Damn Reincarnation

ot springs in Lehain.
Am I going in with you, Sir Eugene?” asked Mer.

“Are you crazy?” asked Eugene.

“I brought my swimsuit.
Sir Eugene, don’t you have yours?”

“It’s not a matter of whether I have it or not.
We won’t be the only ones going in.”

“Are you saying you’re embarrassed because of what others might think? I’m completely fine with it.
I’m a familiar.
Did you forget?”

“Stop spouting nonsense.
You’re going in with Kristina, or you can go in with Ciel.”

“But what if you miss me? Right? You might want to see me.”

“I won’t.”

“Then what do you think about Lady Sienna? A mixed bath… with Lady Sienna… swimsuits… hehe….”

Eugene didn’t bother to respond.
He didn’t want to imagine a mixed bath with Sienna, nor Sienna in a swimsuit.
But the image kept circling in his head….

[Kristina, did you hear that? That nasty familiar is trying to seduce Hamel,] Anise said in irritation.

‘Sister…! I need to sleep.’

[Why do you always lie like this? Kristina, I can clearly feel a burning, evil flame flaring deep inside your heart, just like flames coming straight from hell.]

‘Sister! I know we’ve been through a lot, but I am still a priestess, a worshiper of the Light! How could you say that flames of hell are burning deep inside my heart? Even if it’s you, Sister, please refrain from saying such things.’

[Oh, my….
I’m not speaking to the Saint of Light.
I’m speaking to Kristina Rogeris.
Why do you keep trying to hide it, Kristina Rogeris? The only one who sees you now is… hehe, it’s just me.]

‘Uah….’ The exasperation in Kristina’s thoughts was evident.

[So you don’t have to hide or lie to yourself….
Uhehehe…] Anise continued with her teasing.

“Kyaaaaahk!” Kristina suddenly burst out screaming while covering her ears.
The memories of the fireworks had suddenly come flooding in.
Anise’s mean teasing was marring a miraculous, dreamy moment.
A memory that was as beautiful and sweet as a dream, a memory she wanted to cherish for the rest of her life, was being warped by Anise….

“That scared me.”

“Why are you screaming all of a sudden?”

Both Eugene and Mer were staring at her after the sudden scream.
Kristina jumped to her feet, opened and closed her lips, then slapped her burning cheeks with both her hands.

“Ah….
I had a nightmare,” she lied.

“A nightmare?” asked Eugene.

“Yes.
An ominous, vicious… devil appeared in my dream and whispered in my ears,” she said.

“Could it be….
Was it Noir Giabella? Did that dirty old slut dig into your dream?” asked Eugene.

“Yes….
No, what? N-no, that’s not it.
It wasn’t the Queen of the Night Demons.
It was… just a devil….
Yes, just a devil,” responded Kristina.

[I was the most brilliant Saint of Light in the history of Yuras.
How could you call me a devil…? This is sacrilegious.
Blasphemy!] grumbled Anise, but Kristina ignored her.

Kristina calmed her quivering heart and turned her gaze outside the tent.
The ground was littered with corpses of monsters that had dared to approach during the night and at dawn.
About half of them had their heads smashed in by Kristina’s flail, while the other half had been mutilated by Eugene’s magic.

“Why don’t we just get going?” said Kristina after a pause.

“Did you get enough sleep?” asked Eugene.

“The devil’s whisper blew away all my fatigue,” Kristina answered with a sigh.

She opened the tent’s flap.
The inside of the tent was dark enough to sleep comfortably, but the same wasn’t true outside.
Although everything looked obscure and foggy because of the intense blizzard, the sun sat unmoving high in the sky.
It was a familiar sight.
Strangely enough, the sun never set after they entered Lehainjar.

“If you say so,” said Eugene.
Abel also rose from the ground while wagging his tail.
Eugene patted his head, then started dismantling the tent.

They did not need to rush anymore since tall, rugged cliffs were visible on the far side of the blizzard.
From this distance, the soaring cliffs appeared similar to the head of a giant hammer.

Eugene and Kristina were currently in the valley leading up to the cliffs of the Grand Hammer Canyon.
If they had decided not to spend the night here, they would have already arrived at the Grand Hammer Canyon by now.
However, taking into account the warning of the rangers and minding their conditions, they had decided to rest for the night before continuing on.

“I’m fine with going on, but why don’t we have breakfast first? You’re on duty today,” said Eugene.

