Chapter 117: Final Evaluation (7)

It was a boy with the face of someone barely ten years old, his small frame reaching no higher than my chest, with black hair and crimson eyes. However, those eyes gleamed with madness.

I asked, “You’re…”

With just a single step, he radiated a presence so overwhelming it seized the air itself. He didn’t need to announce who he was, as everyone here instinctively knew this boy was anything but ordinary.

The boy grinned innocently and reached out his hand to me. “Hehe! I’m Seto!”

The moment I heard his name, my face hardened. Seto, the Archbishop of Madness, was one of the six Archbishops, the pinnacle of tens of thousands of demons. Such a monster now stood right before me.

Professor Baldwin stepped forward, crossing her arms. “Everyone, get back!”

Hundreds of strands of silver thread shot from her fingertips. Unlike during the earlier trial, each thread glimmered with a faint violet aura. The threads twisted and wove together in midair like living serpents, all aiming for Seto.

Despite that, the boy smiled brightly and took a step forward. “Heh.”

The ground trembled violently, and blood-red spikes erupted upward, savagely slicing through every last strand of silver.

Seto narrowed his eyes at Professor Baldwin. “So, you’re the Cursed-Eye Spider, huh? Hmmm.”

With a casual flick of his fingers, thick crimson mist poured out from the blood-like slime that now coated the floor, wrapping around Professor Baldwin’s body.

She twisted desperately, but the bloody haze clung to her like a second skin. “Gghh!”

In the blink of an eye, Seto had neutralized her. He walked past her. “I’m not interested in you.”

He came straight toward me, eyes sparkling like stars as he leaned in. “I came here to see Dale.”

I did not reply, wondering, He came to see me? Why?

I had never once done anything that would entangle me with the Archbishop of Madness. Puzzling over how this could have happened, I shook my head. Now was not the time to dwell on the reason. Whatever the cause was, he was here, standing right in front of me.

Professor Baldwin’s urgent cry rang in my ears. “Urgh,

Dale! Run!”

I glanced back at her, who was still bound by the bloody mist, and bit down hard on my lip.

How could I run? This was the Archbishop of Madness. In sheer combat power, he ranked second among the six Archbishops. Even other Archbishops avoided crossing paths with him. He was a monster among monsters. Escaping from someone like that wouldn’t be easy. Besides, how could I?

I looked toward my party. Yurina, Iris, and Camilla were crushed beneath the oppressive aura pouring from Seto, barely able to breathe. Among them, Yurina seemed in the best shape, but even she couldn’t move properly.

“Ghh!”

“Ah!Ugh!”

“C-can’t… breathe.”

Albert was already out cold. Foaming at his mouth, he lay unconscious on the floor. Even if I could escape, there was no way I would abandon my comrades here. I clenched my fists and stared at the Archbishop of Madness.

I pictured a battle with him in my head, wondering if I could win. While I had never fought him in my past life, I had heard more than enough rumors. The Thunder God, Lionel Ryu, had died at his hands. Even with my rapid, recent growth, I wouldn’t stand a chance against the current third-ranked hero. And this demon had killed that very hero.

With Ignition, I could last for a while, but winning? That was impossible. If I could enter the Incarnation of Fire state like I had against Astaroth, I could crush him without a problem. But that was not something I could trigger at will. I didn’t even know how it had happened last time, so there was no way I could gamble my comrades’ lives on that chance.

I had to find a way out of this without fighting. Against any other Archbishop, the thought would be laughable. But this was the Archbishop of Madness, and he was unpredictable to anyone and everyone. Maybe, just maybe, there was a way to get through this without a fight.

I stepped in front of my party, blocking his view, and stared him down. “What business do you have with me?”

“Hehe, the reason I came to see you is…” Seto stuck out his tongue and slowly licked his lips. “I was just curious.”

“Curious?”

“Yup! Mephisto told me about you, and I got sooo curious! I just had to see what kind of human you were!”

I was speechless. He had invaded the Hero Academy’s trial grounds, all just because of curiosity? I frowned at the boy beaming back at me.

“But…” Seto tilted his head, peeking past me at my party, and sighed. “This is a little disappointing compared to what I expected.”

His face twisted into a cold, mocking smirk. “You’re just like all the others, huh?”

I felt a chill in the air.

He shook his head in mock disappointment. “Protecting your comrades. Saving people. Heroes are all the same, boring. Well, that’s why I’m actually looking forward to seeing your real face.”

