Chapter 2

And so the Hell Tournament’s closing ceremony concluded, with me stuck as Core 50’s slave. To be precise, I was a contract slave for a limited period of time. My safety was... technically guaranteed, but it was a bit fragile.

“Welcome to my service. Before we leave, you may say goodbye to your friends,” Core 50 said.

“Er, right,” I replied before capitalizing on his kindness to go talk to Rokuko and the others, who were still in the box seat.

“Well, that’s that, Rokuko. See you when I see you.”

“Why do you seem so ridiculously calm about this, Keima...?” Rokuko asked, looking a bit exasperated.

“I’m pretty much terrified on the inside, but panicking won’t help anything, so I’ve accepted my fate.”

“Really...? Grr, but I was looking forward to playing around in the Demon Realm with you,” Rokuko said, pursing her lips in dissatisfaction.

Neruneh popped her head out from behind Rokuko. “Master, what should we dooo?”

“Er... Well, you should study like I brought you here to do. Also, you and Niku should listen to Rokuko’s orders in my stead. Aidy, sorry about this, but I’m leaving her to you.”

“Understooood,” Neruneh said before backing off.

“Ahaha, you may certainly leave Rokuko to me. I will take extremely good care of her,” Aidy said with a grin. I didn’t think she was actually planning anything, but she kind of had a resting evil face that made me nervous about anything she said. Niku wasn’t very assertive, and Neruneh would probably be too absorbed in her studies to stop anything, so... Is there anyone I can count on to keep Rokuko safe?

“Keima!” came a voice, and I turned to see Wataru rushing down from some nearby seats. Oh yeah, he’s here. I guess the seats for the participants are second-closest to the arena after the box seats.

“Heya, Wataru. What’s up?”

“What do you mean, ‘What’s up’?! I can’t believe you actually lost, Keima... Is it going to rain spears tomorrow?”

This may be the Demon Realm, but spears raining down from the sky is... maybe not that unrealistic?

“What do you think I am, Wataru? Everybody loses sometimes, myself included. Not to mention that I was dealing with the champion of the Hell Tournament himself.”

“Hm, well, good point. Even I lost to him... Anyway, that magic of yours was pretty impressive. It wasn’t an actual Fire Wall, right?”

“Yeah. Too bad it missed, though.”

“Well... All I can say is, Lord 50’s something else. That would have hit most opponents. Even I would’ve had to use the Holy Blade Air to avoid it,” Wataru said while patting the Holy Blade on his hip. “But that said, are you sure about leaving Rokuko and the others on their own? This is the Demon Realm, you know.”

In reality, I was nervous, even with them being under Aidy’s protection. The people here just casually cut others open to sleep inside them, after all. Who knows what would happen if I left her alone in this kind of culture?

...At which point, it hit me. Wouldn’t it be good in more ways than one to have Wataru guard them?

“Y’know, Wataru, you’re the one guy I can trust in this entire country. I sure would appreciate you guarding them.”

“That’s really kind of you to say. But sadly, I’m here on a limited visa that says I have to leave once the tournament’s over. I might be able to stay with Haku’s permission, but there’s still work in the empire I have to do,” Wataru replied. He was a Hero working pretty hard for the empire in order to pay back his debt to me. She wouldn’t give him permission to extend his vacation further that easily. I glanced her way.

“While I, too, would much appreciate him guarding Rokuko, I agreed to send him home with a certain old geezer, and I would rather not leave a Hero lying around in the Demon Realm,” Haku said.

“Quite. A Hero of the Laverio Empire staying in my realm will not go unnoticed. After all, he is the dog of a certain ivory mutt. I cannot allow him to stay here further,” Core 6 agreed.

...That means some political arrangements would have to be made to keep Wataru in the Demon Realm. Hm. But on second thought, that means it’s possible with a little manipulation.

“...How about you become a slave too, Wataru? A slave to Rokuko and Neruneh,” I suggested without really thinking about it.

“Wha?!”

“While I’m separated from Rokuko as a slave, you could become one yourself and protect Rokuko while I’m gone. Neruneh and Niku, too. You can’t stay here as a Hero, but you should be able to as a slave, right? They are considered property, after all.”

“...You’re not just trying to get revenge and enslave me because you got enslaved yourself, right?”

Nope, I promise. Really.

“How is that, Great Demon King? Could he stay as a slave instead of as a Hero?”

“...I suppose. An empire Hero falling into slavery will provide much amusement, at the very least.”

Alright. The Great Demon King himself said it’ll be fine.

“But Keima, I cannot simply allow a Hero to fall into slavery for no good reason. Especially not right before my eyes. Please give me a single good reason for this,” Haku said.

“If you think about it, with that debt he should’ve been knocked into slavery on the spot. I mean, how many hundreds of golds was it again? Back me up here, Wataru.”

“Well, anybody but me would’ve fallen into debt slavery for sure. A normal person might spend their entire lives working and never earn one hundred golds total.”

“That said, you’d just be a contract slave here, not a debt slave. Your job will be to protect Rokuko and the others. The payment will be me absolving all of the debt you owe me. Sound good?” I asked.

“That is a quite exceptional deal,” Haku observed.

At the moment he was paying me back one hundred golds a month, since that was how about much Haku was paying him for his work. I forgot exactly how much he still owes me, but this deal would be equivalent to paying off like a year or more of hard work’s worth of debt. The best part was, it wouldn’t even hurt my wallet at all.

“Of course it’s a good deal. It’d have to be for a Hero to agree to be a slave, even temporarily. I think it’s a fair price.”

“Very well, I will hear you out. Why would you pay that much for him?”

“The reason is simple. It’s you, Haku.”

“Me?” Haku asked, pointing at herself in confusion.

“You told me to protect Rokuko’s safety no matter what. As a noble of the Laverio Empire, it is my absolute duty to do everything I can to ensure Rokuko’s safety. It only makes sense that while I’m stuck as Lord 50’s slave I would try to get her the best bodyguard possible,” I said, and at that point Haku smiled.

“I understand your point. Wataru has been accepting my quests as an adventurer with me paying grand sums for his services. If he would like to accept your quest, then as the grandmaster of the Adventurer’s Guild I shall make it happen. And if he is temporarily made a slave, I won’t have to worry about anyone laying their hands on Rokuko,” Haku said. She was acting reluctant about it, but she gave her permission with an extremely pleased smile. She was even going out of her way to establish it as a quest from the Adventurer’s Guild grandmaster. That way, we could frame this as Wataru becoming a slave as part of a quest, just temporarily changing his status at the empire’s orders to accomplish an objective. That would sound better to the public.

At any rate, Haku, you’re smiling way too hard. She must have really, really hated the idea of leaving Rokuko and me in the Demon Realm. Can’t say I blame her, considering she wouldn’t be able to keep watch on us here.

“Is this fine with you as well, Rokuko?” she asked.

“Ngh, I guess... Keima went out of his way to get this bodyguard for me, so. I don’t want to spend this trip without him, but I guess there’s nothing else I can do,” Rokuko said. At Haku’s encouragement, she reluctantly accepted Wataru as her bodyguard. “But I want to give you one too, Keima. Can I?” she asked, looking my way. I could have asked ‘Do I really seem that unreliable,’ but I didn’t. Reason being, I knew more than anyone how unreliable I was. I had steeled my resolve for becoming a slave, but I was actually pretty terrified.

“Oh my, how wonderful. A man and woman exchanging gifts in the form of venerable fighters out of concern for each other. Grandfather, would you be so kind as to allow me to grant Rokuko’s wish?”

“A guard for a slave, hm? Very well. If you wish to provide such on your own, I shan’t stop you.”

And so, Rokuko’s idea worked because Aidy threw in her support.

“Thanks, Core 6. And thank you, Aidy.”

“Ahaha. You may express more gratitude if you’d like. But first, I wonder who we should send with him?”

Rokuko glanced Niku’s way. Her tail wagged with resolve.

“Niku. Would you protect Keima for me?”

“As you wish, Rokuko,” Niku replied with her tag wagging hard with joy.

...Well, this feels a lot better than me being sent to some strange place on my own. Whew. Thanks, Rokuko. And you, Niku. I’ve decided we’ll hold a feast of melon rolls and hamburgers when we get home.

“You better come back safe, Keima,” Rokuko said.

“Yeah.”

Just as Niku moved next to me, I heard loud armored footsteps approaching from behind.

“Have you finished your goodbyes? It seems that there is a new slave to bring with me,” Core 50 said.

“Er, well, yep. Hope you have room for both of us, Lord 50.”

“I will be in your care,” Niku said.

Core 50 bent down with a clatter to make eye contact with Niku.

“I see. You are small, but have fine eyes. Not bad... Very well! I shall train you both! Bwahahahaha!”

Seems like Core 50 doesn’t have any problem at all with Niku tagging along. He’s as big-hearted as I would expect from a first lot demon. But uh... What was that about training us both? Is Core 50 planning to train me? Just what are slaves in the Demon Realm expected to do...?

“Now then, we are off. Enter my {Storage}.”

“Uh...”

Core 50 opened the black portal to his {Storage} in front of us, then pushed both Niku and I inside. Ahhh. Slaves are tools, so it’s only natural to carry them around in {Storage}. Very practical. Yup.

＊ ＊ ＊

And so began my life as a slave with Niku. Though it was nothing new for her since she had always been a slave. Anyway, we both got pulled out of {Storage}. It felt as if we had been pulled out right after being pushed in, but our environment had completely changed.

“This is my duchy, and this is my mansion,” Core 50 announced. It seemed that we had been brought all the way to the mansion in his duchy.

Judging by where the sun is, several hours have passed. Or maybe days? Well, either way, this is pretty convenient. I actually didn’t know that living beings could be put into {Storage} without any problems.

“To begin with, you shall show me the extent of your abilities,” Core 50 said. We were starting off by facing him. Starting to fight before even having a conversation was very much a Demon Realm thing. Guess it’s important to establish rank among the slaves.

“I already fought in the coliseum, so I dunno if there’s any need for me to—Ngh!” I choked out, the collar tightening enough to block off my air flow.

“Master, slaves mustn’t backtalk.”

“R-Right. Sorry, Lord 50,” I apologized. Core 50 nodded.

“Indeed. I see the small one understands her position more than you do. This time, I will answer your question. What you showed me in the coliseum was your prowess with magic, but what I wish to see here is the other abilities you possess.”

I see. I guess I didn’t show any defense or physical offense in that fight. That said...

“I feel like Niku and I would die if you hit us a single time.”

“Of course, I shall hold my power back. I am quite used to that.”

“I see...” Well, at least we won’t die. Hopefully we won’t be crippled either.

“First, I will engage you with my bare hands. You may use your preferred weapons and skills,” he said, and Niku immediately readied her two daggers. She was ready to go.

As for me... Mm, I don’t think Siesta is a very combat-oriented weapon. The sleep particles it radiates are good for humans and living foes, but a Living Armor core like Core 50 won’t be affected at all. Not to mention that I’m a back row mage.

Thus, I decided to just stand behind Niku.

“Hm. Is the Magic Blade on your hip ornamental?”

“Yeah, pretty much. I am a mage,” I replied, ready to shoot out magic whenever it was necessary. Maybe I would look cooler with a staff or something?

“Then you may begin,” he said. Niku instantly leapt forward.

“Hoh! Hoh! Not bad at all! You show no fear even when facing one such as I, girl!”

“Who wouldn’t fight when someone tells them to?”

“You are quite the specimen for an empire slave! You are on par with a thoroughbred Demon Realm combat slave!” Core 50 said joyously while knocking aside Niku’s blows with his armored hands and arms. It felt a little cheap for him to use gauntlets despite saying bare hands earlier, but whatever. I didn’t want the collar to choke me for making quips like that. If he actually was a Living Armor-type Core then his gauntlets were his bare hands; maybe in the Demon Realm bare hands included gauntlets.

“Shoot forth, ice, and pierce mine enemies—{Ice Bolt},” I chanted, doing my job too. I was casting magic attacks while predicting Niku’s movement from her tail wagging to avoid hitting her. All I could do was give her support.

“Bwahaha! Not bad, you two. Time to turn things up a notch,” Core 50 declared, so pleased by our attacks that he sped up his movements.

“Ngh, ah!” Niku gasped as the sound of clanging metal filled the air. Up until now Core 50 had been blocking her attacks, but now Niku was stuck blocking his fists with her blades.

...Guess I’ll need to give more magic backup.

“Gate, open. I summon thee, magic-wielding monster of stone. Serve me—{Summon Gargoyle}.”

I decided to surround him with summoned Gargoyles. It was a spell I had shown him a second ago (from my perspective), so revealing this card posed no problem for me. Once he was surrounded I had them attack him with fireballs. Naturally, it would be hard to make sure none of them were aimed in Niku’s direction, but that had a relatively simple solution if you looked at it from another angle.

“Shoot forth, ice, and pierce mine enemies—{Ice Bolt}.”

“Ngh! Ah, I see! You are blocking them yourself!”

Indeed. All I had to do was shoot magic and diffuse the fireballs before they hit her. That would also create openings in Core 50’s defense that Niku could exploit with attacks. It was a strategy that balanced offense with defense. The only problem was that we couldn’t land a finishing blow.

“I am going up another level!” Core 50 roared, speeding up even further.

“Ngha?!” Niku yelped. That was finally enough for him to catch her. He held her up in the air by the throat as she slashed his hands to get him to let her go. A painful screeching sound filled the air each time her Golem Blades ground against the metal of his armor, but they didn’t leave a single scratch on him. At the very least, we could tell that iron blades wouldn’t be enough to do any meaningful damage to him.

“Good. That will suffice for you. You may rest,” he said, tossing Niku to the side. She flew several meters before landing on the floor of the arena and sliding to a slow stop.

“Nooow then, it is your turn! Show me your strength!”

“Be gentle... Whoa!”

“Oh? To think that you would be capable of dodging that. You must be well-trained after all.”

I dodged his blows according to my instincts, and... got caught in no time. But that still must have been a job well done from Core 50’s perspective, given that he grabbed my arm when he was going for my neck. Welp, I lost. I prepared myself to be thrown, but Core 50 just let go of my arm and slapped my back a few times. Gah, ow. Your metal armor hurts.

“A splendid effort! Keima, was it? I shall call you by your proper name!” Core 50 declared.

“Sure, thanks... Though I’m a backliner, so I’m not too great at hand-to-hand combat.”

“If you consider that performance poor, then you shall grow significantly with training. Now is the time for dedication! Though I will also have you do normal slave work,” Core 50 said with his armor shaking with laughter.

