Demon King Daimaou: Volume 9

by Shoutarou Mizuki

  “This isn’t mana...” His eyes went wide in surprise. It was the same rift in space he saw when he summoned his suit. And only one person had ever used it in the past but him.

  “Boichiro... Yamato,” Akuto whispered. The man who’d once tried to use Keena to offer up a mysterious ritual to the gods. He’d come from the future, and said that he knew humanity was going to be destroyed.

  The man who’d just done a teleportation impossible with modern technology was thin, and wearing a white lab coat. He wasn’t an arrogant man, but he was a handsome one.

  The man adjusted his glasses, and without even bothering to say hello, he began to speak. “I have a plan. And I want you to carry it out.”

  Hiroshi tensed up.

  —It’s a man with the same power as Boichiro...

  “Where did you come from... A plan? Who are you?” he said, trying to not let the tension in his voice show.

  The man shook his head, like he’d suddenly realized he’d made a mistake. “Oh, right. I have a bad habit of saying what I want before I introduce myself. I’m Kento Kurahashi, a member of CMID-8. But I believe you might actually trust me now,” the man, Kento, said. He was the last member of CMID-8 to talk to 2V.

  “CMID-8.... Boichiro Yamato’s organization...” Hiroshi whispered. But none of the other members he’d seen had ever used the power of Brave’s suit. Maybe he knew something they didn’t.

  “Impossible...” Yoshie suddenly gasped. “Are you Codename USD?”

  Kento nodded. “That’s what my friends call me.”

  “You know him?” Junko asked.

  Yoshie started to speak in a strangely agitated voice. “He’s a graduate of Constant Magical Academy. He got the best grades in the school’s history. He won the Alpha Prize, the highest honor for a magical researcher. He’s a genius not just in mathematics, but in art too.

  “He retired from the priesthood a while back, but there was a rumor that he joined CMID-8, and that besides their leader, Boichiro Yamato, he’s the only member of CMID-8 whose name is known. He was so good at his job he couldn’t hide his name. His codename was USD. He was supposed to be the strongest man in history.”

  It was a profile that Yoshie was likely to love. Kento sighed as if to say that he’d been caught by somebody annoying, but he didn’t correct her.

  “The way you teleported... it wasn’t magic. If anyone uses magic, I can detect it. But if you learned that from Boichiro Yamato, it explains things,” Akuto said.

  Kento nodded. “You’re right. I can’t keep dying... That’s why I said you can trust me.”

  Hiroshi felt a heavier meaning in those words than the others, since it was Boichiro Yamato who’d given the suit to Brave. “I don’t know about trust, but at least we know who you are. So whose side are you on? With us, or against us?” he said strongly.

  “Neither, I suppose. At least, if you’re asking if I’m on your side or the Empress’s. But right now, I need to cooperate with you. In other words, I want you to seal away Zero.” Kento’s words were slow and deliberate.

  “What are you after?” Hiroshi said, unable to figure it out.

  “Hmm... I don’t think I can answer that right now. But you...” He pointed at Hiroshi, who gulped.

  “What?”

  “You, I believe, have to listen to me. You’re using the suit we gave you.” Kento’s words stuck into his head.

  “What...?” Hiroshi said.

  But Akuto cut him off. “‘We’? In other words, Boichiro is with you?”

  Kento shook his head. “I don’t know where he is. I believe he’s dead, though I haven’t confirmed it.”

  “So you’ve got his technology now?” Akuto asked.

  Kento nodded. “All of it. Whether history will change or not is a matter for debate, but in the future, I’m going to be called the inventor of this technology.” Kento turned to Hiroshi and laughed a little. “In other words, I’m loaning you that suit. It’s set so that nobody can use it but you, but I can take it from you anyway.”

  Hiroshi couldn’t hide his shock. His voice was shaking. “...So you’re threatening me?”

  Kento laughed at him. “You’re free to interpret it that way if you like. But I’m just making a request. I don’t have anything I can offer you. But if you’re not going to fight, you don’t need the suit anyway, do you? Or were you planning on joining the police?”

