“Why is this among that guy’s belongings?”
Since he had never seen the duke’s Black Sphere directly, it was difficult to accurately grasp what it was, but according to Jake’s explanation, it was something created by the fusion of demonic energy and the hero’s power.
And this fragment that Jake had been carrying was showing exactly the same phenomenon as that.
“If this is the same material as the ‘Black Sphere’ you mentioned, that’s great. It seems like one of the failed products, so if we analyze it well, we might be able to figure out what the duke is plotting.”
Ainel held out his hand, saying it worked out well. It meant to give it back so he could start analyzing it right away, but Klad couldn’t easily hand over the fragment in his grip.
“Are you worried about the hero?”
“……Don’t disassemble it. If the fragment is the reason this guy collapsed, we might need it to wake him up.”
“Leave it to me.”
Only then did Klad hand over the fragment with a reluctant expression.
He didn’t have much faith in whether Ainel, who was violent unlike the bloodline of the Green Dragon said to be the gentlest among dragons, could finish his research without breaking this.
“Hmm. This is quite interesting? To check the energy that’s seeped into the innermost part, I’ll have to break it into pieces…….”
Ainel left the room muttering to himself in a way that made Klad anxious.
Thud.
As soon as the door closing sound rang out, Klad sat down on the sofa.
Klad carefully took Jake’s hand to check his condition. If Jake had been awake, he would have been horrified, calling it a grave crime.
Normally, Klad wouldn’t have bothered to lay hands on a human from the West family, but since this way was better for checking Jake’s condition more precisely, he had no choice.
“Ugh….”
When he infused mana into his body, Jake groaned faintly, perhaps feeling suffocated even in his unconscious state.
Jake’s heart, which had no ability to block the invasion of mana flowing in from outside, struggled desperately, squeezing out mana to somehow endure. Because of that, heat rose in his body and Jake’s hand, which was touching his, quickly grew hot.
Instead of letting go, Klad placed his other hand on Jake’s forehead. When a cool energy penetrated through that hand, Jake’s condition quickly calmed down.
‘This is serious.’
Jake’s body was barely holding on with an amount of mana so small it wouldn’t be strange to call him a freshly dead human, and the power of god left behind after the Lord God took it away. But perhaps due to the fragment’s influence, even the Lord God’s power that had remained had evaporated without a trace.
Because he had repeatedly run and swung his sword with his weak body, relying only on Klad’s magic, the state of his muscles was also a complete mess. It seemed that what he had been enduring with mental strength had collapsed after his body received a great shock from the clash with the duke.
Still, fortunately, since not even a bit of harmful energy remained in his body, if he hadn’t collapsed due to the fragment’s influence, he would regain consciousness soon.
‘Should I implant a bit of my mana?’
It’s said that if dragon mana is imprinted on the heart, even a weak species can surpass the wall of their limits.
The process of emptying out existing mana and implanting something new is painful enough to require being prepared for death. But Jake’s heart was in an empty state, with even what little power he originally had having disappeared. Since there was nothing to empty out, he wouldn’t feel pain either.
It might sting a little, but Jake was conveniently asleep. When he woke up and opened his eyes, he could become stronger without even knowing there had been pain. If he just infused mana here, he could make Jake stronger than the pathetic power the Lord God had thrown him while pretending to show goodwill.
If he did that, Jake too…….
‘…What am I doing?’
Trying to change the nature of someone’s mana without their consent—if he were in his right mind, this was something he shouldn’t do.
He couldn’t understand why he had such an absurd thought. But he could guess the reason. He must have been trying to make Jake strong so that, unable to attack the duke himself, he could have Jake take revenge on the duke’s house in his place.
It was such a petty reason that it would be embarrassing to call himself a dragon anywhere.
‘Really pathetic.’
Klad frowned and let go of the hand he was holding. It wouldn’t be bad to see Jake happy about becoming stronger by containing dragon mana, but in the long term, it was a choice that could actually be poisonous.
Dragons must not interfere in human problems.
The reason he had been able to help Jake so far was because Klad had moved under the identity of ‘Klad, Jake’s party member’ rather than ‘Black Dragon Klad.’ If he wanted to stay by Jake’s side in the future, he had to act ‘within the range of what humans can do’ and ‘without showing that he’s a dragon.’
