Chapter 320: Chapter 284: Clean-up

…I…almost died…

[…You must be the first human to suppress a Devil in such a way, and almost got killed by someone else soon after.]

…Agreed.

I glanced at the Sword Saint—who had barely calmed down and was trying to regain his breath a distance away from where I was—while having such a conversation with Caliban.

He finally succeeded in persuading himself that I really hadn’t done anything to the empress. I mean, he wasn’t someone without the ability to think rationally, so that was a given, but…

“…”

The problem here is… I actually did something… Technically speaking…

Of course, I’ll take that fact to the grave. Unless I want him to split me in half.

As I made such a resolution inwardly, someone approached me with clear footsteps.

“…We’ll take Her Imperial Majesty with us for now.”

Iliya said while pressing the area around her eyes with a tired expression.

This girl had been taking care of Her Imperial Majesty—who was still sobbing even now—and helped her to get up.

“…Please do.”

“…”

“…”

For a moment there, we exchanged an awkward silence.

Well, uh, I don’t know…

The atmosphere was just so heavy, it was to the point that I wondered if things had always been so awkward between us.

“…Teach.”

“…Yeah?”

“I already knew about it before anyone else did, so I didn’t feel too upset about it…”

“…Knew about what?”

“That you fucked the Gray Devil first before us.”

“…”

Woman.

You are THE Hero, what’s with your choice of words?!

Wait, come to think of it, Caliban was a Holy Knight, and he also used vulgar words whenever he had the chance. Maybe she got it from—

[Just for your information, she’s always been like that.]

…

[She grew up on a farm, you know? I never taught her any of that shit. Also, that girl always said that she’d study how to crossbreed animals like pigs or chickens—]

Dude, too much information.

While we were chatting like that, Iliya made a stiff smile after stealing a glance behind her.

“…But those women are different. Unlike me, they might be really, really upset with you even though it doesn’t seem like it. Trust me, they’re only holding themselves back right now because of the incident.”

She was right, the Devil’s Vessels looked the same as usual.

Except…

“…”

I could see the air around them moving erratically.

It was an expression you could see being used in cartoons, but considering that the ones creating such an atmosphere were people with Devils in them, it wasn’t a strange thing if that expression turned real.

The air around them was actually rumbling.

“…You probably need to prepare yourself in the meantime. I have a feeling that something’s going to happen the moment you return to Elfante.”

“…”

“You know, everyone’s been trying not to cross the line so far…”

Hearing Iliya’s words, various things that those women had put me through in Elfante crossed my mind.

Those women locked me up inside a room, deceived me by calling themselves my girlfriend when I lost my memory, and…pretty sure that they’ve been stalking me the entire time I was in Elfante. I practically had no privacy anymore.

And you’re telling me that they aren’t trying to cross the line?

“Yes.”

“…Seriously…?”

“I mean, they haven’t done anything that you actually hate, right, Teach?”

That was…true…

When the empress and Faenol locked me in a room, they backed off the moment I got angry.

Because they knew that what they were doing to me was wrong.

The fact that I had survived through countless crises like that unscathed meant that they respected my feelings to some extent.

“But now that they’ve come to know you’ve touched someone else first…”

“…”

“And they saw how Her Imperial Majesty became like that with just a touch…”

“…In my defense, there were extenuating circumstances in both cases.”

The Gray Devil and the Brown Devil…

Those two weren’t very different from each other in personality. If I didn’t go that far with those two, we’d definitely have to shed blood to deal with them.

“I get it, but do you think they will try to understand that?”

“…”

“They’ll definitely won’t hold back anymore. I can see them taking turns to suck you dry. Instead of trying to avoid it altogether, you should just try to make it so that they’d, uh… suck you less dry?”

“…”

“Anyway, my point is, you’ve been successfully walking a tightrope all this time, but now you should prepare yourself. They’re definitely going to take turns to suck you dry.”

“…What about you then?”

“Obviously I will too. I want to bear your child too.”

“…”

Please.

I beg you.

Can you not say things like that so nonchalantly?

“So yeah, I felt like I had to tell you all that. Again, make sure to prepare yourself.”

“…Sure, but, what’s there to prepare?”

“Let me put it this way. Those women had been holding themselves back ever since they met you. Once they become out of control, do you think it’ll end with you guys doing a happy nighttime activity once?”

“…”

“They’ll suck you to death. Literally.”

‘This is just you reaping what you sow,’ Iliya said before she left while shrugging her shoulders.

My whole body stiffened after hearing everything she had just said.

