Chapter Four: A Visit to Demon Dragon Castle
“So this is your castle, Demon Dragon.” I climbed down from her back, joined by the others, and looked over the ruins of the place. It looked like the demon king’s castle from an old RPG I played when I was a kid, just more rundown. There had been a place much like that in the sequel, and I thought for a moment I was having a flashback.
“It did take some damage when we defeated the Demon Dragon, but I don’t recall it being this bad,” Kizuna commented. I looked over at her. I was starting to get the feeling that in the time between her summoning and defeating the Demon Dragon, Kizuna had enjoyed a pretty orthodox adventure. The me who had been filled with dreams right after my own summoning probably would have been quite jealous of her experiences.
“Much of it was maintained by the Demon Dragon’s magic, but the suffering people raided it for whatever they could get their hands on, and the battles for this land were waged right here. It’s not surprising it ended up like this,” Glass explained. It sounded like after Kizuna and her allies defeated the Demon Dragon, people came to raid the castle almost right away. Looters, opportunists, scum . . . people with no common decency. I shook my head.
“Hah. Pathetic fools, grubbing in the mud. I pity them, that’s all.” The Demon Dragon didn’t sound impressed either. She was probably suffering under the reality of being defeated by Kizuna and her merry band and having the castle she had built reduced down to this horrible pile.
“Well, Shield Hero. After seeing these foolish deeds of men, do you feel more welcoming to receiving my love?” the dragon asked me.
“You have a one-track mind, honestly!” I retorted. I’d thought she was mourning, but she still had time to hit on me!
“I’ll never allow it!” Filo was there too, glaring the Demon Dragon down. “My master is friendly with me in our world!”
“And what is the standing of monsters like in your world, I wonder,” the dragon asked. We did have Gaelion, who was in a similar position to the Demon Dragon. From what I had heard, he hadn’t ruled over any monsters other than those in his own lands.
“Rishia, do you know anything about that?” I asked. She was with Itsuki and not really part of our conversation. But while not comparable to Trash, she still had a lot of knowledge on subjects like this.
First, she replied with her normal silly noise. Then she settled down. “There are lots of stories of the king of the monsters, the Dragon Emperor, trying to take over the world, but I’ve never heard of monsters with the kind of organization seen in this one,” she replied.
“The relationships between the monster factions seems like a real pain over in our world. There’s nothing bringing the different groups together,” I mused. With Fitoria around, the allies of the dragons probably couldn’t do much. I recalled Melty saying once that Fitoria had also fought with monsters in the past, something about a griffin. Even monsters had their own junk to deal with.
“There has also long been fighting with creatures that are a little different from monsters. They’re known as ‘devils,’” Rishia continued.
“What’s the difference?” I asked.
“That sounds like what we call “evilmakers” in this world—a name given to a higher rank of monster,” the Demon Dragon said, seemingly putting some pieces together. In most of the games I played, “devils” would just be another type of monster.
“These are monsters that cannot be registered with a monster seal and rarely show themselves in front of people,” Rishia went on, taking up the explanation. “Once they do, however, they are to be considered extremely dangerous.” So in Rishia’s—in our—world, devils were a separate entity from monsters. I still didn’t quite get it. I’d have to ask Gaelion or Fitoria after we got back.
“They definitely aren’t monsters here either,” the Demon Dragon said, providing more details on devils in Kizuna’s world. “They don’t even speak the same language.”
“Hard to tell them apart?” I asked.
“Indeed. They rarely come out, but they are here somewhere, lurking in this world,” the dragon said. That sounded like some prime foreshadowing to me, and I didn’t like it. I could only pray we would never have to fight them. “I must say, your Dragon Emperor sounds like he doesn’t have a very strong hold on the reins over there,” the Demon Dragon commented.
“I mean, it is Gaelion we’re talking about,” I replied. Old Gaelion happily called himself “the weakest,” while the younger Gaelion was just a baby. No one would listen to him claiming to be the king of the monsters.
“Now compare him to me! Shield Hero, am I not so much better suited to be your partner?” the Demon Dragon said.
“First take a step back from all the sexual harassment,” I replied curtly. Lack of charisma was something both of them definitely shared.
