Chapter 2: A Big Blow: Suppose a Once-Respected Classmate Had Become Unrecognizable at a School Reunion
Chapter 2
A Big Blow: Suppose a Once-Respected Classmate Had Become Unrecognizable at a School Reunion
Donning her military uniform boots mid-run, Choline left the chief’s house, heading around back.
It was hardly harvest season, but for some reason, all the wheat was a lovely golden shade.
She ran through the fields like a startled rabbit.
Merthophan’s here!
A sullen former colleague she spent a lot of time working with.
A poor soul, so concerned for the state of his country, his mind had been captured by a demon lord.
And…the man of Choline’s affections.
I don’t have the slightest clue what to say to him, but…
Maybe she’d chew him out, maybe she’d punch him, maybe she’d just start crying.
He just disappeared on me… And I have to see him again!
Lloyd’s power had freed him, and Merthophan had come here to atone—and Choline had come here to see him.
Out of breath, she reached the back of the fields, by the vast forest. There, Choline stopped, squinting at the wheat around her.
Golden waves shimmered in the sunlight.
And a silver head moved through the sea of gold.
“Geez, you run off like that,” Chrome gasped, catching up with her. Then he saw the same thing. “Mm? Is that…?”
At the sound of his name, the silver head shot up and turned toward them.
A familiar, powerful voice rang out.
“I know that voice… Another of the chief’s schemes?”
The silver-haired man approached Choline, and the wheat parted…
Merthophan wore a cloth around his neck, held a hoe in one hand, and had a loincloth around his waist.
“Right then… Oh, Choline, nice to see you. You too, Chrome.”
His loincloth was a little out of place, so he casually adjusted it. Perhaps it was pulling on his crotch funny.
Choline stood face-to-face with the kind of man so absorbed in fieldwork, he no longer cared for his appearance, wearing the kind of outfit that could kill the love of the century…
“H-hi there…Merthophan.”
Well, she managed to speak, at least. Just barely hanging on to the scraps of her affection.
Merthophan adjusted the seat of his loincloth like a girl in a bikini on the beach.
“Mm,” he grunted.
He was always a man of few words.
“Looks like you haven’t changed much inside, Merthophan.”
Chrome put a lot of stress on the word inside, but Merthophan didn’t notice.
“No, I have. With all the crazy stuff that goes on here—it takes a lot to surprise me now.”
They were getting a glimpse of crazy right now, but they were forced to accept that the loincloth was just a thing now. Both managed a strained smile.
“Well, that’d do it!” Choline said. “If they’re always like this…”
“Let’s sit down in the shade,” Merthophan suggested and led them to the base of a nearby tree.
Birds were chirping. Warm sunlight and the smell of the earth helped Choline and Chrome recover.
“Surprised you two came all the way here,” Merthophan admitted, wiping the sweat from his brow.
“Yeah, we were surprised, too…by your outfit…”
Oh, they were specifically calling him out on the loincloth thing now.
Merthophan looked hurt.
“That’s hardly worth being surprised about. I know, when I was a soldier, I was always in uniform. But now I’m carrying a hoe in the fields and dressed for that kind of work. That’s all.”
Not many farmers went loincloth only, really. Merthophan ignored their stares, wiping his face with the cloth.
“You’re pretty tan, there.”
“Yeah, once I got to Kunlun, I was put in charge of the wheat fields. Lately, I’ve been branching out to other crops. Farming has a lot of depth. The more time you put into it, the better everything grows.”
“Like military cadets?”
“Yeah, but the crops don’t argue back…and I kinda miss that. How’s your new crop doing?”
Merthophan finally asked about the cadets, about Azami.
He still loved his country. That part of him hadn’t changed.
“They’re arguing back, for sure. A constant struggle! I miss running that cafeteria. The other day…”
Merthophan listened to Chrome grumble with a smile.
Choline waited for Chrome to get it off his chest, fidgeting.
Despite the love-slaying fashion choice, she’d managed to cling to her crush, but it had been so long, she just wasn’t sure what to say, or how to engage.
This wasn’t like her, and eventually, Chrome noticed and shot Merthophan a look.
Merthophan gave her a long, searching look. Then he smiled.
“Choline, I know I’m making things more difficult than they need to be. And I’m sorry.”
“O-oh, I didn’t… Y-you know me…I never was one to…”
When she started fidgeting even harder, Merthophan pointed into the brush.
“You need to go? The earth in Kunlun is so rich that you can plow the fields and not need much fertilizer, so we don’t really collect waste anywhere. Number one or number two, just go on the side of the field, it’s all good. I’m certainly grateful for the offer of fresh manure, but…”
“Drop deeeeeeead!”
Choline’s right hook exploded against the loincloth man’s solar plexus.
“Gahhhhh!”
Merthophan’s death screams echoed across the field.
This was a statement that could take the love of the century, the love of the millennium, and the love of all time and instantly turn that fever down to absolute zero, and it took Choline from shrinking maiden mode back to her usual self.
“Chrome, he’s no good,” she snapped. “That same military patriot brain has simply swapped genres to agriculture.”
“That was definitely your fault, Merthophan.”
Merthophan stopped rolling around in pain, staggered to his feet, adjusted the loincloth wedgie. “How so?! I merely stated the facts! Human waste is excellent fertilizer! And this village doesn’t have any septic tank–like sanctuary!”
“You owe Choline and the word sanctuary an apology,” Chrome growled.
“I don’t get it,” Merthophan said but bowed his head anyway. “Sorry, Choline.”
“You don’t get it?! Arghhhh, why did I ever fall for this guy? Chasing him all the way out here to the boonies only to have it blow up in my face!”
Seriously.
Loincloth Merthophan stayed as oblivious to her affection as he had been when they first met, and as he likely would remain for all of time.
“Hmm, so what does bring you all here?” he asked. “I assume the chief put you up to it, but…”
Just then…there was a scream so horrifying, it sounded like the end of the world. Choline and Chrome both flinched.
“Wh-what was that guttural roar?!”
“That was insanely loud!”
The reverb from the cry had sent ripples through the waves of grain.
“Oh,” Merthophan said. “That would be a monster.”
“A monster?! What kind of monster?! Nothing that guttural can be a normal-ass monster! This is something way—!”
“It’s a monster!” Merthophan insisted, interrupting her. “No matter what anyone else says!”
“Uh, Merthophan?”
Merthophan looked gravely in the direction of the roaring—so stressed out, he had a tight grip on the fabric of his loincloth. If he pulled any harder, it would all come spilling out.
“Yes, a monster…to the villagers here.”
“And that means…?”
Merthophan nodded. He then tied his towel around his head like he was donning a helmet and adjusted his little cloth.
“Come, see for yourselves. The villagers may call it a monster…but it’s a demon lord.”
Shortly before Choline and Merthophan’s upsetting reunion…Riho was sitting on her knees on a path through the rice fields.
How did I get here?
Her expression tinged with regret, she glanced at the sight in front of her.
There stood a man in an elegant white robe.
With two horns on his head.
He was introducing himself.
“Let me say it again. I am the demon lord, Satan.”
“R-right.”
If someone had said that to Riho on the street, she’d just walk the hell on, but her experience meant she immediately knew exactly how powerful this guy was.
One false move, and I’m dead…
In a town where even killer piranha were just food, something even the villagers called a monster…well, Riho had assumed even a fragment of the spoils would be enough to buy a house.
She’d come running out here, ready to make it rich.
But this was the reality. She was overcome with remorse.
Yeah, they treat normal monsters like fish or game! Of course, anything they actually call a monster is gonna be mad dangerous! Am I an idiot?!
Definitely. If we want to give her an excuse, the children who reported it sure didn’t make it sound that bad. The way they talked, it was like they’d just found a really big frog.
Oblivious to her shame, Satan was launching into a lecture on how mankind’s relentless pursuit of energy was violating the natural order, sounding more like a radical college professor than a demon lord.
“If human overpopulation continues, the sea levels will rise! Half the land will sink into the ocean!”
“Huh…”
“I cannot allow frail humans to control this land through sheer numbers!”
Getting a serious talk from a demon lord was a special kind of torture. Like how laymen feel anytime a politician launches into a passionate explanation of wonky policy details.
Riho was busy deflecting the demon lord’s lecture on human annihilation by rotating through, “Uh-huh,” “Yeah,” “I agree,” and “Oh?” This can be startlingly effective, so by all means, try it at home.
“You’re quite promising for a human. Well? Care to become my minion? Work hard enough, and half this land could be yours!”
Deploying her best listening skills to buy time seemed to have curried a disturbing amount of favor.
This guy’s an idiot.
“Well, if you don’t work hard enough, half the land will be gone anyway! Ha-ha-ha! That’s a satanic joke! Get it?”
Satan doubled over laughing, but it wasn’t at all clear what part of that was supposed to be funny.
Someone come quick… I dunno if I can take much more of this…
The demon lord’s raw strength was bad enough, but handling a one-on-one discussion with anyone who lacked conversation skills was really rough. As awkward as being stuck in an elevator with someone you sorta know.
Then someone gray-rocked their conversation.
Thud.
That wasn’t a metaphor. It was a literal rock.
“Wh-what? A rock?” Satan barked, blinking at the thing beneath his feet.
One of those children had thrown it at him.
“Aw, I missed!”
“You suck!”
Apparently, they’d been so busy gathering rocks, they’d only just arrived. They had a big pile of them around their feet, taking turns hurling them at the monster.
“Don’t do that, kids!” Riho shrieked. This was a demon lord! If they angered it, Riho could well say good-bye to half her body!
Meanwhile, the demon lord seemed unable to believe anyone would dare throw a rock at him, so he just gaped at the children.
“Don’t don’t doooooooon’t!” Riho wailed, like a dramatic musical sting.
Thud, thud…thunk.
A rock finally hit him. The children shrieked with delight.
Enraged, the demon lord yelled, “You little brats!”
“Eeek!”
The children ignored him, moving on to their next game.
“Whoever breaks those horns wins!”
“You’re on!”
A moment later…
Whoosh. A rock shot past the demon lord, making the wind whistle—clearly a much harder throw than what came before.
The rock hit the dirt behind him, sending up a cloud of dust like the splash after a botched dive.
Dirt rained down on Riho like an explosive shell detonating overhead.
Riho and Satan exchanged a look.
“…You know these kids?”
“Sorry, I’m as lost as you are.”
This brief interaction was soon ended by a bunch more stones.
Less “thrown” than “launched from a cannon.”
