Barbarian’s Dark Fantasy Strategy Guide

Chapter 15: Demon （1）

Click, click.

Since the merchants left, Mila hadn’t been able to sit still for a moment in the mansion. Her thumbnails were ragged from being bitten so much.

‘He should be coming back from his mission by now. He said he could be back as early as tonight……’

She had always dreamed of the day she could be with Dominic. And she was filled with anticipation that today could be that day.

Time had passed, and it was now past midnight.

As if to respond to Mila’s anticipation, who still couldn’t sleep, a servant knocked on the door just then.

“Mila-nim, I’ve heard the merchants have returned to the village.”

“Really?!”

Mila’s face lit up.

She jumped up from her seat and ran out to the yard. In the distance, the coachman was pulling the lord’s carriage back to the mansion. There were no knights or soldiers escorting the carriage.

Just from that, Mila sensed that their plan had succeeded. She believed that Dominic, whom she had been eagerly waiting for, would be in the carriage, welcoming her.

Unable to contain her excitement, she ran to the carriage and flung the door open.

“Dominic! We finally succeeded…… did we……?”

Mila’s mind went blank when she found Hojae staring at her from inside the carriage. The words she had uttered in haste could no longer be taken back.

“Y-you……”

Mila stumbled backward as if she had seen a ghost.

As Hojae got out of the carriage and approached her with a fierce glare, she tripped and fell on her butt. Her face, now the color of dirt, was distorted in a strange way, not knowing what to do.

“You seem to have been waiting for Dominic.”

“Ah…… uh…… well, this is……”

Hojae threw the cloth wrapper he was holding onto her lap. When Mila trembled and unfolded the cloth, she found a gruesomely mutilated human hand inside.

“Aaaaagh!”

Mila screamed in terror.

Hojae spoke to her in a chillingly cold tone.

“That’s the Dominic you’ve been waiting for.”

“Uh…… uh……”

Mila carefully touched Dominic’s cold hand. And when she discovered the scorched ring remaining on his finger, she burst into tears. It was undoubtedly the ring she had given him when they were lovers.

As he watched Mila collapse to the ground and sob, Hojae began to connect the events of the past with this incident. There was something even more shocking than the fact that the two had committed adultery.

“You had three miscarriages after marrying me. At first, I thought it was because you were weak, but now I see that wasn’t it, was it? You did that horrible thing because you didn’t want to have my child!”

“N-no…… no!”

Khalid, disguised as a coachman, was watching the situation unfold with Becky. However, he was deeply concerned about Becky’s mental state as she watched this scene with fascination.

『Three intentional miscarriages…… seriously? See, what did I tell you? I said that woman was suspicious. This is like a crazy drama.』

It was the right call to leave the knights and soldiers in the village and bring only the carriage. Khalid’s ploy to make it seem like their plot had succeeded and to make the baroness dig her own grave had worked.

（So, is this the third hidden quest success?）

The battle with the mage, which seemed like it would be difficult, ended unexpectedly easily.

Of course, that was because Khalid came up with a ridiculous skill called ‘Sling Counter’ that wasn’t even in the game. But there’s no denying that he was a somewhat weaker opponent compared to the ogre or the vampire bat.

『Anyway, I’m glad you’re not hurt this time. Let’s go back now.』

‘No, wait. Something’s strange.’

Khalid, who was observing the situation, sensed a suspicious energy.

『Huh, what is it?』

‘The baroness hasn’t moved for a while.’

Mila was huddled, clutching Dominic’s hand, and not lifting her head. At first, he thought she was lying face down and sobbing, but that wasn’t it. She wasn’t moving at all, as if her entire body had turned to stone.

Hojae, who was watching from right in front of her, also felt something strange and tried to lift her up.

“Y-you! Lift your head! I’m not finished talking yet……”

As Hojae reached out to Mila, a sinister energy emanated from her body. The energy was so dark that it was visible, and it soon enveloped her in a pitch-black veil.

