How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord: Volume 9

by Yukiya Murasaki

  “Whoa?! Rose, don’t poke my butt with your sword!” Shera wiggled and struggled, still clinging to Diablo.

  More! Face! Boobs! Boooooobs! Soft, warm, round!!!

  “Rose, you’re stabbing it, you’re stabbing my butt!”

  “Get away from Master!”

  Chapter 3: How Not to Go to a Feast

  The setting sun burned beyond the rubble of the gate, sinking below the hills in the distance. The soldiers and adventurers were treating the injured, carrying them off in stretchers. The heavily wounded were taken to the church, as were the corpses of the deceased.

  No one cheered for Diablo and his group. The only thing those who watched the battle with the Demon Overlord felt was terror. Diablo could tell from their expressions alone.

  They don’t see this as me defending them...

  It was like this even in the game. Diablo single-handedly defeated bosses that required large raid parties to overcome, but no one really praised him for it. As for the citizens of this world, their lives were on the balance, so they didn’t mock his efforts or make baseless claims that he was cheating. In that regard, things were better than his old world.

  Diablo went back to town with Rose and Sasara, Shera still hanging on him, when the pattering of footsteps reached his ears.

  “Diablo!” Klem waved to him with both hands. “You’ve done well to defeat the Demon Overlord!”

  “Y-Yes. Are you all right?”

  “Of course I am! This Demon Lord is a tough biscuit!”

  She was energetic, but there were countless cracks and scratches running along her skin, having previously been as smooth as porcelain.

  Edelgard was standing behind Klem. She’d been injured to the brink of destruction, but she was all healed now.

  “...Phew.” The exhaustion was obvious on her face. She reminded Diablo of an office lady waiting for the last train on a Friday. Rem was right behind her.

  “Amazingly done, Diablo... I think I’ve run out of ways to express my astonishment of you at this point.”

  He’d intended to reply in a pompous fashion, when he suddenly realized her face was pale.

  “What’s wrong, Rem?”

  “...Ah... It’s not as bad as it seems. I’ve been so nervous I seemed fine earlier, but the teleportation spell may have gotten to me. All the stress must have left my body the moment you beat the Demon Overlord.”

  “Still bad with vehicles, I see.” Though it was hard to say if a teleportation spell counted as a vehicle...

  Rem hung her head. “I’m sorry...”

  Diablo panicked internally. He didn’t think she’d get this depressed. It was times like these when his social ineptitude reared its ugly head! But, at the same time, a Demon Lord couldn’t go back on his words.

  Just as he was searching for what to say next, regional knights appeared, their metallic armor clanging. They were carrying a stretcher, Galford laying on it. His left hand was missing and his right hand was broken. There were traces of him bleeding from the abdomen, but the bleeding there was stopped. Compared to everyone else present, he was as pale as a corpse, making even Edelgard and Rem seem healthy.

  Galford craned his neck to look at Diablo, and parted his now purple lips to speak.

  “To think you defeated that Demon Overlord... It defies all imagination.”

  “Heh... He wasn’t even a challenge!”

  His leveling up, the swordmaster Sasara, the magimatic doll Rose, and the Magic Reflection ring. If any one of them were missing there was no telling how it would’ve ended. Since he won, however, he wanted to gloat as hard as he could.

  The other day, Galford had intended on taking Klem to have her inspected, but perhaps he thought facing Diablo was more dangerous than it was worth.

  “You are...” he started speaking, his lips curling. But, just as he was about to finish the sentence, his voice became so small Diablo couldn’t hear the rest of his words. The regional knights bowed once before carrying the stretcher away.

  “Didn’t you use a potion on Galford?” Diablo asked Shera, who still had her arms wrapped around one of his.

  “Yes, I did. But one only healed him so much. I wanted to use another one, but he said he didn’t need any more.”

  “Hm.”

  It appeared a warrior over level 100 couldn’t recover their full HP with an SR-rank potion. That said, an SSR-rank potion was too precious to use freely like that. Diablo had enough of those put aside in storage if he ever needed to use them on himself or those around him, but not enough to treat the injured in such a large scale war. If Galford wasn’t at risk of death anymore, the church would have to handle the rest. Diablo had absolutely no intent of becoming complacent and using those potions too freely, only to run out when he’d need them the most.

