Free Web Novel“But strength like that doesn’t come from ordinary equipment! And our boss radiates magi. Just standing near him makes your skin crawl from the sheer density of it!”
“What creates magi?” Ian asked abruptly.
The dwarf frowned, visibly offended.
“Negative emotions piling up and turning into corrupt energy. Isn’t that common knowledge? What, do you think I’m stupid?”
Ian ignored the irritation in his voice.
“Your boss has killed a lot of people, hasn’t he?”
“N-no, he hasn’t.”
“Don’t lie.”
The dwarf’s eyes flickered away.
“He’s butchered plenty of them, hasn’t he? Captured slaves, sold families apart, whipped people bloody—doing everything possible to breed hatred.”
“Well... maybe, but I was only ever his guard! I never did anything myself!”
Louise smacked the back of the dwarf’s head.
“Ow!”
“I thought Lord Ian might want to hit him,” Louise said shyly, “but I didn’t want your foot getting dirty.”
“...Well done.”
Ian silently resolved to have Contacca pay more attention to Momisia’s moral education.
“The resentment of the dead. The hatred of those torn from their families and sold into slavery. All of that festers together and becomes magi. Demons feed on it and grow stronger.”
“Then I was right... Our boss really is turning into a demon...”
The dwarf muttered the words timidly, but Ian cut him off before he could continue.
“There are also cursed items capable of converting magi into physical strength or mana.”
Items bearing the attributes “Corruption” or “Curse” boasted absurdly high performance, but their side effects were catastrophic. One early-route boss in the Nameita storyline wielded an item whose penalty permanently reduced the user’s maximum HP.
That boss had been Gorea—the dwarf chieftain of the slave village.
In other words, Gorea had traded away his lifespan for power.
“Your boss absorbed the resentment and curses surrounding him and converted them into magi to strengthen his body. But do you think an ordinary mortal can wield magi safely? There’s always a price to pay.”
“Our boss isn’t some ordinary dwarf! The Devotees blessed him already—he’s half-demon!” the dwarf shot back.
‘Talking to him is hopeless.’
Still, the explanation wasn’t entirely pointless. At the very least, it helped the others understand the situation.
“Why would the Devil Worshippers perform rituals for your sake?” Ian asked coldly. “If they truly knew how to become demons, wouldn’t they use it on themselves first? Are they demons too?”
“Of course they are!”
“...What?”
The answer was so confident that Ian was genuinely stunned.
‘They became demons?’
Impossible.
Ian had replayed the game countless times, and something like that had never existed in the lore. True racial conversion was fundamentally impossible. Even dragons or high-ranking demons could only use polymorph to imitate another race’s appearance.
They could never replicate racial abilities.
No matter what methods they used, mortal races could not wield magi. That power belonged exclusively to mamool and demons.
Likewise, dragons and high-ranking demons could not use abilities unique to elves or dwarves—such as spirit arts or Rock Hammer.
Communion with spirits belonged solely to elves.
Mastery over steel, stone, and flame belonged solely to dwarves.
“So you’re claiming the Devil Worshippers truly became demons? Can you prove it?” Keith asked quietly.
His voice remained calm, but fury simmered beneath it. His eyes shone with a dangerous light.
Reasoning with him was impossible now.
“H-how am I supposed to prove it...? But it’s true! I saw them command mamool! I saw them kill slaves using magi! If they weren’t demons, how could they possibly do that?!”
“Among those who devote themselves to demons,” Keith replied evenly, “there are some who gain the ability to command mamool.”
Ian immediately understood who Keith meant.
The Pope.
It was an old wound for Keith. In the end, the Pope had betrayed humanity for the demons, only to be devoured by the very mamool he once controlled.
‘Even if the Pope deserved it, Keith still saw him as a father figure. Honestly, he respected him more than he respects me. Though that’s not saying much.’
Ian felt uneasy.
“So isn’t that what’s happening here?” he asked carefully.
“No!”
“Can you say that with certainty?”
“I-I’m only a guard! The boss handled everything! I opposed working with the Devotees from the beginning, but he forced us into it...”
