Public Enemy (1)
The flow of mana was rather unusual. An experimental subject, perhaps? For now, stay right there.
Still, from a glance, I could guess the guy's identity. I left the one nailed to the wall and moved on to hunting the rest.
The bugs crammed into the emergency exit still blocked like hardened arteries. I swung my hand, and my shadow stirred in response.
When the black curtain swept by, the living flesh vanished instantly, and the bodies burst open with sprays of red blood raining down across the room.
Ren, who had been chattering away, fell silent before this sight. Performance points were rising in real time.
And no one could stop me. They were simply too weak.
"You bastard...! Stop! I'm an inspector... no, I'm an inspector! I'm an inspector, you hear me?!"
"That won't help in this situation. What are you going to do with that wobbling belly of yours?"
Again he came out. A filthy worm who mistook his social status for his own power. Of course, in a normal society that might work, but in the face of chaotic, overwhelming violence, only raw strength could protect you.
That was the rule of the Demon Realm that had flipped my values upside down over the past hundred years.
"Uwaaaah!"
I split the belly of the guy who had been bellowing like a whale that he was an inspector. After all, I was an outsider from another world. I had wanted to return to Earth, but I had no intention of changing my allegiance.
I was not human. I was the Demon King, and right now I was a magical girl.
"So. What sin do you have?"
I picked up the trembling hands clutching his intestines and looked away from the rapidly dying man, shifting my gaze to the woman who had been standing beside him just moments ago.
"T-Takilas..."
Jeon So-hyun's eyes, sliding down the chair, shook violently.
I smirked inwardly. The lewd, shameless bunny girl outfit somehow suited her.
"You are clearly less evil than the other women."
I pointed at the trembling girl and muttered. Had she understood my intention? She blinked, then dropped to her knees on the floor and began begging desperately.
"P-Please spare me! I would never do something like this willingly... It was because of my father's gambling debts. I was only going to do it once and then stop, but when the photos were taken and I was blackmailed..."
"I wasn't planning to kill you anyway. Your nature isn't bad, so from now on, live properly."
"...Huh?"
"Hide well."
I smirked and turned my back. After all, I hadn't exaggerated when I said I would kill everyone. I had only killed those who were worth killing. And even that had been my own choice.
Jeon So-hyun had once shown me kindness, so I could afford to spare her.
"You lot are new recruits, huh? Lucky for you."
I spared all the women whose power levels were similar to Jeon So-hyun's.
After handling everything, the guy I had nailed to the wall was left with nothing but bloody streaks, already having fled somewhere.
"W-We have to chase them!? Illegal experiments and human modification are incomparable to these trivial sex trades..."
"That's right. But it's annoying."
I kicked the protesting Ren with a snap of my fingers. After all, this wasn't about reporting performance points. Honestly, I had come this far because of Jeon So-hyun.
"Hands up!"
"I definitely won't be able to escape today!"
And when I returned to the surface, dozens of blinding spotlights shone on me at once.
"Long time no see, senior."
"You can't send me today."
Magical girl Aria stood before me, her 2nd Awakening armament fully deployed in a single breath, glaring at me.
The problem wasn't just Aria. Other magical girls had drawn their own weapons and aimed at me.
And on top of that, the police were aiming lasers at me.
I really was being treated like a vicious villain. After becoming the Demon King, instead of invading the human world, I had switched to a management route, yet I still received this treatment here.
"I'm innocent. I was just faithfully performing my duties as a magical girl."
"...Protect the line. This is a world where we all live together."
"If you think that, there's nothing you can do."
I smiled faintly. There was no reason for me to follow if this kind of slander had entered the picture.
"W-What's...?"
"The ground is shaking!"
The entire area began to vibrate. My current power was SSS-rank, but in a restricted state.
However, since I had fallen into this world, I had never once unleashed my full SSS-rank power.
"If you want to wield conviction, come with the power to match it."
Something rose from my shadow, lifting my body above it. I could see the people's eyes turning to shock.
And the magical girls were shocked too.
