The Complexity of Human Nature

Two months later, the Royal Capital of the Duchy of Maldon.

Inside a luxurious estate.

In a pavilion within the garden, Orsaga, having taken human form, sat calmly in a chair dressed in lavish clothing suited to this world's culture.

The table before him held fruits rushed in from across the country, while bright sunlight filtered through the leaves overhead, scattering across his handsome face.

Although he wore no expression and sat there quietly, there was an innate sinister air about him that made people feel as though a sharp sword were pressed against their throats. It seemed to lower the temperature of the entire pavilion by several degrees out of thin air, leaving even the sunlight unable to bring any warmth.

Orsaga calmly examined the mass of mist-like substance in his hand.

It was translucent gray-black, like fine dust endlessly flowing and spinning, yet it possessed no more substantial form and felt no different from air.

At that moment, Salter entered the courtyard. Rather than his usual hooded black robe—the standard attire of a cultist—he wore noble clothing. Standing respectfully some distance from Orsaga, he said, "My lord, everything you required has been gathered."

"Mm. Leave."

Orsaga nodded without even looking at him, replying in an indifferent tone.

Naturally, Salter did not dare voice any objections. Or rather, he had never wanted to face Orsaga in the first place. Simply standing before him made Salter feel as though he were constantly dancing on the edge of death.

The creature before him might have worn the shell of a human now, but beneath it was a pure monster.

Whenever he thought of what had happened on the night of the Summoning Ritual in the dead of night, recalling the disbelieving looks in the eyes of those followers who had died before him, Salter could not help but tremble.

Though he had always regarded them as insignificant subordinates, expendable goods he could replace at any time, witnessing their miserable deaths firsthand had still made Salter, who spent every day with them, inevitably feel pity and growing guilt toward them.

It was an extremely strange feeling, one that even Salter—who had always considered himself capable of every evil and no good person—found hard to bear. Perhaps this was the complexity of human nature. He had willingly sacrificed subordinates before, yet he had never felt the slightest remorse then; he would only curse them for being useless.

Perhaps this time, he could empathize with them to some extent. After all, many people only learned to put themselves in another's shoes after experiencing despair themselves.

Unless the knife stabbed them personally, they would never understand how much it hurt.

Before Orsaga made him understand his place, he would never have entertained such thoughts.

After all, he had always considered himself a genius. How could he possibly be on the same level as a bunch of worthless peasants? What did it even mean to consider others?

Why should the strong care about the thoughts of the weak? Was serving him not their honor?

The moment Orsaga appeared before him, that simple belief had been mercilessly shattered.

There had been no struggle and no resistance. Orsaga's mere gaze—the presence and indifference naturally leaking from those golden Vertical Pupils, the eyes of a predator standing at the very top of the food chain—had destroyed all of Salter's pride, torn his courage to shreds, and completely erased the dignity he possessed as a Warlock.

Only when he personally realized that, in Orsaga's eyes, he too was a weak little bug who could be crushed to death at will did he instinctively place himself in the perspective of the weak and understand how his former subordinates had felt.

Though Orsaga had not fully seen through Salter's thoughts, he could roughly guess them from Salter's words and actions over this period.

But knowing was one thing; Orsaga had no interest in paying them any mind. He merely found it somewhat amusing. It was nothing more than the grief of rabbits over a dead fox, brought about by making an example of the chicken to scare the monkeys...

Would a good person have summoned a demon like him?

Were the corpses from the Summoning Ritual and Salter's identity as a Warlock gifts from someone else, then?

How ridiculous.

It was one thing to fail at being a good person, but to be such a pathetic villain too? Did he really think turning over a new leaf could wipe away the past?

He must not have woken up yet!

Even without using any Special Ability, Orsaga could rely on a demon's innate senses to feel the immense resentment clinging to Salter. It was the souvenir left behind by the sacrifices he had used to practice and experiment with dark arts. Someone like that wanted to turn around and become a good person?

Orsaga felt he would be better off going to sleep. At least in his dreams, there was still some possibility.

However, Orsaga had no intention of saying any of this aloud. He genuinely wanted to see whether a cult leader who had slaughtered innocents and treated human lives as grass could truly devote himself to goodness. What if a miracle really happened?

It would add a little color to his life. Watching it as a play would be entertaining enough.

Speaking of which, Orsaga had to thank Salter. If not for his summoning, someone else might have picked up this bargain.

He truly had not expected his luck to be so good.

He had happened to encounter a rookie who had been tricked by his predecessors.

The trick in question was the Magic Circle that had previously summoned Orsaga.

