The forest had turned into a battlefield, and clusters of trees collapsed onto the ground, forming land between a large body of water. Moonlight shone on this surface and lit the surroundings. Soon, an intense red light that was stronger than the faint moonlight began to spread across the forest.
Crack! Crackle!
Large trees burned and let out sparks. Each tree was so big that even if two people stretched their arms wide open and tried to hug the tree, they would barely cover the perimeter. Since such trees were burning up like wood in a fireplace, the path of fire became much more intense. This gigantic fiery body almost looked like a fire monster as it moved around this way and that according to the air flow.
Whoosh! Something fell into the path of fire. It was a corpse.
Swish! Swish! Swish! More bodies were thrown in. These were corpses that belonged to the dead mercenaries and the robed figures, and the fiery sparks swallowed them greedily. Although there were quite a few of them, the fire was much bigger than them and had no trouble burning the corpses.
“Last one!” Zich threw the last corpse in his hands and wiped his hands clean. Now, all he needed to do was wait for the fire to turn the corpses into ashes. Zich turned his back from the fire and from a bit of a distance away, he saw another much smaller fire burning. Within this small fire lay one single corpse. Unlike the mercenaries’ and robed figures’ corpses that had been carelessly thrown into the mouth of fire like trash, this corpse was being given a proper farewell and taken care of with respect.
Zich walked toward it and saw Til quietly watching the fire.
“Are you done, sir?” Til asked when Zich stood next to him.
“Yes, there are no more corpses left.”
“I’m sorry for making you take care of the whole mess,” Til said.
“It’s fine. I’m not enough of a bastard to hinder someone from making their last farewell to a friend.”
Zich looked down at the fire. Inside the fire, the corpse’s clothes and skin were already all charred black and the bones were crumbling. This was Nick’s corpse. After the fire had swallowed Nick’s corpse, Til had continued to watch it without moving. What was he feeling? Was Til relieved that a betrayer was now dead? Or was he sad that a friend he had been with for a long time was completely gone from this world? Or was it a mix of all these feelings? If so, which emotion was taking the biggest place in his heart? It was impossible to tell as Til quietly watched the fire with his lips tightly pressed together in an obstinate expression.
On the other hand, Zich didn’t have many thoughts about this matter. Since this matter involved Til and Nick, Til could figure it out between the two of them, and it wasn’t Zich’s place to say anything.
‘Should I let the fire be until everything is burned?’
It seemed like Til would not leave his spot until Nick’s body became a handful of ashes, and since Zich had no loyalty for Nick to pay his farewells to until the end, he thought it would be good for him to do something else. Zich was about to move when Til spoke.
“I trust that you will keep your promise.”
Til sounded desperate. If Til had been his enemy and spoke in such a way, Zich would have gladly broken the promise and laughed at him. However, he didn’t need to do that to someone like Til.
“Don’t worry. I can’t say that I’m an honest person even if it kills me, but I don’t plan to break this promise.” Then, thinking that Til would probably worry, Zich added, “…Since I think your friend died while bearing the punishments for all his sins.”
Til then recalled what happened before Nick’s death. Nick had fallen into despair when he heard that the daughter he loved so much was being held hostage after suffering from Zich’s plans. Then, he died while fearing for his daughter’s death. It was a perfectly tragic death, sad enough to draw pity from onlookers. Of course, even these onlookers would change their minds once they heard all the things Nick had done.
“So, it’s fine even if we make it so that Nick unfortunately died from a terrible event.”
“Thank you.”
Til had helped Zich ridicule and mock Nick. The fact that Nick was their enemy now played a factor in why Til helped, but it was mostly because of the promise they had made. In return for promising to help Zich give Nick a painful death, Zich promised to not tell the world about Nick’s betrayal. The reason why Til made this deal wasn’t to protect his friend’s honor or trust for the mercenaries.
“With that, people will not point fingers at Ellie,” Zich said. Both Zich and Til were well aware of how people gazed at family members of criminals. The more severe a criminal’s crime was, the more their family members would be under greater scrutiny. If Nick’s crimes were revealed to the world, it was unthinkable how much pain Ellie would have to endure. Thus, Til was grateful to Zich for accepting his offer, and helping to ridicule Nick seemed like a cheap price to pay. Furthermore, Til also agreed with Zich’s logic that if Nick’s evil deeds didn’t spread across the world and he could keep his honor, he should at least die while paying for his sins.
“You really treasure Ellie.”
“She has always been like a daughter to me. I don’t want to see her hurt.” Til’s expression looked bittersweet. “However, I know she’ll cry for a period of time after hearing about her father’s death.”
“Are you going to raise her?”
“Of course. I think Nick would have done the same. Although he tried to frame me as a criminal and reap the benefits, I’m sure he would’ve raised Walter with Ellie,” Til said.
‘Really? Do you really think so?’ Zich thought, but he kept this to himself. He didn’t mean to make fun of Til, and also thought that Nick adored Walter too. However, if Zich thought of what Nick had done when Til had become the Demon Lord of Disaster, it really was questionable.
Til used to be the Demon Lord of Disaster and caused an enormous amount of catastrophe and mass genocide. Before he had regressed, Zich had believed that the Demon Lord of Disaster was constantly looking for something. ‘If they carried out a similar plan like the one in this regression and successfully corrupted Til, I can only think of one person he was probably looking for.’ It was probably his son, Walter.
