The 9Th Class Swordmaster: Blade Of Truth [EN]: Chapter 212

164. The Demon Realm (2)

‘The Demon Realm…? Are you saying this seed is from a demon?’

[Indeed. To be precise, it’s a fruit that grows in the Demon Realm. Whether it grew naturally or someone cultivated it, it’s an object from another dimension. If someone hadn’t brought it here, it wouldn’t be found in this place. I’m not sure why something like this is here. The Demon Realm and the Human Realm should have been severed before the Magic Era…]

Karrl received the spore from Alrn and looked at Nine Darhon.

“Did you ever use something like this as an ingredient when you made this?”

Nine Darhon looked at the black spore on Karrl’s palm and shook his head.

“…You always speak informally. No, what is that bizarre thing? Is it even from this world?”

Even though Karrl was clearly much younger than him, Nine Darhon felt a strange, undeniable pressure.

“It’s a fruit that grows in the Demon Realm.”

“……!!”

“……!!”

Everyone there looked surprised at Karrl’s words.

“The Demon Realm? What are you talking about? There are no dimensional gates open except to the Human Realm.”

“That’s right. Alrn said the same thing. It was severed before the Magic Era. But it’s not entirely severed.”

“……What?”

The protrusions on the spore seemed to be searching for nutrients, continuously pricking his skin.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Dungeons are passages connected to the Demon Realm. Not all of them, but some high-level Dungeons have monsters with cognitive abilities.”

Nine Darhon nodded.

“Besides, among the boss monsters from S-class Dungeons with three or more premonitory signs, there are demons.”

“But everyone knows that Dungeons are isolated dimensions, regardless of the Demon Realm, right? Once the boss monster is defeated, the Dungeon itself stops.”

“Why?”

Karrl asked again, as if he had been waiting for that answer.

“What? Why… what do you mean?”

“Why does a newly created space disappear just because the boss monster dies? Can we really be sure it’s an isolated dimension just because the space disappears? No, does the space really disappear?”

Nine Darhon looked perplexed at his question. It was an established theory from hundreds of years ago.

He had never doubted it.

[Stop stalling and speak quickly. The Council of Seven Elders also established the theory about Dungeons. Are you saying there’s something I don’t know?]

Alrn urged him, seemingly impatient with Karrl’s words.

“If someone really moved this, whether human or demon, both are possible.”

[Why?]

“Because Dungeons themselves are paths connected to the Demon Realm. Demons can come to the Human Realm through Dungeons without opening a dimensional gate.”

“That’s absurd. Conquered Dungeons have their entrances disappear. So how can demons cross over to the Human Realm?”

Nine Darhon exclaimed at Karrl’s words.

“Not all of them do. In the case of Wedge Hills Vine, where the Sand Serpent called the Lord of the Hills resides, it was initially a Dungeon, but now it has become a terrain feature.”

[Are you saying that a Dungeon that has become a terrain feature can be a passage to the Demon Realm…? But the Hills don’t have a boss monster with cognitive abilities. That’s why it still remains.]

“That’s right. In cases like the Twin-Headed Eagle or the Sand Serpent, where materials can be obtained inside the Dungeon, the boss isn’t hunted and is left alone.”

Karrl nodded at Alrn’s words.

[Besides, both during the Magic Era and now, don’t you guys always subjugate Dungeons with humanoid bosses? There shouldn’t be any Dungeons with demons or similar beings now.]

“There aren’t.”

[What are you even saying…?]

“As for the Dungeons currently active, that is.”

Alrn, who had been slightly frowning at the ambiguous answer, stopped speaking at Karrl’s last words.

[Don’t tell me…]

“Yes. Dungeons in a dormant state.”

Karrl nodded.

“We think of them as just empty places because their activity has stopped, but why do they remain even after the monsters disappear?”

“That’s……”

“Yes, it could be because they are Dungeons that have become terrain features, like the Hills.”

Nine Darhon tried to say something but stopped when Karrl cut him off.

