One of the great heroes from three hundred years ago — Hamel Dynas.
Among the demonfolk of Helmuth, those high-ranking demons who had lived through that era called him Hamel the Exterminator. However, instead of the nickname Hamel the Exterminator, Edmond, who wasn’t a demonfolk, was more familiar with the nickname the Stupid Hamel.
‘As I’d expected,’ Edmond thought as he stood with his hands behind his back and looked down into the arena.
This wasn’t really the Stupid Hamel himself.
Hamel’s tomb had been discovered in the desert by Amelia Merwin. Excavating that site, she found a corpse that hadn’t rotted even after hundreds of years and made it into a Death Knight.
‘She’s still the same,’ Edmond judged.
Amelia Merwin had a particular stubborn tendency. Perhaps because she herself was just such an existence, Amelia was obsessed with aberrant existences.
The Inquisitor from the Maleficarum she was currently toying with was just her latest obsession. Outwardly, the Inquisitor possessed a human appearance, but her body was actually a chimera that had been cultivated using a vampire as its base. Amelia had also told him that the soul hadn’t even originally been born into that body but was instead a soul that had been inserted into it during the cultivation process.
Edmond had also heard about this Death Knight from a while back. After being lucky enough to dig up the perfect material with which to make a Death Knight, Amelia had made several attempts at using it. At first, she had even infused it with the soul of a beastfolk, which was more aggressive than a human’s and possessed stronger fighting instincts.
But the rejection from using a soul of a completely different race from the body had proven too strong, so from then on, she began using a lycanthrope’s soul.
Lycanthropes were a species that had mutated from humans, and thanks to that, she was able to get some decent results. Amelia herself wasn’t really satisfied with the ultimate outcome, but she had still grown attached to it over the years and called it her Pet.
Yet after all that, it had been ruined. Eugene Lionheart, who had suddenly barged into the tomb, destroyed Amelia’s cherished Death Knight. During the process, the soul was destroyed, but fortunately, Hamel’s corpse remained intact.
Amelia decided to change her methods. In the process of doing so, Edmond, a fellow member of the so-called Three Mages of Incarceration, and the current Staff of Incarceration, provided her with a lot of help.
If Amelia could just give up on her stubborn insistence, she could have infused the corpse with a human soul that possessed a high level of conformity with the body. If she felt like her Death Knight’s skills were lacking, she could have just killed one of the most skilled knights on the continent and stolen their soul.
However, Amelia hadn’t wanted to use such a method. She still clung to the idea of creating an aberrant, twisted existence, one that the world would never accept — a being that should never have been born.
After many experiments and failed attempts, Amelia finally created the Death Knight below. She used a demonic beast that could reflect and imitate its prey’s appearance, then combined that with the soul of a doppelganger. By doing so, the perfectly preserved, decomposing brain of Hamel’s corpse was copied onto the doppelganger’s soul.
So this thing wasn’t really the Stupid Hamel, the great hero from three hundred years ago. Strictly speaking, it was just a lunatic that believed it was Hamel.
However, this Death Knight actually deserved to call itself Hamel. Possessing Hamel’s body, it was able to copy all of Hamel’s own experiences and memories. Of course, for the sake of complete obedience, Hamel’s desire for vengeance against all demonfolk had been pruned. By inscribing new memories in a way that was no different from forceful brainwashing, Amelia even made the Death Knight accept her as its Master wholeheartedly.
That was how this Death Knight had been created. A puppet warrior who was loyal to its master, Amelia Merwin, and followed her every command, having lost the original’s unrelenting desire to kill all demonfolks.
“Shall I continue?” the Death Knight asked, turning his head to look up at Edmond.
It was only wearing a simple set of armor. Because it had copied its body’s former habits, the Death Knight had a dislike of heavy and cumbersome armor. As for its weapons, rather than having any special set of weapons, it preferred weapons that it didn’t have to worry about keeping intact and having a variety of weapons on hand.
