FLASH.

The moment I regained consciousness, my eyelids reflexively lifted.

It was probably because the last shred of my memory was driving my sword into Moby Dick's head. Before my reason could even start working, my instincts took over to assess my surroundings.

And the surroundings I saw were as follows.

Walls and ceilings made of white stone, blue tapestries hung in places, unique patterns embroidered in gold on those tapestries, a cozy bed, and a blanket.

Judging based on my past adventures, there was a 99% chance this was the Temple.

RUSTLE.

I exerted a little more strength and tried to sit up. They must have stripped off several layers of my clothes to make me comfortable, as only bandages and a shirt fluttered around me.

My vest and coat were neatly folded on the nightstand right next to me, after all.

Hmm. I'm getting a bit of déjà vu here.

Surely two weeks hadn't been deleted this time too, right?

I felt a slight sense of anxiety, but unfortunately, there was no way to check the date.

However, my body was incredibly heavy and my vision was a little blurry, meaning my condition was an absolute mess. Considering that most decent injuries healed quickly, it meant not much time had passed.

Well, I did learn in Tatara that if you reached the brink of death, your body could still be heavy even after two weeks, but it didn't go that far this time, did it?

Following White Wind's advice, I might have taken some minor injuries, but I didn't suffer any life-threatening wounds, okay?

KNOCK, KNOCK.

Just then, a knocking sound rang out. It was very quiet, as if they assumed I would be sleeping.

"... What is it."

Oh, my voice was completely cracked.

"... Are you awake already?"

I pulled the blanket up a little higher as the person walked in. Covering myself completely would look weird, so I just pulled it up enough to cover my right arm.

"It hasn't even been an hour since your treatment finished. Rest some more."

"The Great Demon, what happened to it."

The one who came in was the Archmage. I listened attentively to her words, thinking that somehow I always seemed to receive the post-battle reports from the Archmage—even though I was the one who fought, so why her?

"It's dead. You killed it. Don't you remember?"

I did remember, but I wasn't sure if that was the last hit or not.

Still, it seems I really did kill it.

"For your information, everyone except the Berserker collapsed, so we had no choice but to return to the Temple. I tagged along because there were two people who couldn't be healed with divine power."

But saying everyone fainted except the Berserker meant that not only I, but also the Inquisitor and DeB had passed out.

But why DeB? Did his internal injuries get worse again? No, no, even if they did get worse, why couldn't he be healed with divine power?

The Great Demon died, so shouldn't the issue with the demonic energy inside DeB's body be resolved too? Shouldn't it??

Harboring worries about DeB and suspicions that the Berserker might genuinely transcend humanity, I calmly organized the information.

It was the preliminary step to choose an action that fit my concept's reaction.

"Ah, don't worry. I only picked three people to carry you all and three to escort us back. The rest should be guarding the Great Demon's corpse and purifying it. The Berserker stayed behind there as well."

However, no matter how she interpreted my silence, the Archmage hurriedly added further explanation. It wasn't bad.

The Berserker staying behind to guard the corpse meant she hadn't been relieved yet, and not being relieved yet meant that not much time had passed.

On top of that, considering her statements that it had been an hour since treatment finished and that she followed because there was no one else who could heal us... I figured it had been half a day at the shortest, or a full day at the longest.

Adding in the fact that the Archmage's attire hadn't changed even after arriving at the Temple made it even more likely. It meant she hadn't been able to change because she was entirely focused on our treatment.

"I need to see it with my own eyes."

In that case, wouldn't this be the right answer? Normally, I would just say, "Hmm, I see," and move on, but considering who the opponent was this time.

It would fit my concept to lean toward checking it one more time. My body wasn't in great shape, but it didn't seem like there would be any additional combat anyway.

If combat did break out, it meant a problem had arisen anyway, so it wouldn't be a loss. Probably.

"Are you crazy?"

"...?"

"No, excuse my slip of the tongue. Is your brain still not working properly?"

But excuse me. The corrected version means the exact same thing.

"Do you have any idea how bad your condition—!"

The Archmage raised her voice before stopping, lifting a hand to calm herself down.

"Demon Knight, do you know that your seal was shattered earlier?"

"... What?"

Huh.

"I figured you didn't know. That means you didn't deliberately shatter it because you were out of strength. In the end, you instinctively drew on your magical energy again to heal yourself."

No, wait, why? I wasn't hurt that badly.

"... Did you perhaps only pay attention to your external injuries?"

