Chapter 117

Chapter 117. Final Evaluation (7)

Black hair and red eyes.

A boy who looks like he just turned 10, with a small stature that barely reaches chest height.

But.

“…You.”

Red eyes gleaming with madness.

An overwhelming presence that dominates the surroundings with just a single step.

Even without revealing his identity, everyone present could naturally sense that the boy before them was no ordinary being.

“Hehe! I’m Seto!”

The boy smiled innocently and extended his hand to me.

Upon hearing the boy’s name, my expression stiffened.

‘Seto, the Grand Archbishop of Madness.’

One of the six demons standing at the pinnacle of tens of thousands of demons.

A monster who proudly holds one of those positions was standing right before me.

“…Everyone, get back!”

Professor Elisha stepped forward, crossing her arms.

Whoosh!

Hundreds of silver threads shot from her fingertips.

A purple aura, unseen during the earlier test, was now condensed on each of the hundreds of silver threads.

The threads intertwined in the air as if alive, targeting Seto.

And then.

“Heh.”

The boy took a step forward, smiling brightly.

Rumble!

The interior shook violently.

Blood-red spikes erupted from the ground, slicing through all the hundreds of silver threads that were fiercely closing in.

“So, you’re the ‘Spider of the Abyss’?”

Seto narrowed his eyes as he looked at Professor Elisha.

“Hmm.”

Click.

With a flick of his finger.

Crash!

“Ugh!”

A thick, blood-red mist, flowing from the red mucus that covered the surroundings, wrapped around Professor Elisha’s body.

She twisted her body desperately, but couldn’t shake off the blood-red mist enveloping her.

“I’m not interested in you.”

In the blink of an eye, Seto subdued Professor Elisha and walked past her, approaching me.

He leaned toward me, his eyes sparkling like stars.

“I came to meet Dale.”

“……”

He came to meet me.

‘Why?’

At least, I had never done anything that would involve me with the Grand Archbishop of Madness.

As I tried to figure out how I ended up entangled with the Grand Archbishop, I shook my head.

‘Now’s not the time to think about the reason.’

Regardless of the reason, the Grand Archbishop of Madness had come for me.

And now, he was standing right before me.

“Ugh… Dale! Run away!”

Professor Elisha’s desperate cry echoed in my ears.

I bit my lip as I looked at Professor Elisha, bound by the blood-red mist.

‘Run away?’

The opponent is ‘that’ Grand Archbishop of Madness.

In terms of pure combat power, he ranks second among the six Grand Archbishops.

A monster among monsters, one even other Grand Archbishops avoid.

There’s no way I could easily escape from such a monster.

‘And…’

I glanced at my party members.

“Ugh…!”

“Ah, uh…”

“I can’t… breathe…”

Yuren, Iris, and Camila were struggling to breathe under the overwhelming pressure emanating from Seto.

Among them, Yuren seemed to be in the best condition, but even he wasn’t in a state to move properly.

‘Albert… he’s already passed out.’

I gritted my teeth as I looked down at Albert, foaming at the mouth and collapsed on the floor.

Even if I could escape, I couldn’t leave my comrades behind and run away alone.

I clenched my fists as I stared at the Grand Archbishop of Madness.

‘Can I win?’

I imagined a battle with the Grand Archbishop of Madness.

I had never fought him in my past life, but I had heard countless rumors about him.

‘Raonel Liu, the Brain God, died at the hands of the Grand Archbishop of Madness.’

No matter how much I had grown recently, I couldn’t defeat the Brain God, who was ranked 3rd in the current hero rankings.

Let alone the Grand Archbishop of Madness, who killed him.

‘Even if I use Ignition, I can hold out for a while, but winning is impossible.’

If I could enter the ‘Fire God’ state like I did when fighting Ashtaroth, I could easily crush the Grand Archbishop of Madness.

‘But that’s not something I can do just because I want to.’

I didn’t even know how I entered the Fire God state back then, so I couldn’t bet my comrades’ lives on that possibility.

‘I need to find a way to get through this without fighting.’

If it were any other demon, I wouldn’t even entertain such a naive thought.

But the opponent was the Grand Archbishop of Madness, someone no one could predict.

Perhaps.

There might be a way to get through this without fighting.

“So, what do you want with me?”

I stepped forward, shielding my party members, and looked at Seto.

“Hehe, the reason I came to find you…”

Seto stuck out his tongue and licked his lips.

“I was just curious.”

“…Curious?”

“Yeah! I heard about you from Mephisto and got super curious! I wanted to see what kind of person you are!”

“……”

Did he really invade the Reynaldo Hero School’s exam site just for that?

I frowned as I looked at Seto, who was grinning from ear to ear.

