Frondier instantly became a form of mana and moved along the trunk. Or rather, was it the root?
‘I see. So this is why humans can’t do it.’
Frondier marveled as he traveled. His body had turned into a form of mana. And yet he didn’t scatter. It was probably only possible because he was a demon.
Shwik!
Frondier’s foot touched the ground in an instant.
He didn’t really realize it himself, but he had been moving at tremendous speed inside Yggdrasil.
Then, the moment he arrived, he slipped out of Yggdrasil.
As if Yggdrasil had spat him out.
“Hm, it doesn’t feel like it even took five minutes.”
Frondier looked around.
“......So this is the demon realm.”
Frondier had expected the demon realm to be steeped in a gloomy, eerie atmosphere, but it wasn’t as different as he’d thought.
The place where he was standing was a barren wasteland with nothing in particular, but it was still the kind of place that could easily have existed somewhere in the world where he had lived.
Only the colors were ever so slightly different. Maybe the saturation was a bit higher.
‘It feels like I’ve stepped into a photo with a slightly unusual filter on it.’
Looking around, he didn’t see any demons. As expected, it seemed they had all fled in fear just as Belphegor had predicted.
‘Well, that works out. We’re pressed for time anyway.’
He didn’t want to have his ankles grabbed anymore.
Sssk─
Just then, Selena emerged from the shadow.
“We’ve already arrived.”
As she came out, Selena looked around. Her eyes were full of curiosity. It seemed she too had wondered what the demon realm would look like.
“......There’s not much difference.”
But her gaze quickly turned disappointed.
Frondier asked,
“Selena, are you all right?”
“I’m ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) fine. It was much shorter than five minutes anyway.”
“There’s that, but the mana here might not agree with your body......”
Frondier had experience with taking mana into his body. He knew well how frightening mana from another world could be.
But Selena twitched her nose a few times as she looked around, then shrugged as if there were no problem at all.
“I think it’s fine. My breathing isn’t uncomfortable, and I don’t feel any poisonous taint.”
“Really?”
When Frondier checked again,
“Frondier, you’re being overprotective.”
Belphegor, who had followed behind, spoke as he came out of Yggdrasil.
“If there were an issue like that, I would’ve told you first.”
“And why should I trust you?”
“Then who are you going to trust? You should trust your own kind.”
This guy kept going on about “our kind” ever since a while back.
Belphegor took a deep breath.
“Mmm, the smell of home for the first time in a while.”
“How is it?”
“It sucks.”
“Agreed.”
Kekeke, Belphegor laughed. Strangely enough, he didn’t seem to like the demon realm very much either.
Frondier asked,
“So we move again from here. Just how many times are we going to have to repeat this?”
“From here, we can cross straight over to Olympus. From there, one more jump and we’ll arrive in Tartarus.”
“So, twice.”
“That’s right.”
Answering, Belphegor placed his hand again on the Yggdrasil he’d just come out of.
“Fortunately, there’s no one around. I don’t see a hint of a demon. Well, that’s what I expected, so now we just ride this again and head for Tartarus.”
There was one trunk of Yggdrasil per world. So in the demon realm, there was only this single Yggdrasil.
At that, Frondier tilted his head.
“But what if we ride this trunk and end up going back to Niflheim?”
Frondier had come from Niflheim to the demon realm. It seemed perfectly possible that he might go back the other way.
Belphegor shook his head.
“Yggdrasil doesn’t work like that. Simply put, Yggdrasil is strictly one-way.”
“One-way?”
“Yeah. This thing isn’t some convenient magitech device. It’s a living tree. We move between worlds according to the flow of the tree’s growth. To go against that is, for a human, like having your blood flow backwards.”
Frondier’s expression twisted.
“......That’s horrific.”
“Isn’t it? So it can only ever move along the set direction. And originally, that was a good thing from the gods’ point of view too.”
“Good?”
