Chapter 268 – Side Story 17 – Kidnapping (2)

Shattered buildings, upturned earth, and fallen monsters.

The square in front of the Ryugyong Hotel, which had been called the Demon King’s Castle, was transformed as if it had been bombed.

It was the aftermath of the battle between the young lady, a mage, and the former Demon King’s subordinates.

Amid those ruins, Selena lay collapsed.

Though many small wounds were visible on her body, she appeared to be breathing, indicating she wasn’t dead.

Several monsters had gathered around her.

The vampire who had claimed to be Vlad’s father was there, along with a black-armored knight and liches.

Judging by the corrupted mana and aura emanating from these monsters, apart from the vampire, they were monsters powerful enough to be rulers of entire regions.

Such monsters were now looking down at the unconscious young girl.

Though their expressions weren’t visible as they were monsters, they all seemed surprised by the girl.

As they observed her, the lich emitting the most powerful aura sent a message magic to everyone.

[She’s strong.]

Only the vampire nodded like humans would, but the monsters seemed to agree with the lich’s words.

In place of the other silent monsters, the vampire spoke.

“She must still be in her teens… To think she’s at the level of a grand mage. Still, isn’t this level of damage too severe?”

It was difficult to understand how this young girl possessed skills comparable to a grand mage, but there was no reason for her to sustain such injuries.

All the monsters gathered here, both those lying on the ground and those who had survived, were the so-called remnants of the Demon King.

Monsters who had gathered here to recover the Demon King’s magic.

Yet, for such monsters to suffer this much damage while facing a single young girl.

Clearly, no one could believe it.

[If I had wanted to kill her, it would have been easier.]

The lich responded to the vampire’s words.

“Yes. I understand it was unavoidable because of the need to capture her alive. I see.”

The vampire nodded at the lich’s answer.

Of course, there was a mocking tone in his words, but none of the monsters cared about such things.

So the vampire asked the lich something else.

“But are you certain?”

[Nothing is certain. She’s a stronger mage than expected, which only increases the possibility.]

Though it wasn’t the answer he wanted, the vampire nodded.

“Well, it’s still better than secretly searching for traces of the Demon King’s magic here.”

[That’s certain.]

The great magic of the Demon King that had turned not just Ea, but three dimensions upside down.

To obtain the magic that could merge dimensions into one, monsters and surviving subordinates of the Demon King had worked for 20 years and finally managed to break through a gate to Earth.

Upon arriving at the Demon King’s castle on Earth, the monsters were frustrated.

As expected, traces of the great magic the Demon King had cast remained in the Demon King’s castle on Earth, but no monster, no lich, could decipher that magic.

[The magic that remains here is of such high difficulty that it could be said to have been cast by the God of Magic.

Moreover, even if we could recreate the magic, it would be impossible to cast it.

We cannot generate such powerful mana.]

The Demon King had converted dozens, no, hundreds of nuclear bombs into mana to cast his magic, but now there was no way to recreate that.

The monsters not only didn’t know the method itself, but there were also no remaining nuclear weapons.

Just as 20 years of effort was about to go to waste, a new opportunity unexpectedly appeared before them.

And it was brought by a half-breed they hadn’t expected much from.

To the vampire, it felt as if the dead Demon King had sent him a gift.

Satisfied with the answer, the vampire looked far away, toward the south, and said.

“Good. Now we just need my son, who has handled things well, to return.”

At the vampire’s words, the lich stroked his jawbone with his skeletal hand and said:

[That half-breed also looks like a good experimental subject.]

The vampire recoiled in horror at the lich’s words and shook his head.

“No. I cannot offer my son as an experimental subject.”

“……”

At his words, not just the lich but all the gathered monsters looked at him.

As the monsters’ gazes converged on him, the vampire clicked his tongue softly.

“I was joking. Humans found it amusing…”

The vampire scratched his head and raised his hand to point south, where the half-vampire had run off to.

“There’s more work to be done. Seeing how well he handled things, I should put him to more use.”

[Is that alright?]

Though the question had neither subject nor object, the vampire understood what the lich was asking.

“Though he’s mixed with human blood, half of him is still from my clan, the monsters humans call vampires.”

For someone with his blood, the boy was quite rebellious, but it was a futile act anyway.

“Humans won’t accept him. And he knows that too. That he’s a monster.”

Though it might be impossible to be properly recognized even among monsters, his half-breed son was just a card to be used and discarded anyway.

Shortly after, that card returned.

The boy who returned with blood-covered hands and a tired face.

The vampire asked his returned son.

“Did you kill him?”

The son answered his father’s question.

“Yes.”

The boy had gone after the young knight who had escaped.

Of course, he wasn’t the only one who had gone after him.

This was because his half-breed son lacked the skills to face a knight.

That’s why two death knights had gone with him.

But only the boy and one death knight had returned.

If the boy had returned alone, it would have been suspicious, but since he returned with one death knight, the boy’s claim that the young knight had been killed seemed plausible.

After all, a death knight wouldn’t leave a human alive.

