“Hmph... You claim you tried to kill me? Do not make me laugh. Attacks such as those would never work against someone like myself, for I am a true Demon Lord! If you doubt me, just try and face me again; but be warned: I shall not hold back this time. I will reduce you to nothing but ashes.”
Shera and Rem both wore uneasy expressions on their faces.
“Aww man... I don’t wanna see any more fighting, OK?”
“...Please, calm down, you two.”
Diablo was sweating on the inside. Had he gone a little overboard with his challenge? Was this another display of just how much he sucked at talking with other people? If she were to say, “Then bring it on!” or something similar, it would be a tremendous pain in the ass for him to deal with.
“Uheheh, then I’m glad!” Klem leapt onto him. “You’re pretty tough, huh! I’ll praise you for that!”
She wrapped herself around him; perhaps it had something to do with her being a child, but her body temperature was high. Faltra’s temperate climate was also to blame, but the little girl he was wearing like a muffler was making him feel a little warm.
Crude chains jangled around Klem’s neck. As well, Rem touched the collar that was wrapped around her own. “...Thinking about it, since you cast enslavement magic upon her, Klem wouldn’t be able to fight with you anyway.”
To put Sylvie’s fears to rest, Diablo had cast the magic on Klem to make her completely obedient to him. As proof, an enslavement collar was clamped firmly around her neck. The particulars behind how she had received it were different from Rem and Shera, but the collars were all pretty much identical.
Diablo once again leaned back into the bed. “We’re going to sleep.”
“Okey-Dokey!”
Though Shera had the most adult-like figure among the group, she acted the most childish. She snuggled in closer with her voluptuous body.
Klem was still hanging off him, as per usual. He was a little hot because of that.
“Very well, time to sleep! Well, a Demon Lord like myself doesn’t really need to sleep, though...”
Rem hesitantly laid down at the edge of the bed. “...Then good night, everyone.” Reaching out to the wall-mounted candle, she covered it with something resembling a metal ladle, extinguishing the flame.
As the room darkened, Diablo was immediately assaulted by a sense of drowsiness.
He didn’t notice it, but from a crack in the wall, a terrifying presence was observing him...
†
Scratch, scratch, scratch...
Diablo heard an unfamiliar sound above him. It was like the sound of a tiny devil scraping its claws against something.
The first to jump to their feet was Rem, who smacked the bed.
“Diablo!”
“Wha—!?” After hearing the smack right next to his head, Diablo woke up with a shout.
The room was enveloped in darkness. Back in the game, if you found yourself in the darkest depths of a dungeon, no room was completely pitch-black. Even in particularly dark areas of the game, if you just slid the brightness on your monitor to full-blast, then you would never fail to notice something that could be the deciding factor of you winning or losing. But this was another world, not a game. Darkness was just that: darkness.
—I had a feeling something like this might happen, so I thought up a countermeasure for fighting at night!
Diablo thrust his arm towards the ceiling: “《Light》!”
A ball of light flew up to the ceiling, bursting apart as it made contact and brightened the room. It was a beginner-level spell, one that he had practiced using in his spare time. It looked like his training had yielded good results.
Shera rubbed her eyes against the sudden brightness. “Mmm~? What’s going on?”
“Zzz... Phew...”
Though Klem had said a Demon Lord didn’t need sleep, with all the commotion and how bright it was around her, she was still knocked out.
“Diablo, over there!” Rem pointed toward the wall.
“Hm!?”
A small creature scurried up the wall. It was a shade of ashen-gray so dark it almost appeared black, and had a long, thin tail. It disappeared inside a crack between the ceiling and the wall; it was a little mouse.
Just as Diablo was about to yawn, convinced it was only a mouse, he suddenly realized something.
—Wait, wasn’t there some kind of noise right by my head!?
“W-Was it chewing on my horns!?”
“What!?” Rem and Shera both stared at him intently.
—A Demon Lord who gets his horns chewed on by a mouse would be stupidly lame, wouldn’t it??
He broke out in a cold sweat.
“I don’t see anything different about you,” Rem sighed.
“Yeah, you’re the same Diablo as always~” Shera gave a sleepy smile.
He wanted to collapse he was so relieved, but for now he put on a face that made it seem like this was exactly what he was expecting.
“W-Well, there is no feasible way a mere mouse could cause me any kind of damage. Hm.”
—Oh thank god...!! I was in danger of ending up like Do**emon for a second there!
Rem turned to look at the gap the mouse had disappeared into. “It wouldn’t be strange for it to have caused damage to our provisions or equipment. Let’s go buy some tools for pest extermination tomorrow.”
“Hmph. The next time I see it, I will blow it away with my magic.”
“...It seems like we would lose the ceiling as well if you did that.”
“Then we could see the stars in the skies, too~ Fwahhh~” Shera yawned, a smile on her face. Then she suddenly asked him: “Hey, Diablo? When will this bright light thingy go away?”
“Hm?”
The Light spell he cast earlier was still in effect. Now that he thought about it, though he had practiced for a countermeasure to fight at night, he never thought of a way to get rid of it. Either way, he wore a composed smile on his face as he answered.