This variety of weapons available to the Death Knight included its own bare hands. It had taken less than ten minutes for the Death Knight to completely dismantle Hector’s monstrous body. Although Hector’s body, which had been endowed with a powerful regenerative ability, had continued to regenerate even after pieces were plucked off, torn apart, and crushed, each time Hector healed himself, the Death Knight would just laugh happily and repeat its previous efforts of destroying and dismantling his opponent.
“You’ve done enough,” Edmond responded with a smile.
Hector was strewn across the ground, unable to regenerate any longer, but that wasn’t anything to worry about. His soul hadn’t been damaged; his mind was just slightly frayed from the repeated bouts of pain and shock. If the damage was just that much, Edmond could easily fix it with just one lift of his finger.
Still, since Hector was a subordinate he quite valued, he should at least say something for form’s sake.
“I think you may have been a bit excessive,” Edmond added.
At this, the Death Knight let out a snort and crushed Hector’s head, which it had ripped from his body beneath its foot.
The Death Knight gave a feeble excuse, “I tried to swat him around lightly, but before I knew it, my hands grew a bit too heavy. It can’t be helped. This bastard, he’s a Lionheart, isn’t he?”
“That’s right,” Edmond nodded. “Although he’s not from the main line.”
“As long as even one drop of blood from that son of a bitch, Vermouth flowed through his veins, then I have a problem with him,” the Death Knight sneered.
~
You died after being betrayed by your comrades.
In your last moments, Vermouth’s sword pierced your heart. Your colleagues all betrayed you. After three hundred years have passed, you, who once fought against the Demon Kings, and your death are now being treated as a joke.
No one knows about your comrades’ ugly betrayal of you or the fact that they didn’t even fight the Demon King of Incarceration. Instead, your comrades struck a deal with the Demon King of Incarceration for their own safety.
The Demon King of Incarceration took pity on you and preserved your body and soul. Then, your new existence was bestowed upon you by Amelia Merwin.
~
These were the memories that Amelia had implanted. The Death Knight, who believed himself to be Hamel, had not the slightest doubt about his memories. He was grateful to the Demon King and also to his master, Amelia Merwin. He also hated his former comrades and held an especially strong grudge against the Lionhearts.
“If it weren’t for the fact that you betrayed your family, I would have ended you completely,” the Death Knight whispered to Hector, who was writhing on the ground as he slowly regenerated.
Brushing off his blood-soaked hands, the Death Knight climbed back into the stands.
“It’s aggravating to have ones such as you who doubt my skills, but since you’re a friend of my Master, I’ve put up with it for now. But there is no next time. Don’t bother to call me if there isn’t a battle,” the Death Knight warned.
“I’ll be careful to do so,” Edmond promised.
“The world really has gotten so much more peaceful. To think that a petty black wizard like you would dare to snicker to himself in front of me,” the Death Knight snorted as he walked past Edmond.
Edmond also had to swallow his laughter as he watched the Death Knight leave. Although that might just have been how it was created… honestly speaking, it was hard for Edmond to hold back a laugh whenever it said such things.
With its twisted memories and one-sided hatred, even though it wasn’t Hamel himself, it still believed it was Hamel. It talked as if it still held a hatred for black wizards and demonfolks, but the Death Knight didn't really possess those sorts of feelings.
Even so, the Death Knight still ranted about his hatred for black wizards and demonfolks. The Death Knight was faithfully acting according to its own copied memories.
“Worthy of Amelia’s love,” Edmond mumbled.
Such an incongruity was exactly the kind of thing that Amelia stubbornly insisted on clinging to. Could it be that even a terrifying witch like her couldn’t resist her own innate nature?
Edmond snickered to himself as he shook a finger. Hector’s body, which had been torn to pieces and scattered, melted into liquid all at once. Then the liquid all gathered together before reforming back into an intact figure.
“How was it?” Edmond asked with a wide smile.
As Hector stood there stiffly, the light slowly returned to his eyes.
Eventually, Hector asked, “Can you really control that thing?”