“Bah! You leave me little choice. I shall now have to reveal the extent of my wonderful rule!” the dragon responded.
“You don’t give up, do you?” I replied, shaking my head.
“That’s one of my best features,” the dragon answered.
“Modesty clearly isn’t. Aren’t you forgetting why we came all the way here, anyway?” I said.
“I remember. My trove of treasures, correct? And the articles of the pacifier of this world,” the dragon promptly replied. At least she could stay on mission. With the Demon Dragon leading, we headed into the ruins of the castle.
“We will need to break my own seal, of course. But for the really important articles, we’ll need to call the Four Heavenly Kings. Even if we may look upon and admire the treasures, we can’t actually remove them without some additional steps,” the dragon explained.
“The Four Heavenly Kings? They were already defeated, weren’t they? I fought them too,” Kizuna said.
“The Four Heavenly Kings is a hereditary system, so you only defeated one generation of them. I set things up so that they would rule the monsters after I was gone,” the dragon explained. I hadn’t expected her to have planned things quite so carefully. With powerful enemies in the form of heroes going around, planning ahead for defeat was kingly.
“So is the Four Heavenly Kings a family bound together by arrangements between sons and daughters?” I asked. Dragons were hard on the environment, so I wondered what kind of creatures they had dealings with. The Demon Dragon must have had offspring of his—her—own. Even Gaelion had adopted Wyndia and talked about having a wife and children in the past—almost all of whom were now gone. When considered in that light, Old Gaelion was quite the tragic figure.
“It takes more than that to become one of the Four Heavenly Kings. If having to be descended from me was a condition, it would cause all sorts of other issues. The system copies the Dragon Emperor in a way that knowledge and abilities can be passed down too,” the dragon continued. So strength built up over generations created something far more powerful than any regular monster. I had to admit, that was a pretty clever system. Gaelion might be able to do something similar if I suggested it to him.
Then I had a better idea. I’d have Raph-chan make her version of the Four Heavenly Kings!
“Raph?” said Raph-chan. I want Raph-chan to become the demon king in our world. That would be perfect!
“Mr. Naofumi? Why are you looking so intently at Raph-chan?” Raphtalia asked.
“Boo! Master is thinking something strange again!” Filo shouted. I could only give a chuckle, still lost in my daydreams.
“The Demon King Raph-Chan Project!” I chuckled. Raph-chan immediately gave a suitably maniacal chuckle too, playing her part perfectly. Her willingness to do so was one of her greatest features.
“What are you talking about?! Stop that at once!” Raphtalia said.
“Enough nonsense. I will return to my throne and put out the call. The scattered Four Heavenly Kings should quickly return to me,” the Demon Dragon said, seemingly trying to divert attention away from my incredible new idea.
“Isn’t there a simpler way to get in touch?” I asked.
“I’ve been calling for them already, but they aren’t showing up. They’re happy to draw power from me when they use magic! I need to make a summons they can’t refuse and find out what is going on,” the dragon explained.
“So they’re ignoring you!” Kizuna exclaimed.
“Do you have any charisma at all?” I asked. What was the point in having subordinates if they didn’t come when called?
“I had—have—plenty, I assure you!” the dragon protested. I was starting to see a pattern among dragons—whatever world they were from, they just weren’t quite all there.
“That’s funny! Seeing the two of you together, Naofumi, I think the Demon Dragon may have a cuter side after all.” Kizuna laughed.
“Hunting Hero! You annoying morsel! This insult shall be carved into the annals of history!” the dragon raged. The dragon also appeared to share a lot of traits with Trash. Then I noticed Raphtalia and Glass looking over at me, completely exasperated.
We reached what looked like a throne room. It was located on the first floor, making this a pretty different type of castle from what I was accustomed to. The doors weren’t human-sized, of course, and if being pointlessly big meant being more important, then here we had reached the nexus of importance—but still, this castle reminded me of somewhere else. I just couldn’t quite put my finger on where.
“I’m going to summon them at once!” the dragon said. She started to incant some magic in the middle of the throne room.