“This is…… could it be?!”

An ominous atmosphere.

Khalid quickly ran to Hojae and helped him escape into the mansion. The servants who were in the yard also ran away, trembling in fear.

The pitch-black veil that enveloped Mila blazed like fire and spread to its surroundings. While everyone was clueless about what was happening, Khalid muttered.

『……N-necromancy?!』

“So it’s come to this.”

A demon had infiltrated the baroness’s broken mind. A human driven to a corner like this easily surrenders their soul to the sweet whispers of a demon. Moreover, this was the worst-case scenario, where she had surrendered not only her soul but also her body.

『Damn it, I thought things were going too smoothly. Dominic was a fake, and this was the real deal?!』

Fear and anxiety could be felt in Becky’s voice. It was understandable. The power of a human who sold their soul to become a demon and a real demon were on different levels.

Whoosh.

The black flames that spread from Mila’s body drew a large magic circle in the middle of the yard. It was a ritual to summon a demon to the earth by sacrificing her own body.

The flames were so intense that he couldn’t approach recklessly, but Khalid took a fighting stance with axes in both hands. The opportunity to slay a real demon and purify his heart after a long time had come.

Becky desperately tried to stop him.

『Hey! Don’t do anything stupid and run away quickly. This time, it’s a real demon! You can’t even scratch it with your current equipment……!』

‘I wasn’t planning on running away anyway, but it seems like it’s too late for that.’

『……Huh?』

At that moment, the baroness, who had been crouching, slowly rose. She was draped in a pitch-black veil that emitted an unholy aura, and her disheveled hair had turned ashen. Her limbs had lost their color and were withered like tree branches.

“Grooooowl……”

Mila turned around, making a strange, breathtaking sound. Khalid was waiting for her with his axes.

Her face was no longer human. Her skin was pale, and her eyelids were so darkly sunken that she was practically a skeleton.

『B-Banshee! We’re so screwed……!』

Becky immediately recognized the demon that even Khalid, who had lived in the Ancestor’s Land, had never seen before. It was a rare occurrence for a demon to descend to the mortal world like this, so even Khalid had only faced a handful of ‘real’ demons.

（Of all times, a physical attack-immune opponent appears! This is just telling us to die?!）

Khalid currently had no means to counter a banshee. He didn’t have any weapons with elemental attributes, and as a barbarian warrior, he couldn’t use magic or divine power.

An opponent he theoretically couldn’t defeat.

If it were a game, he could just brush it off as an event, but here, it was a matter of life and death.

（Khalid, if I tell him to run away blindly, he definitely won’t listen. I should at least let him know that his attacks won’t work……）

But there was no time for that.

Mila grabbed her face with both hands and looked up at the night sky. Then, she unhinged her jaw in a grotesque manner and let out a terrifying scream.

Aaaaagh!

A woman’s scream that seemed to tear through the air.

In an instant, a wave of tremendous sound spread out, shattering the windows of the mansion. The servants nearby collapsed, bleeding from their ears. Even those inside the mansion lost consciousness on the spot.

“Ugh!”

『……Ouch!』

Khalid, who was right in front of her, also stumbled from the sudden attack. It was a shock that an ordinary person would have a hard time enduring. A ringing sound echoed in his ears.

Becky let out a short cry and then remained silent. Normally, she would have been making a fuss about running away, but it seemed she had fainted as well.

‘I won’t be able to get any advice, but this will allow me to focus on the fight.’

Becky’s advice, possessing a wealth of knowledge that Khalid didn’t know, was undoubtedly a valuable asset. However, it was also true that her nagging sometimes got in the way during battles. Perhaps it was for the best right now. It would be better for Becky to be asleep than to be constantly tormented by fear in front of a demon.

“Now it’s my turn.”

Khalid gripped his axes and stared at the demon.

Mila’s legs were floating above the ground. She fluttered the tattered pitch-black veil and scattered a chilly coldness on the ground.

