How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord: Volume 4

by Yukiya Murasaki

  Hiding the unrest inside him, Diablo leaned back, arms crossed and acting full of himself. “Of course I would be knowledgeable of a Demon Lord’s Domain, for I am a Demon Lord myself.”

  It was a lot harder than he had expected, with them getting lost, the weather taking a turn for the worst, and having trouble finding a captain... The map for this world alone was far different than the one in Cross Reverie.

  —It was just plain massive.

  It was the same thing with the distance between Faltra and Starfall Tower. Compared with the game, everything was much more vast and open here. Because of that, he kept going the wrong way until he had gotten used to it. Even dungeons that were a straight shot to get through back in the game were all over the place, design-wise. They were natural caves, after all, so maybe that shouldn’t come as a surprise.

  Diablo had also forgotten a portion of the map, which was part of the reason why he had so much trouble. Ever since he became high-level, he would just use the 《Move》 feature to get around, so it had been a good long while since he went through the area after leaving Faltra on the way to the Demon Lord’s Domain.

  Normal players may have passed through here countless times with some newly made companions who were just starting out...but Diablo never partied up with anyone before.

  —Oh... I guess I am now, though.

  Lumachina was more like someone he was charged with protecting rather than a friend; but it was Rem and Shera’s first time coming here.

  “So maybe this is what it’s like...”

  The words he unintentionally muttered were drowned out by the sound of the ship scraping against the sand.

  The boat approached the pier as they entered the town. Though Diablo called it a pier, it was different from the kind that stuck out into the ocean from the land. They had just crossed a desert to get here, but the sand continued on through the town as well. There wasn’t much difference between here and what they had just crossed over to get to this town.

  The pier formed a slope that would line up with the tall sides of the sand boat, allowing for passengers to climb down to the ground below. Right as Diablo gathered up a particularly large piece of luggage and got ready to jump off the boat—

  “We’re here!” With a shout, Shera leapt from the boat before he could do the same. With a plop, she sank right into the sand where she landed, buried up to her knees.

  “Agyah!?”

  “......We’re going to leave you behind.”

  “A-Are you all right?”

  Rem and Lumachina used the pier to disembark; Diablo decided it would be smart for him to use it as well.

  “Wait, wait, wait! I can’t get out!!”

  The more she struggled to free herself, the more she would sink deeper into the sand. It was harder to break free than it looked when a ton of sand got on top of your feet.

  Diablo ultimately grabbed Shera by the collar, dragging her out. Sand came pouring off her, with even her boots being full of the stuff. Because of the difference in their body types, Diablo managed to get through the ordeal by only sinking a little.

  “Hmph.”

  “Th-Thanks, Diablo~” She squeezed him tight.

  †

  After they had gone some distance away from the sand boat—

  They arrived at a place that looked to be the main road. Tents as round as fluffy pancakes lined both sides of the street, the sandy road continuing on into the heart of the town.

  A swarm of kids came bustling over to them.

  ““We’ll carry your bags! We’ll carry your bags!””

  —There was nothing like this in the game...

  Just as Shera seemed like she would take them up on their offer, Rem stopped her.

  “You can’t. If you have them carry your things, they’re going to demand you pay them for it.”

  “I-I see...”

  “We don’t have anything heavy enough to warrant them carrying it for us, so let’s just do it ourselves.”

  “Yeah!”

  Lumachina looked heartbroken. She was probably empathizing with these impoverished kids.

  Rem spoke up. “...They are wearing those rags on purpose. Looking at their faces, you can tell they are actually eating well. This is just a way for them to earn some pocket money for themselves.”

  “Is that true!?”

  “...There are children like this in every town. It’s not limited to just the former Demon Lord’s Domain.”

  A look of shock on her face, Lumachina looked around. The greedy kids in question were currently keeping their distance from Diablo. His horns and the pitch-black outfit he wore made it hard to approach him, it seemed.

  Diablo started walking toward the tower. There were no changes to be found along the sandy ground, but the amount of buildings around them kept growing. He never thought about it back in the game, but it came as a bit of a shock that people could build these stone structures on top of sand you would start sinking into if you weren’t careful. They must have come up with some kind of trick to make that work.

  “Oh, flowers!” Lumachina exclaimed as she pointed.

  In the midst of this barren land, there was a flowerbed in front of one of the buildings.

  Rem smiled. “...It seems easy to get water around here.”

  “It does smell like water here, after all,” Shera said, and pointed ahead of them.

  There was a lake at the end of the road. Gentle, sparkling ripples spread through the water. Zircon Tower existed in Cross Reverie with almost the exact same layout, but instead of a lake, there was only a moat surrounding the tower.

  —Well, since it was a game, it was a small location that only had the buildings you needed for gameplay purposes.

  The city of Zircon Tower in this world had children, and parents for those children. They even had restaurants and clothing stores, too.

  “What the hell’s this!? It’s way different than what you said!”

  Diablo heard a high-pitched voice.

  —A kid?

