Tales of the Old World Demon Lord

Chapter 5 – Understanding ‘his’ world

[Eternum Calendar 1971]

“B… 741… Gladsheim… just what…”

Morgant’s continual understanding of the foreign language spoken by the kneeling Ingrid was inconsistent at best. At times he felt he could fully interpret whole phrases, while at others even a single word could not be recalled. It was a near infuriating taunt that he couldn’t wholly grasp the words even though it danced just on the tip of his tongue.

In his frustration Morgant glanced around to distract himself for a while as he calmed down. Taking a closer examination of the walls on this room they were aligned by small runes and glyphs, the likes of which he had only ever seen once. They were similar symbols to the ones he himself drew on his diagram for the Mark 7 Gigandoll Power Frame, thus insinuating a heavy connection. ‘This place really is where the answers lie…’ he thought to himself but merely thinking would not yield proper answers.

He needed to know and to know he needed to ask.

Squinting his eyes and making a sour expression, his frustration started to eat away at his mind. Morgant knew this place or at least he had a somewhat esoteric understanding of what the purpose of this place was. The words came haunting back to him. ‘B741… Munitions Lab, Gladsheim,’ most definitely not a tomb as the external name suggested. That being said his understanding of this place was no less sinister than a tomb; this place was where war could be perpetuated.

“[Is something the matter, Director Callahad?]”

The humanoid figure of translucent blue flames asked as she gazed up at him. Still kneel she had an almost innocent seeming face for a haunting ghast, but as long as her words could not fully be interpreted she could not so readily be trusted. Morgant backed away a few steps to ensure some level of precaution as she asked him, not knowing what she was trying to say.

Ingrid released herself from the kneeling posture and took a firm and inquisitive observation towards him. After a brief moment of study her actions and posture revealed the fact that she had understood or found out something about Morgant’s situation. She raised and offered a hand towards Morgant, yet on closer inspection there is nothing but empty air. She then chants once more in the mysterious and foreign dialect.

“[Remedial unit, matter reconstruction].”

Assuming that it was some kind of offensive magic spell, the demoness who had temporarily jointed their party came to Morgant’s defense. She defended his entire body by using her own as a shield and activated several defensive magic.

“I won’t let you touch him! [Miasma Shield]! [Elemental Barrier]! [Demon Lord’s Providence]! [Poison Defense]!”

Following a series of brightly flashing lights, a formidable tinting glow surrounded the two of them. However, as they waited Ingrid’s actions did not reveal any sort of threat, merely that of introspective study. Morgant instantly understood from her actions that both the demoness and Ingrid weren’t enemies to be afraid of and let his guard down with a relieved sigh.

A small and metal sphere was summoned on the tip of Ingrid’s hand. After a few seconds it came to life and started searching the room around it by twisting its single orange eye around. It slowly started to hover around as though it were mimicking life and focused its visions by adjusting its glass covered eye. Rather than an ‘eye’ it would’ve been more apt to describe it as a sort of glass, at least to everyone present the concept of a ‘camera’ was unknown to them.

The small orb slowly hovered to Morgant’s position as it scanned him with a blue light. At first the demoness who was protecting Morgant thought it was some kind of status ailment spell and tried to retaliate but she was stopped by Morgant.

“What are you doing? What is that?”

The demoness asked but was promptly ignored by Ingrid who continued to stand waiting for the sphere to finish its task. Morgant placed a sympathetic hand over the small and flighty shoulders of the demoness to quell her frustrations.

“Thanks for your concern but you don’t have to anymore. She isn’t an enemy, I’ve determined that much.”

“But…”

Unable to say anything to oppose him the demoness stood down. She relinquished all of her defensive spells on him and allowed Ingrid and the metal sphere to continue on with whatever it was trying to do. However she refused to budge from her defensive position until she herself could confirm that Ingrid wasn’t a real threat to Morgant.

Her actions were confusing to Morgant; he did not know her, a complete stranger, yet she was willing to throw her body as a shield to protect him. Compared to the nostalgic feelings he had with the entire kerfuffle with Ingrid, this small demoness dressed in comically revealing close was an even bigger enigma.

“Who are you…? To go so far to protect me?”

He asked.

To that question the demoness revealed a childishly cute smile; one that suggested an air of triumph. She placed her hands on her hips in a haughty manner to introduce herself for the second time now that she had his full attention. ‘Fufufu!’ she chuckled softly with glee.

“Behold! I am Astaroth, the one and only Demon Lord of the entire Vertloch continent! How’szat? Are you amazed yet?!”