“My universal collaborators, those who follow me! My Four Heavenly Kings! Respond to my call and gather to me! I am the Demon Dragon, here in my castle!” A magical circle appeared, the rings getting bigger and wider . . . and then it vanished. “The Four Heavenly Kings should definitely have received the message now. They will arrive shortly.” Filo made a sound that showed she was unconvinced. “Now we just need to search for my treasure hoard, the route to which has probably collapsed. With my return, I won’t allow even wild monsters to lay claw or paw on the Shield Hero and his party.”
Then we noticed unexpected footsteps approaching.
“Is it the Four Heavenly Kings already?” I asked.
“No . . . I don’t think so. They seem like outsiders,” the dragon said. With the sound of crumbling rubble, a bunch of people dressed in what looked like adventurer’s garb appeared from among the ruins.
“Oh my!” Sadeena said.
“Oh dear!” added Shildina, both sisters poking me suggestively. It seemed that we were facing a Vanguard of the Waves.
Level 78
That was odd. Other status did pop up for a moment, but then it vanished. Why was I seeing level and status information? I hadn’t done a thing myself. The Demon Dragon at my side seemed to be performing some kind of magical operation. Had she done something?
“Someone beat us to it. I didn’t expect to find anyone here . . .” said the guy who seemed to be the leader of the adventurers. His party seemed to be comprised of women, including one with what looked like dog ears. A type of demi-human? I’d not seen one like her before. She almost looked like a monster. She was not someone we saw elsewhere . . . Maybe it was due to this being the territory of the Demon Dragon.
I focused my attention back on the leader. He seemed to be in his late twenties and of a similar build to me. He had a look of pure confidence on his face—confidence and ambition.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“How about introducing yourself before you start asking questions of others?” came the reply. I remembered giving Glass much the same greeting when we first met her. I decided that we might as well exchange names. Otherwise, I’d just end up calling him by another silly nickname.
“We’re—” Kizuna started the introductions.
“Wait.” The voice of the Demon Dragon rang out inside my head—presumably inside all of our heads. “Do not let them know you are heroes. I have a plan. This is my territory. These poor fools will soon rue the day they wandered in here.” Things could get complicated, then, but we were dealing with a Vanguard of the Waves. Kizuna and the others would complain if we attacked first, and that was what separated us from them—not fighting unless we had to.
“Hunting Hero,” the dragon continued, still speaking in our heads. “You like to try and talk things out, don’t you? You don’t want to just squish these interlopers where they stand, correct? Then I will give you some leeway. But if they should trample on our good graces, I will deal with them in Shield Hero fashion! Do you understand?” Kizuna frowned a little at the Demon Dragon’s words and then nodded. What the hell? “Deal with them in Shield hero fashion?” Itsuki and the others seemed to have understood what she meant by that too. Everyone seemed to think I was going to attack them right away!
We were going to have to have a discussion about this later.
“In that case,” the dragon continued, speaking to us in our minds, “Fan Hero, you speak for us. Tell them we are adventurers.”
“I am Glass. These are my companions,” Glass said, immediately doing as the Demon Dragon asked. She must have considered it the logical course of action.
“Okay. What are you doing here?” the leader replied. That was what we wanted to know about them, of course. I wondered why he was being so arrogant . . . but of course, this was a Vanguard of the Waves. There was no point in expecting anything else from him.
“You asked for my name but fail to introduce yourself?” Glass asked. The Vanguard of the Waves looked angry for a moment at that comment but then took a deep breath and recovered his composure before replying.
“My apologies. This is hardly the place for a casual encounter, after all. But is there any real need to share my personal information with anyone encountered in such dangerous surroundings?” he responded. He was the one who asked us to introduce ourselves, and now he said there was no need to! He was starting to piss me off already. A cool moron . . . I’d have to call him Ren II. The real Ren probably would introduce himself in this situation, so it wasn’t a perfect match. But he still reminded me of Ren from back when we first met. If his tone had been milder, I would have gone with Itsuki II. In any case, it didn’t sound like I was ever going to find out this guy’s name.
“Very well,” Glass conceded. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you think? The same as you, I bet. Fighting monsters and searching for treasure in the famous castle of the famous demon king,” Ren II replied. It wasn’t quite the same, of course. We were looking for treasure, but it was treasure that had belonged to the Demon Dragon in the first place, so we were really just here to pick up some things. We didn’t plan on fighting monsters either. But any monsters not under the Demon Dragon’s rule would get a beating if they tried something.
