Without realizing it, Ash, who had originally only wanted to save one world, now found himself in the position of having to save two.
Both had carefully arranged balances between opposing forces, with demons and humans locked in endless slaughter, they were so similar it made his stomach hurt.
Of course, it wasn't just his stomach. He had a splitting headache too.
After all, leaving the range of that world's system meant forcefully severing the connection. Just as expected, it caused considerable damage to his mind, like ripping out an umbilical cord by force.
Still, that could wait.
Back when he first stepped into that other world, his only goal had been to save the world he originally came from.
He had only hoped to free his homeland from its long, bloody era of endless war.
But who could have imagined that in a world he had only intended to use to train himself and become stronger, he would unknowingly become so deeply entangled that he ended up with even more bonds and promises to keep?
"Stay calm. I have to keep myself under control. I'll just think of myself as an ordinary demon. No matter what, I can't get dragged in too deeply again. Yeah... I came here just to get stronger, not to go around saving other people's worlds. Please, let this one be a peaceful world."
Within the chaotic darkness between worlds, Ash wrapped himself in his black cloak, turning it golden to form an absolute defense against the turbulence of space-time, while silently praying.
It wasn't that he enjoyed standing by while people died.
It was just that he already had too much on his plate. There was no way he could handle everything. If he ended up having to save another world again by accident, over and over, then would he ever get to go home?
So all he wanted was a more peaceful world, one with plenty for him to study and learn, where he could leisurely explore and seek knowledge while quietly doing what he wanted.
If possible, he even hoped it would have the perfect environment for researching the secret to immortality.
On that point, the memories he had inherited from Potimas could provide considerable help.
As he immersed himself in thoughts of the future to distract himself from the sadness of parting, he had no idea how much time passed.
Then he noticed something unusual and instinctively moved toward it.
Suddenly, the darkness before him gradually faded, revealing a vast landscape.
It was an endless stretch of lush green earth, like an enormous emerald carpet extending from the horizon all the way beneath his feet.
Bathed in sunlight, the rolling grasslands shimmered with golden light. A gentle breeze swept across them, creating wave after wave like a green ocean. In the distance lay one mountain range after another.
Letting the powerful wind rush past his ears as he fell freely through the air, Ash soon spotted a crystal-clear stream winding across the land.
Wildflowers of every kind bloomed along both banks, "This really does look... like a peaceful world? Guess my luck isn't bad."
The scenery was so peaceful that he couldn't help muttering to himself.
Even so, he had no intention of slowing his fall.
———
High above the unfamiliar world, a figure in a gray robe suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
It was Ash.
The next moment, he began plummeting toward the picturesque landscape below.
As he fell, Ash widened his eyes with curiosity, taking in the scenery of this overly poetic world.
The worries and anxiety that had weighed on him gradually faded before such breathtaking scenery, and he couldn't help looking forward to discovering everything this world had to offer.
"Come to think of it, I think I sensed traces of someone passing through earlier... Was someone using a summoning spell to call lifeforms from another world? I wonder who the summoner is. Or maybe they're another traveler passing through like me? Somehow I'm looking forward to finding out..."
Ash quietly murmured to himself.
The very next second...
BOOM!
A deafening explosion shattered the silence of the land.
He wasn't like a certain weird dwarf who had been thrown hundreds of meters into the air by a monster and still landed face-first.
At this point, he simply couldn't be bothered cushioning the impact.
The instant he landed, deep cracks spread outward from the point of impact, while clouds of dust shot high into the air.
The surrounding air quickly became thick with dirt.
Ash, however, acted as though nothing had happened. He casually dusted himself off, climbed out of the crater, and headed south.
Before landing, he had already spotted over twenty scattered single-story wooden buildings across the rolling plains.
Some looked like ordinary homes.
Others were livestock sheds.
Before he reached them, however, hurried hoofbeats approached from the distance.
A brown-haired man with a sword at his waist came galloping over on horseback.
Judging by his urgency, he had clearly come to investigate the tremendous noise Ash's landing had caused.
"XXXX? XX, XXXX??"
The young man with short brown hair jumped off his horse, one hand gripping his sword as he stared at Ash warily while shouting something at him.
"To be honest, I have absolutely no idea what you're saying, so..."
Tilting his head helplessly, Ash said softly, "Don't be so tense. Come here."
A violet light flashed through his eyes.
The brown-haired young man's eyes instantly lost their focus. Like someone whose soul had been pulled away, he blankly walked over to Ash without the slightest guard.
Ash simply reached out and lightly touched him.
In an instant, he obtained all the knowledge he needed.
At the same time, an extremely strange expression gradually appeared on his face.
The man's name was Paul Greyrat.
He had been born into a great noble family.
On his tenth birthday, he had lost his virginity to a noble girl. During his years at the noble academy, he only became more excessive, sleeping around with numerous noblewomen. His conduct could only be described as utterly debauched.
Later, one of the husbands he had cuckolded reported him to his family.
He ran away from home and was taken in by the master of a Water God Style dojo, where he studied swordsmanship.
Not long afterward, however, he sneaked into his senior disciple's room in the middle of the night... and forced himself on her.
That senior disciple happened to be the daughter of the dojo master who had taken him in.
"He's complete human trash. As expected of nobles from a medieval society, their way of doing things is really rotten. No wonder Sense always says I'm kind and gentle. I may have killed countless people, but compared to this guy, I really am a good person?"
Unable to help sighing over how comparison made someone look good, Ash's first instinct was to simply kill Paul and rid the people of a scourge.
But the woman Paul had forced himself on was currently living in Paul's house.
She was using the assault as leverage to make him employ her at a high salary.
Apparently, she had been injured at her previous job, lost her livelihood, and had no money, leaving her no choice but to accept this arrangement.
And now that she was older, she had gradually let go of the past. She had even started having an affair with this nobleman's son, now the knight of a nearby village.
Of course, this world practiced polygamy.
Under normal circumstances, there would have been no need to sneak around.
The only reason was that Paul had promised his wife, a follower of the Church of Monogamy, that he would obey its teachings.
"But... greeting a woman by touching her breasts first, then her butt, is supposedly proper noble etiquette for showing respect? Is that actually true? What kind of messed-up world is this? Or... am I really just too young?"
Memory reading wasn't instantaneous. He could only skim through selected parts.
As a result, Ash couldn't tell whether these people were unusual or whether the whole world was like this.
He could only keep shaking his head, trying to force the vivid images from Paul's memories, countless women, out of his mind before quickly leaving with a sigh.
"I feel like he was probably just making things up, but... this world really does seem strange. This Paul sleeps with women everywhere he goes, and most of them seem pretty happy about it too? I don't get it. I seriously don't get it."
Muttering complaints he walked away.
Only after the sun had completely set did the effects of the mental magic finally wear off.
The young villager, no, the nearby knight, Paul, suddenly came back to his senses as though waking from a dream.
He instinctively looked around.
Everything was empty.
No one was there.
Everything that had just happened felt like a bizarre dream.
At least everything before meeting Ash was perfectly clear.
After that, however, it was as though his memory had been cut off completely.
Scratching his head, Paul muttered to himself in confusion, but ultimately failed to make sense of it.
Left with no choice, he took hold of his horse's reins, mounted up, and slowly rode home, soon disappearing into the deepening night.