  Kento’s tone was serious, not mocking. And because of that his words seemed only more ominous to Hiroshi. He knew the suit wasn’t his, but seeing the person who’d leant it to him really drove the point home. He realized for the first time that he was essentially the man’s slave.

  But for some reason, Hiroshi couldn’t bring himself to give it up. Right now, he needed to fight at Akuto’s side.

  “...I’m going to fight of my own free will. That’s the one thing I can say for sure,” Hiroshi said in a pained voice.

  But Kento laughed again. “That’s right. That’s exactly what I meant,” he said, trying to not let the tension in his voice show. Hiroshi couldn’t say anything back.

  Akuto spoke in a low voice; he must not have liked Kento’s tone. “So why won’t you help us directly?”

  “I’m an observer,” Kento said. “I have to be.”

  “Is it possible to be an observer with everything that’s going on?” Akuto asked, annoyed.

  Kento nodded. “If you view this situation from a higher level, you’ll realize that observation is the only possible move.”

  “A higher level? I’m done with your crap. Now tell us what it is you came to tell us,” Akuto said, making no effort to hide his displeasure.

  “Of course. You see...” Kento began to share with them a surprising plan.

  Hiroshi was to play a core role in it; he groaned to himself as he listened.

  ○

  Meanwhile, Fujiko was alone in a park on the outskirts of the city. There were other people there who’d been teleported as well. They were all talking with each other about the miracle they’d just witnessed.

  Fujiko herself was approached by a middle-aged woman near her. She was good at pretending to be a normal, upstanding citizen, so she was able to learn from the conversation that the woman thought she’d been saved by the Empress.

  —I see... What an utter fool.

  Fujiko gave no indication of what she actually thought, though. She played along with the woman for a minute, praising the Empress and cursing the evil Demon King who’d caused the mana burst, before saying goodbye and leaving.

  Of course, she didn’t want to curse Akuto, until she realized that she’d been sent here alone. Then, she thought, perhaps she should’ve meant it.

  “Oh, Akuto... how could you do this to me just because I ran away?” she sighed, but then suddenly she saw someone in the corner of her eye. She stopped, and then she opened her mouth in surprise.

  “Oh my...! Fancy seeing you here...! If this is what Akuto wanted, then maybe he really does care about me!” Fujiko said to herself.

  There was no way it could be a coincidence. Akuto must have teleported her right next to this person deliberately.

  Fujiko took back her curses as she began to follow them from a distance. It was a man, and a man who was trying to make sure he wasn’t followed. He was moving farther and farther away from the other people. In this case, that took him deeper into the park. He was heading towards a small forest, it seemed. It was what people did when they felt guilty about something.

  “Oh my... That’s perfect,” Fujiko smiled. She dropped back a little further, taking care to watch for when he looked back.

  It was a man with curly, messed-up hair. Issei Suzuki, the man who’d been the head of the black mages. But his position had only been given to him because of a secret contract with the Empress. His job was to keep the secret, and make sure nobody knew what the black mages really were.

  For a devout black mage like Fujiko, that was more than enough reason to hate him. He’d deceived th
e black mages for years, and kept them from growing.

  —Akuto gave me this chance, and I’m going to make full use of it.

  Fujiko grinned. She waited for Issei to sit down beneath a tree in the forest, silently approached from behind, and quickly wrapped her whip around his neck. She was so silent and so fast that Issei didn’t even have time to scream.

  After twitching in shock for a moment, he put his hands up to his throat as he struggled to breathe.

  “Hello there. I didn’t expect to see you here,” Fujiko pulled the whip tighter around the tree as she peeked around to look at him. “Or maybe it’s not a coincidence at all. Either way, hiding in the forest out of guilt wasn’t a smart move. If you want to do something that makes you feel guilty, you need to at least be bold enough to not hide.”

  Issei seemed to recognize her voice. “S-Stop it... I saw what Kazuko did... I didn’t think she was that crazy... Forgive me...” he said, gasping for breath.

