A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

"It's nothing big. Just a damned unlucky day."

Oara spoke. She had already entered the Demon Realm dozens of times.

Alone, no less.

In the beginning, it was just slaying monsters near the entrance.

Later, she started venturing deeper in search of a way to destroy the Demon Realm.

And finally, she went even deeper, armed with a hypothesis.

That's when she encountered a bizarre creature.

A ghoul with a deadly poison in its claw tips.

The moment she saw it, her knight’s instinct screamed—it wasn’t a foe to be taken lightly.

And more than that, it served as evidence for her theory.

What exactly is the Demon Realm?

You could call it another kind of colony.

And a colony disappears when you kill its leader.

So what about the Demon Realm?

"It's the same principle. This one isn't even that big. But it's been rooted here for over fifty years, hasn't it?"

It came up in the conversation along with the subject of poisons. Enkrid listened quietly.

Oara wasn't a scholar, but she was a knight who had devoted her life to eradicating the gray forest Demon Realm before her.

Things that couldn’t be figured out by thinking? That couldn’t even be guessed?

She solved those by throwing her body at them.

If you don’t know, go into the Demon Realm, see it with your own eyes, and find out.

It was a method no one would dare attempt without brute strength on a ridiculous level—but she did it.

And this is what she discovered.

"It's a period of succession."

She didn’t understand the full mechanics, but one thing was clear.

The core of the Demon Realm shifts.

Oara believed that ghoul was the new core sustaining the next generation of the Demon Realm.

In colony terms, it was the leader.

She only had to cross swords with it a few times to know.

It wielded strength, speed, and intelligence on a whole different level.

She didn’t know what the previous core had been, nor did she care to find out.

To Oara, only one fact mattered.

Slay the evolved ghoul, and the Demon Realm would lose its power.

No more dangerous monsters like that one would appear. The rest could be cleaned up over time.

There’d be no need for knights after that.

Roman would take over the job.

He was her successor.

She had already chosen one.

If the opportunity came, she would burn her life away to erase the core of the Demon Realm.

That was her resolve and belief.

Her expression brightened, an unusual sight.

Will surged through her entire body.

It was strange, honestly.

Oara thought as she spoke—it really was strange, but talking to the man before her made her feel a surge of energy.

A part of the omnipotence she felt when she’d first become a knight filled her body once more.