The Knight Who Devours Magic - Chapter 4

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 4. Demon Devourer
Bang!
“Is that all you’ve got, Munno!”
Crack!
The moment I barely slipped past the Great Sword bearing down on me, the stone floor beside me exploded outward.
The destructive force was impossible to attribute to a blunt Iron Sword.
And that was just the beginning.
“Come here!”
“Ugh!”
The instant Father yanked the black Iron Chain wound around his arm, my body—which had been widening the gap between us—was helplessly dragged back in.
“Didn’t I tell you not to let strong opponents wrap chains around you like that!?”
Screech!
As an attack that would certainly be far more than a scratch landed, I managed to block it with the chains, but only just.
“Hack!”
I couldn’t stop my body from bouncing back and tumbling across the floor.
“That’s why I used all four of them already……!”
“Shut it!”
Bang!
“Damn it, seriously!”
The four Iron Chains moved far more freely than before and boasted strength doubled from what it had been, yet even pooling all of them couldn’t restrain a single one of Father’s arms.
In the end.
‘Thrash!’
I had no choice but to focus entirely on evading his attacks, aided by the four chains.
Swish-crack.
The elongated chains became additional limbs, assisting my three-dimensional movement.
I thrashed madly across the Training Ground’s ceiling, walls, and floor with two legs and four chains, but barely managed to avoid Father’s blade.
Crack!
“Well done!”
Boom!
“You’re dodging well!”
Smash!
“What are you, a spider!”
Crack!
Great. The Training Ground’s getting destroyed, Father.
“Hah!”
Thud.
“Cough!”
Occasionally I’d manage to block or even counter-attack with the chains and Iron Sword, but the moment they connected, my entire body would fly backward together with the chains.
I could barely brace myself with the chains against walls and floors to disperse the impact as my airborne body received the shock.
But even that left my entire frame tingling and my spirit feeling as though it was draining away.
‘Damn it.’
How had it come to this?
When Father had come to my room.
— Son, thank goodness. I’m truly relieved.
— Thanks to you, Father…….
I had been hoping for a touching reunion like that.
Reality turned out completely different.
— You look unharmed. Let’s have a sparring match.
The moment he opened the door and looked me up and down, that was what Father said.
That was how this disaster began.
“Block this wrong and you’ll die. Dodge well!”
“Father!?”
Crack!
Even with my evolved abilities, I fell far short of being able to match Father.
Rumble-rumble-rumble.
“No, seriously! What is this——!”
Barely evading the blade that had been swung in a wide arc, I shouted indignantly.
Cold sweat streamed down my back.
It was a blow that had passed behind me with mere paper-thin clearance.
‘I almost died.’
The proof lay in the fact that an entire wall of the Training Ground had been blown clean away, and the Iron Sword his father had been holding was half-shattered and bent.
How it was even possible to send a wall flying with an Iron Sword left him dizzy with dread.
But then.
“Fortunately, I sense no Demonic presence.”
At his father’s words, all the strength drained from his body.
He understood at once what it meant.
But the unfairness of it made him cry out again.
“Wait—you did all that just to check? You could have just asked me!”
“If a Demon had devoured you, what good would it do to hear you speak first? It would only charm and deceive.”
“I mean, that’s…”
His whole body had been straining just to dodge the assault, and now that his strength had fled, his hands and legs trembled uncontrollably.
“There had to be other ways! This is ridiculous!”
He understood the purpose of the sparring well enough, but the injustice of it burned in him nonetheless.
Yet.
“Still, to see you argue without stammering and with such clarity—it gladdens me. Munno, my son. I congratulate you on escaping that nightmare.”
Looking at the brown-haired middle-aged man spread his arms wide with a grin, Munno found himself laughing despite everything.
“Good grief…”
In the end, he smiled and accepted his father’s rough embrace.
And from behind them.
—My lord! What in the heavens are you doing!!
An anguished roar tore through the air.
* * *
Pitter-patter.
As the tea water poured softly, releasing its warmth and fragrance.
Along with that aroma, a voice tinged with complaint spread through the room.
“Did you truly need to destroy the Training Ground, my lord?”
The calm, measured tone seemed impossible to associate with the man who had roared as if the heavens themselves were falling moments before.
