Chapter 5

The hero narrowed his eyes and pressed the blade closer to her throat.

“Enough chatter. We’ve got plenty to settle, don’t we? Time to start doing the math.”

“Math? What math?”

“……”

He stretched out his hand, and the sword he had left lying on the ground while wielding the gear-sword flew back into his grip. White mana flared along its edge, blazing bright.

“Ah! I was kidding! Kidding! It was a joke!! Don’t put the sword to my neck! We can’t even joke around at this level!?”

“There’s nothing between us. So—when exactly are you going to cure my mom and sister’s cancer?”

“That was already approved the moment the Demon King died! They’re cured! Completely cured!!”

“…Cured? For real?”

“Yes!”

He studied her in silence.

“If you’re lying… and I find out later, I’ll take the North Demon King’s place myself. Don’t think the guy who killed a Demon King would be weaker than the one he beat.”

Her face went pale as she nodded frantically.

“Of course! As an angel, and as a transcendent being, I swear on my rank. Your family has been freed from cancer. They’ll never suffer from it again.”

Only then did he begin to pull the blade from her neck… only to pause, frowning.

“Wait.”

“Y-Yes?”

“Now that I think about it… didn’t you also say that if I killed a Demon King, you wouldn’t just cure my family—you’d erase cancer entirely from Earth?”

She flinched.

“D-Did I say that?”

“You did.”

“Aha, ahahaha…”

“I may not be overflowing with love for humanity, but I sure as hell won’t let myself get treated like a sucker. So, angel girl—are you going to keep that promise too?”

Cold sweat trickled down her face as she inched backward.

“Th-That… in Kion, maybe. But Earth is under a different jurisdiction, so…”

“……”

“And it would need an agreement with the gods of your world, so…”

“Ah. So you just threw that out there thinking I’d never pull it off?”

“Tehe~ that’s why verbal contracts are scary, huh?”

He clamped an iron claw around her face.

“Die, you con artist.”

CRUNCH!

“Ah! Time out! Time out!! People (?) bluff and exaggerate all the time! If you’re too uptight about it, you’ll never be popular with women! That’s why you’re still a virgin!!”

“…Funny, I never told you that. Go on, repeat after me—‘I’m already dead.’”

His killing intent sharpened, and her face turned ashen.

“W-Wait!! Then what about this? I can lower the cancer rate for good people while raising it for human garbage! A karmic type of cancer! ‘Virtue-rewarding, evil-punishing cancer!’ I can’t erase it entirely, but I can balance the scales that way!!”

“…Oh?”

He froze mid-motion, reconsidering.

That wasn’t bad.

When he thought about the cockroaches of humanity—scum who multiplied endlessly and spread filth—the idea of a divine punishment system didn’t sound half bad.

And if word spread that such a transcendent system existed, maybe Earth would become a little cleaner.

“…Not bad.”

“Right? Right?”

“Permanent?”

“That’s… difficult. But five hundred years? That should get approved without issue. Deal?”

“…Fine. Deal.”

“Yes!”

But as the angel rejoiced in her narrow escape, her eyes suddenly widened.

“Gasp…!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Behind you…!”

“Behind?”

He turned his head—and instantly understood her horrified, Scream -like expression.

Crack, clatter, snap…

The scattered gears were writhing, entwining, pulling themselves back together.

He shot the angel a grim look.

“…That’s what I think it is, isn’t it?”

“…Probably?”

Sure enough, the Demon King was reviving.

“Hey. You never said anything about this.”

The angel shook her head in shock.

“I-I didn’t know either! How the hell is that bastard coming back?”

“…Hah. Fantastic.”

“L-Let’s just kill it again!”

“Easy for you to say, since it’s not your problem.”

I shot the angel a jab, then swung my sword from my left hip. With a sharp exhale, I unleashed a horizontal cut.

“Haah!”

SCHK!!

The white torrent of mana split space itself, crashing down on a twenty-meter mass of gears just as it began to clump together. The impact burst in a violent explosion.

KWHHHHHHHHHHBOOOM!!!

“D-Did we… did we get it?”

The angel’s voice wavered with nervous hope.

But the scattered remains mocked her question, crawling back together, slowly reforming into a lump once more.

After repeating the process several times, I came to a conclusion.

“Looks like it can revive without limit.”

“…Oh my god.”

“And worse, it’s getting faster every time I smash it.”

“W-Wait. I’ll try contacting my boss.”

“Your boss—that moon goddess, Lumina, right?”

“Yes! Come on, connect already….”

The angel clasped her hands and spread her five wings wide. A pillar of golden light shot from her body, piercing the night sky.

Ten seconds later—

“Damn it….”

Her expression twisted.

“What. Did you hear something?”

“It’s….”

“Don’t stall with ellipses. Out with it.”

“They said… the Demon King’s settings have been changed.”

“Settings?”

“Yes. Like I explained before—the Demon Kings are a trial, a test overseen by the Total Universe System. It’s something Kion’s people are meant to overcome without aid from the Celestial Realm.”

“Total Universe System?”

“Think of it as a great cosmic will, one even the gods can’t refuse. Providence, you could say.”

“Fine. So what’s the point?”

“Because of that rule, beings like me—or my boss—aren’t supposed to intervene in the trial. But… just now, our side broke the rules. And as a penalty, the Demon King’s parameters got buffed. Its traits now include ‘Immortality,’ and one of its restrictions—‘Confinement’—has been lifted.”

“Wait. What rule did we supposedly break?”

“…You.”

“…Me?”

