Tales of the Old World Demon Lord

Chapter 9 – Testing the waters

[Eternum Calendar 1971]

“Morgant? Morgant~ Hello Morgant?! No good, he’s off staring into space again. I bet something really did happen back at the dungeon, just he won’t tell us anything about it. That cheapskate!”

Alice commented with a disgruntled expression, fluttering her hands wildly in front of Morgant’s face trying to attract his attention only to end in futility. A few days had passed since the children had returned from their midnight expedition into the dungeon [Ingrid’s Tomb]. Since Morgant had taken too much time with his ‘exploration’ into the depths of the dungeon morning had come by the time he finally resurfaced. Due to this the orphanage had gone into high distress mode as now four children had gone missing suddenly in the night and a massive search effort was conducted.

After a great amount of effort they had been found idling around in the deepest part of the novice dungeon. Miko and Diana were the first to locate them and had swiftly reprimanded them after thanking the heavens that they were safe. As a result the four children were now temporarily forbidden from venturing out of the orphanage.

With nothing much to do after classes the four children gathered around their room talking amongst themselves while playing with simple cards.

“Well, if Morgant is refusing to tell us anything it’s probably for our own good.”

Ren replied as he picked through his card and placed it on the pile in front of him.

“Yeah but… Uuuu! I want to know! What it was that he saw! Tell us already Morgant! We’re dying to know!”

Alice placed her cards in her hands to the side and started to shake Morgant violently. With the ensuing shock bringing him back to reality from his dazed state. He threw up his hands in a conceding pose and answered with a soothing smile.

“Sorry Alice, even if I wanted to tell you I don’t really understand it all myself. There wasn’t much down there except for a few skeletons and an odd looking tomb.”

Morgant made up a reasonable answer and replied. However the given answer wasn’t satisfactory to her as she pried for more information whilst digging her face closer to his. She looked with a inquisitive stare as she asked.

“Are you sure…? Then how come it took you hours just returning if that was all there was down there?”

“Well… it was a wide area with several hundreds of tombstones, just what you’d expect from a place called [Ingrid’s Tomb] after all. I was just curious so I looked around and by the time I had realized it hours had already passed.”

“Hmm~”

Still unconvinced from his answer Alice involuntarily made a dissatisfied hum, however exhausting all avenues of questioning she was put to a stalemate.

“Alice, let’s leave it at that. I’m sure being surrounded by all those tombs was quite disturbing for him. I wouldn’t want to remember such a creepy place either.”

Celina came to Morgant’s aide as she interjected to Alice’s intense questioning. Alice perked her mouth up as she still wanted to know more but she conceded for now that it was true that even she didn’t want to remember such a creepy place. With her interests slowly dwindling down the four children continued to play throughout their temporarily punishment.

Looking back at the children in front of him Morgant could only express a calm smile. If there was one thing in this world that he truly appreciated it was the tranquil calm of such moments he spent with his friends. Throughout all of the violence and rampant destruction this world was capable of, this one moment was his solace. That being said, everything had changed since the day he returned from Gladsheim.

The first change came in the form of hallucinogenic text boxes that only he could see. They had various titles such as [Inventory], [Analysis] or [Status]. He looked to his own hands that were now infused with the power of psychokinetic augmentation as well as the Mk7 Gigandoll Power Frame. They had both synthesized straight into his body and from the onlooker’s point of view he was nothing but a normal child. Alas they couldn’t be terribly far from the truth as his destructive capabilities far outweighed anyone in the orphanage.

However just how far his powers extended was a mystery even to Morgant as he never partook in direct combat with them. He could only wait until such a time where he could test them truly came. For now there were other, much more vague avenues of finding out the answer, such as the [Status] menu that he could conjure up at will.

Wanting to see it again Morgant had pulled up his own [Status].

