The Demon Prince goes to the Academy - Chapter 683

Chapter 683

Last episode –

There are letters that have no choice but to be written with red thread blood.

There are also paintings that must be drawn with blood.

The Demon King’s empire was like that.

After the Gate incident, the Demon King declared a new empire.

There were those who believed in the demon king, but there were also those who did not believe in the demon king.

So there was division.

The divisions were scattered and germinated their own seeds.

There have been several wars.

The seeds of division did not disappear and were scattered somewhere else.

The important thing is that the Demon King’s empire has never been defeated.

If you ask if there was no prosperity and reconstruction, it was not.

The world was restoring civilization even as divisions and conflicts continued.

In the middle of the flow of history, which sometimes hesitates, but eventually moves forward.

New Imperial Year 5.

-In

a forest that became a sea of blood.

Ellen was looking around at the scattered bodies.

Of course, I look at the sculpture of a monster that is neither human nor animal.

As if thinking deeply about something.

As if they were estimating their original form.

Ellen takes out a notebook and writes something down.

I wrote and, although it was simple, I also drew pictures.

It was a picture she had never drawn in her life, but Ellen got used to it before she knew it.

But why should I paint?

Sometimes monsters are symmetrical, but in the end they look different. Many had appearances that could only be described as grotesque, terrible, and unfamiliar.

Drawing and documenting those individual monsters actually meant nothing during the Gate crisis.

Still, Ellen does.

Ellen, who has been messing around in the bloody forest for a long time, covers the notebook and puts it in her backpack and walks somewhere.

The sun is going down.

Ellen knows that forest and mountain nights come too fast.

* * *

– Clap crack

The night fell and Ellen was sitting in front of a campfire.

Just as fire chases beasts, sometimes it chases monsters.

But really, that doesn’t mean much either.

Just as there are monsters who are afraid of fire, there are also monsters who are fascinated by fire.

It may be dangerous in that it is illuminated at night, but in fact, there are monsters whose vision does not depend on light.

So, a nighttime bonfire in no-man’s-land may or may not be dangerous.

It may or may not have meaning.

So, in the end, the conclusion is simple.

A campfire has the obvious advantage of warding off the cold, so it is better to keep it lit.

That was one of Ellen’s many realizations during her long wandering life.

In the end, all I could do was put my nerves on edge and fall asleep.

A life killing monsters in no man’s land.

Ellen can kill monsters, but she cannot exterminate them.

Gone are the days when monsters poured out of warp gates.

However, if there were no dangerous days for five years, it was not.

The monsters often had dangerous attacks, which were sometimes fatal to Ellen.

Enemies who wandered between life and death were rather more frequent after the gate incident.

It’s hard to see that it’s just because of the monster.

There were more times when I wandered between death and death because I was hungry or because I ate the wrong thing and got sick.

So Ellen now realized that she was a body that would not die even if she ate quite a bit of poison.

Of course, even so, he never did anything like grilling and eating unknown monster meat.

Ellen takes a notebook out of her backpack.

Of course, it wasn’t just one book, but several.

Ellen turns the pages, shining her notebook in the light of the campfire.

On some pages, I thought about it for a long time, and on other pages, I turned over meaninglessly.

Sometimes, I also annotate by adding what I remember.

Should I call it a journal?

Ellen was writing this at some point.

I had a strong hunch that something had to be done.

So sometimes I stopped by where people lived. To get a notebook and a pen.

Of course, the edge of the notebook was tattered because it was a rough life.

After checking the notebooks for a while, Ellen organized them well and put them in her backpack.

“Whoa… … .”

Ellen takes a root from her bosom and chews on it.

Ellen doesn’t know what this is.

I just eat because I know that I will not get sick even if I eat.

She didn’t even know what to eat, but Ellen learned quite a bit about what she could eat.

I can’t even remember the last time I fell asleep.

I don’t know when was the last time I ate properly.

Least food Least sleep Least water.

I was living with just that.

If you enter a place where you can’t get food at all, there are cases where you wander for days and days as soon as all the food you have is gone.

It was a fight not against monsters, but against hunger.

If it hadn’t been for the bizarrely strong body, an ordinary person would have withered away long ago.

How about going back to where people live and resting for a few days?

Although living a life completely removed from civilization, Ellen occasionally stopped by a town or village where people lived.

Of course, I had to hide my identity.

It is true that food is running out.

But now I have work to do.

And even if you go back, there is no point.

First of all, the most important issue.

I have no money.

Life in no man’s land is just to kill monsters.

So there is no corner where money comes out.

If you live in a human city for a long time, you know that there are plenty of places to make money, but that in itself is dangerous.

Along with the deposed emperor Bertus de Gradias, the hero Ellen Artorius is the most wanted in the empire. Whether voluntarily or unintentionally, the emperor had no choice but to define the hero and the deposed emperor as the greatest enemy of the empire, so it is natural.

Regardless of the emperor’s will, those who support the emperor hate the fugitive Emperor and Ellen Artorius.

So, in a human city, you can’t do anything while staying longer than just stopping by.

Even if it was an anti-imperial force, it would be no different.

