Makai Hongi

Back when I was just an Ogre brat.

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I was so weak that everyone said that I would not live long.

This was because my mana level was so much lower than everyone else’s.
You could say that I was incapable of storing mana in my body.

The Demon World was filled with mana.
It was replenished when you ate, and you even took it in when you breathed.
Though, it was in small amounts.

And mana was inside of things you ate, such as plants and the flesh of animals.
Basically, replenishing your mana was a simple thing.

But in my case, I couldn’t store much mana in my body no matter how much I breathed and ate.
I could only store a miniscule amount.
Barely enough to support my body.

After all, residents of the Demon World used mana just to live.

And I had no strength.
Even my insides were weak.
I couldn’t run, and it wouldn’t take much to make me pass out.

I would not be able to live long like this.
That’s what everyone thought, and so I was left alone.

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Knowing that I would die if nothing changed, I became desperate.
And so I headed out to a place that was thick with mana.

I headed to the miasma zone.
It was a place where the mana had pooled after changing and becoming condensed and corrupted.

Now, why would I go to such a place?
I thought that if the mana was thicker, then I would be able to inhale more at once.

And so I entered the miasma zone, and before much time had passed at all, I was poisoned and collapsed.

It was the obvious outcome.
And my second life as an Ogre should have come to an end.
But by some coincidence, I was helped by a man who was passing by.

Thinking back on it, it really was strange.
It didn’t matter who you were.
Everyone in the Demon World would get poisoned if they stepped foot in the miasma zone.

No one went inside if they could avoid it.
So, why had that man been there?

And the most important part.
While the Demon World was ruled by meat heads, this man knew a lot about souls.

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And in one glance, he could see that I had two of them.

In the Demon World, the soul resided within your Orb of Control.
And it wasn’t just mine that was inside, but the soul of the other me was there as well.

And the man knew it.
Why had he known so much about souls? I couldn’t help but wonder.

“I think that I met you in the Demon World.”
After all, he had told me his name.

—It was Yamato.

“…I see.
Yes, I remember it now.
You really can’t tell when someone is inside of a vessel.
But I only met one person when I was in the Demon World.
It was a dying Ogre child.
And that child is you?”

“Aye.
You helped me when I lay dying in the miasma zone.
And I’m grateful for that.”
“That child.
He had two souls inside of him.
But I sense a second one now?”

“The other soul was with me right up until the end.
I had slowly increased the capacity of our souls, just like you instructed me.
And it allowed us to live normal lives.
…No, perhaps I went a little too far, and it was constrained.
Regardless, I died in the Demon World and the other me disappeared in the Under World.
He gave me the path of reincarnation, and left.
We were separated there.”

As I had increased my mana too much, the other me was not able to use our body for very long.
That was about the only downside of increasing my mana.

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And our separation.
It should have been me whose soul was purified in the Under World.
And he should have been reincarnated.
But he had allowed me to go, and he went off somewhere.

“That is a strange story.
Souls that were stuck together were then separated? But souls are not supposed to be affected by distance or substance…how?”
Yamato was deep in thought.

“So you really were in the Demon World.
But why? What about the barrier surrounding the Human World?”

If he was in the place between time and space, then he might have just returned.
But Yamato was in the Human World.
Within the barrier that Zeus had made.

How had he been able to come to the Demon World over a decade ago?

“Indeed.
It was quite the coincidence that we met there.
You must be very curious about that.
Why did I happen to be there… And how I got through Zeus’s barrier.”

“Of course, I am.
If it was easy to get through the barrier, you could have just returned everyone to the Demon World.”

“Then I will tell you.
What happened during that time.”
And then Yamato began to explain.

–It all started with Hera.

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Long ago.
Yamato nearly defeated Hera in the Human World.
But she escaped before he could finish her off.
That being said, the barrier was still strong.

So it was clear that she had to be somewhere inside of the Human World.
However, he was never able to find her again.

“And so I prioritized the search of my own kin, and the destruction of the Celestials.”
And then Yamato made the Other World and stayed inside.

In other words, Hera was still out there.
Was she planning revenge? No.
Her purpose would be the same.
She only cared about bringing Zeus back.

“It was like a curse she had cast.
At the very end, what should have been cast on Zeus was cast on me.
And my soul and body were separated.”

It was the final defense of someone who was cornered.
Something she had prepared in order to take Zeus’s soul back.

And because it was something that was supposed to be used on Zeus, it would have a great effect on Yamato.

And so his soul left his body…and drifted away.

“Well, that is something.”
Yamato and Hera really don’t go together, huh?