Chapter 96: The Time Has Come (1)
Chapter 96: The Time Has Come (1)
Before I knew it, the gates of the Demon Castle were right in front of me.
At last, liberation...! I thought my ears were going to bleed.
"Lord Demon, blood from your ear...?!"
Wait, was I actually bleeding?
I wiped my ear with a finger, and sure enough, blood came away on it. Ben, who'd been glancing at me with concern, called out to me anxiously.
"It'll take a while to reach the inner castle, so you should get in the carriage at least for treatment."
"Ah, then I'll come too!"
"......."
My speechlessness was only natural.
I'd gotten out to catch some fresh air, but it was all for nothing—I had to climb back into the carriage not long after. Still, neither positively nor negatively did my mood change in any particular way.
Because the 5th Legion Commander, who'd been chattering away at my side outside, followed me right into the carriage. Only the location had changed; the situation hadn't.
Inside the carriage were me, Ben who'd come in to examine me, Oel who'd stubbornly followed to keep jabbering, and her adjutant Derneban. The carriage itself was quite spacious, so it didn't feel cramped—but my eardrums were the problem.
"So, Lord Demon, I heard that humans actually make babies inside their stomachs and give birth to them. And I heard it's not something you can just do because you want to—it's possible with a certain probability if you do 'love'..."
"......."
"...And a child made that way is called a 'blessing.' I wanted to have a blessing too, so I told Derneban..."
She just wouldn't stop talking!
It hadn't been long since Ben examined and patched me up, and already there were signs that my ear was about to bleed again.
For the sake of my eardrums' swift liberation, I waited eagerly for the carriage to stop and the door to open. But what do you know?
Crrack.
"......!?"
The carriage did stop, but instead of the door opening, it got ripped off!
And through the opened—no, ripped—entrance, a wild beast the size of a house leaped in. The beast, which rushed in so fast it left afterimages, fortunately didn't go for me. Instead, it instantly pounced on Derneban...
"......?!"
"What is the meaning of this, 9th Legion Commander?"
"Let's spar!"
Ah, so it wasn't a wild beast. I'd only seen afterimages and got the wrong idea.
The one who'd just jumped into the carriage was the 9th Legion Commander, Trover. He himself insists that 'magic' is his specialty, but in reality, he's a bizarre Legion Commander who trains his body to its limits and calls the martial arts he uses 'magic.'
'......Shit.'
I quietly edged myself into a corner of the carriage.
Fortunately, Trover seemed unaware of my presence. That was, until Derneban, who blocked his punch without batting an eye, spoke in a voice as dry as his expression.
"The 0th Legion Commander is watching. Please restrain yourself."
"Huh?"
The wild beast's... no, the 9th Legion Commander's gaze landed on me.
In that instant, I saw his eyes gleam like a beast that had spotted its prey.
No, wait... why did he have to single me out...?
"My apologies, Lord Demon. Truly excellent concealment. I couldn't feel your presence at all."
"Excuse me? No, I wasn't exactly concealing myself..."
When it comes to concealment, the 2nd Legion Commander's the real deal.
I thought of Dvelania, who had been sitting alone on the carriage roof ever since joining the 5th Legion—probably because she didn't want to get caught up in Oel's barrage of questions. My expression soured.
That traitor.
'Come to think of it, Trover would have seen Dvelania before he came in. Why did he come straight inside without messing with her?'
As if pinpointing my curiosity, Trover happened to poke his head around the carriage interior and tilt his head.
"Now that I think of it, I saw troops from the 2nd Legion among the forces deployed outside. Did the 2nd Legion Commander not come in with you?"
"......Was she not on the carriage roof?"
"Huh? Yes."
"......."
"......?"
That nasty... where did she run off to, leaving me behind?
I was inwardly cursing Dvelania out six ways to Sunday when a slip of paper slid in through the carriage window crack and settled onto my lap.
[Lord Demon, something suddenly came up, so I'll head out first. Sorry I can't escort you all the way!]
