C180
At first, I thought there was an earthquake.
The skies and the earth shook so much that it was difficult to even stand properly.
However, after a while, I realized the situation when I saw the wall around the fortress emerging from the ground.
The cause of this vibration was not a natural disaster like an earthquake, but a change in the building.
Soon, the wall, which was at most a little higher than a grown man's height, grew tall enough to block out the sky, and the main gate closed tightly.
Plank! Plank! Plank!
The dull sound of monsters banging against the wall and the front door repeated as they tried to enter the building, but it was a futile attempt.
The monsters that could fly tried to climb over the wall and enter here.
"Creeeek!"
However, they fell to the ground one by one with a booming sound blasting their eardrums.
Something bright was fired from a turret located on the outskirts of the fortress, taking down monsters one after another.
The turret, which clearly had no operator or functioning cannon left, moved on its own.
—Ethel! What did you do?!
Liena turned to look at me.
I looked at the staff that the statue was holding with a puzzled expression.
Now that I think about it, I learned about Duke Cassius when I borrowed that bead.
It is said that the first head of Cassius left a testament saying that he would protect Cassius.
"Did he want to protect them this way?"
Perhaps the first head of the family left the bead behind considering the possibility of his descendants escaping from the human land and returning here.
Well, for me, it was fine.
The important thing was that there would be no more monster reinforcements.
In that case, the only enemy we have to deal with now are the monsters that were inside this building from the beginning.
While I lived here, the number of monsters I counted was approximately forty.
Even if there were a few more, Lucy could handle them alone.
"Is that the cause?"
At that moment, Liena, with a fierce expression on her face, ran towards the statue.
It seemed like she was planning to remove the bead from the staff, so I blocked her path.
—Step back.
When I took a stance to be able to unleash divine power at any moment, Liena hesitated and stepped back.
"Ethel, snap out of it! I'm trying to save you from that man!"
"Are you saying that again? You always try to harm Terence for my own good."
"It's different this time! You've really been brainwashed!"
"That's your mistake. I haven't been brainwashed."
"Then tell me why you think you're not the real Ethel!"
"Well. I can tell now..."
As I tried to respond to Liena's words without thinking, I caught something strange.
Just a moment ago, Camellia, who was behind her, was not visible.
As soon as I recognized that fact, I wrapped my arms around the statue's staff and unleashed my divine power all at once.
"Kaaaak!"
First came a painful scream, followed by the appearance of a giant lizard charred black.
It seemed that Camellia was using her abilities to hide and secretly touch the bead.
"You used your brain, Liena."
She had been talking to me from the beginning, and while distracting me, her intention was to achieve her goal through Camellia.
To be honest, Liena's story bothered me.
Who am I? How credible are Liena's words that I am the real Ethel?
But unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to think about that issue right now.
"Yes, Ethel. Right now you're resentful towards me. But then you'll understand me too."
Liena soon looked down and gave orders to the monsters.
"Hey! Open the main gate! Even if they can't get in from the outside, they can probably open it from the inside!"
It was a reasonable judgment.
The fortress was meant to protect allies from external enemies, not confine them inside.
There was a high probability that the main gate could be opened from the inside.
But unfortunately for Liena, Lucy, with her back to the main gate, was raining fire on the monsters approaching.
The monsters around alone were not enough to defeat Lucy.
When things didn't go as expected, Liena bit her lip and then looked at me.
"...I'm sorry."
It was an unexpected apology.
"I didn't want to do this because I thought of you, but there's nothing I can do. If possible, don't look at what's happening down there."
The next moment, Liena shouted to Shadow, who was still facing off against Terence.
"Shadow! You don't have to tolerate it anymore! Defeat him immediately and destroy the divine beast!"
I asked Liena.
"...Was he tolerating it?"
"That's right. I was afraid that if I killed him, the psychological impact would be severe, so I told him to spare his life if possible. But now that we've come to this, I can't take care of him anymore."
Liena ordered Shadow once again.
"Get rid of it! Shadow!"
She had an expression that seemed to have no doubts about her subordinate's victory.
However, as time passed, Liena's confident expression began to gradually fade.
"Why are you doing this?! You don't have to take care of him!"
Despite her orders, Shadow continued to engage in a fierce battle with Terence and showed no special change.
No, to be exact, there was a change.
Shadow's movements were getting slower and slower.
"W-Why... is he so slow...?"
Now it seemed like she could see it in her eyes too.
"I'm sorry for him."
I opened my mouth as I looked at Liena, who couldn't even guess the reason.
"In fact, Shadow wasn't taking care of him."
"What? What do you mean by that...?"
Then, a strange sound caught our attention.
"Kaaaagh!"
Terence managed to cut off Shadow's left arm with his sword.