Morgant Fallon [Title: Sovereign]

Age - 7

Race - Human

Threat Level - 983 (Very High)

Affinity - Composite Psychokinesis

Condition - Normal

Ailments - None

External Effects - None

Reading through the information about himself on the holographic text box several questions entered his head. The first was about the obvious addition of ‘Fallon’ to his name. For most of his life he had lived simply with his given name of ‘Morgant’ as only nobility truly had surnames. As an orphan he never even considered the possibility that he could have originated from a noble house, because if that was truly the case then even more questions would ensue. The surrounding circumstance of his abandonment was one that could not be ignored if he considered that possibility.

For now he had decided to suppress the urge to dive deeper and find out. Right now he wanted to know more about the Old World rather than his origins in this world. Thus he moved onto the second thing that had attracted his attention, which was the concept of a ‘threat level’, which was further piqued by the addition of the description ‘(Very High)’. Yet with no real point of reference as to how high or low those numbers could reach they were meaningless by themselves.

He was under the assumption those values were in relation to his current level of capability. Meaning that if he somehow found himself fighting himself it was most likely going to be an extremely tough struggle.

Just for the sake of it Morgant tried using the [Analysis] text box on the other children. As expected several similar boxes appeared before him with minute information about them as well.

Ren [Title: N/A]

Age - 7

Race - Elf

Threat Level - 13 (Very Low)

Affinity - Ice Element

Condition - Normal

Ailments - None

External Effects - None

Alice [Title: N/A]

Age - 7

Race - Human

Threat Level - 11 (Very Low)

Affinity - Fire Element

Condition - Normal

Ailments - None

External Effects - None

Celina [Title: N/A]

Age - 7

Race - Lamia

Threat Level - 9 (Very Low)

Affinity - Light Element

Condition - Normal

Ailments - None

External Effects - None

Due to the extremely large disparity between their threat values it wasn’t exactly too much of a help for Morgant. At the very least he had already instinctively understood that mere children wouldn’t be too much of a threat in the first place. As if on cue another person had entered their little play session, the caretaker of the orphanage Diana.

She crouched down to meet the children on eye level and explained with a pure smile.

“Hello, Alice, Ren, Morgant and Celina, I hope you’ve all been properly behaving yourselves. I know it must be tiring to be cooped up in here all day so I’ve talked it over with Miko a bit. We’ve decided to give you a chance to run around within the perimeters of the compound a bit later today. What do you say?”

The three children were ecstatic about the news and nodded in agreement. All the while Morgant was observing the situation from behind. An adult would undoubtedly give a better reading than a child’s, however there was one problem with the selected test subject.

Morgant hadn’t exactly known Diana as a fighter thus he didn’t expect too much when it came to her prowess. Nonetheless he used [Analysis] on her just in case. As he concentrated his mind a small holographic text box that only he could see had popped up right in front of his eyes. The information that was displayed was minute but even such small amounts could become fatal in the wrong hands.

With that in mind Morgant proceeded to read her results.

Diana [Title: Priestess of Harmony]

Age - 27

Race - Human

Threat Level - 174 (Low)

Affinity - Light Element

Condition - Normal

Ailments - None

External Effects - None

Those numbers were certainly higher than that of children however with only a sample size of one Morgant couldn’t exactly jump to conclusions. He decided to take Miko’s readings later as well just as a comparison but still kept in mind that he needed a large amount of readings to make sure. With him being forbidden to leave the orphanage it would be a while before he could get the actual results of his research.

Like this Morgant spent his day pondering the possibilities of his power and gauging them to known people.

…

A few more days had come to pass and Morgant and Celina found themselves in the classroom listening to Diana’s lectures on basic arithmetic. Having seen the glimpses of the old world and becoming host to their ancient power Morgant’s knowledge base had widened exponentially. Basic arithmetic and other such technical tasks had become trivial knowledge to him.

“Uh… Ummm…”

However next to him a certain pinked haired snake girl was having troubles counting numbers higher than her own fingers. With a perplexed expression she furrowed her brows trying to figure out the answer to the question in front of her. With an almost pleading look she turned to Morgant and asked for assistance.

Unable to turn down her large puppy dog eyes he returned a defeated smile and helped her.

