Agoris.
Another continent you can discover if you proceed west from the Falind continent.
Here, demons and humans stand opposed. Just as the people of Falind fight monsters, the people here fight demons.
And one day, a new terror set light feet upon this land.
It was not a terror laid upon humans.
It was terror for the demons.
Step.
"Hello."
According to the reports.
The black-haired man who first appeared supposedly greeted the demons with a fresh smile.
On his back were black, very lavish, enormous wings. Because of that, the demons believed he was a demon.
......No, in the end, that thought wasn’t wrong.
He was a demon.
"I'm looking for Bael."
Unlike the monsters of the Falind continent, the demons of Agoris founded a nation on this land. That was the biggest difference between them and monsters.
So when the man first appeared in a seaside village at the far border of their nation—the lavish wings, the way he uttered the name of the king of hell without any honorific at all—the demons thought: a high demon they dared not touch. Meekly, they told him Bael’s location, and the black-haired man left with the same fresh smile. Without hurting anyone.
Step.
Soon after, the man was found in some city. The reports were all over the place, but it was without doubt the same man seen by the coast.
Black hair, overly lavish wings, and whenever he opened his mouth, he always said,
—I'm looking for Bael.
Up to then, the demons still thought much what the demons in the seaside village had thought. A high demon rivaling Bael. So they answered the man meekly.
"Lord Bael is not in this city. Go to the center of Edrium."
Then the man said,
"What's Edrium?"
"......? The name of our country."
Ah, I see. The man answered as if learning it for the first time then left the city.
Step, step.......
The man headed more and more toward the center of the demons’ nation, Edrium.
It was right about then that word of the man reached Bael’s ears.
Bael had promised to meet no demon, and he had never permitted a demon who spoke so carelessly, without a single honorific for him.
When it was confirmed that no impression or features matched any of the 72 demons, only then did they realize that this unidentified black man had been doing something very insolent.
And when the man reached the city where Bael was, the demons leveled their weapons at him.
The man’s expression did not change.
With the same fresh face he’d worn when he first stepped onto the shore, he asked,
—I'm looking for Bael.
To the demons now, those words were absurd nonsense, nothing but an insult flinging their king’s name about.
No demon would meekly answer him anymore. Instead they drew their weapons.
And the demons rushed him all at once.
—That day, twenty-three fell at the city gate, one hundred thirty-seven in the city center, fourteen on the hill road leading up to the castle.
And forty-eight before the castle gate where Bael resides.
Step.
Step.
Step.
The man walked.
Every demon who saw that scene thought the same thing.
Run.
Report this to Lord Bael at once!
To our king of hell!
It was not a fight, nor was it a massacre.
The man did not fight, he killed no one, he did not so much as inflict a single wound.
Those who, terrified, lowered their weapons; those who fled; those who, with hands trembling, still gripped their weapons yet only watched as the man passed right by them—the man left them all as they were.
'What in the world is happening.'
'What has come to Edrium.'
So the demons feared him.
No one could stop him, and he harmed no one.
Unable to know what that trajectory meant, the demons turned to their king.
The man saw their figures in the sky. He saw them gathering to their king.
Hiding the king’s location is meaningless. From the start, they do not hide their king.
And thus Bael, according to the man’s will, and according to the will of all demons, showed himself at last.
Looking down at the black-clad man who arrived before the castle gate, he met the man’s gaze.
Confirming Bael, the man simply said,
—Found you.
***
About three hours after passing Poseidon.
"—Here we are."
As expected when we got past him, it wasn’t long before the continent revealed itself.
With the sun dipping low, casting an evening look, we confirmed the continent far in the distance.
Selena, staring blankly as if impressed by the outline of the land, said,
"We truly just headed west, and here we are."
"We weren’t looking for an island."
If we had to find a small region, a proper map would be necessary, but Agoris is a continent. Even if we were a little off course, we would have reached Agoris.
"Then what do we do? Should we look for where humans live right from here?"
"Hmm, no."
I shook my head at Arald’s question.
"I’ll go scout alone first, so please handle the anchoring. It might take a few days. We have enough provisions, right?"
Saying that, I formed wings of Heukcheon on my back.
Watching, Elodie said,
"Doing that really makes you look like a demon."
......That’s not an insult, right?
For a moment I worried, but of course Elodie had another thought.
"......Maybe, even real demons would......"
"Ah."
At that, I caught Elodie’s drift and looked to Lirih.
"Ria Liss. If I have these wings, could I fool demons?"
There Lirih furrowed her brow with a thoughtful hum.
