Monster Wave
The fact that he killed the Demon King.
And even the fact that he drove the 'Path of Light' into the core, but conversely died himself.
Serengeti couldn't not believe it.
But still, she couldn't believe it.
"··· Please, recall what you said to me, before the star."
Serengeti was cautious.
She was asking with an even more solemn expression than before I brought up my death.
It meant it wasn't enough to earn her trust.
'There's something more.'
I know Serengeti. Even more closely than when I knew her in the game. To the point I felt a strange sense of kinship and longing toward her when I met her as a player.
So I understand.
That there's another reason tied to my death that she can't say.
That she needs another reason she can be sure I'm the Knight King.
'······ What did I say again?'
But I don't remember.
Of course, not remembering is only natural.
Back when I saved the star for Serengeti, I 'encouraged' her. I clearly remember that. The problem is I have no way of knowing what that 'encouragement' actually was.
Because it was nothing more than a character command.
If you press Control and T together, you can use one of 26 emotion expressions.
The 'encourage' command is a motion where you mutter something and pat their back, but how would I know what it said?
"······ You were always worried that if you ate the star and transcended, you might stop being 'Serengeti.'"
But the words naturally slipped out.
The content from back then, something I had no way of knowing.
"At the time, I didn't know the worry dwelling in you. But thinking back now, it must've been that you wished your love for Hudson would never change."
"······ That's right."
"With the star right in front of you, I encouraged you. I told you to shut up."
"Ah······."
Brrr!
Serengeti trembled in tiny shivers.
A memory only she and the Knight King knew.
I was just as flustered.
In an instant, the scene from then rose before my eyes like a panorama.
-They say everyone who takes a star changes. I'm afraid I'll become like that too.
-Shut up.
·· It feels more like I kicked her toward the star than encouraged her.
Is that really encouragement?
And is it normal to be this moved by being told to shut up?
····· She's crying?
'So it's because I'm reading the star's memory.'
A hidden effect of the Successor of Stars class.
Just like every class has a hidden unique effect, I had one too. The effect of reading the memories of the star's previous owner.
It must be because of that.
"Are you truly Lord Wilhelm?"
"I am."
"Th, then that appearance is······."
"There are circumstances."
"Does that mean you became a 'sinner'?"
"A sinner?"
A sinner is a human who committed a crime.
Usually, it referred to the ones locked in prison.
But the word 'sinner' Serengeti just said felt a little different.
When I tilted my head, Serengeti wiped away her falling tears and spoke.
"There are those who hunt people called sinners, people who 'possess' others while carrying their memories from before death. They call themselves hunters, or reapers······."
"This is the first time I've heard of it."
Reapers. They're clearly player hunters.
I feel like I've heard the word in passing while hearing Hudson's life story.
But I didn't know the details.
Serengeti shook her head.
"I don't know the details either. Still, be careful. They say their obsession and persistence in finding 'sinners' goes beyond imagination. Rumor has it they hide a 'black bell' in their arms, one that does not ring in anyone's embrace."
"I'll keep it in mind."
"And··· about Lord Wilhelm's end, there are things you must know. I still can't believe what I saw is real, but if it is true······."
Serengeti bit her lip.
Then, with wavering eyes that still couldn't believe what she had seen, she began her story.
***
That day.
The Knight King forcibly opened a warp to the Demon Realm, together with an army of two hundred thousand soldiers.
The demon race resisted fiercely, and just stepping into the Demon Realm led to thousands of soldiers dying.
The priests chanted prayers and preached hard, but the Darkness of the Demon Realm was far too powerful.
"I've got a bad feeling. It feels like the Demon King's army already knew about our attack."
A warp leading to the Demon Realm.
Only an extremely small number of people knew the exact date and time to open it.
Yet the demon race in the Demon Realm moved as if they'd noticed in advance and prepared.
But even that meticulous movement was shattered in a single blow.
Kkwaaaaaaang!
When the Knight King swung his enormous sword of Light, thousands of the demon race evaporated in the blink of an eye.
The terrain changed, and every trap became useless.
He was a God of War. The Knight King was a living god itself.
His existence was so overwhelming you almost felt pity for the demon race standing before the God of War.
"As long as the Knight King stands, we cannot fall. All forces, charge!"
"Kill the demon race! Drive away the Darkness!"
"The Goddess of Victory is smiling upon us!"
So long as the Knight King existed, victory was ours.
But the Darkness of the Demon Realm ran deeper than imagination.
'Where did they all go?'
····· As time passed, soldiers kept disappearing.
A gap formed between the knights sprinting at the very front and the soldiers.
At first, it seemed like the soldiers were simply slower, but that wasn't it.
Serengeti sensed something strange.
No matter that this was the Demon Realm, we hadn't entered unprepared.
We opened the warp only after calculating every possible situation.
Naturally, the Darkness of the Demon Realm was among those calculations. We had even packed plenty of 'Torches of Dawn' so no one would lose their way and fall behind.
'It's intentional. Artificial.'
The soldiers were being broken apart.
Little by little, so no one would notice.
Not by the demon race's scheme, but by humans.
By the time she realized, it was already too late.
'Who betrayed us?'
Someone in a position high enough to shatter an army of this size had betrayed us.
And surely not just one person, but many.
Because it would be impossible for a single person to conceal something this organized.
"Aaagh!"
"Saintess Seah!"
The saintess walking with them twisted in pain.
She had been ceaselessly chanting sacrificial prayers so the knights wouldn't be influenced by demonic energy.
