Pre-Bath – Prologue

Pre-Bath – Prologue

We’re at a good stopping point, so let me introduce myself again. It goes without saying that by “stopping point,” I meant our reunion with Haruno and her party.

Anyway, my name is Touya Houjou. I was summoned to this parallel world by the sacred family and the temple of light of this kingdom called Jupiter, and now I’m on a journey to prevent, or at least suppress, the revival of the demon lord.

Well, I was, at least.

Just a few days ago, I learned from one of the Five Great Demon Generals, the Demon Dog, that the demon lord had only been trying to improve his country’s economy. Since then, I haven’t been able to believe that the demon lord was completely evil.

Of course, I thought it was pretty harsh to instigate war on a country just over their economy. But they introduced the famous rakuichi rakuza system, or free market system, and banks. These ideas were so unprecedented that other nations could barely even understand them, much less compete. As a result, the neighboring nations that were driven to the brink of financial ruin instigated the war. I couldn’t proclaim that they were entirely in the wrong, either. It’d be absurd to expect them to sit and wait to collapse. Thus, my current evaluation was that neither side was completely at fault.

This decision played into how we interacted with the Demon Dog, too. He was behaving rather obediently—likely due to the high chance that Clena was the demon lord’s granddaughter. Thanks to that, we’d been gradually making our way through the depths of the sea without incident and were finally close to reaching Ares, the country located on the Dragon’s Tail Peninsula. Sitting on the southern side of the bay, it was the southernmost nation within the Olympus Alliance. Neptune was located on the north side of Talon Peninsula, acting as a border between the mainland and the bay.

We finally saw land, so I let the Grande Nautilus float up to the surface. I was pretty sure we had traveled in the right direction this whole time, so we should be able to spot the port city of Ares any time now. We’d been eating nothing but fish for the past several days, so I was thinking we’d dock and have some meat for lunch, but... something felt strange. We were getting closer and closer but still saw no signs of a port.

When we finally landed, we were met with a barren desert. Emptiness as far as the eye could see. Nothing but arid, reddish-brown earth surrounded us. The girls gathered around the deck of the ship after noticing we had reached land, but they also seemed taken aback at the unexpected sight.

“Did we get the wrong place?”

“We were moving along the sea floor the whole time... Maybe we went in the wrong direction at some point?” Haruno replied, sounding as doubtful as me.

Looking east, I could see a hill. Maybe Ares was on the other side?

“Hey Touya, why don’t we ask the Demon Dog?”

We’d learned from the Demon Dog that the demon lord’s army was based in Ares. This was convenient, since we had been planning to head to Ares either way. Just in case, I asked Rulitora to bring him to us.

Ares—the last nation to remain allied with Hades in the war 500 years ago. Even now, they had no temple of light, and it was often rumored that demons lived in hiding there. According to the Demon Dog, those rumors were only half right. Demons indeed lived there, but they had no need to hide. When the capital of Hades fell 500 years ago, the residents all fled to Ares. Since Ares was their only remaining ally at the time, they had no other choice. The Olympus Alliance took issue with Ares taking in the escapees, and the sacred family of Jupiter and the temple of light had demanded that they turn over the demons to them.

However, the Ares royal family, who had observed the rapid development of their nation after allying with Hades, staunchly refused. Ever since, both countries used every possible opportunity to quarrel. That was likely also the reason why Ares didn’t have a temple of light.

Before long, Rulitora brought the Demon Dog to us. We hadn’t restrained him at all since he could easily break free anyway.

“We’ve reached land, but I don’t see anything that looks like a port. The only landmark is that hill over there.”

The Demon Dog stood at the edge of the deck, looking eastward at the hill and nodded in slight amusement. “Ah, yes, that hill. You are not wrong. This is the port of Ares.”

“...Huh? What do you mean?” I looked again and still couldn’t see anything.

What did he mean? Everyone looked at Clena, since she was the most knowledgeable about these sorts of things.

“Um, sorry. Knowledge about Ares doesn’t often travel north.”

That was true, come to think of it. We knew that Neptune traded with them, but besides that, all we’d heard were rumors that demons lived in hiding there. If even Clena didn’t know, we had to raise the white flag.

“Is it past the hill or something?”

“No, under it.”

“...‘Under’?”

Everyone stared at the Demon Dog, which made him jut out his chest for some reason, proudly proclaiming, “There is a cave underneath that hill, and the port is located there.”

“What is this, a secret hideaway...? Was there a reason they couldn’t build the port outside?” Like monster attacks, or something.

The Demon Dog laughed and waved his hands, denying my speculation. “No, it is just more convenient for them that way. The cave leads directly to the town.”

“If it connects to a town, then that doesn’t make it a cave, does it?”

“It is a cave. All the cities in Ares are underground—it is a kingdom of caves!”

“A kingdom of caves?!”

I looked around again. I still saw nothing but wasteland. I just couldn’t suddenly accept that there was an entire nation under all this. Come to think of it, Ares was home to the main temple of earth. Maybe it did make sense, considering that.

Ares—the home of demons and the base of the demon lord’s army. The kingdom of caves below this barren wasteland would be the stage for our next adventure.