"......Shit, for god's sake..."
She really did run!
I trembled, hand clenching the note, silently appalled. But for some reason, Trover backed away hesitantly. Then he quietly averted his gaze and murmured.
"I was going to request a spar since you must be stiff from the long journey, but I suppose it's out of the question..."
You seem busy, and also look to be in a bad mood...
His voice grew smaller and smaller. But I focused on the shocking content I'd just heard.
A spar? A sp~ar? With me?
"Of course not...!"
I hurriedly stopped myself.
I'd almost blurted out the words that came to mind without thinking. Since this is the Demon Realm, I have to review my words before speaking, but I'd been a little startled and got worked up.
Trover's left hand, black and with jagged nails, utterly hideous, belatedly entered my vision. As I silently shut my mouth, my personal physician Ben, who'd been gauging my mood from the side, stepped in as if to speak for me.
"It's not even worth answering."
No, wait.
"If you've traveled a long distance, shouldn't you take into account that your opponent would be tired before you even suggest a spar? Not all demons have monstrous stamina like you, 9th Legion Commander. Though our Lord Demon is human, of course!"
"Humans are different from demons? How are they different?"
"Humans are physically weaker. Though our Lord Demon is special, of course!"
"How is Lord Demon special?"
"Lady Oel, I don't think that question is appropriate to ask here."
"Why?"
A maddening conversation with neither meaning nor purpose unfolded.
In the meantime, Trover, who'd briefly shut his mouth and seemed to be seriously pondering something, raised his head and looked at Ben.
"Then... would it be okay if I ask to spar tomorrow?"
"To fully recover from travel fatigue, he'll need to rest thoroughly for at least a week. Especially given the nature of Lord Demon's body after his chronic after-injury..."
"Alright, one week!"
"......."
Why is my sparring schedule being set without my consent...?
The right thing would be to refuse right away, but my instincts warned me that if I expressed refusal, an even worse situation would unfold.
'If I refuse for no good reason, some unnecessary misunderstanding might pile up and make things go bizarrely wrong. That's always how it's been.'
At a loss for words and unable to refuse, I kept my mouth shut. Trover turned back toward Derneban. Derneban had been watching the situation unfold the entire time with an expressionless face.
"You're fine with it, right?"
"As I've told you many times, my specialty is the bow, not martial arts."
"But we've sparred well before. Are you going to refuse?"
He asked with an expression that seemed to say, if you refuse, I'll do something. That was practically no choice at all.
Derneban seemed to read that in Trover's expression too; he was silent for a moment, then glanced at Oel and slowly shook his head.
"No. I will spar."
"Then..."
"But not right this moment."
Trover, who'd been on the verge of dragging Derneban off somewhere immediately, froze.
Displeasure was clearly visible on his face as he looked back. Unfazed by a Legion Commander's anger, Derneban stated his business without a single tremor.
"I need to sort out the oddments Lady Oel brought back, and I also have to handle the post-battle cleanup for the 5th Legion, which has fought several battles."
"Oddments! They might be useful someday!"
"Be that as it may."
"Then when is it possible for you? A week for you too?"
"I know you won't wait if I say a week."
Derneban, who'd taken off his outer garment and neatly folded it on one side of the carriage, unbuttoned a few buttons of his infuriatingly fully buttoned shirt and held up two fingers.
"Please wait just two hours."
.......
The 2nd and 5th Legions each disbanded. Ben, having fulfilled his duty, returned to his room. And since I'd already reported everything to the Demon King via communication stone before departure, I had no separate business to go see him. I holed up in my room immediately.
......I had intended to hole up.
"Now, Lord Demon will act as the judge for this match."
"......."
Why am I here?
I sat blankly in the prepared seat, quietly rubbing my face with both hands.
Okay, I could even understand being here as the judge for Trover and Derneban's spar—if I gave a hundred concessions. But those two aren't the only ones here. Why has everyone gathered here?
