61 Announcement

One night, Rudeus went to explore the castle because he couldn't sleep. Although he had arrive in Fort Necross more than a month ago, he hadn't really had the time to explore the castle he lived in since his sole focus was on getting as strong as he possibly could before leaving.

He thought to himself, if what Hitogami said was true, that there was a secret room in this castle that even Atofe did not know about, would it not make sense for other secret rooms to exist as well? And what if these rooms also held something that could help him escape?

The castle was huge. Fit for the royalty of a small nation. There were perhaps over a hundred rooms in this giant structure. Rudeus wondered how long it would take to explore them all.

As one of Atofe's Imperial Guards, he had no need to sneak around. There was no such thing as curfews and restrictions for the men who patrolled and guarded the area. Only one place was out of bounds in the entire castle, and that was Atofe's bedroom located in the central tower of the castle's keep.

The only beings that were allowed in to her bedroom were the shadowy servants that kept the castle clean. These were apparently spirits that had been summoned by the creator of the castle – Necross Lacrosse, the Five Elements Demon King. He was one of the immortal demon races, and was well known as an incredibly profound wizard. He was incidentally also Atofe's father.

These shadowy servants performed household chores like keeping the castle clean, laundry, cooking and serving. Honestly, if not for them, Fort Necross would have already fallen into disrepair and filthy neglect since the guards who worked here were all idiots who only knew how to fight.

Occasionally, Rudeus would run into one of them here and there. They looked like 5 feet tall humanoid creatures that were made out of darkness and shadow. They didn't speak, though they could understand orders.

These were also the only inhabitants aside from the Imperial Guards and Atofe herself that resided in the castle of Fort Necross.

Rudeus had no intention of intruding into Atofe's chambers, regardless of how tempting the idea was. He might have been curious about what the bedroom of a Demon King looked like, as well as intrigued in the possibility of finding a method to remove the cursed armour, but at the same time, Rudeus treasured his life.

There was hardly anything of value in the castle, likely a reflection of its owner's personality. Atofe wore no jewellery or ornaments, no dresses or makeup. She was always found clad in some form of armour, as well as a practical bodysuit that hugged her curves.

Rudeus first moved towards the stairs leading to the audience chambers, where Hitogami had said a secret room would appear 332 days from when he first arrived at Fort Necross.

When he reached the flight of stairs, he went to the right side of it instead of climbing up.

The stairs were not made of the same black brick that the castle was constructed out of. This did not mean they did not repel magic, since magic still splashed harmlessly off them like water. Instead, the stairs looked more like they were carved out of a single enormous chunk of marble that radiated mana.

It was definitely out of the ordinary.

On either side of the stairs, there were wall carvings depicting different scenes.

On the left side, the wall carvings depicted what looked to be a war between dragons and demons. There were humanoid figures, that looked human, holding spears and staffs, as well as flying dragons breathing fire on one side, while the other side were ferocious demons twice the size of the humans. Which war this marble relief was illustrating Rudeus did not know.

Throughout history, there had been many wars fought between humanity and the demon races. he real reasons for these wars were already long lost to history. What was taught in history books now were only the human's one-sided narration of what supposedly happened. But Rudeus could not recall there ever being a war between demons and humans who joined forces with dragons.

On the other side of the stairs, and also where Hitogami had said a secret room was hidden, depicted a figure clad in robes and a crown. The figure had the face of a human, but large horns protruded from their forehead, indicating them to be part of the demon race. The figure held a long magic staff which had a skull perched on top.

Around the demonic mage, were carvings of numerous demons bowing in reverence.

Rudeus suspected this wall carving to represent the creator of Fort Necross, the father of Atoferatofe Ryback and also known as the legendary Five Elements Demon King, Necross Lacrosse.

The Five Elements Demon King was known to be a legendary sorcerer, one that stood at the pinnacle in his mastery of magic. According to the stories his seniors had shared with Rudeus, Necross had once been thought of as one of the most accomplished magicians in history.

Necross Lacrosse was a figure who was not properly documented in modern history, having been active since before recorded history was even a thing in human civilization. He was only vaguely mentioned in some historical tomes that Rudeus had occasionally flipped through when he was still living in the Boreas estate.

However, he had learned more about Necross Lacrosse after having spent some time in the very castle the Demon King had constructed through stories and rumours shared by his senior Imperial Guards.

Necross someone who had existed before Laplace's time. Thousands of years ago, he was known as the most accomplished magician in the world. He was also amongst the first few mages throughout thousands of years of history who reached a realm of magic known as God-rank. Had the ranking of the Seven Great Powers existed during the period where he was active, the Five Element Demon King would have likely been counted amongst its ranks as its only spellcaster.

Even to this day, there was only one other person who managed to claim a spot on the Seven Great Powers as a spellcaster, and that was the notorious Demon God Laplace.

Five Element Demon King Necross Lacrosse and Demon God Laplace. Both demons, and both were the only two spellcasters who were strong enough to be considered in the top seven strongest of their generation.

This was because not even magicians who reached God-rank was very strong in single combat.

God-rank spells had incantations that were long enough to fill a heavy tome. Even if a magician was able to cast God-rank spells that had nearly impossible to fulfil requirements for mana capacity, it would take days for them to complete the incantation. Any warrior, even someone only in the Beginner rank, could just walk forward and stab the God-rank magician while they were still casting their ridiculously long incantations.

