The Fifth Demon King
"How dare a mere human set foot in this place!"
It was a voice pitched low in the chest, yet threaded through with the scrape of steel on steel, and the sound of it rolled out vast and skin-crawling. No human throat could have produced that voice. Its owner was, as one might have guessed, a demon—hideous to look upon, two horns jutting proud from his brow.
"Haah... there it is again. You're making my ears itch."
It was no empty threat. Every breath a demon drew carried a lethal poison, and a voice hurled in anger was terror itself—power enough to make a frail human cough up blood and die on the spot. And yet the man standing before him only looked put-upon as he dug a finger in his ear.
"What? How can a human...?"
Silver hair falling to his waist, a height that was neither tall nor short, and features so evenly set that anyone would have called him handsome. But that was by human standards. To demons, he was a worthless human and nothing more. And yet there was something wrong with him now.
The demon had not expected the man to drop dead at once—not after coming all the way to the Demon King's castle. He had, however, expected at least a flicker of fear. The look on his face was one of genuine bewilderment.
How can he look so at ease? As if he'd just strolled up the hill behind his house.
The demon swept his gaze across the field. Behind him stood the ranked—every demon from the hundredth to the first—and beyond them, from the heights of the Demon King's castle, the Archdemons who commanded them were watching.
That's all it is. Empty swagger.
Confidence flooded back. Above all else, He was watching from that towering castle behind them. The Demon King—a presence that made even his own kind's skin crawl. The demon recovered the nerve he had briefly lost, turned back to the human before him, and roared.
"Kneel, human! Do so, and I shall grant you mer—"
"I told you. You're making my ears itch."
The human's expression remained one of pure inconvenience. He merely twitched a finger. The motion was so slight it was barely perceptible—and for the demon, it was fatal.
Thud.
The demon's head hit the ground with its mouth still hanging open, never even knowing it had died. The soil of the demon realm, swamp-soft and clinging, received the head as gently as a cushion.
"What?"
Why do humans fear demons? The hideous, crawling look of them? The alienness of creatures from another world? No. The reason is simple.
Strength.
A body superior from the moment of birth. Magic that, save for a vanishing handful of humans, could be earned only by grinding oneself to the bone. Demons could wield both as easily as breathing. In their eyes, humans were insects. And now the positions of the two races had been reversed entirely.
"GRAAAAH!"
"Kill him!"
When any living thing is confronted with a power or a situation it has never known, it tends toward one of two responses: flee, or reject it and fight. For demons who had every confidence in their own strength, it was not even a choice.
They stamped like well-trained warhorses and surged forward as one, and the world itself began to shake, as though an army of tens of thousands were charging. And that was not the end of it. Those demons gifted in magic rose into the air and hurled down every spell they trusted most. Fire and ice, boulders and wind—brutal magic began to fall from the sky like rain. On the ground, demons of enormous muscle charged the single man as if they meant to crush him flat.
They were a heartbeat from tearing him to pieces when the human gave his hand a lazy flick. A small motion. The result was catastrophic.
It was the sound a masterpiece might make—steel a lifelong smith had forged and honed, swung by a swordsman of the first rank. Invisible blades sang toward the demons at the man's direction, as if following a beautiful melody. Bright seams opened across waists, throats, and legs, and the demons began to come apart. From every cut, the black blood unique to their kind sprayed out on all sides like waterfalls.
"Ghk—"
The only sound was the death rattle that never quite escaped the throat of the demon standing furthest back. The rest fell without even managing a scream.
"A human... this strong?"
Unlike the others, these had wings at their backs and horns of enormous size. The Archdemons took their place before the human, faces stunned. Even if every demon who had just died had come at them at once, the Seven Archdemons could have slaughtered the lot.
But this easily? This quickly? That should have been impossible.
The Archdemons shook their heads. Then they looked at one another, spoke with their eyes, nodded, and as one began to bring their specialties to bear.
"We strike together."
No long speech was needed. Attack as a pack, and call it cowardice? Among demons, that was a compliment. They did not know what attack magic the human had used—but defense came first. Those Archdemons gifted in magic wrapped themselves in shields of mana; those who trusted their bodies reinforced their flesh with the same.
Why isn't he doing anything?
He was watching them. That much was obvious. And still the human did nothing—the same put-upon look as before. Then he raised his right hand, the fingers closed into a fist.
The Archdemons, who had seen what that hand had already done, flinched in spite of themselves and settled into guard. They would be different. They were Archdemons. But when the human's fist came down like a hammer driving a nail, every last scrap of their confidence turned to despair.
CRASH!
"Ghhk—"
"GRAAAGH—"
They had one thing the demons before them had not. They did not die in a single blow. But the man wore a look of utter tedium, and he kept bringing his fist down as if he were swatting insects, and the Archdemons were driven into the earth, their bodies losing shape as they went.
The magic-wielders died the instant their shields shattered. The physical fighters died far worse. Lift an arm, and the arm was the first thing crushed. They curled in on themselves by instinct and thrashed, but their bodies slowly crumpled until they died. Had they been weaker, they might have gone without the pain.
"Human... those eyes..."
In the instant before death, the last of the physical Archdemons realized he had misread the look in the human's eyes. What lived there was not annoyance. It was boredom.
Bored of what, exactly...?
He carried that unanswered question with him as he returned to the earth. And at last, the human stood before the Demon King.
"Just what are you? And what is that magic?"
Give him this much: he was the Demon King. The human's firmly shut mouth opened.
"You're the fifth."
"What?"
The Demon King's head tilted slightly at the words he could not parse. The fifth what, exactly? He would not ordinarily have stooped to conversation with a human, but this one was different. The demons and Archdemons who had just died? To him they were insects, no different from the way demons regarded humankind. One does not mourn a dead bug.
"So it really did reset. That damned Balance. Still, you're a Demon King, so I'll tell you. You're nothing but a pitiful victim yourself."
"First: I am an alchemist."
"An alchemist?"
The Demon King's eyes went wide with disbelief. He knew about humans. He did not even need information for a word like this—the reputation of alchemists was so abysmal it had reached the demon realm itself. Herb-grinders, or the odd one with a scrap of healing magic, and even that was only a fraction of them. Most were con artists.
"Do not lie to me, human. No alchemist could wield attack magic such as that."
Of course. Humans were a race to whom lying came as naturally as breath. A lie that thin? Their own kind was preferable. Demons, at least, honored their contracts—unfair though those contracts invariably were.
"I don't lie."
"Hah! Your confidence is as staggering as that shameless face, human."
"I'll answer your second question. This isn't attack magic. It's a beginner-level defensive spell—Shield Magic. It's the only thing I can use."
"Lies—"
The Demon King's words, delivered with an expression of sheer incredulity, died against the palm the human held up. It was a rudeness the Demon King had never once suffered in his life, but this human had come this far. He endured it. Once.
"Just listen. I'm telling you this as a special favor, since you're a victim too. You're the fifth Demon King spawned because of me, and you're about to die. After that, I'm getting out of this world the wretched Balance has been crushing, and skipping off to another one. The world I came from."
A distant look crossed the man's face as the memory surfaced—an expression that had no business on a field strewn with corpses.
"What are you talking about...?"
"Now die."
The man finished speaking. A look of something like relief settled over him as he raised both hands. And then he began to make good on his word.