The Mage's Discipline
The reason I still couldn't adapt to this world was simple enough — I was far too weak.
Contrary to what humans believed, Demon Kings were not absolute beings. We kept winning because of our troublesome innate abilities and the formidable armies under our command. Measure us by individual strength alone, and more than a few of us came out weaker than a human.
Take my own innate ability, Stealth. It could be strong in one-on-one combat. It could even shine on a battlefield. But use it in an army-versus-army clash? Completely useless.
That was why my territory had been nothing more than a scrap of land tucked inside a canyon. Armies couldn't easily march in, and even if they tried, traps would wipe them out. As a bonus, the place was excellent for growing wine grapes.
Until now, I never needed to come out.
That choice of location let me hide in the canyon and deal only with the occasional Hero who came looking. Stealth made ambushes easy. No matter how heavily armored they were, shove a blade into the gaps and they died all the same.
I had lived for centuries inside that territory alone. I had no idea how the outside world worked. No — I never needed to know. Surviving was enough.
"Ugh…"
"Hold still."
"W-wait a second. There are people outside!"
"If you keep quiet, nobody will know."
Camilla grinned as she dragged me into her room. Baron Arin had been so lavish in his praise for a party that had already cleaned up seven Demon Kings that he'd handed over an entire building — the finest one available. Each of us had been free to pick whatever room we liked…
For me, that was a disaster. Women like Elisa and Camilla simply hauled me into their rooms and had their way with me.
"Shhhh…. Sleep with me tonight? Your body's so warm — holding you would put me right to sleep."
"I'm not… some kind of doll…"
"Didn't you hear Sloan earlier? You're mine now. The Hero herself gave permission. That means I can do whatever I want with you."
I had already figured out that Sloan did not possess a normal way of thinking. But wasn't a basic sense of justice still fair to expect? Heroes were supposed to protect the weak and punish evil, weren't they?
And yet, somehow, her words made it sound as though becoming Camilla's toy was the right and proper order of things — and that refusing was against the natural way of the world.
That absolute lunatic!
Was this why she'd taken me in from the start? To use me like some precious, durable plaything?
"Mmm…. So warm. Vally, once we defeat every last Demon King, want to get married? We'll build a log cabin up in the mountains. Live there with a daughter and a son."
"As if I would ever marry—! Nngh!"
"That's not the right answer."
Whenever I gave a reply she didn't like, this mage slipped her fingers under my clothes as punishment — usually into my stomach or between my thighs.
"You're going to marry me, right? Vally. Big sister will take such gooood care of you. Feed you delicious food every single day, take you to nice places…"
"Stop touching me. Please!"
"Wrong again…. Vally! You can't answer like that here. It's 'yes' or 'no.' When someone asks you something, giving a proper answer is just good manners, you know?"
Manners? She had the nerve to talk about manners while shoving her fingers wherever she pleased. A dog walking past would laugh.
Irritated beyond measure, I thrashed and tried to knock away the fingers stroking my thigh — and the side of that slender white index finger bumped right against my groin.
"Hmm…? What's this. Vally, did you hide a dagger in there?"
"No…. That's not it."
"Strangeee? Doesn't feel like one."
Tap, tap — she patted the bulge at the front of my pants with her palm. I twisted in surprise, but her left arm had already coiled around my waist. Escape was impossible.
"Oh! This is…"
"Nngh!"
"…Yours?"
I squeezed my eyes shut. Some instinct screamed that meeting Camilla's gaze right now would be a terrible idea.
Those eyes, thick with an eerie flow of mana… they looked like they could bewitch something out of a person. She walked around in white clothes, but her eyes alone held something black and bottomless.
"Hmm, mmmmmm."
"Uuuugh…"
"What a surprise. I never imagined something this impressive would be hanging off such a soft little body."
—Smooch!
Breath brushed the nape of my neck, then her lips pressed against it. My body jerked on its own.
"Shall we take a little look? At Vally's…"
"Ah!"
"—junior. Release."
A low hum — as her voice, laden with mana, shaped the words, the air itself vibrated and a phenomenon took hold.
Ordinary mages used the mana in their bodies to more or less request a phenomenon. Camilla seized mana by force and commanded it. The difference between a request and an order was exactly that stark — in power and in casting speed alike.
A metallic click sounded, and then the leather pants peeled downward. They had been fastened with any number of buckles and clasps, but before her magic they were helpless.
