Drinking Game (1)

"H-here, let's drink this. I took it off those kids who came barging in last time."

The Demon King was so flustered she was rambling. She'd apparently forgotten her usual "I borrowed it" euphemism and just admitted, straight-up, that she'd robbed them.

"...Why the sudden drinks?"

"They say if you drink this together, you feel better. You're... y-you're a little mad, so let's drink, okay?"

She looked terrified, like a badger that had just heard a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠shotgun go off. Breaking her promise seemed to be a pretty big deal to her.

If I use this as leverage to hound her into letting me out...

BANG!

Yeah. Let's not.

I don't know the exact reason, but if she's this desperate around me, she probably won't mess with me for a while. Let's just be satisfied with that. Don't go begging her to let me out just because I've got the upper hand.

That'd be like cutting open the goose that laid the golden eggs.

"Alright. I'll drink."

If she wanted to make me drink, she could just threaten me with magic and force it down my throat. Asking was just for show. In other words, the rational move was to fill my glass while she was still being nice about it.

Pop.

The cork shot out of the bottle, and she flinched hard. It felt like I'd just demonstrated fire-making to a caveman.

"H-hey. Just drinking's boring, so wanna play a game?"

Called it, you little shit.

Sure enough. The Demon King proposed a game the second the bottle was open. As a gaming junkie and competitive maniac, there was no way she'd just sit there and drink. As of today, she could add "chronic cheater" to that list.

"Yeah. Let's do it."

At my answer, the Demon King's expression — which had been looking as anxious as a puppy that desperately needed to pee — eased a little. Then she ducked into her room and came back carrying a notebook.

"Th-then we'll play the games I made up!"

The first game the Demon King had created was called "Ten Questions."

"You get a total of ten questions! If you guess the answer, you win! For example, it's like..."

It was Twenty Questions. Nothing more, nothing less. Since she didn't know the name, she seemed to think her game was an original. She explained it with spit flying, as if she were laying out some incredibly innovative set of rules, so excited she was bouncing in place.

"If ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that's the case, isn't ten questions too few? How about twenty?"

"Hah!! Oh my!! Oh my gosh! Are you actually a genius?!"

The Demon King slapped my arm over and over with her palm, completely overdoing it. Fuck, did she just break my arm?

Whether we played this game or not didn't actually matter. The reason being...

"The penalty is drinking this!"

Right. What other penalty would a drinking game even have? You just drink. We were going to drink the stuff anyway. Might as well make a bet of it and take it slow.

"Then, Twenty Questions. Shall we start? Hooo... I'm nervous."

The Demon King gripped the bottle, wound tight as a fighter about to step into the ring.

I won at rock-paper-scissors, so I got to pose the first question. The Demon King waited with her eyes wide and sparkling, locked in like a civil-service exam student on the final stretch.

....Let's go with something easy.

No matter the game, handing the Demon King a loss was never ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a positive development. I decided on the first thing that caught my eye.

The Paper Crane. Let's go with that.

She wore it around her neck all day long. There was no way she wouldn't guess it.

"Then, first question. Can it withstand all magic of 7-star or below?"

!!!!!

Are you fucking kidding me?! You absolute moron!!!

Who the hell asks THAT as their first question!!!!

But the answer to that deranged question was, surprisingly...

".....Yes."

That Paper Crane, layered with every disaster-grade buff imaginable, was a sacred relic that could actually answer that question in the affirmative.

"Hmm... Daedalus, maybe... or Thanatos? Or the White Whale?"

She seemed to only be thinking of terrifying magical beasts whose names alone sounded ominous. Hanging around those kinds of nasty bastards was how she'd ended up like this. Tsk.

"Second question. Is it here?"

...Here? She must mean this tower. In that case.

"Yes."

"...Huh? Wait, is it something I like?!"

The Demon King suddenly got sharp. When you thought about it, she wasn't stupid — she just didn't know much. The answer had been narrowed down pretty far. Now I just needed to give her a little running start.

"Yes."

"Oh my? Really?"

Suddenly, a blue, razor-edged light coiled around the Demon King's fingertips. Crack-crack — lightning magic.

Ziiiing.

?

KRA-KOOM!!!!

"Fuck!!!"

Dorothy saved my life. Thanks to the lightning magic she used to fire off whenever we were walking around carrying luggage, I was able to dodge just from seeing the spark of light.

The past came flooding back and I got pissed off for a second, but that wasn't the important part. The important part was why this terrifying Demon King had suddenly had a change of heart and tried to kill me.

"Wh-why would you do that! All of a sudden!"

"Hm? Well, you said it was fine... so I tried it. This is Chain Lightning... 5-star magic..."

"Explain that using the five Ws, please."

"The answer isn't you?"

What kind of nonsense is that, you twisted Pikachu from hell.

"Look. It's here, and it's something I like, so isn't it you? That's why I tried using magic."

...What? She likes me?