Rocks fired one after another, without a second’s pause, with peals of laughter as background music.
The dirt raining down at them made it impossible to see a thing. Riho and the demon lord screamed as one.
“Wh-what’s even happening?!”
And finally, a rock hit a horn. The demon lord’s head snapped back. Whiplash assured. A human would have been hauled straight to the orthopedic clinic.
Instead, the broken tip of the horn went sailing off toward the horizon.
“Wh-wh…why, you little… Aughhhhh!”
Before he could even start yelling at the kids, a rock landed on his other horn. This time, it put a spin on his skull, and that dragged his body with it, sending him twirling through the air until he landed headfirst in a rice paddy.
The kids gave each other a high five.
“Yes! Break damage!”
“And artistic points on that landing!”
Were they scoring a figure-skating match?
Brushing dirt off herself, Riho started scolding the kids.
“H-hey! You can’t do that! What if he gets mad and comes after you?”
“That always happens,” one kid assured her.
“Don’t worry, metal arm lady!”
“The first form is no big whoop.”
To these kids, the first form of a demon lord really was about as threatening as a really big frog.
But this was dire news to Riho’s ears. There was more to this fight? She shuddered.
“There’s a second form?! That’s horrifying!”
As if answering a request, Satan’s body started changing color, getting larger.
“So you wish to see my true form?! You will soon know real fear! You’ll live just long enough to regret…being born!”
His voice rose into a shriek, but the children just cheered.
“Yes! We did it!”
“Eeek! He’s so scary!”
They ran off like they’d just rung the doorbell to prank an intimidating old neighbor.
“Uh…no, wait, you’re gonna run now?! Who’s gonna handle this mess?!”
“Mankind’s power has grown too great! If nothing is done, the world has no future!”
“You said humans were ‘frail’ before, though.”
The demon lord was too preoccupied to care about plot holes.
Pitch-black wings unfurled, massive fangs gnashed, muscles bulged, and the demon lord’s frame blocked the setting sun.
“Mere rocks can no longer harm me! The Demon Lord Satan cannot be bested by puny projectiles!”
The demon lord’s roar echoed.
“Oh, crap, oh, crap… Huh?”
Something rocketed across the sky.
At first, Riho thought there was just something in her eye, but the shape of it soon became clear.
A lump of stone shrouded in flames from the atmospheric friction.
A meteorite falling from space.
“A-a shooting star?!” Riho gasped, like a heroine in a romance manga.
“Hmph!” the demon lord grunted. “Wishes won’t save you now. The extinction of the human race is only a matter of—Huh?”
Tough luck there, Demon Lord. You’re the one going extinct.
The meteorite came in diagonally from over Riho’s right shoulder, crashing into the demon lord with all the force of a car accident, sending the monster flying off toward the sunset on the horizon.
“That’s a meteorite, not a thrown rock! It doesn’t count!”
The demon lord’s death throes were a pedantic quibble, but the roar of the meteorite itself drowned them out.
Riho was left on her knees, gaping at the wreckage.
And then the person who’d brought the meteorite down stepped out from behind her.
“Geez, you ran out all excited—good thing, it was such a puny demon lord. I was able to use a comparatively controllable tiny meteorite.”
It was Alka. The haze of magic around her hand came from the rune she’d used.
“I like her!” Eug said, snapping her lollipop. “She’s true to herself and not afraid to get pushy.”
“Are you okay, Riho?” Lloyd asked, running up, the others in tow. “Oh, of course you would be. You can handle this stuff better than I ever could. You bought time until the chief could get here!”
Lloyd’s concern seemed to have resolved itself. His low self-esteem was just a given at this point.
“N-no, I didn’t…,” Riho spluttered.
She tried to get up, but her legs gave out, and she wound up grabbing on to Lloyd.
The kids from earlier came running up.
“We played with the metal arm lady!”
“Yeah!”
That wasn’t a gaaaaame! Riho felt the tears welling up.
Alka was already scolding the kids. “I told you this before! You can’t just play with any old monster!”
“Ugh, it was fine! We’re not weak like Lloyd!”
Lloyd winced at this.
“Ah-ha-ha, that’s embarrassing. Yeah, even the kids here treat me like this.”
“Uh…huh…”
With him looking sheepish inches away from her, Riho started blushing, too.
Selen instantly pried them apart, like a soccer ref about to hand out a red card.
“Okay, okay, okay, hands off Lloyd! Riho! Why are you hanging off him?!”
“M-my knees buckled out from under me!”
“Then my belt will hold you up! Tightly.”
“Hey! Not around the neck!”
The same old squabbles, just in a field instead of a classroom.
A bizarre figure stepped in.
“I know there was a demon-monster attack, but that’s no excuse for wrecking my farmland! Who did this?! Oh, is that you, Riho Flavin?”
“Who the hell are—Er…Colonel?”
It took her a good ten seconds to realize this hoe-wielding loincloth man was Colonel Merthophan.
“Apologize to the man, kids.”
“Uncle Loin—I mean, Merthophan, sorry.”
“Uncle Loinclo—I mean, we were throwing rocks to play with the monster.”
Apparently, the kids all called him Uncle Loincloth behind his back.
The man in question paid this no attention, ruffling the kids’ hair.
“These fields are important! Don’t do that next time.”
“Yes,” Alka said, stepping in with the utmost dignity. “If I catch you causing trouble, I’ll make you both wear waistcloths, too.”
“I won’t do it again! I promise!”
“I swear I’ll never throw another rock ever again!”
They looked genuinely terrified.
Seeing their reactions, Chrome and Choline clutched their foreheads.
“Who would want to dress like that?”
“It is nothing but punishment.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! This garment is perfect for muddy fieldwork! Easy to move, and so simple to wash later! There is no downside.”
Even Kunlun villagers didn’t work the farmland in loincloths. Merthophan’s intense work wear discourse was falling entirely on deaf ears.
As more villagers gathered, the housekeeper spoke up.
“Oh my, Merthophan! Do you know these people?”
“Yes,” he admitted with a relaxed smile, like he was remembering good times. “We were not together long, but they were all excellent students of mine.”
With his loincloth digging in between both cheeks, nobody wanted to be referred to as his student. Everyone made a face.
“I feel like they’ll take that in entirely the wrong light, so let’s just say we’re total strangers instead.”
“Riho Flavin, I know we had our differences, and I don’t blame you for holding that against me.”
“Yeah, no, let’s pretend we’re total strangers. I don’t wanna make it sound like we ever had anything in common.”
They sounded like a comedy duo splitting up over creative differences. Merthophan was definitely heading off for a low-brow solo career.
“We’d better get back to the house!” Eug suggested. She turned to Riho. “Riho, was it? You need a bath.”
“Oh my!” the housekeeper gasped and led the way. “The children make such a fuss over the monsters!” she said. “I hope they weren’t too much of a bother. This is just every day here!”
It was? Everyone looked grim.
“You mean something like that shows up once a day?” Marie gasped.
Alka grinned at her. “Not just once! Some days, we’ll get three!”
“Three demon lords a day…?” Chrome whispered.
With that note of horror, they headed back to Alka’s house.
As darkness fell, the hearth fire lit the room in Alka’s home in Kunlun village.
A massive party was getting underway in the main hall. The floor was covered in legless chairs and low tables laden with food.
“We use this for village meetings, but it doubles as a party venue when we got something to celebrate, like today!”
Alka was sitting cross-legged at the head of the room, drooling at the food as it came out. This made her look like the birthday girl, but her true age was referred to in vague terms like grandma and mystery entity.
“Party-shmarty! They’re your guests, but you ain’t lifting a finger!” Pyrid scolded.
Pyrid had raised Lloyd and was one of the village leaders. He wasn’t pleased with Alka’s laziness.
Marie had never seen anyone scold Alka successfully before. She was usually the one getting scolded.
“Such a glorious sight,” she mused. “I’m glad I came here.”
“Hngg, you’ll pay for that when we’re back in Azami,” Alka growled.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Chief!” her housekeeper said. “You’re the chief here! We can’t have you running off whenever you like! You need to pay for your misdeeds, and the first step is to get up and help!”
“Hngg…” Grumbling, Alka began helping set the tables.
Then Riho came in, face still flushed from the bath.
“’Sup…man, that was a nightmare!”
“Oh, Riho! Not often you wear a skirt.”
Riho had her hair down and had a long skirt on—this changed her vibe enough that it had taken them a second to recognize her. She’d gone from looking like a bandit to looking like a nice village girl.
“Yeah, if I’d known this would happen, I’d have brought a change of clothes. I’m even borrowing underwear! And here I thought I could go a day without.”
Yeah, she still didn’t talk like a nice village girl, and that mithril arm definitely didn’t fit that image.
“Honestly, Riho.” Selen clucked. “You have no concept of daintiness.”
Even as she spoke, there was a rumble—from Phyllo’s belly.
“…I’m hungry,” Phyllo explained, her expression never changing.
“Geez, I know you can’t stop the rumbling, but you could at least look ashamed!”
“…Well, I was in a battle for my life.”
Phyllo was covered in small scratches.
And she looked extra honed, like she’d just come back from a hermitage.
“Oh, Phyllo!” Pyrid boomed, patting her on the shoulder. “Sorry I could only run you through a few simple kata! I’ll do some proper training with you later, I promise!”
“Those were kata?!” Phyllo yelped, altogether discarding her stoic, silent-type routine. She looked utterly astounded. “Kata?! Just kataaaaaaaa?!”
“Ph-Phyllo? Y-you’ve abandoned your personality!”
Pyrid just laughed. “Such an animated young girl!” he observed.
Not an impression of her anyone in Azami would have. Those who knew her just silently blamed Kunlun.
While this was going on, the food was finally all laid out. Lloyd had been helping set the tables, excited to be back home.
“It’s been so long since I’ve gotten a chance to cook country ingredients! It was a lot of fun!”
“Yeah, well…killer piranha…”
Nothing that high level was gonna show up in the city marketplace. You might call it a delicacy or a hometown specialty, but it definitely outclassed both those terms. It was more like saying tonight’s dinner was tyrannosaurus steak.
As Marie winced, Merthophan laid her food in front of her. He had a cook’s apron on now.
He was the man who’d tried to take over the country, and she was the princess.
He was the first to break the awkward silence.
“I’d like to formally apologize for my previous misdeeds later tonight. To you, and to Chrome and Choline, and…all your friends.”
“Sounds good,” Marie said, relaxing. “For now, this is Lloyd’s homecoming party. That stuff can wait for later.”