“Still, impressive. Though it wasn’t a Sword Master-level death knight, it was still stronger than an ordinary knight. Was that young knight also above knight-level?”

As the vampire clicked his tongue softly, Vlad asked him.

“Now that the job is done, will you let me go?”

At Vlad’s words, the vampire smirked.

“If we part ways here, you’ll have no way to return home, will you? Come with us. I’ll send you home once all the work is finished.”

A transparent refusal.

Though he understood what it meant, Vlad’s expression didn’t change at all.

This was because he had anticipated this outcome.

With a calm face, Vlad pointed to the gate installed in the hotel lobby.

Though the area around the hotel was in shambles, the hotel and the gate in the hotel lobby remained intact, perhaps because it had been the Demon King’s castle.

“That doesn’t look like Ea to me.”

Vlad’s finger was pointing at the red world visible inside the gate.

“You noticed?”… “There’s no such ominous red sky in Ea. Nor is it filled with such aura and corrupted mana.”

He had heard that during the Demon King war 20 years ago, the aura had been unbelievably intense, but there was no place in Ea now with such concentrated aura.

The same was true for corrupted mana.

“Calling aura ominous… Well, as a half-breed, you might feel that way. Your guess is correct. The other side of that gate isn’t Ea, but our homeland. The place humans call the demon realm.”

Though the vampire clicked his tongue looking at Vlad, his squinting eyes suggested that even the vampire wasn’t particularly fond of the demon realm.

“The cleanup is done, and my son has returned, so shall we go back?”

At the vampire’s words, the lich and other monsters turned their bodies.

They all walked toward the hotel with the gate, and the death knight that had returned with Vlad approached the unconscious girl.

As the death knight was about to move the girl, Vlad stepped forward and picked her up first.

“I’ll carry her.”

The death knight looked at Vlad carrying the girl, and the vampire, who had been walking ahead, sneered as he saw his son carrying the girl.

“Did you develop an interest because she has a pretty face? Well, it doesn’t matter. It makes sense that there might have been some interaction since you came all the way here together.”

However, the vampire father’s interest ended there.

Like the other monsters, the vampire lost interest and headed toward the gate.

Vlad carried the unconscious young lady and began to walk.

Behind him, the death knight had drawn its sword and was following the two, seemingly escorting them.

Of course, it looked more like surveillance than escort, but Vlad didn’t mind and continued walking.

One by one, the monsters entered the gate, and Vlad, carrying the young lady, also disappeared into the gate.

The lich, who had remained until the end, cast a spell in front of the gate.

As the lich cast the spell, both the inscriptions engraved on the gate and the scene inside the gate gradually blurred.

The lich, watching this, entered the gate.

Shortly after, the gate’s inscriptions disappeared, and then the gate itself collapsed.

After all the monsters had departed, a person appeared in front of the hotel.

It was the young knight Seowoo, whom Vlad had claimed to have killed.

The young knight, wearing half-shattered armor covered in blood and clutching his exposed side, entered the empty lobby.

Only the broken gate remained inside the lobby.

Seowoo grimaced as he looked at the shattered gate.

“They’ve all left.”

Though it was a scene he had anticipated, seeing it directly was more shocking.

The monsters he had suddenly encountered in front of the hotel where the Demon King had been.

The word “son” that one of those monsters had said to Vlad.

And the monsters who seemed to be trying to kidnap the young lady, along with the gate visible in the hotel lobby.

If he hadn’t been taught and told by the lord all this time, he would have certainly died a dog’s death, unable to follow the situation.

Just like the Earth awakened ones who had come as escorts and hadn’t even left corpses behind.

Moreover, if it hadn’t been for Selena, the young lady who had secretly signaled him, he wouldn’t have even thought of escaping.

Of course, even as he escaped, he hadn’t really believed he could get away.

He had only moved, seeking a small possibility after seeing that the monsters didn’t seem to want to kill the young lady.

Even when he was caught while escaping, when he was being attacked by death knights, when his side was torn open by Vlad, Seowoo had followed that one thread of hope.

That hope was the eye signal from Vlad, whom the vampire had called son.

And that hope had been rewarded.

The wound on his side wasn’t actually fatal.

It was a wound that could be healed with a potion.

But it was a wound convincing enough to deceive the remaining death knight.

“Don’t breathe, pretend to be dead. I’ll hide your mana. And I’ll leave clues about where they’re taking her, so tell the lord.”

And as they fell to the ground together, Vlad, who had inflicted the wound on his side, had whispered these words to Seowoo.

Somehow, as Vlad had said, the death knight believed Seowoo was dead.

After Vlad and the death knight left, Seowoo poured a potion on his side, and with his barely healed side, he had returned here.

As Vlad had said, the clue was left in the open area in front of the hotel.

Seowoo didn’t know, but it was where the young lady had been lying.

A clue left on the ground as Vlad picked up the young lady.

That clue was a single word.

Written in Earth’s script, or rather, in Korean.

On the ground was written the word “마계” (demon realm).