  Taking a look for himself, four guys, obviously Adventurers, were arguing with a rabbit-eared Grasswalker boy. Judging by his appearance, he seemed to be an Adventurer as well. He wore lightweight leather armor, and had a shortsword strapped to his back. Though Grasswalkers always looked like children no matter how old they got, he was most likely no child.

  As the Grasswalker stormed closer, a Pantherian shoved him back by the shoulder.

  “You were useless, so of course you’d get a lower reward!”

  “What the hell, I was useful! I guided you around! I opened the lock for you! There was even treasure, wasn’t there!?”

  “You mean how all those strong as hell monsters jumped in out of nowhere and got us all killed!”

  “What!?”

  —A monster room, huh. One of the standard traps.

  Diablo even used them before in his own personal dungeon.

  There were numerous dungeons to be found in the former Demon Lord’s Domain, and it looked like these guys were a party of Adventurers who had just cleared one of them. Items and experience were automatically distributed in Cross Reverie, which meant there was no way to forcibly steal them from others. Even so, there were some people who claimed leechers who didn’t contribute anything should hand over their rewards...

  But Diablo was always a solo player, so that never concerned him. Thank goodness for that, since it let him avoid all that grief.

  —If you’re gonna play an MMORPG, then you gotta do it as a solo player!

  The Pantherian was showing off some type of longsword.

  “This is a pretty slick sword. I’ll be putting it to good use.”

  The blade was wreathed in flames. The other Adventurers were jeering and making a big deal over it.

  “Woo, that’s sick!” “Nice one, man!” “Let’s try it out right now!”

  —Is that a 《Red Sword》?

  Diablo had seen this weapon before. He always thought it to be an R-rank pie
ce of trash back in the game, but it seemed to be quite a valuable weapon in this world. Players would try all sorts of reckless things to try and gather rare materials in the game, risking their lives without a second thought. The penalty for dying wasn’t a light one, but it wasn’t like your whole account got deleted or anything.

  But dying in this world meant that was it for you. There were a limited amount of people who would risk going out to gather rare materials, which meant this world was flooded with low-tier weapons.

  —Now that I think about it, I left a Red Sword in one of the monster rooms I built in my dungeon. This is just a coincidence...right?

  “That sword’s worth something like 10,000,000 friths, right!?” the Grasswalker persisted. “What’s the deal with only giving me a single silver piece then!?”

  One silver piece was worth 4,000 friths. It was definitely no way to treat someone who had braved a dungeon with you.

  The Pantherian bared his fangs. “If we weren’t there for ya, you’d be monster food right about now!”

  “And if I wasn’t there, you would’ve never made it to the treasure in the first place!”

  “Oh, so ya wanna go, huh? I’d be okay with trying this baby out on ya first, ya know?”

  He pointed the sword at the Grasswalker. The flames were only an effect, so it didn’t actually give off heat, but the Grasswalker still backed off in a panic.

  “Mhgh...”

  “That’s just the right amount for a Grasswalker who only snuck around and hid the whole time.”

  “...But you said we would split everything equally.”

  “What was that!?” Intimidating him, the threatening tone of his voice made it seem like he would slash the Grasswalker at any second.

  The Grasswalker nodded begrudgingly. “N-Nah... This is fine.”

  “You shoulda just said that from the beginning. If you’re fine with that, then we’ll end up usin’ ya again. Gehahah! See ya!”

  Guffawing all the while, the four Adventurers disappeared into a bar. It was still early afternoon, but bars usually kept their doors open while it was light out, serving lunch to customers.

  After the other Adventurers were gone, the Grasswalker raised the silver coin above his head.

  “Like hell it’s fine, you cheating bastard! Get bent!” He made to hurl the coin to the ground—but ended up shoving it into his pocket anyways.

  After seeing the whole incident play out alongside Diablo, Rem shrugged her shoulders. “...You see things like that everywhere.”

  “Even back in Faltra?”

  “...There were times I was given a lower reward than everyone else just because I was a girl.”

  “That is utterly idiotic.”

  “...Yes, it is. I didn’t hesitate to use my Summons on those people, however.”

  “As you should.”

  Shera and Lumachina were having an animated conversation about the proper way to raise flowers as they stood in front of the flowerbed. It seemed they hadn’t heard a word of the other Adventurers’ conversation.

  †

  “Are you guys Adventurers?” The Grasswalker from before called out to Diablo and the others.

  Because of his quirky short hair, his sharp voice, and the animated expression on his face, he looked extremely cheerful. His rabbit ears swayed from side to side, and judging by his other looks, he was an explorer. It looked like he had a surprisingly unabashed personality.

  “What?” Diablo crossed his arms as he answered.

  Sensing that this could lead to trouble fast, Rem interjected. “...We’re Adventurers who have come from Faltra, but what about it?”

  “Faltra? Aw, so you’re just here on a shopping trip?”

  “...We are in charge of protecting a certain person, though that will end after today.”

  “Oh, gotcha! Hey, do you wanna head to a dungeon? You’ve already come all the way to Zircon Tower, so I don’t think there’s any harm in taking on a new dungeon while you’re at it!”

  “...A new dungeon?”

  “Yeah, I found a really good one pretty recently! You can just tell by the weird entrance, the place ain’t normal. The treasure you can find in there is in a league of its own, I tell ya!”