There wasn’t any pain remaining in his body. However, just recalling what had happened was enough to make Hector tremble in fear.
That thing was demonic. No other words came to mind to describe that Death Knight.
Hector was someone who had confidence in his skills. In the first place, he had once been evaluated as the most talented individual in all of the Lionheart’s collateral lines. In Ruhr, where he trained as a knight, he had been appointed as an honorary knight of the White Fangs, who were indispensable whenever it came to discussing the strongest knightly orders on the continent.
That was how his skills had been evaluated in his previous life.
Yet Hector hadn’t ever revealed his true talent. And now, he had even been given a body that was overwhelmingly superior and stronger than any human’s, but he was still no match for the Death Knight. No matter what methods Hector used to attack, they were blocked with a sneer and then ruthlessly trampled upon.
“It’s very well-made, isn’t it?” Edmond said with a laugh. “It has perfectly reproduced the fighting ability of the great hero, the Stupid Hamel. Now that his dead body has been made into a Death Knight, it should even be incomparably stronger than when he was alive. In exchange for not being able to use any mana, it now has free use of dark power. But is that really it? What makes that Death Knight especially exceptional is that it still has a lot of room for growth.”
“That’s why I’m asking. Are you really able to control that?” Hector repeated his doubts.
Edmond sneered, “Since it’s me you’re asking, the answer to that seemed so obvious that I didn’t even bother replying…. Haha, I’m now certain that you really don’t know anything about magic. You’re asking if I can control him? Of course, I can. In the end, that thing is just a Death Knight and such a being can never go against the Master and Servant Contract.”
“However, Sir Edmond, the owner of that Death Knight, isn’t you, but Amelia Merwin, right?” Hector brought up cautiously.
The ritual being prepared in the Rainforest was an important ritual that had to succeed, not just for Edmond’s sake but for Hector’s as well.
Hector had become fascinated with the current Staff of Incarceration’s secret desire. He may have already died as a human, but if it was for the sake of Edmond’s ambition, Hector was so determined to guarantee its success that he was even prepared to die a few more times.
But, there were too many uncertainties about the success of this ritual. For example, the Black Dragon’s sinister intent that had polluted the entire land within the Rainforest. Edmond was confident that he would actually be able to make use of it and keep it under control, but Hector, who was ignorant of magic, had difficulties sympathizing with his confidence.
And was that all? It was also hard to believe that the dubious Dungeon Master of the Desert was being transparent in her cooperation with Edmond.
“Amelia and I are not enemies,” Edmon said reassuringly as he stroked his beard and laughed. “Instead… we’re actually in a position to cooperate with each other for the sake of our respective desires. Listen carefully, Hector. For a magician, their secret desire is an ideal that must be achieved, even if it means putting their entire life’s work into fulfilling it. Still, it doesn’t necessarily have to be something that requires them to compete with other wizards for it.”
“Is that the case?” Hector said with a frown.
“After all, the direction that our respective desires take us isn’t necessarily the same. That’s why Amelia and I are able to cooperate so amicably. After fulfilling my secret desire with Amelia’s help, I have made a promise to help Amelia with fulfilling hers,” Edmond revealed.
He and Amelia had known each other for a very long time. The two were well aware of how vastly different the aims of their respective desires were. There was no reason for either of them to betray the other when it came to this matter.
“I helped her in the creation of that Death Knight,” Edmond added. “I’ve only borrowed it temporarily to reinforce our forces here. Once everything is over, that Death Knight will be returned to Amelia once more. Also, when Amelia wishes for it, I will offer her my help.”
Eventually, Hector said, “I know what your secret desire is. However, I don’t know what Amelia Merwin’s secret desire is.”
Edmond replied, “Her secret desire is quite complex, but… to put it simply, Amelia wants strength.”
“Strength?” Hector repeated in confusion.
Even if Edmond was trying to abbreviate his explanation, wasn’t that a bit too short? As such, Hector couldn’t understand what Edmond meant by those words. In the first place, it was questionable that a wizard on the same level as Amelia Merwin would desire even more strength.