There, in a different sense, is a place that will surely capture Ellen.

Somewhere to arrest, somewhere to plead for the salvation of mankind.

It’s Ellen’s situation that she can’t feel comfortable wherever she goes.

Of course, there is no such thing as being discovered just by stopping by for a short time. It’s just a matter of hiding your true identity and appearance. Just can’t stay long.

Although she couldn’t always watch, Ellen could now and then see civilization come to life.

The adventurer’s guild that Ellen once briefly experienced still exists.

However, instead of exploring the open sea of the Dark Land as before, it has changed to a form similar to a mercenary business in which monsters are defeated and money is received.

It is true that security is unstable here and there, and there cannot be enough troops to clean the entire continent.

So, the individual solves the mission of killing the monsters and receives a reward from the empire.

That was the changed form of the current adventurer’s guild.

If she had been paid to kill monsters, Ellen might have died buried in the money. No, in the first place, you should be suspicious of whether the Empire has the ability to pay Ellen that much money.

However, it would make no sense to suddenly register as a new adventurer just because you need money to live in a no-man’s-land in order not to be noticed by the Empire.

The face is so well known that it is impossible to create a false identity.

So there is no corner to earn money, but you have to take too big a risk.

When he was really in a hurry, he disguised himself as an anonymous adventurer and took a bunch of evidence of monster eradication and made money.

Due to the nature of the adventurer’s guild, which gives money when you defeat a monster, you have no choice but to give money once you have an overwhelming amount of evidence for killing a monster.

Of course, if you do something like that, the adventurer’s guild will raise a fuss over who the hell that person is.

There were many times when I took the money and escaped as if I was running away before the uproar grew, and it was actually dangerous.

After all, it is very dangerous and desperate to wander in the wilderness.

Returning to human habitation is as dangerous as or more dangerous than wandering in the wilderness.

It is not that there are no villages that are not interested in demon kings or empires and are kind to wanderers.

In some cases, they helped with small tasks and were given a place to sleep or something to eat.

Regardless of what Ellen looked like, some people did not know who Ellen Artorius was. Because there is still a place that is disconnected from the world.

After chewing up all the roots she was chewing on, Ellen restlessly leans against the tree trunk and looks up at the sky.

In the days of Temple, I ate without wanting.

I could live by eating just this much, but wouldn’t it be a waste of food to eat so much back then?

“… … .”

It was funny to think that way, so Ellen smiled faintly.

There was a person who gave me noodles every day, asking why I ate so much.

Even so, if I wanted to eat something, the person who always made it for me.

Ellen hangs her head and catches her breath for a while.

I can’t help the thoughts that come up like an obsession on the topic that I abandoned myself.

What if I had just stayed

But the current reality speaks for itself.

There are many bounty hunters to catch Ellen and Bertus, and on the one hand, there are still those who still respect Ellen as a hero and hope that one day she will save mankind.

Existence alone is a source of war.

Even if you don’t have confidence, the war has already happened a few times, and if there was, a bigger war would have happened.

Perhaps the empire fell apart before it was even completed.

There should be only one sun.

The two suns set the world on fire just by existing.

And in fact, the things of the past don’t mean anything.

It is meaningless that he is currently wanted.

Even without all of that, there is a reality.

The Demon King is married.

And a long time passed.

“… … .”

There was no thought of interfering with it in the first place.

Since you left, you can’t go back with a few pieces of memories from the past, the accumulated time that should have flowed by itself.

They must have already piled up a lot of their own stories.

Just imagine.

What would it be like if everything was good?

just to remember

I’ll eat some more then.

The food Reinhardt made.

The moment when we could touch each other.

that time.

A little more.

Anything more.

“… … .”

In the end, she forcibly cut off her thoughts and Ellen quietly closed her eyes.

The wind was cold.

* * *

The next day.

Ellen got up from her seat after lighting the fire and put on her backpack.

The chaos of the night disappears in the morning.

In a situation where there is work to be done, idle thoughts do not come.

Grief and self-torture that permeates like a seizure always come just before going to sleep.

As always, do what you have to do.

I decided to kill the monsters in the no man’s land.

It is a body that cannot survive in all places where civilization exists, so it wanders only in places where there is no civilization.

It’s painful and hard, but it’s the path I chose for myself.

So Ellen walks in the woods.

It wasn’t difficult to reach the trail we found last night.

Ellen learned to do quite a bit of things she never knew how to do.

As well as drawing, so is the ability to keep track of things.

A broken tree branch. and location.

footprint.

excreta.

predation traces.

Through those things, I was able to guess things like the size, radius of action, and location of the monsters that weren’t there.

If Ellen was an adventurer, she would probably be recorded as the greatest adventurer of the present age.

Ellen did this even before the adventurer’s guild changed its form to give rewards based on monsters defeated.

Sometimes Ellen was funny.

Her brother Lagan Artorius was a legendary adventurer.

After making a name for himself as a legendary adventurer, he became a warrior.

But Ellen is in a different order.

He was first known as a warrior and then became an adventurer.

Ellen checks the trail and guesses which direction the missed group was headed.