“I’m sure you’ve already sensed this, but we’re strong,” Ren II boasted. “Understand?” I shook my head as subtly as I could. I wanted to shout, “So what?” He had balls on him too, boasting about his strength at level 78. When I glimpsed his stats, they had been half of Sadeena’s when she was that same level.
“Do not engage with him,” the dragon told us, again in our minds. “Say that we don’t sense any monsters so we were going to split up and search for treasure.”
“Yes, okay,” Glass continued. “We are here in the Demon Dragon castle searching for treasure too. I can’t sense any monsters nearby, so we were planning on splitting up and searching before meeting back up.”
“Huh.” Ren II snorted. “You do have quite a large party.”
“Indeed. Would you like to join us?” Glass asked innocently.
“No. I’m not one for teaming up without good reason. What’s the point in finding treasure you have to share?” Ren II replied. On that point, I could almost see where he was coming from . . . but he continued to completely underestimate us. “If we meet again in these wide ruins, so be it.” With that, Ren II and his party moved on. I wondered if we should just let them go.
“Why did I see his level and status?” I wondered out loud, really only talking to myself.
“Ah. I see what’s happening,” the Demon Dragon replied—still inside my head. For a moment, I thought she was going to answer my question, but then she looked over at some rubble and carried on. “They are watching us from over there. After hearing that we are planning on splitting up, they are waiting for a chance to strike. They have likely realized that you are heroes. He was overconfident in his own strength and so will likely try to tackle us alone,” the dragon continued.
“So it’s like a horror movie. One by one, we get picked off until our entire party is wiped out,” I said.
“It’s not going to be that easy,” Kizuna stated quickly.
“If he’s one of the resurrected, I just thought it might be a possibility,” I replied. They were the kind of people who loved such cowardly, cunning tricks, after all. He might think they had an opening here, but even when they didn’t, these were the kinds of people to fly onto the attack.
“I have taken stock of him already. He is small and insignificant. There is no need to bother the hands of the Shield Hero with someone on his level,” the dragon continued.
“It doesn’t sound like he has ties with Bitch and her forces, then,” I said. This guy didn’t seem to have any of her agents with him. If they had been present, capturing them and making them talk would have been my top priority. For one, I really wanted to know how they were finding the resurrected in the first place. If we had that information, maybe we could start to interfere with it.
That was probably asking too much. They seemed to just be providing general guidance rather than detailed orders.
“Fan Hero, give the order for us to disperse. Everyone, split up and start exploring on your own. Once you are alone, then they should launch their attacks,” the dragon said.
“I’d really rather they didn’t,” Kizuna said, still hoping for a peaceful resolution.
If that was the plan anyway, I should act as a decoy. I was the best equipped to handle a surprise attack, and I could call in Raph-chan if I needed her. I signaled my intent, but the Demon Dragon shook her head.
“Shield Hero, we are the only ones here who understand your value. We need someone famous in this world and who has the kind of weapon they would want to capture,” the dragon explained. She was right—here in this world, I was just the Mirror Hero. Even if there were rumors of me being a hero from another world, I hadn’t done a great deal in this one. On the other hand, Kizuna and her allies had turned around a dangerous situation, warned the other nations about the resurrected, and defeated the Demon Dragon herself in the past, making them much more famous than me.
The dragon continued to explain her plan. “Let us have the vassal weapon holders go off on their own, and then, everyone who doesn’t pick up a tail, come and meet back up. This is my land, my home, so I can track their movements without any problem.” These poor fools had set foot in the territory of the very dragon we had with us. They might have wanted to set a trap for us, but it would be easy to trap them instead. “I will make contact with those who are being pursued. If you do not hear from me, return here. Meanwhile, I will tail the tails. Shield Hero, you can use your mirror as a relay, correct?” The Relay Mirror ability I had unlocked with that last mirror now allowed me to view the intended destination for things like Transport Mirror. The Demon Dragon was carrying a mirror, so I could use mine as a relay for it.
“Everyone,” Glass said, playing her part. “Start the search. Dismissed.” We split up and started to explore the Demon Dragon’s castle.
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