Chapter 159 - Volume 8 (1/2)

Volume 8, Chapter 17: The Hero’s Secret Arts, Part 4

“Princess, we’re going over the walls.”

“Why? Is the castle gate locked?”

I tilted my head slightly at Onzada-kun’s remarks.

The huge 6-wide-by-10-metre-tall castle gate loomed in front of me.

With a gate this size, was it being secured by a latch instead of a lock? The gate was a tarnished-copper green, looking as if it hadn’t been touched in hundreds of years.

“No, it’s because if we wanted to enter, we could use the service entrance beside the gate.”

“What……”

Did we have some sort of inside man? Now that I think about it, I completely forgot about him mentioning that he had found the secret arts within.

……… I don’t think even I could blow it open if I didn’t have the key.

“It’ll be troublesome if we got spotted by a soldier. If you intend to murder them all, it’s fine, but Milady is not going to, right?”

“Well, yes.”

It seems that Onzada-kun understood that part after all.

I don’t really care about their lives at all since we’re all demons, but meaningless slaughter was something that even demons didn’t do.

After all, as far as spirits or demons were concerned, human and animal lives were no different.

…… Well, they tasted different, though.

Because only Gods and humans, in their selfishness, would discriminate against the value of lives and force others to discriminate.

Well, that was a lot of pretentious talk, but in short, I didn’t really [care one way or the other] about them.

Having said that, if I was going to eat, I wasn’t going just go out and actively slaughter them when these ordinary people weren’t as tasty.

I didn’t do stupid things like kill things just to waste them in vain.

I perk up. That’s it, Onzada-kun!

“………eh?”

“…………eh?”

“fufufufu, the two of you sure are young aren’t you?”

…… Apparently Onzada-kun seemed to be a bit more “human-friendly” than I was.

While taking a little bit of mental damage from this discovery, we vaulted over the castle gate and snuck into the old castle.

I tried to jump over by myself, but Onzada-kun held me in a princess-carry.

Then again, I’ve been held like that ever since I was young by plenty of people regardless of age or gender, so there’s really no feeling of freshness anymore. …… It’s just that I feel a tiny twinge of nostalgia for sitting on father’s knee.

As Geas opened the door leading in from the castle courtyard, the air smelled faintly of dust and mold.

“There are footprints.”

“The royal families of the dark elves and the beastmen entered. It seemed as if they were looking for something left behind by the king of the demons in order to take the throne.”

“I ate them.”

You ate them?

Well, it’s not as if I cared about such things in the first place, so I strode into the depths of the castle, following the footprints.

Although it was dark in here, it had no relation at all to the darkness of demons that were born in the abyss. That is…… except for me.

“Achoo!”

“…… Milady is glamorous as always.”

There were no more kind words as I ran face-first into a massive wall as we turned the corner.

Even though it was dark, I stupidly didn’t slow my pace at all, and while it certainly left no lasting damage, it hurt a bit?

“Does milady have no night vision?”

“……Why do the two of you have it?”

It that it? Is it because I’m awkward?

“…… Haah. I’m almost at the time limit, so I’ll guide you.”

“……?”

And with an almost comical pomf, Onzada-kun turned back into a rabbit stuffed-toy.

It seems like we’d hit the time limit for his humanization.

[…………]

Onzada-kun, who was glowing faintly in the dark, beckoned me forward and led me, lighting up the footprints to show me the way.

[Laplace.] The rabbit that led Alice into wonderland.

Some of his spec was exactly as I had “set” them, but I’m glad that Onzada-kun’s kindness let him do more than just that.

“……Here is?”

As I headed down to the basement, I could make out something that looked like an altar that faintly glowed.

“Yes, it was here that Lady Nefi and Rimi learned the [Original Secret Art]. In order to activate it, the blood of the royal family which has the bloodline of the Hero is necessary, and we left behind some of the royals’ blood that we used previously just in case.”

“Blood……?”

Geas presented me with a perfume bottle filled with a jet-black liquid.

…… It’s not rotten, right?

I was confident that if I opened the lid and smelled something foul, I would throw up, so I started examining the altar first.

There were some ancient etchings, but the contents of these weren’t much different from what Geas had said.

But, just how was the blood of the hero drawn out? How as this eligibility being determined? Was it some sort of mechanism to read genetic information?

It might be possible to read an individual’s magical wavelength, but as far as blood was concerned, it was impossible since magical wavelengths differed from parent to child.

Could this possibly be…… some sort of attribute?

“……hmmm”

Gathering a bit of energy, I made a small scratch on my left finger with my [Crimson Claw] on my right index finger.

“………Ow.”

I think it was my imagination that Onzada-kun had a slightly disappointed look on his face even though he was a stuffed toy.

“Oh, and Lady Nefi and Rimi said that you could use their blood……”

You should have told me that in the first place. No, wait, I can’t do that to little children. If this wasn’t enough, I was going to use the rotten blood.

I knelt down slowly and rubbed a little of my blood-stained fingers on the letters of the altar.

“Ooohhh”

As Geas exclaimed out, the altar activated, and the etchings began to shine.