A

by Ineedalife8394

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5. Hh

Chapter 6: Infiltrating Fort Necross

WE WERE IN THE Gaslow Territory, one of the most hostile regions

on the Demon Continent. The monsters that spawned on the Demon Continent were far more powerful than those on other continents and more numerous. There was still an ecological balance, however. Just as there were large numbers of Acid Wolves and Pax Coyotes in Biegoya, so too did this region have its native flora and fauna.

There was the Basilisk, with its petrifying breath. The Black Drake, soaring unchecked through the skies with its powerful jaws and poison talons. The giant Lakewater Bug that created pools of its own mucilage, then attacked anyone who came to drink from them. Then there was the White-Fang Cobra, highly agile and covered in hard scales that resisted magic...

And beasts aside, some places belched poison gas and others gaped into deep ravines. Given that all the monsters were brutally vicious, the whole place was dotted with danger zones. As such, the Gaslow Territory in particular had a reputation as a miserable pit. Absolutely lousy with demons. Next to no towns or settlements were established there, and those that did exist were heavily fortified. Hardly any adventurers came here.

Some, however, allegedly saw this place as aspirational. It was home to the Demon Continent's greatest fort, built by the immortal Necross Lacross, one of the Five Great Demon Kings. The master of that fort was Demon King Atoferatofe—Gaslow Territory's Immortal Demon King.

In the war some four hundred years earlier, she had fought on Laplace's side, raining fury down on the battlefield and crossing swords countless times with Armored Dragon King Perugius. There was a legend about her that was especially heeded by warriors:

"Journey forth, you who seek power.

The Demon Continent is your destination.

Travel its lands. Ascend to Fort Necross.

Show your might before the Demon King, and lust for yet greater might.

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Only then may all-conquering power be yours."

Yup—those who were in search of the fort were knights errant. They followed the legend here, seeking power. No one who made it here ever returned, so in the end, no one knew if the legend was true or a mere fairy tale.

Well, except for me.

Around half of those knights died on the journey. The majority of those who survived were assimilated into Atofe's personal guard. Someone probably did make it home every now and then...but it takes more than one or two people knowing the truth to kill a good yarn like that. I was pretty sure that Atofe's retainer Moore was the one spreading the rumors. It was a nasty trap, preying on purehearted warriors. Devilish, even.

Anyway. Our party that was heading to go see Atofe consisted of three members: me, Eris, and Roxy. I brought along a bottle of wine as an offering. Orsted told me that Atofe liked to drink.

There was probably still going to be a fight even if I plied her with alcohol.

Fort Necross was a three-hour journey from the teleportation circle ruins. It wasn't such a long way, but the ruins with the teleportation circle were deep in the mountains. Some Black Drakes were using them as a nest.

The black dragons came flying at us and we sliced them up, one after another. The dragons themselves, we barbecued, and then we turned the eggs we found into an omelet to keep our strength up as we pushed on. Droves of other monsters came swooping down from up high to attack us, so we trudged on, avoiding some and driving off others. By the time we got to the bottom of the mountain, a whole day had passed.

I'd never seen a teleportation circle this close to a human settlement before. Come to think of it, I'd never seen a human settlement somewhere so thoroughly steeped in magic.

"That was no sweat," Eris said. She'd cheerfully cut through every monster that came at us, as if to sell us on the benefits of daily training.

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She had few opportunities besides her constant drills to slake her battle lust, rumors that she snuck out to hunt monsters outside of town aside.

"This is a harsh place. I shudder to think of what would happen if I came here alone." Roxy looked worn out. She'd done her best to plot a route where we'd go relatively unnoticed by monsters. It was all down to her that the bottle of wine had come through unscathed.

"That's all you've got, Roxy? You're rusty!" Eris laughed.

"I can't deny that. My reflexes were a bit sharper back when I was adventuring, but now I sit around at my desk all day..."

"Better watch out, or your students won't take you seriously." "You'll have to start training me, then."

"You're on!"

While Eris and Roxy talked, I looked down at the fort below us. The first thing you noticed was that the whole thing was black. I guessed it was built from the same material as Kishirika's castle. It wasn't especially vast —just a castle and a town protected by thick walls. Not uncommon in this world.

What qualified it as a fort was its structure. The walls divided it into five blocks, each adjoining the others to form a terrace. The lower three were an ordinary castle town. The upper two were full of buildings with no connection to daily life and a great amphitheater. A military facility, most likely. Right at the top was a black castle-like building that towered imposingly over the rest. That would be the keep.

We ended up approaching the fortress from behind. It seemed pretty defenseless to me. It made sense, given it was protected on this side by the mountains.

"Oh, I see people," I said. They came into view as we approached: five of them, clad in black armor, standing on the wall. They'd seen us and started clamoring about something.

"Was it bad manners to arrive from this side?" I asked.

"There isn't really etiquette around that. I expect they just don't get a lot of travelers coming down from the mountains," Roxy replied decisively. Eris was already racing ahead. What do we do if they shoot at us from above? I wondered, but the five figures on the walls showed no signs of moving. Eventually, we reached the base of the wall. I spotted a big door, so this was probably some kind of back entrance. It was a black-

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painted gate in a black wall, so I hadn't noticed it from farther away, but drawing closer it became immediately obvious.

"Well met, heroes! You have done well to reach Fort Necross." Demon tongue. It'd been a while... They say you never forget how to ride a bike, but apparently a language once learned was much the same.

What was that about heroes?

"You must be stout of heart to have traversed the demon mountains!"

"Do you seek the honor of champions or the power of the Demon King?"

"Whichever, it makes no difference!"

"If you wish to enter, here!"

"First you must defeat us, Lady Atofe's personal guard!"

In summary, they weren't going to let us through. That tracked. No country anywhere would let in a strange man who showed up on their back doorstep.

"Very well. We'll go around to the front gate," I replied, also in demon tongue. When in Rome, as they say. I planned on going around as we were told. I was coming here to ask for a favor, so I ought to do things right. The black-armored figures didn't reply. They seemed kind of perplexed. One appeared to be asking another what to do. I knew what to expect with Atofe, but this back-and-forth at the gate was a surprise. Had I said something wrong...?

"Oh and, I'd really appreciate it if you could tell Captain Moore that Rudeus Greyrat has brought Queen Atofe an offering," I added. Maybe I should have led with that. Make it clear that I wasn't suspicious. With that, I turned to leave, but then a voice rang out.

"Halt! You are a guest of Queen Atofe?!"

"That's right!" I replied. "I had the honor of her acquaintance, very briefly! So I came to pay her my regards!"

There was a brief pause. "Very well! Wait there a moment!"

Well, well. They were going to let us in. That was a relief. Going the long way around would've been a pain. Eris grumbled, but I was happy to take the back entrance. If the alternative was fighting our way through each of the guard's Ultimate Four, that was a big no thank you from me.

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We were in the audience chamber at Fort Necross, an open-air affair with no ceiling. A long staircase wedged between thick pillars engraved with images of devils led up to a platform. It was ringed by candles burning with purple flame. In front of each candle was stationed a soldier in black armor standing at attention. The platform had no walls or handrails. From the edges, you'd probably get a good view of the castle town below. At the very back sat a menacingly ornamented throne.

Hold up, this isn't an audience chamber. It's more like, y'know, the place where you draw an enormous magic circle to summon an ancient archdevil or whatever—at the last possible moment. An arena where the band of brave souls fight to stop a demonic king.

That's the kind of place this was. It wasn't an audience chamber. It was an arena.

"Well met, heroes! You have done well to make it here!"

Sitting on the throne was a woman of about Eris's height who wore the same black armor as the others. She stood up, looking genuinely excited, then spread her robe with a flourish. The evening light of the sunset behind the mountains cast deep shadows over her.

She cut a truly majestic and wondrous figure. If you just focused on how she looked, that was.

"I am Immortal Demon King Atoferatofe Rybak!" she declared.

It had taken us about two hours to come in the back gate, be taken to Moore, and then escorted up to this arena. She must have gone out of her way to get everything ready so fast...unless she'd waited for sunset because she knew it'd make a good scene. Regardless, it was a five-star effort.

"You should be proud to stand here, mortals!" said one of the guards. The others followed, one after another.

"Brave champions, you have overcome many trials! We ask you this!"

"Do you seek the honor of champions? The renown of heroes? Or perhaps...the power of the Demon King?"

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What a mean question. If you said honor or hero, you got the crap beaten out of you then made to serve the Demon King. If you said you wanted the power of the Demon King, you got the crap beaten out of you then made to serve the Demon King. It was an ultimatum to which the only answer was "yes."

Eris snickered.

Eris is smirking? Right, she's into this sort of thing.

"Lady Atofe...mumblemumble..." One of the guards wrapped up in black armor standing beside Atofe went to whisper something in her ear. Something about today's itinerary, perhaps. I'd made it clear that I was here to apologize, but now we were talking about heroes and whatever. Chances were high that some misunderstanding had occurred.

"Shut up! Like I can tell from over here when it's so bright!"

Atofe Punch! Moore went flying.

"Show me your faces!" Atofe demanded, striding over. The fist she'd just used to punch out Moore was still clenched tightly. She came right up to me, then said, "Oh." The moment our eyes met, her mouth twisted in an evil smile, and she breathed, "It's you."

Gotcha, was what it sounded like. Scary.

"...Um, good to see you after all this time."

"After that—after you and Perugius! That trap you set for me, and you just—you come to me, you stroll on in here..." A vicious smile was spreading across her face. But I'd seen this coming. That's why I brought an offering. I was here to apologize. Honestly.

"Yeah, about that... I'd like to, ah, offer you an apology—"

"Very good! You've grown into a man since I saw you last. I like that face on you; that's the face of a man who isn't afraid. All the brave souls who challenged me wore such a face!"

Atofe hadn't listened to a word I'd said. She just pressed her face up close to mine, eyes wide with excitement, then bared her teeth in a grin. I could practically see the lens flare on her fangs.

"That's the face of a man who isn't afraid to die."

Wh-what? That's weird. I'm sure I anticipated all this... Huh? How come my legs are shaking? Ah, crap. Not just my legs, I'm shaking all over...

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"Huh?" Just then, something red filled my field of vision. Red hair. "Stand down," Eris said, inserting herself between me and Atofe. "Who're you?"

"I'm Eris Greyrat."

"Oh ho." Atofe took a step back. "That fearlessness. That burning rage. That sword of yours. And even now you're thinking about swinging it at me." She appraised Eris with a piercing gaze. Eris glared back with a feral gleam in her eyes.

You could have cut the tension with a knife.

"Are you a champion?"

"That's right," Eris retorted.

You are not! What are you even doing?

"That woman beside you, she's sure appraising her surroundings... Is she a magician?"

"...I am," Roxy said hesitantly, tipping the brim of her hat. "My name is Roxy Greyrat. It's an honor to make your acquaintance."

I feel like you could've figured out she was a magician from the outfit...

"You look fearless as well. Are you going to fight me?"

"If you are set on killing my apprentice, Great Demon King, I will do what little I can to stop you." Even level-headed Roxy was gearing up for a fight. I must've looked really scared if they were squaring up to protect me.

Come on. Pull yourself together.

"So then...you're..." Atofe turned to look at me. I wasn't shaking any more. I returned her stare with determination. "What about you?"

What about what about me? What's that supposed to mean? I don't know how to answer that.

I forced myself to calm down and think. Eris was a champion; Roxy was a magician. Sylphie wasn't here, but she'd probably be a magic knight or a thief. So I'd be the cleric... Wait, no. Cliff was way more of a cleric than I was. I obviously wasn't a warrior, either. Which left...

"I'm a magician?" I tried.

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"Moron! As if you'd have two magicians!"

Getting called a moron by a moron, ouch... Okay, I got the logic. One person per class. That was the rule.

Wait. But if I wasn't the magician, what was I? In this party, what role fit me best?

Hold on. Here we need to take a deep breath and look at the big picture.

Eris was the champion. She'd literally strode up to shield me from Atofe as I stood here trembling. My role was to be rescued by her... Meaning...

"I'm the princess?" I tried again.

"Eh heh heh, princess, you said? Eh heh heh...heh?"

Crap, I confused Lady Atofe. There was doubt in that laugh.

Atofe had been staring at me like a carnivore eying up its prey, but now she glanced around, looking a little lost.

Roxy rolled her eyes. "Don't be silly."

Eris, taking her side, added, "Yeah, you know what you are. A sage or whatever!"

The thing is though, Eris, after becoming Rudeus the Celibate, I haven't been all that sage-like. I'm a fool. Ariel even suggested I become a jester...

"Whatever, I don't care. I'm Rudeus Greyrat."

I am who I am! And nothing more or less!

"Eh heh heh, that's funny! All three of you are Greyrats, I see... Associates who just happen to have the same name banding together! That's hilarious!"

It was pretty funny, when you interpreted it like that, but Eris and Roxy were both my wives.

Good. I was regaining my composure.

"Lady Atofe. Before we fight, will you at least hear me out?" I said. I made my quaking legs behave, then faced her.

"Why?" she said.

"Because I came to talk to you."

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"I hate talking. Nothing you humans say makes any sense."

"I think today it'll be quite straightforward," I said, then looked over at Roxy.

She lowered her pack, then from it produced a wooden box. I took it, raised it up before me, then held it out to Atofe in tribute. "First of all, I offer this. A gift to express my apologies for the past."

"What is it?"

"Wine from the Asura Kingdom."

"Booze!" Atofe exclaimed, her attitude totally changed.

It was exactly as I'd been told. According to Orsted, one of the champions who'd come to fight her had challenged her to a wine-tasting battle, then tried to beat her after getting her drunk off her face. The final result, by the way, was a loss for Atofe. At wine-tasting, that is. She'd won the actual fight.

"The Notos Greyrats gifted this wine to the Asura Kingdom at the coronation. It is both rare and very expensive."

"Does it taste good?"

"Very," I replied.

I hadn't sampled it myself, so I had no idea if that was true or not. Ariel said it had been made a hundred years ago. It was supposed to be so delicious that the winery that produced it and their vineyards had been made into a supplier exclusively for the use of the royal household. It would be a waste to simply down it all, so the wine was left to rest in the depths of the winery's cellar, only brought out on vanishingly rare occasions. A hundred years had passed since then. Lately, the royal household had hosted a great number of important events, so the supply had been totally exhausted. But that was only the royal household's supply. Some still remained in the vaults of the Notos Greyrats who had produced it. They had given ten bottles from that vault to Ariel at her coronation—Pilemon's attempt to suck up. Nowadays, one bottle was worth around three hundred Asuran gold coins, or about two Linias. It ought to be good.

I didn't pay for it. Are you kidding? I asked Ariel if she had any good alcohol, and she'd given it to me. I didn't learn how much it cost until much later. That was a bit of a shock.

Between the pricey booze and how readily she had agreed when I

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came to her about the King Dragon Realm, it really felt like Ariel was fishing for a favor, lately. It made me a bit nervous. One day soon she might call it in.

"It's good, huh?"

"Yes. So I hope you'll forgive me for the past."

"I will. I'm far more generous than Perugius could ever be, y'know! I won't hold a grudge over something stupid like that."

"Thank you very much," I said. Now that debt was canceled out, at least. I think? She might forget she'd forgiven me once she'd drunk the wine, though.

"But I won't forgive Perugius. One day I'm gonna kill him."

That's between you two. I won't stand in your way. Perugius was hardly about to trek out here to kneel before her.

"Was that it?" Atofe asked.

"No, there's one more thing."

I reached into Roxy's pack and took out another bottle. This one was from Orsted. It didn't come with a wooden box, so I didn't know its maker or its price. There was some kind of writing engraved into the old bottle, and the liquid was cloudy. Orsted had said that Atofe would probably appreciate it, so I doubted it had gone bad.

"This is—"

"Whoa!" Atofe exclaimed, snatching it from me. "No way, this is— you gotta be kidding! Mwahahaha!"

The suits of black armor started muttering at her sudden outburst. Amidst the uncertainty, one sidled over to us. It was Moore, the guy who'd been lying in a pool of blood after having his face smashed in earlier.

"Look! Well?" Atofe demanded.

Moore took the bottle and scrutinized its surface. Then he noticed a marble-like object submerged in the liquid and made an exclamation of surprise.

"It's exactly the same as the last one," he said.

"Right?!" she agreed, then turned to me again. "Oi, you! Where'd you get this?"

"Well, my master, the Dragon God Orsted said to bring it if I

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wanted to befriend Lady Atofe—"

"The Dragon God?! That settles it then!" Atofe trembled all over as she gazed at the bottle. "This is the very drink Urupen sent Carl and I when we got married! The fabled secret spirits of the Dragon Clan!"

Ahhh, so that's the story. No wonder she likes it.

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"Its name: Nile Ale, the Dragon God's Jewel!"

Man, what a killer move. I've got goosebumps.

Was the stuff inside actually ale? The color of the bottle was so dark it was hard to tell.

"That day was the one time I got to drink this, never once before or after. I've been hunting for it ever since, but now I've found it at last!" I practically heard a Da da da dan! sound effect as she raised the bottle. She looked thrilled.

I was just happy that the gift went down so well.

I felt bad we'd bowled over Atofe so easily, but this was a crushing victory for Orsted.

"So, that ale—"

"That's it! I'll beat you and then the ale will be mine!" Atofe declared, the wine in her right hand and the Nile Ale in her left. She took what she wanted by force. A demon king to the end.

"I'm giving it to you!" I said quickly.

"You what?!"

"It's a small symbol of friendship offered by the Dragon God Orsted to the Immortal Demon King Atofe!" I shouted.

When talking with Atofe, it was important to be loud and forceful so that you didn't get steamrolled.

"Eh?" A question mark popped up above Atofe's head. Around three had materialized while her brain shorted out. "What, are you chicken?" she yelled. "Fight me!"

"We can fight if you want, but I'm giving you the ale!"

"I don't get it!"

You don't get it, huh? That's too bad. I tried to explain it as simply as possible...

"It's not a banquet, it's not a party, and it's not a thank you or an apology. Why would you give this to her?" asked Moore.

Moore to the rescue. Right, I did need to explain that bit.

"The thing is, I have to fight this guy called Geese in the near future. He's gathering powerful warriors under him to bring me down... I was

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hoping to ask Lady Atofe for her assistance in that battle."

I wasn't going anywhere near the subject of the war with Laplace eighty years from now. Orsted said that even if I asked her to work with me to fight Laplace, she'd never agree, and it'd likely end in a battle. She wasn't duty bound to Laplace or anything—it was simply too difficult for her to understand. In all the futures Orsted knew, Atofe fought for Laplace without fail, so he'd arrived at the conclusion that it was easier not to bother persuading her otherwise.

I could talk to Moore about the details later.

"You want Lady Atofe to fight together with you?" Moore said.

"That's right," I replied. Thanks to Moore's easy-to-understand translation, Atofe seemed to be following the conversation.

"Aha, I get it! I'm no dummy! I like it! Let's do it!"

Wait, never mind, that sounded like she wasn't following. She was nodding like Eris did after saying "Okay!" when she had no clue what was going on.

At least this response meant Geese stood zero chance of smooth- talking her into anything.

"Is that all you have to say?!" she demanded.

"Yes."

And thus, I won Atofe's allegiance. The Death God and the Immortal Demon King. By getting two people who'd beaten me before on my side, I felt like I'd gained a major advantage. Wherever Geese was, whatever he was doing, right now I felt like things were going smoothly on my end. At any rate, I'd come here prepared to have to fight. Avoiding that was a huge relief—

"Now, we duel!" Atofe yelled.

Um?

"You said, 'before we fight' before! You're done talking. It's time to duel!"

Um, did I say that? I... Wait, what?

I gave her the wine, then she forgave me. Then she promised to join my side... There was no reason for us to fight. This wasn't right. Orsted hadn't said anything about this!

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"I am Immortal Demon King Atoferatofe Rybak! Come at me, all three of you heroes!"

Why, though...?

