The 72 True Demon Kings
If I had time to deal with the Demonic Humans but skipped training, then what exactly had I been doing? I held a conversation with Shan inside the white space.
“By any chance, do true Demon Kings exist?” I asked Shan, who sat across from me. The question had come up because of something he’d said moments earlier.
The books never mentioned it.
Nothing I had read ever suggested that the title “Demon King” was reserved solely for beings above transcendence. The records simply noted things like “A Demon King descended” or “A Demon King died in the central region.” There were no finer details.
“They do exist.” Shan continued. “What we usually say is just for convenience. A true Demon King is a demon who has earned a recognized seat even in the Demon World where demons live. One of them called them the Demon Kings of the Throne.”
“The Throne, you mean.”
“Exactly. The Throne. I don’t know how many there are, but there are probably as many true Demon Kings as there are seats.”
The word “throne” brought a single number to mind.
“...Seventy-two.”
“Huh?”
“There should be seventy-two of them.”
“What’s your basis for that?”
I had nothing to say. The knowledge I possessed didn’t come from this world.
“...It’s intuition. I’m your disciple, so please trust me as much as you can.”
“Well, all right.”
I caught Shan muttering, “He never took my words at face value when I was his master.”
....
I had no response to that. Even now, the whole thing still felt murky. Had I truly killed one?
I should believe him.
After all, he was choosing to believe me.
Rattle.
Shan rose from his chair. When I looked at him with a questioning gaze, he spoke.
“I have a schedule to keep, so I should get going.”
The man really lived by a brutal timetable.
“See you tomorrow.” I moved to see him off, but Shan tilted his head.
“Huh? You’re coming with me today.”
Excuse me?
Grab.
I was dragged away by Shan before I could even protest.
“...Where are we?” I asked, glancing around as I followed Shan.
It’s definitely still inside the academy…
I had never stepped past the main gate, so this had to be academy grounds. Yet this was a place I had neither visited nor even glimpsed during my two months here. It felt almost like a hallucination.
“Where? Inside the academy, of course.” Shan answered with a bright, sunny smile.
....
He knew that wasn’t what I meant, which made the answer slightly irritating.
“You’ll understand soon.” Shan murmured quietly while looking at me.
I nodded and kept following.
The moment I truly sensed something off was when we entered a certain alleyway.
What is this?
Something had changed. The density of mana, the flow of air, the oddly comforting sense of stability. These were the same sensations I had felt inside Elena’s illusion.
Tap.
Shan stopped in front of a door. When I looked around again, there wasn’t a single person in sight.
“Did you notice?” If Shan hadn’t spoken, I wouldn’t have known he was there. For some reason he was concealing his presence.
“This is inside the president’s illusion… isn’t it?” Even as I said it, I felt doubtful. I couldn’t think of any reason why Elena’s illusion would be cast in a place like this.
Shan nodded. “This is inside the president’s illusion. It’s been formed as a barrier.”
“...Why would an illusion be here?”
“What do you think?”
“....”
He threw the question back at me.
“...To capture some kind of faction?” I voiced the first thought that came to mind.
Shan’s eyes widened. He knocked on the door so lightly it wouldn’t cause any shock inside.
“Correct. There’s a certain faction inside.”
Yesterday, when Shan had met Elena, she had handed him a piece of paper along with a request. She wanted him to deal with the forces located at these coordinates. The reason she wasn’t handling it herself was apparently because of her schedule.
She really is a meticulous woman.
To enter the academy, one needed the president’s permission. Criminal types sometimes extracted another person’s unique mana to forge ID cards. In truth, anyone could tell at a glance whether an ID was fake. Only the forgers themselves seemed unaware of that fact.
Yet the reason such a faction could still operate inside the academy was because Elena had set a trap. She had both sent herself as bait and drawn them in. For an ordinary person she would have executed them the moment she saw a forged ID.
She induced them to let their guard down.
Since it was exam season, they would have poured even more effort into perfecting their forgeries. If permission was granted under those circumstances, they would never imagine the president had done so on purpose. They would simply think their IDs were flawless.
Elena had waited for that exact moment of complacency, then sealed the gathering place inside an illusory barrier. They probably didn’t even realize they were trapped.
After hearing the rough explanation, I nodded.
“...But why am I here?”
Shan quietly raised a fist wrapped in red mana.
“Any need to break the illusion?”
....
I understood instantly.
“What kind of faction is inside?”
“Have you heard of the Demonic Human Association? Their grunts are in there.”
“...I have.”
Demonic Humans. People who had accepted demonic energy from demons. Some had even drunk demon blood. The organization formed by such beings was the Demonic Human Association. In truth it wasn’t a particularly noteworthy force. It was easiest to think of them as a gathering of human-shaped demons.
…They won’t cause a terror attack, right?
Even if one did occur, the damage would be minimal. Unlike my worries, Elena hadn’t spared a single thought to the possibility of terrorism. She was present, and now two transcendents were here as well.
From the beginning, she had assumed Shan would wipe out the entire faction in less than a few minutes.
