"Good scientists don't run away. Bad, bad scientists do. So what do you think you are, good scientists or bad scientists?"
Inside the laboratory, where steel-textured walls and cold white lights gave everything an icy feel, a black-haired boy dragged a long black sword behind him, blood dripping from the blade and drawing a long red streak across the floor.
Several corpses in white lab coats lay scattered on the ground, their blood spreading across the floor. And walking through that bloody scene without a single stain on him, the boy wore a gentle smile as he spoke softly to the researchers backing away in front of him.
"A D-Devil! He's a Devil?!"
"My Lord, please spare me! I don't know anything about what happened here..."
"Run!"
Unfortunately, the researchers had already been scared senseless and were completely unable to answer Cid's question. Cid had thought he was being quite friendly. He had even given them time to say their last words.
Thinking of that, Cid could not help pressing a hand to his forehead and sighing. He was still rather curious about what the hell this place actually was, and whether there was anything durable enough for him to vent his resentment on. It would be even better if there were a few decent opponents.
Snapping out of his disappointment, he glanced at the laboratory that had emptied out while he was distracted and shook his head helplessly. He did not chase them down. Instead, he simply pressed one hand lightly against the steel wall of the laboratory. The next second...
"Eek!"
"Ah!"
Scream after scream came from a spot not far from Cid, followed by the sound of flesh being pierced by something sharp. By the time Cid walked out of the laboratory and looked down the corridor, thin iron spikes protruding from the floor had already impaled the bodies of the fleeing personnel.
"Well, there probably aren't any survivors."
He picked up the long black sword hanging toward the ground, flicked the blood off the blade, and rested it on his shoulder. In Cid's perception, there was no living creature left in this laboratory.
After confirming that fact, Cid casually tossed away the sword in his hand, turned back into the laboratory, and began searching. After spending a minute clearing through the place, Cid reached a conclusion.
"Still a bunch of broke bastards..."
Cid muttered resentfully to himself, really wanting to curse. He had nearly slaughtered his way through the entire research facility, yet he still had not found a single valuable thing. Judging by this base, the other side should have had plenty of money.
Those fancy-looking experimental devices were probably worth quite a lot, but they were too big. Moving them would be a pain, and with precision equipment like that, one careless bump could ruin the whole thing. Too troublesome. So Cid had simply destroyed them. He hated trouble.
There's only one place left. Hopefully there's something easy to carry and valuable in there. Otherwise, this whole trip was a waste.
With that thought, Cid looked toward the only place in the entire research facility that still had signs of life.
Judging from its location, that should be where the big Boss of this research facility was. That was why Cid had chosen to deal with them last. After all, before fighting the Demon King, one had to properly defeat the Four Heavenly Kings first. He was very particular about rules.
He stepped forward, and the wall blocking his path automatically parted, forming an opening. Wisps of heat rose from the smooth, flat cut, while the floor made of various materials proved that this was a passageway created less than a minute ago.
The shortest distance between two points was a straight line. After skipping all the unnecessary twists and turns in between, Cid reached his destination in only a few minutes. Except...
"Whoosh!"
A rushing sound rang beside his ear. Cid raised his head slightly, and what entered his sight was a man dressed in old-era noble attire from his world. His eyes glowed crimson, and he was positioned across the entrance, holding a longsword as he swung it down at him.
Yes, Cid knew what old-era noble attire from his world looked like. After all, it sounded cool, so he had spent some time memorizing every style of old-era noble clothing from various countries.
He had only just stepped out of the passage when he was greeted by an attack aimed straight at his life. Cid curled his lip in boredom. These people really had no manners at all. Even someone as despicable as him would at least greet the other side openly before starting the killing.
Besides, as the Boss, the man should have delivered a classic taunt after appearing, not opened with a kill shot. A villain who didn't talk enough was not a proper villain.
"Clang!"
As he frantically complained in his head, Cid chose not to counterattack. He simply watched the longsword swing down from above, only for it to be stopped one centimeter away from him by a Magic Circle that appeared out of thin air.
"You really aren't friendly at all."