What followed was an intense and painful silence; even Ingrid who had been actively ignoring her glanced away in shame. Ren, Alice and Celina started whispering to each other, passing around terms such as ‘pitiful child’ and ‘delusional’.

“Hey I heard that!”

The self proclaimed ‘Demon Lord’, Astaroth shouted at the rude children that were talking behind her back. She waved her hands around and stomped on the floor as she threw an extremely infantile tantrum.

“Yes, yes, is that the dream you saw?”

Ren sarcastically dismissed, bringing Astaroth nearly to tears.

“N- No! It’s the actual truth! Why won’t you believe me? You saw my amazing display of skill just now, didn’t you?”

Astaroth tried to defend her position.

“Ah, yes, yes that? Certainly it was an amazing spectacle of light work, I think with some training even Celina could manage it.”

Ren continued to banter.

“Why you little brat, you really need to take the words of your elders more seriously!”

Astaroth shouted back in an equally immature manner, thus waning her argument even further. Though in the first place, with her physique no one would believe she was an adult at first glance, not to mention her attitude has completely been that of a child’s. The two continued to exchange banter like water and oil as Morgant watched with an enlightened sense of amusement. However it wasn’t before long that the conversation was interrupted by Ingrid once more.

“[I apologize for the delay Director. After a brief biometric scan I’ve determined the cause of your confusion to be your lack of understanding for the language. I shall remedy that problem immediately so please stand by.]”

Apparently having reached some kind of conclusion about whatever she was doing Ingrid made her way over to Morgant as well. From the inquisitive and expositional tone she was talking, Morgant had guessed that she had somehow identified the problem and came up with a fix for it. Thus he decided to put his trust in her and allow her to do whatever was needed. Having understood Morgant’s intentions with an uneasy look Astaroth cleared the way for Ingrid to pass.

The translucent ghast walked over elegantly and placed her right hand on his forehead. Reaching out to him, it was as though she had made contact with his soul directly. Upon being touched a heavy rush of emotions came crashing into his mind directly; myriad different unfiltered memories of someone else poured into every crevasse of his brain. It was impossible to process all of it and indeed, most of the things he saw were just as quickly banished to the abyssal depths of his mind. All of the images started melding together to make incoherent meshes, some even horrific and hellish while others were just a mess of colors like a broken kaleidoscope.

White noise filled his head once more when the powerful screeching static brought him to his knees. Morgant grasped his head in pain, trying to quell it however way he can; physically suppressing his head, screaming out aloud, shutting his eyes tightly, nothing worked. Seeing his pained state the other children and Astaroth quickly came to his aid.

“Arghh!! Gah… it hurts!”

Morgant screamed in excruciating pain.

“What did you do to him?!”

Shouts Astaroth angrily, demanding an answer from Ingrid who ignored her dangerous gaze and continued to stare at the suffering Morgant. Unable to get any clear answers Astaroth tried to physically attack her but her body merely phased through. This was beyond the properties of a normal ghast, even ghasts had bodies made of miasma or other such horrific gases which could be attacked, but this one was like she wasn’t even there.

“What the-?! Dammit! [Fire Bullet]!”

Astaroth tried using magic instead but that too slid right through her near non-existent body and crashed on the wall behind her. It was the first time she had met such an unfair opponent; one who couldn’t even be damaged. It was also the first time in her life that she felt as useless as she was right now and with it came a sense of guilt. She let this happen.

“Please…! Stop it!”

Guilt-ridden she cast aside her pride as the self-proclaimed ‘demon lord’ and lowered her head in plea. Ingrid acknowledged her desperation and answered her briefly.

“[Do not worry, the Director is simply regaining an ability once lost long ago.]”

Yet due to the language barrier that existed between them Astaroth could not be satisfied. As though she herself was being torn apart, a single tear ran down Astaroth’s face as she glanced back to Morgant’s pained expression.

“Morgant! Morgant! Wake up Morgant!”

Alice screamed as a clear expression of terror filled her tone. She violently tried to shake him but Morgant remained still holding his head with an intense pain overriding all of his faculties. Celina tried desperately to cast whatever healing or ailment removal magic she knew but none of them had any sort of clear effect. Ren tried to get him into a more comfortable position so he could better endure his suffering but upon just a small touch of his forehead he almost burnt his hand.

“This is… insane.”

With widened eyes Ren commented, recoiling in horror as he saw his reddened hand. ‘He’s going through so much pain…’ he thought to himself as he determined himself to help him regardless of the pain.