“A great amount of strength,” Edmond clarified with a smile as he stood up. “As I’m not her, it would be impolite for me to elaborate any further on the nature of her secret desire. However, you should also be able to see why we are working together. Once everything in this forest is completed, I will… haha, I will become a helper who can provide the great strength that Amelia requires.”
“Can you really succeed?” Hector asked with a worried expression.
Edmond’s smile deepened, and his voice grew more forceful, “Of course. All variables have been taken into account.”
Eward Lionheart had obtained a spell from the Remnants of the Demon Kings. It could reconstruct the soul and create a new body.
Eward had almost succeeded in becoming a being comparable to a Demon King by taking in the Remnants of the Demon Kings and transcending into a Spirit King of Darkness.
However, he had failed. Eward himself was the biggest variable. It was all because a snot-nosed brat like him had gotten his hands on far more power than he could control.
The evil intent of the Demon Kings that had decayed into those Remnants had desired the blood and soul of the Lionheart clan’s main line as a sacrifice due to their hatred for the hero, Vermouth.
Yes, something like that was all that they needed.
If you thought about it differently, it actually would be surprising if Eward could have completed the transformation of the Remnants of the Demon Kings and become a new Demon King with just that number of sacrifices. To a certain extent, it was because Eward had had the Remnants of the Demon Kings working with him.
However, Edmond had neither a Spirit of Darkness nor any Remnant of the Demon Kings.
Even so, Edmond would not fail.
He knew the function of the spell. He had repurposed and supplemented the entire ritual. The large scale of the spell itself was an indication of just how special Edmond’s plans for it were…. A large number of sacrifices would be required, but even if the last remaining seeds of the natives in this forest were to dry up, the eyes of the continent wouldn’t be drawn to this place immediately.
‘What great luck,’ Edmond had celebrated when he copied the spell from Hector’s memory.
While feeling like he had been blessed by the God that he didn’t even believe in, Edmond was delighted by the results of that night. This was a spell that Edmond himself hadn’t been able to complete even after decades of research spent pursuing it. He never thought that he would actually be able to receive assistance from the Remnants of the Demon Kings who had died three hundred years ago.
His luck didn’t stop there. Edmond had always wondered where the Black Dragon Raizakia, one of the Three Dukes, a powerful existence of such caliber, could have disappeared to. He would never have thought that all traces of Raizakia’s presence would have been embedded into this land.
‘It was also a huge turn of luck that the grave of that stupid lizard happened to be here,’ Edmond thought with satisfaction.
Raizakia’s evil intent had thoroughly polluted this land. In actuality, it seemed that instead of dying, Raizakia was wandering around in a dimensional rift somewhere, but happily, that just made it easier for Edmond to make use of these circumstances. When the land of the Rainforest was used as the base for his spell, it would draw in Raizakia’s dark power as well as the power of the leylines below.
Countless souls would also be offered as sacrifices, and Edmond had become the Staff of Incarceration due to being valued for his magical power. He could also draw on the dark power stored within Vladmir, which had been crafted using a whole Dragonheart. On top of that, he would even be drawing on the dark power of Raizakia, an Ancient Dragon turned Demon Dragon!
There was no way he could fail with all these on his side. That said, Edmond wasn’t going to rush anything. For the sake of perfect success, human bone towers were still being built throughout the Rainforest, even now, to serve as catalysts for the ritual. They would create streams of blood with the ability to bind souls that would flow through the whole forest.
‘Theoretically, I’ll even be able to absorb the power of the World Tree and make it my own,’ Edmond thought greedily.
If Eward’s ritual had succeeded, he could have become a Demon King, but it still would have been pretty close. For Eward to actually become a Demon King, it would have required the best-case scenario.
Once this ritual was successful, Edmond would be reborn as a being even greater than a Demon King. He would obtain the power of a true greater Demon King, not one of the lower-ranking Demon Kings.
