Return of the Apocalypse Knight

Chapter 4: Chasing the Demon King (2)

Things were going well.

I had all the stuff I needed in an old space-expanding bag that was tied around my waist anyway.

Besides, the items were almost worthless compared to the space-expanding bag.

All I had to do was move my body.

I greeted the party members I was seeing for the first time and headed to the entrance of the Demon King dungeon.

The connections were fleeting. I’d have to take my time to determine the skills and personalities of my party members.

If I have a problematic mix of party members, it’s unlikely that the higher-ups will change them, so I’ll just have to give up and adapt.

After years of dealing with skeletons, there weren’t any sane ones left.

After crossing the command barracks, the entrance to the dungeon looked more like an old ruin than a demonic castle.

The staircase that led down into the darkness was not unlike the dungeon entrance in my previous game.

The only difference is that there are no healthy bushes or weeds around the ruins due to the aura of death and evil spread by the Demon King.

I sighed as I looked down the stairs disappearing into the darkness.

As always, I was strangely unlucky.

Basically, it was a matter of being reborn in this fantasy world.

Or maybe it was more the fact that I remembered my previous life…….

Still, the good thing is that I wasn’t the first born, but I was born into a knightly family and became a freelance knight.

Of course, when I finally became a freelance knight, a demon king appeared and I fought with skeletons for years.

After all…….I was unlucky.

No, technically, I survived this bad situation, so maybe I’m strong against bad luck.

And as it turned out, I ended up standing in front of a demon dungeon, but this dungeon was devoid of demons, so maybe that was a good thing.

In the end, I couldn’t help but smile bitterly at the darkness.

“Let’s get going.”

A long-eared man joined our party.

The man, who looked just like the elves I’d seen in the movies from my previous life, called the Children of the New Tree, looked at me and the rest of the party.

At his words, I looked around and saw that the other vanguards had already disappeared into the stairwell.

We were the last ones picked, and it was our turn to enter.

We followed the long-eared man’s lead and began to descend the stairs.

Although I didn’t feel like it, since the higher-ups had appointed the ‘ear people’ as party leaders, I had no choice but to follow.

Since the ‘ear people’ came from another world, it was understandable that they would become the leaders of the advance party going to yet another world.

However, I was worried, as I hadn’t seen their skills.

As we descended the darkened stairs into the ruins’ basement, I tried to imagine the other world we would go to.

The dimensional gate, colloquially called a ‘gate,’ which the Demon King had opened a hole through a few years ago, was different from this place and had been connected to the world of the ‘ear people’ who were now descending the stairs at the front.

Thanks to that, the world of the ‘ear people’ was thrown into chaos, and eventually, the ‘ear people’ ended up chasing the Demon King and crossing over into our world.

Now that we’ve connected to the world of the ‘ear people’, will we connect to the world of the dwarves, the small people who live underground?

Or perhaps it was connected to the world of the beastmen, a favorite of those with unusual tastes.

Regardless of who lived there, though, their world must already be in shambles, for the demon king had descended.

Our world has holy water, priests, and knights with mana, the antithesis of death, the cheat key, and we’ve fought for years,

The first to fall to the Demon King, the world of the ear-people was turned to hell, except for the cities of the Shrines.

The demon king himself didn’t do it, but his minions did.

It was said that their world would have been destroyed if it weren’t for the god trees that guarded the cities.

In fact, the reason the ear-people came to this world as a group was to find a way to return their world to its original state.

Apparently, there were many negotiations between them and the Imperial Court, with priests and holy water, but in the end, they came with us.

Perhaps that’s why, though it didn’t show on their faces, their anger at the Demon King was no weaker than ours.

Whatever world we ended up in, couldn’t possibly be the same.

Priests and priestesses, holy water, and direct access to the power of the gods were not commonplace, and it was unlikely that this was a world that could stop a demon king that could raise the dead.

But it was a different world…….

No, wait.

“Is it okay to go to another world so unprepared?”

My questioning muttering to myself made the party ahead of me turn around.

“What? What do you mean?”

The party member wore worn leather armor, a short sword at his waist and a crossbow on his back.

He was a Ranger, a stout mountain soldier in his late thirties.

From the faint glow in his eyes, he seemed to have a faint sense of mana.

A ranger in tattered clothes with mana.

Lucky for me, this party member seemed to be quite helpful, unlike the ear man.

After mentally hitting the reassurance button, I answered his question.

“You know, when you go on an expedition far from home, there are endemic diseases. We’re not even in a different province, we’re in a completely different world, and I think this might be a problem…….”

In fact, it wasn’t just endemic diseases, but any unknown viruses, bacteria, or microorganisms.

“Yeah, that’s a problem, too. We’ve had a few soldiers change their water when we’ve been away on operations before…….But maybe we’ll be okay this time?”

He patted the backpack he wore on his back along with his crossbow.

I looked at the backpack and understood what he meant.

