“I used to be human in my original world.”
“Right now you’re a demon, aren’t you? Which makes you an enemy character. Which means you can be killed.”
So that’s where they land. Of course it is.
Demons are an evil race — targets to be exterminated by everyone else.
That’s not just how the people of this world think. The reincarnates from my world think the same way.
“Then I guess we’re enemies.”
“Yeah, we are. This game levels you up when you defeat enemies, right? So sorry, but you’re going to be our experience points.”
“Sorry — you don’t feel bad about this at all.”
“What do you want from me? Do you stop and reflect every time you kill a random mob?”
I’m not going to blame them for treating this like a game.
Because I’ve been doing the same thing — treating the people who entered this dungeon as nothing more than fuel for the mana counter. Having them killed. Killed by things I made.
So I have no right to say anything to them.
They kill demons for experience points. I kill non-demons for dungeon mana.
That’s all it was.
If I could have had any choice in the matter, I wouldn’t have wanted to fight people who came from the same world as me…
But that’s sentimentality. And isn’t it a kind of discrimination against the people actually from this world?
Standing here, I finally realize there’s no avoiding this decision anymore.
I don’t want to be killed. So I have to kill.
No more looking away. For the sake of my own selfishness, I’m going to take lives — many of them.
I used to be human — what a pathetic, clinging thing to say. What I’m doing now is exactly what a demon does.
“Stop.”
The man extended his hand toward me, and my body locked up.
That must be the skill the goddess gave him.
…Mine doesn’t look nearly as obviously powerful as that.
“Can’t move, can you. Perfect — I’ll take my time with you before I finish it. Oh, and you can still move your mouth, so go ahead and scream all you want.”
Nasty personality. But as it turns out — that might mean I can handle this without Primila’s help.
“Create Wall.”
If I can speak, I can use the skill.
One wall to seal the entrance. One wall between us and the intruders.
Two walls created — and my body was mine again.
Maybe the skill only works on targets in direct line of sight. Or maybe separating us with a wall registers as a different area.
In games, leaving a room sometimes resets status effects. Same logic, maybe.
Doesn’t matter why.
I put distance between us and the intruders.
“The hell? What is this. Annoying.”
“Just break it already.”
The confusion from the other side of the wall comes through clearly.
They’re not as strong as those beast-kin were, but there’s no telling what skills the others might have gotten from the goddess.
The walls might get broken down before I know it, so I moved quickly and fell back.
◇
“Is it done yet~?”
“Shut up. Help, would you.”
“No thanks. I’m not wasting mana on this. You’re the one without mana costs, you break it.”
“Fine. Then stay quiet and watch.”
That demon mob turned out to be more of a nuisance than expected.
Right — weak, but specialized in obstruction and running away. That type.
Annoying. Should have frozen them the moment they opened their mouth instead of getting sucked into that pointless conversation.
The stop skill only works on living things, so it’s useless on that wall.
And using it on a wall that isn’t moving in the first place would be pointless anyway.
Leaving it to the physical enhancement user — he’s managed to crack it after repeated hits, but that’s about all.
It’s hard. And apparently it auto-repairs if he stops attacking, which makes it even more tedious.
“Annoying. Annoying, annoying!!”
He’d noticed the repair mechanic too, and was pushing himself to keep the hits coming without a break.
This is ridiculous. A high-damage area skill would have solved this in one hit — the goddess has no sense.
Not that it’d change anything. The explosion user over there is saving her mana. A skill that flashy probably burns through it fast, so she’d sit on it for a wall the same way she’s doing now.
“There!”
Finally broke through.
A hole big enough to pass through — so they moved through it immediately and pushed forward into the dungeon.
Leave it alone long enough and the hole would seal again.
“Ha… ha…”
“Nice work~, you look rough.”
“You guys… really didn’t help at all…”
The exhausted wall-breaker got yelled at hysterically by the explosion user — not his problem.
Honestly, if she’d been caught in the rockfall too, he’d be spared the noise.
“Anyway, let’s move. Into this room.”
He opened the door.
It was packed wall to wall with monsters.
…What is this. There’s no way this many monsters are supposed to be in the first room.
A monster house? Setting up something like this right off the bat — the Demon Lord has a nasty sense of humor.
“Explosion!!”
Apparently terrified by the monsters all rushing at once, she’s already burning through the mana she was supposed to be saving.
This woman — using that in an enclosed space like this, it’ll hit him too.
And there are too many monsters even for the explosion skill.
“Explosion! Explosion! No! Stay back! No!!“
Yeah, it’s over.
The damage is real and the range is decent.
But not enough for this many targets. And she’s keeping them away from herself, which means there’s a safe zone right next to her — which is exactly where everything is clustering.
“It hurts! Stop! I’m sorry!”
So the explosion user ends here too.
Whatever. Leave her. She turned out to be less useful than expected, and dead weight isn’t needed.
He watched the girl die, then used the stop skill to freeze every monster in the room.
…Should he kill them? No — too much trouble. Move on.
Level grinding can wait for when he feels like it.
As long as he has this skill, no monster can stop him.
“That said, I’m going to kill that pathetic little demon. Absolutely.”
He walked out of the room at his leisure. Another corridor stretched ahead — longer this time, with no door visible yet.
A boulder rolling down here would definitely finish him.
Dim and hard to see, but if he keeps his eyes on the ceiling, something that big would be easy to spot.
“Ugh, my neck… what a pain. Seriously.”
He doesn’t want to die, so he keeps looking up, but it’s genuinely annoying.
That coward demon definitely set these traps.
He’s going to find them, freeze them, and take his time.
He was thinking about that as he walked, and then something gave slightly under his foot. A faint sound from below.
What is this… a square stone? Like a pressure switch…
“AGHHH!!“
His left side is burning —
No. Stabbed. By who? Attacking from a hiding spot — cowardly.
…Huh, strange — so tired… he was burning hot a second ago, but now the cold is spreading…
Oh. A spear came out of the wall.
◇
“I’m back.”
“…I see. I shouldn’t have allowed this after all.”
Lady Fiona said it with a sad expression.
“I’m alright. I’m on your side.”
“Thank you. I suppose I’d become a demon long ago and just didn’t want to admit it…”
“Oh, really? I did think that was strange — wanting to talk things out with humans. But hey, better to figure it out now. That makes us real allies.”
Pilukaya’s right.
It seems I’m not going to find allies outside the demon side.
Then I’ll at least protect this place.
I’m weak. So the best thing I can do, as a demon, is make this dungeon impregnable.
Looking at the dungeon mana — slightly higher than before — I made my decision, again, properly this time.
I will live as a demon.