  “...It certainly sounds interesting.”

  “How ’bout it? I’ll even introduce you to a well-experienced dungeon guide who’s also a pro at getting locks open—that’s me!” He stuck out his thumb, pointing at himself.

  —Taking on a dungeon, huh.

  True, it would be ridiculous to go back empty-handed. Diablo thought it might not be a bad idea to go after they finished their job of protecting Lumachina.

  “...What is this ‘weird’ entrance like?” Rem asked.

  “That’s just something you’ll have to look forward to after partying up with me... Is what I want to say, but I’ll let you know, just for you.”

  “The lion statue in front of the doors can move and attack people.”

  The Grasswalker spoke with an air of grand importance. Hearing this, the breath caught in Diablo’s throat.

  —What was that!?

  “T-Tell me more!” He suddenly grabbed the Grasswalker by the shoulders.

  “Ah!?”

  “You! Does that dungeon have thirteen floors to it!?”

  “I-I don’t know about that, we only went to the third floor...”

  “The third floor, which means... After you defeated the green, black, red, blue, dark green, dark yellow slimes in order, they must have dropped a key, right!?”

  “What, is that for real!? I mean, yeah, there were a bunch of different colored slimes hanging around and all...”

  “Was [F43] written above the door to that floor!?”

  “I think so, yeah... Probably...?”

  “Ah...!!”

  —That’s my dungeon, isn’t it!?

  The old retro game he took that from didn’t exist in this world, so it may have been a bit too hard for them to figure out.

  The Grasswalker started asking questions of his own. “Hey, just who are you!? Is everything you said true!? You know about a fourth floor!?”

  “Well, about that...”

  It would be stupid to tell the Grasswalker everything here. If this really was Diablo’s dungeon, his Storage would be on the bottom floor. It was a treasure room that contained all the items he had collected in the game, and he had no intention of letting anyone else have them.

  He let go of the Grasswalker’s shoulders. “You should forget about it.”

  “Wha... Like hell I can! You’re some kinda amazing Adventurer, aren’t’cha, mister!? C’mon, let’s go do that dungeon together! I can be useful, you know!”

  Picking up on where this could be going, Rem changed the topic. She was truly a clever girl.

  “...Pardon me, but do you know anything about Batutta, the captain of the Paladins? We’ve come here to meet him.”

  “Huh...? That big-wig from the Church? Mmm... Yeah, he lives on the western side of town...” The Grasswalker frowned.

  —Does he have some kind of beef with this guy?

  As they were talking, Shera came running over.

  “Diablo, over there!”

  “Hm?”

  Lumachina stood in the middle of the street, exchanging heated glares with some Human man wearing armor.

  —Uh-oh, trouble!? Crap, I got too caught up in talking about the dungeon!

  Rem hastily sprinted over to them.

  “D-Did something happen!?” she said as she got in between Lumachina and the man in armor.

  “This girl came over and started pickin’ a fight with me!” He spat out in frustration. He pointed toward Lumachina, who didn’t take a single step back from the towering giant as she glared at him.

  “I cannot simply overlook you striking a woman who was asking for help!”

  There was a woman to the side of them, a Pantherian, who looked to be about thirty years old. She was sitting flat on the ground, and held a baby wrapped
in cloth tightly to herself. As Lumachina and the man argued, she seemed too shaken up to do anything else.

  “If you want the priest’s help, then get in line and pay a donation!” the man said with disgust. “It’s the same as if you took the sniveling brat into a place where people are eating; you’re just causing trouble for everyone! Someone who’s causing trouble for other people is gonna get kicked, that’s just how it is!”

  “Do you think you are without sin? If you think you can get away with doing anything to those less fortunate than you, then you will be punished in excess for your transgressions.”

  “Hah! Like hell I have sin! I’m part of the Paladin Brigade, after all!”

  Lumachina made a curious face. “Huh? What is this Paladin ‘Brigade’?”

  Now that she mentioned it, the insignia of the Church was emblazoned on the man’s armor. His armor wasn’t anything as fancy as what Paladins would normally wear, and looked to be a bit more on the cheap side, like something an Adventurer would sport. That said, anyone who wasn’t related to the Church wouldn’t be able to wear that symbol on their armor.

  Something tugged on Diablo’s cape; it was the Grasswalker from before.

  “You’re still here?”

  “That’s cold, man! But this is bad, that guy’s part of the Paladin Brigade!”

  “And just what is that? I know of Paladins, but not this ‘Brigade’ part.”

  “I’d say they’re trying to copy them. These guys are soldiers of the Church, and rough ones at that. They’re pretty much like bandits. I don’t know what it’s like in other towns, but they sure like to throw around their weight here.”

  “I see.”

  They had come to ask Batutta for help...

  —But we may be out of luck on that, seeing as his subordinates act like this.

  From what he could figure out from the argument between this guy and Lumachina: It seemed like the Pantherian was a mother who had come to request a miracle from God to heal her baby. This guy saw her as a nuisance and kicked her. Lumachina saw what happened, and started giving him an angry lecture.