  Fujiko let out a nasty laugh. “Forgive you? I’m not mad at you at all.”

  “I-I know that. I’ll tell you our secrets... And I’ll help you...”

  “Help me...?” She pulled the whip even tighter.

  “Gah... gah... Fine. I won’t just help you. I’ll serve you...”

  “I think you need to understand who I am a little more. But we’ve barely just met, and I think I’ll need to explain. I’m a very greedy girl, you see,” she said as she started to relax and then tighten the whip.

  “F-Fine... I’ll give you the secret treasure of the black mages... That’s good enough, right?”

  Fujiko smiled. “Thank you. But I’m not going to let my guard down that much. I’m going to let you live, so start talking.” She relaxed the whip just a bit, but kept it just tight enough that it was still hard to breathe. “All those murders I committed in virtual phase space are finally paying off,” she said to herself.

  “Gwah.. gaah... This is the password to take you to that room from my ship. It’s a series of keywords... I’ll write them in my notebook.” Issei put a hand into his pocket and took out a mana note book, and then wrote something into it. His hands concealed the notebook, so Fujiko couldn’t see what he wrote.

  “I wrote it... here...” Issei said, and then threw the notebook away. It landed at a distance where she’d have to let go of the whip to get it.

  Fujiko knew what he was trying to do. “That was a very clever idea,” she said.

  Issei laughed, gasping, but relieved. “...I’m lucky that you’re so greedy. I don’t care about guarding some old crypt, but I do need to eat more ramen. I wrote the real password, I think... But I can’t guarantee I’m not wrong.”

  “Hmph. You just saved your own life.” Fujiko let go of the whip, jumped back away from the tree, and came around to the front, keeping her distance from Issei.

  But he had already started to run. She realized that there was no way she’d catch him, so she went to pick up the notebook instead. There were rows of randomly written letters in the book.

  It was probably the real password. A fake one would’ve had more patterns in it. But she wouldn’t know until she tried.

  “I don’t want to think that he tricked me. I need to rebuild the black mages myself. But first, I need to do something about Kazuko and Zero...” Fujiko whispered as she looked at the book again.

  He probably didn’t have any more useful information, but she now had a way to contact Issei if she needed to. She could send him telepathic messages if she wanted, and if she was lucky, she might be able to track him.

  —He probably didn’t mean it when he said he’d help me defeat Kazuko, but he might have actually had some information on her...

  Fujiko wasn’t willing to put her life in danger to defeat Kazuko. She did, however, want to help Akuto.

  “I suppose I can sell this information to the student council president. She’s so intent on getting even with Kazuko that she’d probably torture him. I might be able to see something fun...” Fujiko smiled wickedly as she memorized the password and then erased it from the notebook.

  If it was real, she would be able to bring back true black magic with her own hands.

  3 - Don’t Know What To Say To “Goodbye”

  Night came. The group was now in an abandoned building outside of town. It had once been a factory, but now that it was abandoned, there was nothing left but a dirt floor and a roof. Yoshie had remembered it and suggested they hide there, and Akuto had teleported them.

  Right now, Zero was in control of the mana flow throughout the entire continent. The only three who could escape his sight were Brave, with his mana canceller, Akuto, with his vast power, and Keisu.

  Akuto had brought a camping set and spread it out on the floor of the factory. Everyone was sitting around the light from the lamp. The spot seemed safe, and they would be able to stay there for a while.

  Hiroshi had spent some time looking at the map before heading out to take a look around. After that, they finally had a chance to relax.

  “I love empty buildings. They make me want to take photos. There’s a certain beauty in forgotten places and decay, isn’t there? Like a place where a cornered soldier dies, or something.”

  Yoshie was very excited, even if nobody else was. But even as she talked, she was working. She was making the machine they needed for tomorrow’s plan. “It’s been a while since I’ve done any mechanical work. It’s making my craft girl blood boil. My only complaint is that it’s a little too easy.”

  She was fixing up a beat-up old surface card. She’d found it abandoned on the side of the road and carried it here, and now was getting it running.