After checking the faintly pressed bushes and footprints, Ellen checks the notebook.

Consistent with the contents of the notebook.

And walking, looking for traces.

Traces sometimes disappear, but you can find them if you get the general direction.

There was a time when I just blindly killed monsters.

There are monsters everywhere on the continent, so all you have to do is kill and kill and kill.

Then one day you’ll be able to hunt the last monster.

save people from monsters

That purpose can be achieved.

However, the process cannot be easy, and it is extremely difficult to exterminate all the hidden monsters one by one.

Therefore, the number of monsters will gradually decrease and it will become difficult to find them.

So Ellen gradually learned how to track the monster.

Overall, there is not much difference from hunting.

But it’s just a hunt where the prey changes every time.

In the case of a giant monster, it is convenient to see it from a distance.

However, monsters, regardless of size, are deadly. So when a giant monster sees it, it runs and kills it, and it clearly handles small and medium-sized monsters as well.

Find and kill hidden monsters.

Amid those days, the last few months.

Ellen felt the fear choke her breath.

Even though the food was extremely low, they were looking for monsters rather than finding food.

That was the reason why I took out my notebook more often than usual.

Ellen is cautious but moves quickly.

Going past the footprints and broken branches.

footprint.

Footprints matching the drawing in the notebook.

follow it

Monsters usually look different.

There were even many heterogeneous monsters that could not be seen in the form of living things.

Of course, there are also guys who look alike.

A form with wings or a gigantic monster.

There are many similar guys.

However, perfect match is very rare.

It can’t be said that it doesn’t exist at all, but the color or horns are slightly different.

but a few months ago.

Ellen faced monsters that perfectly resembled each other.

Of course, they weren’t strong monsters. All of them were cut in two by the rament and just fell down with blood splattered.

But Ellen vomited in horror on the spot.

After that, Ellen continues to search.

Contrasting traces and wandering around the neighborhood.

find something

hoping there’s no such thing.

Hoping that such a thing is an illusion.

Draw, collect and search for traces.

search and search again

May it be one of those occasional things.

Hoping that there are monsters like that.

how much time has passed

After wandering through the woods for over five hours.

in a crevice in a hill.

– Kreurreung!

Ellen heard the monster’s low, thick cry.

“… … .”

-Sureureung!

Ellen takes out the lament and watches the cave.

The monster was still glaring at Ellen with red eyes from a gap in the hill.

It is a threat.

Threats to kill if approached.

But Ellen doesn’t back down.

Slowly approach the monster.

– Kreung!

As Ellen approaches, the monster thrusts its clawed paws out of the crack.

Warnings and threats grow louder and louder.

But Ellen goes closer with her eyes wide open.

I hope not.

please don’t

wishing

The moment you take one more step.

-Kwoaaaaa!

The gigantic body that jumped at Ellen opened its huge mouth with hundreds of teeth and lunged at Ellen.

– Squeak!

The attacking monster was cut in two from the mouth to the tail by the Void Sword’s blow, and was driven into the forest at the same speed as it was charging.

instant death.

It was exactly the same form as the monster he had been chasing so far.

It wasn’t even the first kill.

I killed those types of monsters over and over again.

However, he keeps facing the same type of monsters.

I am not interested in dead monsters.

Ellen wasn’t after that.

It’s true that he was looking for that monster, but it wasn’t really that monster that Ellen was after.

why did you threaten

Monsters usually have indiscriminate aggression towards everything except monsters.

But just now, hiding in the cave, he growled.

Like a warning not to come near.

Ellen carefully heads to the cave where the monster jumped out.

Shouldn’t be

It must be a delusion.

There should be no such thing.

Thinking so, I wandered around this area for several months.

obsessively.

Because there are monsters in the form of dividing and multiplying.

thinking it would be like that

But even before entering the cave, Ellen was already in despair.

-Queek

-Queek!

A small cry is heard from inside.

“ah… … .”

Entering the cave, Ellen had no choice but to open her mouth in a daze.

About six small things the size of an adult forearm.

Something that looked like a miniature version of a monster that had just died was lingering, blind.

“iced coffee… … . ah… … .”

-With

a sigh, Ellen sat down in front of that little procrastination.

Something that has not been found in any object so far.

Ellen found the monster, but didn’t target it.

I was looking for a monster’s baby.

The offspring itself is evidence of reproduction.

The most common form of multiplication that is neither replication nor division.

Existing multiple monsters of exactly the same shape suggested that possibility.

Among the monsters, breeding objects appeared.

It is unknown whether it was there originally or appeared to adapt.

So there will be individuals that reproduce among other individuals.

Of course, there may be monsters that mate with other species.

I hadn’t seen it before, so I left it as a possibility.

One is possible, so there can be no two.

There must be a species capable of breeding not only this individual and this species in front of us, but also other species.

I don’t know when it started.

However, monsters are still increasing, not decreasing.

somewhere in the world.

They don’t appear at the gate, but they should be multiplying and increasing.

That means one thing.

Monsters do not disappear from the world.

The moment to kill the last monster will not come.

“no… … .”

Ellen couldn’t see anything but despair.