The Fallen Demon King's Revenge: Prologue of Loss and Obsession - The Stench of Rotting at the Harbor and the Hidden Trap

The night before receiving Valter's report via magical communication about his contact with Dmitol Vos, Vertias was quietly organizing his thoughts in the abandoned tower of the Gehenna Wastes. How to deal with Clemens Wolfe. Bernadetta's wavering conscience. Arranging these in his mind, he descended the stairs toward the underground levels. The walls of dark crystal glowed a faint, sickly blue-white, and his footsteps echoed low against the stone steps. Silvia stood before the marrow-vein chamber on the second basement level. The door hung half-open, and beyond it—the sealed section, the narrow passage leading down to the third basement level—she had been investigating for days now. "Has the door opened?" Silvia turned slowly. The vein-pattern marking beneath her left eye stood out sharply in the pale blue light. "Tonight, I will try. Lend me your strength." —— Meanwhile, Trapessa Harbor was entering dusk, where the smell of tide and rotting fish mingled together. The harbor city of Trapessa—approximately one hundred ninety kilometers east of the royal capital Ludisea, a crucial trading hub facing the Volgan Sea. Population roughly seventy thousand. With more than twenty merchant ships entering port daily, the city presented itself as a vibrant trading center on the surface, but the lower districts beneath the docks wore a different face entirely. Valter Drake was wrapped in an old fisherman's coat, his hat pulled low over his eyes as he walked along the edge of the docks. His thick chestnut hair was hidden beneath cloth, his cold gray eyes kept downcast. His frame—one hundred eighty-two centimeters—could not be disguised, but by dropping his shoulders as he walked, he became unremarkable enough. Deep in the docks, past a single checkpoint into the lower district, several large wooden cages were lined up in rows. Iron chains. Rope. And—a crowd of demonic beings in human form. Valter's feet stopped. Five people. Ten. Twenty or more. Regardless of age or gender, their emaciated bodies were crammed into the cages. Their irises were red or violet-tinged—the mark of the demonic race. Some bore faint vein-pattern markings across their skin. They wore rags, and it was clear they were not given sufficient water. One child sat curled in the corner of a cage, making himself small. Three merchants walked about, appraising them. They pointed, passed papers with numbers written on them to the overseer. The sound of a whip cracked through the air. *Crack*—a dry, sharp sound. In one of the cages, a young demonic girl gripped the iron bars, trembling. The overseer roared "Be quiet," and raised the whip again. Valter's fist clenched hard within his coat. *Don't move*, he told himself. This is information gathering. If I act on emotion, everything falls apart. Vertias's words echoed in his mind—"Strike with certainty." This is not yet the time. He gritted his teeth and shifted his gaze. At the edge of the crowd, one man stood alone. His thinning brown hair was pulled back with effort, and he wore a worn uniform. An old sword scar ran from his left eyebrow down his cheek. The ring finger of his right hand was missing from the first knuckle onward. His tired gray eyes gazed across the rows of cages—gazed, but did not see. There was something hollow in his expression, as though he were calculating something distant. Dmitol Vos. Harbor administrator of Trapessa Port. Forty-seven years old. The man at the center of this port's corruption. A smuggler approached Dmitol. They exchanged a few words, and the smuggler withdrew a leather purse from his pocket. The faint sound of coins. Dmitol accepted it, wrote something on a document, and returned it to the man. An inspection stamp—proof that the ship's hold had not been examined. When the transaction ended, the merchant left satisfied. Dmitol remained alone, gazing at the cages with that same hollow expression. For just a moment—truly only an instant—his eyes seemed to *see* something. Then, just as quickly, they returned to their vacant state. —— When night fell, Valter entered the tavern called "The Tide-Singing Whale." The interior was dim, tobacco smoke drifting through the air. Sailors and dock workers drank and spoke in low voices. This was a contact point for the Gray Alliance, as Silvia had discovered beforehand—a place where those harboring discontent toward the kingdom naturally gathered. Claiming a corner table, Valter ordered cheap ale. He drank sparingly while listening to the conversations around him. Two men spoke in hushed tones. They had the air of Gray Alliance liaisons. Fragments reached his ears. "...more ships being sent to the slave mines of Kava-Nera..." "...Dmitol apparently lost his brother in the war ten years ago..." "...whose side is that bastard really on..." Ten years ago. The war against the Demon King. The war in which Dmitol lost something. Valter took a sip of ale and recalled Dmitol's hollow eyes. —— After the night deepened, Valter slipped into the cargo inspection of a smuggling vessel. Posing as a dock worker in an inspector's role, he descended into the hold. The hold was cramped and reeked. Sweat. Excrement. The stench of sickness. Along the walls, dozens of demonic beings were bound with rope. Most were barely conscious. They had not been given water. It was unclear when they had last been fed. Among them, one—an elderly demonic man—whispered in a rasping voice. "...seeking...one who bears...the violet crystal...mark..." Valter stopped. "The violet crystal mark?" The old demon opened his eyes slightly. His reddish irises glowed faintly in