Then Alka clapped her hands, drawing everyone’s attention.
“The whole village is here, so let’s have a toast! Silence, please!”
She stepped into the center of the room, raising a glass.
“Thank you all for coming to my wedding with Lloyd—”
“Chief, you’ve done that gag before!”
“I know! And I’m not joking! This is serious!”
Yeah, it wasn’t really funny. But it also couldn’t be taken seriously.
Ignoring Alka’s protests, Pyrid stood up and took over the toast. He did this so smoothly, it was like he was actually running a wedding.
“Lloyd’s come back home a soldier and brought good friends with him. Glasses up!”
With that, the room filled with merriment. For once, it really did seem like a normal village.
The contingent from Azami were gaping at the feast laid out before them.
“This really is the kinda food you get at a wedding…”
Chrome and Choline were licking their lips as Merthophan served them.
“Merthophan, you’ve become a real cook!”
“Yeah! This gizzard skewer’s off the charts! You do something special at the prep stage?”
“Nope, just let the natural quality of the ingredients shine,” Merthophan said, plating their food.
“The natural quality? Well spoken!”
“I’m not being modest; it really is better stuff…” Without batting an eye, Merthophan launched into a spiel about the ingredients. “I mean, these gizzards come from a chicken—I mean, a basilisk I strangled myself this morning.”
““……””
Chrome and Choline both dropped their skewers.
A basilisk. A terrifying monster with poisonous breath that could turn you to stone and shatter you… The head and torso were indeed chicken-like, but the back half supposedly went full reptile, turning into a snake’s tail.
A single one of them could wipe out an entire town. Defeating one was an epic feat. Nobody would ever consider eating it.
“That does leave us without any tail meat,” Merthophan explained, heedless of their horror. “The snake part just isn’t worth eating, I’m afraid. But the heart is extra tasty! It keeps beating even after you strangle the thing, which does make it a pain to prepare.”
As their old friend spoke, Chrome and Choline grew increasingly grave. Apparently, basilisk gizzards were exquisite, offering a flavor beyond that found in any nonpetrifying creatures.
Every member of the Azami contingent thought the same thing: High-level monsters are treated like poultry!
They all stopped eating, afraid that what they next touched would be something even more insane.
“…You could build a house with this meal…”
“Don’t say it, Phyllo!”
It definitely did taste good, but who could stay hungry if they knew each bite was worth a gold coin?
Regardless of their consternation, dish after dish was spread out on the table. Each accompanied by Merthophan’s generous commentary.
“This is excellent,” he said, presenting the next dish.
It was roasted onions in a shutou sauce. The onions were halved, skin and all, piping hot, served in a fancy dish made from their own crisped skins.
And the shutou—a savory squid-based sauce—had a rich odor that tantalized the nostrils.
Once again, they all hesitated to try a bite.
“Don’t worry. These are normal onions I personally grew in the fields here.”
Riho looked relieved to hear it.
“G-good! Something safe to eat. Obviously, this isn’t all made from monsters!”
Since this wasn’t prepared from high-level drops, Riho happily took a bite.
“Oh, that’s good!” she praised. “Piping hot! And the sauce is crazy!”
“This is delicious!” Selen said.
“……Mm.”
It was so scrumptious that it immediately reduced their vocabularies. If they’d been food critics on a TV show, the director would have slapped all three of them.
Merthophan grinned happily. Then he got a look like he forgot something, and he turned to Alka.
“The sauce really pulls the dish together. What was in it, Chief? Squid?”
“Kraken.”
“Riiiight, there were ships going missing in the waters between Azami and Rokujou! Investigations couldn’t find a cause, but more than a dozen ships had gone AWOL between the two countries. People thought it was pirates or something, and it became a huge international issue…but the real cause makes a great sauce if you strain it!”
“I don’t think I can eat any more…”
Smothering international issues with hot onions was not exactly an appetizing proposition.
“Now, now, I went to all the trouble of hunting the thing. Eat up!”
“You caught it, Master?!” Marie wailed.
Alka puffed up her chest, snorting proudly. “Yup! I was just taking a stroll across the ocean, and the thing popped up and sprayed ink at me.”
“A stroll…on the ocean?”
“Walking on water is how ladies pass the time.”
The ordinary humans pictured Alka walking on water, no land in sight, like she was on the beach. They were at a loss for words.
The less ordinary Kunlun villagers all pounced on that statement.
“Wait, Chief? We thought you went squid hunting, but you were just taking a walk? Slacking off again?!”
“You just went sunbathing in the desert the other day! So irresponsible!”
“Oh, whatever! I came back before it got dark!” Alka argued, like a kid being scolded for playing in a vacant lot. The whole world was her playground…apparently?
Lloyd seemed to have heard similar conversations before. He was just putting more shutou sauce on, thoroughly enjoy the flavor.
“Mm, this really tastes like home! You just can’t get flavors like this in the city. Maybe I just have blue-collar tastes.”
This wasn’t an entirely working-class dish.
But Merthophan just kept calmly explaining what was in the food. If you looked closely, his eyes were totally dead. Like he was long past rational thought. If every meal you ate involved legends and supernatural phenomena, you’d get that way. This was a necessary defense mechanism to retain a shred of sanity.
Once everyone was full…well, the Azami contingent all looked like they’d got a bad case of indigestion. That happened when you had a belly full of end game monsters and international issues.
“Right, clear away these fish bones!” the housekeeper said.
Eyes gleaming, Riho shot to her feet. “I’ll help clean!”
“Oh, the beady-eyed girl! You’re a guest today, so you just sit back and relax.”
“No, no, after a feast like that, it’s the least I can do!”
The housekeeper gave her a warm smile. “Then by all means!” They headed out back.
“……She’s definitely collecting materials.”
Everyone who knew Riho nodded. When Riho came back, beaming, her pockets were bulging.
“You don’t miss a beat, huh?” Eug said, guzzling a beer. She flashed her canines at Riho approvingly.
The party was in full swing, and the villagers were six cups deep. One middle-aged woman sidled over to Lloyd, whispering in his ear.
“Lloyd, which of these is your girlfriend?”
This killer pass caught Lloyd entirely off guard.
“N-none of them! They’re all from my school. No girlfriends!”
Their conversation instantly had the girls’ undivided attention.
Grinning, the villagers began joining in.
“Oh? I thought you’d come back to introduce us! Grandpa Pyrid was all ready to be a great-grandpa!”
“Well, even if he doesn’t have one now, Lloyd’s the right age! He’s at least interested in someone!”
The ceaseless attacks were tearing Lloyd apart. And the girls were starting to fidget, all leaning forward.
A new killer pass shot in from a totally different direction.
“Well, if I had to pick one, I’d go for Riho.”
“Yeah, no complaints about her.”
Suddenly thrust into the limelight, Riho spit tea everywhere.
“Huhaarrghhh?!” was all she managed, deeply flummoxed. She’d never expected anyone to push for her.
Meanwhile, the villagers began explaining their logic.
“Yeah, she jumps right in to help with everything! She’s considerate!”
“She only just got here, and she was already helping Grandpa Pyrid with that fish! She respects her elders! Such a good girl.”
Her passion for high-level materials had received a very favorable interpretation. Since none of this was intentional, Riho was turning bright red but also not arguing. There had to be a part of her deep down that was all for getting closer to Lloyd…if only she could be honest with herself.
The Azami girls and Alka were all glaring daggers. Chrome, Choline, and Merthophan all knew her real motives and were stifling laughs.
““““Tch…””””
Selen, Phyllo, Marie, and Alka weren’t laughing at all. Their tongues were cracking like whips. Maybe these four are a little too honest.
Early reporting was showing Riho with a commanding lead in the polls, ready to claim a majority of seats, but then a new candidate appeared.
“Hold on now!” Grandpa Pyrid stepped in. “I’m nominating Phyllo!”
This was the man who’d raised Lloyd and commanded a great deal of authority in Kunlun. And he’d just thrown his weight behind Phyllo as Lloyd’s future wife.
“We sparred a bit earlier, but she’s a good ’un. She’d adapt to life out here in the boonies real quick. She’s a promising fighter and would do good work for us.”
A faint smirk appeared on Phyllo’s poker face. She wasn’t a particularly “good” one.
“…………I win,” she whispered.
Grandpa Pyrid was Lloyd’s father figure, so his backing her was like parents bowing and saying, “Please take care of our daughter.” Oh, well, Lloyd was a boy, but…well, he could cook, so it could work. Phyllo’s triumphant look suggested she was ready to head straight through the goal to a victory lap in the bedroom, but the other girls all restrained her.
Selen was usually the most active of Lloyd’s suitors, but Riho and Phyllo had a ten-length lead in this horse race. She was biting her nails in frustration. And screeching.
Unable to bear it, Vritra tried to console her.
“Mistress, you haven’t lost yet! Maintain composure…!”
If the balance of power didn’t shift soon, he was in for a full night of griping. His desperation was clear.
Selen surprised him with a show of strength.
“Hmph!” she huffed. “I’m disappointed to hear his father figure pick someone else, true. But it’s not like I’ve been standing silently by.”
“Oh? You have a plan, then?”
“If you can’t shoot the general, shoot his horse. Heh-heh…this is why I’ve been letting the village kids play with my belt! Raising my approval ratings that way!”
“So that’s why you forced me to entertain them despite my protests…”
Guess that went down during the chapter break.
From Vritra’s perspective, this had involved a lot of innocent voices yelping, “A talking belt!” and patting him all over with dirty hands. He’d endured. After all, if he disobeyed one of Selen’s orders, there was no telling what she’d do to him later.
“Grown-up opinions hold no power before the demands of children! If they start saying, ‘Mommy, I want Lloyd to marry Selen!’ everyone will have to answer, ‘Okay, fine, just this once.’ Then the kids’ll be all, ‘I love you, Mommy!’ and it’ll be perfect!”
She’d found a whole new breed of delusion!
At any rate, Selen’s strategy was to shoo herself into the wife race by making herself popular with the kids. If you’ll excuse the blunt metaphor, it’s like Christmas season toy ads forcing loaded parents to drop a fat wad of cash on their kids.
“I find it hard to approve of manipulating children,” Vritra said, cringing visibly. “Is there no other way?”
Selen’s face twisted into a demon mask. “I’m allowing you to stay rent free in my belt? And you dare talk back?!”
“Er, this belt was originally part of my back, but…forgive my previous rudeness!”
Vritra bowed his buckle repeatedly. Like a worker dealing with a temperamental boss.
