Three days had passed since the killing of Jarlott.
Staring off into the distance at the front line, now fully repaired and looking pristine once more, Orsaga stood silently in thought.
He was considering how best to break through the damn thing.
Whether it was to satisfy his idle curiosity by taking a stroll elsewhere and maybe finding an opportunity to reap some benefits, or to fulfill the obligations placed upon him by the Abyssal Contract, either way—he had to deal with this nuisance.
And with brute force alone? With his current strength, absolutely not.
After all, the enemy's arsenal of war machines and regimented legions of high-ranking powerhouses were not for show.
Unless he advanced to become a Greater Demon, he didn't stand a chance of pushing through the front line by himself. So now, he needed to think carefully and come up with something smarter.
As he pondered, another full day quietly slipped by.
Suddenly, a streak of crimson light tore through the sky.
He recognized it immediately as a teleportation spell from the Abyss—it meant new demons were arriving.
Startled at first, Orsaga's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. An idea had begun to form in his mind.
He stroked his chin and nodded with satisfaction.
"Perhaps it's finally time to make use of all those years of experience in medical poisoning…"
—
Coughing up blood, the demon looked up at Orsaga approaching step by step.
A grotesque blend of bat and eagle, the demon's face was filled with confusion.
In his eyes, the figure before him was clearly just a High Rank Demon, and yet with utterly overwhelming power, he had single-handedly annihilated an entire group of demons—including several Greater Rank Demons like himself.
Sure, many of them had just arrived in this world and were still under heavy suppression by its rules, their strength greatly diminished.
But he still retained his insight and experience—and based on the signs from Orsaga's combat style, he had no choice but to admit it:
'Even if I were at full power… I'd still be no match for him.'
Being defeated—or even killed—by another demon wasn't something that would normally surprise him.
But looking around at the battlefield, littered with the unconscious and beaten bodies of their kin, he couldn't help but ask in confusion:
"Why are you doing this?"
It wasn't that he thought killing one's own kind was wrong. For demons, that sort of thing was basically daily routine.
What puzzled him was that, according to the terms of the Abyssal Contract, mass internal slaughter like this was explicitly prohibited!
Usually, demons in this type of situation might kill a teammate or two just for fun. But full-on internal massacres? That was something only deranged, mindless demons did.
And Orsaga clearly wasn't one of them. He was obviously still rational.
In this demon's mind, someone like Orsaga should've been bound by the Abyssal Contract—and for violating its terms, the contract's counterforce should've punished him immediately.
And that wasn't a power anyone could resist.
Gasping as he tried to recover, the demon entertained a terrifying possibility:
'Could this guy be a self-destructive type of demon…?'
These "self-destructive" demons were known even among demons to be unstable lunatics. Not only did they love hurting others—they liked hurting themselves too.
They weren't content with just cutting down enemies. They wanted to drag everyone, including themselves, into hell.
Even other demons instinctively gave such individuals a wide berth.
And now, staring at Orsaga, this demon couldn't shake the feeling that he'd just run into one of those monsters.
He felt miserable—like he'd been minding his own business, walking down the street, and then got randomly stabbed twice by a crazed lunatic.
Disasters really did strike without warning.
"Damn it…" (in Abyssal tongue)
Seeing the devastated look on the demon's face, Orsaga paused briefly. He could pretty much guess what the other guy was thinking.
He sighed.
"…Actually… ah, whatever. Explaining it is too much of a hassle."
Opening his mouth to speak, he immediately gave up and simply slapped the demon into unconsciousness.
—
Once all the demons around him had been knocked out cold, Orsaga's hair suddenly extended like tentacles, piercing into the bodies of the fallen demons with surgical precision.
Silently, he began injecting different strains of plagues into each of them.
He might be a terrorist—but at least he was a traditional one.
And now, Orsaga had decided to go back to basics: terror attacks.
The method he'd chosen was a distant cousin of the "human bomb" tactic—what he called a "suicidal plague strike."
Hundreds of carefully engineered diseases were buried inside these demons' bodies, designed to secretly feed off their mana as fuel.
The plan was simple: once these hosts died, the plagues would activate like hidden weapons, automatically spreading across the surrounding area. After a latent period of about ten days, they would infect all nearby living creatures, using them as new hosts to transmit via air or bodily fluids at rapid speed.
—
Shortly after, Orsaga retracted his hair and allowed himself a brief moment of anticipation.
He wasn't sure if this tactic would actually work—but it didn't stop him from trying.
He'd also implanted a powerful mental suggestion into each of these demons: they would all unquestioningly participate in the next Demonic Tide.
If everything went according to plan, and they were killed by defenders within the fortifications, then the locals would get infected.
And if those locals survived and returned to the interior of the front line—then the plagues would spread like wildfire.
More importantly, since the viruses all originated from him, he had imbued them with a special trait:
If a host became infected with multiple plagues, they would immediately begin mutating and recombining within the body—resulting in unknown, uncontrollable new strains.
In theory, even if just a few strains made it past the walls, they would breed countless variants inside.
And by that point, normal medical intervention would be almost entirely useless.
With this alone, Orsaga could turn an entire low-tier world into the set of a supercharged version of Resident Evil.
As for whether it would work in a high-tier world like Myling, well… that was anyone's guess.
Still—
It didn't cost anything to try. Why not?
And as for whether this whole plan—which essentially involved mass-betrayal and sacrificing allies to ensure his own advantage—might provoke the Abyssal Contract into retaliating?
He wasn't too concerned.
Just like peaceful societies have "acceptable casualty thresholds," the Abyss had its own flexible standards. In fact, it was a lot more lenient.
As long as the end result ultimately benefited the Abyss's side, then even large-scale friendly fire could be overlooked. Killing a few allies? Not a big deal. Wiping out every demon in the region? Also manageable.
In the Abyss, results were everything. Methods didn't matter.
That was one of its core rules.
He had also already considered the possibility that things might go sideways—like failing to destroy the enemy fortifications and instead causing massive damage to their own side.
In the worst-case scenario, he could always detonate the viruses manually during the Demonic Tide—turning these demons into live-action toxic bombs, inflicting real damage on the defenders.
That way, even if the others died, the Abyssal Contract would still see his actions as a genuine attempt to fulfill the contract. The dead would just count as collateral damage.
When the time came, he'd be more than ready to play a little word game.
In the end, whether it was killing his allies or slaughtering enemies, Orsaga truly was a professional.
__
T/N:
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