“If it’s one-way, then when you cross into the next world, you have to circle all the way around Yggdrasil to get back to the world you started from. That’s quite a burden. Some of the worlds are places where the very world itself boils with intense heat, and some places guard the trunk itself. So you can’t just casually hop between worlds. Whether you’re a god or a demon. That has the effect of keeping the residents of a world fixed in place.”
“From the gods’ perspective, it’s a way to manage their residents.”
“That’s right. Especially in Helheim, where wraiths run rampant, there’s no shortage of ones that try to escape using Yggdrasil. In those cases too, from the manager’s side, since they know in advance where those things are headed, they can keep them pinned down.”
At Belphegor’s explanation, Frondier nodded.
Those who couldn’t use Yggdrasil were the beings on the surface. Anyone already in these worlds could use it. In that case, management would be necessary.
Belphegor spoke.
“Satan, through his pact with the gods, stretched additional trunks out into multiple worlds, but the principle’s the same. The loop just got bigger.”
“Good. So I don’t have to worry about choosing the direction myself.”
Understanding, Frondier lightly slapped a fist into his palm.
At that moment,
“......Hm.”
Belphegor, Frondier, and Selena all turned toward the same place at once.
A stranger was flying in the sky there.
A stern face. A single pair of glasses perched on that face that suited it well, and with a stiff, rigid expression, he looked down at Frondier’s group.
Frondier asked,
“What is that guy?”
“He’s my successor.”
“Successor......?”
“Yeah, the guy’s name is Astaroth.”
At those words, Frondier let out an ah of realization.
He’d heard it from Harald as well. After Belphegor stepped down from the seat of Sloth, Astaroth had taken that position.
They said he didn’t measure up to Belphegor.
“Hm.”
Belphegor looked at Astaroth for a moment, then grinned and spoke to Frondier.
“Go on ahead.”
“What?”
“I’m saying leave this to me and go on ahead.”
What was with that suggestion that overflowed with déjà vu?
He’d never heard those words before, and yet it felt like he’d heard them over a hundred times already.
“You’re in a hurry, remember.”
At Belphegor’s words, Frondier paused for a moment, then nodded.
He was right. Here—or anywhere, for that matter—he couldn’t afford to have his ankles grabbed any longer.
“All right, let’s go. Selena.”
“Yes.”
Without a word of complaint, Selena slipped into the shadow.
At that, Belphegor said,
“Could you at least pretend you’re reluctant? Woman.”
Selena poked just her head out above the shadow.
“Go die.”
“Hahaha.”
And with that, Frondier entered Yggdrasil once more.
Astaroth quietly watched him do so.
Belphegor’s mind turned.
‘Hmm. So his goal really isn’t to stop Frondier. Well, of course—it’d be obvious he’d just die to Ecleksis if he tried. Even if that weren’t the case, I don’t see that guy beating Frondier.’
If they tried to stop Frondier here, it would only stoke his anger. Astaroth knew that well.
Once Frondier disappeared completely, Astaroth turned to Belphegor and let out a voice full of rage.
“Belphegor......!”
“Yo, hey there. Sloth.”
Belphegor kept his eyes turned to the side and stretched his senses outward.
Then he spoke.
“Why are you alone?”
“What are you talking about?”
“If you wanted to kill me, you could’ve all just come. It’s not like the Seven Deadly Sins have anything better to do right now.”
Even when he expanded his sensing range to the maximum, there were no other members of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Well, he could feel more hidden demons than he could ever want.
At that, Astaroth spoke in irritation.
“......Trash like you is more than enough for me alone.”
“Sure, that’s what you’d say.”
Belphegor answered blandly.
Only his eyes had grown calm.
‘So they’re scared of Frondier. Astaroth is the most suitable obstacle to keep Frondier from unleashing his power and to make him leave things to me and go on ahead. In any case, they’ve succeeded at separating me and Frondier.’
Frondier knew about Astaroth.