“That’s even worse! Because you let Alka rip your skin off so easily, the resulting curse ruined my entire childhood! You owe me big-time!”
“I cannot apologize for that myself! I had no idea my rage would manifest in—”
“But because of that, I met Sir Lloyd, so we’re good. But if I can’t hook up with him, I’m nothing but a clown!”
Selen had definitely been a clown so far, but she leaped to her feet, yelled, “Follow me!” and attempted to lead an army of children forward like the Pied Piper.
“Come, children! Now is your moment to back me!”
But the children she’d placed her faith in…
“Is that a metal arm?!”
“Oh, hey, careful, don’t touch that.”
“Whoa! How does it move?”
“Uh, with magic?”
The children in question had decided Riho’s mithril arm was way cooler than Selen’s belt. A creepy wriggling strap never stood a chance against the feature-rich metal gleam of Riho’s appendage. Few would blame them.
“Childreeeeeeeeen?!” Selen fell to her knees. She had sorely overestimated their attention span.
“An artificial limb at your age… You must have a tragic past.”
“How you must have suffered.”
“And despite that, she grew up straight and true!”
Not really.
Adding insult to injury, the parents were all making sweeping assumptions and tearing up over them. Riho’s popularity was skyrocketing to Ghibli levels of cross-generational appeal.
“Arghhh…a belt that can move and talk makes an impression, but carries no style points! Do you have any good ideas, Vritra? I need a plan to break free of this bind!”
“Mistress Selen! I have an idea!”
“Oh? Let’s hear it.”
“If you follow the talking belt to its logical extreme and transform into a magical girl, the children will love it!”
“Pfft, nobody cares about magical girls anymore!”
Er, they’re quite popular… Like, really in vogue… Did she not watch TV on Sunday mornings? Selen seemed to be as oblivious to current fads as she was ethics.
Cut down, Vritra hung the buckle he was using in place of a head.
“Hngg…I see… When ‘my children’ were little, they watched such shows with their parents, but…”
This turn of phrase struck Selen as rather odd.
“Oh? The guardian beast of Kunlun has children? More big snakes?”
“My children are…mm. That is odd.”
Eug leaned in, as if cutting that conversation off.
“You talking transformations?” she asked enthusiastically. “That sounds fun! Let me join in.”
No mad scientist could resist that word.
“Vri, don’t you worry about a thing! You want me to turn you into something other than a snake? I can make you tall and handsome! You want a nose job? A cleft chin?”
Now it was just plastic surgery.
“H-handsome?” This word seemed to tempt him momentarily.
“Well? I sure don’t mind.”
“Th-then by all means!”
Eug grinned, pulled out a pencil, and started doodling a final design.
When she had the sketch, she held it up so Vritra could see—only looking mildly evil.
“Right, here’s the final version! A giant one-eyed frog! Your new form!”
“Good heavens, no! It fits none of the designated parameters! What happened to tall and handsome?!”
“Well, I gotta lot of frog meat lying around, so…and you know, frog faces are kinda handsome, if you look at them the right way! And it’s tall for a frog! That’s why I made it giant! The one-eye…well, that’s just a bonus!”
“You don’t subtract an eye as a bonus! Going from a snake to a frog is clearly a downgrade! A predator becoming prey has entirely flubbed his career transition!”
“Eug,” Selen said. “Our goal here is to earn the love of children, so I don’t think a frog would really do it.”
“Then…a cat or a dog?”
“We seem to have lost sight of the real goal here! This is about restoring me!”
The discussion had become more like a toy company planning a new product line.
Poor Vritra. But he wasn’t the worst person off here.
“Augh…”
That would be Marie. Not one person had her back in the wife-off, and she was on the verge of tears.
All around her, arguments about Lloyd’s wife were reaching a fever pitch. Since no one else was nominating her, she considered throwing her hat in the ring…but that would amount to asking him out.
Before she could take that bold step, she got hit again—mercilessly.
“You’re his landlord, right? Who would you pick?”
“Huh? Landlord?!”
The man addressing her was definitely pretty drunk. Marie had never considered herself a landlord before, but the man was way too drunk to notice her confusion.
“You’re running the place where Lloyd stays, right? You see Lloyd with these girls all the time. Who do you think is best for him?
“………Damn you, kid grandma…” Marie glared at Alka. “That was how you introduced me?!”
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Alka doubled over, laughing and clutching her stomach. She’d successfully blocked Marie’s entry in the race! How cruel!
The landlord. If this were a dating sim, she’d be a locked route at best—if not a supporting character. Marie’s tears were starting to flow.
“Huh? Was the chief wrong about that? Why are you crying?”
“Oh, don’t worry about her! The waterworks come on the moment she gets a few drinks in her! Typical landlord, huh?”
Meanwhile, the wife race was really picking up.
“What do you say? He may be young, but he is a soldier! Will you take Lloyd as your bride?”
“Augh, don’t say that! I’m a guy! I can’t be a bride!”
The villagers’ enthusiasm left Lloyd fuming, but everyone just laughed.
Left in the dust, Riho was just sitting very still, beet red, staring at her hands.
Lloyd desperately tried to change the subject.
“I’ve got a long way ahead of me. The only reason I’m a soldier at all is because of Allan.”
“Oh? You owe him, then?”
“Yeah. I failed the exam once, but he saw potential in me and recommended they take me on. And all he wants me to do in return is to teach him how to cook.”
Lloyd had never realized it, but he’d saved Allan from a monster attack, and in exchange, Allan had traded an offer of promotion to get Lloyd enlisted. When Allan talked about being Lloyd’s disciple, he meant combat—not cooking.
But all the listening villagers were very pleased with what Allan had done.
“I see! This boy sounds like a saint! We’ll have to thank him properly later. If he were a girl, we’d add him to the list of brides…then again, if Lloyd just agrees to be the bride…”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…!” Everyone laughed again.
The conversation was going off the rails again.
“Doesn’t matter who Lloyd marries,” slurred a guy who’d been like a brother to Lloyd. “Even a man would be better than the chief!”
“True enough!”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…!” Another round of laughter.
Reduced to a punch line, Alka was sobbing loudly.
Eug gave her a reassuring pat on the back.
“I totally agree! That boy’s way too good for you.”
“Don’t act like you’re comforting me only to kick me when I’m down! You always do that!”
“Now, now, I am comforting you. And we should have a drink later! We haven’t seen each other in a while. We got lots of catching up to do.”
“Mm. All right, everyone! Time we wrap stuff up!”
The villagers started getting ready to leave.
The guests headed off to their rooms.
Alka was looking up at the stars above. A beautiful night view.
They were in the chief’s room, and the two of them were sitting on chairs of woven bamboo.
Eug was sitting across from Alka. She pulled out a bottle of amber liquid—whiskey.
“Drink with me, Alka. You like it straight, right?”
Alka nodded.
“This liver goes through poison like there’s no tomorrow—I can’t even get tipsy from mixed drinks. An unpleasant reminder of my immortality.”
“I remember when a single drink would knock you out… Here.”
Alka held the glass of amber liquid up to her nose, savoring the odor.
“That’s a rich scent—what’s the maker?”
“Mm? I dunno, something-or-other-whiskey. Pretty sure it’s a thousand years old.”
“A thousand?”
“Theoretically. It’s aged artificially with an ultrasonic device, but if I’m being totally honest, I couldn’t tell the difference between five hundred years and a thousand.”
Alka raised an eyebrow and then took a sip.
She took another long sniff. “You’re always inventing these crazy gizmos. And this morning, you suddenly started babbling about viruses… Nobody knew what you were talking about.”
Eug took a sip of her own whiskey, not looking the least bit sorry.
“If they don’t understand a word of it, what’s the harm?”
“You know better. Never know who might be watching… C’mon, another.”
Alka’s cheeks were slightly flushed, but she held out her glass.
Glug glug glug…the room filled with the sound of her glass filling.
She knocked the entire glass back and let out a boozy sigh.
“I think I know what you wanna talk about,” Alka said.
“You ran into him, right? I wanna know what you made of him.”
Eug leaned forward over the table, with an expression of great interest.
Alka looked increasingly gloomy.
“You mean Sou, right? He’s failed in his efforts, but he’s still scheming. Maybe he thinks if he turns evil, he can finally disappear for good. One of our villagers has himself mixed up in it. Seems like they’re behind the unusually high numbers of demon lords or things split off from them.”
“Nobody would ever believe he was the legendary hero, Sou.”
“When he rounded up all the demon lords and flung them in the final prison, his role should have ended. But instead of fading out, he was restored to the world. Never the most stable man, he desperately wants to stop being the hero.”
She looked up at the sky, speaking softly, as though to herself.
“But freeing all the captured demon lords will never do. Not with the world finally stable.”
It was rare to see Alka look this serious. Eug folded her arms, every bit as solemn.
“Alka,” she proposed. “Think it’s time to move to the next stage?”
“The next stage?”
Eug popped the lollipop out of her mouth, pointing it at Alka.
“Did you forget? Develop the world, return things to the level they used to be.”
“You mean…how things were back then?”
“Yeah,” Eug said, flashing a sly grin. “That witch…she’s the princess of Azami, right? If we start an industrial revolution there, well, they’ve got the prosperity to handle it, even if we move fast. Remember how great it was? Cars and planes everywhere? You could order anything you wanted with the tip of your finger.”
“But is there a need to develop the world right now?”
“Yeah. Magic research has progressed far enough. There are even people out there trying to decipher runes. That means we can expect real progress, mixing magic and science together in new ways. We’ll see a whole new world, one we could never have in the old days. And if we keep the Last Dungeon under control, the demon lords aren’t a threat—and we can get our lost comrades back the way they were.”
But the more Eug’s eyes sparkled, the gloomier Alka got.
“Wishful thinking. We can’t act on that alone. Or it’ll all happen again.”
“This is our entire purpose! And if we don’t act soon, the Last Dungeon will bust open, and some so-called demon lords’ll make the world a living hell again. Like you said—it’ll all happen again.”
A silence fell.
For a long while, the only sounds were their chairs creaking and the ice in Eug’s glass clinking.
Finally, Eug spoke again. “You heard him earlier, right? Vritra—Director Ishikura almost remembered.”
“Haven’t heard that name in a while,” Alka said, gazing at her reflection in the glass.
Eug’s chair creaked as she leaned back, looking up at the stars.
“Yeah, he remembered watching anime with his kids. I jumped in and averted the crisis, but…if he remembers more, no telling what he’ll do in his confusion.”
She turned her eyes back to Alka, leaning forward.