Boils swollen with demonic energy sprouted across her once clean, beautiful face and body, and her eyes were turning into black pupils like a demon's.
Saintess Seah. Even as her body rotted away, she did not yield and cried out.
"Go, go on. Keep going forward. I will offer my life to bless you!"
"But!"
"You must not stop! You must never turn around! This section is the 'Flytrap Hell'! The Demon King's demonic energy is strongest here! Anyone who turns back will rot away!"
Saintess Seah was letting her body rot in place of the others, through her prayer of devotion.
Meaning, among the knights who had rushed ahead, some couldn't resist the temptation of demonic energy and kept looking back.
A hell where you can't turn back, and can't help the ones who fall behind.
Once you entered this hell, you couldn't confirm who was following, so they hadn't even noticed the soldiers were being broken apart.
'Then does that mean there were people who knew about this hell beforehand?'
This place was where humanity set foot for the first time.
If they knew in advance, it meant they were in league with the Demon Realm.
Serengeti kept her eyes on the Knight King leading the way.
He looked only forward, without the slightest hesitation.
Even compared to the seven hells they had passed, this Flytrap Hell was more horrifying.
····· When they escaped the eighth hell, Flytrap Hell, fewer than thirty knights remained.
'Where······ did they all go?'
Serengeti sucked in ragged breaths.
When she looked down, the two legs that should have been there were gone.
"······ You foolish fool."
The Knight King said as he looked down at Serengeti.
The moment they were about to leave Flytrap Hell, a trap awaited them.
A magic formation personally inscribed by the Demon King.
It activated after sinking half the Demon Realm, and originally should have taken the life of Knight King Wilhelm.
In that moment, Serengeti used her transcendence to swap their positions.
Because an ability gained through transcendence takes precedence over all else.
By sheer luck she survived, but her lower body had been blown away.
"Kuheuk!"
Serengeti coughed up blood.
She was dying. She couldn't live.
She barely stretched out her hand and touched Knight King Wilhelm.
"Wilhelm. Lofty and most honorable Knight King. If the expedition succeeds, please protect Hudson. And deliver this and my words. Tell him I'm sorry for going first······ that I truly loved him."
She handed over the necklace she had been holding.
But Wilhelm shook his head.
"You should tell that cringe story yourself."
He immediately poured a top-grade elixir onto the severed wound.
Then he took out an Amulet of Protection and pressed it to Serengeti's chest.
Serengeti's eyes filled with bewilderment.
"Why give that to someone like me······!"
"I won't be able to use it anymore anyway."
Extreme Annihilation Advance Amulet of Protection.
An Amulet of Protection provides a resting place in the field by preventing monsters from recognizing the one inside.
But it doesn't work on monsters that have transcended past level 10.
Still, even transcended monsters couldn't kill someone inside this Extreme Annihilation Advance Amulet of Protection.
Because it was an amulet that had shattered countless tiers through repeated reinforcement.
But now there was no need to use it.
Because.
"Watch from here. Watch me kill that bastard."
····· The Demon King was right there.
Gwoooooo!
The Demon King's core cracked. The 'Path of Light' driven into the core was tearing apart the Demon King's demonic energy to shreds.
We won. We won!
The long expedition through the Demon Realm had finally come to an end.
But before they could even rejoice.
'What······?'
Serengeti couldn't believe her eyes.
When the core shattered and the Demon King died.
Tzuahaaaaak!
The core exploded, and demonic energy that looked like it would swallow the world bound Wilhelm.
And then.
"You monster. To push me this far without any 'boon' from a goddess."
····· The Demon King's shadow began to move on its own.
At the same time, time started flowing slowly.
Everything around them looked as if it had stopped completely.
The shadow glanced at its own body and clicked its tongue.
It had become nothing but rags. With the core broken, it couldn't even dream of resurrection in this body.
"But that is your mistake."
The body was dead, but his essence was not.
Only the complete authority of a goddess could erase him.
The human who butchered his body was indeed an unprecedented hero, but the goddess's authority, her boons, were not properly embedded within him.
So this was happening.
Swaaaaaa!
The shadow was seeping into Wilhelm.
If it could fully bind and devour Wilhelm's body, it would resurrect into a new body.
This was the Demon King's final authority.
'Truly, it's incredible.'
A body that had transcended by eating five stars was beyond imagination.
Not only that, the very material of the body was no longer something you could call human. Whatever training he had done, he had surpassed humanity and reached the realm of a demigod.
"······ Hm?"
Suaaaaaak!
In that instant, Light began pouring out of Knight King Wilhelm's body.
And above Wilhelm's head, an afterimage of a goddess rose.
"Rhea······!"
The shadow recoiled fiercely.
It drove away the goddess's Light in an instant, but in doing so, it lost the most important thing.
"You're afraid of having your 'stars' taken, so you steal the life of the knight who followed you? And you dare call yourself a goddess!"
The goddess had stolen Wilhelm's life, forcibly reaping the stars.
Thanks to that, the Demon King's plan to fully seize Wilhelm's body collapsed.
When the Light faded, Wilhelm lay dead, his face pale.
***
"······ There is no memory after that."
"······."
"Only······ what burst out was like pure evil itself······."
Thud!
Kwaaaaaang!
That was when it happened.
Suddenly the ground shook, and the sound of something exploding rang out.
Right after, Hudson shouted from outside the door.
"Th, there's a Monster Wave! The city is under attack!"