“…To be precise, it’s not me but Lady Anise,” answered Kristina.

“I don’t want that porridge that Anise makes.
It’s like swine feed.
Can’t you do it instead…?” asked Eugene.

“Lady Anise asked me to tell you not to get ahead of yourself.
Her porridge is a complete diet focused on efficient absorption and recovering stamina.
And why are you saying that you don’t want to eat her food when you ate it just fine in your past life?” said Kristina.

“Well… that’s because we had no other choice.
And there was Sienna, who was even worse at cooking than Anise….” muttered Eugene.

“Lady Sienna’s cooking is excellent,” said Kristina.

“You’ve never even tried it,” said Eugene.

“It can’t be helped.
And you just said it, Sir Eugene.
At that time, there wasn’t enough supply for proper meals.
Lady Sienna was the one who made a meal out of such terrible ingredients.
Which means! Maybe Lady Sienna’s cooking skills weren’t so bad, right?” said Kristina.

“Yeah, no.
Sienna was the worst cook among us all.
But next was Anise.
Even Molon was better off than those two at cooking up something edible.
The best cook was Vermouth,” said Eugene.

“Lady Anise says that Sir Vermouth was better at everything than Sir Hamel,” said Kristina.

“Switch with Anise right now.
I’m going to hit her once.
Can I?” asked Eugene.

“No, you cannot.
This is my body,” replied Kristina with a firm expression.

Eventually, the preparation of breakfast began.
However, Anise wasn’t actually the one who was cooking, but rather Kristina.
Anise only gave instructions inside her head, while Kristina obeyed and used her hands.

[Let’s add wine.]

‘What?’

[Don’t you know? Wine helps to eliminate any pungent smell of meat and enhances the flavor of the dish.]

‘But this is porridge….’

[If you add red wine, it enhances the color of the porridge as well.]

There was no shortage of ingredients, thanks to Eugene’s thorough preparation.
Kristina poured wine into the boiling pot, as per Anise’s instruction, and while the horrendous breakfast was being prepared, Eugene cleared the bodies in their vicinity.
Although it snowed all night, there had been simply too many monsters, and they had been so big that the corpses weren’t completely buried in white.

Eugene had no intention of looking at such a horrible scene while eating.
After all, he was stuck with eating something that was less than desirable, to say the least.
Sure, it wasn’t a big deal three hundred years ago, but… there was no reason to do the same as in the past when they were living in a different era.

Eugene suddenly froze while in the process of tossing the bodies of monsters.
Kristina stiffened as well in the process of emptying the contents of an entire bottle of wine into the porridge, watching the wine color the ingredients.
Abel, who had been hovering around her, curled up into a ball and held his breath.
Mer had it worse.
She didn’t simply stiffen up but rather collapsed on the spot.
As a familiar, Mer was very sensitive to any changes in mana.

Eugene immediately embraced her and took her inside his cloak.
No matter what happened here, she would be fine in the isolated space inside the cloak.
Mer finally managed to breathe after entering the Cloak of Darkness.

[S-s-sir Eugene.]

[Hamel.]

Mer called out in a panicked voice, and Tempest spoke from inside Wynnyd as well.
Before he knew it, Kristina was at his side.
Likewise, she was looking at Eugene with a pale expression.

“Hamel,” she called out, but it wasn’t Kristina.
Similar to Mer, Kristina had lost consciousness in the moment, transferring control of the body to Anise.

“Yeah.” Eugene nodded.

Fwoosh!

Eight wings unfolded behind Anise’s back, and Eugene utilized the White Flame Formula to robe himself with purple flames.
The two did not hesitate as they ran out of the barrier.
It was no longer snowing, unnaturally so.
There was simply no snow falling from the sky, as if the phenomenon had been artificially stopped.
Nevertheless, the world still looked as hazy as before.

The two ran and flew toward their destination, but the distance to their target did not seem to change at all.
Eugene was unfamiliar with the things he was feeling now.
He felt disgust and fear… as well as other similar negative emotions.
He instinctively felt repulsed by the Grand Hammer Canyon.
He did not want to get near it.
In fact, he wanted to get as far away from it as possible.
However, though it was an unfamiliar feeling, it wasn’t exactly the first time he was experiencing such emotions.

He had experienced it once, three hundred years ago.

‘Why?’

Eugene and Anise shared the same question.
They had experienced the same, irresistible fear once before, a fear that was seen but could not be understood.
It belonged to one of their targets of elimination, an existence beyond comprehension.

