Chapter 331: The First Decision

The time it takes for a Demonic Realm to form, based on the appearance of precursor phenomena, varies.

At most, it could take as long as 10 minutes, but the original work’s setting is that it usually takes about 3 to 5 minutes, and at shortest, only about 30 seconds.

Furthermore, we cannot currently know where the boundaries of the Demonic Realm begin and end.

Blindly fleeing the mountain is not a good idea; there’s no guarantee that the area below the mountain is outside the Demonic Realm.

Rather than that, assuming the possibility that this Demonic Realm has “Inventory Use Disabled,” I need to prioritize taking out weapons and other essentials.

And because we need to let others know that we’ve been caught in the Demonic Realm’s formation, I gave this order to the baby dragon:

“Yor! Fly up into the sky!”

We cannot infer the width of the Demonic Realm, but the height limit is fairly clear.

If given roughly 2 minutes, I thought that Yor might be able to escape outside that range before the Demonic Realm fully forms, but…

as you can tell from the above sentence ending with ellipsis, it failed.

The moment I spat out those words, I felt a strong vibration under my feet, and thorn bushes instantly grew not only on the path but also between the trees.

A transparent gray membrane covered the sky.

“Nya, nyaaa…”

Yor, who had swiftly shot upward, came back down with a frown.

“It’s not your fault.”

This is definitely not because Yor is slow.

It’s because the Demonic Realm formed too quickly.

At least 30 seconds, my ass.

I wasn’t counting seconds in my head, so I don’t know exactly how much time passed, but it felt like only about 10 seconds.

Even if Lausa—an eagle-type Familiar known for fast flight, with high agility stats, capable of manipulating wind, and possessing space movement skills—had been here, she would not have been able to escape the Demonic Realm’s range.

No, the original author must have made it impossible.

‘Just like now.’

It seems the original author has decided to isolate us in a Demonic Realm, and for quite a while.

No one knows that Reysir and I are here right now.

It wasn’t exactly a secret outing, but since there was no need to tell anyone, that’s why I didn’t.

It was still early dawn, and even the workers hired for construction hadn’t arrived yet, so there were no witnesses.

Not only that—deciding to skip the early morning group training during the suspension period, citing the need to focus more on primary weapon training, our absence would only be known at breakfast time.

‘And the professors remaining at the Academy will also notice the Demonic Realm’s formation around that time!’

To discover the giant dome surrounding the Demonic Realm, one would have to come out of the building first.

Even if someone were to discover the Demonic Realm early, nothing would change.

They wouldn’t think that a student would be climbing the mountain with traps set at dawn.

There’s no way they would launch a conquest immediately.

Judging that there is no possibility of human casualties, they would conclude there’s no rush and leave it for now.

That must be what the original author wants.

“Um… I’m sorry, Karbaldr.

Because I brought you to a place like this…”

“No, apologies are enough.

No one could have predicted that a Demonic Realm would appear here today.”

In the pre-remake original novel, it was extremely rare for Demonic Realms to appear concentrated in one area.

Even if they did appear, there was always a time gap of at least a week.

And above all, since this is clearly the early part of the story timeline, I thought we wouldn’t be caught in a Demonic Realm consecutively.

But we ended up caught anyway.

It’s only been four days since the entire Academy was engulfed by a Demonic Realm, and then we came to the mountain right behind it.

And the Demonic Realm environment settled so quickly that we can’t even call for reinforcements.

I know it’s a crude term, but to describe the current situation, there’s no word more fitting than “forced counter.”

‘Especially in that this situation of us being isolated in the Demonic Realm is unlikely to have been created by chance.’

This is a situation forcibly created by the original author of 《Nas-e》.

And the purpose is, with very high probability…

‘To kill me. And in front of Reysir, at that.’

To go this far to get rid of my existence.

What exactly did Author Senna and the original novel’s readers find so irritating about me?

After all, was it uncomfortable that the possessed body, a school bully perpetrator, was described as a good person through the mouth of Reysir, the victim and protagonist?

Or maybe simply, my actions and words were considered too unlikeable.

‘Since when have I ever received such favor from others…’

Because the original protagonist kept smiling at me, showing genuine concern, or praising me, I got so happy that I thought I was something, acting all giddy.

“Protect me,” “believe in me,” “take my side”—overstepping my bounds and making excessive requests to the original protagonist, I inevitably earned the hatred of the original author and readers.

I reflect on having acted excessively.

In Chapter 329, I once described Reysir as acting too arrogantly, but it seems the one who was truly arrogant was none other than me.

If I cancel my requests even now…

“Karbaldr! Snap out of it!!”

“Kyaarrr! Myarrr! Meow meow!!”

A sharp sound pierced my mind.

At the same time, I felt a rough hand grabbing my shoulder and shaking my body.

