‘[The 21st Special Exorcist, Paris, had been declared a fugitive for killing the King's brother.]’

‘[Special Exorcist Paris suspected of having taken part in a massacre of new exorcists…]’

The newspaper headline had a picture of a cold-faced Paris at the front.

A bead of cold sweat rolled down my cheek.

This was bad! How the hell had she gotten caught red-handed?!

With her special ability, everything should have gone well! Was there something I hadn't foreseen?

The King's brother was a weasel who would survive many situations and ended up getting killed by the Demonic Exorcist in the original story.

He was a man who played all sides and tried to get power until he ended up messing with the wrong guy.

But despite his cockroach-like tenacity, he was a weakling who couldn’t even use Ord.

…

The time for the finals came, and I could hear the crowd's screams, even from my locker. Even though I couldn’t see the crowd, the colosseum was filled to the brim.

I clenched my hands into fists, but I couldn’t stop them from shaking.

My opponent was Hiro, and he might be a strong Exorcist, but not the kind of guy that would kill someone out of nowhere. So I wasn’t afraid of him.

Instead, what scared me was the thought of what would happen during the finals. This was when Red Fox was going to etch their name onto the public eye by unsealing the nine-tailed fox from the golden pyramid.

This was a genuine Ultimate Class demon and not just something close to it like Agon was in the forest.

Tamae No Mae was a monster of proportions comparable to Yamata No Orochi.

This would be the catalyst that started the downward spiral for humanity.

I was afraid of another thing too. Ever since I came to this world, I had tried my best to play my cards right. While most of the time it had worked out, there have been instances where what I thought was best hadn’t gotten the results I wanted.

Now would be the time to find out everything. Had I fucked up the future? Or maybe, against all odds, I had made things somewhat better?

“Fuck it! When did I start getting scared of the truth? My fear doesn't change reality, so shitting my pants over this is useless!” I got up and stretched.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” The new exam proctor addressed the crowd. I heard him from the speakers in my locker room.

“The next fight will be Hiro, from the famous Yari Clan! On the opposite corner will be the dark sheep of this exam, Kon of the Dark Sword Clan!”

When he called out the names, I left the locker room and started walking down the hallway. This route would lead me to the fighting grounds, but each step I took felt like an eternity.

“Hey,” someone called out from the exit. It was Delia, and she had a soft smile on her face. She leaned on the wall. “Is it just me, or do you look kinda out of it?”

“It’s definitely you,” I responded without a second thought.

What the hell was she doing here?

“Be careful and don’t waste your Ord. Even if you lose the fight, as long as you put up a good show, they will award you the Expert Exorcist title,” Delia said.

I couldn’t understand her thoughts. But by her words alone, it was easy to tell she knew about the attack.

A part of me wished she and the clan didn’t know. At least that way, they could have some sort of redeemable morality, and I could lie to myself a bit longer about what kind of clan they really were.

Thousands of innocent people were going to die in the stadium, civilians that had come with their families just to enjoy a show—the elderly, parents, and young kids who had nothing to do with it.

But I had to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding this. “So, we are connected with Organization X?”

Delia’s eyes widened slightly, but her expression returned to normal in a split second, and she shrugged. “Kind of. I heard from Twenty about you. If you weren’t from our Clan, they would have killed you on the train. Be careful who you pick a fight with, cousin.”

Kind of hypocritical coming from her. The Dark Sword Clan got destroyed in the original story because they assumed they had caught up with the four great clans and kidnapped one of their clan head’s children.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

If it had been that easy, the four great clans wouldn’t have survived through the thousands of years of history they had. Every one of those clans had its own horrifying secrets and schemes.

I was about to walk past Delia, but I stopped and looked her in the eyes. “A famous man once said: These violent delights have violent ends.”

She raised a questioning brow, but I continued. “We’re looking at ourselves as the big players, but we’re just an overweight fish in a small pond.”

The Dark Sword Clan overestimated themselves and thought they could go against the four great clans and get away with it. Similarly, the four great clans… No, even humanity didn’t realize we weren’t that special.

As soon as the Dragon King lifted the barrier around the human world, terror from outside would rush in. Yet, in the original story, humanity was so fucked that they took their chances of a new start in that outside world.

Even without knowing what had happened after chapter 400. It wasn’t hard to guess what would likely happen. Every Shounen Manga had the Arc of Despair.

Like when Ace died in One Piece, or Jiraya died in Naruto.

My Hero Academia had that kind of arc too, but I didn’t like its ending.