An elf maid (slave) guided us to a simple bedroom just like the one we had been taken to in Aidy’s mansion. Maybe slaves are actually treated pretty well here?

“That is because the honorable Lord 50 has decided that you are a special-rank slave, and your beastkin companion is a high-rank slave,” the elf said.

“Special-rank?”

“Indeed. You both saw and even dodged his attacks, did you not?”

“Oh, right... Those last few.”

Naturally, that had been automatic dodging performed entirely by my orichalcum Golem assistance. In other words I had cheated. Though I ended up getting caught in no time anyway.

“...So I am a high-rank slave,” Niku murmured.

“You were marked as a mid-rank slave or above the moment you attacked Lord 50 without fear. By keeping up with him even after he sped up you obtained high-rank. Your young age no doubt made the choice easier,” the elf slave continued. She was a mid-rank slave, incidentally, and was in charge of the maids in the mansion. I went ahead and asked how the other slaves were treated, just out of curiosity.

“Mid-rank slaves sleep in group bedrooms, while low-rank slaves go straight to the pigsties,” she explained. What she meant wasn’t that the low-rank slaves slept with pigs, but rather that they were the pigs themselves. Thank God I get to be human. I’ll keep quiet about my cheating.

Anyway, for dinner that day, we were served... meat. There was a juicy steak and thick udon noodles.

“Hm? Will you not eat? You must eat to get strong,” Core 50 said, having removed his helmet to shovel food down his throat. He had probably transformed into human form first. I looked at the meat on my plate while considering that Haku’s subordinate Sally had done the same thing. I really hope this isn’t low-rank slave meat.

Incidentally, Niku was tearing through her steak without hesitating for a second.

“Er, Lord 50. What kind of meat is this?”

“Fear not, it isn’t human meat. It’s wild Orc meat,” Core 50 answered, seeing through me entirely. “The livestock killed in human farms have even their corpses turned into DP, so rarely are they put on the dinner table.”

“Ah, I see.” But Orcs are bipedal too, so I feel a little... okay, nah, I don’t feel bad at all.

I went ahead and cut off a bite. It was pretty good.

“I shall teach you how to hunt Orcs. You cut their head off in a single strike and scatter the blood to summon their allies. That will allow you to hunt even more. Only when no allies are attracted by the blood is the hunt over. The large quantity of meat will demand that you hang their corpses in high places such that it does not rot.”

I see. It’s kinda violent, but they know how to drain the blood off meat and let it ferment in nature.

Incidentally, as a demon (i.e. the Demon Realm equivalent of a noble), Core 50 would normally never eat with slaves, but he was treating me as a visitor due to my connection to the Great Demon King and my status as a special-rank slave. Niku was a high-rank slave, but she was tagging along with me.

“Keima, I will have you work alongside the skilled slaves. Though, of course, I will be training you as well,” Core 50 said. This would also be a good time for us to iron out what I would be doing here.

“That makes sense to me, but what exactly do you want me to do?”

“I shall answer that with a question of my own. What are you capable of doing?” he asked, and you know, that was a good question. I was just a town chief for show, fighting prowess was commonplace in the Demon Realm, and Beddhism didn’t seem like it would be welcome here. Does that just leave magic...?

“...Keima. Core 89 informed me that you came to the Demon Realm to learn. What exactly were you researching?”

“Er... the culture, I guess?” I replied. I had actually come here in search of the Divine Pajamas, and didn’t intend to learn anything at all.

“Very well. In general, I allow special-rank slaves to do the work of their own choosing, since it is most efficient for them to do what they are most skilled at. In which case, I shall have you do a wide variety of work. Finding what you are capable of is an important step toward growing stronger.”

I see. Guess I can claim I’m not good at any of the work and just slack off without getting caught?

“If you show no results whatsoever, I will demote you into a low-rank slave.”

“I shall pour my heart and soul into finding my true calling, Lord 50.”

Core 50 gave me a warning that made it seem like he had read my mind. His insight is so clean and accurate...! So this is the power of a two-digit Core!

“Excellent,” Core 50 said, and after finishing off his steak udon, he wiped his mouth, put his helmet back on, and stood in satisfaction. “Incidentally, Keima. The king has informed me that you are a Hero from another world as well. I am looking forward to your wealth of otherworldly knowledge. You may tell me everything without restraint,” he continued before leaving the dining hall.

...Uh, Core 6? Could you not just tell everyone my secrets like that?

Anyway, after a night’s sleep it was time for the next day. Niku woke me up when morning came. She seemed a bit pained to do so considering she normally only woke me up in dire circumstances (including needing to use the bathroom but being locked in my arms), but being enslaved in the Demon Realm counted as dire circumstances, so she had to get over it. It would be a much bigger problem if I overslept here.

After eating a breakfast of udon in our rooms, the elf maid guided us to a training ground. It was a different place from the arena where we had dueled Core 50 yesterday. Given that he was strong enough to win the Demon Tournament, he was a member of the old guard for demons, a powerful noble that had left an enormous mark in history. It only made sense that he would have multiple arenas and training grounds at his personal estate. It was like a rich person on Earth having multiple pools and tennis courts.

There were multiple men and women working their bodies in the training ground. Naturally, I didn’t mean that in a lewd sense. They were training and holding mock duels. There were all sorts of people: a guy with wings, a leopard beastkin woman, an elf, a human-sized locust, a guy with six arms, a person way bigger than anyone else, and so on. There was nothing connecting them whatsoever. If there was ever a melting pot of monsterkind, this was it. And they all had bloodthirsty looks on their faces.

“Hm? A newbie?” said one of the men, sliding out of their midst to come this way. He had a snake tail for legs, which made him a Lamia. He sheathed his two daggers and spread out his arms wide, giving me a broad grin.

“Welcome, brother! I’m Ostle, a high-rank slave. This place is heaven!”

“Y-Yeah? Nice to meet you. I’m Keima,” I replied. I didn’t notice, but he does have a collar on his neck. Actually, I guess everybody here does.

“Ostle, he is a special-rank slave,” the elf said in a chastising tone.

“Oh, whoops. You gotta tell me that faster. Welcome, Keima,” the Lamia guy said with a bow. Apparently there’s a hierarchy among the slaves too... I thought while squatting to avoid the tail he had slid behind me to strike at the back of my head. That was my Golem assistance’s auto-dodging at work.

“Not bad! That’s a special-rank slave for you! Most don’t manage to dodge that.”

“That’s one hell of a greeting. Is that how people say hello in the Demon Realm?”

“Huh? Of course it is, the hell are you... Oh!” The Lamia guy exclaimed, before grimacing awkwardly. He shook his head, then shot me the broad grin he had after first seeing me. “My bad! Are you from the empire? Or maybe Daide? Right, right, you’re a human! You’re a foreigner! You wouldn’t be used to how we greet each other here!”

What the? That’s actually how they say hello here? Wow.

“Er, well. The truth is, I just came to the Demon Realm recently. First time anybody’s greeted me like that.”

“R-Right. My bad. Hope you can forgive me.”

According to the elf maid, in the Demon Realm it was standard practice to launch a surprise attack on someone after introducing yourself if they seemed strong to you. Ostle concluded I was stronger than him since I was a special-rank slave, and thus launched a surprise attack like it was nothing. What a crazy culture this place has.

“But still, the fact you dodged it anyway just goes to show how strong special-rank slaves are!”

“Seems like you had eyes on the back of your head, man. You sure you aren’t half-arachnid?” called out a nearby slave.

“I can’t even tell what tipped him off. Heh, looks we’ve got one hell of a newbie here,” said another.

And so, thanks to Ostle, I was immediately accepted by the group. Er, uh... Sorry. I do have eyes on the back of my head, because I’m cheating. Not sure they would take me saying that too well, though.

That was when Niku walked up to stand in front of me.

“Oh, who’s this little dog girl?”

“I’m Niku Kuroinu, a high-rank slave. Nice to meet you,” Niku said with a small bow. Ostle responded in turn with his own bow. Instantly, the two of them moved so fast they turned into a blur.

“Ngh!”

“Whoa. That was a pretty nice strike.”

The sound of clashing metal filled the air. Ostle had blocked Niku’s greeting (surprise attack) with his scale-covered tail.

“Alright! I’m gonna train you. C’mon, puppy!”

“Okay. Thank you. Master, I’ll be back.”

Niku eagerly disappeared into the crowd of slaves. Oh, by the way, Ostle’s reaction there was how the person blocking a Demon Realm surprise attack was supposed to react. Man, kids sure adapt fast.

The elf maid then left me at the training ground, saying she’d come get us at noon, so I decided to take my training seriously. I set my Golem assistance to the minimum and started muscle training, which ended up with me getting exhausted in no time. Guh.

“Keima, you sure don’t have any stamina. Do you specialize in fast, short battles or something?”

“C’mon, man, one more time! You can do it! And another time! Just one more time!”

“Now that I look, you’ve got some spindly arms... Want to borrow my arm weights?”

The group of slaves who had been overestimating me started lending a hand after they saw my real power. It all made sense to them when I told them I was a mage, not a warrior. Demon Realm mages were one thing, but a foreign mage being able to dodge that kind of blow would naturally catch Core 50’s eyes. They were confident I would grow if trained. Though if you asked me, it was a bit weird that I could still be a special-rank slave despite being physically weaker than basically all the high-rank slaves.

...Holy shit, how many kilos are these arm weights? I can barely lift my arms. Lending me all six of them is kinda pointless when I only have two arms... Wait, what? Put three of them on each arm? No, no, no, no.

We also had some rousing chats about my battle proficiency in general.

“I see, I see. With that kinda dodging speed you can blast them with dodging right after their first attack.”

“Chanting fast while dodging? Woof, I feel like I’d bite my tongue for sure.”

“Nah, it’s probably a slow chant. This is the kinda thing where you chant ahead of time to make things work.”

I was just listening as the other slaves talked. Both asking someone to spill their fighting secrets and answering honestly were breaches of manners. Ostle the Lamia guy was surprisingly polite and told me all about this. The reasoning behind this quirk of culture was that asking about and spilling secrets like that didn’t help anyone get stronger.

...The others elaborated a bit. Asking for someone to reveal their battle strategies was like announcing yourself as weaker than them, and informing someone of your battle strategies was like announcing yourself as stronger than them. Disciples going out of their way to train each other was actually an elaborate attempt to end up socially on top. Thus, the battle-frenzied attitude of Demon Realm inhabitants was born.

Hm? But wait, does that mean they’re viewing me as an equal even though I’m a special-rank slave? Well, given my physical stats, I should be glad they aren’t just looking down on me.

Incidentally, it was normal to get on the back of someone doing pushups when you wanted to do squats, and when someone was doing sit-ups it was normal to lift up their legs and use them as dumbbells. It was pretty impressive that they could do that kind of thing without Golem assistance. Wait, and Niku is doing it too? Wh-Whew... K-Kids sure adapt fast, huh?

In any case, by the time noon came, my muscles were guaranteed to be sore tomorrow. Thankful that we had udon for lunch, which was pretty easy to eat without moving too much, I proceeded to use Golem assistance to force myself up for the afternoon. I really wanted to just fall over and sleep, but that wasn’t allowed for slaves. Guess I’m gonna have to turn on my {Sleep Resistance} for a while... I’d pass out in an instant otherwise.

“...I’m gonna be helping slaves with work this afternoon, right?” I asked the elf maid, fighting back exhaustion.

“Correct. You have been instructed to go to a human farm today. You will be riding a wagon carrying food.”

Human farms: places where humans were raised to become DP. They were all over the place in the Demon Realm, with Aidy’s Dungeon Master having been from one himself.

...But what do they expect me to do there? The phrase ‘human farm’ really does not paint a good picture of the place. All I can think of is a bunch of humans chained together in front of a food trough. Niku’s gonna be coming along as my bodyguard, but I’m pretty sure that’s not something a kid should be seeing.

In the end, though, my worries were for nothing. The human farm the elf maid and I arrived at in our wagon of vegetables and wheat looked just like a normal village from up on the hill. The only abnormal things were how the densely packed the buildings were, and how there was a big training ground in the center where people were swinging swords and hitting each other with magic.

...Actually, a small correction. It was less a normal village and more like a camp for soldiers. Though there were a lot of kids.

“They live pretty normal lives here, huh? I thought they’d be chained together in barns or something,” I said.

“Ah, those human farms are a bit further out. We have no business there today, however.”

Wait, those exist too? I can’t tell if I think better or worse of the Demon Realm now... Or well, this is just their culture, so I guess it’s not my place to judge them at all?

“If you wish to breed with one, I suggest ignoring the low-ranks and selecting one from the mid-ranks or above.”

“What?!”

“Oh? Did Ostle not inform you of this?” the elf maid asked, tilting her head. Apparently, high-rank and above slaves had baby-making as part of their duties.

Welp, that explains why Ostle called this place heaven. It’s all coming together.

“If you find any girl you like, please feel free to have your way with her. The girls here come from a mana-rich bloodline, so a mage such as yourself will produce quality offspring with them. They will even have attractive appearances due to beauty being one consideration for our selective breeding. There are also dwarves if you prefer your girls on the smaller side.”

“...Sorry, but my heart’s already set on someone,” I replied. The elf maid glanced at Niku, said “I see,” and entered the town without another word. The guard who welcomed us had as handsome a face as the elf maid implied, but putting that aside, we followed after her into the town.

Once inside, my job was to teach the slaves magic. Or to be more specific, I was to teach them magic spells through training, rather than through using scrolls. My work would thus be to say the chant and cast the spell over and over. The slaves would listen carefully and memorize the chant bit by bit until they could cast the magic as well. As annoying as it was, that meant I couldn’t just cast the spell without chanting. And I couldn’t change the chant either. After all, I knew from my experimentation with Neruneh that changing even something as small as the number of fireballs in the chant would make the entire thing turn out differently. It was a huge pain.

“Shoot forth, ice, and pierce mine enemies—{Ice Bolt},” I chanted. The ice bolt shot through the air and hit a target with nothing else happening.

“Shoot forth, ice, and pierce mine enemies—{Ice Bolt},” I chanted. The ice bolt shot through the air and hit a target with nothing else happening once again.

“Shoot forth, ice, and pierce mine enemies—{Ice Bolt},” I chanted. The ice bolt shot through the air and hit a target with nothing else happening once again.