"Who do you think will win?"
"Well, normally I'd bet on Trover winning, since he's a Legion Commander... but as you know, the situation with those two is a bit different."
"True, it was Derneban, not Trover, who was first offered the vacant 9th Legion Commander position..."
"Normally, offers for Legion Commander are snapped up right away without ever being passed to the next person, but this time there were unusually many refusals, weren't there?"
"Right. The first to receive the offer was Lord Demon's adjutant, Ed. Then Derneban. And when even he refused, it went to Trover."
"Ed, I can understand, but why did Derneban refuse?"
The 11th Legion Commander Lirinel, the 3rd Legion Commander Asild, the 2nd Legion Commander Dvelania, the 4th Legion Commander Idelia, and the 1st Legion Commander Jeikar.
Are you kidding me? Practically all of the Legion Commanders who reside in the Demon Castle are gathered here. Do they have that little to do?
'And Dvelania, when she ran off claiming she was busy, was that any time at all...'
I stealthily glanced at the demon who had settled into a corner of the training ground.
My heart was too anxious to sit still. And on top of that, when Jeikar said "Ed, I can understand" and looked at me—I was so startled. I didn't flinch outright in an embarrassing way, but I thought my heart had stopped.
Fortunately, his gaze didn't linger on me for long. Because Lirinel, looking utterly delighted, immediately answered.
"Oh, you still didn't know? Oel and Derneban are lovers."
"......Derneban is in a romantic relationship?"
With Oel, of all people?
It was as if the unspoken words that followed hung in the air.
At the meaningless question, Lirinel didn't bother to answer. She merely raised a finger and pointed somewhere.
There was Oel, approaching Derneban.
"I read some romance novels from the human world, and it said that a knight heading into a spar pledges his victory to the heroine."
"Is that so."
"Yes. So, Derneban, win and dedicate your victory to me."
"Understood."
"Alright, this is a reward in advance."
Oel wrapped her arms around Derneban's neck and rose on her tiptoes. As she leaned against him as if clinging, Derneban securely supported her by the waist, and then their lips met and parted.
A blatant sound of friction rang out.
-Chu.
The expressions of the Legion Commanders who saw that scene twisted bizarrely.
Regardless, the ever-indifferent Derneban and Oel, trapped in her own little world, continued their private conversation.
"How is it, Derneban? Does your heart feel like it's pounding?"
"My heart has been beating from the start."
"No, not that. I mean, is it beating in a more special way or something?"
"It doesn't seem different from usual."
"Ah, that's a problem. They said your heart has to pound for it to be love. That's how you have a baby..."
At last, even Jeikar's face, which had somehow maintained its expression, crumbled.
He wore a twisted expression as if unsure how to describe it, stayed silent for a moment, then—while Dvelania was rolling on the floor laughing in the distance—slowly spoke up.
"Those two... do they not know that demons can't have children?"
"Oel might not know, but Derneban probably does. It's obvious. This isn't the first or second time Derneban has played along with Oel's tune. Though I never imagined that 'playing along' would extend even to 'love.'"
Idelia answered, tapping her closed fan against her lips.
Demons are born from the Demon King's power.
No matter how much those two love each other and mingle their bodies like humans, it means a demon child will never be born between them.
'......Whatever, I just wish they'd hurry up and start.'
Why did I have to sit here and listen to those two's love story?
Watching that spectacle any longer was making me sick to my stomach. From jealousy? No, from nausea.
Oel and Derneban's eye-wateringly hard-to-watch antics only came to an end when Trover, who'd been waiting, shouted in irritation asking if they weren't going to start.
In the barely settled situation, Derneban and Trover faced each other, and the hall grew quiet as if the earlier commotion had never happened.
In the midst of it, I could clearly feel the numerous gazes directed at me.
Right, I know I'm the judge, so I have to say something...
'What am I supposed to say?'
Are the rules of a spar in the human world the same as in the Demon Realm?