"Emperor....... That I will become emperor?"
In the eyes of the king of Palma, who repeated the words, ambition glittered all the more.
But at the same time, fear could be seen.
'Emperor....... Is the weight of that name really so great.'
At first, Cybel had thought it was because of the demons.
The demons’ nation, Edrium.
She had thought he could not call himself emperor because demons had built and lived in their own country.
But that was strange.
'The demons merely called themselves that on their own. They have not been acknowledged by humans. Besides, it has not been that long since the demons came to the human world.'
This land is the history of humanity. It is not the history of demons.
Palma was originally an empire, and then, once the demons came, they started watching others’ eyes and changed it to a kingdom? That was strange.
'Things like calling it an empire or a royal palace are just titles. This is the only country on this continent. But that reaction is strange.'
The king of Palma was extremely afraid of being called "Your Imperial Majesty," of becoming emperor, and of this nation becoming an empire. As if there would be some kind of retaliation if that happened.
However, the spark had now been lit.
Though it was a very small flame, the king of Palma had, by his own will, reached the thought of becoming emperor.
There was nothing difficult about it.
He could, as soon as tomorrow, simply gather the citizens and declare that this land was an empire.
"If I do that, then I......."
Just as the king of Palma muttered that.
Thud─
Something stretched down above his head.
"A-Ah! Aaaaaaaaargh!!"
The king screamed. The retainers around him started in surprise and all gazes gathered there.
'What is that?'
Cybel too widened her eyes in surprise.
What was above the king’s head looked like a snake. It was transparent enough that one could see right through to the other side, but there was nothing inside its body.
"N-No! Palma must not become like that, aaaaagh─!!!"
The moment that snake settled on the king’s head, he began to scream.
Fwoosh─
Cybel’s judgment was fast. She lit a flame at her fingertips and hurled it at the snake. Originally, that flame should have been imbued into a sword, but right now she had lost her rapier.
Tunk!
The flame struck the snake’s head precisely, but as if it had hardly taken any damage, the snake did not fall from atop the king’s head.
A snake unaffected by Cybel’s magic. On top of that, she had no weapon.
The means left to Cybel at this moment was,
'I’m sorry, but help me out a little!'
Cybel rushed toward the snake. She stretched out her bare hand, without even holding a weapon.
The woman of fate, Cybel.
If it was to protect someone, she would simply stand at the very front.
Clench!
The moment Cybel grabbed the snake,
[......Who are you?]
She was seized by a vision that only she could see.
A voice could be heard.
And the sound of waves could be heard.
'Where is this......?'
Before she knew it, she was standing in another place.
No matter how she looked around in all directions, there was only blue light.
Even when she cast her gaze far into the distance, there was not a single scrap of an island; she was in the middle of the open sea.
[How did you enter my world?]
And from deep beneath the sea.
A head that filled Cybel’s entire field of vision.
"......!"
Cybel had met Poseidon before. She had even admired his enormous majesty.
But the head now exposed above the surface before Cybel’s eyes—just that one head alone rivaled Poseidon’s entire size.
A size beyond human comprehension.
Opening its enormous eyes, the monster spoke.
[I «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» had only meant to kill him.]
***
A long stem stretching from the sky all the way down to the ends of the earth.
A single line connecting above and below. It looked like an umbilical cord.
In the middle of it, at a point that could not be called either under the sky or above the ground, there was a place where that rope bulged.
──This was a description observed from very far away, from the other side of the world.
Even accepting that this bulged part was yet another world was not easy.
A small world tied inside a world. It took the shape of a fruit.
Crack, craaack─
And this fruit was making a sound it had never made before.
It could not be heard from afar.
If one were to consider the entirety of this world, it was a very small sound. A fine crack.
KWAJIK!
However, it was a crack that absolutely must not open.
The world was pierced, and an exit opened out to the outer world.
Something broke through the inside of the fruit and plunged out toward the outer world.
It was not just one. From far away, it looked like two, and one of them was carrying someone on its back.
The one being carried shouted.
"Belphegor! This had better be certain!"
"Hahaha! What in this world is there that could be called certain!"
"That’s not what I’m talking about!"
Frondier de Roach.
He tore through the wall of Nastrond and escaped.
"Selena, are you all right?!"
Frondier asked Selena, whom he was carrying on his back.
Niflheim was a very cold place. Moreover, they were taking the wind head-on from this high in the air.
With a resolute face, Selena answered.
"I-I-I-I-I, a-am f-f-f-fine,"
"I’m the idiot for asking!"
Frondier loosened his necktie. Penelope’s cloth. He handed it to Selena.
"Hold on to this!"
"I am all right—"
"Shut up!!"
At Frondier’s shout, Selena took the cloth without another word. Her frozen body immediately grew warm.
Frondier and Belphegor were currently plunging down from high in the air.
In truth, the two of them could already fly with wings, so in this case it was more accurate to say they were advancing downward than falling.
