Chapter 87 - The Demon Lord and the Cheerful Men
He really shouldn't have let her go outside.
It wasn't a petty anxiety that she might run away; he felt that way now in a much more serious sense. If she had merely run off, he could chase her, but if something had happened to her, it would be irretrievable.
The demon who had shown promise by requesting an audience had fainted clean away. Ordering the subordinate demons around him to "take him to the infirmary," Louis left the throne room.
He walked down the corridor. Among the demons who bowed in deference, Bis alone was in a class of his own. His tail puffed up significantly as he followed behind,
"Something happened to Lady Elenoa. Is this a declaration of war against us, meow?"
"She was injured in the human world. The details are unknown, and their intentions are unclear. If humans intentionally harmed her, it would be strange to think they weren't picking a fight. I will pursue her."
No one questioned the King going outside himself. His subordinates all understood that it was far more efficient for Louis, who was connected to Elenoa, to handle the search directly.
"Can I go out too?"
"I need you to stay and prepare for emergencies."
"Nya nya nyan. Is there anything I should prepare?"
"I want you to alert the demons deployed near the border with the human world, and I want you to move to increase personnel and focus on gathering information, even if it's from now on. Especially around the Holy Kingdom of Salma and the Milzia Empire—"
Once he had finished giving his instructions, Bis replied with a "nyan." It seemed to mean "understood."
Running to search for Elenoa, relying on the trace of her hair, he recalled the past as he did so. Memories of fire. His younger sister had died in the town destroyed by monsters, and she had been brutally treated.
Elie, Elie, where are you? Why are you nowhere to be found?
The last place she had been was in the sky above the forest near her 'Parents' Home,' and from there, her trail had suddenly vanished. He floated in the air and looked around, but that silver color was nowhere to be seen.
Hey, please answer me.
He couldn't trace her by her hair. The possibilities that came to mind were that she was in anoth·er wor·ld—meaning she was either dead or had run away.
No, that couldn't be right. She had promised to return; she should know the meaning of a promise with a sorcerer. She was definitely somewhere. She must have been subjected to something terrible by humans and was being prevented from returning home by some strange magic or other.
The possibility that she was dead was simply impossible.
The faint connection had not yet disappeared.
He resumed his search. Thick trees stood in rows, and there was no path to speak of. Her magical power definitely remained. She should have been in this vicinity. Even now, as he did this, she was...
Heading in the direction where the presence was more turbulent, he found a group of nearly ten human men at a slightly distant point. Once they spotted him, they seemed to enter his field of vision as well, and they began talking amongst themselves with some agitation.
He had intended to stop them immediately if they were doing anything rude to her, but they did not appear to be holding Elenoa captive.
"Oi, that guy."
"Some big shot, maybe?"
"Alone in a place like this."
Indeed, Louis's appearance might be easily misunderstood.
He was a big shot, but to humans, he was likely just a nuisance. Since he lacked demon-like features such as horns or beast ears, he probably wouldn't feel out of place mingling among humans.
Eventually, the man who seemed to be the leader approached at a jog, stopped in front of Louis, and snapped into a salute. His movements were sluggish and his eyes were dead, but one could discern that he was a veteran steeped in the smell of gunpowder. For a moment, he overlapped with his former confidant Ars, but on closer inspection, his height and hair color were completely different.
"I am Davin Cassel, Platoon Leader of the Sniper Platoon, Third Guerrilla Squad of the Milzia Empire. Excuse me, but—"
"Excuse me, have you seen a fairy around here?"
He had no time to talk.
For now, he would finish his business here.
"A fairy?"
"Strangely, she is nowhere to be found. She promised not to run away, but her traces vanished around here. Does she have a habit of wandering? Do you know her? Have you seen her? She is a very beautiful fairy. So beautiful that you wouldn't forget her after just one glance."
Despite Louis making an effort to smile and respond gently, the men's faces turned paler with every word. Only the Platoon Leader remained steadfast.
He was convinced that these guys had seen Elenoa.
