"This voice...?"
The adjutant recognized Borisʼs voice and blinked.
He then let out a deep sigh and lowered his hand.
"...What rotten luck. Yarok, I donʼt think I can endure your torture, so for old timesʼ sake, just kill me cleanly."
Boris felt a fresh wave of nostalgia upon hearing his old name from his Room 13 days after so long.
But he suppressed those emotions, looked at the adjutant, and said, "Call me Boris from now on. I didnʼt expect to find you here, Goose Senior." At Borisʼs words, Goose shrugged.
"After Room 13 was disbanded, making ends meet has been tough. Weʼre all just scraping by."
"With your level of skill, Senior, you couldʼve easily secured a position in another kingdom. Why attach yourself to Castro of all people?"
"There are too many complications from what weʼve done in the Central Kingdom. Castroʼs a coward, so I figured sticking with him would let me retire stably, but my calculations were off."
Boris released Gooseʼs throat and stepped back.
"I get your situation, so letʼs not make this any more tense than it has to be." Goose nodded at those words.
The two put some distance between them and faced each other.
Soon, Goose looked at Boris and knitted his brows.
"You mustʼve landed a good gig. You look sharper than before."
"Well, itʼs better than Room 13. The boss is a bit intense, though."
Boris tucked away his dagger and said to Goose,
"Have you decided where to go next?"
Goose brushed the dust off his clothes and shrugged.
"Who knows. After playing schemer for Castro and watching it all fall apart, Iʼve realized people should stick to what they know. Guess Iʼll look for a job that values experience." Boris nodded.
"At your age, who would hire you as a newbie? You need to leverage your experience for at least a squad leader spot."
"I know. But who will recognize experience from the fallen Room 13? Sigh, anyway, weʼve seen each other alive without killing one another, so thatʼs something. If you see me again, let me live."
Goose chuckled, gave a casual salute, and turned to leave.
At that moment, another shadow appeared in front of him.
Goose started and stepped back, gripping his sword.
"Salmak?"
Shadia, holding a dagger, blocked Gooseʼs path.
Boris, standing behind, said to Goose,
"Iʼd like to just let you go, Senior, but our unit commander is pretty strict about these things. If I let you walk, Iʼll be the one getting the blade." Goose sighed deeply again.
"At my age, torture would break my bones for good."
"I know, thatʼs why... Senior, do you keep in touch with the other Room 13 folks?" Goose looked at Boris with a puzzled expression before he nodded.
"Yeah, we stay connected and share updates."
Satisfied, Boris continued,
"You mentioned looking for an experienced position earlier. How about I introduce you to one? Youʼd be under me, but the terms are good." Goose glanced at Shadia behind Boris.
He realized that refusing here would likely mean death at the hands of a Salmak assassin soon enough.
He sheathed his sword and turned to Boris.
"...The pay any good?" Boris nodded.
Goose thought for a moment, then nodded.
"Alright, better to work under someone I know." He glanced at Shadia and continued to Boris, "But you and that Salmak lady—what organization are you with? Not the Central Kingdom. Freelance contractors?"
Boris shook his head immediately.
"No, weʼre direct employees."
"Direct sounds stable."
"But the boss is the Knight of Salvation."
"What?"
Gooseʼs face paled at Borisʼs words.
To Room 13 agents, the name Zeke Draker, the Knight of Salvation, was a nightmare.
"Uh... Actually, I had talks lined up with others..."
Boris approached Goose and clapped him on the shoulder with a grin.
"Letʼs get along from now on, Senior. No, starting today, youʼre Dmitri. Letʼs start by sharing intel on Jupiter Castleʼs interior."
*
Zeke stared at the being who had named itself Lucifel.
"The Arrogant Savior."
Zeke had absorbed the soul of the Arrogant Savior, taken from Harvey West, into his shadow.
Yet, for some reason, he hadnʼt gained complete divinity.
Just as the Blood King Caligulaʼs soul had lingered in his subconscious after absorption, he suspected the Arrogant Saviorʼs soul hadnʼt been fully integrated either, hiding somewhere in the depths of his mind. And it seemed his guess had been correct.
Lucifel smiled at Zeke.
"Well, that was my name as a constellation, but now that Iʼve fallen, call me something else. I have many names, but the most common is Satan." He spread his arms, gesturing to the ravine around them.
"Though Iʼm borrowing this ravineʼs power temporarily, itʼs nice to talk face-to-face like this. Being trapped for so long made it hard to exert my full strength."
Zeke, still in the form of Laura Agamemnon, eyed Satan uncomfortably as Satan rolled his shoulders.
Noticing this, Satan shook his head with exaggerated flair.
"Ah, you donʼt like me in this form, do you? Fine." In that instant, Satanʼs appearance changed.
This time, it wasnʼt someone from Zekeʼs memories but a completely new form.
A handsome man with long black hair, dressed in a white suit, appeared.
"Itʼs been ages since I took this shape. Back when I showed my true form to humans, they fawned over me as the epitome of beauty—such a hassle."
Indeed, Satanʼs form had been so perfect that it transcended gender and embodied every standard of beauty on earth.
An ordinary human would have fallen into enchantment upon merely looking at his face, captivated by its intense allure.
But Zeke maintained his vigilance, undeterred by Satanʼs captivating appearance.