“Hmm? 5 + 9? If you’re having troubles counting higher than five then let’s split the 9 into 5 and 4. That way we can change the question to 5 + 5 + 4. Does that make it easier Celina?”

After explaining it to her in such a manner her expression instantly lit up with an ‘Oh!’ She quickly thanked Morgant and proceeded to recount the question with her hand.

“Um… 5 and 5… equals… Oh I get it, the answer is 14! How is it Morgant? Am I right?”

Celina asked with a lightened face. Meeting with the anticipated gaze Morgant couldn’t resist patting her on the head as he told her that she was indeed ‘correct’. As they were working Diana casually passed by and smiled when she saw them adorably solving the question. She found that she couldn’t interrupt them, especially Celina who had such a look of happiness on her face.

Though there was a knock on the door which did interrupt their lessons. Miko stood from the hallways with a slightly worried look to her face as she called out Diana for a small discussion. Eventually Diana came back to instruct the class to continue working on their arithmetic problems as she stepped out for a little bit for business. Curious as to what she meant by that Morgant too temporarily left his seat telling Celina that he’ll ‘be right back’.

[Stealth Field], an ability he had gained after undertaking the Psychokinetic Augmentation. Though it wasn’t exactly an ability that made him completely invisible to others it did manage to conceal his movements by eliminating secondary noise. Even for Miko who was part of the Beast-kin race that was said to have exceptional senses wasn’t able to detect Morgant that was closely following them from behind.

He eventually followed them as they entered the meeting room. Morgant of course stayed outside but decided to eavesdrop from just beyond the door.

He wasn’t exactly sure who they were meeting with but the voice of the guest appeared to belong to someone of a relatively young age. Perhaps late twenties or early thirties, at least that is what Morgant had assumed.

“Thank you for meeting with me on such short notice.”

The foreign voice spoke out as they stared their discussion.

“Not at all, though if mister Enrich has come all the way here, then that means they’ve started to move, haven’t they? The [Crimson Knights] that is.”

It was Diana who spoke with a nervous tone. ‘Crimson Knights’ was not a term that Morgant had any idea of, at the very least in his minute knowledge of the current world and his understanding of the Old World, such a term did not exist. Most likely they were a reference to this world since both Diana and Miko knew about them. Also judging from their tone of voice it was unlikely to be a good thing either, though that came with both pros and cons.

A possible confrontation meant that Morgant could further test out his abilities with the excuse of self defense. Though at the same time he would’ve also liked to keep his powers confidential until he could confidently say that there wasn’t too much danger in exposing them to the public. He had decided to withhold his judgment on this mysterious group until after he had personally met with them.

“Unfortunately so, there have been sightings of a few of their scouts and Lord Astaroth wishes for this place to take special care. Though I know not the reason why she is so interested in this place in particular it doesn’t hurt to prepare yourselves.”

The foreign voice continued.

‘Lord Astaroth’? Morgant thought back to where he had heard that name before. After a few moments of deep pondering he remembered that it was during when he had his expedition into [Ingrid’s Tomb]. The small girl introduced herself as ‘Astaroth De Signa’ the ‘Demon Lord’. Though he still felt a little skeptical, with what he had just heard a little more consideration could be given to that self proclaimed title of hers.

“Yes of course, thank you for warning us. I do hope that nothing terrible comes out of all of this but just in case we will prepare what is necessary.”

Diana replied.

“You have my gratitude. Oh and before I leave there was one other message from Lord Astaroth: ‘Beware of the forest of howling wolves’. Unfortunately I do not exactly understand what she meant by that but with her powers of precognition she must have seen some meaning to tell those words.”

It was merely a hunch but somehow Morgant felt as though that specific message was intended for him. ‘Precognition… did she see through all of this?’ If she truly were capable of seeing into the future it could be that this was one of her ways of preparing for some future event.

‘Forest of howling wolves’ were most likely a reference to the forest at night. There was indeed a small patch of forests just on the outskirts of the city, and something was bound to happen there. Again there was no basis for any of this but Morgant felt as though it was an invitation for him.

‘Then I’ll accept that invitation, Astaroth…’.