You Have Insulted Me (1)

You have insulted me…

―The first words spoken by the Demon God Serpens to her representative visiting the Garden of Gods for the first time.

A place adorned with nothing but beauty. Brilliant ornaments and lights shining in various colors.

Could this be what heaven looks like?

The most notable feature of this place, adorned with all sorts of beautiful things, was the high density of mana.

The density of mana was so thick that just breathing seemed to increase one’s mana.

“Aaaah!”

The ornaments and lights displaying their beauty were destroyed. And at the same time, they were restored as if by magic.

A bizarre place where destruction and restoration continued to occur. A place filled with high mana density and luxurious items.

It resembled a palace in heaven, but this was the Demonic Realm.

Among them, this was the palace where Serpens, the high Goddess of Pain and known as a Demon God who wields immense power in the Demonic Realm, resides.

With Serpens’s scream, a man rushed into her room.

“Wh-what’s the matter?”

“…Is it you?”

“Pardon?”

“Are you the one who recommended the Dragonian as a representative for this ‘Slave Game’?”

“N-no, it wasn’t me…”

‘It wasn’t me, you chose it yourself, you witch!’

Unable to reveal his true thoughts, the man, Torcio, the intermediate God of Torture, raised his head as if he just remembered something.

“It wasn’t me, it was Dolor who suggested it.”

“Fetch… fetch… bring him here.”

“What?! Uh… Lady Serpens?”

“Why?! Why?!! Why?!!”

“‘During the ‘Slave Game’, any god who oppresses another god will be annihilated. Unless there is a legitimate reason determined by the Creator… Did you forget?”

Only then did Serpens seem to remember, slumping back into her seat. However, she still seemed unable to calm down, breathing heavily.

Watching her, Torcio began to soothe Serpens in a calm tone.

“Lady Serpens, the ‘Slave Game’ has just begun. Soon, your representative will likely find the Garden of the Gods.”

“Yeah, right. Should I just kill my representative then?”

“What? Oh no, you can’t. During the ‘Slave Game’, gods cannot harm their representatives. Did you forget again, my lady?”

“Oh, right.”

Torcio, as if having a headache, held his forehead with one hand and gazed at Serpens blankly.

Naturally sensing his gaze, Serpens glared at Torcio with an annoyed tone.

“Don’t look at me like that. It makes me want to gouge your eyes out.”

“…Lady Serpens, what on earth is going on?”

“Huh? This time, the half-breed dragon slave ate a stone instead of the meat I threw to her.”

“What?”

Torcio looked at Serpens with eyes full of disbelief, as if questioning if she had really gone mad.

At that, Serpens rose as if ready to strike Tocio down at any moment.

“Whoa! Serpens! Annihilation! Annihilation!!”

“Huff! Huff!! Just look at me like that one more time, and as soon as the ‘Slave Game’ ends, I’ll gouge your eyes out.”

“Ah, no, Lady Serpens. What kind of nonsense is that? I mean, would a sane person choose to eat a stone over an elixir unless they got hit by Hellfire on the head?”

“Hoo…”

Serpens took a deep breath, seemingly irritated, and waved her hand in the air.

Then, the empty space rippled like disturbed water, and a video began to play.

The video started with Violentia, Serpens’s representative , facing off against an Earth Dragon.

Violentia initially attacked the Earth Dragon with magic, then switched to punching it.

Finally, she used a Link Mana Bomb to turn the Earth Dragon’s brain into mush and headed toward the altar.

And then she picked up a black stone on the altar… a stone?

“A stone?!”

“Does it look like a stone to you, too?”

“Huh? Huh?! Wh-what is that woman doing?”

“Does she look crazy to you, too? The rest of it is even more absurd.”

“Whoa whoa whoa whoa?! Whoa whoa!!”

“…Damn.”

Unlike before, Serpens was now calm, while Torcio started to go wild watching the video.

Eventually, the video spiraled into chaos, and Torcio was left speechless.

Suddenly, as if recalling something, he turned to Serpens and asked.

“But why is there a stone there? I heard you put a lot of effort into this. Where is what should be there, and why is there a stone? Didn’t you say it was hard to obtain because it belonged to something that lived a long time ago?”

“I don’t know either! Because of this damn ‘setting,’ the stupid slave’s vision can’t reach beyond 1 meter, so I have no idea what’s happening! Even so, as long as the Earth Dragon is alive, there’s a barrier I personally set up, so there shouldn’t be a slave with the power to take it out! What a disgrace!!”

As the enraged Serpens rampaged again, the surrounding objects broke and repaired repeatedly.

Torcio, who had stepped back a few steps due to the swirling magic, suddenly found it strange.

Serpens was eccentric and mad, but her barrier wasn’t something just anyone could penetrate.

That’s when a hypothesis popped into Torcio’s head.

‘Yes, and to corrupt(?) someone endowed with Serpens’s authority like that…’

“Ah!”

“What?!”

When he unconsciously exclaimed from the sense of accomplishment of solving a difficult problem, Serpens, furious to the point of explosion, cast a spell that passed by Torcio and shattered the wall.

“Gulp. There is.”

“What? Do you want to die?”

“Pardon? Oh, no. That’s not it. There is a way to neutralize the barrier.”

“What? My barrier?”

“The hypocrite, it’s the most filthy rag’s secretion.”

At Torcio’s words, the raging Serpens’s body suddenly halted. Then she slowly sat down on a wide, ornate chair.

“So… Torcio, you’re saying that filthy rag threw ashes all over the plan I laid out?”

