I'd Rather Decline Meetings Like This
The Lucid Saga that Lethe remembered was, of course, a game aimed at male players.
What did that mean? That more than half of this world's leading cast were women.
And among those leads, it was only natural that the most central figures—the Heroes—were all beautiful women.
"Welcome, Heroes. I sincerely welcome you to the Academy."
At Lethe's greeting, the four women standing before him returned the greeting in kind.
"It is an honor to meet you, Sir Lethe."
"War Hero! It's been so long!"
"Have you been well all this time, Senior?"
"…."
In order: red hair, black hair, silver hair, blue hair. The combination was uncomfortably familiar.
Why the hell had they given the Demon Kings and the Heroes the exact same hair colors? Those bastards.
Thanks to that, he'd raised the Demon Kings like precious treasures without ever realizing his mistake.
Grumbling inwardly, Lethe accepted each of the Heroes' greetings one by one.
He seemed to have completely forgotten that he himself had mixed up the dates—or that later on he had continued to dote on them even after learning they were Demon Kings. Or perhaps he was simply pretending to forget.
"I never expected to see the Heroes here at the Academy."
"Come on, stop calling us Heroes already! Just call us your juniors, Senior!"
The silver-haired woman who insisted on calling Lethe "Senior" was Haniel, the long-range dealer of the Hero party.
"We were thinking of just going our separate ways, but when we heard the War Hero was here, we decided to come."
The black-haired one who used that embarrassingly grand title was the Saint, Selaphy.
For the record, she was not an actual saint. It was merely an epithet.
She was an atheist, a heavy drinker, and a chain smoker. Once alcohol got into her system, she stopped being human and turned into something closer to a beast.
Whatever else she might be, she was a long way from any genuine "Saint."
"…."
Meanwhile, Meta—blue hair tied back tightly—said not a single word. She had always been taciturn; speaking at all was rare for her.
And finally—
"Sir Lethe. You may simply call me by name."
The one who meticulously attached the honorific "Sir" every time was the leader of the Hero party, Michaela.
A beauty with striking, flame-like red hair and a cool, composed air. In truth she was a hot-tempered woman who kept that fiery nature carefully bottled up—a Hero whose surface and interior did not match.
"She's right. Names would be better. Feels friendlier that way."
"I'm fine as I am. More importantly…"
"Oh, stop being like that. Just try calling us by name. Come on. Relax."
After a brief moment of hesitation, Lethe decided to accept their suggestion.
From today onward they were Heroes and, at the same time, Academy students. He was an instructor; treating students casually posed no problem at all.
"Ahem. Very well then—Michaela. Haniel. Selaphy. And Meta."
"Yes, Instructor."
"In place of the Headmaster, who is unavoidably absent, I welcome you to the Academy."
The day before the Demon Kings were due to arrive in the Empire for the armistice and peace talks, the Heroes had enrolled at the Academy not as temporary guests but as official students.
"I'll show you to your rooms. Follow me."
"Understood!"
Originally they had been destined to throw themselves into the war proper and rack up countless military achievements. They were supposed to become the saviors of the Empire and the other races, the living nightmare of the demonkin, their names ringing across the continent.
That had been the original flow laid out for Michaela, Haniel, Selaphy, and Meta.
But one person's miscalculation of dates had twisted that flow beyond recognition.
Four thoroughly warped Demon Kings should have been born after suffering every possible misfortune. Instead, what existed now were four puppies who wanted nothing more than to stay by Lethe's side—demonkin or not.
And the warmongering demon factions had been thoroughly slaughtered by those same four puppies.
At this point they were less puppies and more like Cerberus, the hound of hell.
"This is so strange. I thought I'd be bouncing around battlefields well past thirty, and now here I am at an Academy."
"So now we just do social-adaptation training here?"
As a result, the Heroes had never gotten the chance to shine and had suddenly found themselves unemployed.
It was only natural that Lethe felt a quiet guilt toward them.
This is worrying. Really worrying. Is this actually going to be okay…?
Everyone else was busy arguing for or against the Demon Kings coming to the Empire. The hardliners among them were frothing that peace be damned—they should seize every Demon King who set foot in the Empire, cut off their heads, and hang them at the war memorial.
Lethe sincerely wanted to thrash those hardliner bastards.
How the hell was it possible that not a single one of the hardliners had ever enlisted and fought? That was exactly why they could spout such complete nonsense. Lunatics.
Cleaning up the headless ones would be easy, they claimed? The war was already won?
What did they think would happen if the Demon Kings were killed? The chaos among the demonkin would spill straight onto the Empire. The war they had barely managed to stop would simply continue until one side was completely dead.