The man saw that his attack was useless and, out of wariness, did not stubbornly continue attacking. Instead, he took a step back and maintained what he believed was a safe distance. Cid looked at him and grumbled.
"Who are you, Your Excellency? Why did you attack us?"
Don't frame me. I'll sue you for slander. Sure, I really was thinking about attacking you, but I haven't actually done anything yet. You attacked first. I haven't even counterattacked in self-defense.
Cid did not say what he was thinking. He only swept his gaze around, taking in the state of the laboratory.
A gloomy middle-aged man in a white coat and glasses was holding an experimental report filled with some kind of data. He was probably the researcher in charge of this laboratory.
Behind them, two Angels with fierce-looking white wings lay on two operating tables with their eyes closed, their chests opened with large holes. They seemed dead, yet not quite dead, almost as if they were sleeping. Cid felt there was something strange about those two things.
Aside from the man in old noble attire, those three were the only ones in the entire laboratory, and it was impossible to tell whether two of them were alive or dead.
"Nothing, huh..."
After scanning the room and failing to find even the slightest valuable thing, Cid could not help muttering, even casting a contemptuous look at the two people in front of him.
This really was boring. There were no interesting enemies, he had made no money, and there was no fun to be had. He was already regretting why he had let himself get kidnapped in the first place.
"Your Excellency, may I ask you to answer my question? What is your purpose in coming here? Or perhaps... you came for that thing of mine?"
Hearing Cid mutter, the man in old noble attire narrowed his eyes at him. A trace of realization flashed in those narrowed eyes. He lowered his guarded stance and made a gesture Cid did not understand, though it felt vaguely familiar. It seemed to be some old noble etiquette that had been abolished over a thousand years ago. Was this guy some antique who had just been dug up from the ground after living for over a thousand years? Who the hell would understand etiquette from thousands of years ago?
"Although I don't know where Your Excellency learned this secret, if you came here for that power, just as I did, then I can make the decision to grant Your Excellency an entrance as a token of friendship."
After realizing he might not be able to defeat the other party, the man in old noble attire put away his usual arrogance and spoke in a neither servile nor overbearing tone.
Although he knew that if this boy could appear here, the people patrolling and standing guard outside had probably all been killed by him, the man had spent over a thousand years cultivating his temperament. Among all the Knights of the Round Table, he was considered quite mild. If he could avoid fighting, he would avoid it. After all, the dead were nothing more than cannon fodder.
As the saying went, one did not strike a smiling face. Coupled with his wariness of an unknown enemy's methods, if there really were benefits to be gained, and if the person who appeared here truly knew the value of this place, that person might actually agree to this deal.
"You're the one in charge here, right?"
Unfortunately, Cid had no idea what the other man was talking about. What entrance? What secret? He hated people who only revealed half of what they knew, hooking someone's curiosity and then refusing to say the rest.
But he generously forgave the other party, mainly because he could not be bothered to argue with a dead man. He only asked calmly about the man's identity. If he was the Boss, then Cid would kill him directly. If he was not the Boss, then Cid would ask where the Boss was and then kill him. Either way, the man was definitely going to die.
Rather, he actually wanted to complain. Epsilon's eye for people was not that great. Cid had already killed his way to the door, yet this man was still thinking about negotiating. When danger came, the guy in front of him would definitely be in the surrender faction, the first kind to betray everyone.
"...Your Excellency, your guess is correct. I am the one in charge here. Allow me to introduce myself. I come from Di..."
"No need. I know who you are."
Just as the other man was about to introduce himself, Cid casually interrupted him. That tone, as if everything was already under his control, even left the other party stunned.
"Your Excellency... knows who I am?"
The man in old noble attire asked hesitantly, his brows furrowing, his tone full of doubt.
The man did not believe Cid's words. After all, it was because the Round Table seat responsible for the New World had died that he had come here on a mission for the first time. Before this, even within the Cult of Diablos, only a few members of the Round Table knew his true identity.
Although he knew exactly how useless his companions and subordinates could be, surely they would not be so incompetent as to expose his true identity, right?
