Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 8 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Demon King’s Maneuvering ~Kudou Riku’s POV~

The view stretched endlessly before me from the top of a cliff. A small river ran through a forest as if splitting it into two distinct regions. On the far side of the river, a dense forest expanded across the distance.

A profound darkness draped over the forest, making it difficult to see within its depths. A strong wind blew across the region, and all the trees swayed and rustled in unison. It looked like a wave running across the face of a mysterious creature, a being that possessed an ominous power to make humans feel fear from the very roots of their being.

It was also a beautiful scene. I’d felt that way especially after distancing myself from humanity. This vast tract of nature that I’d once fearfully wandered through all alone now brought me relief.

I narrowed my eyes and shifted my focus elsewhere. On the side of the river closer to me, the land had been partially cleared. Even from my vantage point, I could make out two small settlements where white smoke billowed from cooking fires. It was an idyllic scene, but all I felt was revulsion. That was the world of humanity I’d once wanted to return to so badly, but now I never even thought of drawing nearer.

“Are you not going to crush them, Kudou?” a voice suddenly said in my head. “You probably have the power to do so.”

It was a strange sensation. I wasn’t hearing a voice coming through my ears. It was as if words were popping up in my head like they were my own thoughts. If I hadn’t been called out explicitly, I could have mistaken it for my own inner voice.

Maybe the voice had instigated others in this manner. For example, say it whispered “kill them” in a certain somebody’s ears. If that person had never considered such a thing, they would probably find it strange. But if they heard this voice while thinking unpleasant thoughts about someone, what would happen? Now say that repeated itself over and over and over. That person might get the impression that these were their true colors.

The way they did things, the voice would be better described as the Serpent of Temptation, but the person in question had chosen a different name that didn’t suit them at all.

“Is that you, Heaven’s Voice?” I replied.

I was calm. There was no emotion in my response. It felt disgusting to have them in my head, but I didn’t let that show. I also didn’t care that there had been a mocking tone to their words. At any rate, I’d already decided that I would kill them one day.

This wasn’t restricted just to Heaven’s Voice either. He was the only exception. Everyone else was nothing more than an enemy I would kill at some point. I had no intention of building cordial or even antagonistic relations, so there was no meaning in conveying any emotion. My relationship with Heaven’s Voice was cut-and-dried like that.

“It’s going to begin soon. Shouldn’t you be preparing?”

It seemed Heaven’s Voice had contacted me to pass on information. This wasn’t all that unusual.

“Is that so? Then I guess I will.”

Despite saying that, I wasn’t going to act immediately. I didn’t want to give away any information. Heaven’s Voice’s ability was, at most, a means of transferring information. Aside from what they willingly relayed, I knew nothing about them. Their verbiage made them sound like a boy, but that was presumably a front. There was nothing certain about them.

Still, this went both ways. They couldn’t glimpse my situation either. They wouldn’t know whether I took action. We’d had this same exchange multiple times now, and there’d been times I’d taken action, and times I hadn’t. Actually, I always answered noncommittally so that Heaven’s Voice couldn’t predict my movements. I could have one of Anton’s spawns verify the information they gave me, and if need be, I could take action after that, but on the whole, a large portion of their plans involving me went to waste.

I didn’t care about that, though. To me, Heaven’s Voice was like the news being broadcast on the streets. I’d hear them even if I left them alone, so I simply used whatever was useful to me. Neither of us were complicit in any way. Nobody really recognized the individuality of the people reading the news on the screen. Through and through, that was all Heaven’s Voice was to me.

After saying a few more words to each other, our short and fake conversation came to an end. The irritating presence vanished from my mind. I turned around, and a tall boy greeted me.

“My King, everything is in place.”

The doppelqueen Anton’s spawn, using the form of the late exploration team member Juumonji Tatsuya, gave me its report. Next to it was the girl-shaped shadow, the nightmare stalker Dora. The nameless Mad Beast—no, the beast I’d given the name Emil—was also here, and behind those three were many other monsters, completely still like robots waiting for their turn.

I looked down at the view below the cliff once more and addressed the world spreading out before me.

“Then shall we begin? It’s time for the Demon King’s rampage.”