"She is my wife. I need to find her quickly. Where did she go?"
Behind the man who stared at Louis in silence, his cheerful companions began to make a commotion on their own.
"Isn't that the Demon Lord...?"
"No way. He wouldn't come out alone."
"Then, that fairy from earlier..."
From earlier?
It was a phrase he couldn't overlook. Using wind magic, he snatched one of the firearms that each of the men carried. He had received reports and knew that firearms had been developed in this world as well.
He gently slid his index finger along the barrel. Probing from the base toward the tip, from the outside in. What emerged, pushed up by a minuscule wind, was a white, shining bullet. He let the wind carry it and dropped it onto his palm with a plop.
"Silver, is it?"
The Platoon Leader replied, "Yes, it's silver." He had a good personality.
He looked at the men panicking in the background. The Platoon Leader finally showed movement. Keeping his dead eyes as they were, he tensed his legs, ready to move instantly if anything happened.
"What did you do to her with this?"
Hey, come on.
Answer me, human.
"What did you do to her?"
He smiled, and snapped his fingers.
The men other than the Platoon Leader groaned lowly. The ice stakes he had sent flying had pierced the men's feet, sewing them to the ground.
"Really, what a terrible thing. It must have hurt quite a bit."
Realizing Louis's position from this, they bravely glared at Louis, saying "Gh, ugh" and "...Demon Lord..." despite having no time for this. He had to find her, quickly.
"Did you all gang up to abuse her? Where did you shoot her? Where did you take her?"
The stubborn men clenched their jaws and said nothing. Although they wouldn't answer his questions, their hatred-filled gazes were eloquent enough. Eyes can speak as loudly as mouths, as they say. But what they conveyed was not the information he wanted.
Why was communication so difficult?
They should be using the same language, yet he heard nothing but slight screams, let alone answers. Louis was impatient. It felt as if the bottom of his heart was being scorched; one-fifth of it had already turned to pitch-black ash. When that impatience burned him to ashes with its smoldering fire, that would likely be the end of this world. Despite such a critical situation, the men were completely carefree.
If it became too late while he was doing this, what would they do?
"Demon Lord Louis."
"Yes."
Hoping that the Platoon Leader would finally speak like a human being,
"You are human, aren't you?"
"Huh?"
"Your presence is different from demons. You are not normal, but you are still human."
Slightly disappointed,
"Biologically, I may remain human, unfortunately."
"Then your body is fragile, like a human's."
Perceiving the Platoon Leader's intent,
"Yes, that is correct. Would you like to try?"
The result appeared immediately.
There was no command; it was a perfectly coordinated simultaneous volley. The gunshots sounded like a single shot due to their perfect synchronization.
But none of them hit Louis, and once he created an opening to reload, it became a simple mopping-up operation for Louis.
The men other than the Platoon Leader had their limbs pierced by ice stakes, becoming ugly specimens pinned to the ground and trees. The Platoon Leader ignored the misery behind him—though he likely did so intentionally—and stared at Louis calmly.
"What kind of feeling is it to aid monsters while being human?"
"You probably wouldn't understand even if I told you, but I don't consider myself to be aiding monsters. I simply ended up in this position because I sought a convenient status. It's unavoidable, you might say, and my feelings are complicated."
He let out an exaggerated sigh.
"I ha·te mon·sters ve·ry mu·ch."
Demon Lord Louis also hated monsters. Specifically, those without intelligence, excluding some demons.
After all, it was monsters that directly killed his younger sister. Even if there was a mastermind behind it, the ones who did the deed were undoubtedly monsters.
Just because he hated humans didn't mean he liked monsters. He had thoughts on the fact that those monsters became stronger thanks to Louis's own power, so during his journey with Hero Hasumi, he had enjoyed purging the monsters that attacked indiscriminately.
Thinking that if they hated each other, they could crush one another, he deliberately left the monsters alone.
Thinking about it that way, the number of beings whose existence he could truly tolerate was fewer than he had thought.
