The magical stone floating in the center of the banquet hall’s ceiling.
It was an item passed down through generations since the founding of Lubetia… In some ways, it could be seen as a family heirloom.
Me.
It was something meaningful in itself, but it was also regarded as a symbol of the royal family, which is why it was proudly displayed in the banquet hall.
The reason this would later bring about a disaster was simple.
The resentment of those who had been defeated in the war with Lubetia had all gathered in that stone.
Though I don’t know the exact mechanism, thanks to this, it was likely growing well as a seed for the demon race.
And that seed would sprout with a certain probability whenever a banquet related to demons was held here.
When that happened, some of the people in the banquet hall would become possessed by demonic energy and transform into something resembling demons.
The danger wasn’t just because they turned into demons, but because the selection process was completely random.
Even people like the emperor or empress weren’t exceptions.
If someone was really unlucky, the protagonist or Seria could become demons, and the game would abruptly switch to a bad ending screen.
Of course, the probability of that happening is low. I know that from trying dozens of times while aiming for achievements.
But isn’t it absurd that such a possibility even exists?
If it were a normal magical threat, the Empress, who is a former Grand Sorceress, would have easily solved it with the flick of a finger, but this curse-like danger is another matter entirely.
In fact, even if something seemed dangerous, it only looked like it was surrounded by a strange aura, and didn’t seem particularly threatening, even to my game eyes.
Still, thinking about the catastrophe that would happen later, it would probably be more reassuring to just remove it in advance.
Although I hadn’t been paying much attention to it recently… in a world where the difficulty has increased, it seemed best to eliminate risks as much as possible.
‘But how should I deal with it?’
When it actually came to removing it, that turned out to be quite troublesome.
I was the only one who knew that it was dangerous.
Suddenly asking if I could break the royal family’s heirloom, of course, would have been met with refusal.
I had been thinking that way.
“Well, do whatever you want.”
I didn’t expect her to accept it so easily.
“I know you’re not the type to break things for no reason. Or should I break it? That might be easier for cleanup.”
Not only was she accepting what I wanted to do, but she was stepping forward to do it herself. I couldn’t help but wonder what she had eaten.
Seria should know the value of this magical stone.
Is she accepting it too readily?
She always says she trusts me, but I never imagined she would trust me this much.
Before I could stop her, Seria cast the spell.
She seemed unusually focused, more than usual, as she cast it, and the result was definitely something worth the effort.
‘Is she already using that?’
The magic she just used had already transcended the realm of ordinary concepts.
Through the magic circle, something was being shot out. This is generally how magic works.
However, the magic she used didn’t look like that at all.
The magic circle was just an input tool; the position of the output was completely free.
It’s Bluetooth magic! With this, you could make a Bluetooth showerhead!
This kind of absurd magic was what made those ridiculous ideas possible.
And this magic was something Seria developed in order to become stronger, after experiencing all kinds of trials and realizing her own shortcomings at the academy.
It’s something you learn in the second semester of your second year, in the later half of the original story. Really fast.
They say a tree with potential is different from the very beginning, but don’t the fruits only appear once it’s become an old tree?
We were still in our first year. And we had just barely finished midterms.
Trials and tribulations? Seria hadn’t really faced any significant hardships.
Considering that, her growth speed was absolutely astounding. At this rate, surpassing the original story would happen in no time…
Perhaps there’s something that requires her to grow this much.
For now, things are going according to the flow I know, but since the difficulty and the growth rates of the characters have changed, it wouldn’t be strange if things went off course at any moment.
Her growth was so unreasonable that I couldn’t help but think this way.
But that’s all it was. No matter how skilled she became, breaking that magical stone would still be difficult.
There’s no way it was just casually displayed like that for nothing. It was fully protected with magic.
The protection magic was reinforced personally by the Empress, who is renowned for her magical prowess—could it really be breached so easily?
Even Seria would struggle.
Crack—
…She broke through?
What the hell? How did she break through? Was the protective magic weaker than I thought? That can’t be right.
I had planned to break it with some trick if Seria failed, but now that wouldn’t be necessary.
“What are you staring at? Did you think I couldn’t do it?”
Reading my expression, she flashed a satisfied smile.
It seemed like she was pleased that I hadn’t expected it.
Then, she began explaining how she had broken through the protective magic.
“Rudion. Did you read the book I lent you?”
“I did. I started reading the beginning but stopped halfway through when the protagonist was about to begin their journey.”
“Then you must know what ‘the energy distortion hypothesis through the location proof method in the resonance dynamics of magical entities’ is.”
“Uh. Well, I think there was something like that, yeah.”
I couldn’t quite understand it, so I just skimmed through it and moved on, but I think something like that was mentioned.
“It’s an application of that. I had understood it from the start, but I couldn’t actually use it. However, something happened, and now I’m able to use it.”
I don’t know what happened, but it’s impressive.
And all your magic ideas came from that book, huh?
