“Do you know me?”
Klad asked in a coldly sunken tone.
Duke West answered with a disgusting smile.
“Haven’t we met at Baron Nolson’s lord’s castle?”
The Duke was referring to when Klad destroyed the lord’s castle and rescued Jake. Klad, who had been anxiously worried that the current Duke West might know his true identity, let out an internal sigh of relief.
‘It’s fine. Even if documents about me remain, he can’t recognize me just by looking at my face.’
It would be disastrous if the Duke noticed that Klad couldn’t attack the bloodline of the House of Duke West. If the Duke figured it out, he would surely use it to make Klad attack him.
If he were alone it might be different, but now when Jake was with him—especially now when Jake’s condition wasn’t good—he had to act with extreme caution.
‘Even if part of my identity is revealed, it can’t be helped. I need to teleport away as soon as the Duke shows an opening.’
Normally he would never do anything that might reveal his identity to the Duke, but this time he had no choice.
Because he couldn’t lose Jake.
“I’ve been watching you closely all this time.”
“That’s some chilling news.”
Regardless of Klad’s thoughts, the Duke didn’t stop his nonsense.
Whether he thought Klad was intimidated by him, or thought Klad had no opportunity to attack while protecting Jake, he showed not a trace of caution despite having an enemy right in front of him.
“You’re quite the skilled mage. Such a waste of talent to be merely at Jake’s side.”
The Duke with his hole of a mouth spouting nonsense was infuriating, but Klad couldn’t run away immediately. He had to find out the cause of and cure for the demonic energy emanating from Jake’s heart, even if he had to shake down the Duke completely.
Since he couldn’t actually shake him down completely because of the covenant, he had no choice but to induce the desired answer from the Duke who loved to run his mouth.
“Won’t you come to me?”
“……”
Klad barely swallowed the curse he almost spat out, wanting to refute what kind of bullshit he was spouting instead of inducing an answer.
‘Damn West….’
He had forgotten how irritating it was to converse with a West, having been moving together with Jake for a while.
“Money. Honor. Power. If there’s anything you want, I’ll provide it. Things you could never obtain if you remain at Jake’s side.”
“How are you controlling the demons?”
“…Oh my. So it was information you desired. What a shame.”
Duke West narrowed his eyes and clicked his tongue.
“Staining Jake with demonic energy…”
“Hm?”
Klad, who was about to ask what scheme he had in staining Jake with demonic energy, caught the Duke’s changed expression the moment he spoke.
The Duke seemed completely unaware that demonic energy had settled in Jake’s heart.
‘So this didn’t happen because of the Duke’s trap? Then what happened? It can’t be that something went wrong as the divine power left. I hope it’s just a temporary phenomenon….’
Many thoughts came to mind, but now wasn’t the time to sort through such thoughts.
Klad held Jake even tighter to prevent the Duke from detecting the demonic energy emanating from Jake’s heart. This way, even if the Duke happened to sense the demonic energy, he would mistake it for residual energy left by the demons Klad had killed.
And he quickly added words to prevent the Duke from deducing that Jake had been stained with demonic energy from hearing what he’d just said.
“…Are you planning to stain Jake with demonic energy to make him move at will like you control the demons? Unfortunately, humans aren’t easily stained with demonic energy just from being exposed to the demons’ demonic energy. Your efforts were in vain, Duke.”
Hidden in Klad’s words was false information: ‘Jake’s side knows nothing of the Duke’s plans and thinks the Duke tried to stain a human with demonic energy but failed.’
If the Duke believed there was no lie in Klad’s words, he would judge that his opponent knew nothing and let his guard down. He wouldn’t notice that they already knew the Duke had succeeded in demonization and made considerable progress.
“Hahahaha.”
The Duke burst into unpleasant laughter. His attitude suggested Klad’s opinion was trivial.
“I think there’s some misunderstanding… Jake doesn’t have that much value.”
“…For someone who has no value, you’ve been following him around tediously.”
“Shouldn’t I clean up the trash I created?”
“……”
Crack.
Klad clenched his teeth tightly, holding back the curse that wanted to burst out.
“Then sending the demons… was it to eliminate Jake?”
Klad, who threw out the question, prepared magic anticipating that the Duke would notice the magical fluctuation.
At this rate, he felt like he wouldn’t be able to hold back and would attack the Duke, so he planned to spatially move to Audrit as soon as an answer came back.
If he couldn’t obtain information about Jake’s demonic energy from the Duke, he had to find a solution and treat it as quickly as possible.
“No way. I just had something I wanted to experiment with.”
“Experiment?”
Instead of explaining what that experiment was, the Duke spread both arms toward the ground.
It was the direction where the demons’ corpses were scattered from the earlier battle.
‘What is he doing?’
Klad glared at the Duke with a frown. He knew he had to escape this place immediately, but his instinct told him he couldn’t leave without seeing this.
“I’ll show you! Feel this power and worship me!”
Rummmmmble—
An ominous resonance covered the area. The ground trembled finely and the trees swayed greatly. It was as if the tremendous power gushing from the Duke’s hands was pulling up the ground.