“Then we should change the question. Can we be sure that all Dungeons that have become terrain features are places with monstrous creatures like the Sand Serpent?”

“……”

The two couldn’t answer.

“What if… there was even one Dungeon in a dormant state that had a humanoid as its boss? Until now, no one has ever investigated that.”

Karrl continued.

“And what if… there was one Dungeon with a humanoid boss like a demon or a devil, why wouldn’t they disappear and remain?”

[Are you saying that the reason is… that demons deliberately left them behind to use the Dungeons as dimensional passages?]

Gulp-

Nine Darhon swallowed hard without realizing it at Alrn’s words.

Shock was evident on his face.

If Karrl’s words were true, it would shatter all the established theories.

“So, you’re saying there could be an S-class Dungeon with a demon as the boss monster among the Dungeons currently in a dormant state. But how do we find it?”

“That’s why our lord told us to subjugate all the Dungeons in the Great Plains in the south and seal the entrances.”

Mikhail nodded as if he finally understood the meaning of Karrl’s orders.

While he was in the Duchy, Beykan and Kinu Mukali, along with the barbarians of the south, began to subjugate the Dungeons.

After that,

After Milana joined the Tatur army, the Dungeons in the Digon territory were also being conquered one by one.

The Empire also regularly subjugated Dungeons, but what was different from them was that Karrl was sealing the entrances of all the Dungeons that had been conquered, regardless of whether they were active or dormant.

“It was to prevent the demons from coming out through the Dungeons.”

Nine Darhon scoffed at Mikhail’s words.

“Seal the entrances? Hmph, how did you seal them? Did you just pile up stones? Karrl, even if I concede that you’re right, do you think you can stop demons from coming to the surface just by sealing the entrances?”

“No.”

However, Karrl answered without changing his expression, despite his sarcasm.

“Even a magical barrier can’t stop demons. However, it is possible to cast an alarm spell so that we know when a sealed entrance has been breached.”

Nine Darhon looked at him with an expression that said, what difference does that make?

“If demons come to the surface through a Dungeon… we can’t be caught off guard without knowing which place they came from.”

“What good is it to know which Dungeon they came through when they’ve already come to the surface?”

“So that we can go back and destroy them through that place.”

“……Are you saying you’re going down to the Demon Realm?”

“If they come up to the Human Realm, there’s nothing we can’t do. We can’t turn the continent into a battlefield. It’s better to burn down their front yard.”

Nine Darhon looked at Karrl with a dumbfounded expression.

He couldn’t help but be amazed at Karrl’s attitude, which didn’t have any defensive thoughts and instead thought of a counterattack.

“But you’re… talking as if demons are definitely going to come to the surface.”

“It’s not impossible. We already have what you could call evidence, right?”

Karrl showed the black spore in his palm.

The demons attacked humanity through the Dungeons the moment the Holy War broke out.

It was a confirmed future, but he couldn’t tell Nine Darhon about it. In the meantime, having such perfect evidence allowed him to give a little more weight to his argument.

‘But it’s unexpected. I didn’t think that humans could already be involved with demons before the Holy War. Wooden Cloud…….’

Karrl frowned.

‘Could it be that the reason the demons came to the surface after the revelation was because of those guys?’

If his prediction was correct, Karrl vowed to completely erase Wooden Cloud from the history of the continent, no matter what it took.

[They must be related to those who gave you the Book of Nightmares. Karrl, find out the location of the guy who gave you this. It’s not a simple problem. If he made a contract with a high-ranking demon, he may already be influencing the political situation on the continent.]

“I will.”

[It won’t be easy. If he made a contract with a high-ranking demon, he may already be influencing the political situation on the continent.]

“What other choice do I have?”

Crack-

Karrl touched his stiff wrist and said to him.

“I’ll just catch them and beat them to death.”

Alrn looked at him with an expression that said, of course.

[……I forgot for a moment. Sometimes you’re more ignorant than a barbarian.]

“If they were the type to be reasoned with, I wouldn’t have picked up a sword in the first place.”

[So what are you planning to do now?]

