As expected, following the traces of demonic energy, there was a demon. The demonization progress was slow, so to Klad it looked closer to human than demon, but to humans with low understanding of demons, it was an appearance that could sufficiently be felt as demonic.
Klad maintained a distance where demonic energy wouldn’t reach Jake and closed in tightly, planning to follow the demon while killing his presence.
If Jake confirmed with his own eyes that priests were being forcibly demonized because of the Duke, and that countless imperial citizens were being harmed as a result, he would be able to remember how terrible a human the Duke was.
Once Jake regained his purpose of driving out the Duke and putting someone who would properly lead the world in that position, they could immediately withdraw and return to Audrit. Since they were only observing, they wouldn’t catch the Duke’s eye, and Jake would be safe too.
Everything was proceeding according to plan. He definitely thought so.
Until Jake collapsed.
Thump—
Klad caught Jake, who had suddenly lost consciousness, before he could tumble to the ground.
“Ja…”
Swallowing the name he almost shouted in urgency, he quickly escaped the spot, avoiding any possible trap by the Duke.
The demon and such were already in the back of his mind.
“Are you okay? Can you hear my voice?”
“Ugh…”
At Jake’s groan, Klad’s face crumpled completely.
‘No… just endure a little, just a little more……’
He had merely fainted, yet Klad rushed into the inn as urgently as if Jake’s breath would stop.
He laid Jake, who was breathing faintly, on the bed and poured holy water over him, but the situation didn’t change.
‘Was he not affected by demonic energy?’
If the abnormality occurred from contact with demonic energy, he should have felt demonic energy rampaging inside his body. However, Jake’s condition was so calm that not even the movement of magic power could be felt, let alone demonic energy.
Klad struggled to hide his anxious feelings as he checked the layers of protective magic he had stacked up. Among the magic created to immediately react and protect Jake when demonic energy was detected, not a single one had reacted.
‘…The demonic energy didn’t even graze him. Then what happened?’
Klad paced around the inn room restlessly, not knowing what to do. When Jake groaned, he calmed the fever with magic, and when Jake rustled in pain, he created a cool breeze while staying by his side.
“Kugh, ugh… ……”
Only after Jake, who had been suffering while unconscious, fell into deep sleep did Klad rise from his spot.
Demons, the Duke. In a situation where he didn’t know what was tormenting Jake, he had no intention of continuing to implement the current plan. Klad activated teleportation magic while holding Jake, accepting that traces of long-distance movement magic would be discovered by the Duke.
Thud!
“Whoa! M-Master?”
Ainel, who had been sitting in the living room waiting for Klad’s contact, jumped up from his seat in surprise when not a message but Klad himself appeared before his eyes.
“What’s wrong? Did something happen in the capital?”
“Ainel. Look at this guy. He suddenly collapsed.”
Ainel detected that Klad’s voice was trembling slightly.
Now wasn’t the time to be flustered.
“Lay him down here. And calm down your excitement.”
No matter how skilled dragons were at handling energy, when emotions weren’t controlled, energy control naturally wavered even if weakly. Even if it wasn’t anger, if it manifested in the form of fear, fragile life forms like Jake could easily be swept away.
When Klad couldn’t calm his heart, Ainel simply pushed him out of the room and examined Jake’s condition.
“There’s nothing wrong.”
After examining him for a while, Ainel came to that conclusion.
Worried that it might be the influence of demonic energy, he asked the priest who had helped before to examine him once more, but he also presented the same opinion.
“It seems encountering the demon was a big shock. You said the first time he received a shock was during battle with demons, right? Perhaps the memory from that time is deeply imprinted in his mind, so just experiencing something similar makes him feel the same shock as then.”
At the priest’s words, Klad made a serious expression as if the world had collapsed.
‘I made a mistake.’
Klad had thought the cause of Jake’s shock was ‘humans.’ Well, Jake had started feeling skeptical after seeing the attitude of humans who needed a Hero yet didn’t hesitate to sell out his whereabouts.
But that was too simple a deduction.