  †

  Hearing a woman’s shouts, Diablo turned his gaze in her direction.

  “Hurry! The war’s not over yet!”

  It was Laminitus. She was accompanied by engineer troops, with measurement tools in hands.

  “What’s going on?” Shera tilted her head quizzically.

  “...This battle isn’t over until they restore the gate and the barrier tower,” Rem explained.

  True enough, Faltra was currently in an exposed position. The Fallen were still to the west; they probably couldn’t believe the Demon Overlord was gone, but they may still be looking for a chance to attack. They still had seven grand turtles left as well, which could make for quite the menacing threat. Faltra would have to restore the barrier to hold back their attack.

  “How many days would it take to rebuild the tower?” Diablo asked no one in particular.

  “...It would take a year or two to rebuild a replacement equal to what was destroyed. But I think they’ll probably make a temporary one for the time being.”

  “Hmm.” Diablo nodded at Rem’s explanation.

  “...It should take three days to build a temporary one in that case.”

  “So if the Fallen make their move, it’d be within that time frame.”

  “...Yes.” Rem looked at Laminitus as she shouted instructions. “Now that the governor is injured, having Lady Laminitus, governor of Zircon Tower, in the former Demon Lord’s domain is quite encouraging. Normally she would hold no authority over the stationed troops, but that doesn’t matter much right now, given the situation.”

  “True.”

  For an organization that had fallen into chaos, Laminitus, who took the initiative without minding the little details, was an ideal presence to have around.

  Just as Diablo was thinking that, his gaze met with Laminitus’s. She closed one eye, sending a wink his way. He then remembered, once before, the night after he defended Zircon Tower from the Fallen, how she forced her way into his room and did...this and that, as a way of showing her thanks. The memory made Diablo go red in the face.

  “...What’s wrong?” Rem tilted her head, now standing next to Diablo.

  “Ah, no... It’s nothing.”

  Something similar happened in the elven kingdom, and Rem had caught him with his non-proverbial pants down at the time... She’d gotten seriously mad and gave him the silent treatment for a long while. That was the moment Diablo decided to stop getting carried away by these situations.

  Tearing his gaze away from Laminitus, he turned to look at the town, just to be met with the sight of a girl with a pair of bunny ears hopping out of a carriage. She had red, shoulder-length hair and was dressed in a rather revealing outfit. Despite this, she had the body of a young girl. This was Sylvie, the guildmaster of this city’s Adventurer’s Guild.

  “Hiya, Diablo! Everyone! Good work out there!”

  “It’s been so long, Sylvie!” Shera waved at her with a smile.

  Rem simply nodded wordlessly, while Klem, Edelgard, and Rose seemed expressionless.

  Sasara bowed her head politely. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m the thirteenth swordmaster, Sasara Graham.”

  “Yep, a pleasure to meet y
ou! I’m Sylvie!” Sylvie bowed her head back.

  Exchanging greetings with everyone else, Sylvie regarded Diablo again. “You really saved us! I thought we were done for when the gate collapsed!”

  “Hm.”

  “Oh? You’re not asking me where I’ve been until now?”

  “You were at the Mage’s Guild, weren’t you?”

  “Man, there’s really no fooling you, Diablo!” She smiled wryly. “You picked up on it so fast.”

  “If the Demon Lord’s army is attacking Faltra, it means they’re essentially fighting the Fallen-repelling barrier. The races wouldn’t be defeated anytime soon so long as the barrier remained.”

  “Yup, yup.”

  “But putting it another way, that means the Fallen had to have some countermeasure for the barrier. When Edelgard attacked last time, they had a Fallen infiltrate the city by inciting a member of the Mage’s Guild, and had that Fallen try to assassinate Celes.”

  It ended in failure, though. Being reminded of her past failure made Edelgard contort her face.

  “That made the Mage’s Guild cautious, which is why they asked me to protect her,” Sylvie said, snapping her fingers. “They had me keep Celes safe.”