...And so on. I repeated it over and over and over. The target was made of black steel, so it didn’t break apart from mere ice bolts no matter how many I sent its way. The result was all of the bolts breaking apart and forming a mountain beneath the target.

...Gah. I’m so tired from this morning I just want to pass out. I can just speak on autopilot since I’m not changing the incantation, but my throat’s tired and dry...

I put a hand over my mouth and cast {Water}, the Survival spell. Water appeared, which I proceeded to gulp down. Doing it this way didn’t need a cup, which was a strat I had been taught earlier in the morning at the training grounds. Pretty convenient stuff.

Incidentally, Niku had so little to do that she started training with the slaves skilled with swords, even though she had spent all morning training already. Where does all that energy come from? Yaaawn.

“You seem tired, Keima,” a dark-skinned half-elf girl said.

“Almost outta mana? You’ve already shot a hundred of those,” a red-haired guy said. They were both farm slaves that had come over after hearing me yawn.

“Nah, it’s just so boring that... er, actually, yeah. I’m so low on mana I’m feeling pretty sleepy.”

“Keima. Lord 50 has ordered you to continue casting spells for as long as possible. Please continue until you run out of mana and pass out,” the elf maid said, appearing out of nowhere as if she had sensed that I was about to skip out on work.

Crap. I’ll never friggin’ run out of mana if all I’m doing is casting low level spells like this.

“Please continue.”

“Yeah, yeah... Shoot forth, ice, and pierce mine enemies—{Ice Bolt},” I chanted. The ice bolt shot through the air and hit a target with nothing else happening. Well, the good thing about spell chants is that my mouth just moves on its own once I decide to use it.

“...Isn’t the ice going to get in the way soon?”

“We will be using it for our ice freezer room.”

“Well, that’s practical. Shoot forth, ice, and pierce mine enemies—{Ice Bolt},” I chanted. At this point I’m just using Golem assistance to keep my arm lifted up as I stand in place... Still, this is exhausting.

And so, I kept shooting out {Ice Bolts} until the sun was close to setting and it was time for us to go home. I wasn’t allowed a single break, and I kept casting the same spell over and over while drinking water until the elf maid said I could stop. The moment she did, cheers erupted in the vein of “Holy shiiiit!” and “The madman actually did it!” from the surrounding crowd. I guess that means I was pretty successful here.

Incidentally, midway through the afternoon they placed a slanted board beneath the target so the ice would slide into a pot and be easier to collect, so I didn’t know how many bolts I had actually fired. All I knew was that they would have more than enough ice for a while.

Either way, I forced my thoroughly exhausted body back into the wagon and enjoyed the shaking ride back to Core 50’s estate. After somehow getting some steak udon into my stomach for dinner, I returned to my room and instantly turned off {Sleep Resistance}. I fell asleep before I even had time to blink. Oyasuminasai. Zzz.

# Farm Slaves’ Perspective

When the slaves of a human farm heard that a special-rank slave was visiting them, they were all eager for his arrival. After all, special-rank slaves were those that the owner of the farm and archduke of the duchy Core 50 had identified as being someone quite powerful. They were all hopeful that he would have desirable seed for strong children.

And so, nobody could blame them for being deeply disappointed when Keima arrived, looking slender and weak. In the Demon Realm, even mages were muscular to the point of being buff, and the only ones without muscles were young children. Really, the dog loli he brought with him seemed a lot stronger and well-trained.

“He’s not muscular at all.”

“Well, they said he’s a magic specialist, so maybe he has a lot of mana? It’s hard to tell.”

“At the very least, he has to have some mana to be a special-rank slave... I hope.”

Three mid-rank slaves that had been expecting the most out of Keima all gathered together to express their disappointment.

“...I guess we should just wait and see.”

“I don’t need any weakling kids. I’m far more interested in getting that dog girl to be a mother.”

“We can’t turn down a special-rank, but we can kind of avoid him.”

And so, Keima began teaching them {Ice Bolt} in the plaza. All that involved was him repeatedly casting it until everyone else learned it as well. Still, doing such involved a constant drain of mana, so even a fairly skilled magician would only last an hour at best most of the time. Not only would they be learning a new spell, but they would also be figuring out the extent of Keima’s mana by seeing how long he could cast spells before passing out. It was like hunting both an Orc and Minotaur at once. (Translation: A Demon Realm idiom meaning “Kill two birds with one stone.”)

At first, everyone thought Keima wouldn’t have too much mana, given his lack of a muscular build compared to Demon Realm mages, but he continually cast {Ice Bolt} for an hour straight without any breaks. Not to mention, he hit the target dead center each time, never messing up the chant once. The only breaks in his flow were when he wiped his mouth.

“...He’s still casting? Not bad.”

“And his posture is still perfect.”

“Each shot hits dead center. His accuracy is flawless.”

The crashing sound of ice shattering still rang out over and over. He had been rapid-firing the spells from the beginning, so everyone thought he would slow down over time, but his pace hadn’t dropped for a second.

“...I think I might want his kids.”

“He would give strong ones for sure.”

“Since he’s a mage, he won’t be able to fight back much if we push him down to breed.”

Just how much of a magic expert was he? Most of those gathered in the plaza were mages, and they were all interested in magic. They wanted to have a nice, long discussion with Keima. Perhaps he would be able to teach them how to expand their mana capacity as well.

The sun began to set. The ice that they had been planning to take to the ice room once Keima passed out was now being slid directly into a pot to make the repeated trips easier.

“...A-Am I seeing things?! That special-rank slave has been casting magic for four hours straight!”

“Without any breaks?! But wait, he’s not stumbling over his chants at all!”

“Just how big of a mana dick does he have?!”

Magic chants involved using mana to move your mouth. When low on mana the chants would get disturbed, such that you stumble over it and fail to activate the spell. Thus in the Demon Realm there was a common technique to manually chant the spells to save on mana in situations where one had to cast many spells over a long period of time. It would save a significant amount in the long run—or to be precise, it would lessen the amount of mana used in the spells by half.

But Keima’s chants hadn’t faltered for a moment. Either he was using enormous quantities of mana to automate the chanting, or he was an unparalleled expert at manually chanting. But in either case, he had a staggering amount. Even half of what it would take to cast spells for four hours straight was a shocking amount.

Keima’s reputation on the farm was shooting up faster than the speed of light with no signs of stopping. Regardless of how fragile he looked on the outside, he had enough mana to earn not just a little extra cash, but enough to buy an entire mansion. O, fearsome special-rank slaves. O, wondrous special-rank slaves. It was now clear to everyone why he had earned Core 50’s attention.

Eventually, Keima fired his last spell. He had continued casting until the very last moment, remaining upright until it was time for him to leave. Half a day had passed. The exact number of hours were uncertain, but it was more than six. Nobody could blame the slaves for reflexively cheering.

“...I want to have his babies so bad!”

“He’ll definitely give strong children!”

“He’s a mage! If we push him over and hold him down, we can force him to breed with us!”

The three girls resolved to attack Keima on sight the next time he came, no matter what. Suffice to say, they weren’t the only ones who had their eyes on him now, and the farm would be absolutely full of rivals.

# Keima’s Perspective

And so tomorrow came. Niku woke me up and, as expected, my muscles were too sore for me to move. Even my tongue was dead in my mouth due to chanting {Ice Bolt} too much yesterday. Niku poked my cheek repeatedly. Nguuuh. It huuurts...

“Master, have you used Restoration magic?” she asked.

Ah! That’s right, I have magic! How could I forget? I thought before silently casting {Healing}. It successfully lessened the muscle pain.

“Are you okay, Niku? Like, your muscles and all that. I could cast some magic on you too.”

“I’m fine,” she said, completely unfazed. Apparently her youth and the fact she actually exercised had prepared her for this. I would expect nothing less from Niku.

After once again eating the breakfast (udon) that was brought to our room, we followed the elf maid to the training grounds. It was the same place as yesterday. She told us to wake up and head there on our own starting tomorrow, but being late was strictly forbidden, which meant no sleeping in. Too bad.

“Heya, bro! I heard you went right to the farms yesterday, eh? How was it? Didja have a good time, o mighty special-rank?” Ostle asked, walking over with a grin on his face.

“How was what?” I replied.

“Y’know what I’m talking about. Only one fun thing to do at those farms. Were the girls falling over you? How long did you spend slapping meat with all of them, huh?”

“Er. Well,” I began. I could guess what he was going for, since he wasn’t exactly being subtle. Guess I’ll tease him a bit.

“Let’s just say I was shooting rounds from the second I got there to the second I left.”

“Whoa! Seriously?”

“They dragged me away as soon as I got there, and until I left I was shooting my guts out in the plaza.”

“Whew! That’s pretty bold for a first day!”

“They didn’t give me a minute to rest the entire time. I’m exhausted.”

“Th-That’s so long...! Man, special-rank slaves sure are something else,” Ostle said, swallowing hard. Which was my sign to spill the beans.

“I’m not gonna want to shoot any {Ice Bolts} for a long time.”

“Yeah, {Ice Bolt}, huh... Wait, {Ice Bolt}?”

“Yep. They told me to keep shooting until I was out of mana, so I went at it all day. That elf maid wouldn’t let me rest at all,” I said with a shrug. Ostle looked at me with a baffled expression. Meanwhile, I heard someone roaring with laughter from the crowd of training slaves. It was Aknera, the Arachnoid woman with six arms. (Incidentally, Arachnoids were unrelated to Arachnids, with the only similarity being them having eight limbs total. Arachnoids were actually closer to an asura.)

“You sure are kinda uptight for a special-rank slave, aren’t ya? I’m guessing you’re a virgin somehow. Tell you what, I’ll fix that for you,” Aknera said. Man, have these people never heard of chastity? I shook my head.

“Nah, nah. My heart’s settled on someone. Not to mention that I’m only a contract slave, and the contract has an end date.”

“Aw, I got rejected. Wait... your contract has an end date?”

Oops. Have I not mentioned that?

“I was sent here on empire business. I ended up fighting Lord 50 at the Great Demon King’s instructions after the Hell Tournament, but obviously, I lost. Now I’m stuck as a slave for the rest of the month I was going to spend here.”

“Hah! Guess I’ve gotta get your seed even faster than I thought.”

“She’s right, Keima. This is a golden opportunity, don’t waste it on some purity crap,” Ostle added in. It seemed that everyone in the Demon Realm was pretty dedicated to the idea of breeding and colonizing. Breeding to replace the dead was pretty important when constant war and fighting was going on. Not to mention that more strong people meant more DP income.

Well, in any case, we cut the chit-chat there and got straight to training all morning.

“Nice to have a fast learner like you on the field, pup! Makes it all feel worth it. But I gotta ask, have you studied Demon King style somewhere before?” a high-rank slave asked Niku while she was lifting weights nearby.

“Yes. I briefly trained under Aidy.”

“Aidy? Wait... You mean Lady 666?! That’s awesome!”

As one would expect from the name, Demon King style had a lot of practitioners in the Demon Realm, though only noble demons reached the level of an assistant instructor.

I wonder if lifting weights like this will actually make me any stronger, I thought while keeping at it, and before long it was time for afternoon work.

“Am I gonna be shooting magic on the farm all day again?” I asked.

“We will have you work elsewhere today,” the elf maid replied, and told me that I would be helping to make magic tools in a lower city area in Core 50’s duchy. Apparently me casting magic for so long in the human farm yesterday had really boosted my reputation, and if I had so much mana they wanted to see what I could do with making magic tools.

We headed to the magic tool workshop, which was filled with Kobolds, ant-people, and so on working as craftsmen carving the magic circles. It was hard for me to distinguish the Kobolds from the heavily furry dog beastkin, but the elf assured me they were Kobolds.

“Hm? Who’s this, then?”

“Keima, a special-rank slave. Please see what he can do.”

“Alright then. Recognize this, Keima?” a Kobold craftsman asked, handing me a copper board. It had a magic circle carved into it.

...Hm, not too hard to read. Water, creation... The source of energy is here... Alright.

“Looks like a water-creating magic circle to me.”

“Seems like you’ve got the basics down, at least. What about the pup?”

“I’m Niku Kuroinu, Master’s slave. I don’t know anything about magic tools,” Niku said flatly.

“Huh? Why’s a slave got a slave?” the craftsman said, confused. He seemed pretty thrown off by Niku calling me “Master” instead of Core 50. There’s some complicated circumstances here, I promise.

“...Anyway. What can you do, then?” he asked, recovering.

“I can fight.”

“You can go and fight with Golems we made out of magic tools, then.”

Golems made out of magic tools, huh? I wonder how they’re different from Golems made from magic, I thought, and Niku went right off to the arena attached to the workshop, which was also known as the hands-on arena laboratory. What a place.

I ended up stuck in no time. They asked me to carve the word for water in the magic circle, and I couldn’t. Whoops.

“Sorry, uh, I can read, but I can’t write.”

“Useless! How can you read but not write? Are your hands too shaky?”

The real answer was that my auto-translator let me read things in Japanese, but it actually blocked me from seeing the actual shapes of the letters and stuff. It was pretty strange, since supposedly I was looking at concrete matter.

“...Fine, fine. Go organize the storeroom, then. The paperwork’s a mess and the young’ins keep putting things in the wrong places.”

“You got it.”

And so, I ended up managing paperwork in the storeroom. Man, I’m glad I just admitted that I couldn’t write. Managing paperwork? Sure, sure. I’ll manage the hell out of this paperwork.

# Kobold Craftsman’s Perspective

A weird special-rank slave came to my magic tool workshop. In the end, though, I had to send him to organize the storeroom.

“But y’know, to think he could read but not write... I guess some people just do be like that,” I mused. You could learn to read a circle just by looking at a single example over and over, but you needed tools to practice writing, and the metal boards on which you carved magic circles cost money. It wasn’t implausible for someone to know how to read but not write.

That said, most people like that would try to write at any opportunity they were given, but that guy just turned it right down.

Anyway, I left him at the storeroom. If he could read magic circles that fast, he could probably organize paperwork without any problems. He was a special-rank slave, so I didn’t need to leave any helpers, but...

“Zzz...”

“Uh? This fucker’s asleep in the storeroom. Wake up! Hey!”

...He skipped work and took a nap. What a bold guy.

I smacked the special-rank slave awake and he sat up with a grumble.

“Ngh? What’d you do that for? I finished organizing it already.”

“Like hell you did,” I shot back before looking around the storeroom. In reality, everything was out of order. The documents were grouped by element, but the titles weren’t ordered in any discernible way.

“What the hell?! It’s even worse than before!”