I was hesitating and there was a question mark hovering above Roxy's head. Atofe's personal guard didn't seem surprised, so this was probably Atofe's usual routine. There was a general sense of "Not again..." among the audience. Moore seemed similarly resigned.

Only one person stepped forward as though they'd been waiting for this.

"You'll fight me," said Eris. She strode right up to Atofe until their noses were practically touching, as though she could care less about distance.

"You wanna fight me one-on-one?" Atofe said. They looked like they might kiss, they were so close, staring each other down.

"You're not worth Rudeus's time," Eris hissed.

"You talk big, kid," Atofe replied. Eris's goading had hit its mark. The murder in her eyes grew more and more intense. "In a hundred years, you're the only one who's ever talked like that to me."

It would have sounded pretty badass if she hadn't been holding a bottle in each hand. She'd smash them for sure if she launched into a battle like that...

Just then, Moore appeared at her side, saying, "I'll look after those," and took them away.

"You'd do well as one of my guards. I'll smash you to a pulp, then add you to their ranks," Atofe said.

"When you lose, will you hear Rudeus out?" Eris retorted.

"Fine."

Fight, win, make nice! Was she that simple? I guess I'd messed up. I'd been thinking about this wrong. "Here's an offering, to forgive me, okay? And here's another offering, so become my ally, okay?" All too complicated for Atofe!

Fine, fine. I knew from the start that this fight was practically inevitable.

We'd fight, win, then make Demon King Atofe our ally. We'd prepared for this.

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All right, let's go.

"Lady Atofe, please wait." It was Moore. He ran over to Atofe, then whispered something in her ear. He was trying to convince her not to fight, I guessed. Ah, there was nothing like a man with a little sense. There was no point in pointless fighting. Love and peace.

"Say what...?" Atofe didn't look pleased at whatever he was saying. Telling a battle-starved demon king not to fight was insanity.

See? Now Lady Atofe's mad. She's gonna punch you, I thought, just as Atofe called out, "Hey, you!" at me. She was beckoning. Crap, was I going to get punched? I wondered if I could block it... If she hit me in the face like with Moore I was a goner.

I walked, trembling, over the Atofe, but she just stared intently at me. She didn't seem like she was winding up for a punch.

"You're the princess," she said.

"Huh? Oh...I guess? Um, I think so?"

"Eh heh heh. Here I thought you were a man."

"I am a man."

"Say what? You're a princess even though you're a man?"

Gender's so fluid these days. Anyone can be a princess, I thought, but shut my mouth tight before I could say it out loud. Overly complicated words were a guaranteed ticket to getting my face bashed in.

"Hmph. Fine. Let's do this!" Atofe suddenly grabbed me around the waist, lifted me up, and threw me over her shoulder.

Uh oh, a piledriver?! But it's okay! The Magic Armor will handle it!

I braced myself, but she didn't move to throw me on the ground. She held onto me like a sack of potatoes. If I was a princess, she shouldn't haul me over her shoulder like this! It should be more, I don't know, dainty-like?

"Rudy?"

"Rudeus?!" Roxy and Eris cried out. When I looked for them, I found the ground was suddenly far away. Atofe, with me on her shoulders, was flying.

This was bad. Way worse than a piledriver. Some other, more incredible move was coming...like a demon-king bomb! Crap! If I fell

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from this height, my skull would crack open like an egg! I squirmed, then got both my arms around Atofe in an attempt to escape—

"Hey! Hands off my butt!" she yelled. I hurriedly let go.

It's not like that, I swear. I wasn't groping you or anything, and I definitely wasn't being unfaithful! I didn't have any control over it.

She did have a nice butt, though. It was tight. Nothing but the best on a demon king, heh.

While I fretted, Atofe called out, "Champion! I have your princess! If you want her back, take her from me at Fort Necross!"

Um, I'm pretty sure this is Fort Necross...

"Eh heh heh... Mwa hah hah, mwaaaahahahaha!" she cackled. Her voice echoed through the back of my skull as the ground shrank further and further away. Where in the world was she taking me? What was going on? In the midst of my confusion, I caught a fleeting glimpse of Eris and Roxy, gawping up at us in stunned amazement.

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Chapter 7:

Dueling Atofe's Ultimate Four

RUDEUS HAD BEEN KIDNAPPED. Eris and Roxy had watched in blank

shock as Atofe slung him over her shoulder and shot up into the sky. They were slow to react, both because it all happened so fast, and because it was so...blah. A real anticlimax. Atofe had picked Rudeus up like it was the typical next step in the process and Rudeus had resigned himself to it. Maybe he knew, somehow, that this was all part of the routine from her perspective.

"Rudeus!" Eris yelled. Once she'd processed that Rudeus had been kidnapped, she acted fast. With a mighty yell, she drew her sword and ran after Atofe. Atofe's personal guard stood in her way, so she attacked them.

"Guh!" grunted a guard who parried her, thrown on his butt by the force of her blow.

"Outta the way!" Eris demanded.

"Stop, listen!"

"Tell your demon king that!"

"Hrm..." The guy trailed off, at a loss for words.

Had Rudeus been there, he might have raised an eyebrow at Eris talking like that. She wasn't as bad as Atofe, but Eris wasn't a listener by any means.

"Please listen to me!" the guard insisted.

"I don't have anything to talk to you about! Give Rudeus back!"

"Fine, okay, here goes..." He cleared his throat. "Steps there are that you must take if you want the princess back! Mwahahahaaa!"

"Are you screwing with me?!"

"Whuh?!" The guard barely managed to deflect Eris's second blow before retreating a few steps back.

Eris howled, her gaze roving around the sky. Above them, Atofe kept flying in circles. It was like she was antagonizing Eris personally, which only intensified Eris's frustration. But there was nothing she could do against an opponent who could fly.

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Then she saw Atofe alight upon a corner of the fort. Her eyes lit up. She dashed forward again.

"Eris, stop," came a calm voice from behind her.

Eris spun around. "How come?!" she demanded. Holding onto the hem of Eris's shirt, calm and collected, was Roxy. "Did you not see?! She kidnapped Rudeus! We've gotta save him!"

"The guards said there are steps we have to take if we want to do that," Roxy said patiently. "Why don't we hear what they are first?"

"But, Roxy!"

"Eris, please calm down. Look at me. I'm calm."

So what if you are? Eris might well have thought, but Roxy's words struck a chord with her. She recognized that she was, in fact, not thinking clearly, and even began to consider that maybe she should. If you lost your cool in battle, your rage rose to the surface. When that happened, your opponent could read your sword. And once they did, the battle was as good as lost. She knew that from Isolde's training. That explained how the guards had parried her so easily.

Eris lowered her sword from above her head to a neutral position, then took a deep breath. Her fear over Rudeus was making it impossible for her to stay still. She tried to contain it but couldn't.

"I'm worried about Rudeus," she said.

"I know," Roxy agreed. "But there's a legend about Immortal Demon King Atoferatofe."

"A legend?"

"Yes. In the legend, our demon king kidnaps a princess as a prank." Eris relaxed. She'd heard that story herself.

It was a common tale about Atofe—actually, about a few different demon kings. The sort of tale where a demon king kidnaps the princess, then the hero has to overcome their challenges to save her. When Eris was little, she'd heard stories like it time and time again and dreamed of one day being in a similar tale.

At the same time, she realized that this princess thing all started because of what Rudeus had said. Her expression changed to indignation.

One thing still didn't make sense to her.

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"What happens to the princess after the kidnapping?" she asked. When she was little, that question had never crossed her mind.

"The demon king summons the hero."

"Okay, then what?"

"Then they fight, I believe."

Question marks popped up over Eris's head. This wasn't adding up.

Hadn't they been about to fight Atofe? It looked that way. A fight should've been the next logical step.

So why?

"I don't get it," Eris said.

"Shall we ask them about it?" Roxy suggested.

Eris hesitated, but then she nodded and said, "Fine." She didn't have the firmest grasp on how they had ended up here, but she knew from their everyday life that she could trust Roxy.

The other woman might be a bit spacey, but she was brimming with know-how and she took good care of everyone. She also listened patiently to Eris's worries when they came up and explained anything she didn't understand.

Once, out on a walk in Sharia, they were surrounded by a band of weirdo adventurers. It was a dicey situation. If Eris had been alone with Leo, she could've come out swinging, but Lara chose that day to cling desperately to Leo's back. Eris couldn't let things get violent. At the same time, the adventurers didn't look likely to stand down. How could she fight and keep Lara safe? While Eris stood there trying to work out this dilemma, Roxy took charge. She swiftly placed herself between Eris and the adventurers, then got them both talking and brought everyone onto the same page. The situation was resolved in mere moments.

Roxy was reliable—especially at times like this, when Eris didn't know what was going on.

"Okay, you take this one," Eris said. She returned her sword to its scabbard, then folded her arms. Everyone had their time to shine and if now was the time for a discussion, it wasn't hers.

"Very well," Roxy said, stepping forwards to address the guards, "I have some questions if that's all right. What are these 'steps'?"

Her tone was cool and collected, but on the inside, Roxy was

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terrified. Atofe's personal guard was legendary on the Demon Continent. They were a top-level militant group with the gear and skills to match. Handpicked by Atofe, they had the lofty reputation as the toughest gang in the whole Demon Continent. Should they decide to attack while she was surrounded, Roxy doubted she'd get out with her life intact. Even Eris standing beside her did little to allay those fears.

But this was the hand she'd been dealt. She was facing this with Rudeus. He always told her, I'm counting on you.

She was confident that she was not the hero for this crisis, but she wanted to live up to his expectations. Then there was what he'd said to her before they left for the Demon Continent.

Rudeus told her that if something happened and he was separated from them, her job was to rein Eris in. Roxy hadn't expected that they would be separated through such bizarre circumstances, but she had to keep it together, nonetheless. Otherwise, there was no point in her coming along in the first place.

The man Eris had attacked before grunted, then backed away. Another guard advanced. This one wore the same armor as the last. There was no way to tell them apart.

Calmer now, Roxy noted that the guards weren't agitated, either. Their shining black-plate armor and great swords were intimidating, but she didn't sense any murderous intent in them—unlike Eris. Taking this into account, Roxy decided that here there was a chance for rational conversation. It was a nice change after their brain-melting "chat" with Atofe.

The guards' representative cleared his throat, then proclaimed, "Heroes! You have done well to reach the heart of Fort Necross!"

"You must be strong indeed to have fought your way through the personal guard of Demon King Atofe!"

"We commend you! None can deny your valor!"

"Yet we are Atofe's personal guard! We must defend our honor and our pride!"

"If you wish to try your might against the Immortal Demon King Atofe and take back the beautiful princess..."

"First you must defeat the pinnacle of Atofe's personal guards: the Ultimate Four!"

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Four figures stepped forward out of the ranks of the guards. They drew their swords, beat the pommels of their blades against their armor with a loud clang, then raised them high. Roxy didn't recall fighting her way through them at any point, but based on what they were saying...

"So, if I've got this clear," she said, "all we have to do is beat you, then we get Rudeus back?"

"Eh heh heh, I don't know about that!" snickered the guard. "The princess's wishes might work miracles, but I wouldn't get your hopes up if I were you."

"Look," Roxy said, "I know he called himself a princess, but out of all of us, Rudeus is the real champion. Or at least, he's the strongest fighter... Is that not a problem for Lady Atofe?"

"Huh? Oh, um..." With a small sigh, the guard speaking for the rest knelt before Roxy, then leaned in close and whispered, "You know how in the tale of Demon King Keserapasera and the heroic Steel-Cutting Atmos, the princess stumbles across the Eternal Flame and burns through the harder-than-iron fur of the demon king with it, leading the hero to victory?"

"Um?" This sudden change of subject threw Roxy for a loop.

The spokesman sighed again, then whispered, "Look, I'm not supposed to say this, but the point is, the line about the princess working miracles means that Lady Atofe will let the princess join in the fight against her. So yes, it's fine for the princess to fight the demon king too."

"Oh, I see," Roxy replied. "I'm sorry, I don't know those sorts of stories very well."

"Yeah, that's normal. Especially these days! For a few hundred years now, we haven't had any champions at all. Hardly anyone knows the stories."

"Goodness, really?"

"Yeah. This is my first time doing the champion confrontation, actually."

Immortal Demon King Atoferatofe was notorious. For the past few hundred years her notoriety held firm even though she hadn't lifted a finger to warrant it. Laplace's War ended, then North God Kalman bested her, and she hadn't left the Demon Continent to incite any wars since. She'd barely fought anyone at all. At most, she'd gone around pestering

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other demons of her rank.

As a result, her current personal guard had never dealt with challengers before. There were plenty of random knights errant who dropped by the castle, however, so they knew how to treat visitors.

"Are we meant to fight them?" Roxy asked. "There are only two of us, so two-on-four?"

"Oh, no. They come out one at a time. So you'll do two-on-one four times."

"Very well." With the administrative details taken care of, Roxy turned back to Eris. "We've reached an understanding."

"Okay, so what's happening?"

"He says if we beat them, we'll get Rudeus back, and then we can fight Atofe."

"Huh, that's pretty simple."

"If we lose though, we might—"

"We won't lose."

"You're right," Roxy agreed. Eris, she could see, had regained her clear focus. She tightened her grip on her staff.

"I am Calina! King-tier North God knight and one of Lady Atofe's Ultimate Four: Calina of the Wind!"

The first guard to step forward was a woman. She immediately pulled off her helmet and chucked it off the platform. The other guards scrambled to catch it—their gear was expensive and they'd be in trouble if they lost any of it.

"Champions! I have been waiting for you!" The face of the woman beneath the helmet was reptilian. She had yellow scales, hair like a mass of needles, and a pointed nose; her whole face was covered in scars that told of her long history as a warrior.

"I train in the special training hall here at Fort Necross! I have many students! Lady Atofe's grandchild is one such student! I train them hard! Have you got any students?! You oughta get some! Students will respect

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you!

"You may wonder why I'm training in a place like this! It's all so that one day, I can challenge Lady Atofe! For every hero and champion I defeat, I earn the right to challenge Lady Atofe!

"Now, champions, let us fight! Lose quickly so that I can use you to become stronger still!"

Calina rambled on and on without any regard for who was listening. Meanwhile, Eris drew her sword without a word. She didn't care one damn what Calina had to say. The person before her was her opponent. Opponents who talked that much pre-fight were North God Style and Water God Style users. Eris, a practitioner of the Sword God Style, didn't speak. She'd never been great at speeches anyway. She raised her sword high.

"Oops, sorry. I'm talking too much, aren't I?" Calina said, catching herself. "Fighting time! Here I go! Just—"

Eris moved as Calina said, "Here I go." She was smooth and efficient. Her sword was held high above her head and she swung it down. It was a movement she'd practiced over a hundred times every day since her time at the Sword Sanctuary. She must have done it tens of thousands of times.

She slashed down on the diagonal. Even as her blade began to move, it was already too fast for the human eye to perceive: this was the Sword of Light. It made no sound. Before anyone knew what was happening, it was over. Her blade came to a halt on Calina's other side, after which Eris slowly raised the sword back above her head.

Okay, it was not—strictly speaking—accurate to say that no one knew what was happening. Calina knew. She had a special ability, a sixth sense that let her see danger coming. As she said, "Here I go," she'd seen her death flash before her eyes.

This ability of hers was a little different from Rudeus's Demon Eye of Foresight. She'd had it since she was little. Whenever she faced imminent death, she sensed it and she'd know that, unless she acted then in that moment, she was going to die. She didn't know if her danger-sense was accurate because she had never ignored it to find out. All she knew was that the ability kept her alive. It got her out of close brushes with death time and time again, and that was why she'd gone knocking on the North God's gates. So when she said, "Here I go," and her death flashed before

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her eyes, she dived out of its way.

She didn't avoid the strike altogether. She managed to move her upper half about ten centimeters out of the way. Ten centimeters was enough to save her life. She felt with perfect clarity the sensation of the blade cutting through her body. She saw it slice down from the upper left, entering around her left shoulder and exiting where her left leg met her torso. She saw both arm and leg detach from her body—a perfect cross- sectional diagram of a suit of armor. She'd never seen such a clean slice. Her left leg was severed and, unable to stay upright, she toppled to the ground with a clang. Her arm hit the ground at the same time, leaving only her severed leg, braced by her armor, still standing.

"That was too fast..." someone muttered. Maybe Calina, maybe another one of the guards. It didn't matter. Everyone could tell who'd won. Eris looked down at Calina as she had earlier, now smirking.

The arena was silent. Would Eris end it? No one moved to stop her. Atofe's personal guard fought to the death. It might even be considered crass for someone who'd risen to the level of the Ultimate Four to beg for mercy. Or maybe everything was happening too fast and no one was keeping up.

For a long moment, Eris stood there silently with her sword raised. But then her expression returned to normal, and she asked dubiously, "Is it over already?"

Calina felt a chill run down her spine. Eris was saying that the fight wasn't over yet. She actually believed that her opponent, down an arm and a leg, hadn't given up; that the fight was still going. And Calina understood that were Eris in her place, it would be. Even if Eris lost a limb, if she were in the same state as Calina, she wouldn't yield. The students of the North God trained in how to fight even after losing a limb, although few of them were ready to sacrifice so much.

Calina was not one of those few, as much as she'd wished to be. That mindset, that willingness to sacrifice, such qualities only came to the surface when you were pushed to the brink and even there refused to yield. She'd never assumed that any of the opponents she'd defeated in the past shared that quality.

Calina, seeing that Eris was ready to go further than she was, said, "Yes, it's over. You have bested me, champion. I am utterly defeated." Thus, she accepted her defeat.

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Eris slowly lowered her sword, first from a high guard to a middle guard, and then finally returned it to its scabbard. She didn't remove her hand from the hilt. She surveyed her surroundings, never once relaxing as the waiting guards scooped up Calina and carried her from the arena. Only when she was satisfied that there was enough distance between her and the remaining three of the Ultimate Four did she take her hand from her sword.

"They're not much, these Ultimate Four," she said, as though nothing much of interest had happened.

She wasn't deliberately insulting Calina. She wasn't even dismissing the other woman as weak. She only thought that, if that was the best Calina could do, she was nowhere near as good as Auber, who also fought North God Style. Even Nina and Isolde, both of whom had trained with Eris, could have dodged her blow.

"Brave words, little girl. But Calina was the stupidest of Lady Atofe's Ultimate Four. I won't have you judge us all by her performance."

"Yeah, we're not morons like that. We're clever."

"Eh heh heh. That's right, we'll cut you to pieces with our sharpness!"

Rudeus might have commented on how cliché their bumbling bad- guy squad schtick was if he were present. Instead, Eris considered this and decided that if the others were stronger than the first woman, she should prepare herself accordingly. Eris wasn't vain. She knew the limits of her strength.

And so, she called out for someone. "Roxy."

"Yes?"

"Stay behind me... I swear I won't let you get hurt," she said.

Roxy felt a small shiver run through her. Roxy knew Eris well. She knew that Eris was a hard worker and the most natural talent in the household at doing violence.

Roxy also knew that, while not on the same level as Rudeus, Eris thought of herself as the family's protector. When it came to stabbing things, anyway.

To Eris, family was something she protected with her sword. Roxy counted as family. There was a single exception to her rule: Rudeus. She relied on him alone in these situations. He was the only one who could

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keep up with her in a fight.

At that thought, Roxy felt ever so slightly ashamed.

"I am Benebene, Saint-tier North God swordsman and one of Lady Atofe's Ultimate Four: Benebene of the Water!"

The second of the Ultimate Four looked the definition of average. He didn't remove or fling away his helmet like Calina, and he wasn't any bigger than the other two. Possibly he was from a particularly hairy race because white hair stuck out of the gaps in his helmet.

"A North Saint? You're a lower tier than the last one?"

"Heh, it's true, I can't match Calina with a blade," he agreed. "But skill with a blade isn't the only thing that decides a fight."