Those who were more sensitive to mana than ordinary people could probably tell exactly how much power I was emitting.
"Can you handle it?"
I looked down on them and sneered.
"Ah, a demon..."
Even the magical girl who had aged enough to wince and back away.
The hot potato, Code Red magical girl Takilas. Despite the moniker "demon girl" attached to her, her overwhelming strength had driven her into uncontrollable rampage.
But no one truly believed that control was impossible.
Even if she was a demon girl or a bloodthirsty killer, the core of her was still a teenage girl. They believed there must be cracks.
"Heh... Takilas!"
But Aria's face had gone pale as she gritted her teeth. What Takilas had summoned from her shadow was a massive... dragon, or something resembling a snake.
Yet the black armor covering her entire body resembled a centipede, and the wings sprouting like rotten branches dangled like torn flesh.
"Can you handle it?"
A thin line of sweat ran down Aria's forehead. Even she, who had always believed in her own power, honestly didn't think she could handle it.
The Demon Realm dragon pulled from the shadow by Takilas spewed primal fear-inducing power, treating those weaker than herself as prey.
"Move... move..."
Aria tried desperately to move her legs that had frozen and were trembling. Compared to the other magical girls who had already collapsed from fear and were whimpering, or the ordinary people, she possessed steel-like mental fortitude.
"Senior, you can't even lift your feet and you're still..."
But the moment Takilas, who had mocked her, flicked her fingers.
Sharp teeth like a shark's bit down tightly on her mouth, which gaped open, and a horrifying roar erupted.
'Ah...'
It wasn't a simple scream.
The monarch's power that extracted the thing the opponent feared most, ruling over fear. In an instant, the fire in Aria's eyes vanished. She staggered and collapsed to the floor.
"T-This..."
"You're fine. Maybe you have a different thought process."
Ren, perched on Takilas's head, trembled at the sudden scene and rolled away. She had said she was fine while looking at Ren, but that was only from her own perspective.
Right now, the mascot Ren was also in a state of terror.
"Uwaaaah! Don't come! Don't come!"
"Ren... I'm... in pain..."
Ren saw the vision appearing before her eyes and flailed in the air in shock.
The appearance of a magical girl holding her own neck, torn off horribly.
"Please... Delite..."
"Pathetic."
I grabbed Ren's sobbing head and slammed it down once. The vision disappeared, and Ren breathed heavily. I picked up the back of Ren's neck.
"Let's go. Time to sleep."
And I flew up. The summoned Demon Realm dragon had already turned into a handful of shadows, and we crossed the sky before anyone could regain their senses.
No one could stop us.
"Wow."
The only remaining video was shot from a distance where the dragon's roar hadn't reached, by some unknown person. Ultimately, news and videos about Takilas once again dominated the internet.
"After fighting something like that, this guy survived?"
"Yes, sir."
"Nice."
And among them were people who, after watching the video, began to feel interest in her.
"Hah. I'm a bit tired."
In the dim hallway, I crossed it straight through, opened the door, and released my disguise. My roommate was, as expected, sound asleep, completely unaware of the world.
"Tell me."
"W-What?"
"The background story."
After releasing my vestment and lying on the bed, I smirked at Ren. The mumbling Ren could barely speak and only opened her mouth.
"...It was an accident. A simple... accident. Something a magical girl could experience..."
Ren sighed and muttered blankly.
"An accident. You fought?"
"Yeah. I died fighting villains. They were aberrations. Delite fought hard, but those guys showed no mercy."
Ren spoke in as calm a tone as possible, but since I had confirmed that Ren's trauma was exactly that incident, I didn't believe her calmness.
"You never want to experience it again? So you retired from active duty?"
"Hmph, talking like you know everything."
"Then why did you take me on?"
"T-That..."
Ren flinched and avoided my eyes, but I had already guessed the reason.
"There's no reason to be afraid, Ren. I won't die."
Even though the voice belonged to a girl lying on a bed, Ren recognized the monarch's dignity and froze solid.