“Hm? No way, that can’t be... Oh.” The special-rank slave averted his eyes, as if he had forgotten then remembered something important. “Sorry. I lined them up in my language’s alphabetical order.”

“HOW?! Where are you from?! You’re speaking common language right now! How did they end up in that order?! You said you can read, didn’t you?!”

“Sorry. It’s hard to explain, but there’s like, a spell cast on me? A curse? There’s nothing I can do about it.”

The special-rank slave started listing off excuses. What a useless guy. He couldn’t even return the documents to the order they had been in before. I just lost it.

“Get out! There’s no work for you here!”

“R-Right. Seriously, sorry about that,” the special-rank said while bowing slightly and leaving the storeroom.

Sheesh, what a disaster. I reached out to start fixing up the documents, but...

“Hm? This is one of the magic circles we had filed under ‘impossible to read.’ Shit, did he just randomly mix these in with the rest?” I said, looking at one of the magic circles put on the Darkness shelf. Huh. Wait a second...

“Hrm...? Wait, this is... Pretty sure we couldn’t read this due to the damage. But if we assume it’s a Darkness circle... Hmmm? O-Oh...” It all came together. It was a Darkness circle after all.

What, did he read this...? This broken magic circle? No way, it mighta been a coincidence, I thought, searching the other shelves.

“This unreadable one’s stuck in the place for combinations of fire and water elements... And this one’s on the water shelf. Hmmm, that would mean... Oooh...”

The more I found and the more I looked over them, the more they all seemed to be in the right place.

...This one too? Whoa, and even this one?!

I got so absorbed in reading the now-comprehensible magic circles that before I knew it, the sun had set and then risen again. Almost a full day had passed since I drove that special-rank slave out.

Hrm, well, uh... Huh. I’m gonna have a lot of questions for him the next time he comes over here...

# Keima’s Perspective

Yesterday’s dinner was some udon with fresh vegetables. Just in time, too, since I was getting tired of steak udon after eating it for dinner three days in a row. Thankfully they knew to mix things up here.

Anyway, in the morning I lifted weights, then had a different job in the afternoon.

“What’s going on today?”

“Monster hunting,” the elf maid replied.

“Monster hunting,” I repeated, envisioning all of the people I had seen in the Demon Realm. At times it was extremely hard to distinguish between humans and monsters here.

“Heya, Keima! Guess you’re on hunting duty today, huh?”

“Ostle...? Oh, right. Of course you don’t just spend all day every day in the training grounds.”

“The only people who get to just train and breed are the slaves in the farms, my man. Of course I’ve got actual work to do.”

I was headed for the hunting grounds with Ostle, a Lamia guy who was basically the perfect representation of how it was hard to tell humans and monsters apart in the Demon Realm. It was good to know there was someone I knew here.

“I’m pumped to see your magic, Keima. And I already know that pup of yours is gonna contribute a lot,” Ostle said with excitement, so I went ahead and asked what was on my mind.

“Hey, Ostle. This might be rude, but I gotta ask. When hunting monsters, how do you tell apart wild monsters and ones that actually live in society? They look about the same to me.”

“Hm? Aaah... Right, you were born in the empire. Not gonna lie, telling them apart’s gonna be pretty rough for you since it’s all in the details. But I can empathize with ya. I know all about foreign cultures,” he said with his arms crossed while nodding. “Lemme tell you a rule of thumb. Anyone fluent in speech is a person, and anything that doesn’t speak is a monster you can hunt.”

“Are there not species in the Demon Realm that can’t talk?”

“Well, it’s more a matter of conscious communication than the actual speech. You can have conversations with hand motions and the like. Some people have their throats cut and can’t talk, after all. Anyway. If the captain gives Goblins orders and they listen, consider them blood brothers. If the captain gives them orders and they don’t, they’re dead. Even if someone like me ignores the orders, I’m dead. Simple, right?”

Oh, I see. I just need to think of people as friend or foe. People obeying the Great Demon King are friends, but people disobeying him are foes.

“Hm. But some Orcs live in the Demon Realm as citizens too, right? Should people really be eating Orc meat here?”

“Huh? I’m not following you.”

Ah. I see. The Demon Realm doesn’t care about cannibalism at all. Food was food, and even if meat belonged to a former ally, it was sustenance. In a way, that’s pretty rational.

“Anyway, just kill our enemies and eat them if you want. Don’t kill your allies. Follow these two rules and nobody in the Demon Realm will say a word against you. Right, everyone?”

“Yup! Long live the Great Demon King! Long live Lord 50!”

“The Great Demon King prevails!”

Everyone pumped their right fists in the air while cheering, their thumbs thrust upwards. In Japan people would hold both their arms into the air when cheering “long live,” but well, the auto-translator was probably doing its best. It happens.

We headed to the hunting grounds, where we got into battle formation. I was put in one of the back rows. My orders were simple: when the captain pointed in a direction and said to attack, just launch a ton of attack magic in that direction. Our goal here was technically to gather food, so it would be better not to launch magic so strong it didn’t leave a corpse. The captain was a level-1 citizen or something, and he was a rhino-beastkin with armor on. He was about eighty percent furry, I’d say.

Niku was on the frontlines. She fought the other slaves to get in the frontmost row before ultimately securing her position. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but try not to get hurt.

“There! A King Bloody Boar!” shouted the captain. In front of him was a large cloud of smoke, from which emerged a massive boar with dark red blood spilling off it like it was cursed.

“Alright! Charge!” shouted a soldier.

“Idiot! Magic comes first! C’mon!”

Oh, was that my signal? Hyaaah. {Ice Bolt}, {Ice Bolt}, and how about some {Ice Bolts} and {Ice Bolts}? Maybe an {Ice Bolt} would be nice to mix things up? Here, have a free {Ice Bolt} too.

“...I heard you were an expert at {Ice Bolts}, but uh... This is pretty standard stuff. Hey, special-rank. You got any magic stronger than that?”

“Hm? Er, well...” Now that I think about it, I showed the whole audience I could cast a ton of spells at once back when I was fighting Core 50. Guess I can go with that.

I mumbled, pretending to speak out a chant. It was normal to do this in the Demon Realm (since the chant would often spoil what spell you were planning to use in a duel), which meant I thankfully didn’t have to think up a fake chant.

“Gatling Ice Bolt,” I said, shooting out Ice Bolts faster in both frequency and speed. What had been one swooshing bolt after another was now a rapid-fire spray of multiple bolts at once. The bolts stayed reasonably close together, and if I focused on a single spot they would pierce right through the target.

My Ice Bolts flew toward the King Bloody Boar’s nose. They were sucked into its nose, but I shot more, and then more, until eventually... the King Bloody Boar fell to its side, the inertia from its charge causing dust to fly into the air as it scraped across the ground. Blood dripped from its ice-packed nose, and it convulsed while frothing out of the mouth. I stopped my magic.

“Whoa! You, what?!”

“The hell was that?!”

The King Bloody Boar had collapsed before making contact with the group. Apparently the ice stakes had reached its brain through its nose, doing enough damage up there to kill it. Don’t blame me, blame the boar for having king-sized nostrils.

“I was looking forward to this! Gah, why do you get to have all the fun?!”

“My prestiiiiige!”

“Fuck you! What’s the big idea, killing it with just magic?! C’mon!”

The slaves roared with disapproval. I glanced toward the rhino captain, since he was the one in charge.

“I request that you give the others an opportunity to fight, honorable special-rank slave, sir,” he forced out. Apparently what I had done was impressive enough for the captain to get all polite with me. I’m just glad I can be lazy with fighting the next one. I have his permission, after all.

For dinner that night we went ahead and had boiled boar udon made with the King Bloody Boar, but so much meat was stacked onto my bowl that I could barely even see over it. I split it with Niku, and by split, I mean I gave her most of it.

# Rokuko’s Perspective

Keima was taken away by Core 50 as a slave, and in his place Wataru was assigned to guard Rokuko as her slave. She borrowed a collar from Haku and signed the contract right where Keima had been put into Core 50’s {Storage}.

And then, regretful beyond words, her responsibilities practically pulling her by the hair, Haku got in her royal carriage and returned to the Laverio Empire, leaving Rokuko in the Demon Realm.

“Okaaaay, and that’s thaaat. Serve us well, Wataruuu,” Neruneh said with her lazy tone of voice.

“Right! You can count on me, Neruneh,” Wataru replied, ‘disguising’ himself with a bear hat. He seemed pretty happy to be with the girl he had a crush on.

Sigh. And I was really looking forward to spending time with Keima, too... Rokuko thought.

“Rokuko, don’t feel so down. Shall we have a dance?” Aidy offered.

“Aidy. Well... I charged up on my Keima energy last night, so I think I’ll be fine.”

Last night, after Keima fell asleep, Rokuko stealthily slipped into bed with him and put on the Divine Comforter. Her one regret was that she had restrained herself, thinking that she had many days with him ahead of her. If she had known what would happen, she would have had a feast. After all, he would think all of it was just a dream.

“In any case, I suggest we go to my duchy,” Aidy said. And indeed they did, riding a magic tool carriage pulled by Sleipnirs. The carriage shook a bit at low speeds, but once it reached the super fast max speed, it stopped shaking at all. A road that would have normally taken three days for a normal carriage to travel was blasted over in half a day.

In other words, by the time they reached Aidy’s duchy the sun had set, and it was deep into the night.

“I wonder if Keima is looking at the same moon right now?” Rokuko wondered aloud wistfully.

“I imagine he is still within Lord 50’s storage,” Aidy replied, utterly shattering her friend’s dreams.

“You know, Aidy,” Wataru began, “I’m surprised your duchy only has a fence marking the borders instead of any walls. I thought you were being pampered, so your whole duchy would have a ton of funding dumped into it.”

“Oh my. What a strange thing to say, Wataru the Hero... or should I say, Wataru the Slave now?”

“What do you mean by strange?”

“Well, if there were sturdy walls, no wild monsters would attack.”

“Huh...? Isn’t that exactly why you want walls?”

“Ah. I’m afraid there is a vast cultural divide separating us,” Aidy replied, forcibly ending the conversation. Wataru shrugged, and Rokuko tilted her head.

“Hm? Come on, explain. I’m curious now. Why don’t you have any walls if you know you’re going to get attacked?” Rokuko asked.

“...How should I put this,” Aidy began, unable to refuse a request from her friend. “Think about it like this. In the Demon Realm, monster attacks are enjoyed as both entertainment and as work.”

According to Aidy, the battle-hungry residents of the Demon Realm would gleefully rise to fight off monster attacks and bathe in the entrails of their victims. Not only that, but buildings destroyed in the attack would provide work for construction workers, and destroyed fields could be compensated for with monster meat (and if anything was missing, the Cores could just stealthily use DP to smooth things over.)

A lot of Demon Realm citizens were from carnivorous species, so you only needed enough vegetables and grains to make udon. Really, a lot of citizens considered farms as just bait for the monsters. Not to mention that the farming itself was done cheaply with free, undead labor. There was no problem at all with them being attacked and the harvest taken away.

“I see, that’s definitely a cultural thing. I never thought of monster raids as fun, or treating farms as bait for them,” Rokuko said.

“Everything is different in the empire, I believe. To think, there exist people who find no joy in fighting.”

“I actually like fighting a lot, honestly,” Wataru said.

“You and Aidy will probably get along surprisingly well,” Rokuko noted. Pretty much everyone in the Demon Realm loved fighting. Throwing a punch at someone’s face was a perfectly normal way to say hello.

In any case, they continued their discussion until arriving at Aidy’s estate.

The next day came. Rokuko was gazing out of her window, her mind in another place entirely.

“Siiigh... I want to be with Keima,” she mumbled sadly.

“Would you like to exercise for a bit? I believe that will take your mind off him.”

“Aidy, how many times have I said my sword is just ornamental? If you want to duel, you can borrow Wataru.”

“Oh my! How wonderful. I shall do just that, then. And you, Rokuko? Will you watch?”

“Hmm... I think I’ll read a book. Aidy, do you have any books about Demon Realm history, culture, and all that? I might as well take this opportunity to learn.”

“I can lend you some old books scattered around here. I believe Core 42 wrote some of them.”

There were constant wars between duchies in the Demon Realm, and Aidy’s entire duchy (including her estate) had been built by Core 42. It was filled with as many old books as you would expect from a mansion that had been lived in by an ancient first lot Core.

“These seem well worth reading. But wait... wasn’t Core 42...?”

“Indeed. The other fighter in the Hell Tournament’s grand finals. He gifted me this duchy when I defeated him in battle, albeit one where he was handicapped. He wished to leave on a journey in search of more powerful monsters to fight, and having to rule territory so close to the demonic capital was getting in his way.”

Apparently it was possible to use the Dungeon Battle system to bet and fight with the entirety of your dungeon territory.

“Dungeon territory battles are a thing, hm? I never thought about that,” Rokuko mused.

“Though nobody will accept such a battle unless you gamble enough to show that you are serious,” Aidy said, and Rokuko concluded that Father (also known as the Dark God) probably handled the details of that.

Afterwards, Aidy and Wataru enjoyed their fill of a mock battle. Neruneh had occasionally cheered him on a bit from the sidelines while reading one of the books on magic circles Wataru had given her.

Rokuko reached a good stopping point in one of the books Aidy had lent her and found her eyes drawn to the window. Outside was a round, white moon yet again.

“Even in the Demon Realm, the moon just looks like the moon,” she observed.

“I would imagine that today your Master was taken out of {Storage} and began his life as a slave,” came a voice. Rokuko turned and saw Aidy standing in the doorway, grinning with satisfaction.

“So he might be looking at the same moon, then.”

“You are attached to the strangest ideas, aren’t you? What’s so fun about looking at the moon?”

“It’s not the moon that’s fun, it’s the thought that Keima might be looking at the same thing as me. Don’t you ever want to look at the same scenery with the person you love?” Rokuko asked.

“...You know, I think I might understand the feeling,” Aidy replied.

“Oh, now that’s surprising.”

“Come now, really? I can be an emotional girl myself sometimes, you know. I would like the one I love to stand by my side in the field of battle.”

“Oh, okay. We’re definitely on the same page then,” Rokuko replied, looking at the moon again. Battlefields were certainly bloody, but in the end, Aidy was a girl with romantic dreams too.

“...Rokuko, if you would like to see him that much, might I suggest going to Lord 50’s duchy?”

“I can do that?!” Rokuko exclaimed, eyes wide with surprise.

