Author: Fire Head (炎頭)

  Translator: Hand of Vecna

  Editor: Two More Free Thoughts

  The city of demons existed outside the living space of the humanoids. This domain of demons was called the Dark Continent. Its exact location was unknown. At least, it was somewhere that could not easily be found by the magical beasts tamed by the humanoids. It would be the same for demons, except that they had access to teleportation. To be precise, it was the Demon King and one of the Seven Luminaries, Venus, who made such teleportation possible.

  However, Terra could only move by using his father’s X-Gate as he did not trust Venus. His distrust of her did not lessen with time. Instead, it intensified in recent days. No, there was no need for it to intensify further. It was not wrong to call it a conviction at this point.

  That—That was not an ally of demons.

  “Venus! Is Venus here?”


  Terra shouted loudly for his subordinate. She usually came and went like a shadow, so she might show up even if you thought she was not around. A few minutes after calling, there was a tear in space and a golden-haired girl descended before Terra.

  “You called for me? Terra-sama.”


  “I have something to ask you.”


  “What might it be?”


  The identity of Venus was a mystery even among demons. One day, the leader of the Seven Luminaries, Sol, suddenly brought this beautiful girl. Unlike normal creatures, there was usually no need to ask for her background since demons were spontaneously generated somewhere. Her skin and eye colors were unusual for demons, but since Terra himself was like that, he could only accept it.

  Above all, the Demon King acknowledged her existence, so nobody could speak out against it. Before anyone could notice, she had already integrated herself into the group.

  However, Terra thought that this woman was really suspicious. It was because Venus could use X-Gate, which was an ancient secret skill that required the use of both divine and arcane power. The demons were the incarnations of the arcane, therefore it was impossible for them to use divine power. The only exception was the Demon King himself.

  His father probably knew her true identity and her purpose. However, it must be something profitable to his father, but not to the demons as a whole. He did not know what his father saw in her. He did not want to doubt him. However, it was clearly a mistake to leave this woman alone.

  “Firstly, are you the one who told Mars about the location of Aries and made use of his desire for recognition?”


  “Ah, ‘made use of’ is such a terrible way to say it. I merely told him of a way to deal with the troublesome Svalinn. Well, it failed because of an irregular called Ruphas Mafahl……But it was too much to expect me to predict her appearance.”


  Venus smiled innocently. Looking away from Venus, Terra threw out his next question. When talking to her, there were certain things one should not do, such as looking her in the eye. If one did this, one would start thinking of things which would normally not be considered. One’s consciousness would be manipulated. It would feel strange when one calmed down later.

  While talking to her like this, Venus was probably doing something.

  “Secondly, are you the one who informed Jupiter of the spark in Gjallarhorn and induced Aigokeros to go along?”


  “Eh, that’s right. Unfortunately, that failed as well. Oh, a schemer would drown in his schemes. I’m ashamed to send him off with such a self-satisfied look. I have reflected on this too. Eh.”


  You have the cheek to say this.

  Terra clenched his fists as blood rushed to his head. However, he regained his composure because Luna, who was next to him, held onto his hand. That was right. He must not be too hot-headed. Giving into rage before this person was simply suicidal.

  “Thirdly……Are you the one who induced Scorpius to move in accordance with Luna’s infiltration, causing the matter to become a big issue?”


  “Yes, I wanted to support Luna-sama’s efforts.”


  “What a joke……Where in the world would you find an infiltration mission that was so flashy? That was like publicly announcing that someone has infiltrated.”


  The infiltration mission was supposed to be done only by Luna and a few of her aides. It should not have involved so many demons and even Scorpius. They were to secretly infiltrate the robust defenses of Blutgang and assassinate the high-ranking people. That was the original plan.

  However, this woman had completely ruined it. Scorpius charged directly from the front, causing Blutgang to move into combat deployment. Then, demons were meaninglessly sent as reinforcement for the infiltration. As a result, Aigokeros noticed Luna’s infiltration and Ruphas Mafahl came forth to subdue Scorpius.

