There existed a Hero named Yrius.

Every once in a while, he would think to himself about the other name that he had once had, but he could never quite recall it.

Similarly, he did not quite remember his death, but he was told it was related to a truck. He had a hunch that, in his previous life, he was a salaryman, but all he truly remembered was that he liked video games.

The one feeling he felt stronger than anything else was gratitude towards Goddess of Light, Luciel. Not only did she bring him back to life, she even granted him the ability to use magic and bestowed upon him the skill [Clear Mind]. With its help, he’d been able to devote himself completely to her and still remain rational.

That said, he did occasionally feel that some of his co-believers were less than rational.

Today was the first time he had been sent on a mission together with the Saint of Exorcisms, Saniel.

Of course, they were not alone: no, they were in a party of five.

If the mission went well, they had been told, they would get to work with Lady Saniel in the future, too. She was cute and well-liked, so this was plenty of incentive to try their best.

Their mission was simple.

Travel to the wilderness of Eskaria, and kill the lunatic calling himself the ‘demon king’ who thinks he’s built a country.

Of course, with that kind of mission statement, perhaps it was inevitable that they would underestimate the mission.

Although they almost seemed to have crossed some sort of border to get there, they eventually arrived at what must have been the lunatic’s base of operations.

If Yrius had to describe it in one word, he would use the word ‘awesome’ as defined in the dictionary.

A huge, black castle with towering walls, at least ten metres tall. The main gate, almost just as lofty, was decorated with lavish amounts of gold, silver and gemstones. The castle itself was even larger than these walls, and the dignified impression it left, probably in part due to the large, black stained glass windows, was almost like that of a cathedral.

Stronger than that feeling of awe, however, was a strange sense of dread that lightly stroked Yrius’s heart, as if preparing to grasp and crush it. As if he shouldn’t be there.

He also couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched…

Contrary to expectations, the gates simply opened.

Even more surprising, there had been little to no resistance in reaching the castle. The five of them had not encountered a single monster. Perhaps this ‘demon king’ was just a lunatic after all.

Ah, speaking of monsters, he could sense one. Hiding in ambush behind the doors, perhaps…?

She looked almost like a maid, but… as if turned monochrome, and then tinted blue.

In addition, she was floating, and her expression was decidedly un-maid-like.

‘Could it be she’s—?!’, such a thought ran through Yrius’s mind, and his thoughts quickly set into overdrived panic as a number of scenarios ran through his head.

“Stop!”

The end result was that he ended up stopping the Paladin of the party from attacking the maid—the monster.

I’ve gone and done it now… But I can’t back off here! That sense of dread… the moment he raised his sword, it turned into an immediate feeling of crisis…

It seemed Yrius possessed some kind of frighteningly accurate sixth sense. It also seemed that that would not help him come up with better plans than “throw himself in front of the Paladin’s sword”.

“... What are you doing, wizard? Explain yourself.”

He was surprisingly calm. Well, knights were supposed to be virtuous, after all.

“Well… she—ahem—it wasn’t attacking you, was it?”

“It’s a ghost, wizard. They attack using the [Possession] skill, so get away from it.”

Wrong, wrong, but I can’t say that!

“No,” the party’s cleric said, “that’s a Ghost Maid, isn’t it? They don’t have [Possession], but [Materialisation]. And it doesn’t look like it has any weapons.”

“Kyahaha…”

Yrius did not recall any of his current party members having such a creepy laugh. For a moment, he panicked, thinking he may have made a mistake by saving the monster.

“If you’re quite finished,” the maid said, “I have received orders to escort you to Master Astaroth’s current location.”

Master… The guy calling himself a demon king? That’d be convenient…

“Ah, this, uh, ‘Astaroth’ person,” the cleric said, “is he the one running this place?”

“Of course. Master Astaroth rules our everything,” the maid said between her giggles. “We do our best to fulfil his every order, no matter the cost, and to make his life as well as possible.”

“... Fine. Take us there,” the knight said, finally putting his sword away. Yrius thought that it would’ve been fine to sheathe that earlier. “But if you betray us, I will slay you.”

The castle, despite its size, seemed almost desolate to Yrius.

Perhaps this impression was only natural. After all, the party of Heroes barely encountered anyone—only the occasional blue maid, similar to their guide, maids devoid of colour entirely, with far more subservient expressions, and creepy, sinister suits of black armour. He had some theories about secret passages or monsters simply hiding away.

Rather than all that, though, the further in they went, the further Yrius’s sense of dread grew.

It made him shudder.

The door the party found themselves in front of was…

To put it frankly, even fancier than the one outside.

‘Is this castle not even higher-class than His Majesty’s’—such thoughts had been running through Yrius’s head for a while now, and try as he might, he could not find a way to rebutt them. The decorations in the Holy Astal Kingdom’s palace were simply excessive, but here, not a single thing felt out of place.

And then-

That sense of dread had gotten so strong it took him every fibre of courage he had just to keep walking, every step he took.

He was amazed his party members seemed completely unaffected.

And then, without anyone’s input, the door opened.

What…

What is this?

This feeling…

Ah, that’s right. I haven’t felt like this for a long time.

I wasn’t feeling dread.

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That wasn’t dread at all.

That was abject fear.

It all makes sense now.

Despite his overwhelmingly tragic train of thought, Yrius felt a strange sense of satisfaction. He understood it all.

Why his party members didn’t feel that dread. They were blinded by faith.

Sadly, he was not as lucky.

But for his honoured goddess’s sake, for Lady Luciel’s sake, he would…!