Since Duke West had witnessed ‘Klad, Jake’s party member’ transforming into a dragon, he needed to be even more careful from now on.
Klad shook off the distracting thoughts and closed his eyes. Hoping Jake would open his eyes quickly.
***
Ainel, who had been conducting all sorts of experiments clutching the fragment all day long, came looking for Klad only late at night.
“This fragment doesn’t have a function to directly absorb demonic energy. Instead, when the owner defeats a creature with demonic energy, it stores demonic energy through that.”
On the day of the battle with Duke West, Jake had swung his sword at the demons, saying he would help Klad. The fragment must have been stained then.
“The demonic energy in the fragment settled in at least a week to ten days ago. To check the exact time, I’d have to disassemble it.”
“A week, not two days ago?”
“‘At least’ a week to ten days. Even that’s a generous estimate, so it might actually have been stained from about a month ago.”
The battle with Duke West had been two and a half days ago. If Ainel was right, the timing didn’t match.
“Don’t tell me….”
There was only one other situation besides the recent battle where Jake could have been exposed to demonic energy. When he purified the Sandworm’s demonic energy.
If the work of purifying demonic energy had the same effect as when defeating demons or demonic beasts, the fragment would have been stained then. Since the amount of demonic energy the Sandworm contained was enormous, much more demonic energy would have settled in than from defeating a few demons.
‘That was almost a disaster.’
If the fragment had been stained then, Jake would have visited Baron Nolson’s castle while carrying an object imbued with demonic energy. If even one of the trap spells Klad had set up in the castle had remained, it would have exploded in reaction to the fragment’s demonic energy.
But fortunately, the demonized priest had visited the castle one step ahead of Jake, and the demonic energy he harbored was thick enough to trigger all the traps in the baron’s castle at once. Thanks to that, Jake had been able to walk around inside the castle freely without traps exploding.
No matter how much protective magic he wore on his body, if he had been exposed to an explosion, Jake’s weak body would have received a shock. It was extremely fortunate.
“If the fragment was stained that long ago, then it’s not the direct cause of this guy collapsing.”
At Klad’s words thrown out in relief, Ainel was surprised in his own way.
Did Master know what kind of expression he was making right now? He wanted to bring him a mirror, but he didn’t do it because it seemed like the mirror would come back broken.
“I can’t be certain yet. You said that ‘the hero’s power’ is needed to complete the sphere, right? If the Lord God’s power is the key to completing the sphere, and the hero released that power in the battle two days ago and the fragment was activated, he might have collapsed from that shock.”
Combining the information so far, the sphere was presumed to be an object that demonizes species such as humans. Determining species is ultimately the domain of gods. Since they were trying to go against that with human power, they would have needed divine power, and since they couldn’t ask a real god for help, they must have created the sphere using the power the hero possessed as material.
If the duke was using the sphere to demonize humans, it made sense that the first victim was a priest of the Lord God. It was difficult to make demonic energy settle in a human body, but if it was mixed with the Lord God’s power, priests with divine power could accept it more easily than other humans.
Perhaps from the start, it was a structure that could only demonize ‘those with divine power.’ If so, in Jake’s case, since all the divine power was used to complete the fragment, the demonic energy couldn’t settle.
‘If all these hypotheses are true, the duke has declared war on the Lord God.’
It was amusing that a human who would be crushed by the Lord God’s single gesture was running wild without knowing his place, but regrettably, the Lord God couldn’t interfere in this matter. Right now, he would be too busy putting out the fire that had fallen on his own feet.
“I need to study this fragment a bit more. I need to confirm whether the power of gods other than the Lord God also works, and pour in divine power to find out the changes according to the varying amounts of divine power. Once it’s certain that the fragment is unrelated to the hero’s condition, can I break it?”
“Do as you like.”
Ainel, excited about conducting new research, left, and Klad continued his time waiting, sitting beside Jake.
***
“Ainel!”
A few hours later, late at night. Ainel, who had been holed up in the research room ceaselessly analyzing the fragment of the Black Sphere, threw down what he was researching and ran to the guest room at Klad’s shout.
“What’s wrong!”
Jake, who had been in a deep sleep the whole time, had woken up and was sitting up.
However, Klad wasn’t happy about Jake waking up. Instead, with an anxious expression, he looked back at Ainel who had just entered the room.
“This guy, his condition is strange.”