‘Why here?’

The Demon King of Destruction.

The mysterious, unexplainable existence had existed in Helmuth three hundred years ago.
As was the case with the other Demon Kings, the Demon King of Destruction had never left Helmuth, and it rarely showed itself.

The first time its existence was witnessed was in Ravesta, where most of the dragons were killed off.
It was a place located far from the capital of Helmuth, Pandemonium, and also the territory of the Demon King of Destruction.
After the first spotting, the Demon King of Destruction started roaming Helmuth like a natural disaster, and any armies unfortunate enough to stand in the way of its ruin were eliminated without exception.
Three hundred years ago, when Hamel and his companions saw the Demon King of Destruction from afar, fifty thousand troops belonging to Nahama had disappeared without leaving a single body.

It was just as Vermouth had warned — don’t fight with the Demon King of Destruction.
It was such an existence, a presence impossible to battle against.
Yes, it was true that all Demon Kings were like natural disasters, but the Demon King of Destruction was a living destruction in itself.
The only solace was that the Demon King of Destruction no longer wandered Helmuth after the war but returned to Ravesta and remained silent for hundreds of years.

Eugene couldn’t understand.
This wasn’t Helmuth.
Instead, this was Lehainjar, a mountain acting as a barrier blocking passage into Raguyaran, which was the end of the world.
So what reason did the Demon King of Destruction have to leave its territory, Ravesta, after hundreds of years of silence just to come all the way to Lehainjar?

‘…No, this is different.’

Eugene contemplated the situation once more.
It wasn’t as if he could see the Demon King of Destruction with his eyes, just that he was struck with the same, or rather, a similar feeling as when he encountered the Demon King of Destruction in the past.

‘This is not the same.
Just look at me now; even though I feel it, I’m not running away.
I’m heading towards it.
It’s not the Demon King of Destruction up ahead,’ Eugene surmised.

Then what was it? The first explanation that came to his mind was… Oberon, one of Fury’s four heavenly kings.
After the death of the Demon King of Fury, Oberon had submitted to the Demon King of Destruction.
In the end, he was killed by his son, but Jagon still resided in Ravesta, the territory of the Demon King of Destruction.

‘A lackey of Destruction? Is that why I feel this way? It’s not the Demon King of Destruction, but someone who’s received its power….’

He couldn’t tell.
Eugene couldn ’t possibly make an accurate judgment, so he decided to forego more analysis until he saw what was responsible for causing him to feel such things.
Anise came to the same conclusion.
Neither of them was struck with an irresistible urge to flee as they did three hundred years ago.

Something moved on the cliff of the Grand Hammer Canyon.

“Jagon…” muttered Eugene after coming to a stop.
It felt as if he had not been getting close at all, but before he knew it, the two of them were already at the bottom of the cliff.
“…No, it doesn’t seem like him.”

Jagon’s father, the Depraved Oberon, had been a bear, so Jagon would also be a bear.
But what stood atop the cliff wasn’t a bear.
Instead, it was a… monkey? It was either a monkey or a gorilla the size of a giant.
Although vicious horns jutted from its head, the creature definitely resembled a monkey.
It was a huge two-legged, two-armed monster with white fur.
No, was it a demonic beast…? The ominous aura emanating from the creature was similar to a demonic beast, but it wasn’t quite the same.
Moreover, the repulsive feeling it struck into Eugene’s heart was different from demonic beasts.

~

—The Nur is a monster, but it’s different from other monsters.
It’s not a demonic beast, either.
I’m sure you will feel it when you see it, but explaining it with words is impossible.

~

Eugene remembered the ranger’s warning from two days ago.

“Nur?” muttered Eugene while looking up at the monster.
He saw hideous eyes peering back down at him.
The creature’s mouth opened wide to make way for a grotesquely long tongue.
Black saliva dripped from its sharp teeth and slithering tongue.

“Krrr.”

The creature lowered its posture as if readying itself to jump off the cliff.
Eugene placed his hand inside the cloak to grab a weapon.

Fwoosh.

But before Eugene could take out a weapon, the monster’s head fell to the ground.
The snow began falling once again, and in the flurry of white, a giant slung a clean, shiny axe over his shoulder.

Eugene stared up at the cliff, unable to say anything.
He could see someone stepping on the decapitated head.

“…Molon.”

Eugene spoke the name of his friend from three hundred years ago.