Chapter Season 2 732

Translator: Alpha0210

Iris PeaceFinder had contracts with three Archdukes in total.

Asura of Slaughter Hell, Barbatos of Despair Hell, and Zephar of Shame Hell─ but of the three, only Asura and Barbatos could be used in direct combat. Zephar might be an Archduke, but direct combat simply wasn't his forte.

Her opponent was under the mistaken impression that Iris could command all three Archdukes at once, but that wasn't actually the case. With Iris's current capacity, even summoning a single Archduke pushed her to the limit. If she overextended herself, she might be able to summon another two or three mid- to high-ranking demons, but commanding two Archdemon-class demons at the same time was completely beyond her.

Iris considered how, and for how long, she needed to keep that fact hidden in order to turn the battle in her favor─ and summoned Asura first.

BOOM!

The ground heaved once as the master of Slaughter Hell appeared.

One of his three faces turned toward Iris, another surveyed the surroundings, while the last looked at their opponent.

[…….]

There was no need for a lengthy explanation.

Asura was quick to grasp a situation, especially when it came to battle.

After realizing that the man standing there so calmly was a Demigod, he spoke to Iris as though merely informing her of a fact.

[I cannot win.]

"I know. How long can you hold out?"

[I'll only know once I fight him.]

"……."

It was the obvious answer.

Despite openly acknowledging his own impending defeat, Asura showed no sign of wounded pride as he approached the Demigod.

The Demigod, who had been quietly looking up at Asura, remarked casually.

"You look different from the Archduke I fought last time."

[Ho. Now that's an interesting thing to hear. Who did you fight?]

"Asmodeus."

[…What an amusing coincidence.]

"What is?"

Asura chuckled.

[I'm the one who killed that bastard and took his place as Archduke.]

***

Just before the battle between demon and Demigod began, the first thing Iris did was move Schweiser's grave. Splitting open a grave she had only just buried and digging Schweiser's corpse back up made her feel as though she were committing some terrible act of sacrilege, even though she wasn't doing it for some noble reason.

Even so, she kept her eyes fixed on the battle.

Asura's defeat was already a foregone conclusion. In that case, what Iris needed to gain from this fight was information.

The enemy Demigod's means of attack, his strengths, his weaknesses, things like that.

His means of attack revealed themselves first.

There were legs growing from the Demigod's back.

Of course, Iris didn't know whether they were really legs, but that was certainly what they looked like. They resembled the limbs of an arthropod and appeared incredibly rigid, almost as though they had been made of metal. There were at least ten of them.

But the moment his battle with Asura began, those legs suddenly went limp like jelly and started moving at an unbelievable speed.

Fwap-fwap-fwap-fwap!

Asura was a demon so skilled in battle that some regions revered him as a God of War. He could wield each of the different weapons in his six hands with near-perfect mastery, making his opponent feel as though they were fighting six Masters, each of whom had trained a single weapon to its absolute limit, all at once.

His three heads could also observe the flow of battle broadly, narrowly, and with intense focus, allowing him to analyze the battlefield from multiple angles. That advantage, in turn, gave him exceptional flexibility in his thinking.

In other words, Asura almost never found himself outmatched in close combat.

[…….]

BOOM.

And yet Asura's enormous body was forced one step backward under the strain.

Of course, none of the strengths just described had diminished. But in truth, the most important thing in battle was not numbers, nor the number of weapons one could wield, nor even a broad field of vision.

It was sheer individual power.

The power a demon could exert on the continent was limited……. As long as that restriction existed, defeating a Demigod alone was difficult.

'How irritating.'

He already knew that, but knowing it didn't mean he could keep his emotions under control.

He had pretended not to care in front of Iris, but fighting a Demigod under these conditions wounded his pride. It would have been far more entertaining if they could have fought on equal terms.

Asura thought that while simultaneously realizing that Iris seemed different from usual, though he chose not to ask about it.

It wasn't out of consideration.

To begin with, Asura wasn't particularly interested in the woman called Iris. If anything, the mage who was always beside her, Lukas Trowman, was far more interesting, as humans went…….

SLASH!

[Hm!]

At that moment, one of his arms was severed.

Had only about five minutes passed? That was sooner than expected.

Asura realized that this bastard was different from an ordinary Demigod. He knew how to fight. He had probably fought opponents of comparable strength many times before. For a Demigod, that was rare.