“My real face?”

Seto’s crimson eyes gleamed as he broke into a wide grin. “Yeah. The face you show when you’re standing on the edge of a cliff.”

He exhaled, almost trembling with excitement, his voice brimming with twisted delight. “Humans, you see, no matter how nicely they wrap themselves up, when death is staring them in the eye, they can’t help but be honest.”

To Seto, humans were full of false justice, half-baked convictions, and pathetic morality. But in the face of death, all of it disappeared in that instant.

Seto’s gaze locked on me, his eyes glistening with madness. “And that’s the face I want to see from you, Dale. So, in that spirit, I’m proposing a little game!”

“A game?”

“Yep!”

He pulled something out from inside his coat. It was a small piece of metal, bent into the shape of an L.

I could recognize what it was. “A gun?”

“Oh, that’s right! You’re from the Republic, aren’t you? Hehe, then you know what a gun is.”

It was an old weapon once used in the Republic, but discarded because it was too troublesome to imbue bullets with mana.

He spoke with the giddy excitement of a child showing off a favorite toy. “This is called a revolver! See this round chamber here? You put bullets in it, pull the trigger, and bang, the bullet fires! Here, watch.”

Seto loaded a single bullet into the revolver, then slapped the cylinder with his palm, making it spin with a whirl.

“You load one bullet, spin it, and then…” He aimed at the wall and pulled the trigger. A faint metallic sound rang out, and nothing more. “Ah, first shot’s a dud! So the next one is… drumroll please!”

He pulled the trigger again. With a bang, a bullet, no bigger than a fingernail, shot out and hit the wall. A deafening explosion ripped through the air, with waves of crimson energy flooding the room.

Seto pumped his fist and hopped in place like a kid who had just won a prize. “Yes! Direct hit!”

I said, “That was…”

“Hehe, cool, right? Normally, putting mana into a bullet is super tedious and hard, but I can do it easily!”

Of course, it was absurdly inefficient. An Archbishop of Seto’s level didn’t need to bother with mana bullets; pure magic alone would have been far more destructive.

“So, what’s the game supposed to be?” I asked.

He loaded another bullet, spun the cylinder, then pressed the barrel against his temple, grinning. “Simple rules. Six shots in total. Everyone here, me included, pulls the trigger once at their head.”

His eyes slowly swept across the room. Professor Baldwin, bound and shrouded in that blood-colored mist; Iris, Yurina, and Camilla, all frozen and struggling to breathe under the crushing pressure; Albert, unconscious, eyes rolled back; and finally, me.

“Oh? One too many people. Hmm, well, can’t be helped. The unconscious guy’s out, so it’s just the six of us!” Seto waved the revolver playfully, still pointing it at his temple. “If it’s a blank, you live. If it’s a live round, your head goes pop.”

He splayed his fingers beside his head for emphasis. “And then we keep going, round after round, until there’s only one person left.”

He snickered, shoulders shaking. “Sounds fun, right?”

Professor Baldwin yelled in a voice sharp with fury, “Don’t be ridiculous! What kind of insane game, ugh!”

“Shhh.” Seto smirked and turned his gaze back to me. “So? If the bullet goes off on my turn, I’ll let everyone else go.”

I narrowed my eyes before asking, “How do we decide the order?”

“Hm?”

“The shooting order. How do we choose it?”

Seto burst into loud, almost childlike laughter, clutching his stomach. “Ahaha! You’re seriously thinking of playing? The order’s simple: whoever wants to go first can. But….”

He aimed at his temple again, making a playful “pew” sound with his lips. “After you fire, you choose who goes next. And you can’t pick someone who’s already gone.”

“Got it.” I snatched the revolver from his hand. “Then I’ll start.”

He frowned in mild disappointment. “Oooh! Trying to shoot when the odds are in your favor? That’s boring, but fine. I keep my word.”

I pressed the gun to my temple and pulled the trigger. The soft metallic click sound was followed by silence.

Seto grinned at me. “First shot’s a blank. Alright, who’s next?”

However, I pulled the trigger again.

Click!

Seto was bewildered. “Huh?”

Click!

He could not understand my actions. “What, what are you doing?”

Click!

“Hurry up and pick the next person to go!”

Click!

After pulling the trigger five times in a row, I held the revolver out to Seto. “You’re next.”

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