Requiem Of A Failed Hero

Raith reappeared a few minutes later.

"Where are they?"

Balam was standing on the spot he was when Raith disappeared before.

"The guest? He went into the city."

Balam responds rigidly, with respect and honor boldly written in the way he composed himself to Raith.

"Let's go to them."

"Yes, my lord."

As Balam and Raith walked into the city.

"That is right, you were talking about something to report."

"Yes, my lord. I met a ruler."

Raith stopped. He spent a few seconds shocked and looked at Balam.

"You mean right here on earth?"

"Yes."

Balam nodded.

"He is one of the unranked hunters and from what I see, he is a ruler of sloth."

"Wow... and you met him at the conference?"

"Yes, my lord."

Balam nodded. Saying my lord over and over was hard for him because of the pride but decided he was going to keep saying it so that he would deal with his heart to fully accept Raith as his one true master.

A grin slit out of Raith's face.

"Now I have more reasons to do this assimilation as fast as I can."

Pocketing his hands, he looked up...

"Things sure are getting interesting."

Then they continued their walk into the city.

After getting to the city, Raith greeted a few people here and there. Without being asked, the people were already building a massive lodging towards the edge of the rows of their own. It was like a consummation of the rubbish they had been building so far but it wasn't bad.

The kids held Raith's hand as he entered the encirclement, they showed him to the place, and somehow nothing but a smile filled his face... perhaps it had to do more with the fact that it was the children that led him there.

He had to bend a bit to enter inside because they had done a mismeasurement of the door but the inside was nice. It was spacious enough. There was a woody smell but that was understandable, in the center there was a long table with chairs to the left and right and one single chair at the edge of the chair.

However at the chair sat a man with his legs crossed over the table, playfully eating blueberries that the villagers had spent their precious time picking and left for Raith to eat the moment he came into the room.

Anger once again permeated his muscles. He sifted through the space and the next second he was on the table with his leg a hair's breadth away from crushing Bastien's face alongside the blueberry that was about to enter his mouth.

Bastien stared blankly with eyes widened. He almost felt his heart drop out of his chest. As Raith retracted his leg, the chair's leg shattered and he fell to the ground.

Raith had accurately managed to exert the pressure in his leg at the exact place he wanted it to be exerted on even though there without the interference of the person closest to him, it was like trying to shoot aura to someone behind a wall without shattering the wall. In this case, however, the chair was the someone and Bastien was the wall.

It was something Raith had just pulled instinctively by [Multiple Cognitive Resonance]

"What do you think you are doing?"

"Yai, Yai, my bad. I didn't know this place belonged to you. I just wanted to rest."

Bastien said, picking himself up. He giggled shyly.

"Summon that mosquito demon. I want to talk to him."

"Urg ugh, Beelzebub is not a mosquito. But he is a demon that is capable of controlling insects but putting it as mosquito is a..."

"Hello, young man."

Bastien went silent and unconscious as Beelzebub went unconscious.

"I have decided to help you. But it won't be for free."

"Of course. I am offering to help you with your assimilation."

Beelzebub pointed out with a soft chuckle.

"No not that."

Even as he talked Raith wore a rigid expression, a remnant of the confrontation he had with the abyss a few minutes ago.

"Then what else do you want?"

Even though it was mosquito-faced, an expression of benign curiosity could be sensed on Beelzebub's face.

"It costs a lot to use the skill which I will use. You will be the one to source for the runestones I will use and they have to be the best of the best, like ten of them."

"Uh... my friend here has a lot of money and connections, consider it done."

'Of course, I know that much... that is why I am proposing ten even though two might just be enough.'

'Looks like someone is having sense'

'Shut up Bal'

"Then the next...you will tell me all you know about Baal"

Beelzebub's compound eyes narrowed.

"Why will I do that?"

"Because I have a sword he used."

'Hey! I never agreed to being used in a cheap trick like this!!'

Bal shouted as he materialized into Raith's hand.

"Aaghhh!!!"

Beelzebub let out a cry as he saw the black sword in Raith's hand.

"Truly magnificent! Magnificent! How can this be?"

His visage was shivering and his eyes wrinkled with tears as he saw the sword.

Raith had expected a reaction but this was too much of a reaction. Why was the demon crying because of a sword?

"It's just a sword..."

"No!!"

Beelzebub shouted at him. Raith almost took a step Back at the ferocity of the shout. But he immediately frowned and warned:

"Keep your voice down."

"Ah, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. But where did you get the sword? How were you able to attune to it? As far as I know, it should be impossible for any human to attune to it."

"I got it in a random store and the attunement naturally happened the moment it took my blood. What is with the extra reaction? I thought this was supposed to be Baal's sword, is it something more than that?"

Beelzebub continued to shiver, wishing he had hands he could stretch out to caress the sword.

After a dozen seconds of squealing a look at the sword, he looked at Raith.

"This is more than a sword. It is not a sword in fact, this is an aspect of demon lord Baal."

Raith's eyes narrowed,

"What do you mean?"

"My master lord Baal, created a clone of his soul and used it to forge his sword."

Raith's brow knitted.

'It did say the sword was forged by Baal's blood but nothing was said about its soul.'

"So I guess Baal was a saucy, annoying, rude demon?"

Beelzebub's voice came out with an intimidating aura.

"I won't allow you to speak to my lord like that."

But Raith was not intimidated one bit.

"Whatever... this means that this sword is Baal. But it had lost its memories. So I need to know all about Baal."

"I think what you should be kin on knowing right now is why you, a human can attune to a Demonic sword, that too one that carries the soul of the strongest demon lord."

'It could be because of the abyss. Because the abyss is the root of all demons and it's inside of me... but I can't tell him that the abyss is in me. I don't want him to become a fanatic like Volmak.

Raith looked at the black sword in his hand, It turned out the bastard was more special than he thought. There were a lot of things he didn't understand in the world. He was beginning to understand that he had only come far in a very small fraction of the vast reality that existed.

Raith felt excited and fearful for his future.

"I have a question."

"Is that going to be part of the payment plan?"

"Why did Baal come to the human world? It is part of you telling me all you know about Baal."

Beelzebub stayed silent for a few seconds. He then looked at Raith.

"Lord Baal is an entity that I have spent seven thousand years trying to understand and yet I have no idea what he is doing, what he is thinking. At some point in his life, he started to do research on reincarnation. I don't know why but he had a lot of time to spare so he was always studying one spell or the other.

All of a sudden he said he was going to go to the human world, hence he relinquished his rank as the strongest demon. He came to the human world... however, we were tracked by an archangel..."

"An archangel?"

"Yes... he was the strongest archangel, a man of war. Gabriel."

Raith frowned, the name itself suggested such elegance and power showoff that made his heart tremble. It was like that, Gabriel was so powerful that the ambiance of his power was felt every place his name was mentioned.

"Lord Baal should never lost at the hand of that angel. No matter how much I think about it... it still looks like he lost intentionally."

Beelzebub looked like he was gritting his teeth.

Raith felt pity watching him fight with the reality of his master's loss.

"You did mention that angel Gabriel was strong right?"

Wham!

[You have violated a high code of conduct]

[You have died]

[You have gained ten levels]

[You have gained +10 cosmic reputation]

Beelzebub's eyes widened as he saw Raith splurge out blood from his mouth, nose, ear, and eyes and collapse to the ground.

"Crap! I forgot! I forgot humans still have that limitation!!"

Beelzebub shook with despair.

"Did I just ruin my only chance of getting a material body?"