Choking with the sounds of pain and fear, the boss room of the undead ghast truly lived up to its name this day. The walls reverberated shouts of children to bring out a more haunted imagery than ever before.

Images flew viciously through the depths of his very mind and soul, yet all the while a small but noticeable change started to occur within Morgant. The insanity inducing white noise started to dissipate and in its place was intelligible words accompanied by the rush of images. The foreign language that he could only barely interpret before were now fully understood. With this new change the migraine also started to alleviate and with time Morgant’s body temperature too returned to a normal state.

“Morgant?! Morgant, are you alright?! Say something, anything, please!”

Seeing the horrific symptoms slowly dissipate from his body Alice tried calling out to him once more. In hopes that maybe this time he’ll react, and though he still made the same pained face he no longer continued sweating as profusely. His breath was haggard and heavy but at the very least he was breathing, instead of choking on his own lock of oxygen like before.

Morgant opened one eye and looked back up at the children who were huddled around him. With open mouths and down trodden eyes they awaited Morgant to make the first word.

“U- ugh… my head… [my head]… it [hurts]…”

Morgant spoke as he mixed Eternis’ native language with the ‘Old Language’ of Earth. The children looked towards each other, thinking perhaps that Morgant was still traumatized by the intense migraine. Morgant calmly lifted himself back up to a sitting position and took several deep breaths to regulate his breathing.

“U- um, Morgant are you okay?”

Celina asked as she tried to inspect his body temperature by placing her hands on his forehead. It wasn’t as horrific as it was when Ren touched it but his temperature was noticeably still high.

“I- I’m fine, thanks for asking.”

Morgant replied as he gently removed her hands from his forehead.

“[It is a relief to see that you have overcome this ordeal, Director.]”

Ingrid speaks in a tone as if to suggest that she was actually relieved to see that he had survived. Simply from her tone of voice and her previous actions of kneeling when they first met revealed the fact that Ingrid though too highly of Morgant to put him in actual mortal danger. So to him it sounded almost sarcastic when she said she was ‘relieved’, ‘was she saying that she had actual emotions?’ Morgant thought to himself.

With that thought however entered another. His previous line of thought inferred the fact that he assumed she had no real ‘emotions’, ‘how do I know she doesn’t actually have emotions? Why did I think that?’ he questioned his odd choice of reasoning.

It wasn’t just limited to this small piece of information that came to him at random. Numerous other things that he shouldn’t have any idea of also entered his thoughts. However, by far the most insidious thing that he had ‘obtained’ the knowledge of was a figure and symbol known as ‘Sovereign’; a being that commanded the very elements of this planet many ages ago.

Yet despite all these new knowledge, most of them were extremely vague at best and missing crucial parts to be understood in full context. To say the least all he was left with was a shuddering fear of the gaps between the ideas of the ‘Old World’. ‘It would’ve been better to not know,’ it scared him, how much difference there existed between the tranquil peace of this world and the iron might of the old.

“[This is… I can understand you…]”

Morgant had just realized it but he finally understood every world spoken by Ingrid.

“[If that is truly so then I am glad. The transition from your old body to this new one was a long and delicate one, thus it is understandable that you have lost much of your old memories.]”

Ingrid informed with Morgant standing there at disbelief of her words. ‘Eh? What’s she talking about?’ is all he could manage to muster up even within his own mind. He understood the words she spoke but couldn’t exactly come to terms with them.

“[It seems that you are still confused by a lot of things. That too is understandable and not at all unexpected, but worry not I will explain to you everything I know. If you would follow me, I shall guide you to the main lab.]”

Before they could continue Morgant interrupted. He still needed one more answer.

“[Just tell me one thing.]”

Morgant stood firm as he clenched his hands into a fist. It was neither determination nor courage that drove his current choice of words and actions, but an uncertain fear. Everything that has happened now would’ve been absurd for any normal seven year old to come to terms with. Yet for some reason Morgant felt as though he could grasp at the foundations of a monolithic entity dwelling within his soul and guiding him to all the correct answers.

“[Yes, of course. Anything you desire to know, I shall answer to the best of my abilities.]”

“[Numerous incoherent memories run rampant in my head, but one thing is extremely clear to me. A being known as ‘Sovereign’ exists in all of them. Tell me, who is he?]”

Ingrid took a moment to answer but she declared without hesitation or doubt in her voice.

“[You, Director Callahad, are Sovereign.]”