Chapter 383 - Encounter

"My name is Agatha. Agatha Griff."

"I didn't ask your name."

Dressed in simple clothes, Knox had set out on his journey back to the royal city of the Demon Realm.

Instead of letting a Sin Demon build a portal to the city, he chose to go covertly.

Knox had to find out what had happened in the capital.

The worst scenario he could imagine was that the Second Princess had defected to the human side.

But before that, Knox first had to find out what the female soldier was talking about when she was talking about a Sin Demon in Norland.

"So, what do you want to ask?"

The human girl called Agatha was giving Knox a real headache.

In the past, Knox had brought human captives to the depths of the Demon Realm. Some of them were so cowardly and afraid of death that they begged for mercy and pleaded to allow them to return to the human world, no matter the cost.

Others, in contrast, were fully ready to sacrifice themselves and would rather die than give in. Knox discovered that such humans would never reveal a single piece of useful information, no matter how they were tortured. They were really troublesome.

But today, after meeting a human girl called Agatha, Knox discovered that there existed a human who could be even more difficult to deal with.

Instead of feeling intimidated, there was a look of curiosity and delight in her eyes as she stepped into the Demon Realm.

It was as if this was not an enemy stronghold to her, but some kind of tourist attraction.

"Norland! What about this Sin Demon that appeared in Norland?"

Knox tugged at the chain in his hand, which was attached to the girl's runestone handcuffs. It was a special kind of torture device that blocked the magic of human mages.

Agatha had been walking around since earlier, scanning the magic world with her eyes. When Knox pulled the chain to straighten it, Agatha hurried to catch up with him.

"You know the theatre? I saw it in the theatre."

Agatha was a little unhappy with Knox's rough treatment of her, but she was cooperative enough to tell the chaos demon this unimportant bit of information.

"The theatre?"

Knox's understanding of the human world was obtained by browsing through books stored in the royal city when he was a child. He had also gained some rough understanding of human culture through human captives.

Knox only vaguely knew that a theatre was something like a 'place for human pleasure'. He combined this definition with the knowledge that a Sin Demon had appeared in Norland's theatre.

The only possibility that Knox could think of was that a wild Sin Demon had been captured by humans and kept in a cage for fun like a pet.

"Someone in Norland has captured a Sin Demon? What have you done with him?" Knox asked her in an icy tone.

"Captured? The Sin Demon called Zenarth enjoys a very high status in Norland. If I hadn't been lucky enough to get an invitation, I wouldn't have been able to see him," Agatha said.

"A very high status?"

Knox fell into brief confusion. Wouldn't a captured Sin Demon be considered a pet in the human world?

"Yes, there were many girls in Norland that day who wanted to see him." Agatha added.

Were the humans of Norland no longer afraid of Sin Demons now? This was not good news for Knox.

Knox was about to ask the human girl for more information about Norland when his mind was suddenly overwhelmed by an unimaginable pain.

This pain hadn't suddenly popped up a day or two ago. Knox had been experiencing these bouts of pain every so often since a month ago.

"What's wrong with you ...?"

Agatha noticed the abnormality in the Chaos demon's body and she began to cautiously approach Knox.

"It has nothing to do with you."

Knox covered his forehead with one hand and mobilized his body's magical power to find out what was causing the headache.

With his other hand, he directly raised his longsword at Agatha, reminding the female human to not approach him.

But Knox had underestimated the severity of the headache. The pain penetrated directly through his body, causing so much pain that Knox was unable to control himself. He collapsed against a tree behind him.

Worst of all, the sword he was holding fell to the ground the moment he collapsed. In his blurred vision, he could see the female human apparently pulling something out of her clothing.

An originium crystal!

Knox could tell what she was holding.

One of the many ways humans used originium crystals was as a weapon. Knox retrieved his sword, which had fallen to the ground. He used it to prop himself up in an attempt to knock the originium crystal out of the human girl's hand.

But Knox was a step too late. The originium cystal's surface glowed dimly, and it was activated without magic.

But the expected attack did not come. All Knox heard was the sound of a very soft song.

The quiet, distant-sounding song soaked into Knox's mind, and the pain in his brain was instantly soothed.

"Woman, what have you done." Knox suppressed his own magical powers. He took another look at the human girl holding the originium crystal.

The soft sound of singing kept coming from the human girl's hand.

"It's a record. I bought this for ten silver coins in Norland. The singer's name is Tylene, and many of my soldiers had symptoms like yours. Playing this sound alleviated their symptoms." Agatha explained.

"Norland again."

Knox propped up himself with his longsword. He could not deny that the song originating from the crystal really did ease Knox's headache.

"So this happened to some of your soldiers?"

Knox didn't want to think about what had happened in Norland anymore.

"A small percentage of frostbitten soldiers were suffering from headaches and hallucinations. I used to have them too. I don't know the specifics, but now I've found a solution." Agatha waved the originium crystal in her hand, as if showing off.

"… Are you really not aware of your current situation?"

Knox couldn't understand why this girl was so happy to become a prisoner of the demons, and why she was still so happy as she was being taken into the depths of the Demon Realm.

"My situation? I've never been afraid of you guys, and after watching those movies in Norland, I wanted to come to the Demon Realm to see everything for myself."

Movies?

Knox grasped that this human girl's impression of the demons had changed from fear to indifference. She had even been somewhat happy after seeing Sin Demons, because of something in Norland.

As he thought about it, Knox heard a certain sound from the sky. With another pull of the chain in his hand, Knox pulled the other girl towards him in the shadow of the tree behind him.

The next moment, a strange bird made of steel suddenly flew across the sky.

Was that a human arcanotech machine? Knox's brain began to ache once again, desperate to know what the hell was going on in the world.