There was holy water in that backpack, just like the holy water in the spatial expansion bag at my waist.

Unlike knights and mages with mana, soldiers without mana were able to fight alongside knights because of holy water, priests and clerics.

In fact, priests and clerics were rarely seen around, so it was all thanks to holy water.

Before the rise of the Demon King, holy water was not taken seriously, but in this war, its importance became apparent.

The ability of priests and priestesses was to stop the demon energy and return the undead back to the earth.

While the holy water couldn’t do that much, they didn’t have to worry about becoming undead themselves while the effects of the holy water lasted.

That alone was enough to keep soldiers fighting.

Knights and wizards with mana didn’t need holy water either.

Just because they had mana didn’t mean they were immune to demon energy.

This is why I kept as much holy water in my bag as possible.

Of course, I stole the holy water with the intention of selling it after the war was over.

After all, it was the common people who were affected by the demonic energy.

Besides, holy water was curiously effective against common illnesses like the common cold.

It seemed odd that holy water, which was supposed to ward off bad spirits, would also ward off viral illnesses like the common cold but this was a world with gods, after all.

Maybe colds in this world were caused by evil spirits instead of viruses.

Regardless, in this world, holy water was enough to ward off endemic diseases, colds, and other plagues.

The only problem was that the holy water was incredibly expensive.

In fact, if it weren’t for the war, I wouldn’t have seen holy water at all.

Of course, it was said that all the priests and priests below the rank of archbishop were coughing up blood to provide holy water for the war effort, so you can’t blame them for being expensive.

Still, if holy water and the prayers of priests were cheaper and more readily available, the world’s plagues would be eradicated.

I slipped my hand into my spatial expansion pouch and double-checked the holy water inside.

Dozens of bottles of holy water flashed through my mind, and I was relieved to see the ample supply.

The ranger was right, I had holy water, and I wouldn’t be like the Indians from my previous life who were wiped out by the plague.

Holy water aside, the otherworldly vanguard wasn’t in a bad mood.

My teammates walking in front of me, as well as the other teams that went down first, didn’t look like the vanguard of the otherworldly voyage to chase the demon king.

Neither did the ranger in front of me, nor the other team members.

The middle-aged wizard walking down the stairs in front of the ranger didn’t look like a vanguard, but rather a scholar exploring the ruins.

“No matter how I look at it, it looks like a relic from the 3rd period of civilization. Why did the Demon King use this relic?”

He swept the staircase, summoned a light source with magic, and examined the walls and ceiling.

“It doesn’t look like it was used as is, it’s definitely been modified, and it doesn’t look like it was done with the sole purpose of expansion. It doesn’t look like the undead worked on it…….”

He stopped walking on the way down and kept muttering.

Our group had to stop several times.

Each time, the wizard apologized to us, but he didn’t stop scanning his surroundings.

The staff in his hand, the ring on his finger, and the way he was acting reminded me of a research-mad professor from my previous life.

Thinking back to that time, I don’t think I should get close to him…….

However, the party members were already decided, and it’s not like I could choose the battle mage, who is the core of our firepower.

I just sighed and kept walking.

I’d probably have to reset my party score after seeing the Ranger.

And the ear man walking in front of me had an expressionless face, so I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and the knight in shining armor following behind him looked like a nobleman on a pleasure trip.

Judging from the crystalline glow in his eyes, his mana seemed to be deeper than mine, but from the way he moved, it seemed like he hadn’t seen much combat.

And that shiny armor.

Surely, he didn’t use a restoration spell to rebuild his broken armor? I’d love to see that…….

But it was an unlikely story.

It was more likely to be a newbie, after all.

Still, he seemed to have a decent amount of mana, so at the very least, he could be used as a tank in the worst case scenario.

Even with that thought, the pendulum swung a little too far downward.

So it was with the ear man in the lead, then me, the mountain soldier walking in front of me, the middle-aged wizard, and finally the knight in shining armor.

These five were the members of my party, the last of the vanguard.

They were all moving at an uncharacteristically leisurely pace.

The dungeon we were going down was where the demon king lived and the place we were going to was another dimension where the demon king had fled.

In the end, there was no demon king in this dungeon, and the other world had already been confirmed by the heroes.

Plus, the fact that we were accompanied by an ear man from another world should have eased everyone’s worries.

Apparently, everyone was relaxed after the demon king was defeated by the heroes and fled.

I was no different.

My mind was filled with thoughts of leaving. So, I was depressed to be taken to another world like this.

We continued to descend underground and as we descended, the environment around us kept changing.

The walls and floor of the dungeon were covered in battle scars, and the remains of demons and undead were everywhere,

This dungeon had already been cleared of demons and undead but I honestly didn’t care.

We continued down and eventually reached the boss room where the demon king was and entered an underground hall with a large altar.

In the central altar of the underground hall, instead of offerings to the demon god, there was a rippling, translucent door.

That door was the portal to another world.