22

〈 Chapter 23 〉 71st Demon King (1)

*

“I don’t know who you are, but I really appreciate it.”

A man wearing a backpack and holding a dagger mumbled as he walked through the ruins.

He was a Pathfinder making a living from relics excavated outside the barrier.

However, for some time now, a bandit group had been causing trouble in the area, making explorations difficult. He had even considered moving to a different location.

Then one day, news spread among the Pathfinders that the bandits had been absent.

And that rumor turned out to be true.

“Where the heck are those bandit guys?”

It had been a week since he had ventured outside the barrier, and the bandits hadn’t shown up.

Moreover, today, he had managed to recover a few decent-looking relics.

His steps felt unusually light.

“Oh right, I heard a hero came by recently; could that hero have wiped out the bandits?”

However, most of the rumors about that hero were hard to believe.

Things like a small-statured kid, for example.

As a mere Pathfinder from the outskirts, he hadn’t even heard of the Rose Knight, Gwen.

“Well, should I just call it a day and head back?”

It was at that moment he hurried his steps.

“Hey…”

He heard a weak voice from somewhere.

Turning his head, he saw a woman crouched down.

Her forehead was smeared with blood, and her condition looked far from good at first glance.

“What should I do?”

He wasn’t strong enough to help another injured person.

He didn’t have any remarkable combat relics, just a bracelet modestly imbued with divine power to withstand chaos.

But…

“Isn’t she pretty…?”

With skin as white as a doll and long, transparent icy hair.

It was almost suspicious why such a beautiful woman was outside the barrier.

After a moment’s hesitation, he made up his mind.

“Take my hand.”

He stepped closer and extended his hand.

The woman managed a faint smile.

*

Creeak.

The old door creaked loudly as it opened.

As I stepped inside, I sighed at the sight of the counter.

“The innkeeper is sleeping soundly without a care in the world.”

The innkeeper was slumped over the counter, fast asleep.

At this rate, there was no point in watching the counter.

I approached and woke him up.

“Hey, wake up!”

Only then did he open his eyes.

“Hmm? Allen?”

“Yep, it’s me.”

“Why are you here?”

He seemed bewildered to see me after a long time.

It had been almost a month since I last visited, after all.

“Don’t worry about that; just go back to sleep.”

Of course, I was tired too, but since my stamina status had risen, I wasn’t oblivious enough to doze off like the innkeeper.

However, he seemed to remember something as he looked at me.

“No, that can’t be.”

Suddenly, he dashed into the kitchen and returned with a bottle.

As he pulled the cork from the top, a familiar scent wafted through the air.

It was the smell of alcohol.

“What’s that?”

“What do you think? It’s alcohol. I was saving it to drink with you when you came back.”

“But I’m not an adult yet…”

“What are you talking about? You’ve left home, so you’re an adult now.”

He poured some into a glass and held it out to me.

“Here, drink it.”

Honestly, I didn’t dislike the idea.

I was curious about what the alcohol in this world tasted like.

It had been quite a while since I last drank.

“Well, I guess I won’t refuse…”

At the moment I was about to tilt the glass, the inn’s door suddenly swung open.

“Huh?”

A man walked into the inn.

And on his back was a woman.

The woman looked dreadful at a glance.

“Is there a doctor in this town!”

The innkeeper seemed to recognize the woman’s condition.

“There’s no doctor. But we do have basic first aid supplies here in our inn, so I can get those.”

The innkeeper dashed inside, and the man laid the woman down on the sofa.

I stood quietly at the counter, observing the two.

“It’s a bit early, isn’t it?”

It was the time just before the Demon King happened to breach the barrier and first entered the village.

This was approximately a week earlier than the time I knew.

What does that mean?

“If a stranger appears at this timing…”

There was a high likelihood that one of them was the 71st Demon King.

“The problem is, which one is the Demon King?”

Of course, I had seen appearances of the 71st Demon King in the game.

But the issue was that there were more than one or two variations of that appearance.

The 71st Demon King had the ability to change his form at will.

“Right now, the guy who seems normal is a bit suspicious…”

I had to be cautious.

Even though I wanted to catch the Demon King, I didn’t want to become a criminal by killing an innocent person.

“Anyway, even if he sneaked into the village early, he still needs time to prepare to breach the barrier.”

So I figured the best course of action was to keep my eye on these two and observe.

Surely, if one of them was the Demon King, they would eventually reveal it.

*

And that reveal came sooner than expected.

“Um… where is this place?”

As soon as she regained consciousness, that was her first question.

Sure, it wouldn’t be her room, so that made sense.

But what she said next completely caught me off guard.

“Is this not Ice Valley?”

I couldn’t help but freeze at that question.

Of course, this place was not Ice Valley.

Not to mention, Ice Valley right now was—

“Whatever the circumstances are, can I share some bad news?”

It was the innkeeper.

He seemed to catch on to my hesitation.

Hearing him, the woman nodded, a puzzled look on her face.

“It’s okay. I noticed right away it wasn’t Ice Valley because of the warm air. So where are we?”

