Prologue
It was pure coincidence.
That’s why nobody cared about it.
Whether a child is born naturally or artificially, there’s always someone there to watch them. In most cases they are welcomed, and in a few rare exceptions they are hated. But either way, in the instant they’re born, they’re the center of attention.
This girl, however, was an exception.
“Our tests show that she’s human. But we have no prior data logs,” the Liradan secretary said.
In the corner of a huge office that covered an entire floor of a high-rise building, Shoji Shiraishi, a priest of Megis, was frowning and tapping his fingers against his desk in frustration.
He had a strangely sharp gaze that suggested he’d been a wild one in his youth. And he was the father of Lily Shiraishi, the student council president at Constant Magical Academy. As his daughter’s personality might suggest, he still hadn’t settled down, even in middle age. The other priests called him nicknames such as “loose cannon” and “powder keg.”
His god, Megis, was the god of culture, arts, and education, and was generally considered to be the opposite of Shoji himself: calm and peaceful. The god’s temple wasn’t in this high-rise; it was inside a dignified building of culture, surrounded by works of art. Shoji’s job was to work behind the scenes, but that made his rank among the priests quite high. He was a high-ranking bureaucrat in the field of education.
“Why does our sect have to deal with this?” Shoji asked. He knew the reason, though, and the secretary replied just how he’d expected.
“Anyone without a citizen’s registration is an illegal immigrant, or should be, but for some reason, she’s been baptized by Megis.”
“But there’s no record of her in the data logs.”
In the Empire, humans were baptized as soon as they were born. From then on, the gods recorded data on every action they took. If they behaved properly, they would be granted the blessings of magic as a reward. That was the social welfare service the imperial government provided to its citizens.
Of course, citizen’s registrations were a separate matter. The foreigner’s registry was operated on a different system than the gods. Some people refused baptisms, and of course, foreigners weren’t baptized at all.
Shoji had been told the girl was found standing alone in the crater left after the recent battle with the Demon King.
The knights who’d brought her in said that she could speak, and knew who she was, but she seemed to know barely anything at all about where she was.
“But we have her logs from when she was found there,” the secretary said flatly.
“Then are you saying she’s an angel, come down from the heavens?” Shoji’s tone was sarcastic, but the secretary nodded.
“Perhaps so.”
“Well, that’s nice. I feel saved. It was so nice of her to choose my sect.”
“Jokes aside, you need to decide what to do with her,” the secretary said coldly.
Shoji snorted.
“The solution is obvious. We have to treat her as a foreigner. You’ve already contacted Mofah’s people, haven’t you?”
“I’ve asked that she be registered. I requested they make her an exchange student from the Union.”
The god Mofah ruled over cross-cultural interactions and negotiations.
“I see. Then I can leave the rest in my daughter’s hands, I suppose.” Shoji leaned back in his chair.
“Your daughter’s the student council president, after all.”
Shoji seemed annoyed at her words, but he was grinning.
“Correct. She gets into all kinds of trouble. I heard that she actually got into a fight with the cabinet during that last little scuffle.”
“I’m glad to hear she’s doing well. But are you sure about this? It seems that for some reason, the black mages are after this girl. There were multiple attempts to access her data.”
“The rumor spread quickly, then. They probably suspect that someone altered her logs. It’s possible someone will go after her, but I’ll leave the investigation and observation to my daughter.” Shoji called up a mana screen on his desk, which showed the girl’s portrait and profile.
Keina Doronz. That was her name.
“It’s not that I don’t trust your daughter, but are you sure about this? Shouldn’t we take her into custody ourselves?” the secretary said. Shoji crossed his arms, making no attempt to hide his annoyance.
“The Academy’s the only clue we have, so its our only option. But why did she have memories of Constant Magical Academy, anyway?”
1 - Dating Disaster
“She’s been specially invited from overseas. Please be good to her...” The class teacher, Miss Mitsuko Torii, trailed off. She was a tall woman with curly hair and round glasses, who normally had an easygoing air about her. She only seemed upset now because of the problem child she already had in her class, and now there was a strange exchange student on top of that.
The problem child’s name was Akuto Sai. He was the student with the mean glare in the back row. He was handsome, but he was born with a mean-looking face, one that made people misunderstand him often. But that wasn’t the problem.
A prophecy (that was never wrong) had said that he was going to become the Demon King, and he’d already done so once. Of course, after the last time, there had been a long and complex series of events that had led to him losing that title, but his classmates didn’t care about that. They were in the same class with the boy who was going to destroy the world. There was a constant look of tension on their faces.
But Akuto himself was an introverted, hard-working young boy. He was very upset that his classmates feared him.
—A transfer student, huh? I hope she’s not too scared of me...
He meant it, too.
“Alright, Keina, come in.” A girl walked into the classroom. She was blonde with blue eyes, and had a cheerfully innocent smile.
Akuto couldn’t take his eyes off her. It wasn’t because of her looks — it was because of a bird-shaped hairpiece that was flashing in the lights from the classroom.
—Th-That’s the one I gave Keena before I left the orphanage...
Akuto stood up in shock, and the girl saw him. Her eyes went wide.
