As he lay collapsed on the floor, pierced by Alina’s warhammer, Silva showed no further signs of getting up.

To be precise, even if he did try to get up, his body was far beyond recovery. The ground surrounding him was drenched with a lethal amount of blood gushing from the hole in his chest, and the heart that should’ve been there was missing entirely, no doubt smashed to a paste.

‘The Demon God’s body that even the Ancestors couldn’t rival… you destroyed it.’

Jade’s stunned utterance broke the silence that hung heavily in the air.

‘He was not as big a deal as I thought.’

Alina rested her warhammer on her shoulder and exhaled a long breath. The strong light from before had faded and the hammer was back to its regular silver colour.

‘He was a pretty big deal to me though…’

Jade said, his voice a mixture of astonishment and resignation, but Alina ignored him and turned her eyes to Silva instead.

‘Curse you, curse you! How dare a lowly human best me!’

The light that had healed Silva’s body earlier had ceased to appear, and though his body was so tattered beyond recognition that one wondered how the breath of life still animated it, his mouth still moved.

‘A Demon God is… stronger than anyone…. If I’m not omnipotent… how is there value in my being born!?’

Though, predictably, he couldn’t move his limbs, and his voice, sounding as if he had to force it out, was wheezy and pained. Yet his eyes still burned with the fire of reproach.

‘I see. It’s a real shame. That you’d still be alive if you hadn’t interrupted my overtime, that is.’

‘Miss Alina, that’s what a villain would say.’

‘I won’t accept it!’

But Silva refused to admit his apparent defeat. He dug his fingers into the ground and tried to crawl to his feet, but even this small movement caused his body to protest, and he violently spewed up blood. His remaining arm trembled—he had lost even the strength to lift himself up.

‘I won’t accept it… I won’t accept it! I cannot be defeated! I will consume you!’

‘You’re such a sore loser. You’re finished. This is the end.’

Alina spat out without reserve, but the Demon God, on the other hand, laughed.

‘End? Haha. Hahahaha! What exactly do you think has ended?’

‘Eh?’

At first, Alina assumed that he was just grandstanding to compensate for his defeat, but there was a strange certainty in the tone of his voice. The Demon God raised the corners of his bloodstained mouth into a mocking grin and said something that shook the two who heard it:

‘Did you think there was only one Demon God?’

‘Wha, whaaaaaat!?’

For Alina, those words were close to harassment. The knowledge that there were more of the existence that she had to spend so much effort to defeat was intolerable to her. The Demon God, amused by her obvious reluctance, burst into wide-eyed laughter.

‘I will never accept an existence that can surpass Us! There is no place in this world for such a being! Haha, hahahahaha! We Demon Gods, whether it be the next one, or the one after that, we’ll definitely—’

‘Shut up!’

‘Gah!’

Alina cut off his mocking laughter and brought her warhammer down on his abdomen with all her might. The sharpened point sunk into his pit, where the ominous black shining stone was buried.

As the stone cracked with a sharp snap, Silva’s eyes rolled back in his head.

His head slumped weakly, his limbs flopped to the ground, and eventually his whole body dissolved in white light.

‘Ehm…’

Jade spoke timidly to Alina, who was wathching the white light dissipate, muttering ‘he’s finally dead’, from behind,

‘I feel like he still had something left to say…’

‘Losers should shut up and die quick.’

‘You’re the devil!’

Jade’s shoulders trembled. He picked up the cracked black stone that had dropped in the wake of the Demon God’s fleeting departure. It was completely still, having lost its eerie aura and skill-light. In its place, a small magic circle of the sun was vaguely visible through the translucent material.

‘The mark of Dia. He truly was a relic. I wonder if this is the Demon God’s heart.’

Jade sighed and slumped to the floor as if drained of all strength, gazing listlessly up at the ceiling.

‘Still, to think that there’s more of that nuisance…’

Alina vanished her warhammer and slapped the dust off her uniform as she snorted.

‘Just so you know, I only came this time because we had an agreement of cooperation. From now on, none of this concerns me. I’m going to pretend that I didn’t hear that last thing the Demon God was prattling about.’

‘I knew you’d say that.’

‘What, do you have a complaint? I had to abandon my work to get here. If I worked hard today, I could’ve left the office on time tomorrow, but because of you, I’ll have to work another day of overtime!!’

‘I—I, I, I get it! I’m sorry!’

As Jade hurriedly apologised to Alina, who was approaching him with a menacing step and a fierce look in her eyes, he continued:

‘Nobody died because of you. Thank you.’

Jade grinned. Alina pursed her lips and looked away. She too was glad that it wasn’t his corpse lying in that puddle of blood.

Not that she wanted to admit to thinking the same thing he did.

Just then, there was a small commotion at the entrance to the room.

‘Jade!’

Alina turned towards the commotion as Loewe and Rururi stormed into the room. As soon as Rururi had made sure that the two were safe, fresh tears started pouring from her eyes, already swollen from the last time, and she leapt to embrace Alina.

‘Th—thank you. Thank you, Alina!’

She thanked Jade’s saviour through sobs and tears.

‘Chief, you piece of shit!’ Loewe cursed Jade as he threw his arms around him, laughing with an expression that was equal parts delight and a desire to give him a thorough scolding. In response, Jade scratched his cheek in an embarrassed gesture.

As she watched the adventurers confirm each other’s safety and share their joy, Alina’s expression softened in spite of herself.

Deep down, she was somewhat envious of them.

For a moment, their figures overlapped with those of Shroud’s party. Had they made a different choice, had they not misjudged, they too could’ve been like that.

Oh well.

She had managed to prevent a tragedy from unfolding before her eyes, so she decided to leave it at that. It was worth the cost of an extra day’s overtime, for sure.

We are fast approaching the end of the volume. Only one chapter left.