  “So you’re good at any kind of engineering, huh?” Akuto asked, impressed.

  “Once you make a program, you want to make a mana machine that uses it. And when you make a mana machine, you want to make a program that drives it,” Yoshie said, a little boastfully.

  Akuto felt himself relax as he talked to her. It was the first time he’d talked to her when things were calm, and there was something about her frank manner that made you feel at peace when you spoke to her.

  “What kinds of stuff can you make?”

  “Quite a bit, actually. I can even make autonomous thinking machines, like Liradans or divine terminals. But I can’t make something with a mind of its own, like Zero.”

  Akuto was intrigued by this. “The minds of humans and Liradans are different?”

  “That’s right. One has a self, the other doesn’t. It’s hard to explain, actually... You can build machines that can replicate themselves, but they can’t have selves. An artificial intelligence that spends a lot of time around humans will get something similar to a self, but it’s different than a human, who has a self from the very beginning. It’s one of the mysteries of life, I guess.”

  “The mysteries of life, huh?” Akuto whispered.

  “Yup. How did life begin? If we knew that, we might know the secret behind the creation of the universe. If nothing else, it’s probably got something to do with the apocalypse that Boichiro Yamashiro talks about.”

  “There’s somebody real close to us who probably knows the secret and just doesn’t know they know it...” Akuto glanced down at Keena, who had fallen asleep on his shoulder. She was snoring peacefully.

  Looking down, she seemed just like a normal girl, but Akuto had seen the miracles she’d created many times. Boichiro Yamato had been after her, and it was possible that Kento would be too.

  “Kento wants Zero sealed again, right? Not destroyed?” Akuto asked.

  “If you destroy him, the gods will cease to exist. Well, maybe that’s what you want,” Yoshie said, and laughed.

  “I do. Of course,” Akuto said.

  Junko, who had looked like she’d wanted to say something for a while, finally spoke up. “Why is it so important to you?”

  “Huh?” Akuto seemed confused.

  “Why are you doing this? I don’t understand. Actually, I’m starting to not un
derstand you at all.” There was a tone of fear in her voice.

  Akuto’s face took on a serious tone. “I don’t understand me either. But that’s what I want to learn. Who am I? Somebody made me and gave me a role to play. I am who they made me, and if I don’t end that, I can’t become who I should be.”

  Akuto’s answer was, to him, a serious one, but Junko just fidgeted. “That’s not what I meant. What I’m trying to say is...” And then she stopped talking. She was trying to find the words, but she couldn’t.

  But it was Keena who picked up where she stopped. “Ackie, you need to think about us, too.” She must’ve woken up, because now she was looking up at him.

  “‘Us’?” Akuto asked. Keena nodded.

  “That’s right. Junko is saying she likes you.”

  “Wh-What? I’m not...” Junko turned red and flailed her hands.

  But Akuto nodded. “Sure, I like everybody else too. That’s why...”

  “That’s not what I mean! We care for you you like a farmer cares for his rice!” Keena said loudly.

  “That’s a weird metaphor...”

  “Huh? It’s the easiest metaphor in the world! Farmers care for their rice when they raise it. Just because it’ll be eaten or sold in the end doesn’t mean that they forget about it or give up! So if rice could talk, it wouldn’t want to hear about harvest season, it would want to hear about how much the farmer loved it right now!” Keena said. Then, having apparently said what she wanted to say, she went back to sleep.

  “D-Do you know what she’s talking about?” Junko said, her face red. She must’ve been relieved that the subject had been changed, because there was a smile on her face.

  Akuto thought for a moment, and then spoke. “Is it wrong to think about everybody’s future happiness, if that happiness means sacrificing myself?”

  Junko seemed caught off-guard for a second, but when she understood the meaning of the question, she immediately nodded. “Yeah. It’s wrong. Of course it’s wrong. I mean, think about it. You’re doing all this because you don’t want bad things to happen to people, right? We’re the same way. In the same way it hurts you when the people you... care about... suffer... we also...” Then Junko shook her head, as if to say “Forget it.”