  “No, even the very beginning of it all……It was strange that Ruphas Mafahl was summoned by the hero-summoning ritual. Was it something you did? It was possible for either you or my father to subvert the summoning by using X-Gate.”


  “.……”


  “In addition, you induced Ruphas Mafahl to clash with father in Lævateinn. And father’s sudden expedition……Is this because of something you said?”


  The Demon King was currently not in the city. A few days ago—no, on the day he fought with Ruphas, he led his subordinates on an expedition somewhere. Those subordinates were not demons. They were an elite force captured and nurtured by his father using monster tamer skills. It was evident how serious the matter was for them to be brought along.

  Even though Terra put pressure on her, Venus’ expression did not change much. She merely smiled mysteriously and answered impudently.

  “Let me just answer your last question—Yes, it is as you say. I was directing the fight. This was the wish of His Majesty.”


  Terra narrowed his eyes and grabbed the sword at his waist. Then he moved with god-like speed and pointed the tip of the sword at Venus’ neck. Luna could not even see the sword. It was merely a flash to her. But still, Venus was unwavering.

  “What are you planning? What are you trying to do with us!?”


  “Well……If it is you, I don’t mind teaching you about it. His Excellency is only concerned about you. I have no intention of turning His Excellency into an enemy. But……”


  Having said that, Venus glanced at Luna.

  “Unfortunately, I cannot talk in front of her.”


  “Luna is the only one I trust. No problem. Speak.”


  “I can’t. It’s not a matter about trust.”


  As Venus answered, a crack in space opened up behind Luna. It was needless to say what the goal was. If he struck with the sword, his beloved woman would be killed. It was a threat.

  The Seven Luminaries were basically about the same, but Venus was the exception. To bet against a player whose depth was unknown, Luna was too costly as a wager. Yet he had nothing else he could wager with. Terra clenched his teeth and withdrew his blade. At the same time, the crack in space vanished.

  “Wh—What exactly is wrong with me!? Why not me!?”


  “Because you are just a doll (NPC).”


  “Me? A……doll? You are referring to me?”


  “Yes, a poor doll (NPC) who isn’t even aware of being a doll. You are not even aware that you are a toy. Until I met that person, I was the same.”


  The last sentence was merely a whisper, such that it could not be heard clearly. Even so, it was obvious that Luna had been insulted. Anger colored Terra’s face and he stared at Venus sharply.

  “Venus. By my authority, you are expelled from the Seven Luminaries as of today. From now on, don’t think you can do whatever you want in front of me.”


  “.……Well, this happened earlier than I thought, but it’s a perfect timing, so whatever. Fortunately, the Twelve Heavenly Stars have already been recovered safely, so it should be fine.”


  “What?”


  “In other words, I’m tired of acting.”


  Venus snorted and her hair began to undulate. In that instant, multiple cracks in space appeared to surround Terra and Luna. Meanwhile, Venus fired her magic into a crack in space next to her. Then the spatial cracks surrounding Terra and Luna began to glow all at once.

  “You!?”


  “Well then, have a nice day, you two. The next time we meet, it would be as enemies. Please give my regards to His Excellency too.”


  Venus—No, Dina left through the spatial crack. At the same time, golden radiance shone forth from the spatial cracks to attack Terra and Luna. Although they would cause only minor damage to Terra, they would be deadly to Luna. Therefore, Terra hugged Luna and received all the damage using his back as a shield.

  This attack of Venus was not meant to defeat both of them. It was to take advantage of Luna as a deadweight so that Terra could not move. When the attack ended, Terra confirmed the safety of Luna in his arms. Then, he sought out Venus, but she was already gone.

  ♏


  “—And so I was expelled from the Seven Luminaries.”


  “What were you even doing?”


