Chapter 269 – Side Story 18 – Kidnapping (3)

After the young lady was kidnapped by the Demon King’s remnants in Pyongyang, several days passed, but word of it had yet to reach the domain.

Instead, in the domain, the lord—just returned from the demon realm—was recounting his experience to his wives.

“I thought I’d grown quite strong through all my training, even without divine power, but in the end, against a god, there’s nothing I can do…”

Recalling the corrupted mana and evil energy that had poured from the tower in the demon realm, Egger shook his head as he looked at his wives.

“If that tower really is a temple that creates Demon Kings, and if the god of that world—the Demon God—is there, then it’s only natural that you can’t compete,”

The domain mage nodded matter-of-factly at the lord’s words.

But his wife Yelena, unlike her disciple the domain mage, narrowed her eyes and shot her husband a look.

“So, you’re saying you ran away as soon as you saw the Demon God’s evil energy?”

“Well, I’d call it a tactical retreat rather than just running away…”

Unlike when he was with others, the lord gave a feeble excuse to his wife, but another wife calmly analyzed the situation.

“A Demon God’s temple, all of a sudden… If there’s a temple that makes heroes, it’s not so strange that there’s one that makes Demon Kings.”

At the words of Zahina, daughter of the Divine Tree, Irene the domain mage nodded.

“But I never imagined there’d be such a tower in the demon realm. No one could have predicted it. That’s probably why even the hero was caught.”

When the conversation turned to the hero, both Egger and Yelena sighed at the same time.

“The Demon God’s tower you found is a problem, but the hero dying is a much bigger one. Duchess Melia—no, Grand Duchess Gracia—won’t let this go.”

The tower Egger had escaped from in the demon realm had stood for not just twenty years, but for thousands of years.

When Egger fled the tower, the evil energy didn’t chase him, so just like the temple that created heroes, the tower itself wasn’t an immediate threat.

Of course, no one knew when it might create another Demon King, but having once defeated a Demon King, Egger wasn’t overly worried.

But the hero’s death in front of the tower was a very different problem.

Twenty years ago, Egger’s plan to tie the domain to the imperial family had worked: the hero and the imperial princess married after the Demon King’s death. The princess didn’t become empress, but she became a duchess, ruling a vast territory.

As the emperor’s sister and wife of the hero, she held almost as much power as the emperor.

It was thanks to her that Egger’s domain had grown so freely, without imperial interference.

Of course, over time, the hero grew restless and wandered again, but the relationship between the hero and the duchess wasn’t bad. They had several children, and the future of the domain looked bright.

But now, with the hero suddenly dead, things would be very difficult with the duchess—and with the Empire itself.

“I suppose I’ll have to tell her myself that the hero is dead?”

He’d brought the hero’s body back in his space pouch; he couldn’t just pretend not to know.

He’d watched the hero’s last moments and retrieved his body. It was only right that Egger personally deliver the body to the duchess.

It was a troublesome task for Egger.

“Even after twenty years as lord, you still hate this kind of thing,” Yelena said, shaking her head at her husband’s weary look.

Egger slumped over the back of his chair.

“I’ll probably hate it for the rest of my life.”

“Then why did you ever want to be a lord?”

Zahina, who had been listening quietly, spoke up.

At her words, Egger paused to recall his memories, then smiled wryly.

“There are lots of reasons, but if you get right down to it, it’s because of novels and games.”

“Blaming your past life again?”

“Well, it’s true.”

Before he became a lord, he’d thought that owning a manor or domain was the greatest success a knight could achieve. But after living as a lord for twenty years, he realized that wasn’t the real reason he’d wanted it.

He was a knight to the bone in this life, and in his past life, an ordinary salaryman.

He’d wanted a domain because of the memories of his past life—his love for city-building games and territory-management novels.

In the end, it was those memories that made him want a domain.

Anyway, thanks to Egger’s efforts to avoid the most troublesome task, the conversation drifted to lighter topics.

It was inconsiderate to those involved, but until the domain was fully prepared, he had no intention of announcing the hero’s death.

It was cowardly for a knight who’d fought alongside the hero, but now he was a lord with people to protect.

It was unpleasant, troublesome politics, but he couldn’t avoid it.

And now he had a family, too.

With his daughter and wife Yerim away on Earth, he decided to wait until they returned before delivering the body.

That led the conversation to his daughter, who had gone to Earth.