"Hey, Frondier! Is your body intact!"
"Yeah! It stings a bit, though!"
Belphegor looked at Frondier’s body.
Frondier had absorbed the thread that had bound Fenrir, Gleipnir.
In other words, the mana of the Nine Worlds was inside him.
'To think he really did it!'
As Frondier absorbed the mana of the Nine Worlds, a small change occurred. Blackness spread over his body like a tattoo.
However, it was not an ordinary black.
It was such a thorough black, so pitch-dark that it made the spot on Frondier’s body look as if it simply were not there, and instead reduced its three-dimensionality. A black into which not a speck of light could enter.
"Where’s Fenrir? Where did he go?"
"That guy will be racing all over the worlds! There are plenty of gods he has business with! In other words, a straight course! While Fenrir is ruining the worlds, we just have to go save Atjie!"
As if to prove that, a tremendous howl could be heard from afar.
When Frondier looked, he saw that the unbound Fenrir was racing across the sky.
"......Amazing. He really looks ready to tear the sky apart."
"It’s not just the look, he has to do it! We have no business in this world! We’re going to fly straight to where Atjie is!"
"If we’re flying, why are we falling?!"
"This is flying!"
......Aha.
Frondier understood.
In short, they were flying at full speed downward.
"This is Niflheim! Outside Nastrond, the place where the dead come! If Atjie had been killed by the gods of this myth, we’d have to search for him here, but our opponent is Thanatos! We have to go to the world on the other side!"
Thanatos was a Greek god. He was not a god of this myth.
"How do we get there!"
"You remember the Yggdrasil you saw! Yggdrasil is connected to every world! Strictly speaking, that Satan jerk connected it through an agreement with the gods! We have to go there!"
"What about the possibility that they’ve already burned Yggdrasil ahead of time?"
"That’s impossible! If they did that, what would it mean other than that they’re scared of you? The gods could never do such a thing!"
Well, that was very fortunate.
Frondier confirmed that he could see the ground far below.
"I’m starting to see the ground! What do I have to do?"
"Drive everything you can do into the ground!"
"What?"
"I told you! Yggdrasil is everywhere in the world! But Niflheim is one of the widest among the Nine Worlds! We have to find the roots!"
"So the roots are hidden under the ground!"
If that was the case, there was no reason to hesitate.
Frondier spread both arms.
Weaving, Black Heaven.
Mjolnir,
"Wait! Don’t bring out a god’s weapon!"
"Why?!"
"In the gods’ world, there is resistance to divine power! It’s the same for the ground!"
"Say it faster!"
Frondier canceled Mjolnir.
What he brought out instead was Gram.
Belphegor’s eyes shone.
"Oh! The dragonslaying sword! If we’d had that, we could have caught Nidhogg more easily!"
"Probably!"
"Why not Excalibur? Pure destructive power should be better there!"
"I have something I want to test!"
Just then.
"Sir Frondier! Ahead! N-no, in front! I mean horizontally!"
Because they were falling, Selena got confused in her choice of words. Frondier understood at once and turned his gaze toward the horizon.
And from far away, he saw armored soldiers flying toward them.
"What are those, evil spirits? The ones from Nastrond?"
"Similar, but those guys are watchers. They try to eliminate anything that causes confusion in Niflheim. They are indeed the dead."
As he spoke, Belphegor turned his body. The eyes that had been looking at the ground now took the dead into their field of vision.
"Frondier! You just keep doing what you’re doing! I’ll take care of those guys!"
"Just see what happens if you let even one slip by!"
Even as he said that, Frondier immediately continued what he was doing.
'Gram is a sword that has drunk dragon’s blood. That’s why it’s stronger when facing dragons.'
Of course, since he was not facing a dragon right now, its trait did not matter.
What was important was simply that Gram had drunk dragon’s blood.
'In the past, I wouldn’t have thought of something like this'.
With Gram before him, Frondier now took out a mana crystal.
Mana crystal
Formula, Stop
Will-o’-the-wisp, lightning attribute
Exploding flames
Frondier, now a demon, manifested magic at a speed that was almost instantaneous.
At the same time, Gram shattered.
The mana crystal and Gram mixed together.
This was the same as when he had created the "spear of black lightning."
In this case, it would become a "sword of black lightning."
'Here.'
On top of that, Frondier took out one more thing.
A Dragon Heart.
'Somehow, it feels like it will go well together.'
He bestowed the Dragon Heart upon Gram, which had drunk dragon’s blood.
He imbued Black Heaven to fix the form,
Combining the mana crystal, Gram, the Dragon Heart, and the nine manas.
Result.
In Frondier’s hand was a sword in which light had been swallowed.
'The name....... I’ll decide that later!'
And in the meantime.
Belphegor narrowed his eyes and looked at all the dead charging in.
Demon Belphegor
Ecleksis
Sloth
In an instant, the dead fell,
And a pitch-black sword followed behind them,
Whooosh─
All of them fell to the ground.
