Ankoku Kishi Monogatari (WN)

「It's been a while, Lord Runfeld. Is there some sort of urgency that forced you, the aide of His Majesty, to come to this place?」

I greeted Runfeld as soon as I saw him.

Runfeld was the leader of the infamous four daemon lords, otherwise known as the Four Heavenly Kings.

In addition, he was also the leader of the Dark Knight Chivalric Order, the elite of the Demon King army. Their job was mainly protecting Nargol. That's why I was curious about his reason for leaving Nargol.

「Nice to meet you too, Your Excellency. The truth is that we've been entrusted with the management of the labyrinth, which is why I came to this place in person.」

Runfeld explained his reason to me.

Properly speaking, the management of this labyrinth should be given to the dwarves, the direct subordinates of Heibos. But, after much consideration, they realized that there's a high chance that Labrys might come back to reclaim this place.

Heibos, who felt that it was practically impossible to protect the labyrinth just by relying on the dwarves alone, then came to ask for Modes' help. He literally gave a slap on Elios’ god's right on their faces.

Thus, it was then decided that the management of the labyrinth would be entrusted to Modes' subordinates instead of the dwarves.

Upon taking a closer look, I also saw the figure of dwarves around this place. They might have come to investigate the labyrinth under the orders of Heibos.

「I see. Does that mean Lord Runfeld is going to manage this region?」

「No. My duty is protecting His Majesty. Another person will be dispatched later to manage this labyrinth… The problem is that we haven’t been able to find a suitable candidate for that.」

I agreed with Runfeld.

Maybe only someone on Four Heavenly Kings’ level has the permission to manage this labyrinth, or at least someone from the archdemons. But, dispatching someone ranked higher than a greater daemon in this land was literally a demotion in their eyes, no matter how important the position.

It seems that not just anyone could fit in this position.

Though the figure of Zeal who loves women comes to mind, I don't think he was suited for this kind of job.

But, since they couldn't choose the manager, Runfeld ended up having to visit this place for a preliminary investigation.

Honestly, I couldn't help but admire him for doing that.

Runfeld was truly an honest and serious man. Despite his initial hostility, I have a good impression of him.

I knew that he might not want to bow his head to me, a human. But, he cast away his pride and bowed his head to me. He even visited me in person, asking me to train him in swordsmanship.

Maybe he still has his regrets in the fact that he failed to stop the advancement of the hero.

He literally begged me to train him to become stronger, casting away all his pride as an archdaemon.

But, I've got no talent in teaching someone.

As a result, it ended up with him just following my regime of training. Nevertheless, Runfeld still thanked me for that.

「I see, there's no candidate huh… that's a problem indeed. By the way, why did you call for me, Lord Runfeld?」

I stopped beating around the bush and went straight to ask the main question. Why did he call me to this place even though he didn't need my help to enter the labyrinth?

「That's, actually, we can't enter the labyrinth since Your Excellency's dragon is blocking the way.」

I ended up muttering 「Aa~h」 upon hearing Runfeld's remark.

In the plaza where Glorious currently lives, there's a building that leads to the underground.

Though they could go from the side to avoid Glorious, Runfeld and co seem to be afraid of Glorious.

Though Glorious seems to show affection and is always docile towards me or anyone who got my recognition, it seems they're truly ferocious towards anyone beside those.

I failed to notice that since I never saw them act like that in front of me.

「My apologies for the trouble. Lord Runfeld.」

I apologized to Runfeld since it was true that they couldn't enter the labyrinth because of Glorious.

「No. I'm the one who should be apologizing for disturbing your paid vacation with this matter, Your Excellency.」

Though Runfeld bowed his head, the one at fault in this case was me.

I moved Glorious to the side in order to allow Runfeld and co to pass.

「Thank you, your excellency.」

After saying his gratitudes, Runfeld and his subordinates entered the labyrinth.

「By the way, Your Excellency, do you happen to know the current whereabouts of Lord Ulbard?」

After making sure that all of his subordinates had entered the labyrinth, Runfeld asked that question to me.

「Lord Ulbard? No, I don't know where he is right now. Why do you ask that?」

I tilted my head in confusion.

「That's because I happened to hear that Lord Ulbard is coming to this region too, that's why I want to help him. But, it seems that he's out of contact right now. I thought that he would visit Your Excellency who came to this region before us.」

「I see.」

This might be related to that lesser daemon Zeal.

Ulbard might be looking for Zeal right now. It seems telling Zeal to run away was a mistake.

I guess I'm also responsible for this incident.

「In that case, how about I help you go look for him?」

Runfeld made a strange look on his face upon hearing my remark.

「Are you sure, Your Excellency?」

「Yeah, I won't say that I'm gonna find him for sure though. In addition, there's something that I've been worrying about.」

Then, I told Runfeld about that Zand.

「I see that the God of Sleep has come to this region, huh… I guess I need to increase my vigilance in the area around the labyrinth.」

Runfeld seems to know about Zand. He nodded upon hearing my story.