That he was Belphegor’s successor, and that he didn’t measure up.
In other words, from Frondier’s perspective too, he was a convenient opponent to leave to Belphegor alone without having to use his strength.
“......Heh.”
“What’s so funny?”
“It’s just, you guys from the Seven Deadly Sins really haven’t changed.”
Belphegor wondered if this guy even realized.
That he’d been selected for this position precisely because he was weak.
Well, either way.
“We really are on the same wavelength.”
As expected of the Seven Deadly Sins.
They’d always been like this, but they were such entertaining guys.
“Putting on that kind of relaxed act will only last you for now.”
Astaroth raised one hand.
At that cue, the demons who had been hiding revealed themselves. They’d already been caught in Belphegor’s sensing.
A massive army surrounded Belphegor.
‘His strength has grown after taking a seat among the Seven Deadly Sins. So he’s not the same as before.’
The Astaroth Belphegor knew had never commanded this many troops.
Astaroth originally had a recluse’s disposition, so he wasn’t the type to keep many under him.
‘Looks like when he took the seat of Sloth, he absorbed my army as well.’
“Go!”
At Astaroth’s shout, the demons leveled their respective weapons and unleashed their attacks.
‘If it’s just numbers, then my power......’
Belphegor tried to activate Ecleksis even as he thought that, but,
“......!”
Shwik!
KWA-AAAAAAANG!
Feeling something was off, he slipped out of place.
A downpour of continuous attacks from the demons. Even if he dodged the first, there was always another behind it. The demons’ numbers were endless.
Flames gathered on both of Belphegor’s hands.
Demon Art
Hell’s Touch
It was the same spell he’d used against Frondier. A spell that slipped past an enemy’s attack while setting the target ablaze. With this attack, he had rendered one of Frondier’s arms unusable.
And then lost.
Fwoooosh─!
Once this flame caught and something started burning, it did not die down easily.
Fwish!
But even with the flames on them, the demons continued to attack Belphegor.
They didn’t shout or scream.
Feeling something was wrong, Belphegor looked into the eyes of one of the demons.
There was no focus. More than that, the two eyes were each moving in their own direction.
‘......This is.’
Looking a little more closely at their mana, he saw threads of mana attached above their heads.
They’d been turned into puppets stripped of will and were being controlled at will.
‘If that’s the case, fire isn’t the answer.’
Belphegor clenched his fist.
Aura gathered there, and he threw a straight punch.
KWA-AAAAAAANG!
The demons in the path of his fist each had holes punched through them and went tumbling. Even if they couldn’t feel pain, if their bodies were structurally destroyed, they couldn’t get back up.
“How is it?”
Astaroth, who had been watching, spoke.
“The puppets don’t feel sloth. Your Ecleksis has become useless.”
“True.”
Belphegor admitted it honestly.
It was like trying to put a child who was already asleep to sleep again. It made no sense.
“And have you noticed?”
Astaroth laughed nastily.
“All the demons here are from the army of Sloth. In other words, they were once your subordinates.”
At those words, Belphegor tilted his head slightly.
Now that he thought about it, the faces did seem strangely familiar.
“How does it feel? To be attacked by those who were once your subordinates? And how does it feel to wound them?”
Astaroth asked in a jeering tone.
Belphegor scratched his head.
“Aren’t you misunderstanding something?”
“......What are you talking about?”
“You’re a demon, so you’ve always fought humans. That kind of line might work on humans.”
Belphegor lifted a finger.
Demon Art
Sin of Sloth
Eternal Step
Drrrrrrrr!
Then the demons who had just been blown away by Belphegor’s attack began to twitch.
“G–grrk, ughhhgggghhhgh!”
Letting out bizarre noises, they rose to their feet.
It was Belphegor’s specialty, corpse-calling.
Not only did he punch holes through his subordinates’ bodies, he raised those corpses again.
With a face perfectly suited to him, he laughed.
“Still curious about how I feel?”