“Heh. If you call yourself an Adventurer, then you should be able to sleep in bright places as well.”
To be perfectly honest though, even Diablo thought it would be hard to fall asleep like this.
—Damn you, stupid mouse!
Never before had he wanted to murder a rodent so badly.
Seemingly not troubled in the slightest by all this, Rem was already laying down.
“...Personally, I find that brighter is better. Now I don’t have to worry about being ambushed during the night, which makes it easier for me to sleep.”
“Whaaat~? But it’s so briiiight.” Grumbling to herself, Shera slid off the bed and headed toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Diablo reflexively asked her.
—She’s not just going to up and leave because she’s fed up with this, right...?
Shera’s cheeks turned red. “Bathroom...”
“I-I see. I shall allow it; be on your way.”
“Yeah...”
As Shera walked out into the hallway by herself, she let out a shriek.
†
This time, Klem was the one who leapt out of bed. “What the heck’s going on!?”
With the effect of “Light” still continuing, Shera re-entered the room—along with one other person. Her arm was being twisted behind her back, and she had a dagger pointed toward her chest. Her face was frozen out of shock and fear.
The assailant was someone Diablo and the others knew all too well.
“Alicia!?” Rem shouted.
“Miss Rem...!? Y-You’re still alive!?” It seemed the Imperial Knight was equally shocked.
“...Yes... Because of your lies, I was almost killed by Saddler, but I was saved by Diablo and Shera.”
“I see...”
An expression of relief came across Alicia’s face; however, the tense atmosphere once again returned to the room.
“Do not move a muscle! I am completely serious!” The tip of the dagger touched the part of the clothes that c
overed Shera’s voluminous chest.
“Eek!?” Shera seemed like she was on the verge of tears.
Standing in the doorway of the room, Alicia was holding Shera hostage. Diablo and the others got out of bed, steeling themselves; they couldn’t afford to make any careless moves in a situation like this.
Klem fixed a blistering glare on Alicia. “You’ve got some nerve showing yourself in front of me. Let Shera go; afterward, I’m going to tear you limb. From. Limb.”
Though she had the appearance of a young girl, the killing intent emanating from Klem was the real deal. It was almost enough to worry about her becoming the Demon Lord Krebskulm again.
“...Once I finish my business here,” Alicia shook her head, “I will release Miss Shera. Please feel free to do whatever you like with me after, tearing me limb from limb or otherwise.”
“Oh...?”
“I have heard the Demon Lord has the power to heal other Fallen.”
“Well of course I can.”
“Then, could I have you come this way?”
They moved to the room next door; the room Alicia was renting was still there. They never thought she would actually come back, so they had never bothered to go check it out.
Splatters of purplish-red liquid dotted the floor. There was a girl lying in the bed—
—it was Edelgard.
“A Fallen!?”
Rem was on high-alert, but it was obvious Edelgard’s injuries were serious. Red and violet blood was spreading over the sheets, and the color of her skin was turning deathly pale. If this was one of the races, Diablo would have suspected it to be a corpse. The Fallen turned into particles of light when they died, so she still had to be alive.
It all made sense now to Diablo.
“Now I see... So you two were connected. Back when we met with Edelgard at Starfall Tower, she never once asked who you were, despite the fact we had brought you along on such short notice. I thought it was strange back then, but... So, that means the reason Edelgard never confirmed whether or not I had the ability to transfer magic energy was because you had already relayed the fact I learned the technique from the slave trader.”
Not just Alicia, but Rem and Shera seemed surprised as well.
“As to be expected of you, Sir Diablo.”
“That’s incredible... I never thought you would notice all of those minute details.”
“I never noticed any of that!”
—Am I just the kind of guy who worries about small things too much? Or is it that the girls are just more careless than I thought?
Whatever the case, while he had been concerned about the connection between Alicia and Edelgard, he never said anything about it, and that had almost gotten Rem killed. He couldn’t exactly brag about this.
Klem stood in front of the bed. “So, who was she done in by? I thought her to be a pretty strong Fallen.”
“This was done by the others.”
“What? Why is a Fallen getting beat up by other Fallen?”
“I formulated a plan to bring about your true resurrection, Lord Krebskulm, thinking the barrier surrounding the town would be destroyed when it happened...” Alicia then told of what happened with the rest of the Fallen, keeping her dagger pointed at Shera as she pleaded.
“Please, Demon Lord Krebskulm, please...save Lady Edelgard.”
Arms crossed, Klem turned toward Diablo. “What do you think?”
“Help her.”
—I’d feel kinda bad letting her just die like this...
Thinking that everyone valued life, no matter who they were, was just another side-effect of his peaceful life in Japan. He never thought to forcefully change his way of thinking.
—After coming to another world like this and killing monsters, some people might lose their resistance to other people dying. Some of them may even get used to taking the lives of others, eventually.
Diablo was different, at the very least. If there was someone actually about to die in front of him, he wanted to help them in any way he could. He wasn’t the kind of idiot who would say it was better to be killed rather than kill someone else; but if he had the choice, he thought it best if no one had to die.