His opponents had probably been other Demigods, or perhaps creatures like dragons.

Hadn't he said he'd fought Asmodeus too? If that battle had taken place on the continent, then even that damned bastard wouldn't have been able to defeat this one.

[Five minutes, PeaceFinder.]

Asura told her how much longer he could hold out.

Iris gave no answer, but she must have heard him. In any case, Asura would have bought her about ten minutes in total since being summoned, but unfortunately, it seemed unlikely that he would be able to inflict any meaningful damage on this opponent during the remaining time.

The conclusion indicated by that fact was simple.

'She'll die.'

A contractor with Iris's level of talent might be born only once in a hundred years, if that…….

Asura felt only a slight regret at the prospect of losing such a useful contractor.

***

Asura met the end he had predicted. Exactly five minutes later, the Demigod's legs tore his entire body into pieces.

Immediately afterward, Iris summoned Barbatos. In truth, her body had already reached its limit by that point. She had never summoned Archdukes back-to-back like this before.

Still, her opponent was a Demigod. She had no room to hold anything back.

…Asura hadn't been wasted entirely. At the very least, she had figured out how the Demigod attacked. Those things were as hard as metal when still, but the instant they moved, they gained the elasticity of whips. She didn't know the exact conditions behind the transformation, nor was she sure whether that trait could even be called a weakness…….

But if there was anything she could exploit, this was it.

After that, Iris employed every method available to her.

She had to settle this while Barbatos was still present. Without an Archdemon-class demon, she couldn't land an effective blow on a Demigod.

Demon summoning, Black Magic, sorcery, illusions, deception……. In this battle, she used every underhanded method she normally kept hidden even from her companions.

She wanted to win.

She had to win.

If she lost…….

"I'm surprised."

And for the first time, the Demigod's expression changed.

"And bewildered, human. You are far stronger than I anticipated."

"……."

"If Delatan or Hella had come here instead, they might have been in danger."

The Demigod spoke while crushing Barbatos beneath his foot.

Iris didn't know whether she was supposed to take that as praise, but in any case, the man was expressing admiration for her despite not having suffered so much as a scratch. He spoke as though acknowledging his opponent, but beneath it all lay the composure born of absolute superiority.

"……."

Utterly spent, Iris sat collapsed on the ground and did nothing but gasp for breath.

Her disheveled hair obscured her vision. Stabbing pain radiated through her heart and lungs, making it difficult even to force out a single word.

"Which is precisely why I understand you even less."

The approaching Demigod kicked Iris in the face.

WHAM!

Iris toppled over without even managing to scream.

"Contractor of Archdukes, I have heard that only those who pursue practical gain with cold precision can make contracts with demons. So what are you?"

The Demigod, Las, continued speaking as he pressed his foot firmly against Iris's head.

"What meaning is there in this battle? Why did you start a fight you had no chance of winning? It isn't as though you failed to foresee this outcome."

The pressure bearing down on her eased slightly.

It was like someone loosening a strangling grip just enough to let the victim breathe. Perhaps he wanted to hear her answer.

"Mean…ing……? Ah. Meaning……. There is."

With her face still being crushed beneath his foot, Iris looked at the Demigod and smiled.

"I am a master of Black Magic. Most people neither know nor care to know this, but Black Magic is founded on Equivalent Exchange……. Unlike ordinary magic, it doesn't pursue harmony, but its effects are far more clear-cut."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I lost, Demigod. And thank you for trampling me. With this, the conditions have been fulfilled. If you kill me now, the Curse will activate."

For the first time, Las flinched.

"…A Curse?"

"That's right. I'll tell you now, you're already too late. At this point, there's no way to stop it─."

"……."

SHNK!

A razor-sharp leg pierced straight through Iris's thigh.

Her agonized scream scattered across the oasis sky.

Las waited in silence until her screaming subsided, then bent all the way down to her ear and whispered in a low voice.

"…Then you should have kept that fact hidden until the very end."

"……!"

"You look surprised. Why? Did you think I'd simply say I wasn't afraid of some paltry Curse and kill you anyway? I told you from the beginning, human. You chose the wrong opponent. I do not let my guard down. Even if my opponent is an insect, its final struggle might still leave a bite mark. I dislike that. Against your kind, I don't even want a scratch."