"It's originally a spell for dropping armor and weapons. Twist it just a little and… you can use it to strip clothes too. Impressive, right?"
"You… twisted a spell?"
"Why so shocked? As if Camilla Witches, the foremost white mage of the Magic Tower, couldn't manage something this small?"
Twisting a spell's effect wasn't something raw mana alone could accomplish. You had to calculate every ripple and every current of backlash and apply them all. Hadn't I just said magic was a request made of a phenomenon? Make a request different from everyone else's, and the one granting it gets angry — the phenomenon itself grows furious the same way.
"I wasn't imagining things after all…. Woooow — look at the size of this."
"Y-you seem to be mistaking me for some kind of product. Keep treating me like this and you'll end up paying for it…!"
"You? Me? Hahaha! Vally. Don't tell me… you think Sloan is everything this party has?"
Camilla swept her palm down over the strained front of my underclothes and whispered into my ear.
"Right now, if I picked up a sword, I could take down any Demon King from the sixtieth seat up. You'd better not get cocky."
"I-I—"
"First, a little punishment. Cute little Vally…. Tonight, let's hear you howl like a dog — arf arf?"
Camilla yanked my underclothes down in one motion and snickered. Air touched bare skin.
Five hundred years had passed since the Demon Kings invaded the human realm.
The seventy-two Demon Kings had wielded overwhelming authority, cutting down countless humans, and the human world had been driven to the brink. And yet the human realm was simply too vast. On land blessed by the gods, crops thrived without fertilizer — which meant the human population swelled without end. Kill them, and hundreds, thousands more armies sprang up like weeds. Despite the overwhelming disparity, the Demon Kings had never managed to conquer the human world.
"And now our own kin are being slaughtered."
The upper thirty-six seats. That was the designation for the especially powerful Demon Kings — each famous for commanding vast armies and wielding nightmarish innate abilities. At present, weary of endless war, they poured their attention into governing the territories they had already seized. But if they ever took the field, no army, however numerous, could avoid annihilation.
"What on earth is going on? Did centuries of peace make us complacent?"
The Fifth Seat, Riact of Annihilation, muttered as though he could scarcely believe it.
"It's hardly strange. The kin who got themselves killed by some Hero were always the weak ones, weren't they? They must have died after deluding themselves into thinking they were strong."
"It is not so simple. A Hero grows stronger by killing creatures that carry demonic energy. If they use that to cultivate power enough to kill us…"
An ordinary human would have been seized with terror at that thought, flailing about and scrambling for countermeasures. The seventy-two evils did no such thing. Instead, they answered the one who had raised the concern — Riact — in voices thick with mockery.
"Finally lost your mind, have you? Humans, killing us?! Pwahahaha!"
"You've always fretted over nothing, Riact! Looks like you've been eating too much of that cheese the humans make…"
"If you're so worried, why don't you lead an army and handle it yourself?"
These idiots. Riact was left speechless by the arrogance pouring off his own kin.
Most of the upper thirty-six no longer cared to fight humans. Creatures they could kill with ease — wasting strength on that sort of thing was work for the weaker kin alone.
"You all know perfectly well why I cannot move. And you still say that?"
Of course, Riact was too hot-blooded — and too powerful in his fury — to simply swallow the ridicule. He ground his teeth.
"The moment I move, that walking catastrophe will wake from its sleep. With its bothersome jailers gone, it will run wild to its heart's content."
At the mention of the First Seat Demon King — the one called the Catastrophe — not a single voice dared speak carelessly.
The Second through Sixth Seats served as a kind of restraint, sealing that calamity away. If anything happened to even one of them, it would break free at once.
"And where do you think it would invade first? Your lands — the most fertile and vast among us! If you honestly believe your abilities could hold it back even a little, I suggest you stop sucking goblin cock and start thinking."
"Ahem…"
"So — spare me the empty talk and come up with a plan."
The arrogant Demon Kings had nothing to say under the rebuke of a kinsman charged with a special duty. So they offered excuses instead, trying to salvage their pride.
"As it happens…. One of our own has infiltrated that Hero party as a spy."
"One of our own…? Ah — Vallitics. That makes sense. He looks the most like a human. Fits the role."
"Exactly! Even if he's the weakest among us…. He should be able to kill a careless Hero, don't you think?"
Riact found a measure of relief in those words. And yet — why? He could not shake a lingering unease.
Come to think of it, they said this Hero is a woman…
Surely nothing would go wrong. Another walking catastrophe was the last thing Vallitics needed. Truly.