At the apex of Louis's affection hierarchy triangle was Bis, below him were the demons who took care of him daily, and at the lowest layer were humans and other monsters, making three tiers. As for Elenoa, she could no longer be ranked, serving as a pillar constituting the world itself, drifting freely outside the pyramid's columns. While she could be completely cut off from the bottom of the pyramid, Louis himself wouldn't exist without her. To Louis, she was something like that.
My love is heavy, even to myself.
In short, it would be very bad if he couldn't find her.
It was a situation like a countdown to the collapse of Louis's ego.
There was no time to spare.
So Louis decided to do that for the first time in a while, and clapped his hands with a pon.
"Let's conduct an experiment."
Experiment. The men fell silent.
He gently placed his finger on the neck of the nearby Platoon Leader. The Platoon Leader frowned eerily at the action, which resembled touching a beloved person. Louis didn't have such tastes, but he thought that inciting fear in an opponent and touching a lover were somewhat similar.
"As a representative, I will search your memories. Your personality or brain might undergo slight changes, but if you won't answer, it can't be helped, right?"
He muttered to himself that he should have done so from the start.
Creating things or moving them—magic that acted on the outside—had been completed as much as he could think of, so lately, his hobby had been considering magic directed inward. In terms of classification, it was the technique of a Healer, or an application of it. The idea originated from the time he had tried to create Elenoa's wings.
Saying "Excuse me," Louis sent a negligible amount of magical power into the Platoon Leader. He probed the parts of the brain related to memory.
The Platoon Leader jerked with a spinal reflex.
"...Gh! ...Ah, gh!"
"I'm sorry, you had magical power, didn't you? It must be painful to have someone else's magical power injected into you. I am truly sorry."
He had known from the beginning that the opponent had at least some magical power.
Having another person's magical power poured into a human with magical power involved unbearable pain.
Although there were differences between humans and fairies, Elenoa had also suffered for a time due to similar logic. The blood wings he had forcibly created had not adapted to her. Every time he heard her screams, it felt as if his heart was being filed away. He didn't want to hear the unpleasant sound of the Platoon Leader grinding his teeth to keep from making a noise, for a different reason.
Yes, it was pain severe enough that fainting wouldn't have been strange.
But the Platoon Leader endured with an iron will. Even as his teeth cracked from grinding too hard and his lips split and bled, he only glared at Louis with bloodshot eyes as if to pierce him.
He must be an admirable superior.
But the current Louis was in the midst of a no-holds-barred countdown to ego collapse. Time was running out moment by moment. The time during which he couldn't confirm Elenoa's safety was painful, unbearable, and his trauma was being stimulated to the brink.
He didn't care what happened to the opponent's ego.
Bang,
A silver bullet flew from one of his cheerful companions. In the previous brief exchange, he had deliberately spared one person, saving his bullet and waiting for an opening.
He moved the Platoon Leader's body slightly, using him as a shield. The Platoon Leader didn't even notice he had been hit by the bullet, or perhaps he was concerned about his subordinate's failure, and didn't leak a single sound. It was a gathering to watch how long the Platoon Leader's body could endure.
Such a terrible atmosphere didn't last forever,
"The fairy is alive!"
One of the men in the back finally opened his mouth.
He was the man who had been visibly agitated.
Louis stopped the magical power he had been sending into the Platoon Leader and indicated with his gaze that he would listen for now.
The man flinched for a moment but opened his mouth again,
"It didn't even hit her stomach! The child is safe too...!"
What was this guy talking about?
When Louis, taken aback, frowned and said "Huh?", the man looked even more puzzled. He shouldn't have been talking about children.
"Because... it looked like she was protecting her stomach. I thought she might be pregnant..."
"She is a female fairy with silver hair and blue eyes."
"...Ah, yes."
"............"
It didn't seem to be a case of mistaken identity.
Since they had engaged in the act of making children, pregnancy wasn't strange; there had just been no signs until now. Even so, the agitation was tremendous, and he couldn't grasp the reality.