"True," Eris said simply, then brought her sword up to a high guard, identical to before. There wasn't even a millimeter's difference in her stance. She smirked. There wasn't a hint of murder in her eyes now. But did that mean that she'd strike in the same way as before as well, with her ultimate attack? The one you couldn't dodge even if you knew it was coming? Would she use the Sword of Light?

"Shall we begin?" said the man. "Come at me from whatever angle you prefer."

The screech of metal on metal rang out as he spoke his final syllable. Eris had already struck. Her blade followed the exact same trajectory as before and came to rest in exactly the same place. She was so fast no one even had time to blink.

Just like with Calina, Benebene's left arm and left leg hung down, and his body began to sway—except his body didn't sway. His left arm and leg didn't even fall off, though Eris was sure she'd cut through them.

Alarmed, she took a step back right as the man's sword whooshed through where she was standing. Without warning, Benebene's sword was in his hands, a black great sword like the rest of Atofe's personal guard.

"You dodged, huh? But don't think you—" This time Eris acted before he got to the end of his sentence. She stepped in to cancel out her previous step, then swung upward at Benebene's right arm. A cool

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metallic cling resounded as Eris instantly brought her sword back up to a high guard.

She let out a breath, suspicious now. She'd cut him. She'd felt it, for sure. But even though she was sure she'd cut it clean off, Benebene's hand remained attached to his wrist.

"You should let me finish," Benebene said. He stabbed his sword into the floor, then grabbed his own wrist with his left hand. His right hand —or rather, the guard—popped off without resistance, and not merely in a single piece. The hand within had been split perfectly in two to produce a cross-section as clean as Calina's body earlier.

That wasn't the only point worth noting. The other was the hair. A huge mass of white hair clung to the inside of Benebene's armor.

"I've got Sticky Clan and Hea Clan blood! Swords have never worked on me," Benebene said. Sticky tendrils of hairlike feelers twisted into the shape of a hand, which then gripped his sword. He held it up ready to strike, staring Eris dead in the eye.

Eris's only reply was to take another swing at Benebene. She cut down, then up, then right, then left, at his neck, his shoulder, his arms, his legs... She rained blows from every angle down on every part of his body.

Eventually, Benebene swung his sword again. None of her strikes had any effect, so there was no need for him to defend himself. Eris dodged everything he threw at her. As she ducked out of the way so that his sword missed her by millimeters, she drew gasps of admiration from the watching guards.

As a general rule, Sword God Style swordsmen were bad at dodging and defense.

Sword God Style encouraged its wielders to cut an opponent down with a single blow. Dodging was unnecessary in such a philosophy.

Eris was different. Gall Falion's training for defeating Orsted had been based on rationality. He assumed Orsted wouldn't be brought down with a single blow and so, judging that evasion was a technique his students would need, he'd got a North God Style swordsman to teach them and made them spar a Water God Style warrior.

His training had made a strong impression on Eris. Thanks to Auber's lessons and her stand-offs with Isolde, no sword could touch Eris. While her sword cut through Benebene's body, he cut only air. It was like

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a bout between an adult and a child. As the battle wore on, though, panic begin to take root in her heart.

She inhaled sharply at the sound of dented metal. Her strike hadn't cut through Benebene's armor. All she'd managed to do was scratch him. Her Sword of Light had gone astray.

With a cry of frustration, she parried Benebene's strike near the hilt of her blade. The force pushed her three steps backward. She wasn't tired, merely at a loss for what to do. No matter where she cut, nothing landed.

Eris took a deep breath, then forced herself to calm down and think. What would Master Ghislaine do? Or Sword God Gall Falion? Unfortunately, she wasn't the fastest thinker, and Benebene attacked again before she could remember.

"Mwahahaha! You're getting tired, champion!" he cried. "It's over now!"

But then another voice rang out. "O spirits of ice, lend us your strength! Icicle Field!"

A sheet of spray along with a freezing wind crashed straight into the charging Benebene.

"Wha?!"

Benebene's whole body crackled. He was frozen solid in seconds. "Eris! Now!"

Eris acted without delay. Benebene was right in front of her. She stepped in, then slid past his frozen form, her sword raking him from the side.

"Gyaaaah!" he shouted as he was cut in half. His upper half slid from his lower and fell to the ground with a thud. There was a tinkling like breaking glass as his armor shattered, leaving behind two clumps of pure white hair. Both were covered in ice and twitching slightly.

"Urgh," he grumbled, "Damnit... Not my personal guard armor... So that was why you spent all that time on meaningless attacks..." With that, he stopped moving.

The other guards promptly ran over and carried him away.

Eris watched them blankly, then turned to look behind her to where Roxy stood, frozen to the spot with her staff still in her hand.

"I'd heard that the sticky clan were vulnerable to ice..." she

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mumbled "It really was effective, huh..." Roxy, seeing Eris in trouble, had used magic without knowing whether it would do any good. That it had been even more effective than she'd imagined had come as a shock.

Realizing that Eris was staring at her, she returned to her usual pose, then cleared her throat.

"I'm sorry. Should I have stayed out of it?"

"Of course not! You saved me!" Eris exclaimed. She was surprised herself. If she were honest, she'd been out of ideas. She'd never fought an opponent like Benebene before, where she could cut their armor, but not their body... Well, maybe once or twice, but she hadn't been prepared for it this time. Had the fight gone on like that, he might have overcome her.

"You back me up, okay?"

"Understood. Roxy, on support!" Roxy answered, sounding a little happier this time.

The remaining two of the Ultimate Four laughed derisively.

"Eh heh heh, Benebene was weak! He was totally reliant on his inherited abilities."

"He was truly one of a kind among swordsmen! Clad in the renowned black armor of Lady Atofe's personal guard, one can see how he might grow too confident in his powers! Indeed, I envy his talents!"

"But to think he failed to pay heed to a magician even as his armor was cut to shreds!"

"He was the greatest fool amongst the Ultimate Four!"

Two of the Ultimate Four remained.

One stepped forwards. "Tremble, worms!" he declared, "For I am your next opponent!"

Thus, their bout with the third champion began.

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Chapter 8: Imprisoned in Fort Necross

Rudeus

"LOOK, HERE WE ARE," Atofe said. After flapping around in circles

above Fort Necross, she alighted on a building located not too far away from the arena, then threw me into a room within it.

"Um, where exactly...?" I began tentatively. The room was made for a little girl. Everything was baby pink. There was a canopied bed, white furniture, lace curtains, and a fancy teapot. It looked like a room in the Asuran palace, but even Ariel's room wasn't this girly. The only thing that didn't fit the aesthetic was the view out the window: reddish-brown earth, a mountain covered in spooky trees, and I even spotted Black Drakes flying around in the air above the mountain. Not that that wasn't striking in itself...

"The princess's room!" Atofe declared.

"Princess...? You mean this room belongs to your daughter, Lady Atofe?"

"No! I don't have a daughter!"

I know. Orsted told me that much.

Demon King Atoferatofe Rybak had only one child. A son. North God Kalman the second.

The Epic of the North God currently in circulation was mostly about him. He'd slain a giant king dragon and defeated behemoths on the Begaritt Continent. He sounded like a genuine hero, but Orsted called him an "idiot boy." As they say, like mother, like son.

"Then this room—"

"It's your room!"

"This isn't really my style."

"Eh heh heh. Don't hold out hope that your champion will come and save you! You'll be here until you die!" Atofe cackled.

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She wasn't listening. With another "Mwaaahahahah!" Atofe left the room.

All right, what was going on here? Was I imprisoned? The door wasn't even locked. Was this Atofe's roundabout way of proposing to me?

Dude. I don't get it.

"Excuse me," came a voice from behind me, and I turned to see Moore. Thank goodness. Someone sensible.

"You appear to be confused," he said.

"Yes," I replied.

"Please take a seat. I'll explain." I sat down obediently on a ridiculously girly chair. It was pretty comfy. They must have used good materials and a really fluffy cushion. It was a bit small for me, though; more the size for someone more petite. A teenage girl would suit it perfectly.

As I sat down, Moore took the teapot and poured a cup of tea. Both the pot and the cups wouldn't have looked out of place in the hands of royalty, specifically Asuran royalty. I'd seen the same kind used in Ariel's chambers. The liquid that came out was a bit different, though. It was cloudier than black tea, and a more subdued color.

What is that, I wondered. Wait, I've seen it before. That's Sokas tea.

Nanahoshi lusted after the stuff. Although I guess she didn't drink it for the taste.

"Oh, thank you," I said. "Don't mind if I do." At least my tea was the normal kind. I was grateful for that.

"Good. Now, where would you like me to begin?" Moore asked.

"At the beginning, then in order from there if possible."

"From the beginning?" Moore made a thinking gesture, then, as though something had just come to him, he began to speak.

"Lady Atofe was born at the end of the first Human-Demon War."

"Wow. So even Lady Atofe had parents, huh?"

"Indeed. Her honored mother is said to have been of great intellect, like Lord Badigadi."

Great intellect like Badigadi...? Okay, I guess we're going by immortal demon king standards here.

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"Lord Badi grew up watching their wise mother while Lady Atofe grew up watching their father, the Immortal Lord Necross Lacross. Back in those days, Immortal Lord Necross Lacross held dominion as the most powerful of all the demon kings."

The Immortal Necross Lacross was one of the Five Great Demon Kings from the first Human-Demon War. There wasn't much information left about him, but compared to the other demon kings, he was supposed to have been incredibly powerful.

"Lord Necross Lacross was slain by the hero Arus. I was not yet born, and I do not know how one ends the life of an immortal king. Nor does Lady Atofe, who was but a child. Lady Atofe says that what she does remember is that when she saw her father die, she knew beyond a doubt that she had to get stronger and become a mighty demon king."

Right, so now she's like...her dead father?

Despite looking like she never thought about anything, Atofe was striving toward something.

I hadn't met many demon kings, but it was true that of all of them, Atofe was the most archetypical. How to put it? She was like the physical incarnation of violence and fear, or something. She just was a demon king. Best way I could explain it.

"However, we immortal demons do not pay heed to the past. His Majesty Necross Lacross was a mighty king, but no one knew in what way he was mighty."

Ah, that makes sense. She wanted to be like her dad, but she only had a vague idea of what he was actually like.

Typical Atofe. This time, it was like daughter, like father. Maybe all immortal demons were like this, deep down.

Her father hadn't left any records behind to demonstrate how mighty he'd been either. A human would have left overblown accounts of their own greatness, but immortal demons lived so long that they didn't look back on the past. Possibly at the time, they didn't even have the concept of keeping records. There was no need to learn from the past. That was obvious to them. If you thought like that, you didn't leave any sources behind.

"I have a question for you, Master Rudeus." "Yes?"

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"What kind of being is a demon king? How are they spoken of amongst humans?"

"Uh..."

Demon kings... Demon kings...

In this world, demon kings were no more than the rulers of parts of the demons' territory. But I only thought that because I knew a fair bit about the Demon Continent.

What about an ordinary human? What did people in Asura or Ranoa say about them?

"They say they're overwhelmingly powerful and humanity's natural enemy, and also that they sometimes kidnap princesses—oh."

"That's right," Moore said.

That's right, indeed.

"After His Majesty Necross Lacross passed away, Lady Atofe, who knew not what it meant to be a mighty demon king, sought to learn from humans and so gathered sources from them."

"When you say it like that it sounds like Atofe was reading them herself," I interjected.

"It was, of course, her personal guard at the time who did the reading."

Yeah, I thought as much.

"Various demon kings were mentioned in those texts. Those known as 'mighty' all bore some points in common."

"Points in common? You mean..."

"Yes, the qualities you just listed."

Overwhelming power, humanity's natural enemy, kidnaps princesses.

Also, gets defeated by the hero who comes to rescue the princess.

"Didn't you think that sounded off?" I asked.

"I hadn't been born back then, and her underlings at the time likely knew little about humans. There were also documents amongst the demon records that contained similar stories—though, of course, the immortal demons themselves left no records. The story of how a demon king

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kidnapped a princess and was defeated by the hero Arus..."

Oh, right. Okay, now I get it.

During the first Great Demon War the hero Arus had taken six companions and slain all of the Five Great Demon Kings. He was the hero who beat Kishirika and brought a war that had lasted a thousand years to a close. There had been a story like the one Moore described in one of the tales about him. The gist of it was that he defeated the demon king, rescued the princess, then married her and founded the Asura Kingdom. However, according to the histories I'd read at the Boreas house, Arus hadn't actually set out to save the princess and the demon king hadn't actually kidnapped her.

A human nation had, in an act of strategic diplomacy, offered the princess to the demon king as a hostage. Arus, for totally unrelated reasons, had invaded the castle and struck down the demon king. As a result, the princess ended up getting rescued. That was what'd really happened.

Authors of later years hadn't told it that way, though. Many of them added some dramatic flair to the tale of the hero Arus and his battle to rescue the princess. Some of them must have known more of the story than others. Either that or they'd just been writing pure fiction, totally divorced from history. Depending on the book, it was a different demon king who kidnapped the princess, and the princess's name and her homeland varied too. If you believed all the stories, all five of the Great Demon Kings kidnapped a princess, then the hero Arus defeated all of them, got a happy ending with all the princesses, and the newly founded Asura ended up with a whole harem of queen consorts.

And she'd...believed all of them. Lady Atofe had, I mean. She thought that what was written in those books was the truth of what heroes, princesses, and demon kings were like.

"Now I understand. So that's why Lady Atofe has such a violent disposition."

"No, no," Moore replied, "she's always been like that."

"Oh. All right then."

She hadn't transformed into violence incarnate along the way, then. That was just kinda her.

"She's that sort of person," Moore went on, "she interpreted the

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demon king characters in the way that was most convenient for her."

It felt like she hadn't so much chosen a preferred interpretation as simply ignored the parts that she didn't like. The result: Immortal Demon King Atoferatofe, fear incarnate. Don't get me wrong, I think it worked. There were a lot of humans who genuinely feared Atofe.

"Okay," I said. "How is that related to why I was brought here?" "You said you were a princess."

"My just desserts, then..."

"Even in jest, you shouldn't have said it."

You say that now, but how was I supposed to know Atofe thinks the normal thing to do with a princess is to kidnap them and lock them up?

"So what are Eris and Roxy doing now?" I asked.

"The champions must undergo trials to demonstrate their might to the demon king."

"Which means..."

"Essentially, if you want to fight Lady Atofe, you have to defeat her personal guard first. Miss Eris and Miss Roxy are battling with the guard's most spectacular idio—that is, with our specially selected elite warriors."

So Eris and Roxy were in the middle of beating Atofe's Ultimate Four (the specially selected idiots).

"That doesn't sound good," I said. I wouldn't have minded if it were for fun; Eris was spoiling for a fight anyway, so that worked out perfectly. But if it was a fight to the death, that was different. "Right. I'm very sorry, but I'd better be going. I've gotta go help Eris."

Moore called after me "Wait, please."

"You'll have to fight me if you want to stop me. And hey, it's not that unusual for the princess to fight too, these days."

Something told me that fighting my way through Moore was going to hurt a bit. When I faced Atofe last time, it turned into a magical shoot- out, and I'd come out worse for wear. I'd thought about how to deal with that for the next time...but the gap in our experience was too vast. No matter what I did, the odds wouldn't shift massively in my favor.

This time, however, I had the Magic Armor. Victory wouldn't be determined by whoever was the best at shooting off magical attacks.

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"Don't get worked up," Moore said. "Lady Atofe might be dead serious about all of this, but we, her servants, don't enjoy murdering people. Not in this day and age. Even if your friends are defeated, they'll only lose an arm or something at most."

"You mean it?"

"Be that as it may, their opponents are all members of Lady Atofe's personal guard. Warriors who came to this land to dedicate themselves to training for as long as it takes. I would caution against expecting an easy victory."

I didn't like the sound of that...but I still thought that if anyone could handle them, it was Eris. Moments like these were why she worked so hard. Well, okay, maybe this specific situation was a bit different. The point was, she was ready to wield her skills when it was demanded of her. Roxy was there with her, besides. If Eris was the brawn, Roxy was the brains. I was confident that together, they could win. Or at least, I hoped they could.

This was still Fort Necross, however. As the tales told it, it was basically the Sword Sanctum, North God Style edition. Everyone here had traversed the Demon Continent to reach it. These weren't people who did things halfway.

Beyond my concerns about winning and losing, though, I also realized I just wanted to see Eris in action. She served as my sparring partner to train in close-combat fighting, and I still couldn't beat her, not even in the Magic Armor. I wanted to see how well she did in a place like this.

"Um, okay, can I just go and like, cheer them on?"

"You may. The princess's words of support are supposed to give heart to the heroes, after all," Moore said.

"You don't have to make fun of me."

I hurried back to Eris without much further ado.

Stay strong, O brave champions! Your princess is coming!

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Chapter 9:

Princess Rudeus Enters the Fray

MOORE TOOK ME to a high place with a good view of the arena. When we got there, the best bit of the fight was already underway.

"Eris! Don't give up, Eris!"

"I-I can't... Not this...They're too..."

"Come on, I can't—o-ow!"

Down in the arena, there were five animals with long fur, about the size of large dogs. They'd gathered around Eris, pinning her down.

Strike that. That's not the right way to describe it.

Eris was petting the creatures as they crowded around her, looking over the moon with happiness. Roxy was trying to pull them off her, but they were too big for her. She bounced off them and couldn't get close to Eris.

Um, I came to watch Eris being badass, I thought, not...whatever this is.

"Eh heh heh." Beside me, Moore suddenly chuckled. "Your champion has been taken in by the familiars of Arcantos of Flame."

"Familiars?"

"Yes, Arcantos of Flame sends his familiars out to take the measure of his opponents. They're quite devious, actually. They sniff out strength, but if they smell weakness they attack and rip the opponent limb from limb."

"Oh, no... But what about Eris?!"

"She, er... She must smell so strong to them that they've become entirely tame."

Oh, no. They're so big and so fluffy! If they've taken a liking to Eris, there's no hope!

"Eh heh heh...heh." Arcantos chuckled, a little uncertain. "Return to me, my familiars. She is beyond you, it seems... Heh heh. Now return to me. Return to me, I say. Come on, return to me already..."

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Apparently, the familiars really liked Eris. They didn't react at all when Arcantos (I assumed that was the guy in black armor) called them.

Meanwhile, Eris looked like she'd died and gone to heaven. She was in a drooling state of bliss. Maybe it was only to be expected, but the familiars somehow also seemed delighted even though Eris was glomping them with all her might.

Huh, I wouldn't mind having a familiar or two that could withstand Eris around the house. It'd be a load off for Leo and Linia and Pursena.

After being thrown onto her butt again, Roxy stood up and turned to face Arcantos.

"Ugh...how cowardly. So this is how followers of the rumored Eccentric School of the North God Style fight."

"Who're you calling eccentric?! Don't lump me in with them! I wanted to see what kind of opponents you were, nothing more!"

"Yeah, right!"

Alcantos huffed. "As much as it irks me to be called an Eccentric... it matters not! Your champion is unable to defeat my familiars! You are weak!"

Are you just going to leave it there, Mr. Arcantos?

"Now it's just you, Magician... Well? If you surrender, I'll let you go. There's an old saying in my family that we should be kind to the Migurd Clan."

"If I...if I back down, who'll save Rudeus?!"

"You are stout of heart!" Arcantos shouted, then put his sword in his mouth and got down on all fours, looking like a robot wolf. That was a North God Style four-legged stance. He dived at Roxy with terrifying speed.

Roxy reacted in an instant.

"Majestic blade of ice, I summon thee to strike my enemy down! Icicle Blade!" she cried, shortening the incantation. But she was up against Arcantos, one of Atofe's Personal Guard. The black armor they wore was imbued with formidable magical resistance. Roxy's Icicle Blade skidded off with a clang.

"Die!" he shouted. Aaagh, watch out!

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"Uwagh!" Arcantos went spinning away as an incredible force crashed into his side. He flew right off the edge of the arena platform.