“Y-You’re...!” the girl gasped. She ran all the way from the front of the classroom to the back row, and then threw her arms around him.
“Do you remember the pu-ramise we made at the or-fan-ege? It’s me! Keina! I missed you so much!” she said in heavily accented Japanese.
—Huh? There’s two Keenas?
Akuto turned towards the red-haired Keena. She was sitting there, looking at both of them in surprise.
“Oh, I’m never letting you go again, my daa-rling!” Keina shouted.
○
At this point, we need to remember what happened to Akuto in the past.
Akuto grew up in an orphanage. When he left, he spent all his money buying a hairpiece for a girl that he’d only seen for an instant, and she and he both swore that they’d meet again.
The girl with the hairpiece was supposed to be Keena Soga, his classmate. If you wanted to be nice, you could say she was “easygoing.” If you didn’t, you could say she was an airhead. She always looked like she was on the verge of falling asleep. She loved rice, and she had only two spells she was any good at: flying, and turning invisible.
But now there were two hairpieces.
○
“H-How do you have the same hairpiece? And how do you remember the orphanage?”
Akuto looked at Keena and Keina in confusion. Both of them had the same bird-design hairpiece in their hair. The hairpiece had been expe
nsive, but it was something he’d bought, not made. So it shouldn’t have been that surprising that there were two of them, but...
—Why does she remember the orphanage? Then is she my...
“Aaah!” Keena stood up and pointed at Keina. Akuto looked at her nervously.
—Did Keena remember something? Or is there something wrong with what this girl just said...?
“You’ve got the same name as me!” Keena broke into a grin.
The rest of the class, who knew about Akuto and Keena’s past, slid off their chairs in shock. Akuto sighed to himself.
—That’s right. Keena kept saying she doesn’t remember meeting me in the orphanage...
“Hey darling, who’s that girl? She’s awfully pushy, isn’t she?” Keina said.
“Pushy? She’s your classmate, right? And if anybody’s being pushy here, it’s you, isn’t it? We’ve never met, have we?” Akuto said. Keina suddenly looked sad.
“Oh no! You don’t remember? That makes me so sad! That hay-er-peece you gave me at the or-fan-ege has been the only thing that’s kept me going my whole life!”
“At the orphanage? The way I remember it, the girl was red-haired.”
“Sometimes blonde hair looks red when you’re young! See? We both have the same memories! You’re my darling!” Keina rubbed her head up against Akuto’s chest.
“S-Stop that. Class is about to start...”
Akuto was interrupted by another voice.
“What are you doing? This is a classroom! Transfer student or not, now that you’re here, you’re a classmate. And you have to follow the rules!” It was the class rep, Junko Hattori, who yelled as she stood up. She was a beautiful girl with a reserved, prim and proper nature, but the harsh light in her eyes showed the stubbornness in her personality.
Keina glanced over at her. There was a frustration — no, an anger — in her eyes.
“Darling, she’s jealous of me because she loves you so much, right? Jealousy! That has to be it!”
“I’m not jealous! I’m just telling you to finish your introduction!” Junko yelled, her face red.
“So it is jealousy.” Keina glanced at Junko out of the corner of her eye, and then wrapped her arms around Akuto’s neck, making sure Junko could see.
“I-I told you, it’s not...!” Junko’s face turned even brighter red.
Akuto gently removed her arms and spoke sternly.
“That’s right. Hattori isn’t jealous at all.”
“Th-That’s right. B-But... No... When you say it so firmly, it’s kind of like...” Junko fidgeted.
“Come on, get back to the front of the class and introduce yourself,” Akuto said. Keina nodded. She ran back up to the front and spread out both hands cheerfully.
“Hello, people of the Empire! I’m Keina Doronz, and I’m from the Union! I was told that the Empire was a bunch of grumpy jerks who loved to fight, but it looks like you’re not all bad people, so I think we can be friends!”
Keina gave the class the strangest introduction they’d ever heard.
○
“So do you know her, then?” Hiroshi Miwa asked. He was one of Akuto’s few friends, a small, mischievous boy who called Akuto ‘Boss.’
“Maybe...? I’m not sure, honestly.” Akuto said as they sat next to each other in the cafeteria eating lunch.
“What do you mean you’re not sure?”
“Honestly, even if she is the girl from back then, we only talked for a moment. At this point, we barely know each other. So I can’t really tell if she’s telling the truth...”
“That makes sense, yeah.”
“Yeah. And there’s something strange about her.”
“Something strange?”
“I don’t know how to say it. It’s like she’s just a little off.”
Just then, they heard a shout from the corner of the cafeteria.
“Oh! So I have to line up here, huh? And I have to pay for it, too? School food isn’t free?!” Keina shouted.
Akuto felt like he couldn’t just sit there and watch, so he stood up. Keina saw him and waved.
“Darling! Help me! I can’t figure out how the caf-ay-ter-iya works!”
“Are you having trouble?” Akuto walked over to her.
The whole cafeteria started to murmur. Everyone in the school knew his face and name. Of course, they had a bad impression of him.
The students surrounding her, who had been angry that Keina had cut in line all backed off quickly, opening an easy path to her.
