“What’s with the hassle of trapping me in a barrier? Just freeze everything already!”
“······!”
The moment Frost Duchess’s voice echoed, Rex felt it in his bones.
The Frost Duchess was angry.
Very, very angry.
If you think about it, it’s only natural.
For the Frost Duchess, Yoo Jin was more than just an object of admiration.
And that girl, who seemed to have been kidnapped by the Great Demon, was someone Yoo Jin cared for deeply.
It was only logical that she’d be losing her mind over a problem involving a child she cherished like her own daughter.
“Frost Duchess! Please calm down—”
“Stay out of it, Rex!”
Boom!
The Frost Duchess’s foot shook the ground with a thud.
What seemed like an ordinary thud suddenly turned chaotic as her mana began to overflow from the tips of her toes.
Unrestrained mana erupted uncontrollably from Yerina.
Yerina’s hair shot up as she stopped controlling her aura.
A white chill seeped out from her clenched mouth.
The raging mana met the ambient mana, sending a pulse through the air.
The insane amount of mana began surging, syncing with every bit of mana across the area.
What resulted was a boundless wave of chilling magic.
The power, the range, and the casting time were all completely uncontrollable, but that’s what made it spread the most fiercely.
The moisture in the air froze instantly into ice fog.
The lush green grass was encased in an icy tomb in the blink of an eye.
Due to the blinding speed of freezing, the ice couldn’t be contained, shooting upwards like a spike.
“How am I supposed to survive this?!”
Rex bawled, but it was utterly useless.
There was no way to stop the chain reaction once it had begun.
Rex froze in shock, facing the hellish ice approaching him at a speed far beyond a human’s running pace.
But just in the next moment…
“······?!”
Bang!
An unimaginable heat whooshed by Rex’s ear, crashing down in front of him.
It felt like the flames of hell.
When he came to his senses after the flames died down, he realized everything around him except for Rex had turned ice cold.
“…I’m leaving…”
“What?!”
In an instant, a hand landed on Rex’s shoulder, and he heard the voice of a man mumbling something.
And when he turned to look, Rex had to doubt his own eyes.
Even though his constitution made him bad at sensing demonic energy from birth, he could tell.
A massive amount of demonic energy was ripping open the space around him.
The crack in the space, which had barely opened for a moment, closed up before Rex could even react.
As if there had never been a crack at all.
“…Ah.”
And about 3 seconds later.
Rex realized someone was missing.
The girl presumed to have been kidnapped by the Great Demon had vanished.
“Rex. What about the child?”
“Ah.”
A crushing grip seized Rex’s head.
And the chilling sensation running down his back sent shivers through him.
“I told you to resolve the kidnapping… and you’re here fighting while losing track of the target?”
“T-That’s… there’s a complicated situation going on here—”
“Wait.”
The uncontrolled mana that was about to overflow again suddenly calmed down.
The Frost Duchess resumed controlling her aura and subdued the frenzy.
Her gaze landed squarely on Rex’s hand.
In Rex’s hand was an object that hadn’t been there just moments ago.
“Where did this come from?!”
“Wha? Why is this in my hand…?”
A black mana stone.
A mana stone that faintly exuded the aura of the Great Demon.
The Frost Duchess hurriedly snatched the stone from Rex and held it up to the sunlight for a closer look.
“The shape and residues match perfectly… This is Yoo Jin’s mana stone…?”
She was sure since she had met Yoo Jin and had seen it up close before.
This was the mana stone used by Yoo Jin.
And it was the same one that had vanished with Yoo Jin three years ago, never to be seen again.
But why on earth was it suddenly here?
What reason could there be for it to appear out of nowhere in the middle of nowhere, clutched in Rex’s hand?
As Rex was bewildered by the continuous series of incomprehensible situations,
“Guess we can just ask that guy over there.”
Yerina discovered something and clenched her fist, moving forward.
In the small patch of grass that hadn’t frozen, stood a long sword that endlessly emitted demonic energy.
The sword quivered, as if it was trembling in fear.
…
“I almost died…”
He escaped safely.
Taking a deep breath, Rex chuckled to himself; his situation was ridiculously funny.
“Reminds me of old times.”
Back then, Yerina had gone on a rampage, freezing everything in a massive mishap as he barely managed to escape.
If this counted as a memory, it certainly wasn’t one he wanted to relive.
Frenzy. She’s holding it back well.
This rampage was several times more powerful than the ones before he learned the Frontal Frenzy Technique.
That showed he was good at controlling the frenzy in normal times.
The Frontal Frenzy Technique suppressed power in regular moments but amplified it when needed.
That stubborn Yerina, who thought she was the center of the universe, had changed.
In the past, she would’ve insisted that everyone had to adapt to her.
But now, Yerina decided to change for his sake and for the sake of the other heroines.
Three years.
Not a short time at all.
Yerina and the heroines had changed.
And the world had turned upside down.
So, how much were their hearts festering now?
How much of a scar had he left behind?
This couldn’t continue.
He needed to return to them as soon as possible.
Rex renewed that resolution.
“First, I need to observe the reactions.”