Satan shook his head at this.
"Zeke Draker, youʼre beyond human now—relax a bit."
He snapped his fingers.
Surprisingly, the fog flowing through the ravine halted.
"This...?"
With a single gesture, Satan had stopped time in the ravine itself.
At the same time, an ornate table and chairs appeared in the center, complete with a tea set on top.
Satan beckoned to Zeke.
"Opportunities like this are rare—letʼs sit and talk calmly."
Satan sat first, elegantly crossing his legs and lifting a teacup.
The teapot floated up on its own and poured steaming tea into the cup.
Zeke watched Satan for a moment, then sheathed his sword and sat in the opposite chair.
The teapot rose again and filled Zekeʼs cup.
It was a clear, yellowish tea with a fragrance Zeke had never encountered.
Satan grinned at Zeke, who gazed at his cup.
"You seem knowledgeable about tea. This is from a lost civilization—impossible to find now. A pity."
Satanʼs authority had been re-creation.
As long as he had data from the past, he had been able to combine karma to recreate what had once existed, even artifacts from vanished civilizations.
Zeke took a sip of the tea Satan had conjured.
The subtle aroma had been quite pleasing.
After savoring the tea in silence for a moment, Satan set down his half-empty cup and looked at Zeke.
"Zeke Draker, would you believe me if I said Iʼve been waiting for you for a very long time?"
Zeke set down his cup and replied,
"It sounds like youʼve known me from before." Satan flashed an irresistibly charming smile.
"Known you? Close enough. Not you specifically, but I anticipated that someone would emerge to fulfill the role youʼre playing now." Zeke frowned in confusion.
"The role Iʼm playing?"
"You donʼt know? The resistor of fate, sent back through time by the Elder Dragon and the Great Sage."
Zeke had regressed to the past via the "Irreversible Promised Power" that the Great Sage had inscribed into the Elder Dragonʼs relic.
It had now become clear that Satan had known of his regression from the future to the past.
Zeke glared at him and asked, "Did you peek into my memories?" Satan shook his head.
"You absorbed me, and my soul was swallowed into your consciousness, so yes, we share memories. But regarding the 'resistor of fateʼ role, Iʼve known about it for a very long time."
Satan lifted his cup again, and the teapot refilled it.
He took another sip of the perfectly tempered tea and continued.
"Do you know this? After the world was created, the first to resist fate was me." Zeke furrowed his brow at the cryptic words.
"What do you mean?"
"The Primordial Light. I, Satan, was the first to defy him." The adversary of light, the one who had shone with his own light.
The being who had first opposed the Primordial Light.
That was the Arrogant Savior, who had been known as the closest to the Primordial Light —Satan.
Holding his teacup, he spoke with an expression reminiscent of the distant past.
"The Primordial Light sought to create a perfect world. But the world he made was somehow flawed. He obsessively hated that imperfection. I thought differently from the Primordial Light. I believed true beauty lay in that imperfection." Satan extended his hand.
A halo of light spread, projecting traces of the past as images.
Civilizations that the Primordial Light had erased, with no remnants left.
Satan looked at them with a regretful expression.
"Zeke Draker, what do you think happened to these lost civilizations?" Zeke replied in a disinterested tone.
"They were annihilated. Thatʼs what you constellations have always done."
Satan shook his head.
"I loved every civilization in the Phenomenal World and every mortal living there.
Thatʼs why I couldnʼt let them vanish so meaninglessly. Thatʼs why I opposed the Primordial Light."
With his words, an image appeared of a city being destroyed by a massive volcanic eruption.
But before the volcano engulfed it, a great light appeared.
A noble being with dozens of pairs of wings made of light.
Zeke realized that this beingʼs soul was the same as the Satan who sat before him.
Satan enveloped the city with wings of light and evacuated it from the Phenomenal World to the dimensional boundary before the volcano struck.
An unstable, unfixed world.
There, Satan preserved the civilizations erased by the Primordial Light.
One by one, the nearly lost civilizations connected and eventually formed a single world.
Zekeʼs eyes widened as he watched the massive city take shape in the projection.
"Babel?"
The first Demon Realm city, created by the fallen constellation known as the Arrogant Savior, who led the fallen ones.
An overview of Babel appeared in the projection.
Satan gazed at Babel with sad eyes and said,
"Yes, Babel was made by gathering civilizations nearly erased from the Phenomenal
World in the past. Thatʼs what became the current Demon Realm."
Creatures fated to be abandoned and erased by their creator.
To prevent their annihilation, Satan had resisted the creator and forged a new world.
Zeke finally understood the true nature of demons and Demon Realm monsters.
Refugees from annihilated civilizations. They had been relocated to the unstable Demon Realm.
Once residents of the Phenomenal World, they had been cast out by the creator, beyond the world. Relocated to an unstable realm, their appearances and traits had become wilder.
Satan, looking at Babelʼs projection, said,
"The Arrogant Savior. A title that fits me perfectly. I thought I could save them. Looking back, it was the height of arrogance."
He dispersed the projection of Babel, and the halos scattered in all directions.
Satan looked back at Zeke.
"Zeke Draker, I waited for a new resistor of fate to follow in my footsteps. Someone fit to shatter this cursed Wheel of Fate."