Chapter 16. Monster Hunt (2)
“Delilah.”
“……What the hell is with this masked man?”
Delilah answered Shane’s call.
Seeing her force herself to glare at him with her eyes wide, Shane gave an inward chuckle.
In his previous life, he had experienced far fiercer glares from Delilah. Compared to those, this was almost amusing.
At the same time, he could understand her reaction.
She had awakened to find herself imprisoned in a place like this. Given her personality, squeezing out whatever courage she had and trying to intimidate whoever approached was probably the best she could manage.
“There is no need to look at me like that. I did not come here to hurt you.”
“What? You lock someone up in a place like this, and that is what you have to say? Are you mocking me?”
“You seem to be misunderstanding something…….”
Delilah growled like a cat with every hair on its body standing on end, but Shane paid it no mind.
“I am not the one who imprisoned you. The people upstairs are.”
“Upstairs…… You mean Count Salier?”
The moment the subject turned to the culprit, Delilah asked in a quieter voice.
Count Salier was the owner of this villa.
Until today, he had always welcomed Delilah with a smile.
“That is correct. That monster is the one who locked you down here.”
“…….”
At those words, the look in Delilah’s eyes changed slightly.
A monster.
The figure before her had just called the Count who imprisoned her a monster.
Perhaps his claim that he had not come to hurt her was actually true.
A faint hope began to rise within her.
“Then why did that bastard lock me up here?”
“Simple. In the underground city of the Allied Nations, your body has tremendous value as merchandise.”
“The underground city…….”
Delilah had heard of it before.
Somewhere beneath the Allied Nations was said to exist an enormous underground city, home to a Black Market where supposedly anything could be found.
Naturally, a place that supplied things unobtainable elsewhere was infamous for being exceedingly vile even in rumor alone.
It had once been one of the primary trading grounds of the Black Mages who stood at the forefront of biological experimentation.
There were also rumors of gambling arenas and countless other unsavory businesses.
“You can think of Salier as a fairly influential figure in that underworld. He mainly conditions and sells Demi-Human slaves according to the tastes of collectors.”
“…….”
“Sometimes, I hear he personally brings in Demi-Humans that suit his own tastes and takes up the whip himself. He wants to turn them into toys perfectly suited for his son.”
“……Stop.”
“Perhaps those who are conditioned and sold away are the fortunate ones. As long as they suit the collectors’ tastes, they might at least remain alive. But when someone is exposed to the innocent cruelty of a child, who knows what might—”
“Stop-!”
Delilah’s scream, filled with anguish, echoed throughout the basement.
Her eyes contained despair and fury.
But greater than either of those emotions, even combined, was fear.
“Why the hell are you telling me all this?!”
There was a reason.
Delilah could vividly sense the emotions experienced by the victims who had been imprisoned in this basement.
A Demi-Human girl around the same age as the Count’s son had screamed beneath a whip he swung as though it were a toy.
Someone else had their eyes gouged out simply because they had failed to obey an order to stop crying.
In truth, it had merely been done to satisfy a customer’s preference.
An Elf who had cursed at them much as Delilah had was deprived of her tongue.
That, too, had been done because a customer requested a slave who could not speak.
Countless forms of torture had been carried out here.
Yet the emotions left behind by the victims were all the same.
Pain and despair.
The walls and floors, soaked with their blood, tears, and sweat born of agony, constantly whispered those emotions to Delilah.
As though pleading with her—
At least you should know what happened to us.
And the more Delilah despaired, the stronger those emotions became.
“Nothing can be solved by looking away and running.”
“……What?”
“If you intend to survive in this world from now on—if you want to be treated with even a shred of humanity—you cannot turn your eyes away from the reality you live in.”
“…….”
“Remember everything you are feeling right now. Only then will you be able to protect yourself.”
“Why…… Why are humans like this? Why are they so cruel?!”
Delilah could no longer glare at Shane in an attempt to intimidate him.
Instead, she simply stared at him through a tear-streaked face.
And Shane’s answer was unexpected.
“Because they are afraid.”
“……What?”
“To humans, Demi-Humans are symbols of fear. The instincts of prey remain engraved into every cell of their bodies.”
Before the current calendar.
Before the ancient god Akasha sealed the Demi-Humans within dungeons through the Great Seal.
Humanity had occupied the very lowest position among all races.
They had been prey.
Humans of that era could not wield mana as they did now.
They could not command forests like Elves.
They could not forge exceptional weapons like Dwarves.
And that was not all.
Their physical abilities were vastly inferior to those of the Beastfolk, and there was not a single area in which they surpassed the other races.
Humanity had always been prey.
Even after Akasha’s Great Seal, fear of their former predators remained engraved deep within their bones.
“That is why some of them cannot escape the pleasure they feel when they see those they once feared suffering.”
Not every human was like that.
Even so, humanity’s instinctive aversion toward Demi-Humans was an undeniable reality.
How much effort would it take to change a perception engraved into instinct itself?
No—
Was such a thing even possible?
Changing an instinct embedded within an entire race.
There was no possibility that such a task could be easy.
Shane continued.
“The Emperor understood humanity’s fear and hatred of Demi-Humans. The Emperor stands at the pinnacle of humanity. As such, he refused to acknowledge the idea that he himself feared Demi-Humans. That was why he abolished Demi-Human Slavery. Humanity’s oppression of Demi-Humans had ultimately arisen from its own fear.”
“…….”
“Yet even now, the Empire leaves the underground city of the Allied Nations untouched. The interests tangled around that place are already too complicated to unravel.”
