Kuro no Maou

From ‘that day’, where I faced the 10 puppets and barely survived on the verge of death even with my modified body, there was a change from my daily life till then. Obviously, in a bad direction.

Still, my low sleeping time or the shit-like porridge or soup or some other weird liquid that was given to me had absolutely no change.

And my main duty of being a part of restructuring and modification magic was now changed to daily monster hunting in the name of maneuvering experiments.

I came to know later, but the ‘doll’ I faced on the first day was a type of golem. It seems there were other types of golems other than the ones made of rocks and earth. Well, in this period I faced those too.

Anyway, I was forced into fighting various kinds of monsters.

Dolls equipped with various armaments aka light golems, a group of goblins, one-eyed giant, werewolf, double-headed chimaera, a dinosaur-like dragon, a real fire-breathing dragon etc, etc....

I was almost eaten more than once, also got a large hole in my stomach once, got my limbs torn off as well. But still, as long as I won, those masked guys would give me minimum level of healing, and I somehow was able to live up till now.

But, I can’t help but feel that if I fail even once, all they would do is throw off my corpse.

After all I’m just No.49. Without even a name, I am just a single experiment. If I become unable to give results, there would be no reason to let me live.

Even so, I refuse to die.

Every day may be worse than death, but still I don’t want to die. One day, one day I will definitely leave this place, and return to my previous peaceful life——- It is nothing but a pipe dream now. Even I am not sure as to how long will I be able to continue this happy delusion of mine. I might even die today

From that day, another one of the change is that the time of me being conscious is gradually decreasing. Now, even when my body is awake, the time when I am not self conscious is bigger.

At that time, I know what I do or what I did but actual feeling of doing it by myself doesn’t exist at all.

It’s like I’m controlling the character of a game. Due to which I neither feel pain nor does it hurt. It is quite comfortable.

But, if the continues forever I am confident I will stop being me. Not Kurono Maou, but I’ll end up as only No.49. the fact that this is not far away from reality is extremely frightening——

“No.49, come out.”

A line I am used to listening.

Quickly getting up, I went towards the door. Well then, I wonder what kind of monster I will have to kill today......

I have also gotten used to this circular hall. I have started calling it the arena.

After all, what I am doing is pretty similar.

And today’s opponent is-

“A single light golem?”

As if re-enacting the battle on the first day. Just one wearing a mask covered in steel armour and unarmed.

“No, it’s different.............is it a new model?”

Light golems usually use weapons. Although there hasn’t been a one who could use magic up till now, but I can clearly feel magical power from it.

On top of it, the magical power’s nature feels very similar. A user of black magic similar to me huh?

“........”

There does not seem to be any explanation from the masked guys this time meaning I can start anytime.

“Let’s do this.”

I didn’t say this towards my opponent. A small muttering meant to cheer myself up again today.

I’ll take the first shot——-

“Buckshot!!”

Simply compressing magic together and moulding it into the form of a bullet and shooting it at high speed. Although I call it buckshot, it’s nothing but making many small bullets and shooting them together. But it actually became something like a real shotgun.

As such, without any gun barrel or anything, it’s fired out of thin air. But this is what magic is; even without a gun you can fire a bullet.

Also, an image is important for using magic. Therefore, shouting the skill name is to help make that image clearer. Although the monsters who used magic didn’t do so when fighting me.

Above that what’s important is the trajectory of the [buckshot]. It’s an attack magic meant to quickly cover a wide range, so the power is a bit lacking but it’ll still hurt to take it directly on.

Against small-fry like goblins, you can finish them with just this though.........

But the opponent did not take any impact.

“So it really has a shield........”

And to make it worse he’s better at making it than me. To block an opponent’s attack with a wall made of magic, I started calling it a shield. When I saw even non-humanoid monsters that could use magic make such shields, I realized that it might be a standard to use such shields.

Of course even I can make a black shield with my magic but, it was able to make such a strong shield in that instant. I thought it would atleast crack on getting hit by my [buckshot] but damn, he is completely unhurt.

“—–n”

I was to use my next attack but my opponent moved first.

Without any sound, a black flame magic was released.

“uooh, he can even do something like this?”

It’s an attack method I have not tried yet.