Without wasting a moment, he dug into Shadow's left side and swung his sword without stopping.
It seemed like the intention was not to give Shadow time to regenerate his left arm.
"Ridiculous! He definitely hurt him before!"
Liena couldn't believe what she saw when she saw Terence, who didn't seem to be injured at all.
"It's thanks to someone's invention."
I smiled, thinking of the parrot that would be safely hidden somewhere at this moment, watching what was going on.
When Terence moved here through the warp door, he not only brought a sword.
His journey to rescue me would probably be long and arduous.
"You could say he almost destroyed my lab. Of course, he gave me a lot of money, but…"
He appeared with his luggage packed so timidly that such an expression came out of Kais's mouth.
For example, the clothes Terence was wearing might look like normal shirts and pants, but they were actually artifacts as durable as armor.
Also in his luggage was a potion that, when taken, would rapidly increase recovery for a while.
"I heard he drank that again while being attacked by Shadow."
It was nothing short of extraordinary.
Perhaps thanks to Terence's meticulous preparation, victory was now close at hand.
"Keeeeeegh!"
Shadow fought hard with only one remaining arm, but soon lost his right arm to Terence.
Terence, who had pushed Shadow against the wall, raised his sword to deliver the final blow.
"No!"
At the moment he swung his sword and cut Shadow in two, Liena let out a scream.
"This is ridiculous. That can't be possible. No matter how strong he is, he's just a mere human against Shadow…"
While Liena couldn't accept the reality, something started to come out of Shadow's body, which split in half.
It was a rope. A very long rope.
It was so long that it had no end despite coming out of Shadow again and again.
"That…"
Liena, watching the scene with wide eyes, immediately remembered the identity of the rope.
"The artifact you gave me back then?!"
With my silence, I let Liena know she wasn't wrong.
That rope was the object that once bound Herciso, and it was Kais's invention that Liena used on Shadow at my request in the annex.
However, unlike Herciso, my goal wasn't redemption.
"It must have been absorbed by Shadow, so how does it remain inside Shadow?"
I gave a brief answer to Liena's question.
"Because it was absorbed, it will remain."
"No, that's strange! Objects absorbed by Shadow decompose and turn into nutrients!"
"That was originally developed to capture monsters. Of course, it was developed with special materials so that monsters wouldn't easily disarm it."
"That still doesn't make sense. Is that what made Shadow strange? How did that happen?"
"Think for yourself. I don't think there's any reason to tell you that kindly."
"…….."
The principle was simple. That rope extends in length to fit the body of the capture target.
In other words, it meant it would increase until the capture target was clearly restricted.
Shadow absorbed the rope. So what about the rope that enters Shadow?
Because it's in contact with the capture target's body, its function doesn't stop halfway.
It simply increases. It uses the magical power stolen from Shadow, with which it is in contact, as power.
Even if it stretches, it can't contain Shadow, but it can make it feel uncomfortable.
If something inside you kept expanding, your activities would inevitably be hindered.
"It wouldn't have happened like this if Shadow had destroyed the rope in the first place."
However, this result was achieved because it absorbed it according to its usual habits.
"Alright then."
I kept an eye on Liena.
Indeed, Shadow was only incapacitated for a while and was not yet dead.
It had a persistent vitality befitting its nickname as the strongest monster.
I needed my divine power to completely finish off Shadow, so I had to descend.
Just for that reason, I was planning to quickly settle the matter with Liena.
"…Who was it? The one who woke me up."
My whole body went cold, and at the same time, I felt a huge amount of demonic energy behind me.
When I looked back, I thought my heart was dropping.
A bronze statue with cracks here and there was moving.
"I'll ask again. Who was it? The one who awakened Caius, the king of demons."
You mean it wasn't just a statue?
Furthermore, the terrifying demonic power transmitting through my skin triggered alarms in my head.
"It's dangerous. If it turns against us, we won't have any chance of winning."
Terence had almost exhausted all his strength dealing with Shadow, and Lucy wasn't in her best shape either.
Demons are a race that originally served the Evil God. If he were the king of demons, there was a good chance he would become my enemy.
"What do I have to do? What can I do now?"
Even after thinking hard, I found no suitable solution.
As I lost myself in my thoughts and the sky turned bright yellow, the king of demons spoke again.
"That's strange. One side brought Cassius's token, but has the power of Miella, and the other side seems to serve our god, but seems to have a hostile relationship with the person who brought the token."
He tilted his head and looked back and forth between Liena and me.
"Which of you is Cassius's descendant?"
At that moment, a guess crossed my mind.
"Could he be on my side if I said I'm Cassius's descendant?"
Without even having time to think deeply, I raised my hands and shouted loudly.
"I'm Ethel Cassius, the successor of Cassius!"
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