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 52: The Flower Girl, the Thorn Spear

Chapter 52: The Flower Girl, the Thorn Spear

Honestly, I was bewildered.

My whole life I’d only ever been hated.
Disappointing my parents, shunned by my brother, envied by adventurers, feared by the hero.

The only reason I never broke was my thirst for magic and, more than anything, the overflowing love Zaria and the others keep pouring over me right now.

Yet in this town, people welcome me so warmly.

It was my first time experiencing that, and it made me a little happy.
Maybe it’s some side effect from embedding ink in my body, but still—I was happy.

“…Haro actually cares a lot about what people think, huh.”

Halfway through our walk, we slipped into a café on a whim. Noiche, sitting beside me, suddenly says that.

“You always looked uncomfortable at the guild, too~ …Though it’s obvious you’d stand out.”

“At that age you’re already A-rank. Of course eyes are gonna be on you.”

Well, when they put it that way, sure.

I nibble on a light sandwich and think. Why do I worry so much about people’s malice and attention?

Somehow, I feel like it’s connected to my previous life.

I barely remember any relationships from back then, but that’s just how the culture was.
A place where words and feelings were always wrapped up and hidden—that’s the kind of world I lived in, I think.

Compared to that, the people I meet in this life might be a little too honest for me.

“…Haro, maybe you really shouldn’t go outside anymore?”

“Yeah. We’ll spoil you forever and handle everything with the outside world ourselves, okay?”

That’s not the issue.

“Haro-kun is surprisingly normal for a boy…”

I nod at Egiy’s quiet murmur—nothing surprising about it; I’ve always intended to be normal.

That’s when it happened, right in the middle of that boring small talk.

“I-I found you! You were here, Master Haro!”

A sweating man bursts into the café.

Zaria and the others jump, and the customers near the door let out small screams.

The man doesn’t care and slides straight toward us.

“…What happened?”

“I-It’s an injured person! Looks like an adventurer from out of town, and they’re about to die…!”

“I see.”

We have to hurry.

“Master Haro, you can pay later.”

“Yeah, thank you.”

Grateful for the café owner’s kindness, we follow the man out of the shop. However—

“If an adventurer rushed in, it’s probably near the outer wall… That’s pretty far.”

“Haro, should we hurry?”

“Let’s. You—guide us through the shortcuts.”

I nod at Noiche and call out to the man.

He looks confused but nods—and I deploy my magic.

“Ricochet Seal: Pinball”

Four octopus legs slither out from my back, each wriggling like a brush, drawing four magic circles at once.

Thanks to having an unlimited supply of ink now, generating multiple circles is easy.

I wrap one tentacle around the guide and step onto one of the circles.

Our bodies shoot into the air.

“U-WOOOOAAAHH!?”

“It’s scary, but hang on.”

I step on the ricochet seal, bounce into the sky, draw the next one mid-air, and step on that too.

Zaria and the others follow the same way behind me. Everyone’s used to this aerial obstacle course by now.

In no time, we reach the destination.

The crowd below screams as we drop from the sky.

It’s the plaza near the gate. Townspeople watch from a safe distance.

The adventurer in question lies in the center, tended to by companions.

“Oh, it’s a girl.”

I’d vaguely pictured a man, but the blood-soaked, unconscious adventurer is a girl with dull red hair in twin braids, flower ornaments in her hair, and a young, cute face.

A bizarre spear made of twisted plants has pierced straight through her thick metal armor and into her stomach.

The wound is so deep I’m shocked she’s still alive, but her chest is definitely, slowly, rising and falling.

“W-What the hell is this kid…!?”

“We told you to get a doctor!”

Her companions—men and women—glare at us warily.

In this situation their caution is perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, I’m the doctor.

I approach the collapsed girl without retracting the tentacles on my back.

“…Critical condition. Egiy, keep Cleanse flowing constantly. Noiche, pain suppression. Zaria, visualize the lacerations.”

“G-Got it…!”

“Roger.”

“Roger!”

We move at once.

Noiche’s night-sky magic has a “sleep” aspect and can be used like anesthesia or painkillers.

Zaria’s dawn-sky magic can reveal the invisible, so marking the affected area makes it useful for medical treatment.

The girl adventurer’s expression softens a little under Noiche’s spell, and I extend ink from my prosthetic toward the wound.

“Now, let’s fix this in one go.”

Tentacles rush into the injury.

The surrounding townspeople grab and hold back her companions as they try to interfere.

Ink is liquid—it fills every gap inside the wound. First, I pull out the grotesque thorn spear.

“…………!”

“…She reacted to the pain?”

Spear removed, bleeding stopped. No issues with the procedure.

Yet the girl adventurer’s body twitches slightly even while unconscious.

Noiche’s spell should definitely be suppressing pain—

“…Sorry, Haro. It’s not working very well.”

“Cause?”

“I think it’s this girl’s magic power. Just a feeling, but—”

—she feels similar to the Golden Hero.

Noiche whispers in my ear, careful of our surroundings.

“…A hero, huh.”

Come to think of it, Oz’s demon eye barely worked on that hero either.

People who envelop their entire body in powerful magic power like a hero tend to resist magic that interferes with the inside of the body.

Could this girl be—

“No, let’s treat her first.”

The wound left by the extracted spear.

Thanks to Zaria’s magic, I can see exactly where and how everything is damaged.

Ink devours the dead tissue and transmutes replacement flesh to fill the gaps.

“…There. Done.”

Treatment finishes in an instant.

Not a single scar remains; fresh white skin peeks through the hole in her armor. Even the blood stuck to her skin has been eaten away by ink—beautifully clean.

All that’s left is rest and natural recovery of stamina.

That’s when the male adventurer who’d been restrained shouts at me.

“K-Kid! Behind you! That thing’s still moving!”

“—!”

I turn to where he’s looking—the grotesque spear I just pulled out.

The deep-green, plant-twisted thing has swollen like blooming flowers into countless thorny vines, all lunging straight at me.

“—Ink, catch it.”

The remaining tentacles—more than half my supply—burst from my back and mercilessly crush it.

They wrap around it, trap it.

Locked inside a powerful ink water prison, the thing writhes for a while before giving up and going limp.

“Don’t digest it. That looks interesting—I want to experiment with it.”

A fine reward.

Then I look at the stunned adventurers.

“N-No way… a kid like that…!?”

“What the hell was that magic!?”

…They believe me now, at least.

This whole incident feels far from ordinary. I need to hear what they have to say.