“When we bring in heroes from other worlds, it’s meant to strengthen Kion’s people without us directly interfering. A loophole. But this time—no, just now—that loophole crossed the line.”

I finally understood.

“So basically, I was too good at the job.”

The angel nodded reluctantly.

“That’s probably it. The Total Universe System must’ve judged that having a brand-new hero kill a Demon King in one day was too much of an overstep. Even the higher-ups sounded rattled—they didn’t see this coming.”

In other words… it was like quietly pocketing a single coffee packet from the breakroom being tolerated, but walking off with a whole box of 200 packets got flagged as theft.

“Immortality is bad enough, but what really worries me is the lifted confinement. The Demon King can now leave its territory and march directly onto the continent. Oh no…”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Demon King’s body already rebuilt up to its knees. I asked the angel,

“So does this mean the reward I was promised is delayed too?”

She bit her lip hard, then shook her head.

“At least your family’s safe. Since this was our mistake, I’ll personally make sure of that. But…”

“But?”

“…Please, just hold it back for a while as it moves south. Right now, you’re the only one in Kion who can do it.”

“You want me to stall it so the people of the North Continent can evacuate?”

The angel bit her lip again and nodded.

“Yes. At this point, the North Continent is as good as lost. Soon, every temple here will receive an oracle to flee.”

“……”

“I’m not asking you to hold out until every last person escapes. Just… enough for even half. No, even a quarter of them to survive.”

I frowned.

“How many people are we talking about?”

“If you count orcs who speak the North Continent’s common tongue as ‘people,’ then eight hundred million. If not… about five hundred thirty million.”

“…Five to eight hundred million, huh.”

I let out a long sigh, picturing the staggering number of people scrambling to flee.

“Is evacuation even possible at that scale?”

“If every temple gate runs at full capacity, maybe… somehow…”

“Ridiculous.”

“No better option?”

The angel shook her head.

“Unless we kill it outright, the only alternative is sealing. But a seal that powerful—enough to suppress a Demon King—doesn’t exist in the Lower Realm. Only in the Celestial Realm.”

“A sealing tool?”

“Yes. A sealing artifact strong enough to suppress power equal to or greater than a Demon King. But even if we wanted to make one, we’d need something of equal value as material. And that’s not exactly lying around. Unless a few Transcendent Dragons offered themselves up as sacrifices…”

“Material, huh. So if we had something of equal value, we could make it?”

“Yes.”

“What about… me?”

The angel’s eyes went wide.

“W-Wait. You’re not saying you’d sacrifice yourself, are you!?”

I smacked her on the crown with the flat of my sword.

SMACK!

“Gyaah!!”

“Are you insane? Why the hell would I do that?”

“Th-Then what do you mean?”

I calmly laid out my idea to this angel with no sense or shame.

“…So, would that work? Could that be material too?”

Flustered by my unexpected suggestion, she hesitated.

“Um… wait. Let me check with the higher-ups.”

Not even ten seconds later, she clenched her fist.

“They said yes!”

“Then do it before the Demon King fully recovers.”

“But… are you sure? It works out great for the Celestial Realm, but you’ll…”

“Eight hundred million lives are at stake. What else am I supposed to say? Do it, before I change my mind.”

After a moment of hesitation, she finally nodded, guilt written all over her face.

“…All right. My boss just sent down an ‘Extraction Tool’ and a ‘Creation Tool’ calibrated for you. Downloading now… four, three, two, one. Download complete. Installing… three, two, one. Install complete. Initializing the tool.”

Her right hand blazed gold. She pressed the radiant palm straight against my chest.

I flinched back in shock.

“What the hell!? You can’t just grope a guy out of nowhere!”

“This isn’t groping! And I’m not that kind of girl! Stay still. It won’t hurt. Just… go count some stars or something.”

“…Unbelievable line.”

Her hand rippled like water, sinking into my chest.

GOOOOOH…

I stared with conflicted eyes at the brilliant jeweled sword slowly drawn out from within me.

“…This is it?”

“Yes. A sealing tool forged from your rank as a Potestates. In this case… a sealing sword.”

What I had offered as material to forge the weapon was none other than my standing as a transcendent being.

The angel held the blade up, letting its light reflect across her face, half-dazed.

“Wow. This is insane… I’ve never seen a sealing tool with this much mystery.”

“Enough. Hand it over.”

I snatched the sword from her grip.

Thump, thump…

The sealing sword pulsed with resonance, tied to me by origin. Stroking it felt like touching another self.

“So? What do I do with this?”

“Stab it into the Demon King.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes. The sealing sword is overwhelmingly strong. That alone will be enough.”

“Well, that’s simple.”

And it was. I’d taken down the Demon King at full strength—sealing her half-crippled self should be nothing.

“But… you understand, don’t you? Once you seal the Demon King with this, your rank will be separated from you entirely, devoted solely to suppressing her power.”

“I know.”

She pointed to the ten wings of light flaring behind me.

“That means once the sealing is done, you’ll fall back to what you were on Earth. A mortal again. No transcendence. No rank.”

“I said I know.”

“…How can you be so calm about it? You’ll lose thousands of years of lifespan, the power of a god, the wisdom to cross dimensions—all of it gone. Just like that.”

“I won’t lie, it stings. But it was all free to begin with. If it goes back, it goes back. Unless you’re asking me to die—eight hundred million lives are worth more than clinging to this power.”

“……”

“And really, it’s not gone, right? It’s just held in trust. Once the seal breaks, it’ll come back to me. You said I can release it any time I want.”