“If we force him back to normal here without his kids? He might well go after the Last Dungeon. Vritra’s not the only one. Even the demon lords were once—”
Alka shot her a look, cutting her off. “They might replace us, remake this world to their liking, abusing runes…”
“Yeah. But if this world can create a magic-science hybrid that can control the Last Dungeon, and restore what lies in those depths…or add magic to science to make something even better…”
Alka stared into her glass again.
Realizing Alka couldn’t bring herself to take the next step, Eug sighed, shaking her head.
“I can’t do it on my own. I may be the king of dwarves, but they don’t care about anything except their work. I need you working with me. We need to restore the forms our old comrades lost and get back true peace.”
“I know…but can’t it wait a while longer?”
They stared up at the stars together.
“I’ve waited too long already,” Eug said softly. So softly, Alka never heard.
The words vanished into the stars above.
Under that same starry sky, in another room of that same house, Merthophan was on his hands and knees, his forehead plastered to the ground.
“I can’t apologize enough!”
He was prostrated before Marie. Chrome and Choline were sitting behind her, sipping their drinks and wincing.
Marie was forced into this position a lot herself, so being on the receiving end was especially awkward.
“That’s enough! Raise your head. I can’t take this. It’s like I’m seeing myself genuflect before the kid grandma…”
Like having a mirror held up to her own behavior. Marie had a much larger repertoire of kowtows, with variations that included choked sobs and lots of snot, and these provided observers (well, Alka) with no end of entertainment.
Merthophan’s head jerked up. “Thank you for your kind words, Princess Maria! This is a daikon radish from my fields!”
He produced a giant white vegetable and held it out, tears of gratitude streaming down his face.
“Uh…this isn’t the best timing…”
“Good point! I’ll give it to you—with plenty of other veggies—on your way home!”
He wrapped the daikon up in a nice cloth and then topped off her glass. Anyone who knew his history would be horrified at this display of servility—the faces of his former colleagues proved as much.
But the mention of their departure put a question in Choline’s mind. Cheeks somewhat flushed from the alcohol, she asked, “Are you ever coming back to Azami, Merthophan?”
“Not anytime soon,” he said, looking grim. “I may have been under the thumb of a demon lord, but I still tried to overthrow the monarchy.”
“Yeah…I figured.”
She still looked disappointed.
His expression grew even grimmer.
“And if I leave Kunlun, my children—the crops I’ve worked so hard to grow—won’t have anyone to look after them.”
“R-right…,” Chrome managed to say. Having crops called children sent a shudder down his spine.
“When I first got here, everything was so outlandish that my mind couldn’t handle it. I was afraid to face the dawn. But thanks to my crops, I’m looking forward to each new day.”
Incidentally, Kunlun produce could be harvested a month after planting them—way beyond what was achievable with selective breeding or genetic modification.
The need to gather all those crops every month was a lot of work, even with the power Kunlun villagers possessed…especially since Alka always disappeared at harvest time—like a part-timer who always puts in for paid time off when they know the shop is going to be jam-packed because of a promotional campaign.
“That demon lord… Can you tell us more about him? The kid gra—Chief Alka won’t really get specific.”
Marie had asked about demon lords any number of times, but Alka always just dismissed them as a “pain in her backside.”
“I know the memories must be painful, but any information you have on demon lords would really help.”
Merthophan groaned thoughtfully. “I had a grudge against the Jiou Empire,” he said. The words did not come easily to him. “I believed they were responsible for the destruction of my home. And my anger about them grew and grew…and then a merchant appeared before me.”
“A merchant?”
“Yes—he spoke the words I wished to hear and handed me a jewel, like a sinister egg, instructing me to give that to the Azami king…”
“That’s strange,” Chrome said, breaking in. “I can’t imagine you accepting something like that from a total stranger, much less handing it to the king.”
Merthophan was a real stickler for the rules. He would never accept the kind of bribes or the sort of underhanded dealings that often went down between merchants and military leaders.
“Yeah, in hindsight, I have no idea what I was thinking. But at the time, I never doubted my actions. I was driven to act, without hesitation—some sort of mind control, if you’ll forgive me making excuses.”
He bowed his head again, to Marie’s chagrin.
“That’s about when ya asked me to start researching runes, right?” Choline popped in. “I thought it was strange, considering you never knew much about magic.”
“It seems likely… My memories are rather fuzzy.”
Merthophan frowned, lost in thought.
Marie went back to the point. “Can you describe this merchant at all?”
“Sorry, I’m not even sure he was a merchant. I know he was a man, maybe thirty? Or sixty…oh! Right.”
“You remembered something else?”
“The man asked what he looked like to me. And I said he was probably some sort of merchant…”
When he added this, Chrome and Choline both sat up.
“Choline, do you think…?”
“Chrome, could this merchant be behind…?”
“Behind what?” Marie asked.
Chrome filled her in on the reports of people going missing, and the strange man who’d been witnessed asking what people saw him as.
The more she heard, the grimmer Marie’s expression grew.
“So Abaddon may have been the demon lord that possessed my father, but there was someone else behind his actions?”
And they were potentially trying for a repeat. A chilling thought.
Silence settled over the room. It was broken by a knock at the door—and Lloyd, bearing tea.
“Hey, everyone. I figured you could use some tea!”
His cheery voice immediately lifted everyone’s spirits.
“Thanks, Lloyd!”
He handed each of them a cup. Merthophan got a glass of grape juice.
“What’s this?” Merthophan asked.
“Oh,” Lloyd said with a genuine smile. “I know you have a troubled history with alcohol, so I figured you were abstaining. And I thought you might want a little something extra to keep them company.”
It was like he was offering the designated driver a nonalcoholic beer.
“Er, right…,” Merthophan managed.
He was a driven patriot, yet Lloyd seemed to view him as nothing but an ex-drunk turned teetotaler.
“I’m sure you don’t remember any of it, but you made a mess of yourself during the festival. Dressing up as some weird insect thing, staggering around drunk…”
Now he was a tipsy cosplayer, apparently. Merthophan fought back his tears.
“I can’t apologize enough for that,” he croaked.
“I heard there were monsters around, too! But Marie took care of those… I’m glad everything ended safely. I hope you can get back to work soon! I’m sure you have a lot to teach me.”
Lloyd bowed his head and left the room.
The silence in his wake was even longer.
“Um, does…he not know how strong he is?”
“He’s the weakest person in Kunlun, apparently.”
There was a brief pause.
“Feels silly to worry about anything now…”
With Lloyd and Kunlun around, no demon lord could possibly pose a threat. The grim looks were a thing of the past.
Now, in yet another room—the three cadet girls had their futons lined up in a row.
Picture the standard school trip, girls with heads pressed together, whispering about which boys they’re gonna ask out—this wasn’t that. After all, it was already obvious who they liked.
“…What?” Riho said, eyes half-lidded, covers pulled up. With her hair down like this, she seemed significantly less tomboyish—even hints of cute.
Selen and Phyllo were both staring at her—and she wasn’t about to back down from that challenge.
“You’re cheating.”
“…Cheating,” Phyllo echoed.
“Oh, shut up! This isn’t my fault! What’s with the staring contest anyway?” Riho threw her covers back, leaping into a fighting stance.
“We’re monitoring you so you don’t sneak into his bedroom in the cover of night.”
“I ain’t that dumb!”
“…I would totally do it,” Phyllo declared. A problem in itself.
“Why do they all love you?! They even gave you new clothes!” Selen protested.
“Nah, they don’t…”
“…They do. And I heard those clothes are really nice.”
“Huh? They are?”
Riho blinked at her. Phyllo explained further.
“…They’re made from superior silk gathered from earth spiders.”
Earth spiders. Another high-level monster. The face of a demon, the body of a tiger, and the legs of a spider. A hideous beast, indeed. The venom in their fangs would leave you running a high fever for three days and nights.
If one bit a Kunlun villager, it would be no more effective than a mosquito sting…since they all had high poison resistance.
“See! Those clothes prove they love you! Argh, I’m so jealous!”
Before Selen had even finished ranting, Riho was up and inspecting her clothing.
“Whoa, really? Earth spider silk is crazy valuable!”
She ran her fingers down the sleeves, checking the quality. She even flipped her skirt up to inspect her underwear. Shameless!
“Ah, Riho! Don’t do that!”
Even Selen balked.
Wholly ignoring the other girl, Riho completed her detailed exploration of her underwear and nodded happily.
“Come to think of it, these are super comfortable! I guess I was right not to bring any underwear!”
Something no girl should ever say…but immediately afterward, Riho started stripping.
“I can’t wear these!”
Even Phyllo looked genuinely shocked at this sudden striptease.
“…Um, didn’t you already take a bath?”
“Don’t be silly! I’m getting out of these clothes before I get them dirty or wrinkled! I gotta sell them!”
“Do you have a replacement?”
“I can sleep naked! Is there a hanger in here? Oh, found one! Careful with ’em, careful…heh-heh…”
Lovingly hanging her clothes and underwear on the hangers, she made sure there were no wrinkles. In later days, Phyllo would claim the sight of her wickedly grinning as she smoothed out the fabric of her panties was almost awe-inspiring.
At this exact moment…
There was a knock on the door and a gentle voice.
“Pardon me.”
“Y-yes?” Riho yelped a bit. She was still naked, after all. Apparently, this was the wrong choice of words, because Lloyd took that as permission to enter.
“I brought you some tea, so—”
When the door opened, he found himself face-to-face with all of Riho.
““!!!!!!!!!””
Silent screams all around.
“……………Hah!” Phyllo’s instinctive reaction was to kick Lloyd as hard as she could.
Ka-thunk!
It happened so fast, Lloyd didn’t have time to dodge. He shot out the window behind him into the starry sky above.
“…I never expected to kick my master away.”
There was a tinge of regret on Phyllo’s face.
Meanwhile, Selen’s expression had gone eerily blank. She pointed at Riho.
“Get dressed.”
“Yes, sorry,” Riho whispered. She obediently donned her clothes.
“As punishment, we’re going to tie you up now.”
“Yes, sorry.”
Riho allowed herself to be bound hand and foot.
She was too mortified to sleep a wink anyway.
“Definitely bringing underwear next time…definitely…”
A change of underwear is a must-have for any traveler.
Kunlun was bathed in the dawn’s gentle sunlight.
Greenery was showered in the morning mist. Well, the plants looked like weeds, but they were actually medicinal herbs used to make a panacea. Eaten straight, they could numb your whole mouth and gradually paralyze your entire body, so you really needed to know how to handle them.