Of course, since the Demon Lord of Disaster had gone insane, there was a low possibility that he was moving with the clear goal of finding his son. He was probably acting in habit of what he desired the most before he went insane. If he really had been successful in finding Walter, there was a very low chance that Til could even recognize him. However, considering that he was still looking for his son after losing his ability to reason, his fatherly love was extremely impressive.
‘If he was still looking for his son, this also means that he wasn’t able to find Walter in the end.’ As Til expected, Nick could have also taken care of Walter. ‘If that was the case, would Til look for his son so desperately?’ If Walter was under Nick’s protection, Til wouldn’t have wandered all over the world like that.
‘There’s probably a high chance that Walter went missing.’ That probably was a large factor in making Til the Demon Lord of Disaster. Zich didn’t know the person behind Walter’s disappearance. Nick could have tried to protect Walter, but he might have fallen for the robed figure’s ploys.
‘Even then, we also don’t know if Nick abandoned Walter.’ Of course, now, it didn’t matter what was the truth, since this future would never happen.
“Is that so?” Thus, Zich gave up on questioning Til’s words; instead, he just monotonously agreed with them.
“This whole incident must be over now, right?” Til asked with a hopeful tone, as he wanted to end this headache-inducing incident as quickly as possible. However, Zich firmly shook his head.
“Perhaps, there is still the most important matter left.”
Til moved his eyes away from the fire for the first time and looked at Zich. There was deep disbelief in his eyes—or more exactly, he didn’t want Zich’s words to be true.
“Do you remember how they blackmailed us with the Pyramid of Vengeful Souls?”
“Yes. They told us that the monsters were going to ambush Pialu, so we should quickly go and evacuate the citizens. Do you think that there will still be a monster ambush in Pialu?”
“Yes, with a very high possibility.”
Til’s face stiffened. “Mr. Zich, not a single person should’ve escaped. Moreover, you have the Pyramid of Vengeful Souls in your possession.”
“Those guys are part of a very large organization. We probably didn’t kill all of them.” First of all, Glen Zenard was alive, with his eyes wide awake.
“Moreover, they might have more Pyramids of Vengeful Souls. When the robed figures were controlling the monsters, the monsters didn’t attack them. It was probably because the monsters received a command, and Mr. Nick probably wasn’t the one who gave it.”
Til’s expression worsened as Zich continued, “Yet, most of all, even if they had no other choice, they decided to send monsters to ambush Pialu way too easily. Those guys value their missions more than their lives. Since these guys easily decided to ambush Pialu, I think that they already communicated with their higher-ups beforehand about this matter.”
“Then, isn’t this a very serious matter?!” Considering the number and strength of monsters gathered together in the Denest Mountain Range, it would be a piece of cake for the monsters to completely wipe off Pialu from the world map. As the robed figures said, they needed to get to the city as fast as possible and begin evacuating people.
“There’s no need for you to be so frazzled. I set up a basic counter plan to deal with the situation.”
Til was impressed that Zich set up a counter plan in that short amount of time. He was also amazed that Zich got rid of the false charges against him and defeated all their enemies at once. The more he saw Zich, the more he thought that Zich was impressive.
“First of all, it’s this.” Zich took out the Pyramid of Vengeful Souls in his pocket.
Til’s face brightened up. “Oh, I get it! I just realized that we can also control monsters!” Since he was taken aback by the high possibility that Pialu would be ambushed by monsters, he couldn’t think very far. Yet, after thinking for a bit, he realized that they didn’t need to fear the monsters if they had the Pyramid of Vengeful Souls. However, Til’s expectations were crushed in a second.
“That’ll be great but…”
“Is there another problem?”
“If we use the Pyramid of Vengeful Souls, that means the two orders would contradictory, and I don’t know what will happen if such a situation occurs. The monsters could split into two groups and follow different orders, or they could fall into confusion. The third possibility is that both orders could be nullified.”
This was a matter that even Zich could not predict what would happen. “I don’t know about the first possibility, but if the second scenario happens, it’ll be dangerous for Pialu.” If the monsters split into two groups and listen to orders from two different Pyramids of Vengeful Souls, it would be fine, since the two groups can fight each other and kill each other off. However, if the monsters fall into confusion or the orders get nullified, Zich didn’t know what the monsters would do. They could fight each other until both parties died, but they could also recklessly come down the mountain range.
“Would you be able to make an order at this distance?”
“That would probably be difficult. I know how to use the Pyramid of Vengeful Souls, but my training and experience compared to the robed figures or Mr. Nick is much lower. I can only issue an order if I approach the monsters.”
“Then we have to immediately go to the Denest Mountain Range! Before they do anything to the monsters, we need to make the first move! Let’s make the monsters fight each other and scatter in different directions.” The time they spent cleaning up the corpses felt wasteful to Til. It was to the extent that he regretted doing a basic funerary rite for Nick.
However, contrary to Til’s frantic heart, Zich acted way too leisurely. “Don’t worry about it too much. I have a different plan besides the Pyramid of Vengeful Souls, and that’s the reason why I’m taking my time like this.”
“What’s the plan?”
Zich smiled instead of replying and pointed at Nick. “With this plan, your heart won’t feel so heavy about not being with your friend in his final moments.”
It seemed as if Zich didn’t immediately want to teach him the answer. Til felt anxious, but he nodded. Even though it hadn’t been long since he met Zich, he fully trusted Zich.