In front of Behemoth’s corpse. With body close to that of a humanoid, but with the head of an octopus were K’Challa and Knella.

“This person is no less than a monster, whatcha think?”

K’Challa, the green-skinned bipedal octopus, felt his tongue slip as he traced the large scar on Behemoth’s neck.

To K’Challa’s admiration, the pink-skinned Knella answered.

“There is only one hero who can inflict wounds so fatal on a freaking Behemoth, right?”

“True.”

Frillite.

As the strongest of the heroes, she was also famous among demons.

Mainly, ’cause she was a constant source of fear.

K’Challa shivered.

“I heard she slayed an Ogre by herself last time.. uh, she will not come back, will she? Knella, how much more time is it gonna take?”

K’Challa looked at the crystal orb that was slowly absorbing Behemoth’s soul and hurriedly asked. Knella looked at him with a disdainful gaze.

""

“Tch, see getting yourself scared by a human.. now think about it with common sense. The main camp is under attack, so their priority will rest there, so why would they come back?”

“That’s true, but.. can’t we just hurry up a little? To us, demons, the air of human world is like poison mist. I’m out of breath.”

“Hah, what? You’re not even a high-tier demon, you can’t choke on your breath just becau.. Hik? Someone’s coming here.”

“Wh, What?! Fr-Frillite, she is here?!”

“Nope. Just a human male.”

K’Challa turned his figure to the direction Knella was pointing. As he said, the human walking towards the two demons was a male. That meant the person couldn’t be Frillite.

“Ah, just some human bug? Kinda scared me.”

K’Challa narrowed his sleek brows in indignation.

He morphed his hands into giant octopus tentacles and headed towards the human.

“Oh~ he’s so dead.”

“Do it in moderation. You know I hate human screams. Do you have any idea how annoying it was just because you were having ‘your’ fun?”

Behemoth’s corpse was guarded by three knights of the Duke. The corpse of a named monster is so valuable that it was only natural for knights to stay behind and protect it.

The three knights were killed by K’Challa.

His poison coursed from their skin to intestines, melting them bit by bit, making their death painful. Because of which, Knella had to tirelessly listen to annoying human screams.

“Okay, okay. This time, I’ll do it fast.”

K’Challa waved his hand, um, tentacle in the air.

“Anyway.. don’t bother me.”

Knella grunted and looked at the orb that was absorbing the Behemoth’s soul.

An artifact that absorbs souls.

An important artifact it was. Entrusting this artifact to them meant—

‘I have finally earned my lord’s trust.’

Taking on this difficult task had been the right decision. After completing this mission safely, when he returns home, he will surely be promoted..

“Aaaaaaah!”

“Ah goodness! Hey! I told you to not let screams reach my ear.. uh..?”

Knella, who zapped his head to the loud scream, was bewildered at the unexpected sight. He thought the screams were of the human.

But it wasn’t.

“Aaaaah! My tentacle..!”

It was K’Challa, whose tentacle had been chopped off that caused that scream. Blue blood dripped from the cross section of the severed limb. While K’Challa faltered, Cloud approached him.

“Don’t come, you bastard!”

K’Challa stretched out his left limb.

His large octopus limbs were divided into eight sections, resulting in eight octopus tentacles. Which were further branched into eight more, resulting in sixty-four slimy, octopus tentacles.

Each octopus tentacle had small and sharp teeths at the edges, secreting a toxic substance coating the tentacle in whole.

A menacing venom that will lead to fatal wounds with just a single touch.

“Tch, disgusting.”

Cloud frowned and drew his sword.

Unlike the transparent sword which he had used to sever the ogre’s tendon, the current sword was crimson-red in color.

This was the sword he found to match the level with the one on Lorian’s waist, in case, or whenever they were going to have a fight.

He held the sword in reverse and threw it like a lance.

Trrrng-!

The crimson-red sword pierced through the cross sections of the small octopus tentacles and darted into K’Challa’s head. K’Challa staggered, and then collapsed helplessly.

Cloud drew out his sword from the octopus’s head. He yanked it in the air, brushing the blue blood off his sword, this time walking towards Knella.

Seeing that K’Challa was defeated in an instant, Knella panicked.

He should have ran away then, but the crystal ball hadn’t fully absorbed the Behemoth’s soul yet.

If he didn’t bring the crystal ball with Behemoth’s soul filled to the brim, his lord’s wrath will take away his life. But waiting for the absorption to become completed? A hole will drill into his head before that.

While Knella was facing problem in making a choice, Cloud reached in front of his eyes.

Cloud extended his hand to Knella.

Knella stared at the empty hand blankly, and then carefully placed the crystal ball on top of it.

Cloud smiled in satisfaction.

Fortunately, he seems to have survived, at least for now. Just when Knella felt relieved to be alive. He was questioned.

“Can you speak human language?”

“Yes.”

“Great. What a smart octopus. So now tell me all about who you are, why you’re here, and what you’d been up to with this crystal ball. Don’t hide anything.”

“If I tell you, will you let me live?”

“Nope. You will die.”

“..then why should I tell you anything?”

“If you don’t want to say it, you don’t have to. Instead, you will have a fantastic experience of seeing your own internal organs, ‘alive’.”

Cloud’s smile widened.

Knella’s octopus eyelids fluttered wildly.

* * *

I looked at the corpses of the two demons with different gaze.

""

‘So, they were the servants of Four Heavenly King.’

Not wanting to experience his organs picked out alive, Knella confided in everything he knew.

Surprisingly, these were the demons following the Heavenly King, Kreas.

One of the Four Heavenly Kings—Kreas.

He was the first of the Four Heavenly Kings that appeared in the game ‘The Hero’s Party’ and is a demon that looks like a giant octopus.

Just because it looks like an octopus doesn’t mean it’s a real octopus. It has a lot more legs than a Kraken and no suckers. It can be thought of as being somewhere between a kraken and the tentacle monsters that can only be seen in Cthulhu mythologies.

‘But why do Kreas’ minions need the Behemoth’s soul?’

It felt surprising that these guys were the servants of a Heavenly King, but what’s even more surprising are the deeds.

Not theirs, but of the person acting above them.

Deliberately woke up the sleeping Behemoth.

Then gave orders to K’Challa and Knella in the name of Kreas.

To bring back the soul of the Behemoth in the crystal ball after it was subjugated by heroes.

When I asked for what was the Behemoth’s soul required, Knella said that he knew nothing more than this.

I stabbed him a couple of times with the dagger to see if he was lying, but the only words he cried out were slogans of injustice. He really didn’t seem to know.

Silly me, thinking about why the Heavenly King’s minions were ordered to collect the Behemoth’s soul.

There was no need to think long.

‘What else can be the reason when the minions of the Four Heavenly Kings’ are involved in something?’

Either working for the Demon King himself or for the Heavenly King they serve.