Roxy, the other guards, and the shaggy familiars all stared after him in confusion. Then, they turned to look at me in unison.

"Ah, sorry about that, it slipped out..." I mumbled. Seeing Roxy in danger, I'd reacted with a stone cannon before I could stop myself. Usually, I at least yelled "Stone Cannon!" to give my allies a heads up that I was about to attack, but this time I'd done it totally non-vocally.

"Master Rudeus," Moore sighed.

"I mean, what was I supposed to do?"

Come on, Roxy was in danger! I know you said before that no one's going to get killed, but you can't expect me to sit here and watch while Roxy weeps and writhes in agony as she clutches the stump of her arm. Even if she was ready to make the sacrifice!

"Oh well, I'll allow it. Saving the hero when all seems lost is part of the princess's role, after all."

Phew. For the time being at least, we hadn't flunked our Ultimate Four sequential battle. We weren't about to be packed off for home without fighting Atofe.

"Actually, can I go down there? Or is there a battle with the dragon that guards the tower where the princess is imprisoned still to come or something?"

"That's a good idea, but we'd have a hard time capturing a dragon..." Moore said. "Well, the princess is already out here and taking part in the fight. The rules are a bit fuzzy on that point, so I don't see why not."

A fuzzy area, huh?

Well, I wasn't exactly a proper princess, and there'd been a lot of fuzzy areas in this whole process. This fight, for example. Half of the reason it even started was because I misspoke and then Atofe's caprice. No point getting hung up on details this late in the game when none of them were clear to start with.

"Guess this is where I say goodbye," I said.

"May you have fortune in battle," Moore replied. "I have a few things to get ready."

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Ah right, after this Atofe takes the stage, I thought. I leapt down into the arena, then ran over to Roxy.

"Oh, Rudy...! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I just got roped into Atofe's little comedy act. What about you?" I asked, looking her over to make sure she wasn't hurt. There were scorch marks on her robes, a few damp patches here and there, as well as burns and grazes on her face. She hadn't taken any major injuries. Either that, or she'd healed herself.

"It's been tough. The third one was especially strong—a mage knight who wielded fire and wind magic and attacked both Eris and me at once..."

I wished I'd seen that. I bet it was an epic battle. Roxy switched to using gestures to demonstrate just how powerful Peridot of the Earth had been.

Peridot...of the Earth. That's the Magician who wielded fire and wind magic... Where did "earth" come from, then? Did fire and wind get taken by the others first? No, never mind. Not important.

Roxy told me that he was the strongest magician and swordsman of the Ultimate Four, experienced in doing battle against multiple opponents. His strategy had been to attack Eris with magic while targeting Roxy with his sword. Roxy was forced to counter the magic he sent at Eris, who didn't have any magical resistance, while Eris had to protect Roxy, whose physical defense was poor. But Eris fought Sword God Style; defense wasn't her strong suit. Unable to do anything more than protect the other, they found themselves slowly losing ground. But then Roxy had a flash of brilliance.

In theory, a counterspell cancels out the opponent's spell, and it's commonly held that a good counterspell uses precisely the same amount of force as the spell it blocks.

Roxy threw that common wisdom out the window. As she called up water magic to counter fire magic and earth magic to counter wind magic, she put far more power into them than the attacker's spell. All that remained when it was over was water and earth, creating a huge volume of mud on the ground.

Then, Roxy used the combined spell Quagmire. In an instant, the mud on the ground became a bog, forcing Peridot to a standstill. That was when Eris went in for the kill—bam!

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Nothing less from Roxy the Wise, I suppose.

Quagmire was my signature move, so you'd be forgiven for thinking that if only I'd been there, I could've won without the need to be so clever. You'd be wrong. If I'd used Quagmire off the bat, the opponent would've found a way to get around it. Peridot wasn't expecting Roxy to use the residue of her counterspells to attack, and that was how he ended up bogged down. There was no way I'd ever be that clever.

"But then when the next opponent came out, Eris..."

I looked over at Eris, and saw she was on the ground, twitching. Fearing that maybe the familiars had actually been poisonous, I rushed to her side.

"Aha...haha..." Eris stared into space, utterly blissed out. Her fingers were still making grabbing motions, still savoring the sensation of the familiars' fluff.

Poison, just as I'd thought.

Animals like that had a healing effect on Eris. They were practically a kind of medicine. Medicine can turn toxic when you take too much, though.

"Let's just get her thinking straight again," Roxy said.

An antidote? Or would it be better to use healing magic?

"Rudy, you groping her chest always gets her on her feet, right?"

"Huh?! You don't mind?"

"I do mind..." Roxy replied. "You should never touch a woman's body without consent. But Demon King Atofe is going to be here soon."

I followed Roxy's gaze. Atofe's personal guard had lined up, and Moore had a kind of brazier in his arms that he used to fill the area with smoke. The light from the bonfires illuminated the smoke. An ominous atmosphere filled the space.

They were getting the ambiance ready for the demon king's entrance. Unless we did something, we were going to have to fight without Eris. But no, crap, I had made a vow of celibacy... I couldn't yield!

"Come on, Rudy. When you're done, I'll let you touch mine too. As penance."

No, damnit, no! I must not yield... Then a thought hit me. "That's a tempting offer, but won't that end with her punching me and knocking me

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out? It won't help if we get Eris awake but I'm down for the count, right?"

"Oh... That's a fair point," Roxy admitted. Just then, Eris's body spasmed. She looked around frantically, her eyes cartoonishly wide.

"Where'd he go?!" she demanded.

"He's gone."

"Oh..." She looked a bit disappointed, but then, with a start, her eyes found me. She stared.

"Rudeus! You're okay!" She threw her arms around me. Her breasts pushed against my chest. They were so soft...

Heheheh, I didn't even have to cop a feel while she was in that trance. The twin peaks of Eris have fallen into my hands! Okay, not in my hands. They're too big.

"Atofe was just having a bit of fun. It was over quickly."

"Well that's good," Eris said. "But Rudeus, this is all your fault! You had to joke about being a 'princess!'"

"I sincerely regret it," I said, though there was nothing to regret.

I mean, I didn't know, did I? How was I supposed to guess that calling myself a princess would get me kidnapped? A normal demon king would kidnap a proper princess-y princess, not a random dude who just called himself one. Right?

Roxy tugged at the hem of my robe. "Um, Rudy? I was really worried too," she said. It was so sweet, the way she said it. She'd even given me a proper "Are you okay?" earlier.

"I know, don't worry," I replied.

Right then, I felt really happy. I hadn't been in any serious trouble, but Eris and Roxy were worried about me like I'd been fighting alongside them. They overcame those ordeals to save me... I guess this is what a princess feels like.

"Eheheh, hah, mwaaahaha, hah..."

A creepy laugh echoed behind us. It was deep and sounded far away, as though it were rising up from the pits of hell.

Turning, I found that the arena was already obscured from view by smoke. The sun had set now, and the bonfires had been extinguished, shrouding the scene in gloom.

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The darkness wasn't absolute.

A magic circle was glowing. Usually, magic circles glowed pale blue, but this one glowed purple. Maybe they used special paint. Maybe the effect of this magic circle was to "glow with purple light"?

The billows of smoke were illuminated by the purple light. It felt like some mega-celebrity was about to mount the stage.

Without a word, Eris stood up, her sword at the ready. I only got a quick glimpse of her face, but she looked absolutely hyped to see what would come out. Her excitement was kind of infectious.

It's not going to be anything special, though. Just the jerk from earlier.

An echoing voice rang out across the arena. "Mwaaahahahahaha! You have broken through my most elite Ultimate Four, stationed throughout Fort Necross! You've done a great job to reach me on the other side!"

They weren't stationed anywhere in particular, I pointed out silently. But okay, never mind. All part of the show.

"Traversing the Demon Continent and laying siege to Fort Necross... Truly you are mighty to have made it here!

"I commend you! All of you are truly worthy to be called champions!"

Hey, you hear that, Eris? Now you've got an official certificate of champion-hood from the demon king. I think I also multiclassed into champion. Princess Champion Rudeus!

"You shall be rewarded!"

That was when I started taking things seriously. A wind picked up within the arena, blowing the smoke farther and farther away. At the same time, I felt a chill.

From the depths of where the smoke was being blown, I felt an all- encompassing, murderous aura. I gulped involuntarily. I even wondered what might emerge out of there. Even though there was only one candidate.

"Your reward..."

A sharp gust of wind blew, clearing the smoke away in seconds. With a whoosh all the bonfires burst back into flame, starkly illuminating

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the arena.

There in the center stood a woman. She had blue skin and white hair, and wings like a bat. A single thick horn protruded from her forehead. Though she was a little shorter than Eris, the battle-worn black armor she wore made her appear larger. She wielded a great sword that looked too heavy for her slender arms.

"The right to challenge me!"

There before us was Immortal Demon King Atoferatofe Rybak.

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Chapter 10:

Clash with Demon King Atofe

"IAM IMMORTAL DEMON KING Atoferatofe Rybak! If you defeat me

I shall recognize you as champions! If you lose, you will serve as my puppets until the day you draw your last breath!"

Atofe radiated malice. A lone figure stood against her—the champion.

"I'm Sword King Eris Greyrat," Eris declared. Facing down Atofe, she raised the Phoenix Dragon Sword, one of the Seven Sword God Blades, above her head.

"Sword God Style!" Atofe exclaimed happily. Without taking her eyes off Eris, she drew her own sword. "Just so you know, Sword of Light won't work on me."

Eris didn't react. She knew. She'd heard the legend of the immortal demon kings.

Immortal Demon King Atofe couldn't be beaten.

It wasn't a question of technique—Atofe was slow and her blade was dull. She simply didn't die. No attack, no mortal wound could kill her. No matter how much you hit her, she'd spring back up again. In the end, she'd win through sheer resilience.

That was Immortal Demon King Atofe. In the Laplace War, there were fewer than a dozen valiant warriors who'd been able to stand against her. The Three Godslayers stood among those few. The only individual to ever beat her one-on-one was the North God Kalman, or so the stories went.

Eris had assessed whether her strength was enough to topple the demon king, and she knew that the answer was no. Alone, it was impossible. The idea of challenging a being of legends was exhilarating, but she knew there was no way she could beat Atofe with her own strength.

That didn't mean she was going to mope about it. She might not have the necessary ability, but someone else here did. They'd discussed it in advance.

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"Hey, say something!" Atofe yelled.

Eris still didn't reply.

"Hold on," Atofe went on, "there was a guy like you who did the thing of concentrating all his energy and then coming at me with a single ultimate blow..." When Eris still didn't say anything she chuckled. "I've got a good memory, see. I remember it well. That blow never hit me. I squashed him with my fist, like a toad." Atofe snickered evilly, reminiscing, then glared at Eris. "Well, Eris Greyrat? This'll be the gamble of a lifetime for you. Will you humiliate yourself in front of your trusting companions...or will you obtain glory?"

She tapped her skull. "Here's my head, see? If you take it home you'll be the hero of humanity for all eternity!" Atofe was supremely confident. The look on her face said No way this lady can kill me.

Around us, her personal guards were wailing. Something like, "No, Lady Atofe! You're letting your guard down again!"

Allowing the hero to get the first swing in on purpose was an unavoidable part of what it meant to be a descendant of the immortal demon kings, I surmised.

"I don't need any glory," Eris said brusquely, "but I am going to cut your head off."

"Bold words, Eris Greyrat!" Atofe bellowed. Her voice thundered around the arena. "Come and try it!"

The evening sun sank behind the mountains and darkness settled. The two women were illuminated by the purple flames of the torches. Atofe's eyes blazed. Eris glared back at her, undaunted. Their eyes were locked on to one another. Each one wanted the other dead.

Things could erupt at any moment.

"Um..."

Atofe's personal guards weren't looking at Eris or Atofe. Instead, their eyes were fixed on the giant behind Eris. There, in the dim light, stood a towering figure made of stone, standing about three meters tall. Where could it have come from? Had someone used summoning magic? But no, there were none of the aftereffects of that.

A few steps behind the giant stood the blue-haired magician. She clenched her fist in a clear declaration of success, looking up at the giant.

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"Oh..." Why didn't Eris, this savage Sword God Style warrior, attack? One of the guards understood, sighing with admiration: Eris was buying time so that Rudeus could get ready.

Roxy had summoned the Magic Armor Version One.

"Who...whoa..." Atofe, looking up at the shadowy figure behind Eris, made an awed noise. She recognized that armor from long ago, back before the Laplace War. She'd seen it in the Second Human-Demon War before it was sealed away. It looked a little different from how she remembered it. It was a new color. But such changes were trivial. Back then, there had once been many sets of armor like this one. This was a complete set.

"Fighting God Armor...!" Atofe muttered. She stared up at it, stunned—

"Gyaaaaaah!" And at that moment, Eris attacked. Rudeus

ERIS'S SWORD whistled through the air, following the shortest,

straightest path to Atofe's neck while the demon king gaped up at the Magic Armor. The magic blade, like a beam of silver light, met its mark with all its lethal force intact, sliding into Atofe's flesh, then on through—

Alarm showed on Eris's face, and her sword stopped. It came to a halt around halfway through Atofe's neck.

Meanwhile, Atofe's sword was buried deep in Eris's right shoulder, and Eris's right arm wasn't moving.

She hadn't merely stopped. Someone had stopped her.

Sword of Light pierced right through between bones, essentially becoming a load-bearing beam within whatever body it penetrated. That was why it was renowned as the ultimate sword technique...and it had been blocked.

"Gyaaaaaah!" Eris immediately gave up on her right arm. Using only her left, she pulled her blade free. Normally, Sword of Light should have taken her opponent's head clean off. With just one hand, however, its power was reduced. A third of Atofe's neck remained unsevered, still

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firmly attached to her torso. That would mean death in any normal battle. Getting even a third of your neck sliced through would be a mortal wound. But Eris's opponent was Atofe. Immortal Demon King Atofe.

"Ngraaah!" Atofe looked like a corpse as she kicked Eris away. An awful bwong sound pealed as Eris went flying. Roxy caught her. Blood flowed freely from her shoulder; she stared at Atofe with unwavering murder in her eyes. She still wanted to fight, but her part was over for now.

Atofe howled a battle cry, then turned toward me. She held up her sword in a defensive stance, then leaned forward into a lunge as I readied my gatling gun. Maybe it was some animal instinct that made her come for me when I still hadn't done anything; maybe it was based on experience.

With Eris out of the way, my line of fire was clear.

"Fire!" I shouted and unleashed a hail of stone cannons.

On my first step, Atofe's armor shattered into dust. On my second, her shoulders were shredded and her sword thrown up into the air. On my third, her torso, peppered with holes like a honeycomb, was blown off her pelvis.

There was no fourth step. Her remaining lower half lurched and fell. It was a heart-stopping scene. There was no blood—maybe because Atofe was an immortal demon king—but it would have been truly nauseating if there were. I still wasn't used to killing people. I never would be. I was only able to use the gatling gun at point-blank range because I knew she wouldn't die. That's right: even after this, Atofe wouldn't die.

Roxy applied healing magic to Eris's wound, then looked around anxiously at Atofe's personal guard. "Did we do it?"

Without Atofe around to give them orders, they wouldn't attack us. Not one of them was worried about Atofe. They had complete faith in their master's immortality.

"Not yet," I said, still on alert.

The guards muttered amongst themselves.

"Do we go next?"

"Nah, impossible."

"Keep your eyes down! Did you see that attack carve through black steel?"

"Armor won't do any good, huh? What even was that magic?"

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"Last time he fought Lady Atofe he attacked with a super powerful stone cannon. It's probably that."

"Ah, that makes sense. So like a rapid-fire stone cannon?"

"So that means that...what is it, a staff? Is a magic weapon separate from the armor?"

They were analyzing the fight. Did nothing get them worked up? But then, I guess they knew it would take more than that to kill Atofe.

Atofe would regenerate. She was literally in the process of doing so right now. Scattered chunks of flesh flocked together to form bigger lumps, connecting up piece by piece until she was almost back to her original size. Unlike certain parasytic life forms, she could put herself back together even after you pulled her hair out...

Her life force was so strong it felt like it wouldn't matter if a few bits of her were left out from the whole, because any little lumps of flesh that remained would regenerate themselves through mitosis. A creature like that, wearing armor and training for battle... It was no wonder she was tough.

Atofe finished regenerating while I mused.

Because I'd riddled her with holes, her upper half was naked. Her abs—even more well-defined than Eris's—and her breasts—big, but not as big as Eris's—were on full display. Was there any point, I wondered, in a creature like her working out? I guess there was. Heck, there was probably more of a point to getting ripped when your cells couldn't die than there was for ordinary people. Intriguing.

When Atofe stood before me, fully restored and unarmed, I asked, "Do you still want to fight?" I'd come ready for a drawn-out battle where I'd use every skill at my disposal, but I hadn't come with hostile intent. If I decided Atofe, freshly regenerated, was too much hassle and seriously tried to imprison or exterminate her, Moore, who was watching from behind Atofe, would decide I was hostile. Having made that call, he would take command of Atofe's personal guard and attack me. That's what Orsted had told me. I had thought about how to handle that eventuality... but I didn't want to resort to it. Her regeneration was a hassle, but beating her down every time she came back, as many times as it took to satisfy her, was the better option. I didn't know how many times that would be, but I'd fight her for as long as my magic held out.

But then Atofe yelled back, "No!"

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Moore ran over and put a cloak over her. "I'll get you a change of armor at once, Lady Atofe," he said. Atofe huffed, then sat down on the ground with a thud, crossing her legs. Apparently, she wasn't going to fight. She stared resentfully up at me instead.

I was genuinely surprised. I was convinced the moment she was on her feet again she'd charge me like a wild boar or command her guards to attack us from all sides. Eris stood between the two of us, sword at the ready, but Atofe didn't spare her a single glance. Behind me, Roxy gripped her staff, but I doubted she'd get a chance to use it.

Atofe continued to stare at me for a long while without saying a word. After what felt like forever, she muttered, "Do you remember it, Moore?"

"I'm afraid I wasn't alive for the Great Human-Demon War," he replied.

"Oh, right. True." Her voice was quieter than I'd ever heard it. Calmer too. "It wasn't like that, back then. It was way flashier. It didn't have that weapon, but it was faster and stronger too."

Atofe had to be talking about the original Fighting God Armor—the ultimate suit of armor crafted by Laplace.

"But that's what humans were like. They were weak at first. Helpless as babies. They broke and fled the moment we attacked. But as time went on, they changed. New characters, new armor, new weapons. Even the way they fought. They gathered together and scattered apart, lay in wait in the mountains, and faced off across rivers... And as they did so, little by little, they grew stronger. Kal used to say that that was the humans' strength." Atofe looked composed, and she actually sounded intelligent. Maybe immortal demon kings got sage-like post-regeneration, just like humans did after other activities.

"You made that?" she asked me.

"I did," I replied.

"Huh... You're strong, aren't you? Really strong," Atofe said. Her eyes looked bright and refreshed. "Funny. You pathetic humans are catching up to the Dragon Clan when even my father couldn't defeat them, no matter how he struggled." She stood up slowly, then ordered Moore to her side and looked up at me, where I was struggling to understand what she'd said. She folded her arms and went on. "I am defeated. As promised, I will join your cause, as long as you're still alive."

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That's how Atofe became my ally. She also told me, "You beat me, Rudeus Greyrat, and so I name you 'champion.'"

So I became a champion too. *

Later, there was a banquet at Atofe's fortress. A banquet to celebrate the death of the demon king, hosted by the vanquished demon king herself. Her personal guards were the waiters, and also the guests.

The vast training ground served as the banquet hall. The training dummies and gear were cleared away to make space for an arena in the center surrounded by leather mats. The guards sat around drinking and feasting. Demon King Atofe had been defeated, but that didn't mean any of her prisoners got to go free. Atofe probably wouldn't understand if I brought it up, and besides, it was my problem if her personal guard got weaker from here on out. I decided to leave things as they were. This wasn't cops and robbers, after all. I couldn't free everyone. Well, okay, if any of them were desperate to go home, I'd look for a chance to sneak them out in turn. So long as I did it slowly, Atofe wouldn't notice.