  “Sounds like a valid enough decision.” Both the contents of the request and the person they asked for protection were apt.

  “We never thought they’d forcibly destroy the gate’s tower, though.”

  “...Is Celes safe?” Rem asked.

  “Yeah, but she was scared to death when the barrier was broken. But now she’s laughing it off, saying that since she’s free from the barrier, she has more freedom than she’s had in twelve years.”

  “...This is no laughing matter... But that said, after seeing Diablo’s overwhelming strength, I doubt the Fallen will dare attack us blindly.”

  “Ayup.” Sylvie then remembered something. “Oh, by the way... We’ve taken Emile in at the Adventurer’s Guild. He was seriously wounded, but there’s no risk to his life. He should be fine in three days tops.”

  Shera gave a relieved, “That’s good... I gave him an HP potion, but I wasn’t sure it was enough.”

  “Thank you, Shera. If you didn’t do that, he may not have made it.”

  “Hehe.”

  “...And the others?” Rem asked with a gloomy voice.

  “Hm...” Sylvie lowered her eyes at that question. “Eristoff and Grutas didn’t make it.”

  “...I see.”

  “There were quite a few casualties among the soldiers stationed at the walls and the regional knights... But, you know? When people heard an invasion by the Demon Lord’s army with a thousand troops was advancing, everyone thought the western side of the kingdom, starting with Faltra, would be reduced to ashes.”

  Not just Rem, but Shera and Sasara had serious expressions on their faces. While he didn’t outwardly show it, Diablo was listening carefully too.

  “You and your group protected us all, Diablo,” Sylvie said, looking him straight in the eyes. “Thank you. I thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.”

  †

  “Then I’ll be going back to Celes now. Can’t let our guard down now!”

  “...Can I join you?” Rem raised her hand at Sylvie’s words.

  “Sure, but why?”

  “...In exchange for my freedom, I promised to report everything to her.”

  “I see. I’d love to hear your report, too...”

  “...I refuse.”

  With that exchange, Rem and Sylvie made their way to the Mage’s Guild.

  “All right! Let’s go eat some biscuits!” Klem pointed to the south of the town.

  “Huhhh, but it’s so late! All the stores are closed,” Shera said, her eyes wide with apprehension.

  It wasn’t a matter of the time of day; with the Demon Lord’s army’s invasion and the collapse of the barrier, Fallen could flood the city at any time. No one had the leisure of keeping a store open at this crucial time.

  “Buuut I want to eat biscuits!” Klem kicked the ground in annoyance.

  “But everyone’s asleep...”

  “That’s not true! Look, it’s so lively out there!”

  Just as Klem said, the people in the streets were bustling like they were about to break out into a dance. They went from a critical situation, not knowing if they’d live to see another day, to the Demon Overlord’s defeat. The city had been saved. A similar situation had also happened in Zircon Tower.

  “Didn’t you stock up on biscuits?” Shera asked.

  “I ate them all already. I thought I’d have to fight Madness, so I ate them to psych myself up.”

  “Oh my~”

  “This Demon Lord worked real hard! And since I worked so hard, it makes no sense that I’m not getting any biscuits!”

  “R-Right.”

  “At this rate, my only option would be to reduce everything to ashes!”

  “No no no! You can’t! We’ll go buy some biscuits, but if the store’s closed, we’ll wait until morning, okay?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Diablo, I’ll be going to Petre’s,” Shera said, looking a bit bothered.

  “Hmm... I’ll join, then.”

  “That’s fine, but...you must be tired after all that fighting, aren’t you? Don’t force yourself. Look, even Sasara’s super sleepy.”

  “Hm?”

  Now that she mentioned it...Sasara was sleeping while standing up. She was leaning against Rose and positively snoozing away.

  “Zzz...Zzz...”

  “A-Ah, Sasara?”

  “Ah!” Diablo’s call made her eyes open wide with a start. “Ah, I’m sorry... I get sleepy as soon as it gets dark.”

  “Didn’t you stay up the whole night reading that book last time?”