“Honestly, it’s annoying, but isn’t she the only god who can break Lady Serpens’s magic, except for the Creator and their close aides? But the Creator’s aides aren’t interested in the ‘Slave Game’ in the first place. Also, the appearance of Lady Serpens’s representative at the end was definitely a rejection reaction caused by being contaminated with her filthy secretions!”

“Hmm… Yes. The Creator line, they’re not interested in this ‘Slave Game’ from the start. Moreover, the end of the slave woman, that is…”

“That’s right.”

“So, you’re saying… it’s war?”

Her voice was languid, almost sensuous, yet on Serpens’s beautiful face, there was a sinister smile that seemed like blood could drip any moment.

For a while, the only sound echoing in the beautiful palace was the tapping of fingers on the armrest of a chair.

Torcio left Serpens’s palace well over two hours later.

“Crazy woman. A woman who just entered the battlefield has an Intellect of 140 and Mana of 125! A monstrous woman!”

In the meantime, the proficiency in the art seemed to have increased, as the surrounding scenery flashed by even faster than before.

After exiting the cave and looking up at the sky, it was morning when entering, but now it was afternoon, with the sun just starting to tilt westward.

I complained about Violentia’s monstrous stats being ridiculous, ran while opening the inventory, and laughed like a madman repeatedly.

After running for quite some time and feeling somewhat safe, I climbed up a leafy tree to replenish my Force and leaned against a branch.

“Whew… I really ran my ass off. But what’s that woman doing?”

With some leisure, I became curious about what Violentia was up to.

Thinking of that crazy woman brought back the scene of the great operation that took place just a while ago.

Violentia examining my masterpiece… the Diarrhea Core… her sniffing it and inspecting it closely…

It would be strange if she noticed that the Earth Dragon had disappeared, but she seemed entirely oblivious, focusing solely on the core.

An excessive confidence in herself.

Perhaps that’s why Violentia never considered that there might be someone who could deceive her attention and steal something from the altar.

Similarly, she would never dream that the Earth Dragon’s corpse had vanished without a trace.

Well, if her agility and luck were as high as her intellect, she wouldn’t have even thought of being stolen from.

With a refreshing and bright smile for the first time in a while, I did some light stretching before moving on, but then I froze at Violentia’s unexpected action.

“What? What?!”

In the video, this brute of a Dragonian slowly brought the Diarrhea Core to her mouth. Surely, she doesn’t intend to eat that, right?

As expected, the tales about her catching people off guard were true.

Violentia rolled the stone around in her mouth repeatedly, and seemingly satisfied with its sweetness, she swallowed it without chewing. Then she grimaced, uncomfortable with it stuck in her throat.

At that point, she should have realized it wasn’t right, but she insisted on swallowing that large stone despite the pain.

And perhaps sensing that something was about to happen, she sat down on the floor and seemed to begin mana breathing. I watched her chest rise and fall rhythmically.

“Puh, puhahahaha. Kekekeke. Ahahaha. Crazy woman! Hahahaha, hahah. Ah… cough cough. Ah, this is truly amazing! Kekekeke! Kekeke.”

Eventually, I laughed so hard while holding my belly on the tree branch that I rolled off and fell down.

I felt a sharp pain near my tailbone, but the laughter was too overwhelming to focus on anything else, like pain.

It was a scene so regretful that I couldn’t even save the video, making me wonder if I left too early.

The video was still playing.

In the video, Violentia seemed to realize something was off, stood up, checked her body, and then turned around.

And then, a surprised expression.

She noticed the Earth Dragon’s corpse had disappeared.

Only then did she seem to sense something was wrong and suddenly started casting defensive magic all over her body.

“Kuh, kekekeke. Oh dear… hey, stop making me laugh. Kekekekeke. Hahahahahahaha!”

And then she started wildly casting magic around her. As she relentlessly cast area spells, the sound of the cave walls, cracked by the Earth Dragon’s influence, splitting apart could be heard.

Startled by this, Violentia cast all sorts of support magic on herself and used Blink to escape the cave.

As soon as she exited the cave, barely within a 1-meter range, the video showed the cave entrance collapsing at the end.

“Kuh, kekekeke. She’s really something else. Was she always this clueless of a character? Puhahahaha.”

Just in case she might teleport, I brushed the dirt off my body and got ready to move.

And then, at that moment,

“Oh?! Hahaha! Hahahaha!! St-stop it. Hahaha. Oh dear. Hahaha. I think I’m going to die. Hahaha, hahahahaha. Ah, my stomach hurts. Hahaha.”

Violentia suddenly clutched her stomach and collapsed on the spot. At the same time, a sound like an old motorcycle starting up could be heard from her, and her face turned a sickly shade of blue.

Medicines generally require immunity. Especially those used on Earth, which are full of chemical additives.

Violentia, who lacked immunity to such things, consumed a large amount of laxatives at once—so much that even an Earthling would struggle to endure it—so she wouldn’t be able to move for a few days.

“Hahaha! Hahahahahaha.”

Though the travel time was significantly reduced, the constant laughter meant it took a full day to pass through the south gate of Exorsus and reach the inn.

Upon entering the inn room and falling asleep, I realized two things from this experience.

One was that uncontrollable laughter is more torturous than any form of torture.

The other was the terrifying power of laxatives.

During the journey, I checked on Violentia, who was too weak to even squat and kept collapsing onto the floor, repeatedly ‘drip-drip.’

The exhaustion from laughing was more tiring than the non-stop travel. So, without even washing up, I collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep.