by Fuse
“I’m going to take over this world, Clayman, and I want you to help me.”
“Heh… Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I like it. So that’s your request?”
“Yes. A job for the Moderate Jesters.”
“And what are your terms?”
“How does resurrecting Kazalim sound to you?”
It was beyond all expectations. There was no reason to refuse. The powers the boy displayed to him made it clear beyond doubt. He immediately accepted the job.
“I thought you’d agree to it. Now the world can be ours together. It’s gonna be one crazy place for us to live in!”
Seeing this boy, living life as if it was all some kind of wonderful game, Clayman honestly thought he could pull it off. There were obstacles in their way, massive ones, but that made it seem all the more fun. It seemed that way, but now, his mistakes had crumbled the foundation of their whole strategy. And after the boy had fulfilled his part of the bargain and revived Kazalim…
My thoughtlessness led to this. There is no defending me to him now…
Kazalim was alive and well, and he had no way to congratulate him. More just deserts for him. He had been ordered to sit tight and watch how things unfolded, and he ignored those orders for his own petty reasons.
The last thing he recalled were the words of the man himself—the advice his beloved demon lord Kazalim gave him.
“…Clayman. I see much of myself in you. And you may imitate me if you like, but do not imitate my negative aspects.”
It was wise, all too wise, and something he should have recalled quicker.
Ah… Sir Kazalim… I apologize. I forgot your advice, and I committed the gravest mistake possible…
Yes, it was Clayman’s mistake, made in the worst possible fashion. And just like Kazalim, he was defeated in the most shameful way—by a freshly born demon lord. Karma in action, one could say—but to Clayman, it hurt more than anything else.
And I even lost the army you granted me through my mistakes… I cannot die. No, I cannot die yet. If I die here without atoning for this at all, I’ll never be able to forgive myself…
If it had come to this, he at least wanted to pass on what he knew. The thought kindled the light of life in Clayman before he could completely resign himself to his fate.
“You are a walking dead, created by me from a dead body, but I have placed special weight upon your brainpower. You are not geared for combat, unlike Footman and Teare, but no one can use strategy and artifice to command armies the way that you can. That, Clayman, is why you shall become a demon lord…”
Kazalim had high hopes for him, and he betrayed them all. But if it was power he lacked, all he needed was to obtain some. Then he could stand tall with Footman and Teare—surpass them, even. If only Clayman had some power to back up his intelligence, he could’ve sprung past them all with ease.
Yes… Yes, indeed. There was no need to awaken to a “true” demon lord at all. So give it to me. Give me power… Give me the overwhelming power I need!!
Confirmed. Converting the soul into magical energy… Successful. Disassembling and reconstructing the receptacle body…
Clayman wasn’t expecting the internally shouted wish to come true. But the World Language had other plans for him. Right here, at the last moment, his wish had been granted.
So heaven hasn’t forsaken me yet!
In which case, Clayman’s answer was obvious.
Heh…heh-heh-heh… So you treat me like a fool? Well, I’ll repay you for all that. For now, though, I’ve got to get out of here…
He was weak, too weak to even use his voice, but Clayman’s soul was burning bright—his life was a raging flame. And now, with a coolness that was quite the opposite of what was in his heart, Clayman resolved to retreat. The older demon lords—Guy, Milim, and Daggrull, in particular—were too much to handle. Simply awakening wouldn’t give him the winning edge against them, and now was no time for recklessness.
First, he would report back to the boy. That took precedence over everything. The despicable slime he looked down upon was still a question mark, but even the magic-born that served him were stronger than Clayman—and he was on good terms with a revived Veldora, a point he couldn’t afford to ignore. Anyone who survived a confrontation with Hinata couldn’t have done so out of sheer luck.
He needed to abandon his rose-colored glasses and analyze things for what they were. And that was why he had to take the information he learned here and bring it back.
Quickly, he assembled a plan. His idea: to release a massive ball of magical force, as much as he could manage, and slip out of this chamber in the chaos.
I will need to watch out for Guy…
Guy had no time to deal with weaklings. He probably wasn’t even paying attention to Clayman any longer.
…It’s all right. I’ll get out of here, I promise.
And if he could take out a few demon lords along the way, he thought as he scrambled to his feet, all the better.
Among the demon lords watching, I was probably the first one to notice. I had my eyes on Clayman the entire time, never giving up the watch.
“Shion, get back!”
Quickly heeding my command, Shion fell back to my side. Immediately after she did, the area around Clayman—including the spot she stood on—was swept over by a huge quantity of magicules. The storm gathered even more energy from the chamber, focusing itself squarely upon Clayman. If I had yelled out a moment later, Shion would’ve been caught up in it.
“Looks like it’s really happening.”
“Sir Rimuru? What is…?”
The sight of me keeping my cool appeared to relieve Shion. There was no reason to panic. And I wasn’t panicking, buuuut…
“Clayman’s awakened. Just as planned.”
“Just as planned? Well, great!”
I was glad to earn Shion’s full trust, but I wasn’t quite so assured myself. This is all according to Raphael’s plan, but are we really okay with this? ’Cause if we lose, it’s gonna stop being funny real fast…
When I first laid eyes on Clayman earlier, I could see a large number of rifts in the air around him, as if they were attached to his soul. It was malice personified, the remains of the souls from the people he had killed up to now. But I couldn’t just take them from him. They couldn’t go on to the afterlife, and they couldn’t dissolve into the air. If I killed Clayman, they’d go down with him.
As I thought over what I could do about this, Raphael suggested a plan of action: force Clayman into a corner and make him awaken to a “true” demon lord.
Suggestion. If you use Belzebuth to consume the energy Clayman releases upon awakening, it will be possible to restore your magicules.
It was easy for Raphael to say, but there was a litany of problems with that. I didn’t know if Clayman would awaken, and if he did, he’d undoubtedly be powered up. But hey, um, wouldn’t he just fall asleep, like with my Harvest Festival?
Understood. Since Clayman’s evolution did not follow the standard procedure, the process will not be fully complete. As a result, it is believed that he will not require sleep.
So sort of a limited power-up, then. I guess I’ll just have to defeat an awakened Clayman, then.
According to Raphael’s predictive calculations, defeating him would be a breeze no matter how much he was enhanced. That was based on everything from his core strength to the power he could earn and the skills he was likely to acquire. Even at the maximum threat level, its answers indicated I was still on top of him.
No point worrying about it, then. Just gotta do it.
Besides, it was kind of true that my magical energy was just about ready to bottom out. I could replenish it really fast, so it’d bounce right back after deploying a large-scale spell, but restoring it to full actually took a while. Although I had more energy than my awakening took, I was also using Veldora this whole time as a fuel tank to restore it. With him no longer part of me, it was natural to want to keep my own magicu
les topped off.
It’d also earn me some street cred with the other demon lords. As the new recruit, I needed to seize a seat at the round table with my own power. Showing off my battlefield skill was the best way to earn their acceptance without stirring up trouble in the future. If I didn’t want ’em wheedling me later, I wanted them to think that I shouldn’t be messed with.
Let’s use this awakened Clayman to show off my power. It’ll save everyone a lot of trouble as time goes on. And the power to show off? The ultimate skill Belzebuth, Lord of Gluttony, of course.
“Hey! Rimuru! Clayman’s awakened? I can’t believe it, but look at all that force! Let me help with—”
“You’re fine, Carillon. I’ll take him on. I’m calling myself a demon lord, and I want to earn my way into the club. I’m gonna dispatch him and make them all accept me!”
Carillon shrugged and stepped aside. “Well, don’t blow it,” he said, and I definitely didn’t intend to. The enemy had to be crushed—that was the only reason I needed. I was more pissed off at Clayman than anyone else. It was time to settle this.
So I walked toward Clayman, now fully on his feet. The other demon lords were content with watching, seemingly all right with me fighting alone. I was sure they wanted to gauge what I had, so I assumed they wouldn’t complain. Milim was brightly smiling at me, and Ramiris was happily humming to herself. Nobody was doubting my chances—which I took as them believing in me.
“Shion, Ranga, step back.”
“But…!”
“I’ve got this.”
“Y-yes sir!”
“Good luck, Sir Rimuru.”
The other lords gave them enough distance to retreat away so that I wouldn’t unwittingly hurt anyone else.
Now I was alone, and Clayman gave me his sickly little laugh. “Heh-heh-heh, ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaah! Look at me! I’ve obtained the power! You thought I was finished, you worm! Now prepare to be crushed!!”
The laughter grew louder as he looked down at me. But it was all an act. It was sad, how well Raphael had predicted all his moves.
As it described matters, there were two potential strategies Clayman could take. One was a desperate bull rush to kill me; the other was to sneer at me, make me lose my cool, and search for a path of escape. Evidently, he chose the latter, and that meant I knew what he’d do next.
I grimaced at him, keeping my eyes firmly on every move he made. Clayman was looking for an opening. So I played along with his performance.
“I told you, you’re cornered. I’m stronger than you. Give it up and tell me whose bidding you’re doing.”
Of course, in my case, it wasn’t a performance—it was what I really wanted from him. Perhaps that was why Clayman so easily took the bait.
“Heh-heh-heh… Impertinent to the end, I see. Once I release my—”
He kept up the act as he suddenly took action. He must’ve figured I was off my guard, because he fired a massive ball of magical energy from out of nowhere. Must’ve been building it up as we talked. It was a huge, superpowered blast, one that contained all the energy he had just awakened into, and it was hurtling straight my way.
Clayman assumed I would dodge it. That or maybe fire off a blast of my own to neutralize it, although a spur-of-the-moment spell like that from me wouldn’t be enough. If I jumped away, it’d explode in midair; if I tried blowing it up, he’d be able to escape in the resulting gigantic explosion. That, I imagine, were his thoughts.
Too bad, though.
“Didn’t I just tell you? You’re cornered. That attack won’t do a thing. Projectiles don’t work on me.”
Belzebuth gobbled up that massive energy blast, leaving our surroundings completely unaffected. Clayman’s scheme bit the dust hard.
“…Whaaaa?!”
It surprised Clayman enough to leave himself open—just long enough for me to snap my fingers. At that instant, a Barrier erected itself over the two of us, a kind of imitation of the one Guy built.
“So he’s stealing my skills?” a bemused but unangered Guy asked. “Talk about shameless.”
Now, I calmly thought, I can consume Clayman with confidence. Man, my thought processes are getting more and more evil by the day, aren’t they? Because I’m a monster, maybe? I wasn’t shirking the idea of eating him up at all. Or was it because I’m a demon lord now? Ah, it doesn’t matter.
“Wh-what? What happened…?”
Clayman could no longer hide his confusion. The biggest, proudest attack he had was wiped away in an instant, and his brain hadn’t caught up to that yet. Like, how many times do I have to say it? You’re already cornered. The moment someone with your level of talent took me on, your future was cast in stone. It’s so important, isn’t it, to fully gauge your abilities against those of your opponent?
“Look, if you’re gonna be serious about this, make it fast. I’ll wait for you. Or were you thinking about ducking out of this chamber while that attack exploded all over us?”
It was a fully rhetorical question I was cornering him with. Talk about disrespecting your fellow man. Well, I’m a slime now, so it’s all right.
I mean, Clayman was still screwing with me. He was on high alert, watching for what I’d do next, but he was still a wimp about it.
Just as Raphael expected, getting awakened didn’t do all that much to change him. He had a ton more magical energy, but that was it. Apparently, he hadn’t obtained any ability to control it or new skills to take advantage of it with. His “awakening” was a far different thing from mine. Me, I could use Mind Accelerate to speed up my brain a million times until it felt like time stopped. I could even cast spells in that state, making it look like I could just think of a magic spell to set it off.
Kneading together a big ball of magic was a terribly inefficient use of my time, so I didn’t opt for that here. Unlike a full spell, which could be conceived and cast through one’s will (or knowledge, in other words), controlling one’s aura always led to a time lag. Of course, I could handle that because I had Cast Cancel and All of Creation. No matter how long and intricate a spell was, living life a million times slower than normal made it simple. One second, after all, now felt like two hundred and seventy-seven hours. Even the fanciest of spells could be pulled off in less than a day, so that meant I could trigger them in less than a tenth of a second. With regular magic, it was simple for me to set off multiples at the same time, even.
Thus, if I were in Clayman’s shoes, I’d use multiple layers of magic to throw the chamber into confusion, then attempt to run as fast as I could. He didn’t choose that, which meant he didn’t have the strength for it. He hadn’t even noticed that I built a barrier around us—one that cut off any escape route. If he wanted to get out, he’d have to do it over my dead body.
Whether he was aware of this or not, the atmosphere around Clayman began to change.
“Heh…heh-heh-heh… A mere slime with a big mouth, I see. You are strong, I will admit that much. But I am capable of far more than this!!”
He had changed tactics to the first scenario—a desperate bull rush to kill me. Giving up the escape, revealing his full force to the demon lords… A risky bet, to be sure, but it gave him a winning chance. Surrounded by a bunch of lords who believed that strength was everything, it’d even be a chance to write off all his previous crimes.
Assuming, of course, he could beat me.
“You seem confident in your aura-control abilities, but do you think you could deal with this? Here we go—my most powerful hidden skill! Demon Blaster!!”
After that long speech to throw off my game, he put his feelers to the ground, stretching them out around me, and then released.
The attack harnessed the ley lines under the ground, stacking them together and mixing in his own magicules to amplify them, then released it as a destabilizing ray of light. That was the long and short of it, and anyone caught in it would have their arrangement of magicules thrown into chaos, destroying them from the inside. Physical resistanc
e would be useless, and even a magical Barrier would be instantly smashed.
This was the natural enemy of any monster, and I had to hand it to him—this was real demon lord stuff. But it didn’t work on me.
“Swallow it all down, Belzebuth…”
The Demon Blaster light beam looked like a herd of dragons rising up from the ground—but now they were caught up in a rift before they could reach me, screaming their last as they were sucked inside. There was no escape, almost like a black hole that consumed all light around it.
“Forget it, Clayman. You’re weaker than me.”
I had to crush him. Crush him and hopefully make him reveal something about his patron. The best way to do that was via terror.
“No… That, that’s not possible!! That—that was my secret weapon!”
Secret or not, projectiles just didn’t work on me. Maybe if he used his head and did something to land a direct hit on me, things would be different.
“Do you see that you can’t win now? So let me ask you. Tell me what you know and who you’re cooperating with. Be honest with me, and I’ll give you a painless death.”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-haaa! I am a walking dead! Kill me all you want; I’ll just resurrect myself and come back later to kill— Ounngh?!”
I punched him. Then again, and again and again, without a word. I also applied Mind Accelerate, speeding it up a million times for him. Raphael could influence not just my perspective but those of people around me.
In the real world, it lasted several seconds. But in Clayman’s mind, I was continually punching him, tormenting him with pain and terror, for several dozen days. So I could carve that pain and terror into his soul. And in those few seconds, the terror made Clayman’s hair fall out, transforming his visage into the ghastly, bony gaze of the actual dead.
“Clayman,” I quietly called out.
His body convulsed, then froze out of terror.
“I’m going to ask you one more time. Who are you getting your information from, and how is this person related to you? Tell me, and I’ll make it easy on you.”