She was a true fan who succeeded. A genuine, someone who turned the fictional works written by the author into reality.
I had wondered why she liked such a difficult book, but it turned out it wasn’t really that difficult in the first place.
I’m willing to bet—at the point where she broke through the Empress’s protective magic, Seria’s firepower was already at the late-game level.
If things went according to the original story, Seria would end up handling most of the incidents and accidents that were about to occur, so there was no need to worry about the future at this point.
I turned my head again and looked at the magical stone that Seria had destroyed.
Through the cracked and jagged gaps, ominous energy was pouring out uncontrollably.
I wondered if this was something only I could see, as Seria seemed unaware.
I couldn’t risk her touching it and being infected by the demonic energy, so I grabbed her and put some distance between us, observing the flow of the energy.
When the magical stone is destroyed forcefully, unlike when it happened during the victory banquet, the results tend to be much more varied.
Things like environmental corrosion, explosions, and wide-area mental attacks… just a few examples.
There are inevitable side effects when you force something to happen like this…
‘Still, I’d prefer it if something easier happened… Ah.’
Without realizing it, I had thought something I shouldn’t have.
By the time I realized it, it was already too late.
The energy flowing down from the magical stone like smoke quickly gathered together, forming the shape of a human female, and then it quickly became a living being.
“Ah, damn it.”
I knew the probability of a demon appearing here was almost 0.4%, but this… happened?
No, wait. Has the probability been adjusted upward because of the difficulty?
Whatever the case, it was definitely bad news. A demon was never something to take lightly.
Not knowing how it would move, I quickly drew my sword, scanning the wriggling figure in front of me.
Though it was said to take the form of a human female, the shape in front of me was too strange to be called human.
It had an elongated, eerie appearance—more like a creature straight out of a folklore monster, something like an eight-footed ghost.
“Gyagya… gyak!”
The crying sound was just a vague, eerie noise.
But it wasn’t a particularly strong demon. Given that it was forcibly created from the broken magical stone, it was in an unstable state.
If we were to rank demon levels, it would be classified as a C-rank demon, meaning it was pretty low-tier.
So low-tier, in fact, that it didn’t even have a proper in-game name.
It just appears with the label “Demon” attached to it.
Still, I didn’t relax. No matter how low-tier it was, a demon was still a demon.
If I let my guard down, it could still be deadly.
‘I’ve caught demons before, but…’
The situation was different now.
The demon I caught back then, Crumple, was a gimmick boss whose physical strength wasn’t anything to write home about, and its main feature was its ability to parry. It was easy to deal with because of that.
But if it had been a boss without any gimmicks, I wasn’t sure how things would have turned out.
In fact, for me, demons that rely on raw physical strength and just charge in like this are the real threat. I can’t keep dodging and deflecting forever.
To be honest… fighting these kinds of demons is more dangerous than when those magical bullets were raining down yesterday during the test.
Well… even if the worst situation happens, there’s a reliable backup, which is why I’m going through with it.
‘Even if it takes a while, it’ll probably be around 10 minutes.’
Fortunately, this was inside the imperial palace.
If I just hold out a little longer, reinforcements will arrive soon. A demon of this level could easily be handled by a few elite knights from the order.
To be blunt, if the demon Alkine had faced wasn’t Crumple but this one, Alkine could have dealt with it on her own.
And if the commander of the knights comes, the situation will be resolved in no time.
It was a place where talented individuals were gathered in abundance. If I just stalled for time, everything would work out fine.
Comforted by that thought, I casually called her name, the one who was nervously standing beside me.
“Seria.”
“…Yes?”
“If I told you to run, would you listen?”
“No.”
She’s really something.
Even in a situation like this, she gives the kind of stubborn response you’d expect from the female protagonist.
“GYAGYAGYAK!!!”
It’s pretty impressive that she’s being so stubborn in front of something so grotesque.
“Then don’t move from there.”
“Okay.”
Demons are, by nature, aggressive.
No matter how much support fire comes from behind, they’ll focus on the enemy right in front of them.
Of course, there are exceptions, like the crafty demons that mimic human speech, but that wasn’t the case here.
“GYAGYAGYA—GYAGYAGYAGYAK!!!”
It wasn’t speaking, just screeching loudly.
In that case, as long as I didn’t run away, there was no need to worry about Seria being in danger.
Of course, I had no intention of running.
“Just stay still and cast your magic, right?”
She seemed to have nothing to say to that.
Well, it couldn’t be helped. I drew my sword and stepped closer to the demon.
The demon’s gaze locked onto me. This meant I no longer had to worry about the aggro shifting to Seria.
Preparing to react to the demon’s charge, I casually spoke to Seria.
“Don’t shoot me by mistake.”
“What do you think I am? Don’t get hurt again.”
With those words, Seria swiftly conjured dozens of magic circles—wow, that was badass.
I didn’t know how she had made such explosive progress, but it was reassuring to have her by my side.
In the next moment, the demon lunged toward me.