Having said that, Atofe's personal guards all looked like they were happily enjoying the feast. None of them seemed about to rise up in revolt. I guess that made sense. It wasn't like they'd beaten Atofe themselves.

"This is a joyous day! We shall drink! We shall sing! And we shall fight!" Despite her defeat, Atofe was in high spirits. She was having a great time making her servants do battle in the central arena. I noted that with every cup of the ale I'd brought her, she bellowed, "Delicious!" She appreciated my present. It was a strange thought, but she reminded me of Badigadi in this moment. After a battle, her first priority was to drink and sing... Hey, they were siblings, after all. Maybe the Immortal Necross Lacross had been like this too.

"Ahahahaha, good!"

"Crush him!"

"Raise your guard! Come on! Raise it! Ahhh..."

They fought hand-to-hand in the arena. No weapons, no armor, just bare knuckles. The brawniest men in Atofe's personal guard pummeled each other with their fists, and it was all very macho.

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Huh? Wait, never mind. That wasn't a guard. Or a man, for that matter.

"The victor is...Eris!" Eris stood in the arena. She must have had some fuel left to burn after the battle with Atofe. She was beating the crap out of a demon from Atofe's personal guard with the ferocity of a feral dog. This was after she fought Atofe's Ultimate Four earlier! The girl never stopped...

It was a good fight. The lizard-faced guard gave as good as she got. It was a sign of how elite Atofe's personal guards were. When you took away Eris's sword and had her fight hand-to-hand, however, the two were evenly matched. Unless one of them was holding back...but no, that wasn't it. Contestants lay sprawled unconscious around the edges of the arena. Eris had already beaten up three of them. She'd taken a few knocks, but Roxy was there as her second using healing magic. She'd be fine.

Eris had gotten a whole lot stronger...

Atofe cackled with delight. "You are a tough one! Just what you'd expect from the champion's comrade! All right, who's next? Who's it gonna be?"

"I challenge you, Demon King Atofe! Get down here and fight me!" Eris shouted. At this, Atofe cackled again.

"You're an even bigger moron than Kishirika, challenging me to unarmed combat! I like that! All right, I'll fight you!" She threw aside her cloak with a dramatic swish, then, still naked from the waist up, went down to the arena. The banquet approached its peak; the cheers were so loud it felt like the ground might split asunder. Who would win? Eris? Or Atofe?

The odds had to be on Atofe. Personally, I wouldn't put it past Eris to cause a major upset—

"Master Rudeus... Master Rudeus!"

"Ah! Sorry."

I wasn't at the banquet. I was sitting with Moore in a room in the fortress discussing what to do next. I ought to have been the guest of honor... The banquet was hitting a fever pitch out there. Who was the banquet in honor of, again?

Moore cleared his throat. "Thank you for the details. I have here a request for the search and extermination of the Man-God's disciple Geese

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and support in the fight against him, the search for Kishirika, the establishment of an intelligence service, and support in the fight against the Demon God Laplace. Is that the extent of it?"

"That's right."

Unlike Atofe, Moore was a guy you could talk to. He'd heard my requests, put them in order, and was giving them due consideration. I wondered if maybe one day, long ago, Atofe's brain had gotten a mind of its own, escaped the narrow confines of her skull, and turned into Moore.

"Setting aside the first two, for now, I doubt we'll be able to help with the second two, especially the fight against Laplace."

"Is it really impossible? Does she have some sort of obligation to Laplace...?"

"Lady Atofe lost to you and you alone. If you die that becomes null and void. Will you be alive in eighty years?"

"...Probably not." At the end of the day, her debt was to me. Maybe I should have played it so she thought she'd lost to Roxy...well, it was too late for that now. Chalk it up to destiny.

"The mercenary company is also a problem," Moore went on.

"Is it a territorial thing?"

"Lady Atofe reigns over this region, but her only subjects are her guards. If you want to set up another organization, that's your prerogative, but they'll have to look after themselves."

"Very well," I replied.

So Ruquag's Mercenary Band was a no-go. We could set it up, but we'd always have to keep in mind that we were operating right next to an organization led by Atofe.

There would be problems. It wouldn't be smarts that were needed to resolve them, but brute force, right then and there. I could imagine showing up and finding the whole thing gone up in smoke.

"To find Kishirika, we can send letters signed by Atofe to all the demon kings. Their Excellencies should be willing to assist with a search operation."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. You're the one who'll deliver them, Master Rudeus. We lack adequate information on the whereabouts of the

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teleportation circles." "But of course."

Right, this guy knew about the teleportation circles. I didn't have to hide them. Humans had banned the teleportation circles, but demons, especially the older ones, didn't see them as especially taboo.

"Lady Kishirika won't give you the run around unless she has a good reason to. I doubt it'll take long to find her."

"Yes, though faster is always better."

"It'll depend on how fast you deliver the letters... But I imagine you'll find her within a year."

As usual, no one knew where she was.

"Why do you think she's always roaming around like that?"

"I would never presume to know what goes through the minds of old demons like her."

"...Fair enough."

From where I stood, Moore looked like an old demon too. I didn't know how old he was, but he was an immortal demon, so we were talking well over a few centuries.

"You have grown much stronger, Master Rudeus," Moore said. "You're like a different man compared to when I saw you last."

"That's thanks to the Magic Armor."

"You're too modest."

"It's not modesty. I might have gotten hold of enough power to make Lady Atofe yield, but my personal strength hasn't increased dramatically at all."

"Strength" was something you could make, provided you combined magic and skill, but I didn't come by that strength on my own. I'd had help from Zanoba, Cliff, and most recently Roxy. Without them, the Magic Armor would never have been completed and I could never have learned to operate it.

"You are only the second person to whose strength Lady Atofe has acknowledged after just one blow. The first was Lord Kalman, the first North God."

"I don't think I'm at the level of a Great Power." If Atofe had kept

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fighting and resurrecting herself, I think I would have lost in the end. The Magic Armor burned a lot of energy and I only had so much magic in reserve.

"There's nothing wrong with compensating for what you lack, whether it be skill, weapons, or allies. Lady Atofe recognizes it all. That's why she always tells the challengers to come at her all together. That's what makes humans strong, according to her."

Humans' strength was in...combining our powers? So using weapons and fighting alongside others were just different kinds of tactics and skills. There was no cowardly way to fight. That was how Atofe had come to accept her defeat, and why Moore was praising me now. I got it now. Kinda.

"But remember: Lady Atofe still has the skills of a North God Style warrior, and us, her personal guard. Don't be fooled into thinking she fought you with no holds barred."

"I'll be sure not to forget."

This time, I'd fought Atofe alone. But that was Atofe at her weakest. She was always drawing on the power of others to enhance her own. She would arm and armor herself, and she had her personal guards. When she went into battle for real, she mobilized all of that against her opponent. She had plenty of strength in reserve, though where she planned to use all that power, I couldn't say. It was scary to think about. I remembered how the Rudeus from the future had been done in by Moore...

When I came here this time, I'd kept in mind the possibility that I'd have to fight the guards and prepared accordingly. Roxy had magic scrolls on hand for every contingency, which meant so long as we could hold Moore off for a few moments, we could have escaped. Thinking about it now, though, if the guards had joined the fray we might have been in serious trouble.

Just then, I heard Atofe yelling for Moore. "Moore! Moore! Bring Rudeus down here!" Her voice was so loud it easily traveled all the way up here. I looked out the window and saw Eris face down on the ground with Roxy rushing to her side.

She'd lost, then. Of course she had.

"Looks like I'd better go," I said. "If you need to get hold of me, use the contact tablet I set up earlier."

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"I shall. One last thing, though." Moore picked up a box from beside him and held it out to me. It was about the size of a dictionary and engraved with devilish patterns. The kind of box that curses you when you open it. I took it and found it was unexpectedly light.

"Lady Atofe told me to give this to you," Moore said.

"What is it...?"

"Should you find yourself in a desperate situation, open it. I am sure you will find it useful."

So you're saying, "It's a surprise"?

"Let's be off, shall we?" Moore said.

"Sounds good." I put the box in my pack, and we left the room.

After that, I was shown to a seat next to Atofe with the best view in the house of the arena. Wine flowed freely as the banquet continued. We were shown a five-on-five team battle between the guards, followed by a ridiculously flashy magic display by Moore and a few others. Then came an acrobatics show like a Chinese circus, followed by a bard who sang for us.

I found it difficult to enjoy any of it. Atofe sat next to me the whole time, still naked from the waist up. I didn't know where to look. Rudeus the Celibate's celibacy, you see, had only made him hornier.

I stole a peek, but I hadn't noticed that Eris had sat down next to me. She grabbed my ear and Roxy, who plopped down on my lap, blocked off my view of Atofe.

It was a great banquet.

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Interlude: We Got Married

IN THE MIDDLE of a cluster of ten or so houses stood a rough fence

around a little vegetable garden, and in the corner of that garden was a patch of Pir*nha Plants. Junior high students crowded around a giant cooking pot. They looked the same as they had ever been, just like a memory.

"I wonder if Dad's doing okay."

"Yeah, I dunno..."

In the Migurd Village, it was as though time stood still.

Two months had passed since I convinced Atofe to join me. I'd used that time to deliver letters to all the demon kings. I trudged from one end of the Demon Continent to the other bearing letters from Atofe along with Orsted's recommended offerings, forging alliances with the sweat of my brow... Okay, well, I used the teleportation circles, but you know.

The demon kings were a diverse bunch. There was the Plundering Demon King Baglahagla, a gourmand who looked like a pig, then the Face Demon King Lynebyne who was literally a disembodied face, like those Moai statues. After that there was the Demon King of Light Samedynomedy, whose whole body constantly shone, then the Bewitching Demon King Patorsetor whose translucent body was concealed under sheer robes. Plenty more besides.

Every time, I went in ready to fight if I had to. These were demon kings, you know? An association of morons with Atoferatofe and Badigadi at the top. I had no hope in hell that they'd listen to me.

At least, that's what I expected, but they turned out to be unexpectedly easy to talk to.

They accepted their presents grinning like kids on Christmas, and then when I gave them Atofe's letter, they turned pale and whispered, "A champion," bowing their heads and averting their eyes.

One even wet himself while pleading for his life.

The Vile Demon King Qeblaqabla did the same. Orsted told me to be particularly careful with him. He was a sphere full of holes, and every

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hole constantly emitted the smell of vomit. Vile as he was, he was also looking for a fight. Even he bowed down the moment I said Atofe's name, though.

I now understood both how feared Atofe was, and how unusual.

The demon kings, in general, seemed like a bunch of easygoing guys doing their own thing. Each one listened earnestly to my requests and heard me out regarding my search for Kishirika. Eighty years from now was another story; most said it was too far off for them to promise anything. Demon kings live a long time. I doubted they thought much about the future.

We also dropped in on Rikarisu along the way—the location of Kishirika's castle, currently ruled by Badigadi. It was a crater that had once been Kishirika's stronghold.

Badigadi wasn't home. I checked in with the soldiers, who all shrugged and said he hadn't been back even once. They said he was likely off wandering somewhere.

I handed Atofe's letter over to the soldiers watching the castle in his absence, just in case, and asked them to look for both Kishirika and Badigadi. There were only a few demon king castles left. We were apparently going to get through this without any problems.

Then Roxy came to me. "Would it be all right if I stopped in to say hello in my hometown?" she asked. "Don't worry, it won't take long. I'll go by myself and be back before you know it."

No way was I letting her go alone. I went straight back to the house, picked up Lara as well as Roxy's betrothal gift, then returned to Rikarisu.

I'd had a hunch this might happen. I was ready.

Three days later, our journey came to an end as we arrived at the Migurd village.

Me, Roxy, and Lara. Eris muttered something about not wanting to get in the way and tapped out, though she did say to pass on her thanks for the sword. To think, Eris had learned tact. I could've teared up.

When Roxy's mother Rokari saw her daughter, she froze.

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Well, not at Roxy, specifically. It was when she saw Roxy with a child in her arms and me standing beside her, the picture of a happily married couple, that she froze.

A few people in the village had stared intensely at Roxy. I'd wondered if they were sending telepathic messages, but Rokari was different. Her brain had obviously ground to a halt, and she along with it.

She stayed completely still for about five seconds. Then Roxy said, "I'm home, Mom," and she twitched. "R-Roxy, is this..." she stammered, "and this child...?" "My husband and daughter," Roxy replied.

For a moment, Rokari looked shocked, but then her expression changed to one of delight. She turned this way and that, looking all around her. Almost at once, I saw all the nearby Migurd turn towards us, so she must have yelled something with telepathy. Maybe she called Rowin, Roxy's father.

Oh my goodness, dear! Roxy's brought a man home!

Something like that.

Silence fell. It was uncomfortable, everyone staring without saying anything. But I was Roxy's husband. I couldn't let any embarrassment show. I folded my arms, planted my feet apart, and stuck out my chest. Then, I channeled Psycho Power...

"Mom, is Dad around?" Roxy asked.

"Um, yes. I just called him. He's at the elder's house..." Rokari replied. "I'm sure he'll be here soon."

"Could we please wait inside, then? There are too many people staring, and it's getting to Rudy. Look at the weird pose he's pulling."

Say what?! This isn't "weird"! This is the pose of an evil dictator of noble heritage, I'll have you know.

"All right, Rudy. Let's go in," Roxy said. I grunted my assent and followed her into the house.

Was it the pressure of introducing myself to my in-laws after this that made my pack feel so heavy? I'd rather blame it on that than my beloved Roxy's insults for the pose I'd tried so hard at.

"Thank you for having me," I said as I followed Roxy and her

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mother into the house, away from the prying eyes. Thinking back, the last time we were here we didn't go into this house. Maybe I could get Roxy to show me her old room and her high school graduation photos.

Yes, yes, I know they don't have those things in this village.

"I wonder if we have any provisions stocked," Rokari mused out loud.

"Don't worry," Roxy said. "We won't stay long."

"But Roxy, my dear, you've come all this way. You mustn't just hurry away again." Rokari sounded forlorn.

I sat down next to the hearth. Roxy promptly sat down next to me, saying, "I'm afraid we're very busy, Mom."

"Oh." Rokari looked disappointed.

I thought we could probably spare three or four days to stay if she wanted... But I knew Roxy didn't much care for her hometown, so a longer stay wasn't on the cards.

"Anyway, Roxy. This is very sudden, you coming back...and with such a nice man..." Rokari looked back to me and, without reserve, slowly looked me over from my toes up to my head. Then she gave a little gasp of realization and bowed. "How rude of me! I'm Rokari, Roxy's mother. It's a pleasure to meet you."

To...meet me...?

She didn't remember the time we'd met ten years earlier.

"My name is Rudeus Greyrat. I believe we have met once before," I replied.

"Have we really...?"

"Yes, around ten years ago. Ruijerd brought me here," I explained.

"You're a friend of Ruijerd Superdia? But the last time Ruijerd was here..." Rokari put a hand to her mouth as she thought back. Then it seemed to click. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Are you the little human Ruijerd had with him when he left on his journey?"

"Yes, that was me."

"Dear me...! Oh, that does take me back! Haven't you grown? It's barely been ten years, but I suppose humans must become full-fledged adults when they get as big as you are."

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"Yes, ma'am. I'm doing my best to stand on my own two feet, though I have a long way to go..." Here, I placed my hands on the floor and bowed my head. "I'm sorry the announcement comes so late. I have married your daughter."

"...I see. Is she, um, are you happy with her?"

"I am very happy with her." I looked over at Roxy. She was bright red.

"Is Roxy, ah, behaving herself properly as a human bride? There's a lot of tension between humans and demons, isn't there? She isn't causing you any trouble?"

"Not only is she doing very well, but she's also constantly getting me out of trouble. She's the most reliable person in the whole family."

"Well, that's...good..." Rokari said, though she still sounded doubtful.

Roxy jabbed me in the side. I looked at her questioningly, and she muttered, "Too much praise."

I wasn't exaggerating anything! I did rely on her.

"It's just, you seem like such a fine young man... Are you sure you're happy with our Roxy?"

The same question again. Rokari was flustered too.

Roxy butted in. "Rudy has two other wives. I'm more like his mistress. So even if I'm not totally satisfactory, it's not a problem."

There was nothing unsatisfactory about Roxy, and I'd never once treated her like a mistress.

"I see... Still, though..."

"Mom, can you stop? You're embarrassing me."

"Oh...yes. I just worry, dear. You were always so unfriendly and quiet, not to mention your manners."

"I'm aware of my weak points, Mom. But look, I'm fulfilling my duties as a wife. I even had a child."

Duties? Very businesslike. But I'd still love you just as much even if you couldn't have children. Maybe I should say something.

"Rudeus, is that true?" Rokari asked.

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"It is. At the very least, I'll never stop loving Roxy. I'd swear that to any god you like."

My love was agape. It knew no limits.

"Is that right...?" Rokari said, still troubled. Maybe showing her through actions would work better. If I just put my arm around Roxy, like so... Oops, she grabbed my wrist. It's not that, Roxy, I'm not trying to touch your butt, I thought, but then I realized she was squeezing my hand. Her fingers were warm.

Rokari seemed convinced. "I suppose it is," she said. Just then, Lara, who sat beside Roxy, turned to look outside.

"Ah! Rowin is back," Rokari said. My father-in-law was about to make his entrance, which meant it was time to make my introductions once again. I plucked up my courage. I'd grovel on my hands and knees if I had to.

Introductions with Rowin went without a hitch. He reacted just like Rokari and said pretty much the same things, so I gave him the same answers. It was a simple operation. No need for groveling.

"Well, Roxy, congratulations," Rowin said at last, choking up a bit. "So long as you're happy, that's all that matters." He squeezed her hand.

"Thank you, Dad," Roxy replied. She and Rokari were getting teary as well, and watching them, I felt my own emotions welling up. Could I make Roxy happy? What was happiness, really? I didn't have an answer, but I'd do my best to make sure our love never faded.

"Ah, dear. My Roxy, married..." Rowin said. "You were always tripping over your own feet and bursting into tears ever since you were little. And now here you are..."

"Dad, please don't talk about that in front of Rudy."

Roxy when she was a little kid...! I bet she was adorable. I mean, she probably looked more or less the same as she did now, so obviously she was adorable. I assumed she talked more like a little kid back then. If we'd met back then and grown up together, things might have turned out pretty different... But no matter what kind of relationship we had, I was

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sure I would always respect her.

"And here," Rowin went on, sounding emotional, "I never thought I'd get to meet my grandchild." Even after Roxy reproached him, he picked up Lara in his arms, looking delighted. Lara, as usual, didn't protest. She just stared at him, wide-eyed. He smiled at her.

"Lara, is it? Aren't you a clever girl, already knowing how to say your name."

"Huh?" Roxy and I exclaimed together. We hadn't told them Lara's name. And Lara hadn't said anything.

How did he... I thought, but then Roxy turned to Rowin with amazement.

"Is our daughter... Can she use telepathy?" she demanded.

"Eh? Yeah, she still stumbles a bit, but she can get across what she wants just fine," Rowin replied.

I looked at Roxy. A shocking truth had been exposed. Our daughter was a psychic.

Okay, thinking about it, it wasn't that shocking. Roxy couldn't use telepathy, but both her parents could. It probably wasn't down to genetics that Roxy couldn't communicate that way.

"Didn't you know?" Rowin asked.

"No one else in the family is telepathic," Roxy replied.

Rowin frowned. "Are you sure? Lara here says her grandma talks to her all the time."

Her grandma. Lara's grandma, so...Rokari? That wasn't right. She meant Zenith.

"Oh..."

It clicked for Roxy and me at the same time. This was what the Blessed Child had talked about. Zenith could read minds. And the Lara in her memories was a chatterbox. Lara was always silent and sullen, but Zenith remembered talking away happily with her. So it had been telepathy. Lara had been talking with telepathy the whole time.