Palmer, the Territory’s sole steward, administrator, and keeper of accounts—an elderly gentleman of meticulous habit—had driven Ryan to cold sweat.
“Ah. Ha. Ha. Well, you see, my son grew so strong, and I got caught up in the excitement… haha.”
“Young master, please take a cup as well.”
“Thank you.”
Pitter-patter.
As Munno spoke the words without stammering, each syllable clear and crisp, Palmer’s eye gleamed behind his monocle, and he offered the faintest smile.
“Indeed, it is heartening to see the young master like this…”
Munno, having undergone his first Evolution—the Awakening—had even grown visibly in stature.
Rarely, when children underwent Awakening at such a tender age, their bodies would experience sudden dramatic growth, or so he had heard.
And while Munno had only reached about 180 centimeters—not particularly tall for a Knight—it did not seem out of place.
But more than his height or build, Palmer was pleased by the newfound clarity in his eyes.
Still.
“Haha. You understand, don’t you?”
Palmer could only shoot a stern glance at the lord who was fawning over his son like that.
Though his gentle voice remained unruffled regardless.
“At this rate, I shall not eat a scrap of meat until next spring because of the repair costs.”
“Ah… then I’ll simply reduce my own food allowance. That’s the most… to the budget…!”
“Reduce the meals of someone who practices the Gluttony Martial Arts? If the Territory’s greatest strength loses power, how many of your subjects will die when the Monster Wave arrives in mere months?”
Pitter-patter.
Even as Palmer spoke with meticulous precision, he smoothly refilled Ryan’s emptied teacup.
“…You’re right. I apologize.”
The lord and the Territory’s mightiest Knight.
A four-star Martial Artist who had completed four Evolutions, he raised both hands in surrender.
But Palmer had not finished.
“And by chance, has the young master also taken to the Gluttony Martial Arts…?”
“No, not at all. I benefited from the Evolution Factor my father gave me, but I was not yet in a state to properly master our family’s Martial Arts technique.”
“I see. That is unfortunate.”
Even as he said this, Palmer’s hand moved to his chest as if in relief.
Knowing what troubled him, Munno harbored no ill will.
Only.
“If you have evolved in a way that sharpens the mind, might I perhaps ask you to assist with my duties…”
At Palmer’s next words, Munno’s expression grew serious.
“Ah, no—absolutely not to that degree. I’ve only managed to treat the Side Effect, nothing more.”
“Of course, sir.”
Watching Palmer exhale a deep sigh, Munno felt a twinge of guilt—yet he couldn’t afford to be buried under administrative duties now that he’d finally Awakened.
Fortunately, his father backed him up.
“Now that Munno has grown stronger, this winter’s subjugation will be far easier. The Spoils will be that much greater, won’t they? Surely that’s preferable?”
“Well, yes, but…”
Palmer cast a reluctant glance before Munno gently cut the conversation short.
“Um, Palmer. There’s something I need to discuss with Father alone, if I may have a moment?”
“Ah, yes. Of course. Though I do hope it concerns my successor.”
“…No, it doesn’t.”
“What a shame.”
Palmer withdrew with a joke on his lips, but Munno couldn’t help feeling sorry. He was one of the few in Dracen Territory who had treated him with kindness even before his Awakening—without prejudice.
But precisely for Palmer’s sake, this conversation had to stay between him and Father.
The fewer who knew, the better.
“Is it about that Demon?”
His father Ryan set down his teacup just after Palmer left the room, speaking as if he’d already guessed.
“Yes, something like that.”
The issue he’d glossed over as a “Side Effect” in front of others.
But he’d already confessed everything to his father.
—Never speak of a Demon in your head, do you understand? And if anyone asks about that Chain, tell them you know nothing.
Recalling his father’s words, Munno smiled bitterly and began.
“Thanks to the Evolution Factor of Gluttony you gave me, I ended up devouring the Demon that was trying to devour me instead.”
“Pfft!”
Tea sprayed from his father’s mouth as he merely stated the fact.
Cough. Cough.
“You devoured it? A Demon? You didn’t just block it?”
His father coughed repeatedly as if something had gone down the wrong way, his eyes widening with shock—which left Munno equally bewildered.
“…Yes.”
“How?”