Besides, offensive God-rank spells had almost never been seen throughout this world's long history, and were said to be forever lost from the world. The only publicly known God-rank spell was found in the Holy Country of Millis, and it was a God-rank Detoxification magic spell.

Magicians were good at long-ranged combat, this was the common sense of this world. And high-ranking magicians were amazing during times of war with their huge area-of-effect spells that could rain devastation on an enemy army. But on the level of individual strength? Even Emperor-rank magicians could easily be cut down by an Advanced-rank warrior if he got close enough.

And yet, Necross Lacrosse was one of only two who were capable of overcoming this supposed common sense of the world.

His exact capabilities were no longer common knowledge anymore. Not even the subordinates of his daughter, Atoferatofe Ryback, could give an accurate description of the man's prowess. The only evidence they could gather were offhanded comments made by Atofe about her father having reached the extremes of five different types of elemental magic as well as being capable of God-rank magic.

But such a statement made no sense. It was common knowledge that amongst offensive magic, there were only four elements – Fire, Water, Wind and Earth. So where did the fifth element come from? It was a mystery, but there had to be some truth since the man's title had been the Five Elements Demon King.

Rudeus gazed at the wall carving depicting Necross Lacrosse while brushing his hand over the ornate art. He was trying to find a hidden mechanism, or something along those lines, that could trigger the secret room to open.

But after a few minutes, he gave up. There was nothing there. No hidden latches, switches or flips. It was just a marble carving that had been sculpted from one large piece of marble. The dense mana that hummed when his hand brushed the marble was suspicious, but Rudeus derived nothing from the sensation.

There was definitely hidden here, that much Rudeus could surmise. Otherwise, what would be the point of so much mana being imbued on a set of stairs? It could be some kind of barrier magic protecting Atofe's throne room, but anyone that could defeat Necross Lacrosse or Atofe would easily be able to get past any kind of barrier.

Sighing, Rudeus left the stairs alone and went to explore the rest of the palace empty-handed.

He roamed the hallways, occasionally going in to some rooms that were not marked as someone else's quarters. Most were empty bed chambers, since this was a palace that was able to comfortably house a hundred people. But Atofe led a rather secluded lifestyle, and the only people inhabiting the castle other than herself were her 30 something Imperial Guards.

Other than these empty bed chambers, there were also empty servant quarters, kitchens, pantries and larders which were all occupied by the shadowy servants who busied themselves even at night.

These shadowy servants did not seem to notice Rudeus even as he intruded into their space, and were unresponsive when asked questions as well.

Rudeus also came across the Palace's armoury. It was a large, warehouse like room with racks upon racks of weapons and armour. The weapons being stored here were all of excellent quality, and he judged that any one of them could fetch a single Asuran Gold Coin if sold. There weren't any magic items on display here; including the notorious black armour the Imperial Guards wore as uniform shackles, presumably stashed away in a more secure location.

As he walked through the halls of the palace, he tried to find hidden rooms and passageways he assumed had to be present in a palace as old and as infamous as Fort Necross. Unfortunately, his efforts gave way to no result.

Feeling tired and a little dispirited, Rudeus gave up on his search and decided to go back to sleep, not that sleeping with the armour on was at all comfortable anyways.

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[IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT]

A/N: This chapter took a while to be released. That was because the 7 chapters that had been scheduled to be released was scrapped by me. There are a few reasons:

1) I was not happy with the quality of the chapters. They were longwinded and tedious to read, even for myself who wrote them. They unnecessarily prolonged the demon continent arc, which I realize is not something readers want to see.

2) I started writing this story at the same time as when I started re-reading the Mushoku Tensei novel. There had been some issues I did not consider when I first started writing, certain plot points that I had forgotten about and thus neglected to address.

The main problem was the reason why Rudeus and Nanahoshi had been Isekai'd in the first place. I won't go in to detail about this, but needless to say, having an OC/SI get reincarnated in their stead does not work with canon. The chapters that I had written before and had been scheduled to be released would have introduced Nanahoshi and Orsted (because someone was supposed to have been teleported next to them).

However, it obviously would not have made sense for Nanahoshi to be in this world when the original Rudeus is not. So I had no choice but to scrap what I had planned before and come up with another reason why there is a new Rudeus instead of the original Rudeus.

Even then, I was not happy with the new cause for Rudeus' reincarnation which I had come up with. It is easy to just invent a new reason for this. For example, one way I came up with was Orsted failing the canon loop and in so doing a new soul was brought to the MT world. Or something outlandish like that. But problem would be if readers would be happy about such a rewrite of the original story.

3) The above two reasons is why I have found myself stuck on how to proceed. It is easy to just carelessly continue writing like I had done so far and ignoring the plot holes a new Rudeus introduces into the timeline. But I know that I would not be happy with that, and it will only stifle my motivation to continue writing.

Thus, with a heavy heart, I have to put this story on hiatus. At least until I have thought of a way to continue writing this story without obvious plotholes that ruin the immersion of readers. I cannot promise the next update will be anytime soon, as I myself am unsure when I will continue writing.

If readers are curious to know what was supposed to happen next, I am okay with releasing a summary of what I was planning for the Demon Continent arc if there is enough interest.