A Powerful Foe In The Subspace!

The subspace stretched beneath a purple sky.

Edgar was running across the gray ground through the forest dyed bright red.

Even without using a detection skill, he could feel the dangerous presence pressing in on him.

Sweat dripped from his messy hair and ran down his cheek.

—This strength, this ominousness. It’s stronger than the Chaos Dragon from before. This is rough for me alone. I have to make sure I don’t get found.

There was nothing but despair in knowing that an incredibly powerful enemy existed inside an endlessly spreading closed space.

There was nowhere to run.

…At the very least, he had to hide well enough that his presence would not be noticed.

Edgar hid himself behind trees and bushes while approaching the dangerous presence.

—Then.

A furious shout that shook the forest rang out.

“You bastards! What in the world did you dooo!”

“Eeeek!”

“Gyaaaaa!”

“Help me!”

Edgar’s legs froze at the aura of terrifying intensity.

However, he steeled himself and peered from behind the bushes toward the area where the voices had come from.

There, a flashy man with tanned skin, spiky hair, an aloha shirt, and sunglasses was enraged.

He was thoroughly beating up three adventurers who were trying to flee.

—That’s… the Demon King who came to Alec-san’s shop.

Edgar had thought he might be the cause of the abnormality, but something seemed off. The Demon King himself did not seem to know anything.

So Edgar decided to watch the situation a little longer.

The Demon King stretched the dark aura covering his body like tentacles and caught the adventurers.

“Now, speak! What did you do?”

Countless hands of darkness lifted the adventurers and squeezed them tightly.

That adventurer was former Prince Yoanes, whom Edgar also knew.

He grabbed the dark hand strangling his neck and shouted in a pained voice.

“I-I don’t know! I don’t understand either!”

“Liar! The moment you bastards did something, we were thrown into this strange place!”

“I-I only splashed medicine on it!”

“Medicine…? What is that?”

Perhaps reflecting the Demon King’s impression, the hands of darkness loosened slightly.

Thinking he might be saved, Yoanes spoke rapidly in a shrill voice.

“It’s medicine that makes monsters stronger when you splash it on them! We were going to strengthen a wolf or a boar and then hunt it! So I just used it on a pitch-black monster, that’s all, it’s true, believe me!”

“Medicine that makes monsters stronger!? What did you hope to gain by doing such a thing? Speak!”

The Demon King questioned him with deep wrinkles between his brows, gritting his jagged teeth. His intensity was terrifying.

Yoanes let out a scream and shouted in a trembling voice.

“I’ll talk, I’ll talk, so spare my life! —A hero. I wanted to become a hero!”

“Oh? In other words, you intended to defeat a powerful monster and spread the word that you were a man worthy of being a hero.”

“Th-that’s right! If I defeated an S-rank Tyrant Boar or Cerberus, I’d become a hero and this country would be mine—”

“Wha! What did you say!? By strengthening, you mean not a power-up, but ranking up the very existence itself! …What a heretical method. —But I have no more use for you. Die with dignity!”

The Demon King thrust out his right hand and clenched it.

The hands of darkness moved in tandem and squeezed Yoanes’s body. His body began twisting like a rag.

“Gyaaaaa!”

The sound of creaking bones echoed through the forest.

Edgar stepped out of the bushes with a kunai in one hand. He approached with a carefree, casual air.

“You were Mao-san, right? Could you wait a little longer before taking that man’s life?”

At Edgar’s call, the countless writhing hands of darkness stopped still.

The Demon King turned eyes filled with fierce killing intent toward him.

“Who are you…? Do you intend to order me around…?”

“No. I just thought he still seemed useful, so killing him here would be a waste.”

“Hmph… You are the man who was in Alec’s shop. You look somewhat capable.”

The hands of darkness strangled the adventurers’ necks.

“Ed… h-help…”

Yoanes’s tearful voice could not form proper words, and he rolled his eyes back and fainted.

Then, when the tentacles released them, they fell carelessly to the ground. They did not move a twitch.

Edgar glanced at them, but once he saw their lives were not in danger, he looked straight at the Demon King from beneath his messy hair.

“Thanks. After you left the shop, could I ask what happened?”

“Hmph, very well. I headed to the grove northwest of the Royal Capital. I had already investigated that Alec’s residence is in the southeastern forest. Because his Holy Wave erases my spells, I needed to move away from both the forest and the Royal Capital.”

“As expected of the Demon King-san. By the northwest grove, do you mean the guardian forest around the shrine in the countryside?”

“Most likely. After going that far and entering deep enough that no one would see me, I used the spell for the gate to return to my territory—the Evil Corridor—but!”