“Of course. That Apprentice Witch of yours wishes to study magic tools, no? It will be simple, then. I can just ask Lord 50 to allow her to study in one of his workshops.”

“Thank you, Aidy!”

“It’s no trouble at all, Rokuko. You will be able to meet your Master even if he refuses to allow the witch to study. I strongly doubt he would die there, after all. But in return, I ask that you lend Wataru to me again,” Aidy said, and the deal was made entirely behind Wataru’s back. It didn’t even need to be said that Rokuko agreed instantly.

“Oh, but it can wait for a few days. I want to finish reading these books first.”

“My my, really? I thought for sure that you wish to meet him at once,” Aidy said, looking at Rokuko with surprise.

“I’ve read in a book that love grows stronger with a little absence. In other words, I’m planning to wait a few days, so Keima will be just dying, dying, dying to see me by the time I get there.”

“My my. A soldier of love, aren’t we?”

“Just think. How will he feel when, at his most desperate moment, I appear out of nowhere to see him!”

“...I see! That would certainly land a critical blow on him,” Aidy replied, her heart dancing at her friend’s battle strategy. Love was war. And in war, it was both natural and expected to form plots in the name of securing victory.

“I can meet him whenever I want to, and that gives me an advantage,” Rokuko said.

“You have secured a superior position and are using it to manipulate the battlefield. Spectacular, Rokuko.”

In a way, they were just like any other pair of two young girls, eagerly discussing love and romance at a sleepover.

In any case, some stuff happened, and it ultimately came to pass that Rokuko’s group left for Core 50’s duchy a week later. Naturally, that group included Neruneh as a maid and Wataru as a guard. With Aidy’s Master Sebas driving the carriage, there were five of them in total.

“I wonder if Keima’s doing alright?” Wataru wondered aloud.

“I’m sure he’s fiiine,” Neruneh replied. It felt like the two of them had been spending more time together ever since they arrived at the Demon Realm. Or well, they factually had been spending a ton more time together. While Rokuko was reading books in Aidy’s estate, Neruneh was cheering Wataru on a bit in the arena—going out of her way to bring the study tools and alchemy-related books Wataru had paid to rent for her.

“...So, Neruneh. You seem to be pretty close with Wataru lately. You two sure are together a lot.”

“That’s trueee. I’m trying to spend time with him where I caaan,” Neruneh said casually.

But you’re MY maid, Rokuko thought, but she ultimately decided to let Neruneh keep doing as she liked since she could use their time spent together as study material to learn from. It helped that with all the servants in Aidy’s estate, Rokuko didn’t exactly need another maid looking after her.

“Incidentally, Wataru the Slave. How has the sole servant room I had the time to prepare for you both been? I imagine there have been no problems?”

“...Er, well, I’ve been managing thanks to the collar,” he replied.

On top of everything, Neruneh and Wataru had been sleeping in the same room—despite the fact that Rokuko, their master, was sleeping alone (albeit after chatting with Aidy up until the very last minute). The shocking truth hit Rokuko with a little jealousy. If only things hadn’t gone so wrong, she and Keima would be sleeping in the same room every night.

“Oh, don’t get the wrong idea, Rokuko. I would never force myself on Neruneh!” Wataru declared.

“Is that true?”

“It’s trueee. Don’t forget his slave collaaar,” Neruneh said with a smile.

“Naturally, as a slave, I sleep on the floor. Though I do lay out a futon first,” Wataru said. Why did he think it was natural for a slave to sleep on the floor? It seemed he had some uncomfortable prejudice that would need to be questioned.

“By the way, Rokuko. I was a bit surprised to learn that Wataru has a futon in his {Storage} as well. Do all imperials carry futons around with them?”

“I think that’s just Beddhists.”

They chatted in the carriage that Sebas was driving, and if everything went well they would be arriving at Core 50’s duchy by tomorrow morning.

# Keima’s Perspective

After a week of living a slave, I had gotten pretty used to their way of life, if I did say so myself. I probably had good enough grasp on the systems to start hunting for a way to get the Divine Pajamas. Aaand that was when Core 50 popped up during morning practice.

“Very good. Training your hearts out, I see,” he said. First Ostle, then all the other slaves stopped training to bow their heads. “Lift your heads and continue,” he continued before walking my way. “Keima, you shall be dueling me this afternoon. Keep your training to a minimum so that you have enough energy when the time comes.”

“Oh, good timing... I mean, understood.”

“I shall see how much you have grown as a special-rank slave,” he said, and with that he left at once. Instantly, a bunch of slaves surrounded me.

“Grats, Keima! You get to fight Lord 50 himself!” exclaimed a slave.

“Gah, I wanna fight him too... You special-rank slaves sure are lucky!” yelled another.

“Oh, but we haven’t had kids yet. Wanna fuck? I’m ready to right here, right now,” said Aknera.

Hold it, what was with that last line? Don’t make it sound like I’m not going to come back alive. And also, no, we’re not going to have kids. It’s gonna be a hard fight, but it’s Core 50 I’m dealing with. He’s not gonna kill me.

Or so I thought, but apparently plenty of slaves had been summoned by Core 50 only to never be seen again. Welp... Either way, I’m still not gonna have kids with you.

“Alright! You’re gonna need to be in tip-top shape! Let’s start with some light exercise!” Ostle yelled out enthusiastically.

“Hold it, hold it, hold it. I’m just gonna be preserving my energy here. You all know how little stamina I have, right?”

“Oh, right. We’ll go for a lighter course then. C’mon, Aknera, help us out.”

“Leave him to me! I’ll warm him up so well he’ll give even Lord 50 a good fight!” Aknera the six-armed Arachnoid said before grabbing all four of my limbs and forcibly loosening up their muscles. Nghuuh!

...And so, after spending my morning being swung around like a child’s stuffed animal, it was time for my afternoon duel. I was facing Core 50 in one of his mansion arenas. Niku was brimming with motivation for the rematch.

“Now then, Keima. Your work this week has received high praise from all those involved,” Core 50 began.

“Er, great. Does that get me a reward or something?” I replied.

“Hm. Now that I think about it, you came to the Demon Realm to acquire the Divine Pajamas. I have found little use for them, as I do not sleep in bed clothing,” Core 50 mused aloud with a hand on his chin. “Very well. If you land a solid blow on my person, I shall award you the Divine Pajamas.”

“Whoa, really?!”

“To that end, you may attack me with all you have. Such is the role that special-rank slaves are meant to fulfill in the first place.”

There was no audience watching us in this arena, and Core 50 knew everything that Core 6 told him. In other words, he knew that I was a Dungeon Master and a Hero, and here he was saying I didn’t need to hold back on using the special talents those two positions afforded me.

“Now then! Come at me!” Core 50 declared.

“Hyaaaah!” I roared.

“Here I go...!” Niku said.

And so, we lost. Both of us. Horribly.

Seriously? I even used {Ultra Transformation} this time. He dodged {Element Burst} on his first try, and held back on his attacks so they only sent me flying as he hit me over and over. He avoided Niku’s critical neck slice while knocking away spells launched from his blind spots. I transformed into a Slime the instant he grabbed me, but he just casually pulled my arm and interrupted the transformation.

All this even though {Ultra Transformation} is my ultimate move, and I can only use it five times a day. Gaaah.

Naturally, we didn’t land a single blow on Core 50, and we had basically been dancing on his palm.

“The pup is marginally stronger, but you, Keima, have in fact grown weaker since we last fought. Your power clearly surpasses your skill for wielding it. You would be wise to hone your technique... or rather, I suppose this is the result of you honing your techniques to a half-baked level? Hmm, I might need to rethink your entire education plan. I thought that you would grow stronger if your weak points were ironed out, but instead you became weaker... Will you just not get stronger at all under my methods? Perhaps I need to entrust you to someone else,” Core 50, clinking his helmet a bit as if letting out a sigh.

Curse you, Core 50! It’s your fault for dodging my attacks like you can read my mind or something. You always make impossible dodges like you know exactly what I’m about to do.

“Quite. You are not far from the truth, Keima. I can read minds, as you are imagining.”

“...Wait, what?” Seriously? Wait, wait, wait. No way. Why would he tell me that now?

“You had all that you needed to deduce this except confidence in your belief, and a fourth of your enslavement has passed without that changing. Good grief. Am I not known all throughout the Laverio Empire? I was once called the Knight of the Mind’s Eye, you know... Though I suppose I haven’t fought in the frontlines for an entire decade. I cannot blame you humans for forgetting me already, considering your short attention spans.”

That was my first time hearing that. It certainly explained a lot about his past behavior and actions.

Niku stood up, covered in wounds and bruises. “I see. That explains several moves you made,” she said.

“Yes, indeed. You truly are a fast learner in the midst of battle, pup,” Core 50 replied. I wasn’t exactly sure what they were talking about, but I could guess it was stuff like Core 50 dodging attacks from what should have been unreadable blind spots. “Now then, that will be enough for today. I will not ask for payment for your loss out of consideration for your achievements over the past week.”

Ah, right. In the Demon Realm, you always have to duel while betting something on your end. I’m not exactly sure what achievements he’s referring to here, but well, I’ll take this as him saying that a week of work is worth one attempt at beating him in a duel.

“Pup. I have arranged for an instructor suited to your talents to arrive soon. You may henceforth train under them. Dedicate yourself to learning Demon King style Detachment,” Core 50 ordered, and Niku nodded with a frustrated look. She wasn’t frustrated at his orders, but rather at the simple fact that she hadn’t been able to win. Niku was always hungering to get stronger, and she hadn’t been hesitant to embrace Ostle and the others’ teachings at all. Demon Realm citizens weren’t fond of stealing the techniques of others since it didn’t feel so much like growing stronger on your own terms, but Niku had no such misgivings.

“...Incidentally, Keima. Can you read minds as well?” Core 50 asked.

“Uh, no? Not at all.”

“...Very well. If you insist.”

And so, my afternoon work came to an end. Or it would have, if I didn’t have more work to do after it. Core 50 cast Restoration magic on me, and directed me to a parlor for my next job.

“Wait, Keima?! Why are you so beaten up?! Oh, it’s just your clothes. Explain yourself.”

“Rokuko...? Why are you here?”

There in the parlor I found Rokuko. She was with Aidy, Sebas, Wataru, and Neruneh.

“Why are you all here, actually...?”

“What do you mean, why? Obviously I came to see you because I was worried,” Rokuko said with her chest puffed out smugly.

“Alright then. Thanks. But, uh, I was called here to do some kind of job,” I replied.

“And that is exactly correct, Baron Keima,” Aidy said. She was calling me Baron Keima here since Wataru was with us, though if you asked me, it didn’t feel like it fit me at all. Barons felt more like cartoon villains than a noble low on the political hierarchy, but anyway. “Your job is to entertain us as guests.”

“Entertain you, huh? Not exactly sure what I need to do, then.”

“I have already discussed matters with Lord 50. I will be staying here to see just how far that pup of yours can be trained. You may focus on serving Rokuko, Baron Keima,” she continued. Sebas would service Aidy, while Wataru and Neruneh were stuck with Rokuko.

“That makes this a double date, Keima!” Wataru exclaimed, seeming excited about all this for some reason. On paper he was a slave here just like me, so maybe he had gotten used to Demon Realm culture like I had.

“Sure, but I don’t know much about this place at all. I may have spent a week here already, but slaves don’t get much free time to do what they want.”

“Let’s go on a walk, then. We’ll be fine with Wataru nearby,” Rokuko said. That was fair. A walk through a Demon Realm city would be best done while we had a reliable bodyguard like Wataru around.

“...Master. Am I not reliable after all?” Niku asked.

“Huh? No, no, you’re reliable in your own ways, Niku,” I replied. It’s just that this is the Demon Realm here. Niku was as strong as any of Core 50’s high-rank slaves, sure, but she wasn’t mind-bogglingly strong. I mean, it was mind-boggling if you considered that she was a loli, but not actually looking strong was a minus point in the Demon Realm.

“Okay. I will get a lot, lot stronger. So... Aidy,” Niku said, looking toward Aidy.

“Indeed. I have quite a liking for those that have both talent and the determination to grow, just so you know. I shall train you oh so thoroughly, little pup.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

I wasn’t sure what exactly had gotten Niku so motivated, but well, I was glad to see her so into this.

“Shall we go then, pup? Have fun out there, Rokuko.”

“Thanks, Aidy. Bye bye!”

And so, after leaving Niku with Aidy, I left for the lower city of Core 50’s castle-esque mansion alongside Rokuko, Wataru, and Neruneh. That said, we didn’t really know where to go from there. The four of us weren’t particularly knowledgeable about Demon Realm cities.

“Why not just try walking down the main street for nooow? We might find some cool stands or shops along the waaay,” Neruneh suggested.

“Genius, Neruneh!” Rokuko exclaimed. Thus began our aimless wandering down the main street. We could all see a map of the city on our dungeon menu, so none of us needed to worry about getting lost except Wataru.

The Demon Realm city was largely similar to an empire city. Both felt like just normal fantasy cities to me, but what separated them were the lack of outer walls surrounding the Demon Realm city, and also what felt like a layer of dirt over everything. I didn’t really think too deeply about it, but Rokuko smugly informed me that the lack of walls was to draw monsters in for easy hunting—done both for work and for fun. The fact that they considered enemy attacks to be entertainment was very Demon Realm-esque.

“Keima, there’s a market over there! Let’s go!” Rokuko exclaimed.

“Sure.”

I headed for the market with Rokuko pulling my hand. The market sold food, but it didn’t take long to notice the extreme pricing. The raw ingredients were so cheap it was like they were being thrown away, but the prepared food was way more expensive. Not to mention, weapons, armor, and magic scrolls were casually being sold right next to the vegetables. I had to question whether those would sell, but then someone did indeed buy some right in front of me. Question answered.

“Weapons break and get worn down so often here, people need replacements all the time,” Wataru observed.

“Interestiiing,” Neruneh replied while glancing at a magic scroll. Wataru noticed her gaze and reached for his clasped coin purse. He kept most of his money in the Space-Time magic spell {Wallet}, but apparently he walked around with a physical coin purse too.

“You sure about this, Wataru? She kinda has you by the balls here.”

“It’s fine. Now that I don’t owe you any more debt, I can spend a lot more on her than normal.”

...I’m one to talk, but try to keep your monetary offerings to a minimum, alright? She’s an apprentice witch, not a goddess to appease.

“Anyway, grains and vegetables sure are cheap here, huh? Why’s that?” I asked.