the darkness. "...heard that...a descendant of the violet crystal clan...still lives...in that tower..." The voice trailed off there. The old man closed his eyes as though his strength had given out. Silvia. A descendant of the violet crystal clan. Something began to connect in Valter's mind. —— In the underground levels of the abandoned tower Babel, another door was opening at that very moment. The passage to the third basement level. The door to the sealed section was made of thick stone slabs, its surface carved with ancient characters. Silvia stood before it, her palm pressed against the stone. Vertias waited two steps behind. For a time, nothing happened. Silvia's breathing gradually deepened. She was drawing upon her marrow-power—attempting to break the seal on the door. Then came a sound. *Zuuuu*—the heavy grinding of stone. The seal characters glowed faintly, and the door slowly swung inward. Inside was darkness. But when Vertias gathered a small amount of marrow-power in his palm, a thin light was born, and the contours of the chamber emerged. A small stone room. Dust lay thick, and fragments of ancient cloth scattered across the floor. And against the far wall, a stone tablet stood propped upright. The tablet was roughly one meter tall. Its surface was carved with patterns and characters. The pattern—matched the exact shape of the vein-marking beneath Silvia's left eye. "This is..." Silvia approached the tablet. Her fingertips touched the pattern gently. In that instant, her eyes changed. Her deep violet irises grew more vivid, as though light were kindling from within. Silvia's body swayed slightly, and Vertias reflexively stepped forward. But she did not fall. She remained standing firmly on both feet, her eyes closing. Seconds of silence. Then she opened them quietly. The light in her eyes had faded, but her expression clearly held something different from before. "...A memory has come to me. Fragments, but..." "What did you see?" Silvia did not answer immediately. Her gaze returned to the tablet's characters. Ancient script. Vertias could read it too—the old demonic language was part of the knowledge he had learned as a former Demon King. He spoke the words aloud. "—'The blood of the royal house dwells in violet crystal, and the blade of betrayal defiles the light.'" The air in the stone chamber grew quietly heavy. "Royal blood. If this refers to the Ludisea royal house...the violet crystal clan may have been involved in the kingdom's founding." Silvia exhaled slowly. "Nothing is certain yet. But—the possibility has emerged that my clan was not exterminated merely for being demonic, but for another reason entirely." "The blade of betrayal defiles the light." Light—the word the Dawn Church proclaimed. The kingdom's state religion, Ludisea's facade. Vertias stared at the tablet. He could not yet understand all of what this meant. But he felt it with certainty—this was a usable lead. —— In the deep of night, when Vertias returned to the operations chamber on the first floor of the abandoned tower, the magical communication device was glowing. Marrow-power communication—a magical technique using dark crystal as a medium to transmit voice within a range of approximately five kilometers. This tower's device had been modified to reach farther distances. This was the time when Valter would be sending his report from Trapessa. When Vertias received the signal, Valter's voice flowed through, small and clear. "I have a report. I have confirmed the smuggling structure at Trapessa Harbor. Dmitol Vos accepts bribes to overlook inspections and allows ships carrying demonic slaves to pass through to the slave mines of Kava-Nera. However—" There was a brief pause. "That man may not be a simple villain. He lost his brother in the war ten years ago. There is something in his eyes—something like fading regret. And I heard something from an old demon in the hold. There is someone searching for a descendant of the violet crystal clan. There is a possibility that someone knows of Silvia Violacrista's existence." Silvia's eyes narrowed slightly. When the communication ended, silence returned to the operations chamber. The candle flame wavered. The dark crystal walls glowed pale blue. Vertias said nothing for a time. Dmitol Vos. A corrupt harbor administrator. Yet a man carrying regret within. Whether he could be used—that remained unclear. But he might be usable. That was enough. "We must consider direct contact with Dmitol. We need to determine whether he can be turned into an informant." Silvia seemed to still be warming the fragments of memory she had felt in the stone chamber within her chest. She spoke little. It was not unusual for her, but tonight the silence carried a different quality. "...The old demon said there is someone searching for me. We must investigate who that is." Her voice was calm. But Vertias understood. That violet light when she touched the tablet. It was not merely a reaction of marrow-power. Something had moved in that contact. Something within her. He would not ask now. There were things to be drawn out slowly, in time. Vertias rose and gazed out the window. The gray night of the Gehenna Wastes. A space without sound. "To sever the roots of corruption, one must first break the branches." He spoke it softly, yet with quiet certainty. The darkness of Trapessa Harbor. The ancient words carved into the tablet. And somewhere in existence, one who searches for Silvia—. The points were slowly becoming lines.

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Episode 6

Name: The Fallen Demon King's Revenge: Prologue of Loss and Obsession
Author: Novelia

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