Khalid immediately charged at her. His axe blade split the demon’s form in half in an instant.

Swish.

Mila’s form vanished like dust before his eyes. Khalid felt nothing in his hands. It felt like he had cut through the air. She couldn’t have died from such a weak attack. Then……

At that moment.

He felt a chill on the back of his neck.

Whoosh!

Khalid quickly rolled forward to create distance.

A sharp wind grazed past his head. If his reaction had been even a little slower, Khalid’s neck would have been severed.

Behind him, Mila was floating in the air, wielding a giant ice scythe. She swung the ice scythe, which was twice as long as her body, back and forth.

It wasn’t a difficult attack to dodge, but one or two ice flowers bloomed wherever the scythe passed.

Crackle, crackle!

The fully bloomed ice petals scattered in all directions, scratching Khalid’s body. White frost formed on his skin where the ice shards grazed, sending chills through his body.

“You’re quite a nuisance.”

She seemed much more like a mage than Dominic.

That was to be expected, as the ‘Ice Blossom’ that the banshee had just created was a cold magic spell that only intermediate-level mages could use. Khalid didn’t even know that the source of the magic power drawn from the spirit world was the power of a demon.

“I’ll destroy that annoying scythe first.”

Khalid, judging that he couldn’t defeat her by just dodging, countered the incoming ice scythe with his axe.

Clang.

As expected, the ice shattered like glass. He pressed his advantage and swung his axe down at Mila’s head once more. However, once again, his axe cut through empty air.

The demon, which suddenly appeared behind Khalid, smoothly pulled out another ice scythe.

“Go ahead. Pull it out as many times as you like. I’ll break them all.”

A fight with no chance of winning.

His opponent was literally an intangible specter.

His axe wouldn’t hit, and she could instantly recreate her weapon with magic. It was a situation that would make an ordinary person despair and give up, but Khalid’s fighting spirit only rose.

It didn’t seem like he had a chance of winning right now, but he didn’t think he would lose either. It was just a matter of breaking the ice with his axe.

“Why. Are you already done?”

Mila stopped swinging her ice scythe.

It seemed she thought it would be endless as the same pattern repeated, and her opponent showed no signs of stopping.

The dark dawn. It would be daybreak in a few hours. The night specter, which couldn’t exert its power under the sun, had to defeat the obstacle in front of it as soon as possible.

“Grooooowl……”

Mila, who was far away from Khalid, swung her ice scythe haphazardly around herself. Dozens of ice flowers bloomed around her. It wasn’t within range of the shards, and it seemed like she was trying to prevent Khalid from approaching.

‘Is she going to scream again?’

However, Khalid’s ears were already ringing, and he could barely hear anything. Even if she screamed, he didn’t think he would take as much damage as the first time.

“Aaaaaah……”

Mila spread her arms wide and swayed them up and down. It was as if she was trying to summon something.

Whoosh!

Moments later, three chains shot out from Mila’s waist. Each chain dug into the ground, seemingly pulling her taut.

‘Let’s see what tricks she’s up to.’

Khalid recalled the time he hunted demons in the Ancestor’s Land. The vampire bat he had faced recently was also quite a tricky opponent at first. However, there were times when making them more aggressive revealed weaknesses that weren’t visible before.

This time wouldn’t be any different.

Rumble, rumble, rumble……

The ground shook.

Vibrations were coming from near the chains that Mila had driven into the ground. Mila slowly rose into the air, and the chains embedded in the ground pulled something up. Three mounds rose in the once-flat yard of the mansion.

Crack.

Three monsters bound by Mila’s chains slowly revealed themselves. They wriggled like giant insects and crawled out onto the ground.

‘Larvae? No, those are……’

A white, obese head and a bulging belly. Their limbs weren’t fully formed yet, but he could tell their identity from the placenta covering their bodies.

Kyaaaaagh!

The three fetuses that Mila had miscarried in the past screamed towards their mother.

“As always, demons are nothing but disgusting creatures.”