A flock of small birds flew past. Well, killing birds. Known as the piranhas of the skies, each of them alone was no real threat, but harm one, and the entire flock would come after you, pecking until not even your bones remained.
It was a peaceful morning…where one false step would send you straight to hell.
“Whoaaaaa, what happened to you last night?”
Her white coat gleaming in the morning sunlight, Eug rolled her lollipop around her mouth, looking from Lloyd to Riho.
“N-nothing.”
“N-nothing at all.”
This aroused Alka’s suspicion. “No! Something untoward happened without me noticing?!”
“Never fear,” Selen snapped. “It certainly wasn’t what you’re imagining. We tied her up to prevent that.”
The belt at Selen’s waist—Vritra—bowed apologetically.
“I cannot refuse an order from her. I hope it wasn’t too trying.”
“Nah, it was…pretty much what I deserved. Argh.”
Just the memory of it made Riho turn beet red.
“Well, then fine… So what do you all want?”
“Do I have to remind you again, Alka?! The restoration of my flesh and blood! If I remain in this unstable condition, I might well vanish forever! And then you’ll no longer be able to control your power! You might even break the seal on the Last Dungeon!”
“Oh, I remember now.”
“You have always been like this,” Vritra said, exasperated. “You never listen to anyone else! Even on our quest to save the world, you let critical information go in one ear and out the other! You even forgot information you personally gathered! No matter how many times I told you to stamp those documents, you never remembered! A poor example to the staff at large!”
Lloyd and Marie were confused by the sudden reference to stamping documents.
Eug hastily jumped in. “Well, here we are! Our destination!”
The top of a building peered above the surface of the ground, almost like a dungeon.
Crumbling white walls, revealing the iron within. The walls themselves weren’t natural stone, but some sort of gray brick.
None of them had ever seen anything built like this or the materials involved. They gazed at it in wonder.
“Is this a dungeon?” Selen asked.
“Yup, the final prison—the Last Dungeon.”
“Ugh, coming here always reminds me of my own weaknesses…,” Eug said gloomily.
“Last…?” Riho said. “That sounds like there’s crazy treasure in there! Are we going in?”
Alka grabbed her before she could take another step.
“This is where the demon lords slumber.”
“The…demon lords?” Riho yelped, thoroughly rattled.
She’d been traumatized enough by one the day before.
And Riho wasn’t the only one who shuddered at the thought. They exchanged nervous glances.
Oblivious to this, Eug offered additional details. “Dungeons are essentially prisons. The Last Dungeon is the most remote of those. They aren’t monster-and-treasure-filled lairs like you’re imagining.”
The look in Eug’s eyes made it clear she had a history with this place.
“We subdue or negotiate with demon lords whenever they threaten us and seal them away in here. Not all of them, and sometimes they escape…like Abaddon or the Erlking. The dungeons you all know are essentially camouflage meant to hide the Last Dungeon. We dwarves built them the world over, in this dungeon’s image.”
“Th-the dwarves made the dungeons?!” Riho yelped.
“And they got a bit carried away with it. Making dungeons became a way for dwarves to show off their skills. They got obsessed with designing traps and secret passages, and filled treasure chests with their crafts, daring people to find them. Artisan spirit at its worst.”
A shocking truth would definitely make any academic spray snot and assuredly surprised everyone here.
“Even if I told everyone, they’d never believe me,” Choline said.
“Certainly not,” Chrome replied, shaking his head. “You’d have to start by proving dwarves really exist. That alone would be considered an earth-shattering discovery.”
The question of why dungeons had traps and treasure in them had long been a subject of debate, but the existence of dwarves and Kunlun would be even more sensational news.
Meanwhile, Alka was staring grimly at the Last Dungeon.
“The Last Dungeon,” she said. “It is the duty of Kunlun villagers to subdue the demon lords that emerge from these depths.”
“I-it is?!” Lloyd yelped. “I’ve never seen one, but…demon lords sound real scary! I can’t even defeat a monster on my own, so I’d never stand a chance!”
He hadn’t realized it, but he had actually beaten a treant demon lord on his own. Everyone just let his self-esteem issues slide these days.
Eug pointed at Vritra. He flinched.
“Vritra is Kunlun’s—and Alka’s—guardian beast. Because she can deflect all damage to Vritra, Alka can control and abuse the power that emerges from the Last Dungeon without it destroying her.”
“Her power comes from the dungeon?” Riho asked. “What exactly is this place?”
“Curious?” Eug asked, grinning. “Something down there makes manifest that which people the world over, in the collective unconscious, assume to be true. Think of it as a world-scale rune. We’re using the ancient script and fairy tales to make the world perceive Alka as the priestess of salvation and Vritra as the guardian beast.”
Eug was rattling off a bunch of jargon, her lab coat swirling—but no one listening understood a word of it.
Realizing this could go on awhile, Marie cut in.
“So Master forgot how important this was, cut part of Vritra’s skin off, and made an apron out of it, thus causing this entire situation? What is wrong with you?”
“Eug forgot about it, too!” Alka protested. “It was her idea to cut part of his skin off!”
“Never mind that!” Eug said.
Everyone glared at her, but she ignored it.
“If Vritra vanishes and Alka’s power can’t be controlled—it’s already pretty unstable—then all someone needs is the key, and all the demon lords will come pouring out. Worst-case scenario.”
“The key?”
Eug scratched her head, looking at Alka. “What, did you not tell them? The Holy Sword. The one Azami tried to turn into a prize at the sorcery tournament.”
“Er…isn’t that super dangerous, then?” Marie said, looking guilty. She was the one who’d tricked Lloyd into pulling it in the first place.
“I dunno why it was pulled or who pulled it, but I think they also pulled all the hair out of that poor mayor’s head.”
Pretty sure he’d been bald to begin with. Had been since his early twenties, an extreme early onset of male pattern baldness… Well, that doesn’t have so much as a single hair of relevance to this story, so let’s just move on.
“What-a-mystery!” Marie said in a monotone, with a frozen grin.
Eug genuinely didn’t seem to care who’d pulled it out. She had a different question for Alka.
“Well, like that mayor’s hair, once it’s been yanked, it ain’t coming back—so where is it now?”
“I think it’s in safekeeping at the Azami castle.”
“Okay. Take good care of it.” Eug turned to Selen. “Bring the cursed belt… No, bring Vritra over here.”
“Uh, okay…”
Selen undid the belt’s buckles.
“Good-bye, Vritra,” she said tenderly. “Life with you was not at all bad.”
“Yes, yes, I regret that we must part, mistress! Beyond all measure!” Vritra insisted. Then, under his breath, he whispered, “…Freedom.”
The truth comes out. Oblivious to this, Selen was actually on the verge of tears. If Vritra hadn’t been a belt, he would have likely been crying, too. Tears of joy, that is.
Eug took Vritra from her and laid the belt out on some machinery she had set up.
Nothing about this seemed remotely occult—it was more like a production line, gears everywhere. When Eug touched it, steam started pumping out.
“Thanks…let’s begin the ritual to restore Vritra!”
This looked less like a ceremony than weapon forging. The gears started churning, clanking loudly.
“Thank you, Eug,” Alka expressed.
Eug removed some ingredients from a pouch. “We need meat… Snake was too much of a pain, so it’s just beef.”
She slapped the hunk of beef on the machines.
“And some purifying salt!”
Eug took a pinch of coarse salt and sprinkled it over the meat. This looked indistinguishable from basic meal prep, but no one dared point that out.
“Next, wrap the beef in the belt. Carefully, so it doesn’t lose shape or fall apart.”
The way she tied it looked awfully like tying a roast. Still, no one dared say anything.
“And then we add my special culture fluid and simmer over low heat…”
“Hold on a moment! Are you sure you aren’t trying to cook me?” Vritra said.
The amber fluid she was basting with sure looked a lot like soy sauce.
“Ya got me! Sorry, sorry.”
She didn’t look the least bit apologetic. Vritra protested, but since he was trapped in the belt, he was no more able to resist than a captured eel.
“You have always been—”
“Now here’s the real deal, Vri. Behave.”
With that, she blew something on him.
“Hngg…unh…”
The belt writhed like it had been struck by lightning.
Eug rewrapped the meat, then pressed it against something palm-sized and round, like an eggshell. It clearly wasn’t large enough for Vritra and the meat to fit inside, but…for some reason, they were inserted easily.
Eug produced some sort of machine—it looked like a vise—and began applying pressure. Steam billowed out of the device, obscuring the view.
“Blegh, what the heck is this?” Alka said. “Eug and her crazy gizmos…”
The dwarf emerged from the vapor cloud, wearing goggles. She grinned wide enough to flash her canines, tossing the egg from hand to hand.
“All done! Oh, Alka, c’mere a minute,” she urged, waving Alka over.
The egg-shaped shell in her hands was semi-translucent. There was a faint glow within.
“Mm? What? Need my help?”
“Yep, gimme your forehead.”
Grinning wickedly, Eug proceeded to flick Alka repeatedly.
“Ow! Owwwwww! Why does it hurt?! That actually hurts!”
Alka clutched her forehead, writhing in agony—like a rookie comedian trying to make a name for herself in physical comedy.
Eug bared her fangs again, laughing. “Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Didn’t expect you to be such a baby about it! But cool. I am a genius.”
“Not cool! Ohh…”
“Ch-Chief?”
Alka had gone limp, and Lloyd scrambled to catch her.
She would normally seize that chance to cop a few feels, but today she didn’t even try.
“Ugh, what is this? The perfect chance to grope Lloyd, but my body just feels all wrong…”
That clinched it. Everyone was now actively worried about her. Something was clearly wrong.
“The kid grandma…”
“The personification of sexual harassment…”
“My rival stalk—I mean, romantic!”
“……That pervert?”
“Baseless accusations!” Alka barked.
Really?
Eug looked around at each of them, smirking.
“She’s definitely weakened. I thought doing the ritual in proximity to the Last Dungeon would up the odds of success! The device that manifests the collective unconscious is effective. Oh, I’m positively shaking!”
“She’s…weakened?”
“Yup. This proves Alka’s connection to the Last Dungeon is completely severed. You wanna get some payback? Bury her in a ditch? Now’s your chance! She can’t fly or drop meteorites on you.”
“Payback? Tempting…,” Marie whispered, rubbing her hands together.
“You fool of a student!” Alka snarled. “You’re thinking, ‘Woohoo,’ aren’t you?”