Edmond would abandon his existence as a weak, mediocre, and grossly overpopulated human being and become a greater Demon King, one that was completely in tune with its nature.
He had no regrets about leaving behind his life as a human. Should he be reborn as a greater Demon King or remain a human? Was there even a need to consider the question? Edmond was confident in his success, and he had the ability to make it happen.
“If it’s me, then I can surely do it,” Edmond muttered with a self-assured smile.
This was a declaration of his confidence. Hector quietly followed behind Edmond, keeping his head bowed.
‘This will change everything,’ Hector silently thought to himself.
He would no longer be forced to live the life of a collateral bloodline whose abilities would never receive the full recognition they deserved.
Hector had never been one to rest on his laurels, but he hadn’t had the ability needed to overturn the Lionhearts, an immense and prestigious clan of warriors, so he had restrained himself. Even though he was praised as the best among all the collateral bloodlines, his heart had always felt empty. No matter how much acknowledgment he received, Hector felt that, in the end, he was just a member of a collateral bloodline. Someone who would never be in a position to learn the White Flame Formula that their great ancestor had passed down.
While he was wandering around with this aching hole in his heart, Hector was contacted by Edmond. Edmond had recognized Hector’s ability and had shown him a future that he would never be able to achieve by himself.
Edmond told Hector that if he couldn’t receive the recognition he craved from his clan, he should just abandon them. Instead of the Lionhearts of the continent, Hector could proudly erect a new Lionheart clan in Helmuth. The history of the Lionheart clan, which was over three hundred years old, would become insignificant tales in the era of the new Demon King.
Even as these two were dreaming up pictures of their future, full of confidence, battles were taking place all throughout the forest.
Warriors of the Kochilla Tribe, who were wearing masks made from human skin, were raiding the lesser tribes. Whenever these raiding parties had too many hostages to bring back to the tribe, they reduced the number of their prisoners with impromptu massacres. These warriors followed the practices that Edmond had thoroughly trained in them.
They would cut the hostages’ chests open with black magic daggers that they had been given and pull out the hearts while their victims were still alive. Then, without needing anyone to draw the blood, the dagger would guide the blood from the sacrifices and use the harvested blood as another cog of the ritual.
The blood would seep down into the soil. Gathering deep underground, the blood would start flowing like an underground water vein.
After that, the warriors would chop up the corpses whose souls had been stripped from them, dig out the bones, and use them to build a tower….
“As I thought,” a man muttered as he crouched down on a site where such a massacre had taken place.
In a village that was overflowing with blood, the man wearing a hooded robe stood up. He approached the tall human bone tower that had been erected at the center of the village and examined it while rubbing his chin.
“I’ve got a good idea of how you reinterpreted the spell. Edmond, as your friend, I can’t help but admire your sense of magic,” the man distractedly complimented.
It was Balzac Ludbeth. He knew what the purpose of these human bone towers was. These towers weren’t just totems that the natives from the Kochilla Tribe had constructed out of cruelty. These human bone towers would connect to the rivers of blood flowing underground and guide them to flow in the right direction.
“This is a spell that I would never dare to think of, let alone actually attempt,” Balzac admitted to himself with a wry smile.
Although they might be called by the shared title of the Three Mages of Incarceration, it was Edmond Codreth who possessed the greatest ability as a wizard.
That was why Edmond had been named the Staff of Incarceration and had been bestowed with Vladmir.
Balzac was aware that he fell far short of Edmond as a wizard. He had managed to reconfirm that just now. In the first place, as a black wizard, Balzac Ludbeth didn’t have any particular advantage or strength when compared to Amelia and Edmond.
Nevertheless, the Demon King of Incarceration had still signed a contract with Balzac. In other words, Balzac had to have a talent that was worthy of catching the great Demon King’s eyes.
Balzac himself was well aware of what this talent was. He had been aware of it for a long time now, from back when he was still a member of the Blue Tower of Magic.
Balzac Ludbeth was good at deception.