“If you say so,” Klem nodded, “then I’m not against healing a Fallen either.”
She placed her small hands against Edelgard, dark blood sticking to them.
“Hahhhhhhh!!”
As Klem began to put some effort into it, Edelgard began to stir.
“Ngh... Mmgh...”
“Heeyahhhhhh!!”
Rem looked toward the door, concerned. “...Will this be all right? It’s already fairly late.”
“It should be fine. After all, it was fine whenever you would shout out loud before.”
“Mmph...”
Diablo attacking her ears, Shera pouring magic energy into her... Rem’s screams had resounded throughout the inn quite a few times already.
Klem’s yells and Edelgard’s moans of anguish continued.
“Hoyaaaaargh!!”
“Agh! Ngh...guh!”
“Yeeargh!!”
“Hah! Mghm, ahhhhhhhh!!”
“Hergahh! Ahh... I’m pooped...so I’m gonna be quiet now,” Klem said, wiping the sweat from her brow.
“If you could do it without yelling, then you should have done it like that from the beginning!” Diablo snapped back with a retort.
“Mmm... I mean, I could do that...”
“Would there be any problems?”
“If I don’t, then it doesn’t seem like I’m doing something all that amazing, right? I am amazing, you know!?”
“Yes, yes, so amazing. But you should do it quietly, or else we’ll get kicked out of the inn.”
When she was angry, Mei, the receptionist for the Peace of Mind Inn, was downright terrifying.
Klem shut her mouth and concentrated. Letting out an especially loud cry, Edelgard arched her back—and then fell back down, exhausted. It seemed like the bleeding had stopped.
Shockingly enough, Edelgard immediately lifted herself up, even though it seemed like she could have died at any moment up until now. Stepping down from the blood-soaked bed, she took a knee and knelt on the floor.
“Demon Lord... Edelgard, is honored! Thankful? Thankful!”
“Of course, of course.”
“Um... Demon Lord, alive? Why, did you, turn back? Like this?”
“Something very sad happened to this Demon Lord...or at least, I thought something sad had happened. The whole world turned red... But I was wrong. Nothing happened, so I turned back.”
“I, see.”
“As long as I can keep on eating biscuits, then that’s all I need. What’s so wrong with that?”
Edelgard deeply bowed her head. But then—
“Do not, understand... Don’t, understand? Don’t, understand! Fallen, kill the races. Destroy them. Why?”
“Who knows?” Klem cocked her head to the side. “I’ve already decided I will live in this town, so just stop doing these sad things. If you won’t listen to this direct order from the Demon Lord, then know you will no longer be my subordinate.”
“I, swear... Will never, go against...Demon Lord’s will, again,” Edelgard gave her assent.
It seemed like there would be no problems on this end. Edelgard had always been the reasonable type; her loyalty to the Demon Lord was much more important than killing the races.
†
Alicia released her grip on Shera, sheathing her dagger. “My humblest gratitude... Now, as agreed, how will you be dealing with me?”
“...Will you tell me your reason for doing all this?” Rem asked.
“The reason I handed you over to Saddler? Why, it was for the sake of reviving the Demon Lord. I am a Demon Lord worshiper who desires to see the Demon Lord be resurrected after all.”
“...So it seems. But what I want to know is how an Imperial Knight, who is also the daughter of an aristocratic family, became a Demon Lord worshiper.”
; Alicia grit her teeth. She had an unpleasant look in her eyes, and a vaguely wild expression had taken over her face. This was completely different from the sociable, goody two shoes persona she usually showed. It seemed her current state exemplified her true nature.
“Have you ever thought that humanity should just perish? Have you ever screamed, ‘I’ll fucking murder you, you piece of shit!’ on the inside before?”
“...Putting aside the severity, yes, I have been angered by others before. Probably a lot more than you would think.”
“I was forced to continue abiding by this sense of what is ‘right,’ one that I could never accept...”
“...Considering your standing, are you referring to your time back in the capital?”
“My parents, the other Imperial Knights, the ministers in the royal court...even the king himself. Of course I would begin thinking of the races as unseemly—enough for me to wish for the whole world to go up in flames.”
“...Did something happen?”
“On the contrary; it may have been for the best if nothing special did happen. If it hadn’t, I may have been able to consider it all as some sort of extraordinary ‘accident.’ I believe I have spent too long pretending that all my self-interests were virtuous, and spending time with people who are admirable only in title alone.”
“...I see.”
“Perhaps it would have been better to throw away my country and become an Adventurer instead,” Alicia said as she looked at Shera.
After a moment, Shera finally realized she was the one being referenced here.
“Oh, yeah! I went through some bad things back home, but now I’m having a lot of fun! Being in the forest at night was scary...but thanks to Rem and Diablo, things are fun now!”
“Why did you not destroy the country of the Elves?”
“Huh!? W-Well, I mean, that kind of life just didn’t fit me, that’s all... I may have left everyone behind, but as long as they were still happy, then that was fine with me...”
How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord: Volume 4 Page 2