I felt a wave of relief. Roxy didn't seem to be taking it the same way, though. She was frowning at the ground. I could imagine what was going through her mind: Even my daughter is a telepath. Why am I the

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only one who isn't?

The atmosphere in the room darkened.

"Is she really? Um, okay then..." I stood up and went over to stroke Lara's hair, saying, "Laaara! It's your papa!"

Lara didn't smile. She just stared at me. What was she saying?

"She says, 'I don't understand,'" Rowin translated.

Say what? ...Oh, right. That was demon tongue.

I tried again, this time in human tongue. "Laaara, it's your papa." Then I looked expectantly at Rowin.

"She says, 'I know,'" he said.

Oh, she knows, does she? Well, I supposed there was no way she wouldn't. I did tell her all the time.

Still, her response was a bit cold. She could have at least indulged me with an "I love you, Papa!" or something. Lucie used that line just yesterday.

But then, telepathy wasn't the same as language. It probably came across differently from how it sounded out loud. Yeah, that had to be it, or she'd hardly be able to talk to Zenith.

"Well, that's a relief," I said. "I was worried that she had some delays."

"She's still too little to talk except inside her head, but she'll start talking out loud soon," Rowin reassured me with a nostalgic smile. "Right now, I bet you two feel just like we did when Rokari had Roxy."

"How so?" I asked.

"When Roxy was born, we thought that because she couldn't speak, she wasn't developing properly."

Just like Roxy was the only one in her family who couldn't use telepathy, Lara was the only one in her family who couldn't speak. They were similar in that way. Like mother, like daughter.

For now, all I felt was relief. Our daughter was growing up just fine. If there were no one at home for her to talk to, that might have been a problem. But it wasn't like that. There was Zenith, who I was certain about, and I had my suspicions that Leo used some telepathy-like power to talk to Lara as well. Once she started using words, she could communicate

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with everyone else too. She just needed a little longer.

"Lara looks exactly like Roxy, doesn't she?" I said.

Rowin laughed good-naturedly. "She does, yeah? The spitting image. Especially her eyes."

Rokari looked like she was enjoying herself too. And maybe it was just my imagination, but I thought Lara looked the same.

After that, we returned the money we'd borrowed ten times over, I presented my betrothal gift to them, and then we sat down for a meal of Giant Rock Turtle. It was the first time I'd eaten it in ages, and I made sure to enthuse over how delicious it was while hiding my urge to gag. We had a lovely time. I was thinking how glad I was we'd come when I noticed something: Roxy didn't look happy at all. She didn't smile once the whole time.

Roxy and I ended up staying that night in the village. Perhaps in consideration of the fact that we were a married couple, her parents put us up in an empty house nearby.

The house was still a bit dusty, so we did a brief spot of cleaning and then lay down to sleep, all three of us side by side. It felt a bit like a scene in a movie where the couple shows up at the hotel and there's only one bed with the pillows side by side, something cheesy like that. But we couldn't do anything with Lara here and besides, I was Rudeus the Celibate now. I could get through a night without touching Roxy, even with her sleeping right beside me.

When I saw her lying there though, her eyes closed, I couldn't help it. Those feelings just rose up. I started thinking, Just a little touch would be all right...

Think about it for a second. For the time being, I'd embarked upon the path of celibacy to ensure none of my wives got pregnant. Put another way, anything was fair game so long as no one got pregnant. Just blowing off some pent-up urges wouldn't affect anyone's destiny. Roxy wasn't in any danger.

Glad we cleared that up. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll—

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"Rudy."

Aiaaah! I'm sorry! It was a passing thought! I didn't think you'd mind a little touch... But no, you're right! I'm Rudeus the Celibate! Rudeus the Celibate would never permit such a thing!

"Are you still awake?" Roxy asked.

"Hooonk...shooo..."

"Don't pretend to be asleep. Our eyes just met."

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes. Roxy lay there, looking at me. Her eyes were serious.

"It's about Lara," she said.

Lara's breathing told me she was already fast asleep. She looked like an angel when she slept, a far cry from her usual expression of defiance.

"The truth is, I suspected this might be what was happening," Roxy explained. I didn't have to ask what. She meant what we'd talked about today. Lara's possession of the Migurd ability.

"I didn't say anything until now, but...whenever I saw Lara and Zenith looking into each other's eyes, I considered the possibility."

"It never occurred to me at all."

"Why would it? You've been so busy these past few years, running around everywhere." She may as well have said, You haven't paid any attention to your children.

When you put it that way, maybe she had a point. Maybe I only paid attention to the sweet side of my children. I didn't help to care for them or bring them up. Honestly, I'd taken advantage of Sylphie and Roxy.

"Don't make that face," Roxy said. "I'm not blaming you in the slightest."

It was kind of her to say so. It didn't matter how much I agonized or repented—right now, my hands were full dealing with the Man-God. I didn't have anything left over for looking after the kids.

Roxy gently stroked Lara's face. "I just had this thought. I was born in this village, and for as long as I can remember, I felt like an outsider."

When I didn't reply, she went on. "Looking back now, it was hard. When I left home, I went to a town where people used words to

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communicate. It wasn't until I got to know people there and started my life as an adventurer that I really felt like I was living in my world."

She couldn't do what everyone else around her could. Life was simple for them, but not for her. When they asked her why she couldn't do this thing that ought to come naturally, she had no answer. All she could do was go on being seen as a useless burden by those around her until she began to believe it herself.

Just because everyone else could do it, though, that didn't mean it came naturally. It turned out she could make do without it. The sense of freedom Roxy got when she realized that must have been incredible.

"What if by raising Lara this way, we end up putting her through that? I was fine once I left home, but that won't work for her. The Migurd are the only ones with this power." Roxy looked away from me.

She might be right. The Migurd Clan rarely left this village. Even on the Demon Continent you hardly ever saw one. They didn't exclude others, but they were reclusive. It was all too possible that one day, Lara might start to feel like an outsider.

"So this is what I thought." Roxy frowned like she wasn't sure about what she was about to say. She didn't look at me. "What if we left her with my mom and dad for them to look after her?"

"...What?"

"I thought that maybe it'd be better for her to live here amongst the Migurd until she's grown up a bit more. Maybe until she's ten or fifteen. After that, she can decide for herself whether to leave the village or remain here."

I didn't know what to say. I wanted to keep my son and my daughters as close as possible. That was the obligation you took on when you had a child; it was part and parcel of being a responsible parent. Even making allowances for the Man-God, I wanted to bring up Lara where I could see her.

But Roxy had thought this through properly before bringing it up. Her words weren't rooted in wanting to escape her obligations or give up on raising her child. She saw how hard this was on Lara, and she hated the idea of making her daughter go through what she had.

There was no way that Lara, with her blue hair and her ability to communicate in ways that others couldn't, would go through life without

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experiencing any hardship. And parents can't protect their children from all bad things.

"I don't like it," I began, "but, if you think it's the right thing, I'll..." I stopped, unable to get the words out. I couldn't decide. Should I put my feelings first, or Roxy's proposal? I didn't know what to say, so I simply shut my mouth.

The silence stretched on until Roxy said, "I'm sorry, Rudy. Let's pretend I never said anything. Please, just forget about it."

With that, the day drew to a close. Roxy and I fell asleep hand in hand.

The Migurd village was quiet. You didn't hear any voices. The villagers all communicated with telepathy, so there was no need for conversation. Some of the children might have said hello to Roxy, but she couldn't hear them. I suppose Lara could. She could probably hear the people over there getting food ready, and the lovers' quarrels from inside the houses, and all the other hustle and bustle.

"Seeing how little has changed here, it makes me realize how full these last ten years have been," Roxy mused. "Or, I suppose, how rushed human lives are." She looked down at her daughter in her arms. Lara stared back at her with her customary sullen stare. Given another ten years, this village would likely look much the same. Or if it did change, it wouldn't be in ways that we could see.

Rowin and Rokari both came to the entrance to the village to see us off. They were sad to see us leave.

"You take care now," said Rowin.

"I wish you'd stay a bit longer..." added Rokari.

"Mind if I give Lara another cuddle before you go?" Rowin held out his arms. It was probably true that grandparents favored their first grandchild in every world. These two looked like they were finished having children of their own.

"Of course not. Here." Roxy held Lara out to him, then made a noise of surprise as Lara grabbed hold of the collar of Roxy's robe. I recognized

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that gesture.

"Come on, Lara," she tried. "Say goodbye to your granny and grandpa."

Lara didn't react. She had all four of her limbs wrapped tight around Roxy like a cicada. Then, without letting go, she turned to look at me. Her expression was the same as ever, sullen and defiant. Her mouth turned down, her brow furrowed, and she looked ready to burst into tears. It was like she was asking for help.

"Oh, dear... Hahaha, don't worry about it then," Rowin said, waving his hand with an awkward smile. "She says she doesn't want to leave her mommy."

Roxy looked at Lara in astonishment. Then, seeing her daughter on the verge of tears, her expression changed to anxiety.

Lara broke the silence. "No. I wanna be with mommy..." The effort it took her was clear in every word.

Our daughter, who'd barely said two words till now, was asserting herself for the first time.

Maybe, I thought, Lara had been listening to us last night. Or maybe she hadn't been listening, but hearing our conversation had given her dreams about being left behind. If so, we'd made her worry for nothing.

"It's okay," Roxy said, hugging Lara to her. Her mouth was tight as she struggled not to cry. "I'll never leave you."

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The worry left Lara's face, and she relaxed.

"Roxy, when do you think you'll be back?" Rokari asked.

"Good question. I think it'll be once Lara's grown up some more, so perhaps...another ten years or so."

"All right, dear. You take care of yourself, now."

Rokari's reply was matter-of-fact. Ten years wasn't a long time to her, I figured.

With that, we departed the village. Roxy's parents stood at the entrance to the village until we were out of sight. Though the visit had been a bit awkward at times, I was glad to have met them properly.

Eris and Sylphie's parents were all dead. Roxy wasn't close to hers, but still. Family was family. I hoped to keep up our acquaintance for many years to come.

"Well, Rudy. Things are about to get busy again," Roxy said. "Yeah," I replied.

But first, I thought, I have to take care of the task in front of me. We set off back to Rikarisu.

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Chapter 11: Number Four

WE FINISHED MAKING our introductions to all the demon kings. All

of them promised to ally with me. I also had them sign contracts, just in case. Atofe's name was really handy.

Right now, everything was on track. Things were going well—there were so few hiccups that it felt like things were going a little too well. Geese's continued silence was beginning to creep me out, not to mention the lack of interference from the Man-God. I returned home regularly to check on my family, but there was no indication of him meddling there, either.

I went through all the information the mercenary company had gathered from all over the world but nothing stirred my doubts. That had to mean that whatever Geese was plotting, nothing I was up to interfered with them. Maybe the letter had been a bluff, and his actual scheme was different... But what that meant in the long term, I had no idea. For the time being, I had no choice but to stay the course I'd set.

Geese's whereabouts were similarly shrouded in mystery. He was doing a good job of keeping his head down. To tell the truth, I had the feeling that, short of asking Kishirika, we wouldn't find him. But I had been putting out wanted notices for her all over the Demon Continent. It was just a matter of time until we found her.

In the meantime, I decided to make inroads with my next target. I was heading to the Sword Sanctum to see Sword God Gall Falion.

Orsted said he was a good-natured guy whose hobby was collecting rare swords. Eris, however, said he wasn't the type of man who listened.

I had met Sword King Nina Farion before...but I expected Gall to be cut from a similar mold to Atofe. Depending on how things went, I might end up having to bulldoze my way through negotiations with the Magic Armor again. I wanted people with me who could fight if things wound up like that. However, my destination was full of people comparable to Eris and Ghislaine in skills—they wouldn't stay on the sidelines like Atofe's personal guard if they saw their boss taken down. I'd have to fight off a whole horde of swordsmen at once (and they'd be Saint-

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tier...). That thought didn't do wonders for my motivation. I felt a stomach ache coming on from considering it.

I'd bring Eris, at least...but who else? Maybe I could cajole Ariel into letting me take Ghislaine along.

"My dear! If you don't hurry up and finish, I can't wash up!" "Yeah, sorry. I'm eating. Nom nom."

Right now, however, I was at home, eating dinner with my "wife." "You better not leave the peppers!"

"What, not the peppers too? You know I don't like them..."

"You will eat them! You're a grown-up, so you have to be brave and eat things you don't like!"

My long-suffering "wife" was still only five years old. Our house didn't have a roof, and our plates were made from rocks. On them were arranged mud dumplings and mud gravy. If only I earned more at work, we could afford better! I'd push myself harder.

"Goo."

"Oh, Norn! You're hungry again? Mommy just fed you! I suppose you can have some more."

Our daughter was fifteen, nearly sixteen. This year, she would graduate from the University of Magic. That meant organizing all kinds of events that kept her perpetually busy, but I guess she still missed her mommy's milk sometimes.

"Yaaay, thanks, Mommy," Norn said.

"No, you're the baby, so you only speak in baby talk!"

"Oh... Um, goo goo."

Our daughter hadn't started talking yet. I guess that was normal, given that she was still breastfeeding.

"Woof woof!"

"Aisha, are you hungry too? Fine, I'll feed you. Here's your dinner. It's a secret, okay?"

Our pet dog was fifteen too. She was a career-focused woman juggling her household duties with her job at the mercenary company. But, in the end, even she was a slave to her stomach. Just like a dog.

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"Rrruff!"

"Once you're finished, you go play with Norn!" "Ruff ruff, woof!"

"Gagooo..."

"Wah, that tickles!"

The dog, getting overexcited like she was in heat, flung her arms around my wife and daughter and started licking their faces. What a happy family. I wanted to join in too.

"Oooh, let Dada in too!"

"No! Dada doesn't do that!" my wife said firmly. This felt like an example of domestic discrimination. Perhaps, despite looking like a happy family on the surface, our marriage was actually loveless. We'd fallen out of love into a rut of marital ennui.

More to the point, how come I didn't get to be the pet? I wanted to hug and lick everyone too...

"You hate me..." I sniffled.

"No, I don't! Dada's an amazing person! Even though he hardly ever comes home, and he can't ever cuddle the baby, he still loves them very much! It's not his fault!"

Amazing is all very well, but I'd rather be here, near you all. My fault or not, I want to cuddle my children too. All that love breeds warmth, and in that warmth, there's happiness.

"Um, Rudy...?" A voice came from behind me. "Could I have a word?" I turned and saw my mother-in-law peering out of the window of the neighboring house... Ah, forget it. That's enough of the game.

"Sure," I said. I went to stand up but felt a tug on my sleeve. Lucie looked up at me, anxiety on her face.

"Are you going back to work already, Dada?"

This had all started around an hour earlier. I'd been brooding over who to take with me to the Sword Sanctum, or whether I should just get CEO Orsted to make an appearance, as well as how to go about negotiating and whether I should show up prepared for a fight... That was when Lucie showed up with Norn in tow.

She'd hidden behind Norn as she hesitantly asked, "Dada...um, can

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we play?"

I agreed right away. Gall Falion? The Sword Sanctum? Who cared about trifles like that?

"No, Lucie, I'm just going to talk to Mommy."

"...I want you to stay."

"I'll come back soon as we're finished, sweetie. You play with your big sisters till then, okay?"

"...Okay," Lucie said, her little mouth puckered as she looked down at the ground. It took all I had to tear myself away.

If I could, I'd play house with you all day long. But my real wife's calling me now, so I gotta go.

I washed my hands, then went back to the living room and sat myself down on the couch next to Sylphie.

"Okay, what's the matter?"

"Well, it's just... You're busy at the moment, right, Rudy? So I don't want to put pressure on you, but I have to ask beforehand..." Sylphie scratched at her cheek, looking down in embarrassment.

What's with the teasing?

"I mean, you're about to set off to the Sword Sanctum any day now, right?"

"Yeah, as soon as everything's ready, so another two or three days..."

All that was left to do was to choose my team. Eris and one other. I wanted someone who spoke the language of the Sword God Style gang. Hey, there was a thought! Ariel had Isolde working for her as well. Isolde had trained at the Sword God's Sanctum too, so she was a possibility.

"How long will you be gone?" Sylphie asked.

"I'm not sure, but probably somewhere between ten days and a month. We'll drop in to see a few other people while we're in the area, I'm guessing." There were supposed to be renowned swordsmen and smiths in training around the Sword Sanctum, so I intended to make some connections.

"Right... Okay, so I guess you won't be back in time." "In time for what?"

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"The baby," she said. My eyes went to her belly. It was big and swollen. Her breasts were a bit bigger too. Sylphie was so slender that the changes looked strange on her.

"Oh... It's that time already, huh?"

Look, I hadn't forgotten. Duh. Sylphie was always in my thoughts. I just didn't know the due date... But all right. It was coming soon. Time really does fly.

Hesitantly, Sylphie asked, "Do you want to touch my belly?"

I reached out and laid my hand on her stomach. Even though I was only touching the outside, I felt the pulse of the life inside of her. It was strange, almost like she had two hearts.

Which she did. Right now, Sylphie held two lives within her. And soon, one of them would break away to exist on its own.

"Lucie and the others' new little brother or sister will be here soon," Sylphie said, laying her hand on top of mine. "You won't be here for the birth this time, will you, Rudy?"

"Yes, I will. I'll be home."

"But Rudy..."

"I'll be here," I said firmly. After being told our baby would be born soon, I couldn't just say "Well, good luck!" and leave. If I did that, what would be the point of the work I'd been doing?

"Thank you, Rudy. I love you."

"I love you too."

Sylphie closed her eyes, so I moved my hand up to her shoulder and pulled her close. Times like these were when I felt truly happy.

"There's one other thing, while I remember," Sylphie said. "Before the baby's born, I wondered if you could think of a name. You said you'd think about it before you went to Millis, but you still haven't told me."

I slid down onto the floor to sit with my legs folded under me. *

And so I wound up staying home for a while longer. My sense of

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urgency was as strong as ever, but now I was worried. I knelt on the floor before Sylphie, bowed my head to the ground, and admitted that I hadn't thought about the name. She wasn't angry or even annoyed. Instead, she went quiet and pale. I could see the betrayal on her face.

It vanished again in an instant as she said, "Oh, Rudy. You'd better start thinking now, then," but I'd seen it. I'd seen the crushing disappointment. Right afterward, the thought came to me that maybe I'd exhausted her patience with me. I think I probably had.

For the past half year, Sylphie had believed in me, sure that, though I might be far away, I couldn't wait for the birth of our child. That I'd celebrate happily with her after the event. That's what I thought I'd be doing too, of course. I mean, I'd had every intention of it. Obviously,

I hadn't shown it through my actions.

"Dada, what's wrong? Does your tummy hurt?"

"No, sweetie. I just hurt Mama's feelings a little bit."

"Then you gotta say sorry," Lucie advised me. Succinct, and the right thing to do. Unfortunately, I didn't think it was an apology Sylphie wanted. It wasn't just a surface-level "sorry" she was after, but something more complicated, less clearly defined... Yeah, she wanted peace of mind.

"The thing is, Lucie, even if I say 'sorry' to Mama now, she'll worry that I might hurt her feelings again."

"But you won't, will you?"

"I won't. I'll do my best not to." "Then Mama will forgive you!"

Sylphie understood from the start. She knew with how much time I spent away that every now and then, I'd forget something altogether. That didn't make it any easier for her to swallow, though.

She'd held back her temper for a long time. The time I'd gone off to find Paul right after she got pregnant, the time I married Roxy, the time I married Eris—she never blew up at me, and she was always understanding. She let me do as I pleased.

When I said I hadn't thought of a name, she held back then, too. She must have forced back what she really wanted to say. And she'd keep on doing it. I'd keep making her do it.

We were fine, for now. But one day, she'd reach the limit of what

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she could put up with. Like a glass of water filled past its brim, one day she wouldn't be able to hold anymore, and when that happened, I'd lose her. It'd come out of the blue, just like in the future diary.

