I Have Become The Heroes’ Rival

“Or is it a story of a loved one?”

“…….”

“Were they sacrificed by humans, as you said?”

I threw the question at him because it seemed like a story of his personal experience, but he didn’t say anything as if I had hit the nail on the head.

At first, he seemed to hate the devil who tainted the land, but later, he seemed distrustful of the humans who made the situation like this.

It was hard to guess where his anger was heading, but at least now I knew he was truly grieving all over.

However, the way he expressed his sorrow was quite extreme and caused tremendous damage to his surroundings.

He was like a big child whining about his hardships. He seemed to be at least four thousand years old, and yet he acted like this.

If I was going to die here, I wanted to at least smack the back of his head and bring him to his senses.

“That’s none of your business.”

‘Hey, if it’s none of our business, then you shouldn’t be doing this to us!’

If Felix had been a real demon, I would have sympathized with him.

I suffered, so you have to suffer, too – was that the concept he was going for?

I had enough of this spirit’s personal story. There was a reason why spirit contracts were typically only formed with the already approved spirits.

Occasionally, when these destructive spirits were involved, there would be no results.

I couldn’t believe I almost risked Claudia’s life because of this bastard. Anger bubbled inside me at that thought.

“The jerks who gave Felix the power of the devil are still alive with their eyes wide open. If I tell you where they are, will you go and kill them?”

“Why should I do that?”

At my outspoken voice, Ilypia seemed to ask, ‘How would that benefit me?’

He raised his eyebrows as he spoke.

Yes, it had nothing to do with the spirit, and he must be dumbfounded to hear about the request to kill the three useless brothers. That’s right. That’s how I felt too.

‘If it has nothing to do with you, why are you trying to kill Felix, you bastard?!’

Moreover, even to the extent of extracting all the vitality used to maintain the island’s appearance so far!

“Then why does Felix have to die here?”

“Because I can destroy the devil with him.”

“Why do you want to kill Felix, but you don’t care about the people who made him this way? It’s like asking the people four thousand years ago why they were attacked by the devil and why they couldn’t stop them.”

It was like spitting while lying down¹.

And it was then. The ground that was steadily sinking at my feet pulled me from below.

“……The talk has become needlessly long.”

‘Ugh! Hey, you piece of crap!!’

Ever since the three useless brothers caught me, I had imagined dozens of possibilities of how I would die. However, none of them was as insane as burying me alive! I would rather you stab me with a sword and kill me at once!

“Do you have any last words?”

“Can I hit you on the back of the head?”

“……Die.”

Ha, damn it.

Irene Amber. Real name, Kim Hee Soo.

I couldn’t even play around in this world and instead went through suffering after suffering.

If I really returned to my original world, I would immediately visit the author and ask them to kill this spirit first.

Next up would be the three useless brothers…….

I didn’t want to die, so I started to experience all kinds of delusions as if I was trying to escape from reality. However, my demise was drawing near.

I knew it was meaningless, but I hugged the unconscious Felix in order to protect him somehow. I closed my eyes tightly and held my breath.

It was time to be helplessly sucked into the ground from the tip of my toes.

Suddenly Felix’s eyes miraculously fluttered open.

‘Uh…… But Felix, I don’t think it’s a good time to come to your senses.’

I was both pleased and anguished that he had regained his consciousness.

It was hard to lift a finger, so if you had to be buried alive, wouldn’t it be better to be unconscious? I’d rather die painlessly than remain awake.

As I was thinking about my life with a dazed expression, Felix stared at his hands as if he was amazed.

Why was he calmly examining the state of his hands in this dire situation?

When I started to think that those eyes weren’t like Felix at all, he shoved a finger into his mouth and bit it.

His blue eyes were filled with joy when he saw the vivid red blood dripping down.

He broke through the ground and got up.

Huh? I looked down at my empty arms where Felix had disappeared. The ground that had been swallowing us like a swamp turned back into moist soil.

I pulled out my submerged feet. It was just ordinary soil that was easily escapable.

Then, filled with amazement and worry, I looked at Felix. He was approaching Ilypia with a precarious stride, staggering every now and then.

“Devil’s bastard, you’re finally showing your true colors!”

Ilypia exclaimed as if he knew this would happen.

Felix posed as if he was hanging an arrow onto a bow in the empty air.

He accurately aimed the intangible arrowhead at Ilypia and drew the bow as it was. Something instantly shot out.

Swish–

I couldn’t see anything. However, the sharp sound of the pierced air was clearly audible.

At the same time, the spirit’s left arm burst. Torn into shreds, the remnants of it fluttered away like shredded paper.

Felix naturally continued to draw the bow. It was the same movement as a skilled archer. His actions were clean and precise – he was like a role model.

The spirit’s right arm exploded.

“Arghhh!”

Even if it wasn’t the main body, the pain would remain the same as long as he was summoned to the (human) world.

Ilypia, who uttered a horrendous scream, glared at Felix as if he wanted to rip him to death with his gaze.

Felix leisurely strolled through the mist of blood. And in an instant, at an unbelievable speed that my eyes couldn’t follow, he viciously grabbed the nape of the spirit and pinned him to the ground.

A smile slowly spread across his terrifyingly stiff face. He had the same sweet smile that I really liked.

Rather than an expression created by Felix, it seemed more like an expression that his facial muscles remembered.

He squeezed the spirit’s neck mercilessly as if to break it off. It felt like he was currently fulfilling a mission to kill the spirit.

It was a brutal and mechanical motion as if he was faithfully carrying out a task.

Just like the intangible arrow he shot, there was a colorless, odorless madness in every breath he spat out.

Felix once told me, even when was dealing with an assassin, he would make sure that their death was as neat and efficient as possible.

You might wonder how killing them would help, but if the assassin failed their mission and returned, they would suffer to the extent that they would prefer death.

That was how much Felix loathed the idea of weighing up someone’s life and playing with it.

If that were the case with an assassin, naturally, it would be the same if it were a summoned spirit who tried to kill him, right?

This situation wasn’t something that I could merely label as ‘strange’.

He was like a completely different person.

No, different……. Was it the devil?

I gulped down my saliva and watched the spirit struggling under Felix’s grasp.

It didn’t make sense for the spirit to be so immobile and powerless if a human was the one grabbing his throat.

The spirit clearly had the upper hand until now. So why wasn’t it the case now?

It would be more accurate to say that he was now completely overwhelmed by power. The area near Ilypia’s neck where Felix grasped was blackened as if it were rotting and corroding.

At that instant, the idea of Camoli Island serving as a passage to the demon realm came to mind.

With my mouth wide open, all I could do was watch the spirit being reverse summoned and disperse into white light.

I was alive. I never thought that I would survive such a situation.

We survived, but the true crisis was now beginning. The warning bells began to ring loudly in my mind.

“Um, Felix?”

Subsequently, the madness that had no other place to go poured all over me.

The remnants of the heavy violence that lingered shrouded his eyes.

I looked here and there, but umm. Felix didn’t seem sane at all.

I suddenly recalled the description in the novel where Felix was completely devoured by the devil. However, this situation seemed quite different from that.

But that didn’t mean he seemed normal.

I momentarily agonized over whether or not I should run away.

However, although I considered running away, I didn’t think it would be possible.

“Irene…….”

He called me in a hoarse voice and slowly rose.

It was hard to determine whether it was Felix’s sweet voice or the temptation of the devil.

* * *

^{1. The Korean proverb “it’s like spitting while lying down” advises not to do things that will only hurt you i.e. if you spit while lying on your back, the spit is bound to end up back on your face.↩}