“Then what about the Count? What about Count Salier?!”
After listening to everything Shane said, Delilah raised the head she had lowered.
Her eyes were still soaked with tears.
But now, a fragment of venomous hatred had appeared within them.
She hated Salier for imprisoning her here and for the horrific torture he would have inflicted upon her.
But even more than that, the memories of the earth whispering to her at this very moment were feeding her resentment.
“Under ordinary circumstances, you could probably inflict some damage upon him. But in reality, it would not be enough to seriously harm him.”
“What? Then you’re saying…… there is no hope for me…….”
Delilah lowered her head again, hollow with despair.
Even if she escaped now, Count Salier would never allow a living witness like Delilah to remain alive.
Could she rely upon the Academy, which currently supported her?
It might have some effect.
But Count Salier’s accumulated wealth and authority, along with the high-ranking figures connected to him, would never simply stand aside.
In the end, there was no hope.
“Correct. Under normal circumstances, your chances of victory would be close to nonexistent. The person that monster is meeting tonight is far beyond anything you are imagining.”
“What?”
“That is why I came here. If a tangled knot cannot be unraveled, then it serves no purpose.”
“What do you mean……?”
“You simply burn it.”
Before Delilah could fully comprehend Shane’s words, the basement door slid open.
“A rat has slipped inside.”
The man who entered was Wernard, Count Salier’s loyal knight.
—
“I…… truly have no excuse for this.”
Count Salier appeared calm at first glance, but inside, his nerves were burning black with anxiety.
A short while earlier—
Wernard, his longtime companion and most trusted knight, had stopped by before leaving again.
Wernard would normally never interrupt him while he was entertaining an important guest like this.
But given the circumstances, there had been no choice.
An intruder had appeared.
Salier had long been an influential figure within the underworld.
Nevertheless, the things he had done were matters of absolute secrecy that could never be allowed to become public.
For years, he had prepared for unforeseen situations by ensuring that he left no evidence behind.
And yet today, for the first time, someone had infiltrated this villa.
Worse, the intruder was skilled enough to penetrate the villa’s stringent surveillance.
“Hoho. Think nothing of it. If anything, you should consider yourself fortunate that everything has remained quiet until now.”
Across from Salier sat a middle-aged man smiling as though to reassure him.
He was one of the guests Salier had been anxiously waiting for today.
“Was the knight who just left not a Fourth-Grade Expert? One already approaching the level of a Master, at that. He is both skilled and experienced. I imagine he will resolve the matter shortly.”
“Thank you for your understanding…….”
The man smiled as though the interruption did not concern him.
Yet the more relaxed he appeared, the more anxious Salier became.
‘Of all people, I make a mistake in front of this man!’
The man wore a pleasant smile.
But Salier knew better than to mistake him for a pleasant person.
When it came to cruelty, Salier himself could not even begin to compare.
In fact, had Salier not entered the underworld because of this middle-aged man in the first place?
Was this man not also the reason Salier had been able to establish himself there and grow his influence to its current extent?
Salier felt more tense now than he had during the war against the Black Mages decades ago.
The man himself was frightening enough.
But even more importantly, there was someone standing behind him.
That much was easy to infer once one knew his identity.
After all, Dyra was the famed Mane of the White Lion.
A member of the Judgment Knight Order—
Aumans J. Dyra.
—
Wernard’s gaze toward the intruder, Shane, was anything but friendly.
Naturally, an intruder deserved such a look.
But given the timing, Wernard’s insides were burning just as fiercely as his lord Salier’s.
‘Of all days, it had to be today…….’
Who was sitting upstairs with his lord at this very moment?
One of the renowned members of the Judgment Knight Order.
They were the sharpest swords of the Imperial Family.
Exterminators who had carved human compassion from themselves for the sake of the Empire’s security.
The fact that one of those Imperial swords was here meant that Count Salier’s current activities were deeply connected to the highest reaches of the Imperial Family.
If anything happened here that displeased them……
There was no telling where that emotionless blade might turn next.
Wernard therefore had to dispose of the enemy before him as quickly as possible and reduce this incident to nothing more than a minor disturbance.
“I will make you beg for the chance to tell me who is backing you.”
There would be no questions and answers.
As though he had no intention of allowing Shane to respond, a formidable pressure erupted from Wernard’s body.
The mana of an Expert standing at the very upper edge of the Fourth Grade stabbed sharply against Shane’s skin.
‘He is stronger than the Twin-Head Ogre I fought back then.’
The Twin-Head Ogre Shane had encountered in the small village while returning from the Academy’s vacation.
Although it had merely been a corpse moved by the Rotten Tree Spirit, Wernard’s abilities exceeded that creature’s by a narrow margin.
Back then, however, the knights of House Clayton had stalled the monster at the front and given Shane time to prepare his magic.
Now, there was nothing here to protect him.
Moreover, in a cramped basement like this, a knight inevitably held an overwhelming advantage over a Mage.
“So far, everything is as expected.”
Of course, Shane had not come unprepared.
From the beginning, it had been Shane himself who deliberately left clumsy traces behind in order to lure Wernard down here.
Wernard narrowed his eyes at Shane’s unexpectedly composed response.
Shane spoke in a flat, emotionless voice.
“Show me your usefulness.”
Those words were directed neither at Wernard standing before him nor at Delilah bound behind him.
They were meant for the existence that had spent all this time ravenously devouring the pain and despair permeating the basement.
[Yes, Master.]