The dwarf trembled violently. Tears streamed down his face, mixing with the urine soaking through his trousers.
Louise shifted his footing, pinning the dwarf’s neck beneath a single boot.
“It’s all because of that traitor clan! They’re the ones who brought demons into this land! If not for them, we could’ve lived peacefully instead of turning into demons! They’re the real problem! Why haven’t you killed them yet?!”
For a brief moment, rage overwhelmed the dwarf’s terror.
He glared viciously at Louise.
Louise went pale.
“Shut up.”
Ian drove his foot into the dwarf’s head, knocking him unconscious instantly.
Silence fell over the room at last. No one cared anymore whether the floor got dirtier.
Then Louise suddenly dropped to his knees.
“Lord Ian... I swear it wasn’t me.”
“What? Obviously not. How could you have opened the Demon Realm? You weren’t even born yet.”
Ian frowned, confused by the atmosphere thickening around them.
Louise swallowed hard. His lips trembled as though he were forcing himself toward some irreversible confession.
“But the original sin... my parents...”
“Louise.”
Ian deliberately avoided looking at Keith.
“I said it’s fine.”
‘Are you trying to get yourself killed?’
Louise belonging to the traitor clan wasn’t the issue. Ian could manage that much. For now, Keith still trusted his judgment.
But if Louise admitted his parents were the ones who opened the Demon Realm—
Keith would never spare him.
“But Lord Ian, haven’t you heard what my parents did—”
“I don’t believe in punishing children for their parents’ crimes. Sema, isn’t there some dungeon law we can add for that? Put it in.”
Sema flinched in surprise.
“Th-that’s Contacca’s responsibility...”
‘Then why don’t you handle it?’
Sema was technically the senior member here. Unfortunately, Contacca was roughly a hundred times more dependable, so Ian let it go.
“Then tell her when we return.”
“What exactly did Louise’s parents do?” Keith asked. freewebnσvel.cøm
His tone remained devoutly restrained, but his gaze was razor-sharp.
Ian stepped directly between them.
“I said it’s fine. Are you questioning my authority?”
He braced himself for the notification.
Keith’s loyalty was bound to drop after this. He might even begin doubting Ian altogether.
Still, that was preferable to the alternative.
If Keith learned Louise’s secret later, he would feel betrayed that Ian knowingly allowed Louise to remain by his side.
‘Would he kill me?’
...There would be no reason not to.
Keith had killed the Pope himself.
A royal protecting a descendant of the clan that opened the Demon Realm—just the accusation alone could destroy everything Keith thought of Ian.
The image of Keith’s blade turning toward him made Ian nauseous.
Then their eyes met.
Ian expected fury.
Instead—
Ding!
[Keith suffers deep emotional pain.]
“I apologize,” Keith said quietly. “I overstepped my place and questioned your authority.”
“...”
“I will accept whatever punishment you deem appropriate upon our return.”
Ian nearly lost his sanity on the spot.
‘I rushed this too fast.’
Combining routes with the DLC on a first playthrough had been a catastrophic mistake.
And unlike the game, reality didn’t come with a retry button.
Maybe he should have delayed Louise’s route entirely. If handled properly, Louise would eventually uncover the truth about his parents, clear their names, and expose the true culprits.
Like Genea’s storyline, Louise’s route revolved around the Devil Worshippers.
But while Genea’s route was brutally difficult from start to finish, Louise’s progression curve had originally been far more forgiving.
Ding!
[Louise is afflicted with the status effect ‘Anxiety.’]
Ding!
[Status Effect: Anxiety]
– All skill levels decreased by 2.
– Lower-tier skills unlocked through level progression are temporarily unavailable.
With Keith emotionally shattered and Louise crippled by anxiety, the only party member still functioning properly was Sema.
‘Seriously? A debuff now?’
This section required coordinated party actions to progress. It wasn’t the kind of sequence you could brute-force through with a few button presses while the NPCs followed automatically.
But now the entire group dynamic had collapsed.
At this point, Ian was fully convinced.
His character was absolutely cursed.