—I’d really prefer you guys weren’t that scared of me.
But Akuto had a bad habit of trying to show off when he was in public. He chose his words carefully, trying to be as polite as possible, as he waved at them.
“I’m sorry. She’s an exchange student, and she doesn’t know how things work here. She doesn’t have any money either, it looks like.”
When he said that, several of the students quickly took out their wallets and offered her money.
—Th-That’s not what I meant...
But Keina cheerfully took one of the bills she was offered.
“Thank you! You should’ve just done that to begin with! Oh, I’ll take the lunch su-pe-shal of the day!”
“Uhm...” Akuto tried to stop her, but she’d already ordered.
—That’s not right.
Akuto began to frown without realizing it, and in response, tension ran through the people around him. Nobody moved an inch. On the other side of the cafeteria, people were already starting to run away.
Akuto walked up to the student who’d given money to Keina. The poor boy was shaking and his face was twitching.
“Y-Yes?! Wh-What do you need?”
“I wasn’t asking for money, so I’ll just pay you back. I intended to pay for her anyway, so don’t worry about it.” He offered the student some money. The student took it with trembling hands.
“The guy who paid was an idiot. The Demon King’s famous for trying to hit on every girl he sees. So that kid just interrupted him when he was trying to show off.”
“Oh, so that’s why he was glaring at him. The poor guy’s gonna be the first to die, I bet.”
The students around him were whispering to each other.
—That’s not what I meant, though...
Akuto sighed to himself, but then Keina grabbed his hand. Her other hand was holding a tray with the lunch special.
“Darling, let’s go sit down and eat! You know, the Empire’s food comes with so many little dishes! I couldn’t believe it! There’s not enough food for a classy girl like me, though!”
The students began to whisper again as Akuto led Keina across the cafeteria.
“Hmm... Why do all the cute girls go for him?”
“Well, he’s the Demon King. He’s probably really amazing, in a lot of different ways.”
“I’m kind of jealous...”
“And kind of not...”
He listened to the other students comments as he walked across the cafeteria. When he got back to where Hiroshi was sitting, Keena was there too.
“Hi Ackie! And Keina.. Hmm, that’s kind of weird to say, so Doronz... Doro, maybe? Doro’s with you too?” Keena said as she wolfed down her lunch.
At her special request, the school had made her her own unique lunch. There was white rice, deep-fried rice (rice fried in a rice-based batter), rice salad, rice paper spring rolls, and rice vermicelli soup. Essentially, it was a meal of nothing but white rice. This special “K Lunch,” as they called it, was in theory something anybody could order. But nobody but her had ever finished it.
“She was making a fuss over there, so I brought her here.”
“I don’t understand how this caf-ay-ter-iya’s system works! It’s very unkind of them not to explain it!” Keina said as she sat down and began to eat. She’d ordered the daily “A Lunch,” which was very normal. But after she took a bite of the fried shrimp, she tried some rice, she shook her head in disgust.
“Oh! Wh
at is this ‘rice’ stuff? It’s completely inedible! It’s not fit food for a classy girl like me!”
Then for once, Keena got angry.
“That’s not true! Rice is delicious!”
“You might think so, but I think it’s awful. That’s all there is to it!” Keina said, but Keena refused to back down.
“It doesn’t matter if tastes good or not. It’s nutritious, and that’s what counts. It’s nutritionally complete! People can survive off nothing else!”
—No, you’d get sick from lack of vitamins...
Akuto thought to himself.
But Keina began to shake her head violently.
“Nutritious or not, you can’t eat just one thing! And who gave you the right to boss me around, anyway? I’m going to have bread instead!”
Keina stood up and used the rest of the money she had to buy a sandwich, which she brought back to the table. She put it down on the table and declared in a loud voice, “Man can live by bread alone!”
—I don’t know if that’s right...
But Keena began to shake her head violently.
“It takes 88 steps to make rice, you know!”
The two of them began to argue, as one ate her rice and the other ate her sandwich.
“Boss, nobody’s eating that A Lunch, are they?” Hiroshi pointed to Keina’s tray. Only one bite had been taken out of the fried shrimp. The rest was untouched.
“...Let’s split it.”
While Keena and Keina argued, Hiroshi and Akuto finished not only their own meals, but the A Lunch as well. By the time they were done, the two girls had moved to arguing over Akuto.
“You know, the first time I saw you, I really, REALLY, didn’t like you! You’re jealous of me and my darling too, aren’t you?” Keina grabbed Akuto’s arm.
“I’m not jealous! Ackie and I are friends! We made a promise!” Keena slammed her fists down on the table.
Keina looked down at her with a smirk.
“Hehe. Friends. So you can just sit back and watch as we go on a date then!”
“A date?” Keena looked surprised.
Keina pressed her body up against Akuto.
“Don’t you know what a date is? It’s when you want to see if you can be boyfriend and girlfriend, so you go to a classy, relaxing, eco-friendly café and eat fancy sweets! You have some tea there and if you like each other, you’re boyfriend and girlfriend!”
Demon King Daimaou: Volume 6 Page 1