I see, a child.
He was happy enough to cry, but he also imagined something equally terrifying. If Louis's child was inside her. —Because these guys had shot silver bullets at her.
"...Was she flying? Where was she heading?"
"To·ward the De·mon Re·alm. So she fell around here, and we were searching..."
The sky was a domain where fairies excelled. Moreover, with her abilities, she should have been able to dodge hostile bullets. In the first place, within the short range of newly developed firearms, there was no way Elenoa wouldn't notice their presence. She had let her guard down because she had put up a barrier, or perhaps she was distracted by something else.
Was it because of the child?
Louis ruthlessly and without hesitation stole a glimpse into the Platoon Leader's memories.
"Gh—!"
With an unnecessary grunt, he saw it. A brief image.
—The fairy was flying. Under the blue sky, at an defenseless speed. But a rainbow-colored, warped luster was visible around her, confirming she had put up a barrier.
—She was carefree, just like any other fairy.
—And then, she smiled softly. She placed her hand on her stomach, with a secretive smile as if hiding a precious treasure there. Her profile was as pure as a saint's.
—Rejoicing in the happiness of harboring new life, she had been trying to return home.
—Into that vision full of euphoria, a black gun muzzle intruded.
—They loaded the bullet with practiced ease.
—Unlike us, who were hiding behind the rocks, she floated past, and at her back,
Bang,
—She staggered. Stopping in place as if surprised. Before she could turn toward us, the men immediately fired bullet after bullet. The voice saying 'Hey, really—' with hesitation was identified as belonging to the man who had answered the previous question.
—She fell.
—While protecting her stomach.
Having witnessed that much, Louis finally released the Platoon Leader, whose consciousness was hazy.
—Elenoa hadn't run away; she had been trying to return to the Demon Realm.
She would have found Louis upon returning, her face blooming into a bright smile, and she would have reported to him with disjointed words like "You know, actually..." without even properly greeting him upon coming home.
And yet, these humans.
—These humans.
—Was that the only cause?
'Six, if there is a risk of being found, always maintain a barrier.
Seven, if there are any problems or abnormalities, return home immediately.'
"Ah."
She shoul·dn't have trie·d to re·turn.
Since she had her Parents' Home, wouldn't she have been safe if she stayed there?
Even without a promise, knowing her, she would have likely jumped in with innocent joy. But still, the fact that Louis had forced it upon her was undeniable.
"............—Huh?"
He felt thick, dark mud flowing into his head.
Somehow strangely,
"My head hurts."
The Demon Lord laughed eerily, "Hehehe," and quickly released the men. Suddenly losing interest in the humans who had harmed his wife,
"I have to search."
He muttered, and went somewhere else again.
He carefully erased even the ice stakes. The men, who had resigned themselves to being massacred, discussed among themselves what was wrong with the Demon Lord, concluding that he must be crazy, because a Demon Lord couldn't be a Demon Lord if he wasn't crazy, and they gave up on searching for the fairy.
At the same time.
A huge magic circle had appeared in the sky above their homeland, the Milzia Empire. It was a beautiful and precise magic circle, characteristic of Demon Lord Louis, which had also been deployed temporarily during the decisive battle with Hero Hasumi. What it represented was 'Death' itself.
The citizens, who knew nothing of this, looked up blankly at the sky from the windows of the buildings they had rushed into to escape the gradually strengthening gale. Among them were the men's wives, children, lovers, parents, and loved ones.
What is that?
That is a magic circle, so large that it covers the visible sky from end to end with room to spare.
I have never seen a magic circle of such scale, covering the en·tire Em·pire, in all my life.
Did the court mages of the country put up a magic spell to prevent the gale?
But the wind is only getting stronger.
Eventually, the most powerful court mage in the empire looked at the blue-glowing magic circle against the backdrop of the cloudy sky,
"...Huh..."
and let out a voice of despair, aging instantly.
A magic circle so perfect it was terrifying. He had sensed the aura of death within it.
In the face of this threat, humans were powerless.