“So they found out huh?”

The council was pretty excited about the queen being weakened. Even though they know that killing the queen is forbidden by the goddess of darkness, they still want to do it. The prospect of getting another weapon like Excalibur, possibly even stronger enflames their greed to the point they don’t care about retribution at all.

The protection of the sun god doesn’t help the situation at all, since they know that it will save them from anything that could hurt them. The worst punishment would be losing a couple levels, and because they have never seen a battlefield themselves and probably never will, it could be said they will go unpunished.

Honestly the worst part is that I will have to face the queen myself as one of the strongest people around, and since it has to be Arthur who kills her, I will have to watch him do it. I would do anything for my students, even sacrifice myself, but I can’t just let them kill my best friend on my eyes. There has to be a way to cancel the expedition.

But is that really the case? There are five weapons made out of this particular race of spiders, with Excalibur being the strongest as the one made out of level 150 spider. I’m not sure how humans hundreds years ago managed to kill a beast like that. The queen is even stronger, surpassing the 200’s barrier so even weakened she will probably kill most of our forces.

So what can I do? Kill the council? I could do that, but then what about the city? Do I risk the life of thousands of people, or do I decide to kill my friend. Is there any other choice for me? Could any god conveniently come to help me here? No? Ehh, you guys really are useless.

Sure, it’s blasphemy, but gods don’t really care what humans think. As long as we supply them with any kind of energy, be it from our prayers or even deaths, they will be satisfied. I bet they are waiting impatiently for me and the queen to die, since all the power we collected in our lives would go straight to them.

I can only pray, not to the gods that govern us now, but to the deceased one that created this world, please let the queen regain her strength before we raid her nest, or at least let her little child become strong enough to protect her.

“Praying to her won’t help anything, she’s dead after all.”

Seemingly from nowhere I heard a voice. I looked around the room to find the source, and near the window I saw a man in a hooded cape. He was looking at the city with a wry smile on his face. I had no idea how did he enter my office, and how did he manage to slip past me, but somehow he stood there.

I didn’t feel any evil intentions from him, so I didn’t react, but the words he said were coursing through my head. He clearly knew what I was thinking, and he clearly knew about the goddess of creation. He was very shady from my standpoint, but I still had no intention of kicking him out.

“You’re probably right, but sill, a little hope would never hurt.”

“Oh it will, because she will surely die when you all attack the dungeon. It’s necessary.”

I was dumbfounded when I heard that. How does he know what will happen? And why is the queen’s death necessary? Is he a devil or something, trying to destroy the world after one of its stronger protectors dies?

“I’m not a devil, but I guess you can say that I’m a bit evil. From this word’s standpoint that’s probably the case. In the past I didn’t save the person I was hoping to save, and because of that I ended up being branded as a traitor. Want a drink?”

He said that and took a bottle from under his cape. I took the invitation, taking out two glasses from my cabinet, to which he poured the golden colored beverage. The smell only was enough for a droplet of drool to escape my mouth, but I abstained from drinking for the time being. I wanted to hear more from him.

He took a sip from his glass and sighed. I could clearly see that something was bothering him.

“A devil is coming.”

He finally spoke. I froze at these words, I only heard about devils once, when I was training in a dungeon. The dragon who told me about them held a great amount of grudge against one who apparently attacked this world before and was stopped by the goddess sacrificing her life.

The horrifying creature that was feeding on worlds, destroying planets, devouring reality itself eventually leading to the collapse of the universe. What’s scary is the fact that they are not mindless creatures, but sentient entities with only one aim, which is to satiate themselves.

They won’t stop unless they devour everything that exists.

And apparently, one was coming to this world.

“I don’t know when he will come, but it will surely take him more than three years to arrive.”

“And why are you telling this to me?”

This was what was bugging me, why would he tell me about the devil, if there were gods that could stop him. As a mere mortal, there was nothing I could do against an entity that literally devoured planets.

“Because gods won’t be able to stop him. No matter how much they will try, no matter how much power they will attain, the devil is a being that will devour it all. It can’t be defeated, it can’t be killed, it can be only sealed or banished. The only god who could manage something like sealing a devil is long dead, and to banish a devil, one would need to be stronger than the universe itself.”

“So we’re doomed?”

“There’s a chance if you’ll follow my instructions. When the expedition comes, you have to take the Excalibur with you. It doesn’t matter who will hold it, you just need to have it. Next thing is, the queen needs to be killed, again doesn’t matter by who, but I think that consequences will be quite heavy for the killer. And last, when she comes, take her with you, so she can experience humanity.”

“When who comes?”

I tried asking, but soon I noticed that I was alone again. I sighed at the words I just heard, but didn’t dare to forget them. I didn’t know who did I just met, but he surely knew something I didn’t. I took a sip from the glass in my hand, and as soon as it touched my tongue, I was blown away by the taste.

And also sent to the floor, since this thing was probably hundreds times stronger than purest alcohol humans could produce.