I didn't want that. I wanted to be with Sylphie for as long as I lived. I'd thought that feeling was mutual.

But that was about what I wanted.

Even if she ran out of patience with me in the end, I wanted to at least give her peace of mind here and now. I just had to work out how to do that...

I was still stewing endlessly over the question when Sylphie went into labor a mere week later. The whole time, Sylphie acted as if nothing was wrong. Maybe she really didn't think something was wrong. She wasn't the type to hold grudges over things like this. Maybe she'd been a bit disappointed at the time, but hadn't thought of it as that big a deal.

I don't think I'd been acting awkward either. For the past week, I'd been with Sylphie every moment I could as I frantically tried to decide on a name. I noted down every one that came to me and Sylphie and I discussed which ones we liked. Maybe to her, it looked like I was trying too hard. But I really wanted to try as hard as I could.

Then, her labor pains started. Eris knew what to do and ran for the doctor, while Lilia and Aisha got ready, Roxy stood by ready to provide support with healing magic if necessary, and Leo took the kids to another room. I stayed at Sylphie's side the whole time. Soon after, Eris came back with the doctor. He looked a bit dazed, clasped under Eris's arm, but he quickly got deep into the work of preparations for the birth. We were all used to this. It was Sylphie's second time and my fourth child. Counting Aisha and Norn, I'd been present for five births. If you included my past life, there were a few more.

The doctor was experienced. No one here was new to this. A rock- solid lineup.

As we stood by, the birth began.

We were all relaxed, and everything was going smoothly, as it should...

"Oof..." The head had just come into view when the doctor let out a troubled sigh. In an instant, my reassurance faded and fear raced through me. Childbirth was still childbirth, no matter how experienced we were.

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I shouldn't have gotten complacent. Was it a breech birth? No, I could see the head, so that wasn't it... Surely it couldn't be a stillbirth...

Roxy stood up, staff in hand. "Healing magic?" she asked.

"No, that won't be necessary," said the doctor, and the birth continued. He carried on with the delivery, speaking to Sylphie only when absolutely necessary. As far as I could tell, nothing had gone wrong.

"...Ah, uwaaah." A baby's cry broke the restless silence. A strong little voice. It wasn't a stillbirth. The doctor didn't say anything, just held the baby up. It looked fine to me. I honestly didn't think anything was wrong. But the doctor's face was still tense, and I knew why. I'd know as soon as I saw the baby. Why the doctor had sighed. Why he was so tense. I genuinely didn't think there was any problem, but I understood why he did.

It was the baby's hair. When Lucie was born, her wisps of hair had been light brown. When Lara was born, she'd been bald. I wasn't there when Arus was born, but when I saw him, his hair looked red.

We all stared in silence. There was Sylphie's second child, with a head of green hair. Yep, just like Sylphie, back in the day.

"No way..." Sylphie had gone pale. "Oh...oh no...it can't be..."

Roxy, Eris, Aisha, and Lilia were all totally unperturbed. They had no context for why Sylphie was reacting like this. We weren't lacking for kids with exciting hair colors in this house. Plus, Ruijerd and everyone else around here had green hair. No one would bat an eye at green hair.

Sylphie, though. Sylphie...was a different story.

"...Congratulations, it's a boy," said the doctor as Sylphie stared despairingly at the baby. He held him out to her and she accepted, but she kept glancing around, at a loss for what to do.

"Sylphie," I said.

I had to celebrate. There was no reason not to. I needed to express my joy and congratulate Sylphie. Then, I had to reassure her that everything was going to be okay. I smiled to give her peace of mind—or as much as she could have at the moment, anyway.

"You're okay, it's all okay. Thank you so much," I began, but before I could get any further, Sylphie replied.

"Rudy... I'm sorry..."

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"There's nothing for you to be sorry for, look—whoa!" As I started again, her batteries seemed to run out and she slumped. Seeing the baby about to slide off the bed, I dived to grab him.

"Huh?" I said stupidly as Roxy and the doctor rushed forward, pushing me aside.

"Rudy! Get out of the way!" Roxy snapped.

Sylphie had passed out. I stared blankly as the two of them checked her vitals.

"She's only fainted," the doctor said, and the whole room relaxed.

I stood there, dazed, with the naked baby in my arms. Aisha came over with a blanket.

"Here, Big Brother, wrap him in this."

"O-oh, yeah." I reached out for the blanket as instructed.

Sylphie had been worried. She'd been wrapped up in an indistinct cloud of anxiety. And now, as if to prove her worries right, her baby had green hair. I wasn't sure if she'd passed out from relief, or from all that stress reaching its peak.

Had I done more to set her mind at ease, maybe we could have avoided this. Maybe she wouldn't have been worried about the baby having green hair.

I felt guilty. But I was also overjoyed. Sure, the baby had green hair. But that wasn't any big deal. Nothing had changed.

Here was my fourth child. And I'd made sure to think of a name.

All of a sudden, I heard Eris's voice pipe up from a corner of the room.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

She was talking to me—berating me for being so useless. Feeling like I'd been punched in the gut, I turned.

At least, that's what I thought was happening. I was wrong.

"Huh?"

She wasn't talking to me. There was another, shocking presence in the room. He was blond and wore a white fitted jacket, buttoned at the front like a school uniform, and matching trousers. His face was hidden behind a yellow mask designed like the face of a fox.

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"Arumanfi...?"

Behind me stood one of the twelve familiars of Armored Dragon King Perugius, Arumanfi the Bright. His eyes were fixed on me. No—they were on the baby. The baby, with its green hair.

Then, he spoke. "Rudeus Greyrat," he announced. "Lord Perugius summons you to the Floating Fortress."

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Extra Chapter:

The Monkey and the Dreaming Youth

Geese

IWAS IN A white room. There was nothing else here, just a white

floor that extended on forever. I liked it here. It took me back to all those years ago when I was just a nobody brimming with hopes and dreams— young, inexperienced. Dumb as hell.

I was born in a little village in the south of the Demon Continent, free as a bird—except, 'cause I was too full of myself, I didn't think the village was good enough for me. I was cocky enough to think I was made for greater things, and so I ran away.

And did I achieve great things in the end? Nope, not a one. The only skills I picked up were things anyone could do—cooking, washing, cleaning... Yeah, I could draw a map, or negotiate, or disable a trap, but if you asked how I compared to an actual pro, well. Best not to dwell on it.

If I weren't such a pushover, maybe even I could've believed in myself, but the fact remained that I couldn't fight to save my life. My only purpose was to tag along after strong, amazing types and cover their weak points. You know how goldfish poop clings to them while they swim? That was me. All I had going for me were cheap tricks and a quick tongue.

When I was in this room, the fact that that same moron—that is to say, me—was somehow still kicking really hit home. But I wasn't gonna let it end like this. I was gonna achieve something big. Something that'd let me face myself in the mirror.

"Oh, yes. Of course, you can't let it end like this, I know just how you feel," said a weirdly blurry figure. The Man-God.

It was spooky how your eye just slipped off of Him, how He was always popping up when I least expected Him. But He was also a strangely comforting presence for me. Ever since I was back languishing in my tiny village, He'd come to me in my dreams to give me advice. He was my holy Man-God.

"Sorry to interrupt when you're wallowing in sentimentality, but am

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I going to get an explanation any time soon?"

An explanation? What for?

"I am angry. You do know that only bad things will come if you don't stop avoiding my questions?"

Whoa there, don't get mad. If it's an explanation you want, ya gotta tell me what you wanna know.

"What possessed you to write that letter to Rudeus in Millis? Did we not discuss that your presence there was for the purpose of confirming how he fights?"

Ohhh, that old thing. That little letter where I declared war on him so as he'd know I'm a disciple of the Man-God. But see, the reasoning for that is a little tricky to put into words.

"I don't care how difficult it is. You will explain. Depending on what you say, I may have no choice but to unleash my divine wrath upon you."

Haha. Your divine wrath, eh? You already did that once. Pretty sure I don't have enough left to lose that much again, y'know?

Ah, whatever. I'll explain. I thought a whole lot about why I did it recently, so I've got an answer all drafted 'n ready to go.

"How very commendable of you." Right?

"Now get to the point."

Okey-doke. Well, first of all, I made it through life with lies and deception. So I've got kind of a sense for when the game is about to be up. There's a fuse on this kinda thing; an expiration date. I can just tell when a lie's about to be exposed.

It's safer to just get it over and done with, then do a runner... y'know? Better than being around in the moment when Boss twigged to it.

The Man-God made a thoughtful noise.

That was reason number two, though.

"Reason number two? Then what was reason number one?"

That was about being true to myself. You could also call it committing myself to this. See, in the end, however I talk, I'm scared. I reckon if I had to go up against Rudeus, along the way I'd get cold feet. So

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I'd leave myself an escape route. Then, if the plan went belly-up, I'd have an out to say I was never a disciple, and I could talk my way out. If the odds were against us, when the time came, I could turn traitor and go back to Boss's side.

If was ready to back out at any moment, that'd be enough to turn a winning position into a losing one. Don't ya think? I do. Unfortunately, I can't fight for nothing. But time and time again, I've seen folks dive in knowing they might never come back out. Paul and Ghislaine were like that, even Elinalise sometimes.

That's the only way you win. And you can't do it if you get cold feet 'cause you're afraid to die. A strike only becomes a killing blow when you're ready to die when you throw yourself into it. That's how you bring down mighty enemies, far as I see it. So I wanted to force myself to be like that too.

"Hm. And so that's why you went to the trouble of leaving him a letter?"

Pretty much.

"I can't say I understand...but no matter. From my vantage point, I must question whether your willingness to die affects the bigger picture. It concerns me."

Whoa there, look who's talking! Who's the one who came sniveling to me like, "I can't win, help meee"?

"Yes, and it's precisely because of that that I am being so careful. I am relying on you."

Uh huh, and just like you wanted, I'm getting more and more people on our side to bump off Rudeus and Orsted. I'm all in.

"True. You do have a perfect recruitment rate so far. Even if it is only because I told you their weak points. From their childhoods to their desires, to the right time to approach them..."

I mean, okay, it hurts a bit when you put it like that... But hey, I'm still the one doing the talking, at the end of the day. A teensy bit more trust would be appreciated.

"Understandably so. I do trust you. But we are running out of time." I get that. It's important we do it on the right day, yeah?

"Yes. He is Rudeus's weakness, so we have no choice but to use

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him. I have no doubt that it'll work."

Yeah? I wonder... No plan's ever guaranteed to succeed, y'know.

"I'm well aware of that. Ever since Orsted got involved, all of my plans have gone awry. I'm sick of it."

Even so, I'd rather get as many as we can on our side beforehand. Especially the next guy. He's a big one. Maybe on the same level as the first guy, or even stronger.

"Do you think you can do it?"

Come on, I rustle up some reasons for him to fight, get him worked up, then sneak around a bit setting things up behind the scenes. Before ya know it, you've got one reliable ally ready to go. Just like all the others, right?

"Good, good. I don't know what I'd do without you."

Heh. Keep flattering me like you mean it.

Anyway, where am I going tomorrow and how do I get there? You'd better have something good in store, here. I'm countin' on ya.

"Yes, of course. Tomorrow, when you wake, travel due west, then wait in the shadow of a boulder. You may sleep there if you like. Then, move off due west again when the sun sets. You will arrive at a village at daybreak. Go to the only tavern in the village. If you do so, you will surely find him...surely..."

With the Man-God's words echoing in my ears, I blacked out. *

My eyes opened.

I rose, cracking my neck and checking all my parts were working. No tingling in my limbs. No indigestion. No weird growths on my skin. I was hungry, but otherwise fit as a fiddle.

I went out of my tent and stretched, feeling my back crack as I yawned. I watched the sun rise.

After that, I worked out what direction I was facing. My daily routine. Can't start the day without it.

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"All righty," I said.

Desert stretched out before me, as far as the eye could see. This was the Begaritt Continent, the second most dangerous place in the world after the Demon Continent. This place was swarming with monsters just as vicious as any on the Demon Continent, and the environment was unforgiving.

I'd been raised on the Demon Continent and even I found myself thinking, the second most dangerous?

I mean, I got why. There's fewer monsters overall here, plus the eastern and northern regions are pretty safe. Stuff like that tricks you into thinking that the Begaritt Continent's not so bad. Meanwhile, you could drop into the heart of any region of the Demon Continent and it'd be packed full of danger. There's not a safe corner in the whole place. 'Course, there's no denying either place was habitable for the truly determined.

"Let's get going." I packed up my things, then set off west.

The desert was empty, but that was just on the surface. Beneath the sand lay swarms of worms that could swallow you whole and scorpions with poison in their tails that'd slowly melt you into soup. But wait, there's more! Then there were the monsters that preyed on those guys. Those were even more fearsome. You'd have to have the chops of an A-rank adventurer or higher to fight your way through them all.

Although knowledge of the local monsters would do the trick too. Different sorts of monsters all behave differently. Some are territorial, some build nests, some rove about looking for prey. Then there's some that rely on sight, while others rely on sound... If you've got knowledge of their behavior, avoiding them as you travel is...well, it's tough, but not impossible.

The problem is that people can't beat a monster's sharp senses. Monsters that rely on sight see through most camouflage in an instant, and monsters that rely on sound pick up on the smallest noise. Monsters that lie in wait in their nests make sure you don't twig to their location, and monsters that rove about looking for prey have the stamina to chase you for days without rest.

'Course, what makes us strong is how we each have some of the different skills you need to get past monsters. Plus, I had the Man-God's protection. I could head due west without getting noticed by any monsters.

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Nothing to it.

Whoa there, don't let your guard down.

"Not like I've got enough tricks that I can afford to relax," I muttered to myself. "Gotta be real careful, eh?"

I kept heading west, never changing course. I'd wanted to buy a horse or a camel or something, but apparently, that'd bring the monsters down on me. This time I'd go on foot or not at all.

I was parched. I sipped a few drops from my canteen to rehydrate.

What made the Begaritt Continent even harsher than the Demon Continent? Gotta be the heat. On the Demon Continent, temperatures varied by region, but there were no extremes of hot and cold. Nowhere that got covered in snow like in the Northern Territories. Heat and cold both sap your strength and dull your judgment.

From time to time, I put a hand to my forehead and my neck to check there was nothing wrong with me. If I got really hot, that'd be a warning sign. I was doing okay for now, but if I kept walking on and on, I'd wear down eventually. Demons are tough, so even a hopeless lout like me is a bit more long-lasting than a human. But only an absolute moron would think that's enough to keep them alive.

I mean, ain't it plain to see? In the stories, even that Immortal Necross Lacross kicked it in the end. No saving grace even for immortal beings, eh?

"Welp, here I am." The enormous boulder appeared before me, shaking me from my thoughts. It must have been twenty meters tall, so big you had to crane your neck to get a look at it. It stuck up like a sore thumb out of the desert. That was where I'd stop to rest, just like the Man-God said.

Well, what d'ya know? Getting here was dead easy. I almost wanted to laugh.

I sat in the shadow of the enormous boulder for a while, not doing anything. Younger folks get restless at times like this. They feel like they gotta be doing something, but sometimes the best thing you can do is stop, if only so that you don't waste energy.

In the shadow of the boulder, there was a patch of Sandcherries, their berries gleaming like little lanterns. They had spikey, pale yellow leaves that blended in with the sand, and red flowers. You might think,

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seeing them, that those delicate blossoms wouldn't look out of place in a royal palace vase. Once you knew the truth about Sandcherries, though, you'd think very differently. You'd appreciate how terrifying this place was.

The Sandcherry's leaves and stem were covered in tiny prickles that contained a powerful toxin—so powerful that even antidote magic had no effect. Sandcherries only wound up in royal palaces when someone really wanted the royals dead. They were a rare commodity. A single sprig from these babies would be enough to set me up for a good while. Anyway. Thanks to the Sandcherries, monsters left this place alone. I pitched my tent, taking care not to touch any, then lay down. Rest time is weird. You gotta do it, but when you do, you can't do anything. Normally, I'd use the time to put together a dumb gadget or two...but I was traveling as light as possible, more's the pity. Nothing but the bare essentials to survive.

What did other folk do, I wondered. Did educated types read books? What did I do, back in the day...? Right, I fantasized. All my fantasies were about the kind of adventurer I was gonna be.

Hah, I bet the me from back then would be real happy to hear what I was up to now... Traversing a desert on the Begaritt Continent following the advice of a God, taking a nap in a safe spot surrounded by poisonous plants. All laid out like that, it sounds pretty cool, don't ya think? Might be a good story to tell at the tavern.

"Eh?" Looking over, I saw a Sand Rabbit sitting right beside me. It seemed it hadn't noticed me. Or maybe, compared to the monsters around here, it didn't see me as a valid threat. It hopped along, then stretched out its neck to take a bite of a Sandcherry.

Sandcherry Berries were as poisonous as the surrounding chaff, but this Sand Rabbit happily munched away on them without a care. When it was finished, it stuffed its cheeks till they bulged then hopped away again. Sandcherry toxins didn't affect it, I guessed. If I caught it and took it to, say, Millis, they'd pay through the nose for it—we were talking way more than your standard bounty.

Wait, that's right, I'm a demon—they'd slam the gates in my face.

I went on idling away the time, thinking about how there were always more things to uncover in this world.

I headed off at sunset and arrived at the village after walking for

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about three hours. The Man-God didn't let me walk while the sun was up, and along the way, I'd learned why.

A big old lizard lay dead on the road. Sorry, calling it that's a bit of an undersell, so let me try again. It was a dragon. A Yellow Naga. The dragons of the Begaritt Continent usually live in caves under the ground. They move through the sand like fish in water, mostly chowing down on Sandworms near the desert's surface. Strictly speaking, they were supposed to be closer to Wyrms than Dragons, but I mean, they were just as dangerous as Dragons. All the warriors in these parts thought of them as the same thing.

Its jaws were big enough to eat three of me at once; its body must've been a hundred meters long. It sat there in the middle of the desert, squashed flat like something had trodden on it. Scavengers had already eaten half of it. I didn't want to think about what kind of monster did it in. I got out of there before I met the same fate.

There was a landmark for the village: a boulder that shone bluish- white, so you could just about make it out from a distance. I had to wonder if it didn't draw monsters to the village...but well, I bet it was an important boulder to those in the area.

The village I arrived in was tiny. No more than a few buildings clustered together. The buildings were a mixture of packed-dirt hovels and tents here and there. It looked likely to vanish any day. There was one inn, one tavern, and one shop to tend to the populace. As you'd expect, no sign of the Adventurers' Guild out here. These folks were self-sufficient, selling whatever they could grow to the occasional merchant who passed through and buying what little they needed. Looking at this place convinced me that even my village hadn't been this small. Well, maybe it'd been about the same. Couldn't rightly remember.

I called in at the "tavern." It served a second purpose as the villagers' mess hall. A few workers with dark skin and powerful physiques were drinking and enjoying themselves after finishing up after the night shift. Curved swords unlike what I was used to hung from their belts. These were desert warriors.

There were lots of elderly folk and hardly any young people around. Yep, this had to be the rumored village of the desert warriors. Desert warriors operated all through the Begaritt Continent, but the stories said that when they got past their prime they retired to their home village to focus on childcare instead. When I walked in, they all stared at me with the

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same look of surprise. To be fair, I doubted many demons visited these parts.

"Welcome, guest...if that is what I should call you?" said a man with a ruddy face.

"Yep, I'm definitely a guest." I answered in Fighting God Tongue, holding up my hands to show them. Who knew what the gesture meant in these parts, but I mean, this was a pretty direct way to demonstrate I didn't mean no harm. Look, ma, no weapons.

"You don't look like a merchant," the man said.

"Yeah. I'm actually looking for someone. They're not from these parts, though..."

The man grunted in acknowledgement, then gave a satisfied nod.

"The one you seek is up there," he said, pointing out the window.