I now thoroughly understood that for demons, "liking" someone meant blasting them with lightning as a form of verification. These insane barbarians.

"...Wrong. And I'm not immune to magic."

"S-sorry. Next time I'll ask before I shoot."

Don't shoot in the first place.

After that she kept firing off ridiculous questions, and somehow managed to drag this easy problem all the way to the sixteenth one. I'd forgotten this woman's habit. For someone so innocent, she had a tendency to overthink things in the most unnecessarily complicated ways. I could see the same footprints she'd left on that miserable road of the drawing quiz.

"Not Nemesis either... Hmm... This is a hard one..."

She's driving me up the wall...

This wasn't working. I had no choice but to drive a hint straight into her forehead.

"Hey, did you buff the Paper Crane today?"

"Hm? Of course. I just gave it.... Ah!!"

As if something had just occurred to her, she clapped her palms together and asked.

"Seventeenth question — is it alive?!"

A question she should have asked ages ago, finally coming out of the Demon King's mouth. Whatever the case, it seemed she'd found the answer with this.

"No."

"Huh? Then it's not the Paper Crane?"

!!!!!

What the hell is this kid saying right now?

"This one's alive, so..."

The Demon King murmured, stroking the Paper Crane.

My skull ached at her absurd worldview. What? The Paper Crane is alive? Yeah, this one needed to be sent to a psychiatrist.

The Demon King ultimately failed to guess the answer even after hearing the remaining questions. When she asked, thoroughly disappointed, I told her it was the Paper Crane.

"It's not alive."

At my bombshell of a statement, she looked like she wanted to argue, but for some reason just accepted it. Then she started pouring herself a drink.

Glug, glug, glug.

...

Glug, glug, glug, glug, glug.

...?

Glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug.

?

"Hey, what are you doing?"

The Demon King was filling not a shot glass but a water cup to the brim with alcohol. I didn't know what her tolerance was, but she seemed like a drinker. Still, wasn't this way too much?

The Demon King, about to drink, stopped.

"Ah, wait. This has a poison attribute mixed in, so they say you have to savor it."

It was true that alcohol was toxic. Suddenly a magic circle unfurled beneath her feet with a whoosh.

She'd been walking around with a whole string of anti-poison countermeasures hanging off her. With this, my plan to assassinate her by sprinkling rat poison on a sandwich was officially scrapped. The light faded, and she picked up her glass again.

Slurp.

"Ulp!"

After taking a single sip, her eyes flew wide and she started coughing in agony.

"Cough! Cough!"

"Wh-what's wrong!"

Don't tell me she has a fatal alcohol allergy? Hell yeah! Drop dead!!

"Urgh... W-what is this taste..."

She glared at the glass as if resenting it.

...But judging by her reactions so far.

You. Don't tell me. The Demon King of all people.

Is this your first time drinking?

A game that was no big deal had become a deathmatch for her. Wait, hold on, what the fuck. Wasn't this supposed to be for cheering me up?

"Nngh..."

A penalty was a penalty, so the Demon King was drinking. Though calling it "drinking" was a stretch — she was dabbing her tongue against it and licking. Sipping so slowly it was like she was using an eyedropper. This was going to take all night.

...Don't tell me?

How long had it even been since that endlessly long Little Farm hell camp ended, and now we were going to have to play this game for days?

The way the Demon King was nibbling at her drink brought that nightmare right back.

Not a chance. Not this time.

"In drinking games, doing it in one shot is the golden rule."

"Hngh? One shot? Golden rule?"

I very kindly pointed out that her behavior was incorrect. The Demon King went pale.

"Th-this, all at once...?!"

That's why you shouldn't have poured so much...

"Want me to pour some out? If it's too much to drink..."

That must have pricked her pride. Maybe the ugly display from Little Farm came flooding back, because she got thoroughly pissed off and immediately downed the glass.

Gulp... gulp... gu... lp...

KWANG!

The Demon King slammed the empty glass down. The table was sturdier than Rebecca, and the kitchenware — including that glass — was dripping with buffs, so it didn't break.

"Aghghgh... My mouth... my mouth is bitter..."

The Demon King stuck ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her tongue out and fanned it. Her face was scrunched up as far as it would go, like a kid at a family holiday gathering who'd knocked back liquor thinking it was water.

"...Hngh..."

A hint of drunkenness settled over her expression after emptying that huge glass.

Then.

Crackkk.

SHATTER!

?

The glass that wouldn't break even if you smashed it with Rebecca's Divine Hammer suddenly shattered. That shouldn't have been possible.

...Huh? Wait.

On a hunch, I picked up a fork and pressed it into the table.

Nngh...

When I pressed the fork down hard, a faint mark appeared on the table.

!!!

That should never have left a mark. This table had buffs that wouldn't even scratch under decent firepower.

Which meant the buffs had weakened... In other words...

The type whose magic power weakens when they drink... I'd heard they existed, but I never thought it'd be you.

Out of nowhere, an opportunity had presented itself.