Smiling, Las slowly twisted the leg around.

The wound widened, forcing a groan from Iris.

"Putting that aside, you possess every quality necessary to become troublesome. I didn't expect you to have the nerve to threaten me even in this situation. Perhaps the Lord's efforts to keep you mortals in check are not entirely meaningless after all."

"Urgh, hngh……."

"But you're still inexperienced. You haven't managed to hide your fear completely. A Curse that activates upon death? Then I simply won't kill you. I know countless ways to keep a living creature alive. Even if I tear off all four of your limbs and split your upper body from your lower half─ I guarantee it. You will not die. Though you'll desperately wish you could."

"N-no……."

"And after that, if the Curse takes hold when I finally kill you, well. I can simply ask the Lord to perform Curse Removal."

Terror spread across Iris's face. She tried to crawl away across the sand, but she had already exhausted all her strength, and blood was streaming freely from her thigh.

Las smirked as he leisurely pursued his hobbled prey.

Crawling across the ground in an attempt to put even a little more distance between herself and the slowly approaching Demigod─ Iris PeaceFinder thought.

───Everything up to this point was going according to plan.

…A Curse that activated upon death? What a joke. There was no such thing. That wouldn't even be Black Magic anymore. It would already fall under Necromancy. Iris's Curse was something she could activate while still alive.

And at what moment did a Curse reach its greatest power?

When it was imbued with profound resentment toward its target.

Of course, Iris already resented this being so deeply that she felt she couldn't possibly hate him any more, but that alone wasn't enough. If she wanted to kill this Demigod, or, even if she couldn't do that, place a Curse on him that could never be removed and would last forever, she needed to resent him far more than she did now.

That was why she had deliberately provoked him.

She had engineered the situation so that he wouldn't kill her, but would instead reduce her to a miserable state.

He claimed he didn't look down on humans? Ha. Why couldn't he understand that saying something like that in itself already proved that he did?

Now that Demigod would torture Iris while pushing her to the brink without letting her die.

He might rip out her fingernails, gouge out her eyes, or cut off her limbs just as he'd said earlier……. Perhaps he would inflict psychological torment as well.

And each of those acts would make the Curse Iris intended to cast even stronger.

That was exactly what she wanted.

The important thing was not letting her will break.

Even while being tortured, Iris had to continue resenting that Demigod, had to continue hating him.

She could never allow herself to become afraid.

'…But.'

A bitter smile rose to her lips as she looked at her own trembling hands.

…It couldn't be helped.

She didn't like pain, after all.

"Let's start by cutting off one of your arms."

Rumble…….

Just as Las was about to bring his hand down, he looked behind him. It sounded as though thunder had rumbled somewhere. Yet when he looked up, the sky was still clear. There wasn't even a white cloud in sight, much less a storm cloud.

That was unusual.

Had he misheard?

"What a boring turn of events."

"……!"

This time, there was no mistaking it.

An unmistakably clear voice had spoken.

When Las turned around, he saw someone sitting atop a boulder.

"You… the brat I saw at the temple?"

Iris's gaze also turned toward the boulder.

A dazed voice slipped from her lips.

"…Lukas?"

The moment she muttered the name, she knew it wasn't him.

There was a strange frivolity in the way the man merely sat there. It was an attitude Lukas would never display.

Las continued in an incredulous voice.

"Did you come here to die? Hella isn't here today to prevent your death. But wait a moment. I'll finish off this woman first, and then─."

Las's voice gradually faded from Iris's hearing. She could feel her vision slowly turning black as well.

The phenomenon left her bewildered.

What was this? He wasn't even Lukas, yet merely seeing a face that looked similar to his had reassured her enough that she was about to pass out?

…That wouldn't do.

She still had too much left to do.

If she lost consciousness here, she wouldn't even be able to cast the Curse.

And yet she couldn't stop her vision from growing hazier or the overwhelming drowsiness from washing over her.

"Kill… her… and then……."

The Demigod's voice sounded as though it were breaking apart syllable by syllable. Was even her hearing beginning to fail?

That was what she thought, but something seemed off.

Through her vision, which had almost completely gone black, she could see Las's face.

He looked terrified.

'…What?'

That was an emotion no Demigod could ever possibly show,

'I really am seeing things after all.'

Iris gave a faint, derisive smile and lost consciousness.

*****

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