“Which is why I’m telling you to exterminate the Demonic Humans. If you do it, I’ll pass along the reward Elena promised you.”
Of course Shan could handle it himself. All he had to do was control his mana so the illusion didn’t break. I realized far too late that his claim about wanting to see my real combat was a lie.
“Open the door when you’re ready.”
“...Are they opponents I can actually kill?”
“You’ll win against all of them. If any are too strong for you, I’ll help even if it means breaking the illusion. Oh, right. Use your fire sparingly. If you use too much, you’ll start relying on it unconsciously.”
He seemed to be talking about my martial arts.
Is it really worth that much anticipation?
Tomorrow suddenly felt even more exciting. There also seemed to be a training purpose behind limiting my fire output.
“...Understood.”
I answered and placed my hand on the doorknob. I glanced sideways. Shan, who met my eyes, was smiling without the slightest worry.
I won’t die.
Not with this man here.
Huu.
Click.
With a short breath, I opened the door. I didn’t fling it wide; I opened it carefully.
“...There’s no one here?”
The living room was desolate, as if dust were drifting through the air. A staircase was visible in the distance, and faint murmuring drifted down from above.
“Let’s head up.”
At Shan’s words, I climbed the stairs.
“I’m telling you, today is the perfect time.”
“No, it’s tomorrow.”
“Today.”
“Tomorrow.”
Six Demonic Humans had gathered there. The one who appeared to be the leader and the one who seemed to be the vice-leader were engaged in a heated debate.
I was tilting my ear to make out the conversation when—
“Disciple. I can’t hold back anymore.”
When I turned my head, Shan was wearing a mischievous grin. The kind of smile that made me feel uneasy.
Whoosh!
His figure vanished.
“I wonder what my friends are talking about so happily?”
“We’re kidnapping—”
At the familiar voice I looked forward. Shan stood there with his arms slung around both their shoulders, laughing.
So this is where his disciple gets it from…
The instant I realized that fact—
“Intruder!”
“Attack!”
Roooar!
An enormous wave of demonic energy erupted from their bodies as they struck at Shan. But Shan was already standing beside me. He looked at me and gave a bright smile.
“Do your best, okay?”
The moment he spoke, Shan disappeared.
The Demonic Humans, sensing his presence, whipped their heads around.
....
Our eyes met.
…He really just scattered ashes and left, huh.
Shane’s prankster personality had clearly come from Shan. There was no other possibility. At least it was a relief that Shane wasn’t quite this bad.
“Sigh…”
Shing.
I drew my sword with a sigh. I read the flow of the incoming demonic energy and swung once. The energy disintegrated in midair.
“Oh, it works.”
It was fascinating that I could block it even without using mana or fire.
So this is the technique.
Shan had called it “breaking the flow.” It was my first attempt, yet it had succeeded. A faint smile formed on my lips.
Should I try the other things too?
Shan had taught me various techniques. This seemed like the perfect training ground to test them all.
“Die!”
Whoosh!
One Demonic Human rushed in, aiming for my back. At the same time, another attacked from the front. Flames gathered on my blade. The tip pointed toward the sky. I spun once, and flames surged upward in the direction the sword pointed.
As a result, the Demonic Humans were forced to halt their charge. They retreated.
This is fun.
In truth, this was my first real life-or-death battle since creating the technique. Strangely, a clear smile had bloomed across my face.
“That bastard’s smiling.”
“…What a creepy guy.”
“Hurry up and finish him.”
Tap!
I charged without bothering to listen to their reactions.
Fwoosh!
Flames bloomed and faint tongues of fire rose, wrapping around my body. Because I had intentionally reduced the amount of fire, the blaze wasn’t large.
“Haaap!”
A Demonic Human who had predicted my path swung his sword, but I was a little faster.
Squelch!
The Demonic Human’s head fell.
…Weaker than I expected.
The moment that thought crossed my mind, the remaining five charged at once.
Squelch! Squelch!
Their heads dropped to the floor with heavy thuds. All of them had died from a single strike of mine.
“…They’re all dead?”
It felt hollow. I had thought Demonic Humans would be somehow different, but they were exactly like human-shaped demons, just as I’d expected. Their personalities, appearance, and abilities were all similar. They weren’t even that strong. It felt like a waste of time.
If Shan were the one handling this, it would be an even bigger waste of his time.
“Already finished?”
Shan dropped down from the ceiling. It seemed he had been watching from above while I fought.
“Yes. They were too weak.”
“Really?” Shan gave a meaningful smile.
Surely not…
When I looked at him with a suspicious gaze, he opened his mouth.
“Yep. This isn’t the only group. There are about twelve more.”
“....”
“This probably isn’t the strongest one, so don’t worry.”
Worry? The problem was the annoyance.
I should have realized sooner that this situation had arisen from Shan’s lie. He clapped his hands.
“All right, we need to finish within an hour. On to the next spot~”
I had no choice but to follow Shan to the next location. And so, Shan and I went around exterminating the Demonic Human factions one by one. In reality, I was the one doing almost all the fighting.