"Of course. I do have some confidence in my subordinates' intelligence..."
Cid shrugged. Although he knew absolutely nothing beyond the fact that this matter had something to do with Epsilon, that did not stop him from sounding so confident.
"The Cult of Diablos, Seventh Seat of the Round Table..."
"Heh..."
The man could not help letting out a mocking laugh. It was not entirely wrong, but since this young-looking boy had been acting so confident, he had really thought his identity had been leaked and investigated by someone.
Although it was not completely incorrect, at the very least, he did indeed come from the Cult of Diablos. But which faction he came from was not the important part. His specific information was what mattered. After all, the one being exposed was the faction, not him personally.
And if the intelligence had even gotten his seat wrong, then how much of the specific information about his identity was accurate was worth debating.
But he could not quite put it that way either. Although the other party had not investigated his identity correctly, they had almost never appeared in the New World and had only begun operating in the past few months. Yet the other party, or the force behind him, had still sensed their existence and even uncovered their origin. It seemed they would not be able to stay hidden for much longer...
"What a pity, Your Excellency. The person who gave you that information may have lied to you. I am not the Seventh Seat of the Cult of Diablos..."
As his thoughts turned, the man in old noble attire instinctively tried to seize the flaw his opponent had revealed in the negotiation, using the other party's exposed lack of knowledge to bluff and fight for greater benefits. But halfway through speaking, his words stopped abruptly. A line of blood appeared across his neck.
"No. You are the Seventh Seat of the Cult of Diablos. You just don't know it yourself."
Too bad. I still wanted to play a little longer.
Cid shook the blood from his sword. Beside him came the sound of something heavy falling to the ground and rolling. He shook his head helplessly, then pushed the headless corpse standing next to him, making it collapse to the floor as well.
Back in the fun old days of bandit hunting, he would sometimes assign his targets a Cult of Diablos identity just like now. If the other party was quick-witted enough, they would borrow that false authority and try to scare him off.
So far, he had already cleared the Cult of Diablos from Seat One to Seat Twelve three times from top to bottom. All he could say was that there were plenty of smart people out there, but unfortunately, that was exactly the bait he had set.
Hmm, this time it was Number Seven. Next time, he would give the other party the Number Eight seat.
To be fair, although most of the settings those people made up were wildly imaginative and absurd beyond belief, there had already been more than forty of them. Among those, a few had actually overlapped with the settings Alpha and the others had made up. The things they said had almost made him think the Cult of Diablos really existed in this world.
So, seriously, people should learn to think on their feet.
Cid looked sympathetically at the corpse on the floor. If the guy had admitted he was a member of the Cult of Diablos, he might have been able to cling to life for another few dozen seconds. Since he refused to admit it, Cid could only slaughter him immediately.
But whatever. Now, even if the guy had not been part of the Cult, he was.
After all, the Cult of Diablos was something Cid had made up in the first place. He held the highest authority of interpretation. If he said you were one, then you were one. He was just bullying the dead because they could not talk. If the guy had a problem with it, let him stand up and argue.
"All right. Now let's talk about you."
After taking a shot at the headless corpse on the floor, Cid turned to look at the middle-aged man who was already about to slip away. A thick earth spike shot up from the ground, blocking the man's path.
"Can you tell me what this place is for? Maybe if I'm in a good mood, I'll let you go."
Yes, if he was in a good mood, he would let the man go. In other words, if he was not in a good mood, the man could forget about leaving alive. And whether Cid was in a good mood depended on the answer the man gave him.
So, what's your answer?
A sharp gleam flashed through Cid's eyes as he smiled warmly at the middle-aged man in front of him. The middle-aged man, having understood Cid's implied meaning, only remained silent, as if he did not know how to begin. The blood flowing from the corpse beneath their feet had already reached the soles of their shoes.
In other words, how long I can stall depends on how much value I can provide him?
Having figured out what the other party wanted, the middle-aged man bowed according to the experience he had gained in the imperial court long ago.
"First of all, thank you, Your Excellency, for helping me eliminate this thief who coveted my life's work."
Huh?