And the ones who would die would be ordinary soldiers who never asked for any of this. The ones who would lose their families would be ordinary people of the Empire.
Meanwhile the hardliner bastards would just sit in the rear squawking about how brilliant they were.
Whatever else, no matter how high the hostility toward the demonkin ran, an armistice was essential. Peace was necessary.
The other side had already cleaned house themselves, apologized, and was even willing to bow their heads. Why refuse?
It was a shame the Heroes had never gotten to play their part, but if the fighting continued any further it would be the start of an apocalypse.
And right now, more important than anything were the armistice, the peace talks, and everything that came after—specifically the fact that the four Demon Kings would be enrolling at the Academy as new students.
Heroes and Demon Kings, Demon Kings and Heroes. The Demon Kings might be fine, but the Heroes… anything related to Demon Kings will send their favorability straight to the floor.
Michaela, Selaphy, Haniel, and Meta. Hair color, appearance, and personality all different—yet their hostility toward the demonkin was virtually identical. They were Heroes; it could not be helped.
Those two factions living in the same place? Just imagining it was enough to make one shudder.
Which meant information on the Four Heavenly Kings was more necessary than ever. Almost nothing was known about them.
He would give them credit for purging the hardliners themselves in the name of peace. But what if it was a trick? A strategy to lull the Empire and the other races into dropping their guard?
There had been plenty of cunning Demon Kings in the past. Masters of every kind of deception, they used false surrenders and sowed discord as casually as eating a meal—the worst of the worst.
If those types came all the way to the Academy and started something…
Not the Academy. Absolutely not. That's my precious El Dorado.
Transmigrator Rule One: find a way back to your own world.
Transmigrator Rule Two: if you can't find a way, try to live well here instead.
Transmigrator Rule Three: if you're going to live well, live really well.
In that sense, the Academy was truly important to Lethe.
Wear the War Hero title and soak up the students' praise and respect. If luck was on his side, some young lady from a great noble house might even blush and approach him.
Call it vulgar if you want, but that was what happiness looked like for a man—surrounded by beautiful women, receiving applause for the things he had done.
For that reason the Academy absolutely could not be touched. It had to be protected no matter what.
Which was why he had been quietly glad about the Heroes' enrollment. Reliable allies had just arrived.
People who held near-unconditional hostility—or at least wariness—toward Demon Kings. And they already treated him like a senior and a War Hero, so they would be easy enough to put to work!
So if anyone lays a hand on my Academy, I don't care who it is—they're completely fucked.
His mouth had been his enemy. He had told himself over and over not to run it carelessly.
Apparently the one who was completely fucked right now was not the Demon Kings, but Lethe himself.
"Mister!"
"Big Brother!"
"Master!!"
The Demon Kings who had finished the armistice and peace talks—something he had expected to take hours—in less than a single hour.
The moment they arrived at the Academy they charged straight at Lethe, and only then did he understand who the Four Heavenly Kings of the Great Purge actually were.
"Wh-what? Ash? Mar and Sitri, and even El?"
Red, black, blue, and glittering—every color of the rainbow came rushing at him in a wave.
"Waaaaah! It really is you, Mister! Mister! Why have you gotten so old!!"
"Old? Ash! Big Brother is just as dashing now as he was back then!"
"At last, at last I've come. Master. I—Sitri—have arrived."
What? Why were these kids here—ah. No way.
"It was you?"
"What do you mean?"
"The Four Heavenly Kings! The Demon Kings who wiped out all the hardliners…"
"Of course it was us! Who else would it be?! Mister! Did you actually think we would betray you and side with those disgusting things, screaming 'War! Never again war!'?!"
"We never once forgot Big Brother's wish."
"And we worked very hard to grant it."
Nod, nod—
The four Demon Kings nestled in his arms all looked at him with eyes dripping affection.
Exactly the same as before. Back when they were neither Demon Kings nor anything else, sitting around a table eating together in quiet contentment.
He felt dazed and glad at the same time. He was just about to pull all four of them into a hug the way he used to and say, "You little brats! If it was you, you could have at least sent word!" when—
"S-Senior…?"
"Why is the War Hero…"
"…."
Something about the atmosphere was very wrong. The Heroes who had looked at him with such goodwill only yesterday were now staring as if he were a traitor to all humanity. Wait. The Heroes? No—
"Sir Lethe."
Michaela, leader of the Heroes, spoke in a voice that had gone ice-cold.
"Why… are you with the Demon Kings?"
Heroes hated everything related to Demon Kings, no exceptions. Cause and effect did not matter. It was destiny.
Remembering that simple, inescapable fact, Lethe could only let out a low groan.