"If we assume the wings are spread from the start, and they don’t stare too long, I think you could fool them. The higher the rank, the more unique a demon’s wings become, like an expression of their individuality. Frondier’s wings do feel a bit too lavish."
Heukcheon first attached to my back like wings when I fought Belphegor.
After I ate the Dragon Heart I made myself, and poured all of my pure mana and Helheim’s mana into Heukcheon—I became able to handle a Heukcheon vast as a lake.
So what overflowed after covering my whole body stretched from my back like wings. Though, at the time, I didn’t use them as wings. I had no such leisure.
Drawing on that memory, I used wings for flight inside Hitchcock, and I’ve used them well ever since.
"Since they’re fabricated wings, and I only thought about flying at high speed, they ended up a bit large."
Flight speed increases in proportion to the mana injected into Heukcheon. In truth, it’s more like an engine than a bird’s wings.
Heukcheon is mana itself; the massed mana shaped like wings shoves my whole body forward.
"They stand out but they’re jet-black like a demon’s wings. And it’s not as if there aren’t demons with lavish, large wings. But if someone saw you fold or spread them, they’d find it strange. A demon’s wings don’t unfold like that."
Of course. Heukcheon is the thing making them. The way they spread is entirely different from a demon’s wings.
And though the shapes vary, Heukcheon’s texture is too uncanny; if exposed to sight too long, there’s a chance I’ll be found out.
"In that case."
But even that much is enough for me.
"We can approach to some extent."
"Approach what?"
Selena asked.
With no reason to hide it, I said,
"Bael."
***
And with time, I finally arrived before a certain castle gate.
Winged figures were visibly keeping watch atop the walls, and a few demons flitted noisily through the air.
It looked as if the demons had already occupied human territory—but in truth, not so.
There had been no humans here from the start.
This is not a human castle.
"Found you."
I confirmed Bael, who was looking down at me from above.
Regrettably, my plan to meet Bael without fanfare had already fallen apart days ago.
I found Bael on the Agoris continent.
Of course, finding a single demon on this vast land would be absurd—but Bael is different. He’s the king of hell. Surely there isn’t a demon in this country who doesn’t know him.
As for how kind I was to the demons in order to find Bael, I trust every demon who met me could agree.
'Since the demons in Agoris were originally thinking of overrunning the Empire, I figured they’d be as close as possible to the eastern edge.'
I assumed the demons of Agoris would be situated similarly to Manggot.
If Manggot was on the western edge, then these would be on the eastern edge.
And that guess was not wrong.
It wasn’t wrong, but—
'They really did build a nation.'
Without my even needing to search, demons were visible at the eastern end of the continent.
And in an absurdly large number, over an absurdly wide expanse.
'Arald and Lirih were right.'
There is no Zodiac in Agoris.
Both literally and figuratively.
There is no one in Agoris as strong as the Zodiac. This I learned from Bael’s conversation with Marco.
But I had heard that, instead of monsters, demons were fighting humans on Agoris’s soil.
If so, how did they repel and endure the demons’ invasions?
Before coming here, I sought advice on this from Lirih and Arald, both demons by origin.
"We’ll know better after hearing Bael’s account, but there are two likely possibilities."
Lirih said,
"One: demons don’t hate humans that much. They don’t particularly like them either."
"Compared to monsters, who charge to kill the moment their eyes meet, demons are much more well-behaved, you’re saying."
Monsters possess unconditional hatred for humans. There are no exceptions.
Whether ordinary monsters or those from outside, they become fiercer and smarter, but their hostility toward humans never lessens.
Thus they hurl away their own lives to kill humans, and that is why Falind ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) bled so much.
"I think the demons in Agoris have already founded a nation of their own."
"They didn’t lose their memories like Satan’s subordinates did."
The demons who gathered in Agoris in the past to invade the Empire. They are demons who crossed Satan’s Gate, but they are not Satan’s underlings. If anything, they likely harbor tremendous hostility toward Satan for shutting the Gate and leaving them behind.
Already a collective, they would have had a far easier time settling in Agoris than the memory-lost demons in the Empire.
"Demons aren’t fools either. They don’t want to spill blood for nothing. Even if a demon’s personal priority on their own life is low, it’s not as if the species lacks a sense of preservation. They’d prefer to avoid war if possible."
"Then humans in Agoris are safer than we thought?"
At my question, Arald shook his head.
"That won’t be the case."
"Why not?"
"While it may not be as dangerous as the Falind continent, humans and demons are certainly in a state of enmity. The ‘let’s avoid war if possible’ notion Lady Lirih mentioned is only temporary."
"When does that change?"
To that, Arald answered as if it were obvious.
"Why, the moment they’re certain they can exterminate humanity."
