“I don’t know what’s going on, but she’s just a kid. If we have to, we can bring out Akuto Sai and have him play with her for a while.”
“Smart thinking, gyah,” Kanna agreed. “Fine, gyah. We’ll help you, gyah.”
Kanna put Monami down and brought a hand to her chest.
“Help me?”
“That’s right, gyah. We’ll take you to Akuto Sai. And fight with you, gyah!” Kanna said confidently. They could punch Akuto Sai as hard as they wanted, and it wouldn’t matter. And when she saw the fight, Monami might even be convinced that the Demon King was defeated. At least, that was what they’d thought, but...
“Let’s go, then! Follow me!” Monami started to walk away, as if she was the leader and expected the others to follow her.
“We said we’d show you to him,” Kanna said, but Monami was unmoved.
“We have to do this in order, though. I know where his servants are. We just don’t need any experience now, cause you guys are really strong,” Monami said as she started to lengthen her stride. The trio started to follow her.
“Huh? You know where his servants are?”
“That’s right, gyah. Of course, I looked it up! Now follow me, my servants!” Monami began to happily wave her sickle as she walked.
“Wait...where are we going?”
“To the Demon King’s servants.”
Monami was heading towards an ordinary residential area.
“How’d we end up here?” Michie asked, confused, as Monami stopped in front of what looked like a small apartment.
“What? Is this the place, gyah?” Kanna asked. Monami said nothing as she walked to the front door. She picked up a small brick that was lying on the ground and smashed it into the window. CRASH!
“Gyah!”
“Aaah!”
There was a loud shattering sound, followed by Kanna and Michie shouting in surprise.
“What the hell was that for?” A man in a baggy shirt came to the door. His head was shaved. Even his eyebrows were shaved. He was clearly a man they wanted nothing to do with.
“R-Run, gyah!”
“T-This guy is bad news!” Kanna and Michie started to flee, but before they could, Monami had sprung into action.
“Wooh!” Monami let out a strange shout. The next thing they knew, her sickle was embedded in the head of the skinhead man.
“Gyaah!”
“Aaaah!”
Kanna and Michie screamed again, louder this time. Blood was streaming from the skinhead’s head. The sickle hadn’t dug in very deep, but the blood was flowing freely.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the skinhead howled. Kanna and Michie looked around to find a place to flee. But Arnoul simply said, “Gugah” and pointed towards the road. There was more bad news waiting. A man was running at them with an angry look. He was the man who Monami had attacked at the café.
“...Are they friends?”
“T-That’s not good, gyah...”
By now, the skinhead had grabbed Monami and lifted her off the ground.
“Lemme go! You jerk!”
“Shaddup, you stupid kid!” The skinhead was incredibly angry. It was clear that if they didn’t intervene, something awful would happen to Monami.
“D-Do we wanna fight, gyah?”
“I-I dunno...”
Sweat was pouring down their foreheads. It wasn’t that they didn’t think they could win. But fighting somebody in the middle of town was something that they hesitated to do, if only for fear of how it would look on their permanent record. But in that quick instant, Arnoul was already on the move.
“Gugah!” She quickly grabbed Monami back, and then knocked away the sickle, which the man had pulled out of his head and was preparing to stick at Monami’s throat.
“Tch! Who the hell are you?” the skinhead yelled as he stuck out his right hand. A light shone within it as a mana ball flashed towards Arnoul.
“Gugah!” Arnoul easily knocked it away, but the fact that he’d used magic was enough to spur Kanna and Michie into action.
“If they attacked in town, they must be black mages, gyah!”
“That means we can do whatever we want, long as we don’t go too wild!”
The two of them nodded, and then broke off, one running right and the other running left.
“DOGYAAAHN!” Kanna turned her right hand into a beast’s paw and blasted the skinhead away with a single strike.
“GOOO!” Michie created a whirlwind that swept the running man off his feet, and then in an instant got behind him, striking him with a chop in the neck. The man passed out instantly and slumped to the floor.