... Was I supposed to pay attention to the inside of my body too?

I was slightly worried about altitude sickness, but did it really escalate into cerebral edema or pulmonary edema or something like that, ending up putting my life on the line?

"... Demon Knight, listen to me. People don't just die from getting stabbed by a sword or breaking their bones. They can die from a hemorrhage in the brain, or their heart might suddenly stop due to certain circumstances."

I realized it then.

"For these kinds of injuries, there's no other way besides divine power. Some mages are joining forces with doctors to expand the horizons of surgery, but without a mage majoring in that specific field, surgery is an impossible dream."

Listening to White Wind's advice, my ass. I had heard it, but I just went 'hehe' and completely ignored it during this raid.

"I don't even have any relevant knowledge. We got lucky this time that healing magic worked, but I wouldn't be able to handle an illness any worse than this."

Moreover... assumptions really do kill, so from now on, I had to pay attention to my internal injuries too!

"Fortunately, you don't have any underlying illnesses like that yet... but it was pretty dangerous this time. So don't even think about stepping outside the Temple for two days and just rest. Please, I beg of you."

But honestly, isn't this difficulty way too much!

You force me to climb thousands of meters into the sky and then shove realistic diseases in my face, what am I supposed to do! If it was going to be like this, you should've given me an indomitable physique that shrugs everything off like the Berserker!

"We'll take care of sorting out the Great Demon, so."

Bring out the balance dev!!!

"Achoo!"

The Berserker turned her head at the sound that interrupted her night watch.

The Priest, who was assigned the most grueling middle shift just because he was the youngest, had his ears standing stiffly on end.

"Did you catch a cold?"

"N-No, I didn't."

Perhaps embarrassed by his sneeze, the Priest covered his cheeks, which couldn't even be seen because of his fur. Yet, his round, twitching ears couldn't be hidden.

"Berserker is a little cold."

"Ah! T-Then I'll build up the fire!"

However, at her word, the Priest shook off his embarrassment and quickly tossed in more firewood.

The fire ate the fuel and grew a little larger. Naturally, a much hotter warmth spread around them.

"Uhm, then a blanket too..."

"I hate them because they get in the way."

It wasn't even genuinely cold in the first place.

How could it be cold here when she came from a homeland where her exhaled breath could take shape and runny noses froze instantly?

"... I want to climb Spirit Peak again."

"Pardon?"

"Never mind."

She never thought she would miss that dreadful place. Was a homeland just a homeland after all? Or had the air she faced when she went up to catch the whale felt so similar to her home that it sparked her nostalgia?

Along with those thoughts, she stared straight at the object obscuring a part of her vision. The massive corpse of the merman hadn't changed in appearance even now, more than half a day later.

She wasn't talking about rigor mortis or anything like that. It just strangely didn't give off the feeling of being 'dead'. Though, it didn't exactly feel like it was 'alive' either.

"Hmm."

She had checked the corpse multiple times whenever it bothered her, but she felt she needed to look at it again.

The Berserker grabbed the halberd she had planted in the ground and stood up again.

"W-Where are you going?"

"Checking."

She climbed atop the corpse with light steps. Bathing in the moonlight, the blue-white demonic corpse glowed faintly, as if dusted with silver powder.

Considering its bodily fluids were a matte, lusterless black, it was a stark contrast between its outside and inside.

"Mmm."

It was pretty, but at the same time, disgusting.

It was absolutely not because of the fact that it was a demon. Demons were targets of mandatory subjugation and somewhat entertaining prey, but she had never considered them in the realm of personal likes or dislikes.

It was just that. She hated it because it looked exactly like a heavy pile of snow. The same went for its white hair and the silver pupils surrounded by black sclera.

The Berserker hated snow. More accurately, she hated the memories it brought back, and the many things it had snatched away.

The countless things that would remain forever frozen, buried in the snow.

GRIND.

"...?"

But just how long had she been staring blankly down at that enormous head? She felt a presence.

RRRUMBLE.

It wasn't her imagination. The Berserker's hands tightly gripped her halberd, focusing everything on her five senses. RUMBLE. Something was approaching.

Not from above, the sides, behind, or the front.

"Get up—!!!"

But from directly beneath what she was standing on.

"Evacuate immediately!"

She threw her halberd. CRASH! As the earth shook alongside her shout, those who had been sleeping snapped their eyes open.

"Uhh?"

"Ugh."

"What the—!"

Such a lack of discipline!