Towering up out of the sand was an enormous boulder like the one I'd rested beside. The whole thing had this kind of gleaming glow to it. Magic stones embedded in it, maybe? Narrowing my eyes to get a better look, I saw it was scaffolded and had a ladder that extended up to the top. It looked a bit like a watchtower combined with a lighthouse.

"Got it. Cheers." I said, flicking him a copper coin for the information.

"What's this?" he said.

"For the info. You don't do that?"

"That information wasn't worth paying for."

"Think of it like a sign of friendship, then," I said. "C'mon, you don't see coins like that every day, right? That there's a Millis bronze coin, y'know."

The man stared hard at me for a while, but in the end, he put the coin in his pocket, then brought his fists together in thanks.

Bet you're pondering why I went with a Millis coin instead of money from these parts. Fact is that the teleportation circle plonked me down out here in the middle of nowhere, so I didn't have time to go change my cash.

I left the tavern and headed for the dimly glowing boulder. The closer I got, the better I could appreciate its ginormous size. There was a scaffold platform and a ladder, but the boulder was so big that wasn't

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much comfort. It looked like it might come to pieces when I was halfway up.

"Hey, I really gotta climb this thing?" I said. No one was around to answer me. Which meant the answer was, Shut up and climb.

Contrary to what I'd expected, the ladder was sturdy and there was no wind. The only thing making it difficult was the darkness, but I managed to make it to the top without my feet slipping.

The flat top of the boulder was studded with daggers stabbed into the rock, adorned with scraps of red cloth. There were mystical letters written on the surface, a bit like a magic circle. I'd seen this kinda place before. If my hunch was right, this was where the village's youths came for their coming-of-age ritual. Or maybe they took the daggers of dead folks, tied a scrap of their clothing to the handle, and stuck them up here. My village had a ritual like that, too. Not that I'd ever done it.

I looked up. "Well, ain't that a view?" I said to myself.

The sky was full of stars. Under the bright light of the moon, the desert shone blue. Stars continued along the curve of the sky all the way down to the horizon.

And wasn't that ironic? See, the whole reason I wanted to be an adventurer was to see views like this. I wanted to see the yet-unseen sights that waited at the end of an endless adventure. Then, when I became an adventurer for real, all I ever saw was cold reality. Greed. Discrimination. Uncensored human nature, all of it sordid. It was the second I half-retired from adventuring and swore myself to the Man-God that I started coming to these sorts of places. Ya can't beat irony like that.

"So what's your deal? You're not just here for the view, right?" I said, addressing another shape further up the boulder.

He was wrapped in several layers of ragged robes. He looked like a big ol' pile of rags, to be frank, but I was pretty sure he was a person. I'd look like a schmuck if it really turned out to be a pile of rags, but so what? I didn't stand to lose anything, chatting up a pile of rags.

"What if I am?" He replied. The voice of a young man. Phew. Not just a pile of rags, then.

"Then I'd say, 'I wouldn't think an important guy like you would go in for stargazing.'"

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"What if I said that's not why I'm here either?"

"Then I guess I'd ask, 'So what're ya doing here?'"

"But I might not answer you. Isn't that right?"

"Uh huh," I said.

What the hell was the point of deflecting...? Still, going off his roundabout manner of speaking, this had to be the guy I was searching for.

"The truth is," he said. "I'm looking for the Master of the Begaritt Continent. A Behemoth."

Aha. I got my answer.

"The Master is always traveling around the continent, so there's no telling where it'll be. They say, though, that once every few hundred years it appears close to this boulder."

"And that 'once every few hundred years' is today?" I asked. He didn't reply, just slowly turned to face me. He was a young man, black- haired, with some baby fat still lingering around his chops. The look he gave me told me I was right on the money.

Then he said, "No, that's not it."

Okay, nix that.

"It was only ever a legend. I don't even know if this 'Master' really exists."

"What's got you sitting in a place like this, then?" "Because it might be today."

Only real obsessive types talked like that.

"See, the Master passed this way once several hundred years ago, and since then, it hasn't returned. So it might well be today, get it? It didn't come yesterday or the day before. Several hundred years later might be today. Right?"

"You're not wrong." His eyes said he was serious. He really thought that tomorrow could be the day the Master happened by this big old boulder.

By the way, I'm pretty sure the only intel this kid had dug up on the Master was the "once every few hundred years it appears close to this boulder" tidbit. With only that to go on, he'd trekked out here to the back of beyond, then spent days and days sitting up here, waiting. He was a

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bonafide nutjob.

"What's got you hunting the Master anyway? It kill your folks or something?"

"That's pretty much it, actually."

"Liar."

He laughed. "You're calling a stranger a liar? Hahaha! Well. I suppose it was a lie."

Is it that funny? I thought as the kid cackled. But okay, maybe to him it was pretty funny. I asked him what he wanted to fight the Master for, he told me, then I'd called him a liar.

As it happened, I knew just how his parents were doing. Sure, his mom was dead, but his old man was practically too healthy for his own good. His grandma was pretty sprightly too, if you're interested. Actually, I knew a whole bunch more than that. I knew when he'd get to see the Master, why he wanted to kill it, what he wanted to do afterward, and how things would go for him after that. Every bit of it. Not that I was gonna rattle that off for him. This kid was the type to get surly if I blurted it all out, which meant I had to get him to bring it up first. You gotta get these types in a good mood and talking your ear off.

"So why are you here?" I asked.

"Hm. Have you ever seen someone great, and wanted to become greater still?"

"A few times, I guess."

"There is a great hero I hope to one day surpass, so that I may become the greatest hero who ever lived."

"What, and hunting the Master out here in the middle of nowhere is the ritual that'll turn you into this super awesome hero?"

"No, that's not it. I want to surpass this great hero, right? But then the problem becomes how I surpass him...y'see?"

"Don't you have a duel with this great hero-dude and beat him?"

"Yes, there's a logic to that. But that's not the way for me."

"It's not?"

"People can't always stay in their prime. Battles are swayed by conditions and luck. Winning a fight won't do me any good if people say I

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only won by chance, or that I scored a lucky hit." Okaaay...

"Personally, I would never discount a victory won by chance or with a lucky hit. But the rest of the world isn't so forgiving. You truly become great when other people call you great—not a second sooner."

"Cool, so how d'ya get folks to call you great?" I asked.

"That's easy. You do something a great person did. Right?"

"That's why you're here to beat the Master?"

"Bingo. I'm going to beat the Master...the largest Behemoth on the Begaritt Continent."

There it was. That was his goal. Behemoths were the largest living things on the Begaritt Continent. They were massive creatures that even dwarfed Dragons, and they trampled everything in their paths. It was said they were invincible. And here this kid was to slay one.

Long ago, the great hero he wanted to surpass had slain one too. That tale had been passed down through the ages and spread to all corners of the world. Together with his companions, the hero overcomes adversity, saves suffering people, then goes to fight the giant Behemoth and emerges victorious. A heroic epic, y'know.

This kid was angling to do the same. Now, if you wanted to be real picky about it: he was alone, he wasn't overcoming any adversity, and there weren't any suffering people. He didn't have any grand reason to come after the Behemoth—unless you counted wanting to surpass his great hero.

Now here he was, waiting for the Behemoth with no idea when it might arrive, on top of a boulder in a backwater village in the middle of nowhere.

"That right, huh? Makes sense, since you want to be a hero."

To entice this knucklehead with his heroic aspirations, all I needed were words. He wanted to be the subject of a heroic epic? Awesome. I'd play the sage in the story who gives the hero his next test. Time to get into character.

"All right, I'll tell you why I'm here," I said.

"Oh? You didn't just happen to be passing by?"

"Didn't it strike you as odd? I'm not a merchant and I don't have a

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party. What's a pipsqueak adventurer like me doin', coming to a place like this?"

"Huh... Then you're saying..."

In my best prophet voice, I intoned, "Set forth at daybreak with your back to the sun and walk half a day hence."

A heavy silence fell. The kid's eyes were gleaming with undisguised interest in my sudden prophecy. Instead of replying, he turned around, lay a hand on the boulder, and stared at me. He even cracked a smile.

"If you win," I added, "come back here. I'll tell you something even better." Then I turned to leave.

"Wait!" he called after me. "What does that mean?" I didn't turn back or answer him. Couldn't break character. Now, to make a quick exit...

Oops, that's right—we're on top of a giant boulder... Rats, I can't just jump down.

I took hold of the ladder and set off down. The kid didn't come after me, but as I descended I caught him watching me. There was a look in his eyes that set my hair on end.

My act had gotten a bit rough at the end there, but that was fine. Good enough, I assumed.

I woke the next morning to a loud rumbling.

Leaping to my feet, I ran out of my tent and looked around. Once I'd confirmed there was no imminent danger, I went through my routine check. I had a bit of a bellyache. I might've caught a chill in the night, or maybe the local food just didn't agree with me. I holed myself up in the outhouse for nearly an hour, then headed for the source of the noise. No need to rush things. I knew what was about to happen, just like I knew what was happening right now.

I yawned as I walked along, following the sound. I came to a crowd at the entrance to the village. The old warriors were armed, the children looked anxious, and all of them stared out toward the distant horizon.

I pushed my way through the crowd, muttering, "'Scuse me, coming through," until I reached a place where I could see where the sound was coming from.

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The scene that emerged could've come straight out of a myth. First, there was the giant beast. It was the weirdest thing I'd ever seen, and it had too many legs sprouting out of its body. Even at this distance, it was gargantuan—too big for me to even conceive of its actual size. It had to be five hundred meters long, at least. It made the dragon from yesterday look like a baby.

It was a Behemoth, and it was writhing in agony. It twisted and lashed out, sending up veritable tidal waves of sand every time it rolled over. The only reason we could still see it with all that dust in the air was because of how friggin' big it was. If you saw a kitten rolling around like the Behemoth was, you'd assume it was shaking off a fly. This was different. The Behemoth was covered in blood. What's more, something was running around on its back. Every time it moved, a new gash appeared in the huge beastie's hide, spurting blood.

They were fighting. Someone was fighting that giant beast.

"Mommy," whimpered a scared kid, clinging to his mother. The old warriors hardly seemed to breathe as they watched the fight.

The fight stretched on for a while. The writhing beast made no sound, just continued to thrash. No one could miss the desperation in its movements. It was fighting for its life.

The battle ended right after midday, as the sun began to turn toward the horizon. The Behemoth's flailing grew more lethargic as it drew closer to death. Even as it bled out, it kept on writhing where it lay, refusing to yield. Its defiance didn't last long. All of a sudden, it stopped fighting. It stood up and walked, slowly, like it was trying to get away. It was way too late for that, but I guessed the Behemoth hadn't worked that out.

At the end, the behemoth stretched itself out to its full height. It pushed up on four of its legs...then let out a massive breath, and all the strength went out of it. It toppled back, as if to sit down, then it stopped moving altogether.

The moment it fell, the warriors all put their fists together and knelt, lowering their heads to the dead Behemoth. I didn't copy them, but just standing there felt kinda awkward, so I retreated to the back of the group. The warriors stayed as they were. It was like they were waiting for something.

At last, the sand cleared. As the carcass of the behemoth came into view, so did an approaching figure on the horizon. He wore layer upon

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layer of ragged robes and carried a great sword.

"A hero," someone said. One after another, other voices echoed the same word, clamoring for his attention.

"Hero..." "Hero!" "Hero!"

That's right, in this village they would honor anyone who slayed a Behemoth as a hero—as the strongest of all warriors—just like the hero of old who brought down a rampaging Behemoth and saved their village from ruin. The village warriors stood up and got ready to welcome him into the village.

The Behemoth wasn't threatening the village or anything this time, but no one cared about that. So far as the warriors were concerned, they'd look up to any warrior who could beat a Behemoth. When the figure reached us, however, he ignored the waiting warriors. He headed past them. Straight towards me.

"That wasn't the Master," he said.

"Yeah?"

"The Master is even bigger than that."

Ooh, there's a scary thought. So that was a runt? You're gonna mess up my sense of perspective.

He was right. It wasn't the Master. When this guy fought the Master, or so I heard, the battle would rage on for ten days, with our hero wavering on the border between life and death.

"Still, I thank you. Your advice allowed me to slay a Behemoth."

"You're very welcome."

"Now," he said, his gaze sharpening, "what was the 'even better' story you had for me?" He'd had the courtesy to take an interest in what I had to say. We could finally have a real talk.

Sorry, though, mate. Prophecy time is over. I'm a bit busy to tag along while you play hero.

"Yeah, about that. You wanna be a hero, right, kid? You wanna be even greater than this other great hero?"

"Not 'want.' I'm going to do it."

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"Then, jeez! Don't ya think you're going about it all wrong?"

"What do you mean, 'all wrong?'"

"See, kid, right now you're copying the things this great hero did, yeah? Driving out Dragons and slaying Behemoths and stuff."

"Yes. If I can't measure up to what he did, no one will bother talking about me."

"Look," I replied, "if ya think about it, that's not gonna turn you into a hero."

"Well, I suppose not..."

He'd vanquished a Behemoth, and in this village, anyone who slew a behemoth was held up and honored as a hero. But the village was hardly in trouble. And the Behemoth hadn't done a thing to harm 'em. All the sorry beast'd done was get killed. It was hard to valorize hunting monsters 'cause you felt like it. That weren't heroic.

That's why I was gonna show him the path to becoming a real hero.

"You heard of the Superd Tribe?" I asked.

"Yes. A race of devils, weren't they? They say that during the Laplace War, the Superd went around killing both friend and foe."

"Some survived."

"Where?" he demanded.

"Hold ya horses, bud. Let me get to the end. See, there's a guy out there who's even worse than the Superd."

"Someone...worse?"

"You betcha. This guy's kinda like the root of all evil in the world, y'know? I reckon you'll have heard his name before, though."

The kid didn't reply.

"Number two of the seven great powers. The Dragon God Orsted." That got his attention. Putting on an air of importance, I spread my hands, tilted my head, and peered in at him. "You've heard of him, I'm guessing?"

I knew it all. What the kid was striving for. Who he was trying to surpass. And what that someone did, and what they couldn't. With that, it was easy to stir him up.

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"He's made the Superd Clan his followers, and now he's sheltering them."

"The Dragon God isn't evil. He's one of the heroes who defeated the Demon God Laplace. By rights, he and the Superd Clan should be enemies."

"You're talking about the Dragon God from however many generations back, right? Times change, people get stupid. Right?"

"Well...I guess."

"But there, that's where you're different. You're trying to surpass the previous generations. I think that's admirable of ya."

The kid had gotten real quiet. Despite being a chatty guy, now he fell silent. That was a sure sign he'd taken in what I'd said and was giving it proper consideration.

"You can kill the last of the Superd Clan and defeat Orsted," I went on. "Then, you'll be a hero for all eternity. Not to mention number two of the Seven Great Powers."

No reply came.

"Just being great doesn't make you invincible and irreplaceable. Anyone who ever had a heroic epic made about them had someone they were never able to beat. Know why? Because they never had the opportunity."

The kid's eyes went wide.

"You're getting handed an opportunity. The chance for renown beyond what anyone's ever had before. You might never get it again."

The kid's mouth was shut tight. He watched me closely.

Yeah, I get it. You gotta know even better than me, right? You looked up to him ever since you were little, you heard all about him from your mom and dad, and then when that wasn't enough, you went all round the world collecting legends of him. All so you could be even better.

Guess what, kid? If you beat Orsted, you sure as hell will be.

"Impossible," he said. "For years now, no one has known the whereabouts of the Technique God or the Dragon God or the Demon God or the Fighting God. No one knows where Orsted is."

Ha, I thought ya might say that.

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"True that. But I knew exactly where the Behemoth was."

"It wasn't the Master."

"Hey, what d'ya want from me? The Master isn't gonna show up here for another eighty years."

"Is that right? Thank you for telling me. Eighty years from now, I'll be back."

"Well, eighty years from now is eighty years from now... Don't ya want to try your skills against Orsted? He's certified as the world's strongest. Way stronger than the Technique God— if that guy's even still kicking. He's been crushing the competition since the Laplace War, and you get to challenge him."

He stared at me. No way would this guy have ever looked at me if I weren't working for the Man-God. We could have crossed paths at the Adventurers' Guild and he'd have ignored me like you would a patch of weeds. I'm not the shy type, but I wouldn't have had the guts to strike up a conversation with a guy like this. He's one of the world's few SS-rank adventurers, and he was on another level even among them. It'd be fair to call him the very best of the best. That's who this guy was. Even I looked up to him. Back when I started adventuring, I'd wanted to be like the guy he was trying to surpass now. One day, I swore to myself, I'm gonna accomplish great things like him.

Then reality came and kicked me up the ass. I never accomplished so much as one great thing. I was an adventurer for a long time, and I saw things that you'd want to boast about back home. Problem was, I never did anything except watch. I fixed meals for the ones who accomplished great deeds, got everything set up for them, but when push came to shove, all I did was watch. It was like that with Paul, too. In the fight with the Hydra, I never got near the front line.

"All right," he said. "So where is Orsted?"

"I'll tell you, but there's a condition."

"I accept."

"Whoa, there! I haven't said what it is yet, have I? Don't get ahead of yourself."

"A nobody like you would never hand anything over without setting conditions on it."

"You're not wrong," I admitted.

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I was on top of the world. This guy I'd looked up to since I was an adventurer was talking to me like an equal.

"It's nothing too arduous," I continued. "There's two things. For now, you're to go here—" I handed him a map, "—and then once you get there, I'll tell you what comes next. One more thing—if we run into each other, act like you don't know me. This is all top secret.

"As for the second thing: there's a guy my employer wants dead. A follower of Orsted, separate from the Superd Clan. He'll definitely try to stop you if you go near Orsted so, basically, I want you to do him in on the way."

"Your employer?"

"Haven't you dreamed of him? This real mysterious guy who gives you advice?" I asked.

"Yes," he murmured, "I think I did have a dream like that, long ago... You follow his advice?"

"Well, y'know."

The kid made a face that said he sure as hell wouldn't follow any advice from a guy like that and shrugged. But I knew that weren't true— not when I was here on the Man-God's orders to bring him in. See, the Man-God only chooses folks He's certain of. The Man-God's a coward, you see; real cautious. If anyone blabbed at this stage of the plan, the whole thing would fall apart.

"Well? What'll it be? I want a yes or no."

"Yes, obviously," he said. He made his decision, just like that. I liked that.

"I don't like the idea of killing innocents, but, as they say, sometimes you've got to get your hands dirty."

"'They' say, huh? I'll take your word for it." Personally, I didn't like the idea of anyone accepting a mission to kill all those guiltless Superd without question, but hey.

I remembered back when I'd just barely started adventuring. Back when I almost died, and Ruijerd saved my life. Yeah, all right, I was just following the Man-God's instructions back then, too. But look, in my heart, I like to think of myself as an ally to the Superd Clan. I didn't have any nasty prejudices against them, certainly. But I've come this far. There's nothing for me to do but keep falling and steel myself for the final

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splat.

"Right, that's all," I said. "Try and hurry, all right?"

"Very well. I'll set off at once," he said, then started walking.

The old desert warriors tried to stop him, but he paid them no mind. He hadn't in any way prepared for a journey, but he strode off into the desert like you'd go for a walk in the park. They don't waste time once they make a decision, these guys.

"Heroes," I muttered.

I looked up to heroes too, long ago. The thing is, when you grow up and see your contemporaries trying to be heroes themselves, you realize just how fragile they are. Or maybe "young" was a better word... Admittedly, out of all of them, this kid was especially so.

"Right, I'll stay in this village today and wait for your next message, yeah?" I said to the air. Scratching my neck, I went back to the village.

On the way, something made me look back. I saw the figure of a man disappear into the desert. He'd been easy to fool and easy to manipulate, and even then, no one could deny his ability. But still... I couldn't feel secure surrounded by only guys like that. into matter how much of a comfort it was, knowing they'd be on our side. But you can't win if you always go for the safe bet, y'know?

Well, holy Man-God—what do You have to say to that?

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