He had left behind items for experimentation.
One was the mana stone he had been using.
He handed it to Rex and managed to get away.
The other was Belphegor.
After ordering it to remain in its sword form until he had some instructions, he had plunged it into the ground.
Belphegor was one of the few beings who could still recognize him.
If it were to explain him to the people, he could check what would happen.
Ideally, he just wanted them to know he was alive.
No, even if the only hope was that he MIGHT still be alive, that was enough…
It’d be dramatically poetic to suddenly appear like a miracle when their hearts were pushed to the brink.
But that would also be the most selfish thing he could do.
“The meeting with the owner of the White Magic Tower has failed.”
In the distance, the tall White Magic Tower was visible.
And clearly, the airship patrolling around the White Magic Tower was also noticeable.
As long as that sizable force was stationed around the tower, approaching Temurlen was impossible.
He could either break through there, or wait for the next chance…
“Let’s wait for the next one.”
It was far too dangerous.
Just moments ago, the moment he sensed an undetectable enemy, Yerina had unleashed her indiscriminate area-of-effect attack…
It might be safer to approach once the vigilance lowers or when Temurlen leaves the White Magic Tower.
“Help me! Please!”
“…?”
Just then, a scream echoed from behind.
Startled, he brushed aside the bushes to see a gigantic spider tangled in vines, struggling on its back.
It seemed terrified, as white spider silk was constantly spewing out from its rear.
A talking spider?
An inexplicable sense of déjà vu washed over him as he tore away the vines and flipped it back over.
And the moment he did that…
The spider’s body warped grotesquely like it was shedding its skin, shrinking down into a human form.
That appearance was undeniably the girl with the straw hat he had seen earlier!
“You…!”
“Phew. Thank you. I can’t transform until all eight of my legs are on the ground. But why do you have that expression, mister?”
“What are you?”
“I told you. I’m an ordinary human… I think…”
She spoke, somewhat hesitantly, avoiding his gaze, trailing off mid-sentence.
No soul, and capable of transforming into a spider, but she claims she’s an ordinary human?
It’s absurdly brazen to the point of disbelief.
“Why did you follow me?”
She was the one who clearly intended to run away.
She must have squeezed in through the crack in that brief moment.
Everyone was in an uproar over her possibly being kidnapped…
“I’m just curious. Who you are, and who I am. How could I pass up this opportunity?”
“What does your identity have to do with mine?”
“I know I’m strange. I’m definitely human, but… I feel different. I’ve felt it since I was little, and I couldn’t figure out why. But you can’t remember my name properly. So I thought it might be related to my identity.”
“······.”
She was indeed a puzzling being.
From the looks of things, she had probably appeared during the three years that he had vanished without a trace.
If someone was kidnapped, the allied forces, with Yerina at the head, would respond immediately, so she seemed to be an important figure in the alliance.
“What’s that blue flame next to you?”
“Eh?”
He pointed to the small flame dancing next to her.
The girl looked surprised, then seemed to brighten up.
“You can see it?! I thought it was visible only to me until now! This is my friend, Kkaebi!”
“Friend?”
“Yeah! It used to be a ghost hanging around the graveyard, but when I asked if it wanted to come with me, it started following me everywhere! Since then, it has been helping me with my magic. But no one believes me despite my explanations! You’re the first person to see Kkaebi!”
“······.”
The girl began explaining excitedly like a child.
At that, he felt a bit uneasy.
A ghost?
Could it be that spending time in the demon world had changed him, and he could now see ghosts?
He might end up seeing ghosts at night.
He wasn’t too keen on that.
“That thing on your head… is not it.”
“…?”
He was about to mention the chain atop the girl’s hat but stopped.
That chain was visible only to him, and this girl seemed unable to sense it.
He couldn’t recognize her name, and she couldn’t recognize the existence of the chain.
Things were getting distinctly tangled up.
In an otherwise normal world, they seemed to be glitching, stepping out of line with the laws of reality.
Indeed, as the girl said, they definitely shared commonalities or connections.
“You mentioned a master. What’s that person like?”
“Hmm. I don’t remember well. The only thing I recall is that they often patted my head. But that person is really bad.”
“Why?”
“They left without saying anything. I was just learning to talk and trying to get stronger… But when I woke up, they had vanished. People said that they went far, far away. I only realized later that they died while trying to look cool. The heroic figure defeating the bad guys and going out in style. Isn’t it funny? The person who left a poor, defenseless slave without a name became a hero in society… If I meet them again, I want to ask them why they did that to me. What did those head pats even mean? What was I to you?”
“······.”
“Just think about it. It’s strange. Normally, if you pick up a child with no connections, you’d either send them to a wealthy family or an orphanage, right? I was taken by someone who was essentially just wandering around, which means they must have had some feelings for me, right? And that person leaves without a word, abandoning a child who can’t even speak properly? That’s just cruel, isn’t it?”
“······.”
“Oh… I got a bit carried away there. Sorry. What about you, mister? What kind of person are you?”
With a fierce glint of resentment faltering into a bright smile as she looked up at him, Rex found himself speechless.
This girl…
She was utterly nameless.