After leaping off the corpse, the Berserker grabbed the napes of those who were still bewildered and threw them away.

Screams erupted at the sudden assault, but the effect was outstanding. Even if they hadn't fully grasped the situation, the action made them recognize the danger, and they immediately began to retreat.

And when they had barely evacuated to the zone the Berserker pointed out.

CRASH!

"─!!"

Massive tree roots shot up from the ground and began to devour the dead body of the Great Demon.

Despite locking me up in the Temple, the Archmage herself had flitted off before dawn under the excuse of investigating the Great Demon.

Of course, I couldn't complain. She was the only Mage we had, and there were some investigations in this world that only a Mage could conduct.

SHATTER.

However, after she left, the soup bowl brought for my breakfast breaking seemed like a bit of a problem.

Traditionally, a breaking bowl is widely used as a cliché for all sorts of ominous signs and a precursor to 'an incident is coming, open wide'.

"Gasp. Are you hurt?!"

More importantly, why did this actually break? Did they pour hot soup directly into a cold bowl? Or did the bowl's natural frequency coincidentally match an external frequency when they set it on the table?

"I-I'll bring you a new one!"

Regardless, it had already happened.

I set down the spoon I had just picked up, watching the Priest hurriedly clear away the broken bowl and food.

As the Priest scurried out of the dining room, I was the only one left at the table.

It had been a while since I experienced such an unintentional solitude, so I felt a bit awkward. A little bored, too.

"..."

However, if I considered that this boredom was all due to the folks who passed out, my mind quickly turned serious.

Sure, the Archmage and the Berserker went out to investigate the Great Demon, but the empty seats left by the two dumplings weren't because of that.

One passed out from the aftermath of using too much power, and the other fainted because his internal injuries relapsed.

What's worse, the latter couldn't even receive proper treatment because of the demonic energy.

This wasn't a situation I could just brush off with a 'Hell yeah, jackpot' like usual.

"... Huu."

At least I had faith that the Inquisitor would wake up soon since he was a sturdy kid, but DeB... I didn't know about DeB.

I was certain he wasn't a traitor—his attitude was too awkward for him to have betrayed us, and considering he coughed up mysterious blood from time to time, what was there to doubt—but that didn't mean I could let my guard down completely.

Just looking at the current situation proved it.

We killed the Great Demon presumed to be the cause, yet the kid was still harboring demonic energy, wasn't he?

Regardless of DeB's true intentions, I couldn't ignore the possibility that something might be forced upon him. If something like that happened, it was questionable whether I would be able to break character and squash my concept like I did now.

Also, I was worried about how DeB himself was feeling.

Seeing as it wasn't resolved even after killing the cause, and the Sea Dragon's pearl I secretly gave him had no effect, it felt like something he might have to carry for the rest of his life.

In that case, just how hard would it be for the Meat Dumpling?

I wondered if he would be okay since he didn't seem to have the extreme hatred my concept did, but my insides burned all over again.

I guess I felt that way even more because he was a kid with low self-esteem due to his background and things like that. It was obvious that this incident would only make it worse, not better.

TAP.

I eventually rested my head on my hand and propped my arm on the table. My head ached.

"Damn it."

My head ached, but the thoughts wouldn't stop.

If I knew this would happen, I would've been a bit more suspicious when I first found DeB on that rooftop. Could DeB continue to stay with us? Could we resolve this nuisance that had attached itself to DeB? And if we couldn't resolve it, what then? And so on. All sorts of questions kept biting at each other's tails, entirely filling my mind.

And at the end of that tail, the image of Deathbringer thrusting his sword at me always overlaid it.

I stroked my now perfectly smooth cheek without a single scratch.

'Would DeB even want to stay with us, with me?'

As expected, my head ached.

CLACK, CLACK, CLACK.

Ah, why do I have to suffer like this when I just killed one of the Seven Great Demons?

CLACK, CLACK, CLACK, CLACK.

If buttoning the very first button goes like this, when will I catch the remaining six, no, five? When will I catch the remaining five, and how will I catch Satan?

CLACK, CLACK, CLACK, CLACK, CLACK.

Damn it. Does it really make sense that instead of a victory party atmosphere, we only get crisis after crisis...

BANG!

"D-Demon Knight, sir!"

I lazily lifted my forehead from my hand. Then I shifted my gaze to the person who had just burst in.

"A messenger from the group guarding the Great Demon!"

The broken bowl cliché had finally struck.