“But…”

Seto tilted his head slightly, glancing at the party members behind me, and sighed.

“You’re a bit disappointing compared to what I expected.”

Seto’s expression turned sour.

“You’re just like the others, huh?”

“……”

“Protecting comrades, saving them… heroes are all so boring.”

Seto shook his head repeatedly.

“Well, that’s why I’m even more curious about your ‘true self.'”

“True self?”

“Yeah.”

Seto’s red eyes gleamed as he smiled brightly.

“The true face you show when you’re on the edge of a cliff.”

He spoke with an excited, breathless tone.

“Humans… no matter how much they try to present themselves in a good light, they always become honest in the face of death.”

False justice.

Half-baked beliefs.

Pathetic morals.

All disappear in that moment.

“I want to see that face of yours, Dale.”

Seto looked at me with eyes gleaming with madness.

“In that sense, I want to propose a fun game!”

“Game?”

“Yeah!”

Seto pulled something out from his pocket.

A small, L-shaped piece of metal.

“…A gun?”

“Ah, right, you’re from the Republic. Hehe. If you’re from the Republic, you must know about guns.”

It was a weapon once used in the Republic but fell out of favor due to the difficulty of infusing it with magic power.

“This is a revolver! See this round hole here? You put a bullet in here, and when you pull the trigger, bang! The bullet fires!”

Seto spoke excitedly, like a child showing off a toy.

“Here, look.”

Seto loaded a bullet into the revolver, then spun the cylinder with a flick of his hand.

“After loading one bullet, you spin it and shoot…”

He aimed the revolver at the wall and pulled the trigger.

Click.

A faint metallic sound echoed, followed by silence.

“Ah, the first shot was a dud! Now, for the next shot… drumroll!!!”

He pulled the trigger again.

Bang!

A gunshot rang out, and a bullet the size of a fingernail shot toward the wall.

And then.

Boom!!!

A terrifying explosion followed, and a blood-red energy swept through the surroundings.

“Yay! Bullseye!”

Seto clenched his fists and jumped up and down in place.

“…What is this?”

“Hehe. Cool, right? Normally, infusing a bullet with magic power is super annoying and difficult, but I can do it like this!”

“……”

Of course, it was an inefficient method.

A demon of the Grand Archbishop’s caliber could unleash far greater destructive power with pure magic energy alone, without needing to infuse bullets.

“So, what kind of game are you proposing with that?”

“The rules are simple.”

Seto loaded another bullet into the cylinder and spun it.

Then, he pressed the barrel against his temple and grinned.

“Six shots in total. Everyone here, including me, will pull the trigger once on their own head.”

Seto slowly looked around.

Professor Elisha, bound by the blood-red mist.

Iris, Yuren, and Camila, struggling to breathe under the overwhelming pressure.

Albert, unconscious with his eyes rolled back.

And me.

“Huh? There’s one extra person? Hmm… well, no choice. We’ll exclude the unconscious guy, so the six of us will play!”

Seto grinned and waved the revolver he had pressed against his temple.

“If it’s a dud, you live… if it’s a hit, your head goes ‘boom.'”

Seto spread his hand beside his head as he continued.

“And then we play the next game. Until only one person remains.”

Giggle.

Seto shrugged and laughed.

“How about it? Doesn’t it sound fun?”

“Stop talking nonsense!”

Professor Elisha shouted fiercely.

“Where do you get off proposing such a ridiculous game… Ugh!”

“Shh.”

Seto smirked and looked at me.

“So, what do you say? If the bullet fires on my turn, I’ll let everyone else live.”

“……”

I narrowed my eyes and asked.

“What’s the order?”

“Huh?”

“The order of who shoots. How do we decide?”

“Ahaha! You’re really considering playing?”

Seto laughed, clutching his stomach.

“The order is up to whoever wants to go first. But…”

Seto pressed the gun to his temple and made a “poof” sound with his mouth.

“After each shot, the person who shot gets to choose the next person. Of course, someone who’s already shot can’t be chosen again.”

“Really?”

I snatched the revolver from Seto’s hand.

“Then I’ll go first.”

“Hmm. Trying to shoot when the odds of survival are highest?”

Seto frowned, looking disappointed.

“This makes it too boring… but fine. I always keep my word.”

I pressed the barrel to my temple and pulled the trigger.

Click.

A faint metallic sound echoed, followed by silence.

“The first shot was a dud.”

Seto grinned and looked at me.

“Good. Who do you choose next?”

Click.

“…Huh?”

Click.

“What, what are you doing?”

Click.

“Hurry up and choose the next person!”

Click.

After pulling the trigger five times in a row.

I handed the revolver back to Seto.

“Your turn.”