“You encountered Prince Yoanes and the others.”

“Correct. The gate is like a pitch-black cloud, but they came from the opposite side from me and did something. Then we were trapped in this space.”

“I see… Judging from the situation and what he said earlier, they mistook the Evil Gate itself for a monster and used the rank-up medicine on it, right?”

“That would seem to be the case—a tiny wormhole for movement likely became a gigantic special space itself. They have done something utterly outrageous.”

The Demon King bitterly gritted his jagged teeth.

Edgar stroked his narrow chin with a finger and thought.

“Even you can’t get out of here, Demon King-san?”

“No. Not only the Evil Corridor, but all movement magic has been sealed. I can only use magic that directly attacks.”

“That’s bad… Demon King-san, I have a proposal.”

The Demon King glared sharply at Edgar and spoke in a testing tone.

“Say it—if your words are foolish, you will pay for them with death.”

“No problem. It’s simple. Let’s cooperate until we get out of here.”

“So you propose a temporary truce—but what can you offer? I do not mind acting alone.”

The Demon King said it casually, but he had an intensity that suggested the moment Edgar chose his words poorly, he would instantly make him pay with death.

However, Edgar was not shaken in the slightest, and he casually took out his sub-device from his chest pocket and showed it.

“I can contact Alec-san. Even though it has expanded, this was originally an evil space, so I think Alec-san’s Holy Wave might be able to destroy it in one blow. You yourself said earlier that your spells are erased by Alec’s Holy Wave.”

“Heh, I suppose so. So our only hope is Alec. —Very well. I shall agree to a temporary truce.”

“Thanks.”

Edgar bowed his head lightly.

The Demon King crossed his arms and glanced at the unconscious Yoanes.

“What shall we do with them?”

“We tie them up and make them tell us how they got the medicine… Now that the commotion has grown this big, we need sacrifices to bear all the blame.”

“Hmph, very well. I leave their treatment to you—your name?”

“I’m Edgar. Just a humble adventurer in the Royal Capital.”

“Your occupation is thief?”

“That’s right.”

The Demon King raised the corner of his tanned face and snorted.

“Just as I read in the report. There is an S-rank-class thief leading children. In truth, a man who lived in darkness at the eastern edge of the world.”

“…You know about that? Thanks.”

“Whether enemy or ally, if I do not know the excellent ones, I may have the ground swept out from under my feet.”

“As expected—then I’ll do my work openly.”

While looking around, Edgar put away his kunai and sub-device. Once both hands were free, he clasped his raised index finger with his left hand.

The Demon King raised only one eyebrow and spoke suspiciously.

“What do you intend to do?”

“I’m just going to use the true nature I don’t want known publicly.”

“Oh? You intend to reveal a card to a man who may become your enemy? That is far too careless.”

“Rather, showing that I can be useful and selling myself seems better right now.”

Edgar answered lightly.

The Demon King smiled with a wicked grin.

“Heh, your situational judgment is fast. Edgar, was it? I do not dislike you. Heh heh heh.”

“Thanks… Wind Release—Sound-Vibration Detection Technique.”

Edgar formed signs with both hands and clicked his tongue.

The tongue click infused with magical power became sonar and delivered echoes only to Edgar.

He closed his eyes and concentrated for a while, but then suddenly raised his face and turned toward the forest.

“Found it.”

When Edgar entered the forest of twisted trees, he soon came out holding a small glass bottle that fit in his palm.

He held the small bottle up slightly so the Demon King could see it and examined it.

“This is the bottle the medicine was in. There’s a little left at the bottom.”

“Oh. Its appearance is plain, but intricate patterns are engraved on the inside. They look like curse marks used in alchemy.”

“You can tell?”

“Of course. It is my specialty. —However, this seems to be poorly made medicine. If such a thing were used, even if the target grew stronger, its reason would be blown away.”

The Demon King narrowed his eyes and carefully examined the small bottle.

Edgar nodded.

“So that’s why it was meant for extermination—then next, we’ll tie these guys up and return to the children for now.”

“Hmph, even at this point, you are still devoting yourself to babysitting. What an absurd man.”

“Say whatever you want. I decided I’d live for other people.”

“What a strange man. Eating what you want to eat and doing what you want to do are the true pleasures of life.”

“That’s true. I guess normal people would do that. …I’m someone who isn’t allowed to be happy.”

“Oh?”

“So I just hope someone else can be happy in my place. That’s my only wish.”

Edgar said it as if it were nothing and smiled gently.

The Demon King stroked his chin without saying anything, merely narrowing his eyes as he gazed at him.