Gluttony Demon King with the Swampman ~A Man with No Magic Power Who Dreamed of Magic, Wielding Knowledge from His Past Life Through Steady Research and Hard Work to Become the Most Vicious Final Boss~

Chapter 22: Another World Mandala

The path to the forest was well-maintained, probably because adventurers and scholars came and went so often.

I walked over the flattened, worn-down dirt, through grassland where trees gradually grew thicker.

Eventually the scenery turned into full forest, and every now and then I picked the target herbs growing in cool shaded spots.

“Picking up pretty fast.”

At this rate I’d have plenty of time left.

I could even try some of the permanent monster subjugations.

While walking and thinking that, I reached my second destination.

The ruins were of unknown age but clearly very old.

Slightly orange-tinged stone formed tunnel-like arches, and inside, protected from rain and wind, murals still remained on the walls.

“I came to Dura just so I could visit this place.”

A smile slipped out before I could stop it.

I slowly traced the vast worldview painted there with my eyes.

The murals mostly told stories from the world of mythology.

This world was mainly polytheistic.

People found all kinds of gods in all kinds of places.

There was the giant god who ruled the earth, the great eagle who commanded the winds—different gods corresponded to different attributes.

This was just my guess, but it felt like a device to make casting magic easier.

Magic power reacts to the thoughts and perceptions of living beings. When you think “make fire,” magic power creates fire.

But thoughts are unstable. Mages had developed the world through all sorts of clever ways to strengthen the transmission of those thoughts.

One of those clever ways was faith.

By believing the attribute they handled was “the power of a god” and revering it—or more extremely, blindly believing in it—they raised the purity of their thoughts.

In other words, it wasn’t that gods created magic; people created gods for the sake of magic.

That was one possible way to look at it, and I decided to keep it in the back of my mind. Personally, I preferred the more romantic version.

“That’s the fire whale, huh—the one Zaria mentions a lot in her chants.”

As I followed the mural, there it was: a god I had heard the name of recently. A burning whale-like silhouette rising high into the sky.

The god called the “fire whale” was the symbol of the sun.

Ancient people saw the sun slowly rising from the horizon as a whale coming up for air.

Meanwhile, painted as if fleeing from the ascending fire whale was an indigo great owl.

That one symbolized the night sky. When the fire whale rose, the owl fled to the other side of the world; when the fire whale sank, the owl spread its great wings and wrapped the world in darkness.

If I remembered right, the Levi family crest was modeled after this owl.

“The detail is insane. It really feels like a mandala…”

The age of myths carved into the walls.

All sorts of gods danced across it.

The giant god of the earth, the infant sleeping beneath the volcano.

The great eagle that summoned storms, the dragon that ruled rain clouds and lightning.

The winged goddess of light, the demon god of darkness, the world tree and the great serpent that guarded it, the beautiful mermaid who protected sea voyages and her opposing evil god, the giant octopus sunk in the deep sea—

I was glad I got to see this.

The moment I was about to say that out loud,

“Out for a stroll in a place like this, dragon-slayer-sama?”

A voice came from behind me. I turned around.

At the entrance to the overgrown ruins stood three unfamiliar men—no, if I thought about it, maybe not completely unfamiliar. I might have seen them at the guild earlier.

All of them had shady, thuggish faces and were smirking down at me. I instantly understood I was being picked on.

…Jumping straight to C-rank meant some people wouldn’t like me; I had expected that.

But I never thought anyone would follow me all the way to a job site.

“Exactly the kind of small-time punks we used to turn away…”

I muttered Dordwin’s words under my breath, and the men glared with an “Ah?”

“This brat… acting and “You only got the credit because the duke’s daughters handed it to you!”
“…Credit?”

“No shit! Like a kid like you could kill a dragon! How’d you worm your way into those noble sisters—your face? Or did you sell your body?”

I don’t think I sold my body.

We did take a bath together… or rather, I was forced into one. Still—

“…Are you aware that those words insult not just me, but Zaria and Noiche as well?”

My tone might have gotten a little sharp.

The thugs flinched for a second, surprised I talked back, but immediately glared again.

“Y-you gonna snitch? Go ahead and try—we can shut that mouth of yours right here and now.”

“We just took down black wolves, four of them, just the three of us! Something a fraud like you could never do.”

They pulled out blood-soaked magic stones to show off. So they had actually been working.

Black wolves were one of the permanent request targets, and according to the board, they had been appearing around this area lately.

“Perfect timing. I was just thinking of trying the permanent requests myself.”
“…Huh?”

“Fighting is bad manners. How about a little wolf-hunting race instead?”

Then I took a small flute from my pouch and blew it.

There was no loud “pii” sound—just a faint whistle of air.

But the beasts should have heard it.

The dog-summoning whistle.

It was the magic tool a certain coachman had used not long ago to sic wolves on us; I had confiscated it as a dangerous item. As the name suggested, it called dog-like monsters.

“Wh-what the…?”

“Hey, monster presence from all directions! What the hell is going on!?”

The sound of paws thundered closer from every side.