“I didn’t get any good results on my end, but Selena’s side should be different, right?”

“It’s a rare opportunity. With Yerim there too, I’m sure we’ll get good news.”

It was the confident assurance of her mother, the grand mage.

Egger nodded at her words.

But Yelena’s confidence was perhaps premature.

Before Egger could finish nodding, Yelena suddenly tilted her head.

Everyone looked at her in confusion, and she explained.

“I just got a signal from Yerim, asking me to open a gate.”

Normally, unless you were a spatial mage, there was no way to contact another world through a gate, but Yelena was a grand mage who’d fought the Demon King who fused dimensions.

In the twenty years since then, she’d developed a way for someone in another dimension to signal her, even if they weren’t a spatial mage.

It was a simple signal, not a message, but it was enough.

“What could it be? It’s sooner than we expected,” Zahina said.

The domain mage Irene spoke up with a hopeful face.

“Maybe they found a cure sooner than expected?”

Yelena stood up with a bright face.

“I’ll go bring them back right away.”

At that moment, Egger stood up too.

“I’ll come with you.”

But his expression was dark.

“Why the face…?”

“I have a bad feeling.”

His wives and the domain mage’s faces stiffened.

Egger’s intuition, especially for danger, was rarely wrong. It had saved his party many times since twenty years ago.

But this time, everyone hoped he was wrong.

Egger, his two wives, and the domain mage quickly went down to the castle’s basement, where the gate was.

Yelena and Irene swiftly activated the gate.

Wooooong.

After the gate opened, Yelena soon returned, bringing two people through.

Yerim and the young knight Seowoo.

But Selena was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’s Selena?”

Irene, usually so stoic, bit her lip and asked Yerim, worried for her disciple.

Yerim, who crossed the gate with a dark face, opened her mouth.

“She was kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped?”

Zahina and Egger both frowned at the unexpected answer.

Selena was a formidable mage, even if still young.

For her to be kidnapped on Earth, where only natural-born psychics existed?

If Yerim had said she was hurt or killed by modern weapons, that would have made sense, but kidnapping was hard to understand.

“How could Earthlings kidnap her?”

“They weren’t Earthlings. Monsters—no, the Demon King’s remnants kidnapped her.”

“The Demon King’s remnants appeared on Earth? Was it that one, the one with transformed mana, that lured the Demon King’s remnants?”

At Egger’s words, both the young knight and Yerim looked at him in surprise.

“Was I right?”

Egger pressed them, his face grim. This was as important to him as his daughter’s kidnapping.

At first, like others, Egger had doubted the boy who’d suddenly appeared.

Even if his identity was certain, in Ea, that wasn’t enough to guarantee safety—especially with the strange mana in his body.

But after meeting the boy, Egger had set aside his doubts.

His wives had tested the boy with magic and other means, and Egger had checked his mana himself, but what convinced him was his own intuition.

His sixth sense, which had warned him of danger for decades, told him the boy was safe.

And since the boy was essential to Selena’s treatment, Egger trusted his intuition and let him go with her.

“No, that’s not why we were surprised. It was a similar situation, but the outcome was different.”

The young knight, recovered from the effects of the gate, recounted what had happened.

From the experiments with the corpse mermaid in Daejeon, to the journey to Pyongyang to check the comparison group, and the encounter with monsters and Vlad’s father, the vampire.

“Just as you suspected, Vlad was a spy sent by the monsters. If the vampire was telling the truth, his father is a monster—a vampire. But meeting the monsters in Pyongyang wasn’t Vlad’s doing. And in the end, Vlad was the one who helped me escape.”

The hero’s death was now a minor problem.

The priority was to rescue his daughter.

“But why did they kidnap Selena?”

Yerim, who had come through the gate, asked in a dark voice.

Zahina answered.

“Egger killed the Demon King, so it must be revenge—they took his daughter.”

Yerim tilted her head.

“But if it was revenge, wouldn’t they have done something else?”

Besides, these were monsters. Surely they would rather kill than kidnap.

But Egger had an idea why the monsters had taken his daughter.

“There must be a reason to take her alive.”

He thought of the tower he’d seen in the demon realm.

The Demon God’s tower, which tried to forcibly create a Demon King.

That Demon God, who had tried to make even Egger into a Demon King.

And now, monsters had kidnapped his daughter and taken her to the demon realm.

Imagining the worst, Egger gripped the sword at his side.