Only then did I snap back to my senses.

“Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah…”

“You’re still not okay, huh?”

“……”

I take that back.

I wasn’t fully awake.

I had only managed to pull one foot out of the swamp of negative thoughts.

“Karbaldr.

Who am I?”

“….Reysir.”

“Then this one?”

“Yor.”

“You know well, don’t you?”

Suddenly, Reysir pointed at himself and Yor with his fingers and posed the above questions.

I thought he was doing this to check if my cognitive functions were working properly because I still seemed out of my mind.

But it seemed his real purpose was different.

“Right now, you have the most trustworthy person and Familiar by your side.

So what’s there to worry about?”

Reysir said this in a tone of feigned indifference, trying not to show his tension.

At the same time, he lightly stroked my back and gave a smile that pretended to be relaxed.

I couldn’t help but realize that his words and actions were meant to reassure me.

“And the situation isn’t all that bad.

Even though we’re the only ones here and we failed to call reinforcements, there isn’t a single civilian here, right?

So there’s no need for us to recklessly start conquering the Demonic Realm on our own, is there?”

He forcibly crafted a lively voice and positively spun the current situation.

“Looking at the angle the dome is tilted, the boundary of the Demonic Realm seems quite close.

Plus, this place we’re in isn’t a monster spawn point.

Isn’t that lucky?

Thanks to that, we can leisurely check the situation like this.”

“That… is indeed fortunate.”

As positive words flowed from my mouth, relief spread across the other’s face and a genuine smile bloomed.

Seeing that his reaction felt undeserved, I guess my state really isn’t normal, especially in terms of self-esteem.

Even the mere possibility that the original author might intend to kill me is terrifying.

Thinking that the reason might be “because there are many people who extremely dislike me,” I felt suffocated and my fear doubled.

I want to ask what I did so wrong that they hate me to the point of wanting to erase my existence, but then…

No.

I just feel like I did everything wrong, like I have to apologize and beg for forgiveness from everyone.

Even though I am fully aware that this kind of thinking is extremely irrational, those thoughts just floated around in my head on their own.

“Oh! I just checked, and the inventory is working normally.

And also… um…”

“If you have nothing more to say, you don’t need to force it.

I’ve more or less come to my senses.”

“Oh.. yeah?”

“As you said, the situation isn’t that serious…

I showed an unsightly side.

I’m sorry.”

“No, no!

Unsightly?

If we’re going that way, I was worse during the graduation ceremony.

But… should I say I’m surprised?

I thought you’d be more composed than me in a crisis like this…”

It’s natural for him to be suspicious.

Especially if he recalls that day of the graduation ceremony.

At that time, even though the concept of “Demonic Realm” wasn’t even established, I remained calm and quickly took control of the situation.

After acting like that, now I’m acting like a panicked person, so it must feel quite out of character.

But even knowing this, there’s no way to explain—neither about the original work nor about my past as Imir, not Karbaldr.

I can’t talk about any of it, and I can’t even think of a plausible excuse.

“I mean… a bit… can’t a person panic?!”

“Uh, right.

That could happen.

Sorry if it sounded like I was accusing you.”

“No, well…

I’m the one who should be sorry.

For being sensitive.”

“No, no.

It’s because I said something unnecessary.

So…”

If we keep exchanging words like this, we might end up swapping apologies endlessly.

Deciding it would be good to pause the conversation, I lightly waved my hand as if to say stop talking.

Then I took a deep breath and composed myself.

I put back into the inventory the backpack containing “weapons and other essentials” that I had taken out at the start of this chapter, and gripped my whip.

“What do you plan to do now?

Will we move to escape the Demonic Realm?

Or will we wait for rescue here?”

I asked this question out of respect for the original protagonist, but in fact the answer is fixed.

Because we haven’t yet confirmed whether the monsters here are the stationary type like the Golem from the previous Demonic Realm.

If they are the type that can move and have high intelligence, we absolutely cannot stay still.

We’ll very likely be surrounded.

So moving is the right course for now.

Although the original author would never let us leave the Demonic Realm easily, since it’s safe to say there’s no chance the monsters here will stay put anyway.

‘If they had prepared that type of monster, they wouldn’t have isolated us here in the first place!’

As I had this thought and swallowed my resentment, unexpected words came out from Reysir’s mouth.

“Let’s eat something first.”

“……What?”

“We haven’t eaten anything yet.

If we don’t replenish our energy now, we won’t have the strength to fight properly when we encounter monsters.”

“……”

“And with a full stomach, your mind works better and you can think positively, right?”

“Hmm… yeah… that’s true.”

No matter how much Author Senna intends to kill me—no, precisely because of that, she wouldn’t disturb me during a meal.

Since the original protagonist brought this up first, there would be no incident of monsters swarming to surround us while we fill our stomachs.