Nastrond
Selena barely managed to calm herself before standing up.
Her face, now visible again, was perfectly fine, as if nothing had happened. As if she hadn't even cried.
Frondier nodded at her.
Belphegor, on the other hand, tilted his head.
“So, this little lady's coming too?”
“Yes. She's my escort.”
“Hmm. Well, that's fine, but….”
Belphegor looked closely at Selena and said,
“……I remember now. Jei. It's this girl.”
“I'm surprised you remember.”
“Hahaha. A devil never forgets a pretty face. It's a basic instinct.”
What a load of garbage.
However, Belphegor soon scratched his cheek as if troubled.
“But she came into Nastrond with a human body.”
“Is that a problem?”
Frondier suddenly felt worried.
Wasn't Nastrond dangerous for a human body? Like it was full of toxic air you shouldn't breathe?
“It is a problem. You're not supposed to come in alive, so it's kind of cheating, isn't it?”
As Belphegor said that.
Kieeek─!
Kiiiik!!
Strange cries, or perhaps screams, echoed through the air.
“This is the land of the dead. And the wicked, at that. Frondier, do you have any idea how obsessed the dead are with the bodies of the living?”
“……Ah, I know very well.”
He experienced it firsthand in Yeranhas. How many evil spirits he swallowed while accepting the Mana of Helheim.
Caaaaaaaaw!!
Similar souls cried out in unison, making a cacophony that was hard to describe.
Like gray clay swelling as it absorbed air, the souls swarmed, covering everything in a multitude of colors as they rushed towards Frondier and his companions.
Looking at the pouring souls, Frondier said,
“Is that why it's a problem for Selena to be here?”
“Not at the moment.”
“If that's the case.”
Frondier took all the souls into his field of vision.
Immediately afterward, he activated Eclexis.
Thump─!
The things that had filled his vision with all kinds of noises and pushed him away disappeared in an instant.
Without any significant change, as if they had never been there in the first place.
“No problem.”
“…….”
Selena gaped at the sight, and Belphegor smiled in satisfaction.
“That's more like the Devil King.”
“Don't call me that. I have no intention of becoming that.”
“Well, being king is a pain.”
Belphegor chuckled, as if he deeply understood Frondier, a comrade.
Frondier looked at Belphegor with narrowed eyes.
“Belphegor, what is your purpose?”
“I told you. Kill the Seven Deadly Sins and the Gods. Then there's no one above me. It'll finally be my world.”
Hahaha, Belphegor laughed.
The devil Belphegor, wanting to kill everyone above him and become the top dog. It wasn't strange, considering his devilish way of thinking.
But there were two problems with that.
“……What are you going to do when I actually grant you that wish?”
“What do you mean, what am I going to do?”
“I'll still be around.”
If Frondier really did fulfill Belphegor's wish, there would still be one person above him. Frondier.
Would Belphegor be able to deal with Frondier then?
“Ah, I see. I didn't think of that. This is a big deal.”
“…….”
Belphegor played dumb.
As if he didn't know. That was ridiculous.
However, knowing that he wasn't going to tell the truth anytime soon, Frondier let out a sigh.
“Yeah. I'm going to have to do what you say anyway.”
“That's the spirit. Good boy.”
Belphegor clapped his hands with a grin.
Clap.
“Now, let me explain the situation.”
Belphegor pointed upward with his finger.
“First, look at the sky.”
“The sky……?”
Frondier and Selena looked up.
He said sky, but they couldn't see any such thing. It was just pitch black.
“……Is it nighttime?”
“No, probably.”
Selena's eyes narrowed.
“There's a ceiling.”
“A ceiling?”
Frondier asked back, and Belphegor looked at Selena in surprise.
“You can see that? That's amazing. It's beyond human vision.”
“……Well, I'm confident in my eyesight.”
Selena replied, a little embarrassed.
Belphegor, seemingly genuinely surprised, looked up himself. He muttered to himself, “You can actually see that?”
“Anyway, as Jei said, there's a ceiling here. It's a characteristic of this world, Nastrond.”
“……This whole world is like this?”
“That's right. It's like a giant indoor space. It's so vast that you sometimes forget it's indoors. I've heard that from the outside it looks like a giant fruit containing something. Not that I've ever seen it from the outside.”
Frondier looked around.
“It's pretty bright for a world that's entirely covered by a ceiling, isn't it?”
His vision hadn't been restricted much since he arrived. Even Selena, with her good eyesight, only saw a night sky. There were no stars, but that was the same as the previous world.
Belphegor explained,
“It's bright here because the souls wandering around emit light. This is the world of the dead. And unlike Helheim, not just any soul comes here, only the truly wicked. And those souls, they shine pretty brightly.”
Unlike Helheim, where most of the dead went and lived relatively normal afterlives, Nastrond was where humans who had committed great sins ended up.
And the dragon Nidhogg would tear them apart, kill them, tear them apart, and eat them. It was truly a hell in the truest sense of the word.