A black flickering flame completely covered my surroundings in an instant. But if the opponent is a black magician, I am also one. Resistance towards black magic is not a property of other elements.

“Weak!”

My body is covered in black flames. It’s not as weak as I said, but not enough to leave any fatal burns.

After all, it’s over once I defeat my opponent. The flame disappeared without any damage—

“Shit!?”

From beyond the flame, a jet black mass came flying.

Due to having the same black magic, even though I was late to see it I still somehow manage to evade it.

“That was dangerous. So it was just a diversion ——“

The true identity of the black mass was a black magic version of a fireball made by compressing those flames together.

As it flew by me I realized that with that density of magical power, I wouldn’t have gotten away with just a little pain or burns if it hit. But it is still literally insufficient to defeat me.

“Anti-Material!!”

An image of a bullet with much more power packed inside it than [buckshot]. That is [Anti-material Rifle].

It is a high calibre rifle which is not meant to be used against humans.

Imagining the strength to turn a man into minced-meat with one shot and then producing it as magic. Image must be detailed and precise as possible. Inside my brain is the image once shown to me by my military otaku friend. And with a rifling pose, I shoot the materialized black bullet while making it rotate at high speed high speed.

*bang*!! [T/L note: the sound effect isn’t strong enough I know lol]

Instead of gunpowder, black magical power exploded and crashing sound was produced. Whether predicting my counter attack, the opponent had already deployed a strong shield.

But this time it’s a bullet focused on strength. As expected my anti-material rifle bullet drilled into the shield but was unable to completely pierce through. Immediately, the shield starts regenerating but—

“One more shot!!”

For the start I didn’t think that one bullet would suffice. With another crashing sound, the bullet is released aiming for the exact same point again. With a *bagin* sound the shield was smashed apart.

I shot the exact same place which had become weak with the first shot. With this there was no way it wouldn’t break. A control of this level was already learnt by me when penetrating the scales of a dragon.

And the moment the shield breaks, a moment of opportunity will definitely come.

And as expected, due to shock of the shield breaking, the opponent is stumbling a bit.

Here, another round of anti-material would suffice but at this distance it is more efficient to attack him directly than making another bullet.

On the battlefield, fast decisions are necessary. Before the opponent does anything I’ll destroy it first!

“Pile Bunker!!!”

The first magic I ever used. The one that pierced through the back of that doll. The activation is simple and thus activation speed is also the fastest.

Before it can fix his posture, I directly aim the chest.

With a compressed density even above [anti-material], the steel armour without any magic is nothing but paper in front of my sure-kill black pile focused in my right hand.

And without any resistance, my fist drilled into the body.

At that moment, a blood splash danced in the air.

“Eh.........”

Red blood spread throughout my vision.

My opponent is a light golem. I have defeated them countless times. They don’t have red blood inside them.

When force is applied on them, they just break apart like porcelain.

Then, whose blood is this?

“...........”

I don’t have a single injury. It’s my body so I know that the best.

But the blood is still flowing out even now.

That’s right, from the chest of the light golem I pierced with my Pile bunker.

“It, It couldn’t be..........”

I get a bad premonition.

Calm down, there’s no way; if this is not a light golem then it must be some other humanoid monster. That’s right, many monsters had red blood after all. This guy must also be one of them.

“..........”

Assuming that, I should have just returned to my prison.

But, before I realized, I reached close to the mask of this guy with blood still flowing out of his chest.

“.........no way.”

Removing the mask, what appeared was black hair and black eyes similar to me, a Japanese guy.

“NO!!!”

I killed him? A human? From my own homeland?

No way, that’s not it. I didn’t mean to do it.

After all this was a monster, If I didn’t defeat him I would have been killed. I didn’t know. I didn’t know my opponent was a human.

........but if I think about it, wasn’t this within my expectations?

If I’m called no.49, then another 48 like me should exist. That’s it. This guy was also brought here suddenly, modified, and was ‘built’ like me to use black magic.

“Sorry.......”

No matter how much pain I took, tears, that had stopped coming out anymore, came back again.

Crying I crouched down there.

As I said a single word of apology, before I knew it, my consciousness had started disappearing.

That day, by self-consciousness didn’t come back even once.

I refused to become the ‘murderer’ Kurono Maou anymore and completely became experiment no.49.