Lady Saniel stopped moving.

The chains binding her did not look like the spell [Devil’s Bindings], or indeed any other spell he knew. They looked far scarier and more powerful, as if woven from darkness itself.

A superior version, perhaps? Or-

“Heroes!”

A sudden, sharp, loud, terrifying voice got his attention.

Expending every last bit of willpower in his body, Yrius turned his head to look at its origin. It took him all the strength he had not to, on the spot, drop to his knees and apologise as he laid his eyes on the man.

I can’t give in…! For Lady Luciel…!

With those kinds of thoughts, he hung on to his last shred of consciousness, steeling his determination every passing second.

There, on that throne, sat that thing he would not dare describe as a man, with eyes black like the abyss and hair grey like stone. On his head sat a gorgeous black crown, embedded in which were a number of sparkling dark blue gemstones.

In what could only be described as an attempt to escape reality, Yrius began contemplating the thing’s military uniform.

On his lap sat a girl, dressed in an oversized black robe, who Yrius, at first, mistook for an elaborate doll—only when her pointy ears twitched and she blinked did it become clear she was alive. Her eyes, patterned like a rainbow, stared fixedly at the crowned creature’s face, her gaze accentuated by the strange patterns on her face. In her hair sat an ornament almost like an inverted cross—the symbol of the faith of the Goddess of Darkness.

It took Yrius a few seconds to realise that she had an arm outstretched in Lady Saniel’s direction. She, he thought, must be the one who created those chains, then.

The pressure these two emitted far outclassed anyone else in the room, and they were just sitting there, so Yrius quickly reached the conclusion these were the self-proclaimed demon king and his… wife?

That said, Yrius eventually managed to pull his eyes away from them. Only then did he notice the beauty of the room itself.

Although he couldn’t see the lower part of the back wall, the upper part was a gorgeous black stained glass window, suggesting the same was true for the lower part, as though the audience chamber in a cathedral of sorts. The faint light, filtering through the black panes and emanating from the tall candelabras on either side of the path, enhanced the atmosphere in a manner that chilled Yrius to the core.

The reason he could not see the bottom part of the back wall was quite simple.

A dragon was blocking his view.

He’d never seen one before, but this looked like a dragon and had red scales, so it was probably a Red Dragon, said to be the most powerful and ferocious of all.

Next to the throne, at a little table, sat a white-skinned little girl dressed in black and white, relaxedly drinking tea. Even more terrifying than the pressure she was exerting was her inhuman cuteness, with not a single mark or trace of muscle or bone structure on her face.

At the foot of the crowned creature’s throne, a Kobold lay curled up, thoroughly relaxed. Its white fur was something Yrius didn’t think he’d ever seen before.

Next to it stood what seemed to be a shadow in human shape, dressed in colourful robes and clutching a book to its bosom, and despite the lack of a face, Yrius could tell it looked quite flustered…

Hey, that book has Lady Luciel’s holy symbol on it!

There was another girl, perhaps in her twenties, with purple skin, a pair of horns and a heart-tipped tail, reading some kind of book. Despite the fact that she was obviously a monster, Yrius’s eyes could not help but be drawn to her body, and he had to tear his gaze away.

And then, at the bottom of the steps leading up to the crowned creature’s throne stood a pair of beast-children, dressed in what could only be described as strange variations on school uniforms and with large peaked caps on their heads. Although the girl of the pair simply stood around, her hands loosely on her swords, the boy properly stood at attention, his sword in its sheath, in front of him.

Yrius had his doubts about how good that was for the sheath, but he kept his mouth shut.

Although he was about to direct his gaze up because of some strange squelching sound he heard, his attention was drawn away by that thing, speaking once again.

“Allow me to ask you all a question.”

With one sentence, the crowned creature shattered all of the determination in Yrius’s body. Yet Yrius ignored every warning signal and instinct his body was sending him and stared the creature down.

“Who do you serve?”

The casualness with which the creature asked the question, one of his hands on the dragon’s head and the other on the head of the girl on his lap, got on Yrius’s nerves, but he didn’t have the courage to speak a word—

Was what should have happened.

The moment the question entered his ears, power welled up from the core of Yrius’s body, flowing through his veins and permeating his magic circuits. In exchange for the courage to stand up and fight, this heretical power demanded only one thing of him—something he was more than willing to do.

He experienced an urge, stronger than ever before, to sing his praises to Lady Luciel.

“I devote myself wholly to the sacred Goddess of Light, Lady Luciel!” he said, together with the rest of his party, overtaken by glorious, divine bliss and not at all noticing that Lady Saniel’s voice was not in the choir.

“I had thought you intelligent for stopping your comrade from attacking my maid, but it seems I was mistaken…”

Yrius was too high on faith to even notice the disappointment in the crowned creature’s tone, and his words entered Yrius’s ears as nothing more than a flat insult.

Yrius closed his eyes as he started chanting a spell, thus completely shutting out his surroundings. As a result, he of course didn’t notice the crowned creature raise his arm from the dragon’s head, nor his chanting.

“[Earth-Attribute Magic: Gravity Well],” the demon king said, exerting a massive pressure on the Heroes. Before he realised what was going on, Yrius was face-first on the floor.

He thought he could vaguely hear the sounds of his party members dropping to the floor, as well.

“You should learn how to kneel properly,” the demon king said, utter disdain in his voice.

Yrius barely even heard him over the ringing in his ears.

He grappled with his consciousness for a few seconds, trying everything he could to stay awake, but—

Everything went black.