Published: February 1, 2026
The main trading company’s headquarters, where the lord should be.
He hadn’t planned to bring it down, but no matter how you looked at it, the demonic birds had been wiped out far too quickly.
On top of that, the original objective—the wall’s defenses—hadn’t been thinned at all. Which meant his monsters had been intercepted by a small, elite force.
Fighting demonic birds on a moonless night was far more difficult than people imagined. A low‑rank adventurer could easily be slaughtered without doing anything at all.
Even if the lord’s personal guard were chosen from the best, it was hard to accept that they could handle a flock of demonic birds so easily. A flock like that should be an overwhelming threat.
The military police, then? No. He’d never heard any rumors that Malcaid’s military police were so outstanding they could stand against demonic birds.
Adventurers, perhaps. But he’d already confirmed there were no rank s in town.
The few rank a parties had all been assigned to the various sectors of the wall. The chances of them also serving as the lord’s personal guard were low.
It wasn’t impossible that some had been recalled at night, but you didn’t keep your emergency reserves from sleeping at night. Especially when they’d spent the daytime coordinating the other adventurers.
“…No, there was one exception.”
In the east, the lynchpin of control had been that giant golem felled by a single stroke.
If the rumors were true, his epithet was literally “One Cut” (Ittō)—a man of overwhelming strength, who allowed no one near him, standing in absolute solitude.
A man who had no need to mingle with others, standing alone at a lofty height—that made him someone very similar to himself.
It was a pity he showed no aptitude for magic. If he had, there might have been a chance he could stand at the same height.
Holding the ideology that magic was supreme above all, the man’s mouth twisted into a small, warped smile.
“But if I can get my hands on him, he’d be a supreme piece.”
While the gathered refugees slept, the man sat on the vast staircase that led up to the lord’s mansion.
Plenty of other people were awake, unable to sleep; his presence here wasn’t suspicious. The cloak he wore was surely being taken for a simple cold‑weather mantle.
He brushed off the occasional concerned words from passing military police with irritation and focused his mind. He had not been able to reduce the defenders on the wall—but that was no problem.
If “One Cut” was guarding the lord, so much the better. Now, no one would be able to stop him.
He roused the monsters that had been keeping silent.
In experiments inside the labyrinth beforehand, he’d confirmed it was impossible to tamper with and enslave nocturnal monsters. It was a labyrinth, so that couldn’t be helped; such a trivial thing hadn’t shaken his pride in the slightest.
But it was different if he had already enslaved them from the start. It had cost him an immense amount of mana, but it was possible.
It was too difficult to directly enslave all the monsters around the West Gate. So he wouldn’t. If the monsters he had already enslaved outside the labyrinth attacked those near the gate, the latter would turn on the monsters that attacked them.
With a little guidance, the monsters whose hostility had been directed toward him would instead break through the West Gate.
Of course the military police and adventurers would not do absolutely nothing.
So all he had to do was get himself here. Then, sheltered as one of the refugees, he would simply re‑enslave any monsters that slipped past and tried to attack directly.
With his mana boosted by the many mana devices scattered around the city, it was more than possible.
Naturally, the lord’s camp must have realized the West Gate had been repaired. But even if they had, there was nothing they could do to stop it.
The demonic birds had already been largely culled. The strong ones hadn’t been drawn away from the lord’s side.