“If they’re black mages...”
“They really were bad news.”
Michie and Kanna looked at one another.
“Gugah,” Arnoul said as she let Monami down to the ground. “Gugah gugah.”
“Huh? What are you trying to say, gyah?”
“What Monami’s saying is, in a way, true?”
“Gugahgugaah.” Arnoul began to summarize what she’d heard from Monami. Everyone on Monami’s list of “servants of the Demon King” was part of a nasty plot to steal land from some farmers.
“And yer sayin’ Monami’s home is one of the ones they’re trying to steal?”
“But all we have to do then is turn them over to the knights, gyah,” Kanna said, relieved.
“Dat’s right. That stuff about the Demon King’s probably just a bluff they used to scare the farmers. If they’ve been breakin’ da law, this is easy. Anyway, we’ve got time now Let’s call the knights, send Monami home, and we should still have time ta grab pizza...”
“Gugah.” Arnoul cut her off.
“Huh? It’s not that easy?”
“Gugahgugaah.”
“The knights are being bribed? And these guys aren’t even real black mages, just a group of criminals?”
“Oh jeez, gyah.”
“I guess we can’t just send ’er to the Knights then, can we? Come to think of it, there actually aren’t any nights in dis town who the President hasn’t punched out.”
“Even without the bribery, they probably wouldn’t be happy to see us, gyah. And the Knights won’t want to go after these guys without at least some preparations... which means...”
Michie and Kanna’s faces began to turn gloomy.
“W-Well, we can at least call the cops, gyah? And then... go home?” Kanna forced herself to smile. But Michie didn’t.
“We can’t do that. They’ll go ta Monami’s house ta get revenge.”
“That’s right, gyah. Which means...”
“We need to handle this ourselves,” Michie sighed.
“Gugah.” Arnoul pointed behind them. The man Michie had defeated had gotten up and was making a telepathic call to someone as he fled.
“This just got a lot worse, gyah. We’re gonna have to hit their base, gyah.”
“Monami, take us to yer home. If you don’t, the bad guys will destroy it.”
○
“So dis is yer home, Monami?”
“It’s... um... I’mma be honest. It’s a dump, gyah.”
“Gugah.” Even Arnoul agreed. The plot of land it was on was pretty big, but the building at the center was a large, single-story house. It must’ve been quite impressive in its day, but that day had come and gone a long time ago. There was a sign near the door that said “Sasahara Inn,” but it looked more like a haunted mansion than an inn.
“I can see why somebody’d want to steal the land, gyah,” Kanna said as she looked around. The place was in the middle of the city, an oasis of greenery surrounded by grey. It was like having your own big nature park.
“If they forgot about running an inn and opened a restaurant, they could make a ton of money.”
“No matter what they try, it doesn’t work. The only thing they ever get to eat is the vegetables I grow,” Monami pointed out at the side of the mansion. There was a well-tended garden there.
/> “Why does nothing work, I wonder, gyah?”
“Now’s not da time fer dat. This place is gonna be a pain to defend.”
The three of them were veteran warriors. They knew instantly that this place wasn’t going to be easy to protect. The enemy could hide among the trees, get close, and set fire to the building.
“Yeah, this is gonna be tough, gyah.”
“Gugah.”
As the three of them talked, a friendly looking couple came out of the inn. It was a plump old woman and a frail, thin man. They looked like a perfect couple.
“Monami!” The woman ran towards them.
“Oh, um, ’bout dis...” Michie opened her mouth, but before she could, the woman bowed.
“Yes, thank you. You’re with the Academy, right? You brought her back like we asked. I don’t know what got into her. She just ran off and said she was going to defeat the Demon King...” The woman seemed to know what had happened to her Liradan. But she probably didn’t know everything.
“Um, well, about that, gyah...”
“Yes?”