But no magical fluctuation could be felt.
‘He can produce this much power without using magic? That’s impossible.’
Klad frowned at the bizarre phenomenon he’d never seen in his life.
Something was wrong.
“Hahahaha!”
Crash—!
Along with the Duke’s chilling laughter, the demonic energy spread around the demons’ corpses burst and scattered like an explosion.
No, it wasn’t scattering.
It was… being absorbed into the Duke’s hands.
“That’s impossible!”
Klad couldn’t hold back and cried out.
Absorbing demonic energy. This wasn’t something a human could do. Only demons could contain demonic energy… Could it be.
‘Is he becoming demonized?’
“Hahaha, success, it’s a success!”
The Duke rejoiced greatly and stretched both arms straight up to the sky.
Demonic energy incomparably thicker than the demonized priest could be felt from the Duke.
‘I didn’t want to learn the secret of demonization this way, this is troublesome.’
Klad urgently cast a movement spell.
The power felt from the Duke was unusual. He had to escape this place.
Otherwise, he couldn’t protect Jake.
Whooom—
The moment the completed movement spell was about to transport Klad and Jake to Audrit, the Duke, who had been far away, closed the distance in one breath.
“Are you trying to escape?”
“…!”
Tremendous speed. But speed wasn’t what mattered.
Whatever he did, Klad’s magic was canceled in one stroke.
‘Damn it!’
Did he bring a magic-canceling artifact? To be able to cancel his magic, he could guess what artifact the Duke had.
The Dragon’s relic that nullifies all ‘non-combat magic.’
The most precious of all artifacts that fell into human hands, capable of nullifying even a Dragon’s magic, though somewhat difficult to handle.
Long, long ago, a Dragon had personally made it and gifted it to the first Duke West. The Dragon must have given it without hesitation, judging that nullifying non-combat magic wouldn’t cause any loss to itself. But for Klad, who couldn’t attack the Duke because of the covenant, it was like a bolt from the blue.
‘Damn it!’
Klad cursed the Dragon who gave the artifact to the first Duke West and turned to flee. Even though the Duke had grown stronger by absorbing demonic energy, he wasn’t fast enough to catch up to him.
However, he couldn’t feel at ease. Since he said he wanted to ‘experiment,’ the current change might not be the final stage.
“It’s sad to lose such a talented individual, but it can’t be helped. If you won’t become mine, I can’t hand you over to anyone else. Especially not to Jake!”
As the Duke shouted words full of inferiority complex and spread both arms, the demonic energy in the area roiled.
Thump—
The heartbeat of Jake, whom Klad held, quickened in sync with it.
‘This is serious.’
He didn’t care about the Duke or anything, but Jake being affected by the Duke’s every action was a serious problem.
At this rate, the Duke might notice Jake’s condition.
Worse, if Jake’s condition deteriorated and an irreversible situation came, that would be troublesome.
‘Damn it, damn it…!’
If only it weren’t for the covenant! If only it weren’t for that damned covenant, he could have kicked the Duke and left immediately!
“…There’s no choice.”
If he just kept running until he got far enough from the Duke, who knows how long it would take. Then he had to give up what needed to be given up.
Klad, who had been running, stopped in place.
Hahahaha. Behind him, the arrogant Duke’s laughter echoed. That unpleasant laughter.
‘A way to escape this place without using magic….’
There was exactly one method left.
“Die, Jake!!!”
Whoosh—
The mass of demonic energy that the Duke, having lost his reason, released poured toward Jake sleeping in Klad’s arms.
But Klad was just a bit faster.
Klad threw a fireball at the Duke, prepared to break the covenant.
The massive ball of fire swallowed the mass of demonic energy the Duke released and struck the Duke directly.
“Guhurk—!”
The Duke was swept away by the flames and blown back. But Klad couldn’t see that sight.
The instant the Duke was knocked away, he grabbed Jake and flew up.
Not in human form, but in his original form.
“D-Dragon!”
He heard someone shouting.
It was probably one of the Duke’s knights waiting some distance away, or one of the village residents who had just woken up and was starting to come to their senses.
Shaaaaaaa—
Klad, in the form of a giant black dragon, flew toward Audrit with rough wingbeats.
Carefully clutching Jake in his front claws.
“Huff, hah…”
Only after arriving at the forest near Audrit did Klad return to human form.
Having broken the covenant and attacked the Duke, his heart hurt as if it were being torn apart. His head throbbed and his limbs felt like they would fall off piece by piece.
Klad embraced Jake with trembling arms and headed to Audrit.
Several humans who noticed Klad’s unusual condition approached asking if he was alright, but he ignored them.
“Ha, haa…”
Klad endured the constricting pain in his heart and stopped in front of a certain house.
Bang bang bang—
“Who is it!”
When he knocked on the door, it opened with an irritated answer.
The homeowner, with a somewhat irritable face, confirmed the uninvited guest’s face and froze in place.
“…Master?”
“It’s been… a while, Ainel.”