***

Delia stared at her cousin’s back as he walked off. “Talk about an overreaction.”

Still, the despairing look in his eyes that he hadn’t bothered hiding had unnerved her.

If it were anyone else, she would have told them to visit a psychiatrist. But Delia didn’t believe in those money-grubbing fraudsters.

They got paid by keeping you there. So why should you trust them to make you better when they could earn more by keeping you ‘sick’? That was what she would have done if she were a psychiatrist.

The best way to get through emotional shit was to kill someone, and if that didn’t work, then talk to your family. They were the ones who really cared.

That was why Delia wasn't telling Kon about what had happened with his father and mother. It would be best to break the news when he had fewer things weighing on his mind.

Delia then walked through the twisting maze-like hallways, turning carefully through every corner with the mental map she had memorized of this place.

She ended up in a VIP room with her father, who was leaning back on a couch and gazing down at the fight between Kon and the failure of the Yari Clan.

Delia sat down next to her father. “It’s a shame uncle and aunt aren’t here to see how their son has grown.”

Her father shrugged. “Well, even if everything had gone well, they wouldn’t have been here to see it either. The road from the capital to here is quite far away. Hell, even we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t to make sure that Kon survived this incident.”

“Begin!” Yelled out the exam proctor. He was an average-looking man; the only thing that stood out about him was the golden chain around his neck. Each chain ring had a key attached to it.

“The World Exorcist, the 22nd Special Exorcist. He is the weakest amongst his kind,” Delia commented on the unusual exam proctor. Special Exorcists had better things to do, so why was that guy here?

“Or you could look at it as him being the 22nd strongest exorcist amongst the tens of thousands of them. Each of those exorcists has their own special ability, but amongst dozens of thousands, the World Exorcist stands out and is the 22nd strongest. You would have to be foolish to underestimate him.”

Her father’s argument was a long-winded one. But Delia knew better than to question him.

The clash between Kon and his opponent Hiro started. Each skirmish was fast; spear and sword showed the advantage they had against each other.

“He’s pretty good with a blade,” her father suddenly said.

Delia was surprised. Her father complimented no one else about their swordsmanship. Though their clan was called the Dark Sword Clan, the name was more of a symbolism of a sword hiding in the darkness. There were very few swordsmen in their clan.

Maybe in the beginning, the clan was concentrated on swordsmanship. But a sword alone can’t conquer the world. “Do you think he has the talent for it?”

“No,” her father answered without even needing to think about it. “He had an excellent teacher. Someone at the same level as me. Maybe even better.”

That was shocking. Even though her father wasn’t one of the twenty-two Special Exorcists, he didn’t have a rival on the sword in this world.

For him to say there was someone better than him out there was outlandish. But Delia knew her father wasn’t the kind of man to joke about this.

Her father smiled. “It reminds me of the good old days. I would challenge random exorcists while my little brother ensured no one intervened in the battles.”

Delia smiled, feeling nostalgic. The tales of brutal combat had been her bed stories for a sizable chunk of her childhood. They had shaped her from a young age.

“Anyways, you need to take care of the rats. Make sure they’re on board. If any of them holds a grudge against Kon murdering one of their own...” her father said with a sharp look on his face. “Well, you know the drill. Off you go now.”

Delia nodded and walked out of the room, after which she went to the women's bathroom stalls and stuck yellow tape at the entrance.

Then she walked toward the mirror and ripped it off the wall, revealing a dark tunnel. There was a talisman behind the mirror, and Delia ripped it up.

She crawled through the dark tunnel; she couldn’t see anything. But finally, Delia spotted a semblance of light, a dark hatch that led toward the roof of the colosseum. It was a tunnel upward, and there were no stairs.

“Who the fuck made this tunnel? I will wring his neck like a fucking dishrag.”

Despite her complaints, Delia took her knives, dug them into the stone walls, and started climbing. “Kon, that bastard, why did he have to take the exam this year? I wouldn’t even have to be here if it wasn’t for that little shit. I’m gonna bully the fuck outta him after this.”

She had to go and meet the lab rats from Organization X, and then-

Delia's eyes widened as soon as she emerged from the hole.

A man with long dark hair turned and looked at her. “Oh? You’re here? Nice, you’re his sister, right?”

The man bounced a decapitated head like a ball while corpses of headless teens lay around him.

Delia’s mouth was agape. Even without an introduction, she knew who this was… a man notorious for his deeds. He tainted the reputation of the Master affinity and made human control abilities illegal.

The Demonic Exorcist!!