“Um, those servants of the Demon King that Monami went after... Well, they’re not really that, but um... she kind of ticked them off,” Kanna said hesitantly. The woman didn’t seem to understand though.
“Hmm... I see.”
“It’s um... kind of a big problem... Basically, some bad people are coming, and they’re gonna burn your house down, gyah.” When Kanna said it that bluntly, even the old woman was able to understand.
“What? W-W-What do we do?”
“We’re gonna have to fight, gyah. We’ll handle it, but we need you to hide somewhere in your home, and keep Monami with you. If you don’t keep an eye on her, she’ll try and join the fight,” Kanna said, handing Monami over to the woman. The woman bowed as Monami grabbed her and clung to her waist.
“I... I don’t know what to say.”
“You can thank us later. For now, get inside da house,” Michie said. The couple started to walk inside, taking Monami by the hand and bringing her with them.
“Now... Let’s see what they do.”
“Gugah.”
“Yeah. They’ll figure it’s faster to destroy the house than try to threaten the family, gyah.”
“No matter whose fault it really was, da fact is that we hit them first. Dey’ll be willing to go pretty far. And dey might figure that the knights won’t come after them over one arson.”
“But they’ve seen our faces, gyah. If revenge is their priority, they’ll pick a fight with us before they try to burn the house down, gyah.”
“Gugah.”
“They might try to set fire to the house to lure us out, huh? It’s dangerous, but we’re gonna have to to stay stationed around da house...” The three made their decision. Just as they did, they felt a powerful presence among the trees.
“They’re here, gyah.”
“Split up!”
“Gugah.”
The three of them each ran off in different directions. The sun was just beginning to set. A shot from an incantation gun marked the beginning of the battle. Kanna, who was at the rear gate of the mansion, was the target.
“Explosion magic!” Kanna was caught off guard. She was able to dodge the bullet itself, but was caught up in the ensuing explosion. A shockwave ripped through the air as the smoke enveloped her. The black mage who’d fired the shot walked out of the trees, holding the gun at his side, to see what effects his shot had had. But when the smoke cleared, he didn’t see Kanna lying on the ground. Instead he saw a huge, four-legged wolf creature.
“What the hell?” The black mage let out a cry of surprise.
“...If that’s how you wanna play this, then I’ll go full power from the start, gyaah!” Kanna howled and quickly leapt at the mage, knocking him over and sending his gun flying. But when the other black mages saw this, they changed their strategy. They began to circle around her, firing mana balls and incantation guns from the trees.
“Gyah gyah... I know it ain’t easy to kill an academy student, but that doesn’t make it okay to use weapons that would put us out of the game for good, gyah...” Kanna sighed, then speedily jumped off one tree trunk and landed on another, taking down three black mages in mid-air with a single strike. But the attacks on her didn’t let up.
“...Looks like their goal is to take us out first, gyah.” Michie was feeling the same as Kanna.
“The President must’ve come after these guys before...” The knights and criminals in the city all called Lily Shiraishi the long-armed demon. She’d gotten the name from her habit of stretching out her arms and punching anybody she didn’t like. Of course, both the knights and criminals hated her, and it was no stretched of the imagination to assume that they hated her trio of flunkies as well.
Just like Kanna, Michie was having a rough time of it too. Her mechanical bats should have given her a powerful advantage in conditions like these, but some of the black mages had more combat experience than she’d expected. They’d noticed the bats’ weakness and began to fire off magical supersonic jamming waves. Now Michie could only control the bats in her field of vision.
“If I bring the bats back, I can protect myself and the house, but...” Michie herself was hiding behind the mansion’s incinerator. She wasn’t under attack herself, but it didn’t make much difference. The enemy had more people than they did. If this dragged out, it was going to get worse. “Dis ain’t good...”
Arnoul was struggling, too. She’d been forced to go head to head against some heavy equipment the black mages had brought: a power excavator.