  After the fight with Scorpius, I waited several minutes when Dina said, “Someone’s calling me.” and vanished through an X-Gate. Upon her return, the first thing she said was how she confessed all her crimes to the son of the Demon King and was expelled from the Seven Luminaries.

  But when the son asked, “Was it you!?”, she could have forcefully denied it all. Instead, she had to say “It was me!” with a self-satisfied look and then got expelled. This person might be an idiot after all.

  “Ah, should I say it was my temper or perhaps I was just desperate? I was pretending I had some leeway, but I was actually in a difficult position. Terra-sama……Oh, there’s no need to address him as -sama anymore. Terra-san is Level 1000 just like me. And his status is abnormally high. It’s like he’s a boss, okay? His HP is even higher than Ruphas-sama’s, okay? Well, Ruphas-sama would probably win in a fight, but I definitely could not. Then I would definitely be caught and bound like what usually happens in those amateur fan books!”


  “No, I can’t see anything like that happening.”


  “That’s too naive, Ruphas-sama! Men are wolves! They are beasts-senpai! Especially the ones that seems upright or straight-faced, they’re always the ones with a lot of weird and strange fantasies and delusions in the back of the mind! That guy definitely did it to Luna-chan already!”


  “Hey, stop. Why did things suddenly become so crude!?”


  Dina started on a weird topic and I interrupted her story. That was another person’s privacy, which shouldn’t be intruded upon. Well, when I saw him carrying her like a princess as if she was a fragile thing, I thought she must have been more than just a subordinate to him. That was probably it. The son was interested in Luna.

  It wasn’t a bad thing. At least, it was proof that he was a healthy man who had someone he loved. However, the image of the handsome protagonist, which was painstakingly set up, would be ruined. That was exactly why it would be considered one man’s sympathy to not go into that direction. Still, I thought that these handsome guys should just explode and die.

  “So you can’t be (dekin) a double spy anymore.”


  “I was banned (dekin) from entering.”


  “A

  punThe term (駄洒落) refers to a type of word play involving similar sounding words. In this case, the specific words are 出来ん and 出禁. It’s hard to make it work in English, so I’ll just leave it as a note.

  ”


  “Oh, you understand it?”


  “Two points.”


  “That’s terrible!?”


  As a double spy, Dina had been quite reliable in getting information from the demons. But from now on, I could not rely on her information concerning the movements of the demons. However, if I thought about it, she had not been sharing much about the demons’ movements with us anyway, so nothing really changed. What a useless double spy.

  “So what do we do now?”


  “Well, first of all, let’s fix those three mass production models of Libra. As for the one that was broken in pieces……I think it could still be used as raw materials, so let’s recover it and return to Blutgang.”


  I could not help if it had completely fallen apart, but if it was only partially damaged, I could still use skills to repair it. The problem was whether they would regard me as an enemy and attack. I was confident that I could handle three inferior (broken) copies of Libra, but I would rather avoid it if possible. Doing so would certainly make me an enemy of Blutgang.

  As I pondered this, one of the mass production models, which was less damaged than the others, walked towards me. What? It seemed to have no desire to fight since I did not see any weapons……

  “—Data scanning, matched. You must be Ruphas Mafahl-sama. We have been waiting for your visit. Please come to Blutgang’s royal chamber. Our master is waiting for you.”


  Eh? Master?……

  No, that guy was already dead.

  Even though I thought so, I could not say it aloud.

  No way, I thought.

  That guy (Mizar) was still alive!?

  Q: Are you pulling it out?

  Terra: “.……”


  Libido-san: “Oh, I’m sorry. I have a job.”


  Physics + Mass + Language: “Dat joo reelly batrayed osThis is a somewhat famous line from Kamen Rider Blade, wherein the main character Kazuma Kenzaki mispronounced 本当に裏切ったんですか (“Have you really betrayed us!?”) as オンドゥルルラギッタンディスカー.!!”