Chapter 250: Episode 250

Three years ago.

The Ashen Catastrophe.

People walked through a wasteland of cinders. In this dungeon, ash drifted through the sky. The ground was unrecognizable, either burned pitch-black or covered in objects that had been charred and warped beyond recognition.

—This is C-1. We are searching for the escaped demon. No contact yet.

The man leading them was Albert, the Sky Castle Lord. He lifted his communicator to his mouth.

—“This is A-1. Continue the search.”

—“Roger.”

As Albert tucked the communicator back into his coat, a rustling sound came from beside him.

—“Lord! Take a look at this! Hnngh!”

Stefan, the vice-captain of the Sky Castle, pulled something from the debris with a grunt. It was a piece of wooden furniture.

—“A huge discovery! An amazing find! Anyone can see this is a chair, right? For a person to sit on!”

—“…So it would seem.”

—“I’ve never heard of monsters sitting in chairs and drinking tea! This has to be…!”

Stefan grinned and slapped his palm open.

—“Proof that humans once lived in this dungeon!”

Albert let out a long sigh.

—“Stop talking nonsense and keep searching.”

—“No, my lord! Don’t you think this is strange?” Stefan insisted, his excitement mounting. “Even the relics we find in dungeons—swords, shields—are things people use! I’m telling you, humans must have lived here!”

—“Perhaps they did, perhaps they did not.”

—“Ugh, what a dull reaction! This could be the greatest discovery in the universe, you know. Don’t come begging me to put your name on the paper when I publish it later!”

—“Do as you please.”

Still wearing a playful grin, Stefan tossed the chair aside and followed Albert.

—“Still, those demon bastards are really persistent. I didn’t think they’d actually run into a dungeon.”

—“They were already injured. They won’t have gotten far.”

—“Exactly.”

The Sky Castle had split into two teams to search the dungeon. One team was searching for the boss monster as usual, while the other—Albert’s team—was here to hunt down the demons who had slipped inside.

Albert didn’t merely hate demons; he loathed them. These disgusting creatures, wearing human skin, sowed division among humanity and accelerated the Catastrophe. In truth, they were a greater threat than the Catastrophe itself, the very embodiment of evil.

He believed that wiping out the demons was the only way to escape humanity’s impending doom.

This time was no different. The demons had even killed several Sky Castle guild members during their retreat, and Albert’s rage had reached its peak.

He had declared that he would not leave the dungeon until he found and killed them.

—“This building looks suspicious,” Stefan said, halting.

It was a structure that looked as if it were formed from ash, piled high like a sandcastle. It towered dozens of stories high, with other buildings fused to its sides like barnacles.

—“Shall we go in?”

Albert nodded. Stefan plucked a feather from his Icarus and flicked it.

The feather slammed into the center of the wall with a sharp thwack, and a neat, rectangular section of the wall collapsed inward.

—“Your control has improved, Stefan.”

“Heh heh! It’s all thanks to your teaching, my lord. After you.”

The two men stepped into the building.

The interior was pitch-black and cavernous. Everything inside had turned to ash, which lay in thick drifts on the floor. Faint crackling sounds echoed from above, as if small, rat-like monsters were scurrying across the ceiling.

“Hmm, it’s quiet. I have a bad feeling we came up empty,” Stefan muttered.

Albert stopped and slowly brushed his hand across the floor.

“There are footprints in the ash. Judging by the gait and the depth of the prints, whoever it was wore shoes. Someone other than us came in here.”

“What? What do you—”

SHNK!

Stefan’s body suddenly crumpled. A barbed tendril had shot up through the floor and impaled his chest.

“Vice-captain!”

The ceiling bulged and writhed as more barbed tendrils burst forth, and a huge eye opened in their center.

“The one who will die is you, human!”

From the walls, the stairs, and every surface, demons disguised as part of the structure revealed their monstrous forms one by one.

They were surrounded in an instant, but Albert didn’t panic. He only burned with fury at Stefan’s injury.

“You irredeemable, revolting trash.”

His spread wings drew in an enormous amount of mana as if they were magnets.

“Disappear.”

His wings then swept outward, and the feathers took flight.

Blood sprayed as the demons shrieked. A feather flew to every demon, and every demon was struck.

It took 1.8 seconds to eliminate every demon in the area.

Demons with severed limbs writhed in agony and howled.

“We curse you, Lord of the Sky Castle!”

“You will die in torment!”

“Humanity must be annihilated!”

As the demons, driven mad by the approach of death, hurled their curses, a tremendous shock rocked the structure. The building began to crumble into powder.

RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE!

As the mountain of ash collapsed, the Sky Castle Lord flew out calmly, cradling Stefan’s impaled body.

He flew several hundred yards before laying Stefan on the ground.

“Are you all right?”

“Cough! my l-lord…!”

Stefan’s arm trembled violently. Every time he coughed, he vomited a gush of blood. Shaken, Albert pulled him into his arms.