Because that was basically a declaration that my lower body—which I had been guarding well so far—was about to be thrown into a practically lawless area—!

[I mean at this point, you should just do it, dude…]

…

[You’ve been turning into a demon of lust whenever you need to, why are you making such a fuss now?]

One of these women is your sister! What the fuck are you on about?!

[Look here, that aside, the fact that you only realized this when a woman directly said that to you is a problem in itself. You know that already, don’t you?]

…What the hell are you—?

[You can’t keep this up forever. Their patience also has a limit.]

…

[You said you’re going to take responsibility, no? Aren’t you already halfway there?]

…

Honestly, I…agreed with his words… Halfway, at least…

So far, I’ve already laid the groundwork on what exactly the Devils were and what they were capable of doing in the continent.

Which meant, I only needed to take one more step to enter the last stage of ‘improving people’s perceptions of the Devils’ so that these punks could live peacefully in this world from now on.

What I needed to do was to let the whole world know that they could gain something ‘thanks to’ the Devils.

“…”

That would happen soon enough.

If I were to follow the ‘original game’ timeline, the Final Chapter was just around the corner.

Everything that I expected to happen would probably happen during that time.

As I was having such thoughts, Caliban…

[How should I put this…?]

He continued brusquely.

[For someone who said that he’d do anything for his women if they need him, it feels as if you’re afraid of showing them your affection first.]

…

[Do you maybe…have some trauma in the past…?]

…

Yeah, actually…

The moment I heard Caliban’s words, a certain scene appeared in my mind.

Blood, song, a gunshot.

And…a heartbreak after three seconds.

“…Anyway, rather than thinking about something like that…”

I tried to shift the topic as I looked at the brown sphere in my hand.

“I’d need to deal with this first.”

What was this thing exactly? Well…

[ You have completely made target ‘The Brown Devil’ submit to you. ]

[ Obtained target’s ‘Fragment’! ]

It was the Brown Devil’s Fragment.

Is this supposed to drop like this…?

This was the first time I’ve ever seen the Devil’s Fragment that didn’t get ‘absorbed’ into anyone’s body, and instead was obediently caught by hand like this.

When I rolled it around in my hand, it subtly emanated brown light periodically.

Like a pet trying to appeal to me by acting cute.

“…”

Come to think of it, I remembered seeing a System Message that said I could receive some kind of reward if I were to interact with the Devils in certain ways before. So, this was the way it worked?

…For now, I should take this with me.

By the way, I hadn’t heard the reason why that punk hated me so much, so…

I probably should have a nice and long talk with her later.

“Ah.”

As I thought so, a strong light suddenly beamed through my inner chest pocket.

It was the Mana Stone for contact. Someone was contacting me, and that person should be Gideon, the person I stationed somewhere inside the Imperial Palace.

“…”

Seeing that, I let out a chuckle.

This meant, ‘they’ had ‘successfully’ infiltrated the place.

[Infiltrate? Who?]

“Well…”

Caliban tilted his head, muttering, ‘Come to think of it, I can’t see that dude anywhere even when we were fighting the Brown Devil…’. I calmly replied.

“It’s the Holy Land punks…”

[…What?]

Caliban asked, unable to understand why the hell were those fuckers roaming around the Imperial Palace, but instead of replying to him, I stood up.

This was something that was going to be revealed in the next chapter, ‘Sanctuary’. I didn’t need to explain it now.

Instead, I told him a simple story.

“You know, they are closely related to your death, Her Imperial Majesty’s illness, and Duke Tristan’s struggle.”

[…]

Seeing how Caliban went silent after I said all that, I let out a chuckle.

Anyway…

I survived again this time.

There were no casualties, and the whole thing wasn’t particularly difficult.

Which meant, handling the aftermath would be—

“Whoa, great job everyone!”

…Easy…

…If only this punk hadn’t suddenly showed up…

Everyone who was busy cleaning up the debris stopped moving. All of them turned to look in the direction of the voice with dumbfounded eyes.

“…I’d have to admit it.”

Even the Sword Saint, who was leading the clean-up work, said such a thing in a dumbfounded tone. Not angry, just dumbfounded.

“You are the second person I’ve seen in my life who has achieved this level of lunacy.”

“…”

I somehow could tell who the first person was, but I didn’t want to talk about it.

Because…

“I came to turn myself in!”

“…”

“You may torture me or kill me or whatever, but could you listen to my suggestion first?”

Seeing Marquis Bogut spouting out such things while smiling…

Whatever I was thinking about just didn’t matter.

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