“Hardly,” Marie insisted. “It was more of a ‘Hell yeah!’ Oh, whoops…”
She’d gotten a bit carried away and let the truth slip out.
“That’s worse, nincompoop! You might get away with it in the moment, but there’ll be hell to pay later!”
“Uh, from time immemorial, ancient witches have had a habit of chanting ‘Hell? Yeah…’ when they feel pity.”
“Mess with me, and you’ll know true pain!”
“…………Whoops.”
Marie had experienced enough of Alka’s punishments. She was already quivering like a frightened puppy.
Watching this, Eug did a few stretches.
“Whew, now then. We’re all done here—better head back. You’ve got an exhibition match coming up, right? Kind of a big deal for Azami, I hear.”
“Hngg, right…we’ve got to prep for that.”
“Looking forward to it myself!” Eug said. “Tomorrow, right? I figured I’d drop in. Got nothing else to do until Vri revives. You don’t mind, do you, Alka?”
She snapped her sucker against her teeth and gave Alka a look like an eager child.
“Since when do you care about things like that?” Alka asked, looking exhausted. “But well…you did help with the restoration, so I owe you this one.”
Alka glanced at Choline and Chrome.
Chrome nodded. “Yes, you’ve been a big help—we’d be happy to return the favor.”
“We threw the match together on short notice, so we got plenty of good seats left. We can hook ya up.”
“Ta,” Eug said, then turned back to Alka. “Oh, right, Alka—hate to bug you when you’re tired, but can we have a word?”
“A word?”
Eug was as energetic and cheerful as Alka was weak and worn out.
“Yup, yup! A few things to watch out for in your condition, when to expect the restoration to complete—just more of what was talked about yesterday. Don’t wanna do that with everyone listening, do we?”
“Hmm…right. Okay, everyone, Eug and I need to chat. You go on ahead.”
Everyone nodded and headed back to the village to pack up their things.
A rocky area a short distance from the Last Dungeon—the horned rabbits had hollowed out these rocks, leaving a network of tunnels, like an ant nest. Ordinary horned rabbits would never be capable of this, but Kunlun horned rabbits were way bigger. Their burrows were large enough for people to walk around in—a natural labyrinth where one false step spelled doom.
Alka and Eug were strolling through these tunnels together.
“Why come here to talk? Let’s get this over with so I can take advantage of my weakened condition and make Lloyd spoil me…heh-heh-heh.”
This last chuckle was totally in dirty old man territory.
“Do you remember?” Eug asked quietly. “We used to walk the halls of the lab like this, side by side, debating. Hard work, but rewarding.”
“I remember. Hardly a healthy way to live. I never realized how good the sun feels.”
Eug sighed. There was a trace of sadness behind it.
“You really did get addicted to the isekai slow life.”
“Mm? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We talked about it yesterday. Are you still against developing this world to the baseline standards we used to have?”
Alka scratched her head, making a face.
“This again? I thought I rejected the idea already. What do I need to watch out for in this condition? I don’t care about this dumb exhibition match, but I do wanna flirt with Lloyd.”
“Phooey.”
“What are you looking upset about? Y-you’re not after Lloyd, too, are you?!”
Eug scowled at Alka. This was clearly way off-base.
“Obviously not,” she snapped. “But clearly, we no longer think alike.”
An instant later, Eug gave Alka’s back a shove—with her foot.
Before Alka had time to react, she found herself in the air—falling.
“Uh…augh?! What the heeeeeeell?!”
Roll, roll…sliiiiiide.
It took her a while after hitting the ground to realize she’d been dropped into a pit.
She’d spent so long with superhuman power that she’d forgotten how much bruises and scrapes hurt. Her face crumpled in agony.
“Ah, sorry, sorry—that was a bit too high for you in this condition, huh?”
Eug was peering over the edge. Alka put a hand on her aching neck, glaring up at her.
“Eug! What was that for? This isn’t funny!”
“Not supposed to be. What I’m about to do is deadly serious.”
“Huh?”
“I’m gonna open the Last Dungeon and release the demon lords into the world! Get it?”
Eug spoke without a trace of guilt, like she was confessing to a minor prank. Alka was left gaping up at her, unable to process this.
“If I can seal your power for a day or two, I can easily open the Last Dungeon. I know where the Holy Sword is, after all.”
“No, wait! Don’t!”
There was a rumble as Eug began dragging the stone door closed.
Alka frantically tried to scramble up the slope but ran out of energy before she was even halfway up.
“You’ll never manage it with the power of a nine-year-old. You’ll just hurt your little fingers!”
“Why are you doing this? This is way too sinister to count as payback!”
“This isn’t payback—it’s a declaration of war. I’ve made up my mind to force this world to develop itself until it can control the Last Dungeon…or the device within. If we apply magic and runes to science and our old standard of life—we can avoid a repeat of history.”
“Eug! What are you talking about? How does that have anything to do with the demon lords?!”
“Plenty,” Eug said, grinning. She talked just like she always did—or like a grown-up trying to talk sense into a child. “If we want humans to absorb new technology like a sponge, we need the threat the demon lords provide. Drowning men will grab any straw that comes their way. And I’m gonna send them a nuclear submarine. If their lives are in danger, it doesn’t matter if the technology is completely unfamiliar; they’ll use and research the hell out of it. Alka, you know full well how much war drove progress.”
“Was Vritra’s restoration a lie? A fib you used to seal my power?”
Eug pulled the egg she’d put Vritra in out of her pocket, rolling it around her palm.
“Exactly! The knowledge I gained from sealing away demon lords the world over sure came in handy. I can make use of him whenever I need another card up my sleeve! Reminds you of those old monster-hunting games, right?”
Alka was looking quite pale now.
“You mean…so this is why so many demon lords were showing up? Go to hell!”
“Your true colors are showing through, Alka. I thought you were the priestess of salvation.”
Alka’s eyes radiated pure hatred.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Eug said. “I’m acting out of the deepest respect for you, Alka.”
“Eug…”
“But power or no power, if you get the Kunlun villagers to act, that’ll be a thorn in my side. I’ll need you to stay here for the time being. Don’t worry! My plan is flawless.”
“How can I not worry?! I can’t sleep in the dark! At least drop a night-light down here!”
“Are you not ashamed to admit that?”
“Not in the least!”
Some people just couldn’t sleep without a light on or on a different pillow…
Alka saw no shame in this at all. Eug looked down at her, an array of emotions running through her.
“Yeah, for all your talent, you never did have a sense of shame. Always slacking off. I couldn’t believe it when I found you napping on a park bench near the lab, surrounded by salesmen.”
“That’s got nothing to do with this! C’mon! We’re not some old bickering couple bringing up slights from our youth!”
Eug was clearly reminiscing, seeing someone else entirely when she looked at Alka.
“I was so weak then,” she muttered, almost to herself. “I would never have dared argue with anyone who outranked me. If only I’d acted and made that plan fail…I can’t forgive myself for being so powerless. The faster I can reject my past, the better.”
She started closing the door once more.
“Eug, do you really think this will make the world as it was? Do you really think you can control that power enough to turn our friends back to what they were?”
Eug was starting to get fed up. She poked her head through the small remaining gap.
“Like I said, my plan is flawless,” she snapped. “And I’ve found some reliable pawns. Wanna hint? ‘Heroes.’”
“Heroes… You mean Sou and Shouma?”
Those two were working with Eug? Alka was unable to conceal her shock.
“They’re both fixated on Lloyd. Once the world plunges into chaos, they’ll make him… Whoops, that part is best left secret.”
“Ah…I get it. One can’t wait to die; the other just loves Lloyd to death. That explains why the two of them are working together. Such a stupid idea…”
Eug stuck her tongue out. She’d said too much.
“Welp, Alka, failure is the mother of success. We’ve got nigh eternal lives, so the best thing we can do is some trial and error.”
“It’s not like I don’t get your point, but…”
Alka trailed off. Eug seemed to see right through her, going straight for the heart of the matter.
“You’re just scared to lose them, huh? The Kunlun villagers, the people you’ve met. You got comfortable living in this fantasy world. And Lloyd—he looks exactly like the one you lost.”
“……Don’t you dare.”
“I’m not stupid. I have a pretty good idea why you were studying the Last Dungeon, researching that system. And I know full well if it goes out of control again, it’s bye-bye to the world as we know it.”
Eug’s tone grew cheery again.
“So don’t worry! I’ll be fiiine. And if it all goes well, you won’t have to settle for Lloyd! We can make the real one!”
The hole was dark and chilly, but the words echoing through it were chillier still.
The door slid firmly closed.
“Eug! Eug! You fool! Don’t you remember how that confidence betrayed you before?!”
An incline like this would have been no problem before. She could have shattered that stone door like a cookie. Frustration and rage had Alka’s head spinning.
“You fool…Lloyd is Lloyd. The idea we could just…create people is what caused the accident in the first place… I don’t want that. I don’t want to lose any of them…”
There was a sob in her voice, but the only answer was the echoes rebounding from the depths of the chilly pit.
A while later…the guests from Azami were at Alka’s house, packing up.
“Well,” Choline said. “This place did nothing but shock us, but now that I’m leaving…I’ll kinda miss it. Wouldn’t have minded staying a bit longer.”
“You mean that?” Chrome asked, frowning.
“Well…the food was good, I guess. But having every meal made from ingredients that could pay for a house with a nice garden back home does sure shrivel the stomach. Once a year is about all I can handle.”
“Once a year, huh? I think it’s a nice village, with good people in it, but kids, grown-ups, and ladies alike are all such powerhouses. Being here really frays the nerves.”
Choline seemed to have rationalized it the way people do their annual vacation in Hawaii. On the other hand, Chrome felt like the one good citizen hanging out in a bar filled with hit men. He knew they weren’t actually trying to kill him but couldn’t shake the feeling that one wrong move would be his doom. The kind of party where no amount of booze can get him drunk.
“It was full of surprises, but a lovely place! I just have to find a way to get a bit more used to it somehow, and then I can live happily in matrimonial bliss!”
Nothing seemed to dissuade Selen for long. It was almost worthy of respect. On its own.
“…It was very educational. If I can marry Master, I know I can reach greater heights still.”
Phyllo was also impossible to dissuade. She seemed just as focused on making herself stronger as she was on Lloyd.
“…………After what he saw………how can I ever face him again…?”
The problem was Riho. Her greedy core was still there, but she’d fallen hard for Lloyd pretty fast. She’d occasionally let glimpses of a girl with a crush emerge from that hardened shell…but now mortification had overwhelmed all of that.