“Don’t speak.”

“My lord! I…!”

At that moment, Albert’s eyes went cold. He shot one arm back. A metallic tail that had been flying toward the back of his head was caught in his hand with a sharp snap.

“I knew you were a demon from the very beginning.”

With his other hand, the Sky Castle Lord grabbed Stefan’s neck and, without a shred of hesitation, squeezed. The fragile human neck flattened like clay.

“My lord! My loooord!”

Even with his neck crushed, the voice still echoed. The Sky Castle Lord stepped back as the headless body rose like a zombie.

CRACK-CRACK! SNAP!

A grotesque grinding filled the air as bone and flesh meshed together in all the wrong ways.

His skin was swallowed by bright red muscle, his neat teeth became jagged triangles, and five tongues spilled from his maw, dragging along the floor.

A monster of horrifying appearance stood before Albert.

“To kill you, I…!”

And then it was sent flying.

A single feather lodged in the center of its chest blasted it away, smashing through dozens of buildings and hurling its body several miles. With every obstacle it hit, its body burst and tore apart, until finally—

BOOOOM!

—it slammed into a massive silver structure and came to a stop. Its limbs had been blown off, and only a third of its torso remained.

“I was waiting to see when you would finally show your true colors.”

Albert appeared in a gale of wind, his wings spread wide.

“Y-You… you… you monster…!”

“And you call me a monster, looking like that?”

Albert grabbed all five of Stefan’s tongues and wrapped them in his fist. With his other hand, he seized the creature’s face.

“Farewell, Vice-captain.”

He tightened his grip on the tongues and yanked. With a sickening rip of torn flesh, blood sprayed in all directions.

“Guhh! Grrrk!”

The body convulsed and then went limp. Wearing a blank expression, Albert lifted his communicator.

“This is A-1. I have eliminated the demons who escaped.”

—“This is D-1! The boss search is also going smoothly! We’ve discovered the boss monster’s lair.”

“Continue the search.”

After finishing his report, Albert stared silently at Stefan’s corpse.

He gazed down in silence.

He stood there wordlessly for a long while, then lifted his head to look at the silver structure the demon had crashed into.

In this dungeon where everything else had turned to ash, it was the only facility that still retained a recognizable shape.

He slowly ran his hand along the wall. It was solid, a mineral he had never seen on Earth.

’If we could process a mineral like this, humanity’s technology and military power could leap forward.’

Entertaining the idle thought, Albert stepped into the facility.

Unlike the rest of the dungeon, the interior here was completely intact. The machines and equipment were all still in place. There were even robots.

What drew his gaze most, however, was a half-destroyed computer terminal.

Its condition was a mess, but there were signs that someone had started repairing it before stopping. In front of the computer sat a skull that looked ancient.

Albert slowly approached. A current was still humming through the machine; it was powered on.

As he drew near, a mechanical arm connected to the computer extended toward him, as if inviting him to place his hand on it.

’Proof that “humans” once lived in this dungeon!’

He didn’t know what impulse moved him, but Albert placed his hand on the pad.

His eyes widened.

An indescribably vast amount of data began pouring into his mind.

’This is…!’

Albert shuddered. The information exploding like fireworks in his head was the complete memory of “Eve.”

He was completely captivated by the story of a world that had already perished.

He understood.

He understood what she had tried to do, what kind of world she had tried to create.

And he was awed.

Awed by her resolve, and by the utopia she had built.

Instead of directly culling the population to control the factors influencing the Catastrophe, she had imprisoned humanity and created androids to serve as their guardians.

The realm she built was invincible, flawless.

While humanity was kept under control in a place called the Polis, plants flourished across the world. Beautiful flowers and trees bloomed, and animals formed new ecosystems.

Albert was deeply moved by this world brimming with life. How could anyone look at it and not call it beautiful?

Yet even Eve had a flaw.

She loved humans too much.

Even as she killed and confined them, she suffered terribly from the knowledge that she was betraying her mission.

In the end, she fell to a human rebellion. When Albert saw the memory of her body being consumed by flames, he grieved.

It was a shame. It was heartbreaking.

And it made him angry.

“Freedom.”

For nothing more than the desire to be free, an entire world had been destroyed.

Pathetic.

How utterly pathetic.

Freedom is the parent of sloth.

And what was the final state of humanity, once freed from labor and having reached the end of freedom?

They had degenerated into beasts—lazy, powerless, and surrendered to base, meaningless pleasures.

It was just like looking at Earth.

Now, Earth had to change as well. Someone had to take on Eve’s role.

Otherwise, annihilation would be unavoidable.

Albert felt his own values twisting out of shape. The belief that eradicating demons would bring about a better future—he now saw how narrow-minded that thought had been.

He stood rooted to the spot as if nailed there.

He didn’t know if hours had passed, or days, or years.

And then…

…he made up his mind.

* * *

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