“Aidy mentioned that food was cheap thanks to armies of undead maintaining massive farms,” Rokuko replied. I envisioned a zombie horde tilling farms with hoes, and... it didn’t quite work for me. They seemed more like fertilizer than anything. Rotten meat fertilizer... Yuck. Hopefully they’re using Skeletons here.

Either way, her answer made some things click. It was precisely because they had undead hordes doing manual labor and supporting the realm with food that they could focus all their energy onto honing their warrior spirits and bodies. That was one Demon Realm mystery solved.

“Wait, is that you, Keima? What are you doing all the way out here?” came a voice.

“Hm?” I turned around and saw two adventurers (or rather, hunters?) looking this way. Who’re you two? Not even kidding here. Wait... I feel like this exact thing happened once before?

“I’m Uzou! You saved my life!”

“I’m Muzou! Sorry for not managing to visit Goren yet!”

“...Oh, right. I think I remember knowing two people by that name. But what’s all this about a promise?”

Uzou and Muzou. I remembered them. They were a pair of C-Rank adventurer brothers that were the Dancing Doll Inn’s first customers, and the first people I saved from the dungeon. They had gotten stuck in the magic blade testing room in an unexpected way, earning us a ton of DP. To thank me for saving them they went hunting for a Magic Blade to replace the Golem Blade, before ultimately finding my best sword, Siesta. It was a valuable blade that spread sleep wherever it went. Not a day went by without it on my hip, including today. There was nothing better against enemies without Sleep Resistance.

“What I want to know is why you two are out here. Aren’t you empire adventurers?” I asked.

“Well, we kinda got stuck here due to a mishap during a quest.”

“We saved a noble demon’s life but got hurt in the process, and we’ve been doing quests to try and pay them back for the medical fees.”

At the moment they were visitors at the noble demon’s estate, working to pay back the medical fees. They had participated in the preliminaries of the Fighter’s Tournament (which itself was a preliminary for the Hell Tournament), but lost quickly. They watched one of their hunter friends participate in the tournament proper, then stopped by this city for sightseeing purposes on their way home.

“You guys sure have it rough, huh?” Rokuko commented, sounding a bit sincere. Well, it’s not as bad as being enslaved like me, so I can’t really comment on it.

“Keima, are these friends of yours? C’mon, introduce me,” Wataru said while butting in.

“Whoa! Wataru the Hero! What’re you doing here?!”

“THE Wataru the Hero?! The Wataru that won in the Fighter’s Tournament?!”

Shut it, you two, you’re being loud, I thought, but by that point word that Wataru the Hero was here had already spread. The flimsy bear hat disguise didn’t work on a Laverio Empire native, and anyone who looked at him thinking he was Wataru the Hero would instantly recognize it really was him.

“Wataru the Hero, the human from the empire?! Also known as the Smiling Genocider?! The Jester of Death?!”

“The Grinning Nightmare is here?! I challenge you to a duel!”

“Hold it! I’m the one who’s gonna duel Wataru the Funnyman Berserker!”

A crowd gathered instantly. The already crowded market got even more packed, but more than half were demihuman Demon Realm residents, so about seventy percent of the crowd were indistinguishable from monsters. In the center of the crowd were me, Rokuko, Neruneh, Wataru, Uzou, and Muzou. The crowd stretched out two solid meters in every direction, and most of them had on bloodthirsty grins with weapons in their hands.

“Welp... Sorry, everybody. I knew that I was hated in the Demon Realm, but this is more than I expected. Some guard I am. I’ve gotten us all into trouble.”

“...S-S-S-Sorry, Wataru!”

“W-We didn’t think this through!”

Muzou and Uzou dropped to the floor in apology as Wataru reached for his sword, a melancholic and distant look in his eyes. The nearby Demon Realm residents exuded killing intent, hyped up as if an entertaining party was about to begin. Yeah, I feel like I need to stop this before shit gets bad.

I looked around and saw within the crowd the owner of the stand that had been selling the magic scrolls Neruneh had been eyeing.

“Perfect timing. Hey, Wataru. You want to show off in front of Neruneh, right? Just leave it to me.”

“Whoa, Keima? You have some plan to get through this dangerous pinch unscathed?”

Dangerous? What’re you talking about, Wataru? I guess empire folks just really don’t get what life is like here.

I casually turned to the store owner, who was wielding a knife. “Hey, you.”

“Huh? Me?”

“Wataru’s working as our guard right now, but if you’ll bet all the magic scrolls at your stand, I’ll let you duel him.”

“Alright! Sounds good!” the stand owner replied before rushing over and bringing back all the magic scrolls from the stand.

“There you have it, Wataru. Take ’em out one by one. Anyone else who wants to duel Wataru, go bring something to bet! The arena will be that plaza over there!” I announced, and the crowd dispersed, hunting for stuff to bet so they could duel too.

“Huh? What? The heck is going on?” Wataru said, blinking in surprise.

Well, I can hardly blame someone unfamiliar with Demon Realm culture for being surprised. A week ago I would be reacting in the same way. From Wataru’s perspective, an angry mob just dispersed in the blink of an eye.

“They all had so much bloodlust, too... What in the world happened?”

“All of them just wanted to duel you, Wataru. That’s all. Now, let’s go so we don’t get in the way of these stand owners trying to do business.”

“Wh-Whaaat?”

I pulled the confused Wataru toward the plaza. Demon Realm cities had plenty of open, arena-shaped plazas to accommodate the many duels that broke out at all times. Ostle and the others had told me all about them. It didn’t take long for a line to form, full of people waiting to fight Wataru.

“Graaah! Take this, Smiling Genocider!” roared a challenger.

“Hyah,” Wataru shouted as he sent challenger after challenger flying without even using his sword. Cheers erupted from the crowd each time, and the next person in line raced forward eagerly to fight. They all wore broad smiles filled with bloodlust. The defeated challengers cursed their defeat and left the arena without a fuss, talking about how they would win next time. Their smiles were broad as well, but lacking the bloodlust.

“Okaaay, all challengers please sign heeere. This is very nice scrooooll!” Neruneh exclaimed. She was working as a receptionist, taking payment from all the challengers.

Rokuko and I, plus Uzou and Muzou, watched all this go on while eating some sugarcane that had been gambled. They were sweet and pleasant.

“H-Huh? Er, Keima? What’s going on here?! Explain!” Wataru yelled while punching a challenger in the face and sending another flying.

“Actually, Keima, I don’t understand either. What is going on here?” Rokuko asked, tilting her head in a cute way. I was ignoring Wataru’s questions, but if Rokuko wanted to know too, I might as well answer. After all, my job was to entertain her as a guest.

“The important thing here is to know that Demon Realm citizens think about things fundamentally different from us,” I began. To them, duels were an expression of love. It was a thought process imperials could hardly understand, but Demon Realm citizens generally wanted to have duels to the death with the people they loved. It went like so:

“This person is my friend and I like them.” → “I wonder how strong they are?” → “I’ll fight them (this is fun!)” → “I’m even closer to them, and I like them even more!” → “I wonder how strong they are when they’re taking the fight completely seriously?” → “I’ll fight them to the death (this is incredibly fun!)”

And that was that. If their opponent actually died, the survivor would just casually accept that, having a yandere-like moment where they rejoiced in the fact that only they knew how strong the deceased would get when fighting to the literal death. Though, naturally, that would still count as murder if the terms of the duel weren’t firmly established beforehand. People close enough to fight to the death would agree to it since they would want to know the max power of the other. It would also be fine to cancel the duel to the death if they were sick the day of or something like that.

“So basically, Wataru is super popular?”

“That’s exactly right, Rokuko. He is super popular.”

“Huh?! But there’s no reason for them to like me! I should be a war criminal here!”

“Let me put this simply: Demon Realm citizens like people largely based on how strong they are. Done,” I explained. Wataru the Hero was strong, so it was only natural that he would be extremely popular in the Demon Realm.

Not to mention, all those nicknames from before were Wataru’s nicknames—the Smiling Genocider, the Grinning Nightmare, the Funnyman Berserker, and so on. I asked one of the challengers about it, and apparently he had gotten those nicknames due to how he always killed his enemies on the battlefield with a smile on his face. The number of his victims was so enormous that he was even something of a celebrity in the Demon Realm, garnering a lot of attention.

“Those nicknames are supposed to be a good thing?! They make it sound like I’m their worst enemy!”

“But in reality, they’re your fans. They love you, man. Isn’t that right?” I called out to the crowd, and they responded in turn.

“Yup!”

“We sure do, so lemme fight you already!”

“You killed my bud, Wataru! I wanted to kill him too, but you got to him first!”

Each call from the crowd was filled with excitement and adoration.

“...They all sound violent to me!”

That called for a change in framing. “Attention, all those who want Wataru’s signatuuure! He will sign anything you want if you can wiiin!”

“Oh, I want that!”

“We get signatures for winning?! Hell yeah!”

“Now I’m pumped!”

Hopefully that made it more clear they actually did like him.

“This is hard to believe, but... I guess it’s true. Ahahaha... Ahaha?” Wataru laughed, uncomfortable.

“Oh, I see. That explains Aidy,” Rokuko said. Aidy certainly did like her a lot. She kept challenging Rokuko to duels even though she couldn’t fight at all.

“Keima, I’ve been in the Demon Realm for kinda a long time, but that’s my first time hearing that. Right, Uzou?”

“Yeah, Muzou. I thought we were dead for sure,” Uzou replied. The two brothers were relieved that the danger had passed, but they didn’t understand exactly how.

“Let’s see... I’m guessing you both look weak enough that nobody thinks dueling you would be worth the time. Humans are looked down on here, so.”

Uzou and Muzou froze with frowns on their faces. Some realizations were probably being made in their heads.

But man, Wataru really is strong, huh?

I had a lot more respect for him now that I had trained beneath Core 50. Heroes became specialized one-man armies after training daily, polishing their skills, and constantly racing to greater heights. No way would they be weak. I hadn’t considered Wataru to be weak before now, but I guess I had developed a better sense for who was strong and who wasn’t? I had been cultured? Something like that.

In any case, my thoughts were interrupted by Uzou pointing at my hip. “Hey, Keima. I’ve been wondering for a while now, but is that sword on your hip, y’know...”

“Hm? Uzou, what’re you... Oh! No way, is that what I think it is?!” Muzou also looked at my hip, or rather, my sheath with Siesta in it. I lifted it up a bit so they could see it better.

“Yup. It’s the Magic Blade you two gave me.”

“Siesta, the Blade of Afternoon Naps! I can’t believe you’re still using it...! Right, Muzou?”

“Uzou, I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy as I am right now...!”

These two sure like to exaggerate, I thought just as they took out their Golem Blades. They were one-handed knives; I remembered giving them as gifts in return for Siesta.

“We’ve been using the Magic Blades you gave us too.”

“Yeah. They’re our treasure. Though they stopped working lately since we used ’em too hard.”

“Hm? Lemme see them,” I said, taking the two Magic Blades from them.

...Ahhh, these Golems are dead. Using them as swords inevitably means hitting things, and while they’re shaped like blades, they’re still Golems. The physical hits will make them lose their HP or whatever. They weren’t living creatures, so they didn’t regen HP naturally. In short, they’ll eventually die and stop moving.

And the Golems of these two Magic Blades had died. I had designed them with some counterbalances for this, but the blades had been used so much there was no avoiding their death. Kinda feels nice to know something I’ve made has been getting this much use.

“...{Revitalize}.” I stealthily cast {Create Golem} on the blades to revive them. While I was at it I fixed the chipped parts of the blades, pretending to cast {Revitalize}, which was a Survival spell that brought life back to earth. I had seen Kantara do this back in Goren.

“Alright, fixed. You two’re lucky you saw me,” I said, handing the Golem Blades back after using mana to double-check that they were working again.

“...Huh? Wh-What? H-Hold on a second, Keima!”

“What’d you do? W-Was that the Survival spell {Revitalize} just now?”

Uzou and Muzou were shocked. Well, can’t blame them for being surprised that their broken Magic Blades were fixed with just a wave of my hands.

“Yeah. A blacksmith back in my town told me about this, but think about it. Swords are metal, right? And metal comes from the earth. It’s basically earth itself. So sometimes, casting {Revitalize} on swords will pep them up. It’s lucky that your blades were still just barely alive.”

Incidentally, I had already confirmed through experimentation that the spell actually did heal Golems a bit. In other words, it actually would lengthen the lifespan of Golem Blades. Though it wouldn’t do anything if they were dead.

“...Keep this to yourself, though, since it’s kind of a trade secret.”

“R-Right... Thanks. I’ll start casting {Revitalize} on it every day from now on.”

“E-Er. How much do we need to pay?”

“Nothing, nothing. Siesta’s been doing a lot of work for me. Consider this a gift,” I replied. Seriously, Siesta is a pretty crazy blade. So much so it’s been embraced as Beddhism’s Holy Blade. “Which reminds me. We’ve been talking for a while, but I’m gonna guess you have somewhere to be today, no?”

“Huh? Oh! R-Right! C’mon, Muzou!”

“Gah! I forgot all about that! Shironaga’s gonna be pissed! Let’s go, Uzou!”

The moment I pointed out the time, they promised to pay me back later and raced off.

“...Sure was nice of you to fix their swords for free,” Rokuko said, scooting closer to me.

“What can I say? I owe them for finding me Siesta.” Oh, Wataru just took another one of them down. He sure is strong.

“By the way, Keima. Do you think you’ll be able to get the Divine Pajamas?”

“Uhhh...” I trailed off, looking upwards. That alone was enough for Rokuko to know things hadn’t gone as planned. “He did end up agreeing to give them to me if I can get a clean hit in during practice, but I didn’t quite manage it.”

I updated Rokuko on the situation, including telling her about how I was training every day.

“That’s Lord 50 for you. Normal strategies won’t work on him.”

“Turns out he can read minds, too.”

“Uh-huh. He definitely can.”

“Wait, you already knew that, Rokuko?”

“Aidy’s duchy used to be ruled by Core 42, and he had notes on his battles with Lord 50 inside. He wrote that Demon King style Detachment was good for fighting him.”

“Interesting. Pretty sure Lord 50 told Niku to learn that.” I can guess that Aidy and Sebas are teaching her Detachment right now. Pretty sure Detachment refers to, like... freeing your mind of all thoughts and emotions to fight on pure instinct. Not really sure how it works in practice, though.

The sun had started to set, so I put an end to the bout of duels. “Alright, that’s it, everyone! Go home!” I announced while clapping my hands. The challengers all looked up, only then realizing what time it was.