“Gugahgah.” Arnoul had wrapped her arms around the excavator’s shovel to keep it from going further, but even with all her strength that was all she could do. And more black mages had surrounded her from a distance, and were firing at her with mana balls and incantation guns. She was using a defense field to protect herself, but the mana was draining fast, and she couldn’t block all the shots.
“Gugahgahgah... Gugah!” Arnoul screamed. The excavator began to flail its shovel to the left and right. With so much of her mana going to defense, Arnoul couldn’t stop it. The shovel picked her up off the ground and flung her into the air.
“Gugah!”
When she hit the ground, though, she landed on something soft. She looked around to see that Kanna and Michie had been thrown to the same spot.
“Ugh... T-This ain’t good, gyah.”
“Mebbe... mebbe we better just focus on survivin’...”
“Gugah...”
The three of them looked at each other with muddy faces. But before they could do anything, they were surrounded by nasty looking black mages.
“You’re gonna regret getting involved in this, girlies.” A man with a white suit and a pompadour, who seemed to be their leader, walked to the front. When the three of them said nothing, he continued.
“I don’t want to make this too big of a deal, but you are gonna have to pay for this. We won’t kill you, but we will get some screams out of you at least.” He jerked his head towards his men. Three of them walked forward and grabbed the girls by the hair, yanking them to their feet.
“They may have brought help. Break down the door to the inn and search the inside.”
Several of the men started to kick the door.
“S-Stop...” Kanna moaned, but another of the men punched her in the stomach to shut her up.
“Gwaah...”
The humiliation hurt worse than the pain.
“Shut up. We’re not going to kill you. But you know, I thought the President would be here, so I brought enough men to fight a war. I’m glad she wasn’t. Even if you called her now, it’s too late,” the man in the white suit said, just as the door was broken down with a final kick.
“Ugh... We should’ve called the President when we came here, gyah.”
“We couldn’t, we were skippin’ work...”
“Sob... To think all this happened because we wanted to eat a pizza...”
The three of them were crying, but nobody was listening. Except one person.
“Well, this isn’t good. No matter what I do, I’m not going to feel good about it.” The black mages turned around to see who had spoken.
“Don’t be such a pussy!” The man in white yelled, thinking it was one of his men, but when he turned around, he froze.
“W-What... It’s the real one!”
“The real one...?”
The black mages began to panic. The person he was referring to frowned.
“If it’s that big of a surprise to you, I would’ve preferred you never used my name to begin with.”
“Huh? Then...”
The black mages began to back away from him.
“Y-You morons! Don’t let him scare you, or we’ll have no hope at all!” The man in the white suit pointed at the boy — Akuto Sai — and then made a motion with his hand for the other mages to take the girls hostage. The black mages pointed their guns at the girls’ heads.
Akuto frowned again. “Like I said, I’m not gonna be happy no matter what happens...”
In the next instant, the men’s arms began to flail out to the sides, like their bodies had started moving on their own.
“H-Hey... What the hell are you doing?” The man in the white suit was scared now.
“I-I dunno... it’s like somethin’ grabbed our arms!”
The man in the white suit turned back to look at Akuto. He nodded with a dark look on his face.
“I’m doing it. I don’t want to, but I am. Well, I don’t think you’re interested in my feelings, so I’m just going to go ahead and do it instead of talk.”
“W-What are you saying..? H-Huh?” The man in the white suit went to fire off a spell, and froze. His hands spread wide on their own, until it looked like he was hanging on a cross.
“T-This is impossible... Nobody’s got the strength to paralyze that many people at once!” He yelled, now beginning to worry. But there was no look of terror on his face, yet.
Akuto sighed when he saw this.
“You know that nobody can do what I’m doing, and you’re not even bothering to think? Shouldn’t you be thinking something like, ‘How do I get this guy to forgive me?’” he said.
The black mages finally began to understand what was going on. Their faces grew thin smiles as they apologized.
Demon King Daimaou: Volume 10 Page 8