“First of all, it’s important to confirm the origin of this. We know that the guys who gave this to Nine Darhon are Wooden Cloud, but we don’t know where they’re hiding.”

“We don’t even know the identity of that spore properly, and you’re going to use that as a clue to find Wooden Cloud? Isn’t that too far-fetched?”

Alrn also nodded at Nine Darhon’s words.

[He’s right. I know that the black spore is a fruit from the Demon Realm, but I don’t know how it reacts when it comes to the Human Realm. As I said, the Demon Realm was severed even during the Magic Era.]

“What if there’s someone who knows?”

Nine Darhon and Alrn looked at him at Karrl’s confident question.

“What are you talking about? Don’t tell me it’s Antihum? Is there someone in the Immortal Guild who has more magical knowledge than me? That’s impossible.”

Nine said that, then looked at Alrn with a startled expression.

“Ha, haha. Of course, Master is an exception.”

[Who knows more about the Demon Realm than us?]

However, Alrn, not paying attention to Nine Darhon’s words, asked with a displeased expression that there was someone better than him.

“There is a person. A strange bookworm.”

Karrl smiled meaningfully.

* * *

“What…… is this?”

“I thought you might know. Doesn’t it look familiar?”

Nine Darhon twitched his lips at Karrl’s words.

‘Why is he using honorifics here?’

He didn’t like Karrl’s attitude of speaking informally to him, the leader of the Immortal Guild, while using honorifics to the frail man in front of him.

But only for a moment. Nine Darhon looked around the place where the man wearing glasses was with interest.

“I didn’t know there was a place like this in the Grand Library. I haven’t paid attention to it since I put the librarians in charge.”

In the damp room below the basement.

But the height was enormous for a basement, and all four sides of the small rectangular room were filled with books, except for a space where the door could barely be opened.

“L, Leader, what brings you here…….”

The man discovered Nine Darhon behind Karrl and hurriedly stood up.

Swoosh-

He didn’t know when he was sitting surrounded by books, but when he stood up, the man was incredibly tall. But compared to his height, his build was so weak that he didn’t feel like a warrior.

“Are you the manager of this place?”

“I am sorry. My abilities are insignificant, so I am not even able to manage the books. I was just…… reading the abandoned books because they were a waste.”

“Abandoned books?”

The man’s expression slightly hardened at Nine Darhon’s words, and he spoke cautiously.

“That’s…… we call this place the Book Graveyard.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t the Leader order it? To put all the books related to magic in the world in the library. But since books that aren’t magic books aren’t popular…… there isn’t even enough space for magic books, so the rest of the books started to be stored here.”

From history books to storybooks.

Anything related to magic but not a practical magic book was bound to be obsolete.

The name Book Graveyard was lonely but fitting.

Click-

Karrl looked through the bookshelf and took out a book.

『The Light of the World』

Looking at the title written on the cover of the book, he said as if he was glad.

“They even have this. It’s a book I read in Einherjar [a warrior society]. To see it again here.”

“Is that so? It’s a book that even the people of the Immortal Guild don’t read often…… If you enjoyed that book, you might also be interested in 『The Underground of the Dungeon』 and 『The Darkness of the Afterlife』 here.”

The man said happily at Karrl’s words.

Then, without hesitation, he found the books with his tall height.

“You……. Don’t tell me you’ve read all the books here?”

Nine Darhon asked, looking at the scene.

“I am sorry. My magical talent is insignificant…… so reading these books is more enjoyable.

“Huh…….”

The books piled up in the underground room were of endless depth. It was amazing that he had read all the countless books, but it was an amazing ability to even remember the location of those books.

“We don’t need magical knowledge. As you said, there’s no one who can rival you or Alrn.”

Karrl looked at Nine Darhon and handed the black spore on his palm to the man.

“But what we need to find the veiled mastermind is not knowledge but wisdom.”

He said, looking at the man.

“You will be able to find the answer we want, Israfil.”

One of the Ten of the Revelation [a group of highly knowledgeable individuals].

Karrl smiled faintly as he looked at the face of his long-time companion.