“Um, Riho? Seriously, what happened yesterday?”
Marie was the only other person Lloyd had seen naked. Unaware of this shared experience, she was worriedly peering into Riho’s face. Unable to tell her the truth, Riho just whispered, “Nothing.”
Eug came sailing in, white lab coat flapping, smacking on her lollipop.
“Oh, what’s going on here? If you’re not feeling well, an infusion of those leaves will help. Eat ’em straight, and their poison will make you numb, but steep ’em for three hours and you’ll get a potion that’ll cure any cold in one shot! They have the power of the world tree, so they’re super effective.”
“I’ll just go prune a bit!” Riho said, eyes turning instantly to gold coins. She dashed out of the room, found the housekeeper in the hall, and ran over to her. “Excuse me? I’d like to do some yard work to pay you back for letting us stay here.”
“Oh, Riho! Don’t worry, you’ve done plenty.”
“Please! Let me prune!”
Pruning negotiations were getting heated.
“Well, at least she’s feeling better… Hopefully she’ll be okay.”
Riho was really rocketing between greed and girly these days.
“Sorry I’m late! Was helping clean up.”
Lloyd had come in just as Riho wrapped up negotiations.
“What’s going on? Oh…R-Riho…”
“H-hi…Lloyd…”
““…………………””
Clearly, something had happened between them. Rom-com vibes were radiating in all directions.
“Oh, Geez! Seriously, what happened? Master! Masterrrrrrrrrr!” Marie started calling for Alka as if she were summoning the police…or maybe like a monster calling more of its pack into battle.
But nobody came.
“Oh, right…she’s weakened now. Normally, she shows up even if don’t call her…”
“We finished our talk ages ago,” Eug said, slurping her sucker. “I bet she’s hunting some medicine to heal that forehead flick or somethin’. Or gathering weapons and destructive magic stones in case you try and get revenge, Marie!”
“Everyone, cover your butts! Run for it!”
Marie grabbed the hems of her skirt, hoisting them up, and raced off toward the warp gate at full speed, abandoning all notions of elegance. She was only technically a princess.
“Maria—Marie! Sorry, I’m going after her. Choline!”
“Uh, yeah…I wanted to say bye to Merthophan, but—”
“Don’t worry, you’ll be back here soon enough,” Eug assured, not batting an eye. “Oh, and—”
She turned to Lloyd. Flashing her teeth at him, she said, “Can you go find Alka for me? I’m sure she’s in the house somewhere.”
“Oh, sure!”
“We’ll go on ahead… Okay, that takes care of that.”
Once she was sure Lloyd was gone, Eug declared her preparations complete and headed toward the gate.
With Marie racing rabbit-like at the fore, the Azami contingent bade their farewells to the villagers and hastily headed through the gate in the forest cave.
“Hmm, no matter how many times we go through it, I’ll never get used to this gate thingamajig,” Chrome said, like an old man who’d recently bought his first smartphone.
Eug slapped him on the back, grinning.
“Just you wait!” she shouted. “Soon enough, people will be using these gates to get around all over the world!”
“Th-they will?”
“Yup! It’ll make the whole world seem a whole lot smaller. Brace yourself!”
Eug seemed supremely confident, but everyone else just seemed floored. Like they couldn’t believe that would ever happen.
This reaction just seemed to please her.
“Sure, if it happens too fast, nobody’ll be ready. Gotta go one step at a time. Let people know what possibilities science and runes have to offer—and prove the need for ’em.”
This last turn of phrase struck Riho as slightly ominous.
However, Eug was busy doing something to the runes around the cave. Seeing her do this, Phyllo asked, “…What are you doing?”
“Mm? Oh, that’s a secret,” Eug said like a naughty child.
Phyllo looked confused.
Meanwhile, Choline was still upset she hadn’t said good-bye to Merthophan. She had her arms crossed, and her head was swaying from side to side.
“But he should have come to see us off himself! Where’d he go? We barely got a chance to talk…”
“You called?”
“Eeep!”
The man she’d just been talking about was suddenly in the frame with her.
He was wearing a straw hat and overalls—typical farmer clothes. He was standing at the back of the group, a bundle wrapped in cloth on one shoulder.
“M-Merthophan?!”
The sudden appearance of her crush rattled Choline, but she wasn’t the worst one.
“M-M-M-M—Huh? Why are you—D-d-d-d-did other Kunlun villagers—?!”
Eug. She was clearly yet another person whose entire character changed when she was surprised.
“No, just me. I packed up some daikon radish and onions for Mariauhhh…Marie, but saw her running off like a bat out of hell. I ran after her so fast that I forgot to drop my farm tools.”
He had a sickle and hoe with him. Eug looked very relieved and was soon back to her old self.
“Just you? Good. Okay…here I am, blowing off the job the villagers asked me to do to see this exhibition match. I was worried they’d caught me already. Thought my flawless plans were sunk before they even began!”
“Oh, sorry…well, I’m not gonna drag you back if you’re looking forward to it, but I’d like to head back myself.”
Eug winced.
“Sorry, but I closed the gate already. The rune we were using is gone, so it’ll be a while.”
“Huh?”
“Figured we could all use a break from Alka…I’d love to send you back, I swear! But if it’s just you…hmm.”
Eug trailed off, thinking.
“Hng,” Merthophan said. “I don’t want to let those fields go a day without tending them, but…I suppose I’ll just have to hope the villagers fill in for me.”
He shook his head sadly. Meanwhile, Choline was super pumped.
“W-well, welcome back to Azami! Take your time and enjoy yourself, Merthophan!”
Selen was looking all around, slowly realizing her love was missing.
“W-wait, Sir Lloyd’s not here!” she yelled, advancing on Eug.
Eug had been prepared for this one, though.
“Sorry, I left him behind to keep Alka quiet.”
“You whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!”
Selen’s screech echoed through the forest, but this was clearly all part of Eug’s plans.
“Just for a day, I swear! I rarely get a chance to slack off like this, so let me actually relax for a change.”
“…But…without exposure to Master, I’ll wither away…”
Phyllo hung her head. Her expression never changed, but the body language was clear.
Hmm?
Riho alone was remembering what Eug had said when they first met.
“Once I accept a job or research project, I can’t be still until it’s cleared away.”
That phrase was echoing around inside her—a nagging doubt. It rippled through her brain.
She wants to skip out on work and relax? That’s the opposite of what she claimed earlier. I mean, she does seem a little flighty. I could see her doing this on a whim…
But Riho’s doubts were drowned out by Choline’s cheer.
“Right! Well, if you can’t go back for now, Merthophan, come on! Let’s hit the town!”
Super happy to be with him, the female instructor smiled broadly and grabbed his arm—staking her claim.
“I’m still atoning,” he said, taking this all very seriously. “And don’t you have to prep for the exhibition match?”
Marie could take a hint, though. She clapped him and Chrome on their shoulders.
“Don’t worry about it!” she exclaimed. “Chrome’s a nice guy. He’ll handle it all.”
Chrome sighed. “You two are picking up the tab later,” he said.
“No, Chrome, if you need help—”
“That clinches it!” Choline interrupted. “Come on, Merthophan! You said you wanted to see what veggies are hitting Azami, right? Let’s go scope out the market! There’s shops on the main road and stalls on the South Side!”
She dragged him off. Selen and Phyllo watched them go as if they were wishing a classmate good luck with her date. It definitely was not a look you gave a teacher. Seeing Choline acting like an excited child had made Riho forget all about her nagging doubt.
Chrome’s square shoulders were heaving as he stifled a laugh.
Then he stopped, and his hands landed on Selen’s and Riho’s shoulders. Thick fingers were digging in. No escaping that grip.
Grimly, he growled, “So you’ve been recruited to help prep the match. That’s an order!”
““Uh…””
“We ended up taking yesterday off, so we barely have any time left. And I’m now down a worker. You’re the only people who can fill in. Please—I need your help.”
That gleam in his eyes was definitely a threat, not a plea. He bowed his head, but this seemed more like he was about to head-butt them if they disagreed.
“Uh, but I had stuff to sell and people to see…,” Riho said, trying to worm out of it.
Chrome wasn’t letting her off that easily.
“Finish that up this morning, and come help in the afternoon. You two? Are you free?”
“Anything to help distract from the sadness of Sir Lloyd’s absence.”
“………Could be a good workout.”
With Selen and Phyllo on board, the pressure was really on Riho.
“See? Your classmates are both in! You’ll be there, right? You will.”
Chrome’s grip on her shoulder tightened—adding a literal meaning to peer pressure.
Riho grimaced, but he nodded.
“Fine, fine…,” she accepted. “But I’ll make Choline pay me back for it later…”
“Allan’s moment of glory is approaching tomorrow! Your classmate’s moment to shine! Help him out.”
“………Allan’s definitely picking up a few tabs later,” Riho grumbled.
Behind them, Eug muttered, “………Mostly according to plan. Not a problem.”
The rustling of the leaves drowned out her words, and no one heard them.
Back in Azami, the group scattered in all directions.
Selen and Phyllo had nothing better to do, so they went with Chrome to start prepping for the exhibition match. Merthophan was dragged away by Choline toward the main road—like they were a couple.
Marie muttered something about thinking up a new way to prostrate herself to soothe her master’s anger once she recovered from her weakened condition and went back to her shop.
Riho muttered, “What a pain.” She was about to leave.
“Where you goin’?” Eug asked.
“I’m gonna cash in these killer piranha bones, then wander around for a bit…and I guess probably help them prep later. You, Eug?”
“Gotta few people to check in on, I suppose. Are you, like, hard up for cash?”
“Uh, no, not really… It’s more like old habits die hard at this point. Why?”
“That gauntlet’s mithril, right? I was thinking of buying it off you. Obviously, I’d heal the limb underneath pro bono…but no pressure. Just lemme know if you feel like it. Since you’re Alka’s friend, you can name your price.”
“You want my arm?”
“Mithril’s a valuable resource. And if your arm’s working right, you don’t need it, do you?”
A gauntlet, huh?
Something about this felt off to Riho. She elected to avoid answering for now.
“I dunno if being friends with her would work for me or against me. Maybe some other time.”
Eug didn’t press the point. “Cool. Not in a hurry on my end, either. See you around!”
She fluttered her fingers, flicked the sucker to the other end of her mouth, and left.
“…………She can heal me, huh?”
Could dwarves tell the exact condition of the flesh and blood arm underneath? Just by looking? Riho watched Eug go for a moment, then turned and headed for the materials exchange.