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 33: Interlude - The Fugitive and the Prophet

Chapter 33: Interlude – The Fugitive and the Prophet

The story goes back a little in time.

A single goblin was running through the forest at night.

No, it was a goblin, yet not a goblin.

Its true body was the rusted iron sword gripped in the goblin’s hand.

It possessed the goblin’s sword.

It was the remnant that had barely escaped with its life from the sea of black ink that swallowed everything, after manipulating a goblin on the verge of death.

“No, this can’t be… this must not happen…! I, the Demon King, defeated by some unknown slime like that!”

With human words it should never have been able to speak, the goblin—no, the Demon King of the Sword—cursed loudly.

The problem was not that it had lost.

If it dug up memories from before becoming king, it had lost countless times.

No matter how many times it lost, it kept surviving by splitting its spirit body like this—

The ancient monster once feared as the “Demon King of the Sword” had clung to the throne of Demon King through such stubborn, never-give-up obsession.

That was why losing was not the problem.

The problem was that the “factor” that made a Demon King a Demon King had been stolen from it.

“One of the eight… the one I finally regained… that bastard ate it! It swallowed my authority as king!”

—The authority of a king.

It was a special factor that only Demon Kings possessed.

It had destroyed the shrine and barely regained the power of its prime, the authority as Demon King—yet for some reason, that slime had devoured it.

That was why now, the Demon King of the Sword had nothing left.

The “right of a king” it was supposed to have reclaimed had been taken, and with the power that remained, controlling even one goblin was the most it could manage.

Grinding its back teeth, the Demon King roared.

“Leaving that slime, that brat, alone is bad! A slime with no intellect or pride as a king becoming the Demon King, and worse, manipulated by human hands—!”

If mishandled, it could become a threat rivaling even a hero.

That boy had to be killed.

The cursed sword that once ruled the seat of Demon King swelled with that resolve—

Yet the goblin’s feet fled in the complete opposite direction.

“S-someone, someone kill that thing…! I, the current me, have other things to do—!”

The ancient Demon King of the Sword, feared by people long ago.

Its true nature was extremely cowardly and always left things to others.

*

On the other hand, this place was the complete opposite of a dark forest—a corner of the great capital city.

This was the royal capital, Landbel.

On the top floor of a certain enormous astronomical observatory that rivaled the height of the royal castle, several men dressed in white priestly robes were looking up at the sky.

They had been like this for several hours already.

Standing in the center of the observatory and peering through a huge telescope was a young man with long black-and-indigo hair slicked back.

Delicate magical power constantly moved around him.

The priests watching over him were all elderly, and every one of them looked tense.

After a while, when the young man in the center let out a breath and relaxed, the old men rushed to him.

“W-well? Did you see it?”

“Yes, I saw it. Thank you all for your help.”

At the young man’s words, the old men erupted in cheers.

When one of them fired signal fireworks into the sky, lights began to flicker on one by one and spread through the streets of the capital, where every light had been extinguished.

The residents had all turned off their house lights so as not to disturb the astronomical observation—

In other words, this had been a massive undertaking important enough to announce to the entire capital.

The old men praised the young man who had accomplished it with loud applause.

“As expected of the once-in-a-generation astrologer, Sante Levi!”

“House Duke is safe now. Your father must be overjoyed.”

The young man silently bowed at the old men’s words.

The young man’s name was Sante Levi.

He was the legitimate son of the Levi ducal house, a famous family of astronomical mages, and the current person in charge of this huge observatory—

And if you spoke of the most powerful astrologer in the kingdom right now, people meant him.

“S-so… what was the result of the divination?”

When one old man timidly asked, the others also fell silent, tension thick in the air.

Sante answered.

“Yes. The seven pillars of Demon Kings that will eventually manifest in this land—among them, I was finally able to see the names of the remaining two whose names were unclear.”

Oh, the old men stirred again.

Their voices were a mix of joy and fear.

Sante continued without pause.

“One pillar is the Demon King of the Sword.”

“T-the Demon King of the Sword?”

“That was an ancient Demon King from more than five hundred years ago… could it have revived?”

“Yes. I saw that about one-eighth of the king’s power has already been released into the world.”

The Demon King was already on the verge of revival—

The old men let out small screams at Sante’s prophecy, which could be taken that way.

“We must identify the sealing locations right now. There should be some old records left.”

“It’s been five hundred years, so I’m not sure…”

“Even so, we have to protect as many seals as we can!”

“It must be a Demon King from ancient times. If it regains its full prime power, there’s no telling what it will do.”

The old men grew more and more alarmed.

One of them asked Sante, “And the other pillar?”

Sante calmly prophesied.

“The other pillar is a new Demon King.”

He spoke exactly what he saw, without embellishment.

“According to the night sky, it is the abyss that swallows everything.”

“Black, stagnant water.”

“An eight-legged giant octopus.”

“The embodiment from an ancient, distant star.”

“Yet it also possesses the attributes of the dragon race, boiling with dragon blood, the symbol of regeneration—”

“The night sky named it the Alien Demon King.”

It was truly a prophecy.

The Alien Demon King.

Compared to the other Demon Kings that had been prophesied so far, it was a rather unusual name.

Yet the elders who knew the old times were well aware that the more incomprehensible something was, the more it sometimes spread nightmares beyond imagination.

That was why the old men were especially shaken by the prophecy announced by the kingdom’s greatest astrologer.

“The Alien Demon King…”

“A-an abyssal giant octopus… no way…!”

“Are you saying it’s a monster blessed by an evil god? And a dragon race at that!?”

What he saw was truly ominous.

Sante felt the same way, but he calmly covered the telescope with a cloth.

“With this, the names of all seven pillars of Demon Kings have been revealed. My magical power is spent, so I’ll stop here.”

The cleanup and miscellaneous procedures afterward would be handled by the old men.

Sante descended the observatory stairs alone, without any escort.

He took off his white priestly robe and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“…Sigh, this is trouble.”

The bitter smile he forced was his true feeling.

His worry was not the ominousness of the Demon King he had seen.

After all, seven pillars of Demon Kings were appearing at the same time; fear of Demon Kings was already more than enough.

What Sante was worried about was his beloved little sisters.

“Beyond the Alien Demon King, that incomprehensible black abyss… Noiche, Zaria, I saw your names.”

Sante agonized.

It was because he “saw too much.”

For example, he had seen through that the butler Kujack attached to his sisters was up to no good.

Yet the reason Sante had let Kujack be was because he had seen in the stars that at the end of his schemes, his sisters would meet someone, and through that person’s hand, the “twin curse” would be resolved—

That was the glow of the stars he had seen.

“But… was this really the right thing? Great night sky, why don’t you show me everything?”

Kujack had probably died.

But Sante did not know the circumstances or who had killed him.

The glow of the stars was truly capricious.

What were his sisters doing?

What on earth had they encountered?

Was the future he thought was right truly right?

While worrying about his sisters, who seemed to still be alive—

Sante collapsed onto the bed in the break room again today.