I Became a Murderer in the Academy.-Chapter 122

But instinctively, I knew who she was.

It must be the Demon Lord Serthia had spoken of.

[That woman was the strongest of her generation.]

[In terms of individual strength, yes, she was even stronger than the Hero.]

The Demon Lord’s seductive voice echoed in my ear as she pressed herself closer against me.

“...”

At that moment, I was powerless to shake her off.

Her clinging hands wrapped around my neck and gripped the hand holding my sword.

[I’ll lend you my power. Kill her.]

A massive wave of crimson magic surged forth.

My hair turned red under the influence of the magic.

My mind started to drift, as the Demon Lord’s memories poured into my thoughts. My sanity wavered. If I lost consciousness, even for a moment, it felt like she would take over my body.

I scowled and began to move.

—Bang!!

Though she was once the ruler of the demon realm, she was now only a few fragments. The Demon Lord couldn’t restrain me. I was stronger than her in this form.

Breaking free from her grasp, I turned the red sword towards the Demon Lord, not Serthia.

“I won’t do as you wish.”

I stripped the red magic from her and declared.

I wasn’t a monster.

I wasn’t a puppet.

I wasn’t the Demon Lord’s avatar.

“I’m not your puppet.”

I was just me.

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It irritated me to be regarded as the same entity as the worst villain that once devoured the continent.

I hated being equated with the Demon Lord, so I pointed my sword at her.

The Demon Lord, retreating, still wore a relaxed smile.

[How long can you keep that up?]

I swung my sword, dispelling the illusion before me.

It was my way of resisting her.

Suddenly, I felt like my insides were twisting, and I collapsed to the ground.

My head was spinning, and my vision blurred. My throat felt like it was on fire. When I coughed onto the floor, bright red blood splattered out.

“Gah!”

I vomited blood, and an intense thirst followed. My throat was beyond parched; it felt like it was tearing apart.

It was the backlash of having refused human blood for so long.

[Did you really think consuming fragments meant you wouldn’t need blood?]

Even in my agony, I could almost hear mocking laughter echoing in my head.

The pain was so overwhelming that I considered death a preferable alternative.

[Kill a human.]

[That’s the only way to escape the pain.]

No.

I must not kill.

“...”

Wasn’t I in the heart of the academy?

If I killed someone here, where everyone could see, it would become a disaster beyond control.

That would lead to a path of no return.

Maybe I should go to the back alleys...

There, I could...

What should I do?

In the end, I’d still be killing someone in a hidden place.

Murder was murder, no matter where it happened.

If that’s the case, why bother with the back alleys?

There are plenty of humans right here.

Should I just kill them all?

The thought struck me suddenly.

Killing humans here wouldn’t be hard. Is there anyone here who could stop me?

No, not since Serthia’s death.

All I had to do was draw my red sword, and I could kill every human in the Empire.

It would be too easy.

All I had to do was accept it—accept that I was a monster, and that blending in among humans was impossible.

If I could do that, I’d be free from this terrible pain.

I’ve held back for so long.

“It hurts...”

Is this the price of resisting my instincts?

I resented those who couldn’t understand this pain. Even though I constantly fought to suppress my instincts, no one recognized my struggle.

Even though I was enduring pain worse than death, in this world of fiction, I was nothing more than an extra standing in the dark.

The protagonists of this world were already decided, and I wasn’t one of them.

Even if I endured, I knew too well that I’d be left in the shadows, where no light could reach, suffering alone.

Honestly, I felt myself wavering.

If I claimed not to have listened to the Demon Lord’s whispers, it would be a lie.

“Ugh...”

After a while of groaning in pain, I slowly got to my feet.

When I came to my senses, I noticed that I was drawing a lot of attention. I never liked being in the spotlight.

Some students reached out to me with worried expressions, but I declined.

If I touched them now, I couldn’t guarantee what might happen.

“Are you alright?! Can you walk on your own?!”

Still, seeing that there were people who cared made me realize that there were good people left in the academy.

For a brief moment, I regretted even considering killing them.

I nodded slightly to signal that I was fine and staggered away.

I didn’t want anyone I knew to see me like this, so I tried to put as much distance as possible between myself and the academy.

The pain struck without warning. I had held out without consuming humans for quite a while, and I thought I could endure a little longer.

But the limits of my body were different from what I felt in my mind. The Demon Lord’s fragments weren’t enough. In the end, I couldn’t live without killing humans.

The world is cruel, and life is pain.

But recently, I hadn’t felt as much pain. In fact, life had been rather good. Since arriving in this world, I’d been closer to feeling happiness than ever before.

Entangled with the main characters of this world, I felt like I was one of them.

“Gah!”

Despite that, this world is cruel. Or maybe it’s precisely because it’s cruel.

As soon as I started to dream, I was yanked down, pulled back into a deep, dark pit.

It was as if the world forcibly woke me from the brief, sweet dream.

Even when I looked up at a glimmer of hope, it was crushed with ruthless indifference.

Cruel.

It felt as if I was forcibly separated from those basking in the spotlight on stage.

And.

“...”

In the end, I was pathetic.

The fate of a murderous monster is to be undeserving of even cheap sympathy.

But it’s alright.

I had always been numb to emotions. By now, I didn’t feel sorrow. And even if I did, it would cool down and fade away before long.

As expected, any emotion that surged from within quickly turned cold.

What remained was endless emptiness.

I walked, feeling only the hollow sensation. There was no particular destination.

I just walked.

So that no one would recognize me.

Far, far away.

“...Here.”

I ended up in the back alley.

Had I unconsciously returned to a familiar place?

It didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter, because right now, I needed to quench this unbearable thirst.

The back alley reeked of blood.

Had there been a fight between criminals while I was away? That didn’t matter either.

My hunger was almost unbearable, and the sweet smell made it even harder to resist.

I quickened my pace.

I walked through the back alley that felt different from usual.

This was the back alley of the Empire, a place feared for the monster rumored to roam it.

But I didn’t care.

Because I was the monster of the back alley.

And so, I prowled the alley in search of prey.

When I reached the source of the blood, the scene was more horrifying than I’d expected.

There were human corpses strewn about, and a monster was killing a barely breathing human.

The red eyes and violet horns marked it as something other than human. And its face was eerily familiar.

I knew who it was. I had seen this person in Seir’s memories. I didn’t know the name, but—

“The Demon Lord’s Army.”

Why now, of all times, in this place?

“...”

I encountered some unwelcome company.