Perhaps Jake was suffering from ‘the Hero’s mission of having to protect even those who don’t want his help’ itself, rather than the humans who showed such attitudes.
“I need to make him meet Duke West where there are no demons.”
If demons were the trigger awakening that shock, Jake mustn’t be allowed to see demons.
However, the current Duke was a mass of demonic energy itself, holding numerous demons in his hands. How on earth could he meet the Duke without being exposed to demons or demonic energy?
“The Duke attempted demonization even on himself. If demonization is in progress… it’s impossible to meet the Duke without encountering demons. Maybe a few years ago, but now…”
“Do you want to meet the Duke from a few years ago?”
Ainel, who had been listening to Klad’s muttering, suddenly interjected. As if he had been waiting for this topic to come up.
“You know, there’s a way to meet the Duke from the past.”
“What are you talking about, Ainel. There’s no way in this world to connect past and present.”
“But if it’s not the real past but a fragment of the past, we can see it again as much as we want.”
“……”
Klad roughly guessed what Ainel was talking about.
Ancient magic that let you experience a specific target’s past. There was magic that allowed you to not simply peek at memories, but enter inside them and experience them as if they were reality.
Long ago, it was magic developed by dragons who had grown tired of their long, tedious lives.
Created out of regret at not being able to rampage freely even when trying to enjoy amusement in the human world, dragons used this to enter humans’ memories and ran wild freely. Flying around in dragon form and watching humans who were startled at seeing them. Breathing fire to destroy cities or going to catch the Demon King in place of the Hero.
Though it was also called the best magic for dragon amusement since any actions taken inside didn’t affect the actual past, there was just one problem.
When a dragon used that magic on themselves, the only past they could peek at was their own. Some dragons who wanted to peek at an even more diverse world began kidnapping humans to use the magic.
Since it was magic based on memories, they could only move within the range the target directly saw and experienced, so dragons appeared who kidnapped travelers, merchants, and even nobles rather than commoners with simple behavior patterns.
In the end, this magic created to not affect the human world came to greatly affect the human world by kidnapping influential humans.
And dragons must not perform actions that affect the human world.
“There are reasons why some ancient magic was abandoned, Ainel. That magic is prohibited from use.”
“It’s implicitly prohibited. Lightning won’t strike above my head just because I use this magic.”
“……”
No matter how much power comparable to dragons he possessed, as long as human blood was mixed in, Ainel didn’t need to follow the dragon rule of ‘must not affect the human world.’
Moreover, since there was no need to kidnap Jake, the target of the magic use, there would in fact be no effect on the human world at all.
As long as he could accurately implement the magic forgotten long ago, there would be no problem using this method.
However……
“Are you worried about sending the Hero alone?”
He hit the nail on the head.
“You’re overprotective.”
“It’s not like that. If something goes wrong, he might get trapped in the memories of the past and not be able to come out.”
“There were no such cases.”
“Of course. Because all those who used the magic were dragons. But this guy is human. A human whose mind has collapsed at that.”
If Jake confused the fragment of the past with reality and refused to come out, there would be no way to forcibly extract him.
If Jake, whose judgment had become confused, considered the world in the past without demons safer and settled in that world……
‘This guy would never open his eyes again.’
He was confident Jake’s convictions wouldn’t crumble to such hardships. However, this was a different matter.
This magic was made by dragons for dragons. It wasn’t a weight humans could bear in the first place. He couldn’t push Jake into a pit he couldn’t escape from with his own strength while saying he was saving him.
Such a Jake……
“Ha.”
Just imagining not being able to see such a Jake again was quite painful.
“……”
Klad turned his head as if hiding his face from Ainel.
His thoughts were complicated.
“If that’s Master’s opinion.”
Ainel shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him. Though he wanted to test the ancient magic he’d restored after long research, he couldn’t proceed arbitrarily without the consent of the person involved or guardian.
“There’s one more method I’ve thought of.”
“……What is it?”
Ainel looked at Klad, who still had his head lowered, and suggested.
A way to regain the Hero’s conviction that he must save the world without coming into contact with demons or demonic energy.
“Shall I bring you the Hero’s sword?”