“How? You said that the Evolution of Martial Arts isn’t limited to the body. So I combined the Gluttony Evolution Factor with my own ability and maximized it, then just…swallowed it whole.”
As he spoke, his father’s expression grew increasingly strange, and Munno’s voice trailed off.
His father cut him off with a look of utter disbelief.
“What I meant was that evolving your mind would maximize your mental strength and bodily control—I thought the Demon would simply give up and leave…”
“I see?”
“…I should have realized something was wrong when you felt the Chain connect to your body. But how could…”
His father trailed off into bewildered muttering, and Munno fell silent in confusion as well.
“Huh…”
“…What on earth did you do?”
“Well, I’m not entirely sure myself…”
Flustered, Munno found himself recalling the memories from his Evolution.
That moment when he’d fought with everything—body and mind, all his desperation—simply to survive, to keep from being devoured.
—I am the Chain Demon, the one who binds and oppresses.
Binding. Oppression.
For ten years since that day, this Demon had preyed upon the trauma etched across both Han Munho’s and Munno’s lives.
—Don’t laugh! I will bind and oppress you. Or better yet…I’ll devour you!!!
—How…!? No, I can’t…!
—You will!!!
Crack.
That was all he clearly remembered.
“The process itself isn’t vivid. But that Demon had metallic properties, and as you know, my ability…”
“…can manipulate metal. Yet how does that lead to this? I’d sooner think something in your bloodline—”
Bloodline.
At his father’s words, Munno’s mind reflexively drifted to a memory from infancy.
Back when he’d only recently realized he’d been reborn into this land.
That time when he’d first felt the warmth of what he knew as “parents.”
Then came the sudden catastrophe.
—Waaahhh!
—My baby, my baby…!
—…every bloodline. Kill them all. Keep only the child for experimentation…”

Crack.
“……Why do you look like that?”
“Ah, it’s nothing. I just… remembered when they abducted me…….”
“What?!”
“No, I don’t remember everything clearly. And most of what does come back in fragments… they’re all bad memories…….”
It was true. His memories from roughly fifteen or sixteen years ago were fragmented and incomplete.
And of the time after his abduction, there remained no memories that were wholly intact.
— Accept wounds that won’t kill you. Run every experiment you can.
— It doesn’t matter if the mind breaks.
Unbearable pain. Blood soaking everything.
Merely recalling those blurred scenes sent rage boiling through his chest.
What remained clear were only the memories tied to that agony and anger.
And in that final moment, what they…….
Throb.
“Ugh…….”
As the pain struck again without warning, Munno found himself clutching his head without conscious thought.
“Stop. Don’t force yourself to remember, Munno.”
Only when he became aware of his father shaking his shoulders did Munno realize that cold sweat was pouring down his entire body.
“Hah… huff. Hah…….”
“That’s enough. Don’t try to recall it. We’ve already dealt with all of them, so there’s no reason to cling to painful memories.”
A long breath.
“……Yes.”
As he exhaled and tried to calm the turmoil in his heart, something felt odd.
There was a discrepancy between what his father said and his own experience.
But he couldn’t immediately identify what it was.
Throb.
“Mmm…….”
Trying to think about it only brought on another headache.
The moment he gripped his head, his father shifted the subject.
“In any case, if what you say is true, your Evolution has undoubtedly transcended the limits of Gluttony Martial Arts. But…… of all the powers, why did it have to be the Demon Devourer? We’ll need to keep this completely hidden.”
And this new topic was no lighter matter.
The reason they had to hide the fact that Munno harbored a Demon within him was precisely this.
“Ah…… Because of the Mages, right?”
“Yes.”
Mages.
Those with supernatural abilities who borrowed the power of Demons to perform miracles.
They formed the largest faction of power in this world, surpassing even the Spirit Mages of the Spirit Tower and the Holy Knights and Priests of the Holy Temple.
And.
“They are those who worship Demons as External Gods. The ones who abducted you and caused great turmoil in our Kingdom are also Mages, but in the Demonic Empire they were treated as nothing more than heretics and outcasts.”
They were also his enemies.
“Remember this well. From this moment forward, speak of that power to no one. Do you understand?”
His father pressed the matter with a resolute expression.
“……Yes.”
As Munno swallowed back the rage that threatened to rise again, his answer came slowly.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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