“Gaaah! You’re too strong, Wataru! See you next time! Man, that was fun.”

“I’ll come at you with my full power next time! Don’t die until then! Your life is mine!”

“Man, Wataru was something else. That was just what I’d expect from the Smiling Genocider and his deadly blade... Wait, he didn’t use his sword on any of us?!”

The challengers all left in a good mood. Wataru, seeming a bit tired, saw them off with his usual smile. “Ahaha. This is some country, huh? I think I might have misjudged the Demon Realm. It’s like the entire country is as nonsensical as Goren.”

“You’re making it sound like my town is crazy or something, Wataru.”

“Good, because that’s what I meant.”

But my town is super normal... Strange.

“Wataru, this is incredibleee! There’s so many magic scrolls, thank yooou!”

“Hey, I’m just glad you’re happy, Neruneh.”

Wataru melted like a puppy before Neruneh’s smile. Don’t be fooled, brother. You earned all that loot and she’s just gonna take it for herself.

Though, I wouldn’t be so rude as to actually say that. Wataru had fought all of them with giving the loot to Neruneh in mind, so it was fine.

“Anyway, let’s go home,” I said.

“Uh-huh. I think that should do it for today,” Rokuko replied with a smile. All we ended up doing was watch Wataru throw challengers out of the arena all day, but okay.

Incidentally, we were served beef udon for dinner, but due to eating with Rokuko earlier I decided to stash it in {Storage} for Ichika to eat later.

＊ ＊ ＊

Core 50 mentioned changing my training style or something of the sort, and so starting the next day I was brought outside of the estate for morning training. The elf maid guided me to the destination—a secret training spot by the rocky cliffs outside of the city, where not many dangerous monsters wandered—with Rokuko and the others tagging along for some reason. Niku was absent, since she had her own training with Aidy.

“Sooo, can I just make some teaaaa? I think I should make teaaaa,” Neruneh suggested as soon as the elf maid got us where we needed to be and left to go do work elsewhere.

“Oh, good idea. I’ll make sure there are no monsters around,” Wataru replied, following her. Aren’t you two supposed to be Rokuko’s guard and maid or something?

“I told Neruneh to take Wataru and leave once we got here, so it’s fine. We can actually do whatever we want here since it’s technically outside of Lord 50’s territory,” Rokuko replied. She had been asked by Core 50 to make me stronger, and she was invested in getting that job done. Apparently he had settled on entrusting my training to Rokuko, my partner, and she instantly agreed since it would mean spending more time with me.

“Anyway, Keima. Let’s start by exploiting your specialties as much as possible.”

“My specialties?”

“You have three main skills: dexterous fingers, otherworldly ideas, and bluffing. It would be pretty pointless for you to just train your physical strength under Lord 50, though having more stamina and such is definitely not a bad thing,” Rokuko explained. I couldn’t tell if she was complimenting me or insulting me.

“So, what’s the plan?”

“Mm... Oh, I have an idea. I’ll roll the DP gacha and decide based on what comes out.”

You’re really just gonna leave it all to luck...? Well, maybe that’s actually a good idea, considering how insane her luck is. Maybe some of Wataru’s {Ultra Good Fortune} will rub off on us since he’s so close, too.

And so, partially to get a glimpse into the future of my training, Rokuko rolled the gacha once.

“Go forth, 1,000 DP gacha! Give me some magic scrolls or something!” she exclaimed while rolling, and soon a magic circle spread out in front of us. Aaaand a scroll plopped onto the ground. She had predicted exactly what would come out. A smug grin spread across her face. “Well?”

“...I’m impressed you predicted what would happen. Good going, Rokuko.”

“I was in a ‘scroll’ mood today. So, Keima. What kind of scroll is it?”

“Mm, let’s see here...”

We could see the names of scrolls in the catalog, but no such names were attached to physical scrolls. Since you needed to pour mana into scrolls to use them, you could look at the magic circles on them to predict what spell they contained, which would allow you to tell if you already knew the spell or not. The scrolls sold in markets had all been identified by someone who knew the spell already.

I opened up the scroll and used the auto-translator to read the text on the magic circle, and... Alright, this is a new spell. Create, hole, and earth... Interesting.

“Seems like a harmless spell, so I’ll try using it.” I poured mana into the magic circle and was instantly blessed with knowledge of the skill, plus how to use it. It was {Pitfall}, a spell that, uh... made pitfalls. Making pitfalls is a good match for Dungeon Masters, but it’s kinda useless in a lot of cases thanks to the dungeon functions.

While we were at it, Rokuko took out a {Stone Pyre} scroll to work with the pitfalls. It was one of the scrolls that Neruneh had wrung out of Wataru yesterday. Apparently she had gotten two of them.

“You can use this to drop a stone stake into a pitfall after someone falls in,” she said.

“That’s pretty brutal. Good idea, though.”

Thus I learned {Stone Pyre} after {Pitfall}.

“Okay, give it a shot, Keima. Behold the might of the {Pitfall} I got for you!”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll start with the chant. O earth, form a hole... {Pitfall}.” I pressed a hand to the ground and activated the skill. A hole about one meter deep opened up right in front of me.

“Wow, that hole sure opened up fast,” Rokuko observed.

“Yeah. Felt more like space distorting than the ground getting dug up.”

The skill, in practice, was like driving a thin stake of mana into the ground, then creating a cylindrical pillar of Space-Time. Why is this Earth magic...? I feel like it should be Space-Time magic.

“So, you can modify it just like you can modify {Create Golem}?”

“Yeah, probably. Maybe like this... O boulder, form a hole... {Pitfall}.” I placed a hand on a random boulder and activated {Pitfall} sideways. A hole opened up in the side of the boulder, going all the way through it.

“Wow! You can make a tunnel in one second with this!”

“I don’t think so. The pitfall goes away when I cancel the spell,” I said, and upon demonstrating the hole snapped away, leaving the boulder whole once more. I guess it’s just distorting Space-Time, then? I wonder what happens to whatever’s inside the hole when the spell is canceled.

Naturally, I got right to experimenting. I tossed a rock into a {Pitfall}, canceled the spell, and... the rock plopped right out.

“...I guess you can’t launch rocks from it, or close things in,” Rokuko observed.

“You think so? I’d say it’s too early to make that call.” I cast {Pitfall}. Then I cast another {Pitfall} on the bottom of the first one. The two holes formed something like a very steep, two-step staircase. I tossed a rock inside and canceled only the first pitfall. The result was a rock completely locked inside the second one. “And done. You can close it in like so.”

“...I see, I see. You definitely can enclose things, then.”

“Yup.”

“So, what happens to the rock if you cancel the lower hole?”

I gave it a shot. But whatever happened occurred underground, so I couldn’t say much for sure. All we knew was that the rock didn’t pop back onto the surface.

“I guess it’s buried...?” I said, uncertain.

“Try using a Golem this time. That should let you see what happens.”

“Good point.”

I repeated the process, but with a Golem instead a rock. The result was... confirmation that the contents of the second pitfall ended up sealed inside the earth. It felt like the surface of the ground bulged just a bit. The holes were too deep to say for sure. I tried again, with the “lid” pitfall being more shallow this time. That led to the Golem ripping right through it, emerging from the ground completely.

“Alright, I get it. Seems like burying things alive should be pretty easy.” Plus, I get the feeling this will be pretty useful for destroying things from the inside.

“You know, once you close the top, it’s impossible to tell the trapped part from the normal ground,” Rokuko chimed in.

“Yeah, it’s pretty useful for making actual pitfalls too. I wonder if I can make it that way from the start?”

I slid the stake of mana into the ground sideways so it was completely underground from the start. When I cast the spell, I felt it activate, but the surface seemed unchanged.

“Nice! It worked.”

“Now we can make as many pitfalls as we want!” Rokuko exclaimed.

“Pitfalls that disappear when the spell is canceled, but yeah. Or actually, maybe it’s safer that way? I have so much mana I don’t really need to think about mana costs.”

Impaling things with mana stakes felt fairly similar to pouring mana into things for {Create Golem}. Next, I could try out opening holes in things other than dirt and rocks.

“Keima, I brought suits of armor just in case something like this happened!”

“Good thinking, Rokuko.”

Rokuko took out a set of metal armor and leather armor from her {Storage}. They seemed like perfect things to experiment on. My experiments showed that... holes were opened up in both sets of armors with no issue whatsoever. Uh... isn’t this kinda crazy? This lets us just ignore armor entirely.

“Okay, next we should experiment on living things!” Rokuko exclaimed before taking a Goblin out of storage.

...Why the hell does she have a Goblin stashed in there? I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything less from a Goblin fetishist... Also, I feel conflicted about that since I was stashed in Core 50’s {Storage} earlier. Feels bad, man.

I tried opening a {Pitfall} in the Goblin. And... the mana stake was deflected with a clink. It was incredibly hard to pierce the Goblin itself, maybe due to it having mana of its own. But it wasn’t impossible to pierce it. I forced the stake through it, piercing the Goblin’s stomach. It went all the way through to its back. The Goblin stood unfazed, probably not feeling any pain at all. This probably is gonna be pretty useless if it took this much work just to pierce a Goblin of all things.

Anyway, I activated the spell, and it opened up a big hole in the Goblin’s stomach.

“...Whoa.”

“Um, ew? What’s even happening?”

Despite a hole being opened in its stomach, the Goblin remained unfazed. No blood or gore was falling to the ground. It was like a wall of mana had been stuck on top of him and nothing more. Maybe his insides were connected to some parallel dimension or something.

“Okay, Keima. Jam a stick into the hole and turn off the spell so we can see what happens.”

“That’s kinda fucked up, Rokuko.”

Naturally, that experiment was a bit too gruesome for testing on an innocent Goblin. She stashed the little fellow back into {Storage} while I opened up a tunnel through a boulder and put a stone stick made from {Create Golem} into it. Then, cancel... The stick was pushed out incredibly hard. But it stopped the instant it was outside the pitfall, all of its inertia gone.

“Seems like it was just pushed out normally.” Guess I can’t use this to make a pile bunker, then. Maybe I could use it for a vise or something.

“Looks like it’s pushed out to prevent overlap. What would happen if you connected the two ends?”

At Rokuko’s suggestion I made the tunnel, stuck a stone stick into it, then bent the stick with {Create Golem} to make a stone loop. It was like a big ear piercing. Then, of course, I canceled the spell. The rock ring snapped to pieces and crumbled to the ground.

Iiis this useful...? In any way...?

“Maybe a ring of orichalcum wouldn’t break.”

“Are you okay, Rokuko? Is something wrong? These last few ideas have been pretty messed up.”

Last up was testing with {Stone Pyre}, but I was already exhausted. Mentally speaking, that is. I still had plenty of mana.

“Keima, could you try replacing the stone part of the chant with orichalcum?”

“The chant is just ‘spear of stone, be born,’ so yeah. Let’s see... Powder of orichalcum, be born... {Stone Pyre}.”

The next instant, I passed out. I changed the spell to be powder because I had a bad feeling about it, but even so all my mana dried up in a second. I probably would have outright died if I had said ‘spear’ instead of ‘powder.’

...Incidentally, it was only a few specks of dust, but the spell did successfully make orichalcum. Though Rokuko never would have found it if it wasn’t marked on the map, apparently.

＊ ＊ ＊

I woke up feeling as if I had fallen for a long time. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was the elf maid’s face as she peered down at me. “Ah. Finally awake, I see.”

I was resting on top of my futon within Core 50’s mansion. Apparently I had been brought back to my room after running out of mana. Which, incidentally, had fully regenerated while I slept. My body seemed fine as well.

“Sir Wataru brought you back to the estate, and I had assumed you would be unconscious until tomorrow, but... I see that you will be capable of completing your afternoon work.”

“Uh, wait. I just passed out in the morning. Don’t I get to rest this afternoon just in case?”

“No. That won’t be a problem, will it?”

“...Not at all.”

And so, I was sent to work, having been given no time to rest. Gaaah.

My afternoon work was helping at the magic tool workshop again.

“Wait, Neruneh?”

“Masteeer, are you feeling betteeer? You seem betteeer.”

“Er. Yeah.”

I had thought they poured a barrel of mana potions down my throat while I was sleeping, but in reality they had used the Divine Quilt to heal me. The problem was that Wataru, one of Haku’s agents, had seen everything.

Anyway, the last time I was here at this workshop they called me useless and kicked me out, so... I had no idea what I was doing here again.

“I called for yooou.”

“You did, Neruneh?”

“They want to make a Golem out of magic toools, and weeell, I thought you would have good ideas, Masteeeer. Then we started talking about what technology we should offer as payment for them teaching meee.”

Hm? Wait, so they want our technology as payment for teaching you? I don’t really want to spread our technology like that, but I guess we gotta do what we gotta do.

“Okay. They want to make a Golem, right? How about we just make a Dai-Frame, then? They don’t look like Golems, but they’re pretty useful anyway.”

“Dai-Frame... Ooooh, the Golem you ride iiin. That’s perfeeect.”

Once Neruneh and I settled on what technology we’d be trading, the Kobold craftsman came walking over. “Ah! There you are, special-rank! I’ve got some questions for you!”

“Heya. Sorry about last time. So, you’re gonna be teaching Neruneh how to make Golems out of magic tools?”

“Yup, yup. And we wanna use your knowledge for it,” the Kobold said, his tail wagging. He seemed in a much better mood than he had been last time.

“Alright. I’ll teach you how to make a Dai-Frame, then.”

“A Dai-Frame?” the Kobold replied, blinking in confusion.

Several hours later, I finished constructing a rideable Golem frame without using {Create Golem}. It was experimental and made small so a Kobold could ride it, but yeah. It was pretty impressive craftsmanship if I did say so myself—layers of metal plates with magic circles carved into them for control and power. For a bit, I didn’t think it would actually be possible, but in the end it all worked out.

“Whoooa! Th-This this, this is something else!” the Kobold explained as he hopped right in and started swinging the arms around. His tail was swinging with absolute joy.

“Eheheh, I learned a lot tooooo. There sure are a lot of magic circles for moving thiiings, aren’t theeeere?”

“Can’t believe you can actually ride Golems and control them...! The controls aren’t complex, and they do the thinking themselves... Feels like my body’s just gotten bigger!” he exclaimed, his tail almost ripping off from the force of the wagging. Kobolds were all pretty small, so getting a bigger body was probably a dream of theirs.

“This will probably be useful for loading cargo onto carriages and stuff. Maybe it’ll help people move houses easier?” I suggested.