“……Wait, you killed Nidhogg, didn't you?”
“Well, yeah.”
Belphegor said it as if it wasn't a big deal, but it was an astonishing thing.
It was astonishing and serious at the same time.
“Then what happens to the sinners here? Won't there be a problem?”
They were originally sent here to be punished by Nidhogg, but Nidhogg was gone.
Belphegor grinned.
“Yeah. That's the point.”
“What?”
“This is Nastrond. The very bottom of this world. Nidhogg tearing and killing the souls here is nothing but a pastime. His real job is something else.”
“What is it?”
“Gnawing at Yggdrasil.”
Frondier's jaw dropped.
This was consistent with the original myth, where Nidhogg gnawing at Yggdrasil symbolized the overall flow of destruction inherent in Norse mythology.
But now, Nidhogg was gone.
“Frondier, because of Satan, I didn't go to the hell I was supposed to go to, and I ended up here. Why do you think Satan sent me here in the first place?”
“……To meet Nidhogg?”
“That's right. He made a deal with the Gods. If Nidhogg and I were occupied with each other, at least Yggdrasil would be safe for a while. As long as I could hold out for as long as possible.”
This was just Belphegor's guess, but it probably wasn't far from the truth.
“I already know that Satan made a deal with the Gods. And it's been a while. At least since the Monster War, Satan showed signs of it.”
“The Monster War, you mean when humans started building the barrier?”
Before Frondier was even born, monsters had invaded this land. The Empire's territory rapidly shrunk, but they managed to repel the monsters, led by a few powerful individuals, and in the meantime, they succeeded in surrounding themselves with a barrier.
It was so long ago that even the current emperor, Terst, had fought on the front lines.
As if recalling something, Frondier said,
“Right, come to think of it, Baer and Marco said that the Monster War was originally Satan's plan.”
“He lured the Abyssal Monsters, gathered the other monsters under them, and made them attack the Empire.”
Belphegor agreed and added.
Feeling strange, Frondier said,
“……If the devils had invaded the Empire then, they could have destroyed it, but the ones who stopped them were…”
“That's right, it was me.”
Belphegor admitted honestly.
Frondier asked,
“Why did you stop Satan? I'm a human, so it's not my place to say this, but were you trying to protect humanity back then?”
“Ah, that's….”
Belphegor raised a finger as if to explain, then gave a wry smile.
“Let's go with that.”
“This bastard.”
“That's how it turned out, but the biggest reason was that it wasn't a hundred percent certain that the devils could conquer the Empire.”
“……The place was ravaged by monsters, and you're saying the devils couldn't have taken the Empire?”
“It was ravaged, but in exchange, humans who surpassed human limits began to emerge.”
He was referring to the Zodiac and a few other heroes.
The twelve Zodiacs alone were a threat, and on top of that, Enfer de Roach and Terst were extraordinary.
“It was a devil's intuition. A hunch that the devils might trigger the switch that would awaken humanity.”
“……Awakening.”
“Yes. Eclexis.”
Gods, devils, and humans.
In modern times, only humans were unable to use Eclexis.
“That's why I stopped Satan. Eclexis is difficult to use if you don't even know it exists, but once you know about it, there's always the risk of it awakening. Moreover, the humans at the time were exhausted from their repeated battles with the monsters, but at the same time, heroes were beginning to bloom.”
If they were stimulated once more, one of them might manifest Eclexis.
In the worst-case scenario, it would become a chain reaction, and a large number of humans would end up using Eclexis.
“Frondier, a devil's contract isn't that different from divine power.”
“……Right. I've heard.”
“The biggest difference is that while Gods want to give divine power to strong humans, devils want to make contracts with weak humans. That's how much devils hate strong humans. Especially strong souls.”
Humans who became aware of Eclexis wouldn't be corrupted unless they chose to be.
Because they would know what their own souls were.
They would become souls that devils couldn't handle.
“……I see. That's why.”
“That's why I told Satan.”
─Devils cannot kill giants.
“Hearing those words, Satan agreed and gave up on attacking humanity. He decided it was better to keep the existence of devils hidden from humans. As a result, humans still believe that the Monster War was just an irregular occurrence caused by monsters. They haven't found the shadow of devils in it.”
And so, Belphegor settled in the west of the Falind continent, and that place later became Manggot.
“I was always a bit of an oddball among the Seven Deadly Sins. While they were busy fighting for power, I wasn't interested in any of that. Even becoming king.”
“……Because, of course.”
“It was too much of a bother.”
A slothful devil's way of speaking.
“For someone like me, observing the Falind continent was a rather comfortable task. I could kill time anywhere, so I settled down in Manggot, and as time went on, I stopped paying attention to the situation in the Demon Realm.”
But, Belphegor chuckled.
“I found out later, but Satan had concocted a strange plan. A plan to bring me down.”
Contrary to his words.
Belphegor laughed as if he was truly amused.
As if waking his sloth was enough.
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