After casually taking Salter's Magic Book, he immediately noticed that a very small portion of its knowledge was entirely false, concealing deep malice.

The Magic Circle for summoning an Abyss Demon was actually labeled as one for summoning a magical creature called a Raging Ape.

Furthermore, a standard summoning formation generally consisted of five parts:

Search, communication, summoning, restraint, and banishment. They respectively represented searching for something that could be summoned, communicating with the summon, how to bring it to the destination, and, most importantly, how to restrain it after summoning it to prevent it from turning hostile, as well as how to send it back where it came from if it refused to cooperate.

Yet the Magic Circle Salter used only contained the first three parts. The last two consisted of meaningless, jumbled runes. This meant that he had no means of restraining the summoned creature whatsoever, nor could he banish it. Moreover, the runes responsible for communication within the Magic Circle contained a great deal of fraudulent information, using several dozen sacrifices to simulate the aura of several thousand—a textbook case of commercial fraud.

It turned a ritual that could summon, at most, a Lesser Demon into one capable of summoning a Lower Demon.

Under normal circumstances, because of that deception, the summoned demon would never honor the deal. The Abyssal Contract between both sides could not be established at all, so the demon could only be sent back to the Bottomless Abyss, as though it had made a wasted trip.

But the problem was that Salter's Magic Circle had no banishment function at all. It was more like a one-way portal, capable only of luring and transporting its target. It was like inviting a demon to an all-you-can-eat buffet, then half-coaxing and half-deceiving it, with the clear implication: don't even think about leaving until you've eaten your fill. What a great spirit of universal love!

It transcended species and worlds!

Under such circumstances, if the demon answering the summons had not been Orsaga but another Lower Demon...

Once they realized they had been deceived, the demons would naturally collect travel expenses on the spot from the summoners, who possessed no countermeasures, while also paying this world a visit full of unity, friendship, and love.

From that perspective, Orsaga could barely be considered a savior!

He could only accept that title modestly, refraining from publicizing it too widely lest everyone greet him with excessive enthusiasm.

As for the root cause of it all—the Summoning Ritual recorded in that Magic Book—Orsaga understood that it was likely the work of some Warlock who had long since died. Before dying, the man had wanted to take revenge on society by using false information to mislead whoever obtained the Magic Book afterward, thereby creating a great disaster and adding some color to the world.

It was the simple notion of: If I'm dead, no one else gets to live well either.

Things like this had happened more than once. Most ended with demons successfully freeloading, though in a small number of cases, the summoners had turned the tables.

If given the chance, Orsaga sincerely hoped every future summoning would be like this.

Of course, he also knew that opportunities like winning the lottery were rare enough to encounter even once.

According to the Abyssal biological clock innate to demons, Orsaga could clearly sense that time in this world moved at a ratio of three to one compared to the Bottomless Abyss—three times slower. It suited Orsaga's goals perfectly. It would be even better if the concentration of magic power were a little higher.

The magical activity in this world was extremely sluggish. The magic power contained in the atmosphere was not even one-twentieth of that in Howling Forest, a Novice Village for demons.

And that was after the countless hundreds of millions of monsters in Howling Forest had continuously absorbed magic power day and night.

Although there were still some Spellcasters in this comparatively magic-poor world, based on the materials collected by the Kingdom of Maldon, Orsaga judged that their methods of casting were still crude and likely at a relatively primitive stage.

There might be some peerless geniuses among them with extraordinary talent, but the broader environment ultimately constrained them and cut off their path forward.

When he had first been summoned, Orsaga's strength had been suppressed by the world to roughly half of its original level. After recuperating, he had now basically recovered.

This was thanks to the resistance to the world's suppressive force provided by the Armament Rune—Scarlet. Creatures like demons were essentially lifetime VIP members of every world's blacklist. The moment they entered another world, they would be targeted. Forget having fifty percent of their strength suppressed; even seventy or eighty percent was perfectly normal.

That was why demons often launched large-scale massacres immediately after arriving.

Only through massive slaughter and Plundering large quantities of souls could they accelerate their recovery.

Yet even so, Orsaga could still feel the entire world rejecting him, constantly trying to kick him out. It was an influence from every direction. Even drawing magic power from the atmosphere required forceful Plunder, and the resistance was gradually increasing.

One day, the world would forcibly kick him back into the abyss. Even with the Armament Rune—Scarlet, it could only delay that day for a while.

However, Orsaga did not care much about it, because he could not live here forever anyway. As long as he achieved his goal, that was enough.