“Plus, if you take the pieces apart, the frame barely takes up any space...! This is incredible! Dai-Frames are incredible! To think that the empire would have technology this advanced...!”

“It doesn’t.”

“Wha?”

“The empire doesn’t have magic tools like this. The Dai-Frame was designed by a guy named Narikin, and it hasn’t spread at all. Only I and a few others know how to make these.”

“No way...!”

It would be a bit problematic if something I designed was exported back to the empire, so I went ahead and used Narikin’s name here. That way Neruneh could make them at home saying she learned to make them here in the Demon Realm. And I haven’t lied, so everything works out.

“Anyway, all you gotta do now is teach Neruneh a bunch of stuff to pay us back.”

“You got it! Bwahaha!”

By the time we were done it was about time for me to leave, so I went ahead and returned to Core 50’s estate while the Kobold started running around in the Dai-Frame. For dinner I ate beef udon with Niku in my room.

...Don’t they have anything to serve with this other than meat? Like fried food, or tempura, or... anything. At least they have a lot of different kinds of meat. I wonder if they’re giving Rokuko and others different stuff to eat?

＊ ＊ ＊

The next day, Niku and I went our separate ways to go train again. Neruneh and Wataru once again kept their distance from Rokuko and I.

“Since you passed out yesterday, Keima, let’s continue with the {Stone Pyre}.”

“Alright. Also, I’m impressed you managed to find that orichalcum dust, Rokuko.”

She had a small jar with her, which upon closer examination had enough orichalcum dust to last about one second in an hourglass.

“Eheh. I have orichalcum as a valuable item, so I can find it on the map.”

What the hell? We could probably use that to find ore veins or something.

“Okay, let’s get back to {Stone Pyre}. Let’s start with iron.”

“Sure. Stake of iron, be born—{Stone Pyre},” I chanted, and an iron stake resembling a pillar shot out of the ground with no issue whatsoever. Despite not being stone, I didn’t feel any mana drain. Easy.

“Keima, what about mithril?”

“Stake of mithril, be born—{Stone Pyre},” I chanted.

Whoa, holy crap, I felt my mana store just plummet. Looks like the mythril stake came out just fine, though. Hm... I get the feeling I’ll need to make smaller stakes for hihi’irokane and adamantite if I don’t want to pass out again.

“So, it looks like the pillar’s coming out of the ground. Does that mean the mana is just making the mithril outright?” Rokuko asked.

“I mean, probably?”

“In that case, what would happen if you tried to spawn one from a living thing instead of the ground?” Rokuko pulled out another Goblin from {Storage}. Wait, that’s the same one from yesterday. Let’s, uh... Let’s give him some armor and test that.

The result was that I could spawn the pillars from metal armor, but not leather armor. The Goblin itself didn’t work either. It seemed the spell needed ground, metal, or some other Earth-related element to activate.

“Hold on a second. It might just be that you can only make a certain element from something of the same element. Can you grow wooden stakes from a wooden board?”

“Let’s give it a shot. Stake of wood, be born—{Stone Pyre}. Aaand... nope.”

I tried spawning wooden stakes from the ground as well, but that failed too. Both the base and the stake needed to be Earth for it to work.

“And jewels?”

“Let’s see. Needles of ruby, be born—{Stone Pyre}... Oh, it worked.”

I had used needles out of fear for the mana cost, but it ended up succeeding with a surprisingly slight mana drain. It was still more mana than mithril, but I wasn’t really sure what was defining the costs.

“Needles... If you had metal plates on your palms, you could grow needles out of them. Neat,” Rokuko observed.

“You want me to be an assassin?”

“Actually, if someone’s wearing metal armor, you could make needles and shoot spikes inside of it.”

“That’s kinda terrifying.”

The experiments showed that the spikes could indeed be made from within metal armor. I could even make needles from the small metal studs and straps on leather armor. Now this is scary.

“...Even {Stone Pyre} is a terrifying spell! Is nothing sacred?!”

“I mean, Keima, with your modification ability, basically any spell can end up extremely violent.”

“That’s... Okay, fair. You got me there.”

I started practicing the act of making needles shoot out of a coin in my palm while Rokuko tapped the first spikes I made out of metal while thinking.

“Hm? Come up with any good ideas, Rokuko?”

“...Hey. Do you think you could make this into a Golem with {Create Golem} too?”

“I mean, probably? {Create Golem}.”

I poured mana into the spikes I had made to turn them into Golems. Yep, easy. They turned right into Golems. Though... Wait. Doesn’t that mean I can make Golems without paying for the cost of materials? Even for things like mithril and rubies...? Uhhh. Holy crap? {Stone Pyre} is straight-up a cheat skill. I can make as much material as I want with it. Sure, it’s limited to Earth-esque materials, but still.

For example... I could use {Stone Pyre} to make a stake of iron on my palm, then use {Create Golem} to turn it into a Golem Blade. I’ll be able to make an infinite amount of swords as long as I have mana. Come to think of it, since this is just a normal spell that’s sold in markets, maybe both the Demon Realm and the Laverio Empire have so much stone architecture since they’re building everything with {Stone Pyre}? I mean, it’s a cheap way to convert mana into infinite resources. I can’t blame them for using it.

“Why not try spawning them as {Golems} right from the start? Like, casting both the spells at once.”

“I’m not sure if that’s possible. Uhhh... O doll of iron, be born and serve me—{Stone Pyre} {Create Golem}?!”

The two spells activated at once. But they didn’t end with me creating a Golem like Rokuko intended. Instead, the spells just mixed together and turned into nonsense.

“Er, hey, whoa!”

The sphere of mana with nowhere to go swirled above my palm... Wait, I know this. It’s mana that’s lost control, just like {Element Burst}.

I tossed the mana sphere to a nearby boulder, and upon impact it exploded with a blast of sound and fury. Parts of the boulder turned to metal as it collapsed into itself, like it had been gripped by a giant, invisible Midas hand.

“Oops, the mana lost control. Though this does seem like it could be a useful attack...” Rokuko mused.

“Nah. {Element Burst} is way easier to use.”

“Mm. In that case, maybe we should just focus on improving {Element Burst}?”

“Not really sure that’s a spell I should just be casually shooting at people...”

Rokuko clapped her hands. “Okay then. Let’s turn it into a spell that you can casually shoot at people.”

Oh. That idea didn’t even occur to me.

And so, under Rokuko’s supervision, I improved {Element Burst}. It only took a few minutes since I had cast the spell so many times before.

“{Element Shot}!” I chanted, and a pea-sized hole opened up within the boulder. Such was the result of significantly narrowing {Element Burst}’s area of effect by forcing myself to mentally envision it as a small beam. Containing the spell like that actually cost more mana, which allowed me to base the power of the beam partially on how much mana I used to contain it. Though doing so ultimately made the mana cost of the spell increase a bit. It was all minor, though. The spells were basically the same in power and cost.

“Dunno if I can really call this much of an improvement...”

“But now whoever you hit with it won’t die unless you hit them in a bad spot.”

The hole would probably cause some blood loss, but thankfully this was a world with Restoration magic. It wouldn’t cause any major problems. Being hit in certain places would cause instant death, but well, there was no way around that. We did the best we could here.

“I think {Element Flash} will be better here. Hurry up and learn how to use it.”

“I mean, I understand the theory, but it’s hard to think that abstractly. Right now it’ll just get me and everyone around me killed.”

{Element Flash} was an area of effect spell that would basically shoot out {Element Bursts} in every direction around me. Rokuko thought that one up too. But naturally, I would be caught up in the explosion, so she suggested I shoot a protective layer of {Element Burst} at the same time, but well... On a fundamental level, {Element Burst} was the result of rampaging mana, so it couldn’t be controlled like that. Thin layers were hard to make, so at the moment I just wasn’t able to turn Rokuko’s theory into a reality.

In short, {Element Flash} at the moment was just a massive explosion that took out me and everyone around me. It was insane.

Anyway, after some practice, I managed to make a singular wall of the explosion shooting away from me. All I would have to do next was form five of them: one above me, and four in every cardinal direction around me. I could skip one below me since that was the ground.

...Though, thinking about it, maybe I could just call the singular wall {Element Flash}. If I launched it by surprise, it should be able to hit him.

“I think that should do it for today. If you don’t get to sleep soon, you may not heal up before lunch,” Rokuko said while attaching herself to my arm. Soft.

...What? We’re letting it too loose because we’re in the middle of a vacation? Yeah, Haku’s probably going to murder me when we get back.

“Er. Are we really doing this?”

“Of course. Keima, we’re sleeping together again.”

“Uh, phrasing. Please.”

I used {Stone Pyre}, then {Create Golem} to make a smooth rock. Rokuko spread out a futon on top of it.

...She phrased it poorly just then, but we’re not going to do anything lewd here. We’re just setting it up so I can use {Stone Pyre} to make more orichalcum dust before passing out.

It was training to increase my mana capacity, or rather, the speed of my mana regeneration. One’s regeneration sped up by exhausting your mana and then recovering it back up to full. This was common knowledge even in the empire, but some Demon Realm documents had more details, and Rokuko was determined to experiment.

“Not sure about sleeping outside the city like this, where there might be monsters roaming about.”

“We’ll be using the Divine Quilt, so it’s fine.”

The Divine Quilt... One wrapped in it could sleep without any fear of monsters, for it had absolute defense built into it. Truly, Father was a fearsome individual.

“Come here, Keima.”

“.........”

Rokuko sat on the futon and wrapped the Divine Quilt around her like a poncho before spreading out both arms my way. This was the only way for both of us to use it together. I didn’t want Rokuko attacked by monsters while I was asleep, so we had no choice but to get in bed and sleep close together. There was nothing lewd about it at all. Nothing sexual. And yet...

“It’s fine, Keima. This isn’t any dungeon’s territory. It’s just you and me here.”

“Neruneh and Wataru aren’t that far away.”

“Just set the alarm clock and everything will work out.”

In the end I buckled beneath Rokuko’s invitation, and ended up in the futon with the quilt-wrapped Rokuko hugging me tight. Thanks to the Divine Quilt’s powers I was overcome by an immense sense of comfort and safety. It was such a comfortable quilt that it would feel nice and warm even within blazing hot magma. Not to mention that it came with Rokuko.

I set my Divine Alarm Clock to wake us up a bit before Wataru and Neruneh returned, then prepared to pass out. Let’s get this over with. Go, {Stone Pyre} {Orichalcum Dust}! Guh.

＊ ＊ ＊

While we were doing that, my second week as Core 50’s slave came to an end. Each day was enriching and unique, with me getting swarmed at the human farms, mass-producing Dai-Frames in the magic tool workshop, making fried food udon, and training with the high-rank slaves. Working hard each day meant I slept well at night, which led to perhaps the most healthy lifestyle I had ever had.

Thus came my third duel with Core 50... However.

“Now, Keima. It seems to me that you have devised no strategy whatsoever to counter my Mind’s Eye.”

Yeah, I’m gonna sit this one out. After all, any strategy that can counter one’s mind being read isn’t something to be used lightly.

“I see. That is a shame. The pup has been growing steadily, and I had hoped to see the same with you.”

And in the first place, just asking me for my strategy is kind of spoiling yourself on it.

“Hm. That’s true as well. Even I would find it uninteresting to be told a strategy outside of battle.”

It was pretty convenient for me that we could have a conversation without me having to open my mouth at all, but this still meant everything I thought was basically leaked info. There’s no point in even trying to think up a plan when Core 50’s around.

“...Would you think of one if I were not near you?”

I might think of one if you were to give me a whole week of free time. It would be even better if you gave me more specific details on that Mind’s Eye of yours, I thought in response. Core 50 put a hand on his chin in thought.

“Hmm. Very well. Though, I can only tell you what I myself know.”

Wait, you don’t mind?

“I always wish to surpass myself. Tell no others, understand? Though I will permit you to tell your battle partners. And I shall charge a price. Be aware that your work this week will cover your next week of free time and no more.”

Hmmm. A payment for Core 50... Nothing’s coming to mind. Is there even anything I have that he would want? I guess there’s the orichalcum sword that Father gave me. I brought it with me thinking I might be able to trade it for the Divine Pajamas, but... I don’t really want to give it up here. It’s way too valuable to trade for information.

“Ah?! What did you just say?!”

Oh crap. He really bit onto that. Anyway... Speaking through thoughts is getting kinda awkward. I’ll start using my mouth again.

“The God of Darkness... or rather, Father gave me a sword made entirely out of orichalcum.”

“Truly...?! I am beyond envious... I-If you show me the blade, I will accept the sight of it as payment for the information.”

“Just showing it to you? Sure, alright.” I took out the orichalcum blade from {Storage}. It continued to weigh almost nothing despite its size.

“Oooh! A blade made by Father himself...!”

“Feel free to hold it.”

“You have my gratitude!”

I held out the blade, and Core 50 practically leapt over to pick it up with visible glee. He gripped it in both hands and shook it gently through the air, getting a feel for how it was to use.

“...Hey, just saying, I wouldn’t mind trading that sword for the Divine Pajamas.”

“Truly?!” Core 50 exclaimed, jumping at the idea far more eagerly than I expected. “Ngh, but... I... but... Ngggh!”

“If I’m being honest, weapons can only show their true worth when wielded by a skilled warrior. I’m sure the sword would be happier with you wielding it. The sword Father made, in your arms, showing its true potential... Sounds good to me.”

“...You believe so?”

I could tell that just a slight push was making his heart tremble. Feels like he’s just one push away. And if I’m being honest, it is true that the orichalcum sword would be happier with Core 50 than me. Excluding its missing parts.

“...Keima. What was that just now?”

“Er, uh, well...”

Oh crap. He read my mind. He’s going to notice that I shaved off part of the hilt, I thought, and by then it was too late. Core 50 snapped to his senses and looked at the hilt.

“Tch! You shaved metal off a blade given to you by Father?! What illness of spirit are you stricken with?!”

“Er, I mean, he gave it to me since I asked for some nice materials to use in the first place, so...”

Core 50 was so shocked that the jaw of his helmet literally fell to the floor. He picked it up and fit it back into place.

“I-I must protect Father’s blade...!”

Ah. This is probably bad.

Core 50 stroked his reattached chin and looked at me head-on. “Keima! I shall wager the Divine Pajamas on this sword! I cannot allow you to harm Father’s blade any further! And not only that, but I will have you return all the pieces of orichalcum you removed from it!”

Weeelp. This sure got real bad, real fast.