108. Is It Our Secret?

Lilith was originally the one closest to the Demon King. She had such blind loyalty to the Demon King that she could easily be seen as a fanatic, so she never gave up her position to anyone.

〈While I go to the capital to build a force of demonic beings, I’ll leave this place to you, Crowley.〉

If she didn’t have something absolutely necessary to do in the capital, it wouldn’t be Crowley guarding the ‘spirit body’ now.

“You’ll find out when you try it.”

Crowley, the demonic being guarding the mountaintop, answered indifferently. Having come all this way, with a knife already in hand to draw blood, he wondered why the man was asking him now.

Black magic—magic that borrows the power of demonic beings. Though evil, it’s a power more powerful than anything else, so it’s true that mages easily fall into temptation. Like this fellow now.

The wonder felt when first learning magic quickly becomes commonplace, and the higher the level achieved, the harder it becomes to make achievements.

But if one contracts with a demonic being and pays the price, one can gain power without much effort. This was a temptation always felt by mages who had trained in magic to a certain extent and hit a wall.

Finally, the cowardly mage raised his knife.

“Heya……”

The knife grazed his palm. Droplets of blood lightly seeped through the small wound.

“Nothing’s happening?”

“Haah……”

Crowley, who found everything bothersome, personally took the mage’s knife and made a large cut across his palm.

“Argh!”

With a gush, the wound split deeply and blood poured out freely.

“Just offer as much blood as the power you want. When you feel you’ve received a satisfactory amount of power, staunch the wound.”

Then, as if the pain of having his flesh cut had disappeared, the unnamed mage’s face soon filled with ecstasy.

“Power, my goodness, such incredible power……”

The magical power exchanged for blood gave the mage tremendous vitality. Not knowing that it would soon kill him.

“Humans are always so greedy. They want to eat everything even if their stomachs burst.”

Crowley expressionlessly looked at the mage.

The ignorant man’s face, unaware that he was dying from having his blood drained, was filled with intoxication for the newly acquired power.

“Hahaha, I am now the king of the world!”

‘Since you’ll be completely devoured and become part of the Demon King, that’s not wrong.’

Because the revived Demon King would soon rule the world.

With gulping sounds, the blood was instantly depleted. Then came a strange sound like turning off a faucet.

Simultaneously, the mage, who had lost all moisture and withered, collapsed to the floor with a thud. He had greedily indulged in magical power and died, leaving only flesh and skin after having his blood completely drained.

‘If he had stopped appropriately, he would have gained power as I said.’

But since Crowley had never seen a mere human taste destructive power and stop, he knew this outcome from the beginning.

“Did you enjoy your meal? This is all for today, but I hope you were satisfied.”

Thump, thump. Through the thin membrane of ‘it’ that had just finished eating, he could feel the pulse beating.

‘It’ was enclosed in several layers of thin membranes, so its exact appearance wasn’t visible, but a black shadow was visible from outside, clearly indicating something existed inside.

At the mountaintop, the stronghold where demonic beings had made their nest. ‘It’ sat in the center, extending blood vessels in all directions. And through those blood vessels, it absorbed the life force of humans diligently gathered by demonic beings who had gone down to the ground.

“Spirit body.”

The demonic beings called it the spirit body. The vessel containing the body and soul of the Demon King who would be revived. A great being who would share power with the demonic beings once it gathered strength and returned to a complete body.

“For once, healthy humans climbed up the northern mountains on their own. We could have killed all of them except for that hateful Inkheart descendant…… but unfortunately, we let them escape. My goodness, how many living souls walked out on their own two feet. Sigh, what a waste.”

Crowley greatly regretted it.

If they had caught them all, they could have made up for all the sacrifices they couldn’t supply because the slave market had disappeared.

“It’s fortunate that Lady Lilith was distracted with her original body’s issues, otherwise she would have been very angry. She trusted me and left this place to me.”

Crowley spoke to the spirit body with affection, but there was no answer from it. Naturally, since its body didn’t yet have completed vocal cords.

Thump-thump.

The spirit body pulsed. Crowley smiled slightly.

The spirit body had been excited every day since the Grand Duchess entered this mountain. If the spirit body could speak, it would surely be an incredible chatterbox.