“That’s right, we’re not in Ice Valley; we’re in Basilium.”

“Basilium? Great! We’re not too far from Ice Valley…”

“And Ice Valley has already been destroyed by Chaos.”

The woman’s eyes widened.

That was a reaction I expected.

I then asked her, “Do you happen to know what year it is right now?”

“Isn’t it 231 years after Chaos?”

Of course, that was the case.

“It’s currently 298 years after Chaos.”

A staggering 67 years had passed.

For reference, the barrier around Ice Valley collapsed in 231, too.

It seemed that the place where the woman’s memory had lingered was indeed just before the collapse of Ice Valley.

“That…”

The woman clutched her head.

It seemed she needed time to calm down.

I shifted my gaze to the man who brought her in.

“When you first found her, what condition was she in?”

“She was lying on the floor. I didn’t see any Chaos Beasts attacking her.”

The fact that no Chaos Beasts were around was definitely a suspicious statement.

But I continued my questioning with the man.

“Sorry, but who are you?”

It was still too early to completely drop my guard against him.

“Well, I don’t know why you’re asking that. But for now, let’s just say I’m an ordinary Pathfinder.”

“A Pathfinder? Have you always been in this village?”

That was odd.

I didn’t recall seeing this man either inside or outside the barrier.

“Yeah. I started staying in this village about last month. But recently, I haven’t been able to go outside the barrier due to the annoying bandits.”

If it was the bandit group, that made sense.

After all, I was the one who had wiped them out.

The timing of his arrival in the village last month coincided with when I left the inn.

“Well, that lowers the probability of him being the Demon King a bit.”

That left only the woman.

The woman who claimed she came from Ice Valley 67 years ago.

She was definitely suspicious.

But for some reason, I didn’t feel convinced.

*

I closed my eyes.

Feeling the wind.

As if a virtual hand was grasping the breeze…

“Crap.”

This wasn’t working.

No matter how much I tried to train the Wind’s Power, I wasn’t satisfied at all, so I was switching up my training methods.

The one thing I knew for sure was that this wasn’t it.

“When training Wind magic in the game, the texts usually looked something like this.”

But this was power, not magic.

Perhaps it was because it was a power; it didn’t require me to put any effort into sensing it.

The precision and strength were the real issues here.

Whoosh.

I carelessly tossed a coin, and it began spinning in the air.

It would have been nice if it spun in place like telekinesis, but instead, it looked like it was caught in a gust, swirling like flower petals.

It even seemed like it was slowly descending due to a lack of power.

“I’ve acquired Precocious ability, yet my growth is so slow.”

After diligently training the Wind’s Power for a week, I finally reached C+ rank just yesterday.

However, there wasn’t a significant difference in feeling compared to C rank. It was just that I could handle a slightly heavier weight, and using abilities felt a little more natural.

“That’s just not enough.”

Just as I was about to refocus on my training, something caught the attention of my Wind’s Power.

Right beside me.

“…!”

I quickly turned my head.

There was a woman peeking in at me.

“Ah!”

“Whoa!”

I almost pulled out my sword from my inventory in reflex.

When did she come so close?

I hadn’t realized it at all. Had I been too focused on training?

“Or maybe…?”

I glanced at the woman suspiciously.

Seeing my expression, her face went pale.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.”

Apology?

“I didn’t mean to startle you…”

Now that she was acting like this, I found myself at a loss for words.

I wasn’t convinced she was the Demon King.

“That’s alright. I was just lost in thought and got surprised.”

“But what was that just now?”

Her eyes were fixated on the coin I held.

“Did she see it?”

As I racked my brain for an explanation, she asked, “Was that magic?”

“…Yes, that’s right.”

It seemed better to describe it as magic than as power.

After all, magic was more familiar to the public.

This Wind’s Power was something I had never seen before, even having played the game for thousands of hours.

“You can use magic? That’s impressive!”

“No, it’s not that impressive. It’s just tossing a coin.”

She shook her head at that.

“It’s not! How many people can’t even do that?”

“…Maybe back 67 years ago, but now the kids in the village can do it.”

“Really?”

She looked genuinely taken aback.

“Just joking.”

I felt a slap on my palm.

My arm burned.

“Tch…”

Only then did I ask her what I had wanted to know.

“By the way, what are you doing here?”

At this late hour, why was she at the counter?

“I saw you looked tired, so I came to relieve you.”

“I’m fine, though.”

“I’m not fine. I’ve been leeching off this inn lately.”

It was all thanks to the kind-hearted innkeeper.

Since the innkeeper had taken her in without asking for money or a place to go, she started helping out with dishes and cleaning in exchange.

“Still, it’s unsettling.”

The thought of a potential Demon King living in the inn where I was training felt uneasy.

Did this woman have no plans to leave?

“Um…”

Come to think of it, I didn’t even know her name.

The innkeeper simply called her “Young lady.”

“What’s your name, by the way?”

“My name? Oh right, I forgot! My name is…”

I had no clue.

Maybe I could figure out her identity through her name.

“I’m Weiss.”

That was a name I had never heard of.

*