「Yes. Better safe than sorry. AAH THAT'S RIGHT!! Speaking of vigilance, I almost forgot about this piece of information, Lord Runfeld. The hero and co are staying in this region right now. They might not come into the labyrinth but, just in case, don't let your guard down.」

Runfeld's body twitched for a moment when I told him about the hero and co.

「Lord Runfeld?」

「It's okay, Your Excellency. I'm stronger than before. This time, I won't suffer such an embarrassing defeat again.」

Runfeld spoke while touching the sword on his waist.

That sword was the thunder sword which was prepared by Runfeld to defeat Reiji. It was a demon sword with a thunder element which would call thundercloud and lightning when unsheathed from its sheath.

The reason I knew its power was because I was the one who personally enchanted that sword.

Somehow, I felt that there was something wrong with Runfeld's expression just now.

It seems that Lord Runfeld has always been waiting for a rematch against Reiji. But, due to his position as the protector of the demon king, he literally couldn't leave Nargol.

If he wished for a rematch, Reiji had to come to Nargol again.

But now he knew that Reiji happened to be in Ariadya, he might've realized that he could have a rematch against Reiji and co just by visiting Ariadya.

Come to think of it, he did bring so many subordinates along with him.

Did that mean he was going to entrust Reiji's comrades to his subordinates while Runfeld himself would fight Reiji?

He received no such order to fight Reiji and co, but he might jump the gun with just a small trigger.

An uncomfortable silence between Runfeld and me persisted for a while.

And then, I decided to break the ice.

I mean, it really can't be helped. I should go back to Kuna for now.

「I see, I guess I can only look forward to that, Lord Runfeld. But please don't act recklessly.」

I left the labyrinth after leaving behind those words while feeling a pang of anxiety in my mind.

===

◆Black Haired Sage; Chiyuki

「I was the only one who got exposed.」

Lord Decius said so after he transformed back to human from being a dog after we exterminated the ghouls masquerading as Cornes.

It seems he was really depressed since we not only saw him turned into a dog, we also saw him buck naked after he transformed back into a human.

「Calm down Decius-san. You're so adorable(in your dog form) you know.」

「Yes. You're so adorable you know(in your dog form).」

Both Rino and Nao were trying to cheer him up.

And yet, it backfired instead, making Decius even more depressed than before.

「Decius-dono, that ghoul who cursed you is a powerful mage. It's only natural that you couldn’t block his curse.」

I joined them to cheer on Decius too.

In fact, I think that the magic used by the Ghoul Cornes was an especially powerful one. Decius, who has divine protection, should've been blessed with powerful magic resistance too. That Ghoul Cornes was definitely a special one since not even Decius could resist the former's curse.

He was definitely the species that transcended ghoul and ghoula, the ghoulrest. Whoops, my mind seems to be out of focus.

「Well, that aside. We failed to completely exterminate them.」

Reiji was looking at the corpses of ghouls.

「Yeah. We should've left one alive to give us more information.」

It was as Nao just said.

In the middle of the battle, we found a few childrens who got captured as the ghoul's food.

The moment we found those childrens, we were enraged to the point of exterminating all the ghouls without leaving a single of them alive.

We forgot to leave one of them alive to give us more information in the midst of our rage.

Thus, a question appeared in my mind.

The people in this mansion, all of them were ghouls. Then, who's the man who delivered the bouquet of flowers to Reiji?

Reiji himself had told us that the man who gave him the bouquet was a normal human. What's the meaning of this?

But, I don't think we can get any useful information even if we revived those ghouls.

「U~rgh, there must be a survivor. Nao-chan. Can you find the presence of a hidden ghoul in this mansion?」

Nao shook her head upon hearing Rino's question.

「U~gh, There's none left, but it seems this mansion has a basement. Even my power can't see through that basement.」

「Basement?」

「Yesh, Chiyuki-san. There's a basement-like room beneath this mansion. That place is the only place where I can't feel. It might be protected with some sort of barrier.」

In short, this mansion has a secret room, the basement which was protected by a second barrier.

「Let's go to see it. Who knows what we might find inside that place.」

Rino made a displeased face upon hearing my remark.

「Basement, huh. Count me out then. I don't want to enter a place filled with human bones.」

「It's okay Rino-san. Just like hyenas, ghouls can also eat bone. In short, there won't be any human bones left after those ghouls ate them.」

Hyena could even eat the bones that couldn't be eaten by the other animals. The same goes for ghouls. And that's one of the reasons why it was so difficult to find a ghoul since there was nothing left of their prey.

「So no one noticed that someone was missing. Yuck.」

Nao spoke with a gloomy face.

It seems this scene reminded her of unpleasant memories.

Nao's past was a mystery even for us, nor did she ever tell us about it.

That's why I also had no idea about what she experienced in the past.

「Don't worry, Nao. Even if you're gone, I'll definitely notice it and look for you even to the ends of the earth.」 [TL : Cough, Rox-kingdom-cough.]

That dic*khead exclaimed so while patting Nao's head.

「Reiji-senpai…」

Nao's expression turned brighter when that dic*khead patted her head.

「In the end, we can't even find a trace of the woman called moonlight goddess. But, those ghouls seemed to know about her.」

The dic*khead said so as if trying to change the topic of our conversation.

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