‘Anette! I finally saw Anette up close! It was the closest I’ve ever been! Ah, it’s such a shame she’s already gone down the mountain! I have so much I want to talk about. Crowley, did you see her commanding spirits? My goodness, isn’t she amazing?’

Like this, it would talk non-stop about Grand Duke Inkheart’s wife.

“Again, you only respond to stories about Inkheart’s wife. You really like that woman too much. She’s not worth such value.”

At those words, the spirit body wriggled as if answering in its own way.

Though he had pretended not to notice until now, Crowley also knew that the spirit body had visited the Grand Duchess in her dreams once or twice when it saw the opportunity.

Even though the spirit body couldn’t speak, Crowley could communicate with it because they were connected through magical power.

“Yes, yes, I understand. Even if we couldn’t kill everyone, we collected many lives, right?”

Though not a satisfactory number, quite a few Northern soldiers had died fighting monsters in the northern mountains.

“Anyway, there’s not much time left until your revival, so I’ll let it go.”

No matter how sealed the Demon King might be now, in the end, the master of the demonic beings was the Demon King, so one must follow what the master wants.

* * *

Doctor Owell had never experienced such a frustrating time as now. He had graduated from a famous medical university in the capital and had cut patients’ bones with a saw several times alongside a cosmetician.

Although his skills were somewhat lacking, preventing him from opening a hospital catering to nobles in the capital and instead becoming the resident physician of the Inkheart grand ducal family in the North, he was still the Grand Duke’s family physician.

Everyone respected him, and several times, ignorant commoners had grabbed his trouser legs, begging him to save their sick family members.

Of course, since medical skills were precious, he didn’t treat people without money. What if people thought his valuable medical skills were free?

〈A doctor who uses dangerous treatment methods like bloodletting on people is not needed in the North!〉

But since the newly married Grand Duchess blocked Owell’s path, his once-successful life changed.

〈You’re not listening to the doctor! Even if you are the Grand Duchess, how could you know more about medicine than me? Tsk, you’ll only come to your senses after someone dies!〉

Tsk, tsk, just like a delicate noblewoman who had never lifted anything heavier than a fork in her life. She made a fuss about being afraid of blood when a disease needed to be treated.

Feeling disrespected, Owell immediately quit his position as the resident physician, firmly believing that the Grand Duke’s family would soon come begging for forgiveness.

But to his surprise, Miss Temeri, whom he thought would surely die without him, recovered healthily after being cared for by the Grand Duchess for a few days.

Not only that, this incident confirmed that the Grand Duchess’s claims had been correct, and the families of patients who had died under his care suddenly began criticizing him!

〈After hearing what the lady said, you’re a quack! You said bloodletting was a treatment that saves lives, but it was all lies! Bring back our dead family members!〉

Well, bloodletting might involve some, very very slight risk, but it was a contemporary health treatment prescribed by himself, a graduate of a prestigious medical university.

He had taken such care of his patients. The patients who had already died were simply suffering from illnesses that couldn’t be cured even with bloodletting.

By the way, people who had all agreed to the procedure at the time now blamed him, saying this quack killed people, making Owell’s life quite difficult even after coming to the capital.

〈I heard he’s a fake doctor who caused a major medical accident in the North and barely made it to the capital……”

〈Are you the doctor who ignorantly drew blood without using leeches when performing bloodletting?〉

Moreover, when Owell came up to the capital, the trend of bloodletting had passed, and new medical techniques were in fashion.

Like drinking lots of hot water for seasonal health, or receiving electrical therapy from a mage to give appropriate stimulation for a depressed mood.

Owell could follow the former, a new trend in the medical field, but the latter was a realm he couldn’t follow even if he wanted to prescribe it, as he wasn’t a mage.

Why are those evil mages meddling with doctors’ livelihoods!

‘Medical treatment should be received from doctors! Did I get an expensive medical license for this? Geez!’

Moreover, even his fellow medical university alumni were of no help.

They had all been using bloodletting themselves, but now they distanced themselves from Owell, adding that his bloodletting probably wasn’t the orthodox method.

‘Haven’t they ever killed someone using bloodletting? Isn’t a real doctor someone who has killed at least a bunch of people?’

Killing that many people meant he had saved just as many, didn’t it?