The Duke's stomach rumbled. Hailing from a nation where one couldn't endure hunger, Rian immediately began preparing a meal.
As he lit a campfire and prepared the meal, the Duke needed a place to rest. He erected a makeshift tent.
Dining on the floor wouldn't have been terrible, but the thought of serving a meal to Iris's mother—a woman who held the title of 'Duke'—while she sat on the cold ground bothered him.
So, he pulled a pristine white tea table and chair from his bag, laid down a white cloth, and they ate. He considered dessert, but since the Duke wasn't fond of sweets, he served barley tea as a palate cleanser.
He would have preferred to serve expensive black tea, but not knowing the Duke's preferences, he offered barley tea. She drank it readily.
They discussed how to escape while drinking tea. Since the area was filled with Apen, they concluded the only way out was to breach the ceiling.
The problem was that they didn't know how deep they were; trying to pierce the ceiling could lead to being buried alive.
[ I can solve that problem for you. ]
'What? How?'
The Demon Sword acted without answering, spreading out in an instant, invisible to the eye. Just as Noah had spread her mana to scout the surroundings, the blade unleashed its own power to map their position.
"That just now...!"
The Duke, sensitive to the Demon Sword's energy, jumped to her feet and placed a hand on her sword hilt.
After shaking the Demon Sword to demand an explanation, Rian hurriedly calmed the Duke. Thanks to his desperate clarification, she sat back down and let out an exclamation of admiration.
"The area is saturated with Apen, so scouting should be difficult. Impressive."
"No. It's nothing."
At his habitual display of humility, the Duke shook her head firmly.
"You must have endured many trials to reach such a level; do not belittle your own strength. It would be a denial of your past."
"..."
Rian lowered his gaze at the Duke's earnest words. The back of his neck flushed red, his lips pursing.
The power he possessed was no different from a cheat code obtained through the help of the Gag Filter. He hadn't swung his sword dozens of times like Noah, nor had he built his skills through trials as the Duke suggested.
Shame washed over him, heating his face. Seeing him look like someone unaccustomed to praise, the Duke's gaze softened with pity.
'...To possess such skill yet be unaccustomed to praise—he must have lived a life where he was never acknowledged.'
While the Duke's mind spun with various imaginings, Rian contemplated a newly realized fact.
'Certainly... in this world, the law is that one grows stronger in proportion to the trials they endure.'
This dark fantasy world is viciously realistic and cruel. Yet, hope exists even in such a world.
Those who save others amidst a cruel reality, dream of a better future, and never stop loving—these are the ones called 'Heroes'.
Such 'Heroes' always face trials, and as they overcome them, they burn brighter, becoming a beacon in a world devoid of light.
It is the same principle as a beautiful girl in a Gag World having a body so light and weak that she falls when bumping into someone around a corner, yet possessing bulldozer-like strength to blow people away when chasing a handsome upperclassman.
It means that each world has its own distinct 'laws'.
'Iris, Noah, and Jess will have to go through such trials, too.'
Because the original story had changed so many times, the future where Noah and Jess joined the Hero's party might have changed as well. However, Rian felt a strange certainty that the three of them would head to the battlefield to defeat the Demon King.
This was an 'intuition' born from his accumulating divine power, but Rian did not realize it. He only grasped the fact that the three of them needed many trials to become stronger.
Just as his thoughts deepened, the Demon Sword's voice pulled Rian back to reality.
[ Confirmation complete. It's not as deep as I thought. ]
The Demon Sword had expected they had fallen thousands of kilometers, given they had been falling long enough to play a card game, but it claimed it wasn't that deep.
[ If you two unleash a slash at the same time, you can easily blow the ceiling away. ]
'Really?'
[ Yes! So get out of here this instant and offer me sweet blood! ]
Having skipped lunch because he couldn't think of a way to feed the Demon Sword without the Duke noticing, the blade's rage had reached its limit. The thought of escaping this wretched space and indulging in his sweet partner's blood dominated its mind.
Rian immediately relayed this to the Duke. The Duke's expression brightened visibly, as she too wanted to escape, check on her knights, and let them know she was safe.
Rian quickly packed their belongings and looked up at the ceiling with the Duke.
At the same time, someone stood panting on the ground above the space where the Duke and Rian were trapped.
"Haa, haa... finally, finally arrived..."
A woman with pink hair poking out from under a deep hood and a face that looked aggrieved—the Necromancer. She was leaning on a sturdy branch as if it were a cane.
Her body trembled violently as if she might collapse at any moment, but she seemed to be barely holding on.
"Heh, hehe... Even if I can't get the soul, I must at least take the corpse."
Because she had arrived so late, she assumed the Duke had already become a cold corpse. She laughed about gaining the corpse as a consolation prize, but her eyes held a mixture of rage and fear.
Jess's ferocious face, lunging savagely to tear out her throat, flickered before her eyes. Having been hunted while borrowing the Ranger's eyes, the terror of having her own throat ripped out dominated her mind.
At the same time, a pitch-black rage welled up. Regret and anger swirled in her mind—if only it weren't for that red beast, she could have obtained the ultimate weapon in its intact form.
"Phew... let's go down quickly before the corpse decays further."
Once her breathing calmed, she threw the branch aside and looked down at the ground.
'Surely... they aren't still alive, are they?'
€
A moment of worry surged, but she quickly shook her head to dispel it.
'If that were the case, the doppelganger would have been reverse-summoned back.'
This was a problem caused by the Duke being trapped so deep that she couldn't know how the doppelganger was moving.
She could brush off the worry because it was a standard law that undead would be reverse-summoned if something went wrong.
There was no way for her to know that this law had been broken by the Demon Sword and the Gag World resident.
"Even if they are alive, it's fine! I've prepared thoroughly!"
She tapped her chest. Inside the clothing she tapped were multi-layered defensive magic tools she had bought by emptying her pockets, and a powerful magic tool that reflected any attack exactly once.
Having barely managed her anxiety, the Necromancer took a deep breath and ordered the Master of the Forest—which could only receive commands due to the distance—to open the ground she stood upon.
Rumble.
The hole that had swallowed Rian and the Duke in one gulp revealed itself once more, just as her body was about to fall through.
Vroom!
"Huh?"
The magic tool in her arms activated.
Crash!
"Huh?"
Multiple layers of defensive barriers were shattered in an instant by an attack that flew up before her body could even fall.
Boom, shwaaaak!
Before she could grasp the situation, a dark red attack flew in and cleanly sliced through the remaining barriers. It tried to cut through her body as well, but—
Crackle!
The attack-reflecting magic tool she had bought by emptying her pockets activated and blocked the attack. Because the Demon Sword's attack was too strong, it didn't reflect but instead shook in the air, emitting a bizarre noise.
"Wh-what the hell is this?!"
She screamed belatedly and tried to summon undead, but the Demon Sword's power pushed away the magic tool's power faster.
Crackle...!
If it had been a cheap magic tool, it would have shattered long ago and sliced her in half, but the one she possessed was so expensive that it didn't break easily.
"Uh? Uh-uh? W-wait?"
However, the magic tool's power wasn't stronger than the Demon Sword's, so...
THWACK!
"Kyaaaaaaah!"
She was launched into the sky like a baseball hit by a bat. She flew high into the sky, tracing a clean line that would make anyone shout "It's a home run!", twinkled, and disappeared.
"Did you hear something just now?"
"Pardon? What sound?"
"I thought there was something... maybe it was just my imagination."
The Duke dismissed the scream she had just heard as a figment of her imagination and shook her head.