  “Erm... I’m fine if I don’t have to fight so seriously, but... Aaaah.”

  Apparently, fighting with high-level martial arts was exhausting. Diablo himself was tired, too. To be on the safe side, he drank a potion to recover his lost MP, but since he’d been forced into a state of total suspense, he needed some rest.

  “Diablo group, rest.” Edelgard nodded. “Edelgard, protect Demon Lord? Protect!”

  “Don’t be foolish. Your makeup’s all gone, and your waitress outfit is ruined. Anyone can tell you’re a Fallen right now.”

  “Mmmrg...” She inspected her own appearance. Klem had healed her body, but her clothes were ruined from the Demon Overlord’s attacks, leaving her in a half-naked state that would’ve made it hard for Diablo to look at her if it were any brighter out.

  “...Weathering?” Edelgard tilted her head.

  “What are you, a plastic model?! Rejected!”

  Apparently working in some maid café knockoff filled her head with jargon she was better off not knowing...

  But even so, this wasn’t acceptable. Edelgard was with Diablo right now, and many had seen the battle earlier. However, if Edelgard were to go around town undisguised, it would cause a riot. Klem was apparently capable of changing her outfit at will; there weren’t even any marks of the previous battle on her clothes now. Her tail was folded inside her skirt and her horns were hidden under a hat. Her ears and eyes still seemed atypical, but she could pass off as something of a strange demi.

  “Edelgard, wait for us at the inn!” Klem ordered her.

  “Uuu... Under, stood.”

  Shera smiled bitterly at the spiteful glare Edelgard regarded her with. After that, she took Klem to Petre’s.

  “What should Rose do with this one, Master?” Rose said, carrying Sasara.

  “Ah... Carry her back to the inn. Is there a problem with that?”

  “An easy enough task.”

  “You must be tired too... No, I guess you wouldn’t be.”

  “Magimatics do not experience fatigue. Rose is, however, low on magical energy. Rose requires a quick charge to repair the damage inflicted during battle.”

  “Hm.”

  Diablo was a little surprised. He’d thought she
’d just leave Sasara on the ground after having fallen asleep on her. She did treat Sasara as an intruder when they met in the Demon Lord’s Labyrinth, but, maybe fighting back to back with the swordmaster changed her values somewhat?

  I might be changing the same way, Diablo thought.

  “Hmph...” Diablo felt his lips slacken into a smile. “You truly cherish Sasara, do you not, Rose?”

  “Of course, Master. Rose is required to automatically lock away all items above SSR rarity. In other words, Rose cannot discard them without permission.”

  “O-Oh.”

  She was treating Sasara like another item...

  †

  The celebrations were more festive than Diablo had thought. People were still working in the front lines to restore the barrier, and even though the Demon Overlord was defeated, no one proclaimed the fighting had ended. This world didn’t have smartphones or text messages, so the only ones who could have told everyone such news were the soldiers watching the battle. Thus, information regarding the life and death of everyone traveled from mouth to ear, however slowly.

  Those who heard of the victory ran out to the streets, dancing as they offered thanks to God. Older men walked shoulder to shoulder with any person they could find, even if they didn’t know their names, and offered them a drink as they sang marching cadences and the national anthem. People were exchanging high-fives and hugs with anyone they bumped into. Watching them filled Diablo with a sense of satisfaction over defending the town.

  Aaah, it’s a good thing I protected them.

  Drunk on the festive mood, some good-looking guy caught a random girl walking along the street, and, without giving her his name, pulled her in for a deep kiss. The girl didn’t seem dissatisfied by this, however, wrapping her hands around his back.

  Diablo’s fist shook as he grit his teeth at the sight.

  And now I’m feeling...much less inclined to save the races...

  “Master...” Rose moaned, her eyes shining. “That expression on Master’s face is...so good... Haa, haa...”

  “N-No... Peace is the best. Hm!”

  They’d arrived at the Peace of Mind Inn - Twilight, located in the western district. However, there was a crowd of people in front. There were other places like this along the main road where hops and businesses were holding lavish feasts to celebrate the victory.