CHAPTER 18
The Ex–Demon Lord, Absent
Rewind to Ireena and Ginny glowering at each other in the center of the stadium.
As the surprise attack wreaked havoc on the arena, their hostility toward each other instantly dissolved, and they were left standing there completely bewildered until Jessica made her way over to them and explained the situation. Following her proposed plan, Ireena and Ginny sprinted off to the town, raring to save the day.
Not that their turn ever came.
“Lightning Blast,” chanted Jessica, conjuring a magic circle at her fingertips that shot out a blinding flash of lightning.
It crashed into the demon, scorching his entire body black.
“All right, let’s keep it up,” she remarked with a composed smile, sprinting through the streets with her platinum-blond hair dancing behind her in the wind.
The moment they encountered an enemy, Jessica would cast an attack spell without chanting and take it down in one hit before moving on to the next target. She was the spitting image of a Valkyrie, a maiden of war. As she carved a path with the ferocity of a lioness, Ireena and Ginny were completely awed by her show of force.
They continued to cover a wide range, but Ireena and Ginny didn’t have an opportunity to strike as Jessica continued to settle things all on her own. The two exchanged a few words as they observed their teacher’s work.
“Sh-she’s amazing.”
“I-I’m seeing her in a whole new light…”
Jessica let out a chuckle as she dashed through the main street, seemingly having overheard parts of their conversation. “Ha-ha, you’ll be able to handle this much soon enough. If you feel up to it—”
The area around them grew dim in the middle of her sentence. They noticed shadows of a falling object inflate in size as it rained down from the sky.
“Jump out of the way!” screamed Jessica.
Ireena and Ginny had both leaped to opposite sides without her prompting, followed by their teacher, managing to escape from the scene. Their hair billowed wildly around them.
Booooom…echoed the heavy sounds of destructive impact, completely pulverizing the cobblestones on the streets and sending fragments scattering toward the sky. Thick smoke billowed upward as the three glared at their newest visitor, on guard.
To put it in simple terms, the enemy was a conglomeration of countless blue fragments in the shape of a human figure. His size was easily beyond three merel…
But it wasn’t just his stature that’d instilled fear in their hearts. This demon was insanely tough…!
“Stay back, you two. This one’s mine,” ordered Jessica, letting her usual cheerful facade crumble with worry.
After Jessica confirmed with both of them with a nod, she thrust out her left hand toward the intended target.
“Giga Flare!” she shouted, releasing a high-level fire attack spell without a chant and calling forth eight magic circles to expand in front of her.
In the next moment, flames billowed out of each one, making a whirlpool that converged into a colossal ball of fire that closed in on the enemy, rendering the demon immobile.
It was a direct hit, engulfing the enemy’s massive body in bright-red hellfire.
““Sh-she did it!”” Ireena and Ginny cheered, certain of Jessica’s victory.
But that was when the flames died out, reaching the limits of their invocation, and all three faces took on a look of utter despair.
The demon was completely unharmed among his surroundings, which had been burned to a crisp in the line of fire. This caused even Jessica to break into a cold sweat.
“Damn, I’m at a loss here. This guy’s beyond my—,” she let out weakly, just as the body of the enemy seemed to waver and reappear right before her.
Ireena and Ginny looked absolutely aghast as expected, but Jessica couldn’t help but take on an expression of absolute disbelief herself. And then his fists whizzed toward her without mercy.
She couldn’t escape. He’d come at her at the exact same time as he closed the distance between them. Just before impact, Jessica cast the mid-level defense magic Mega Wall, but even then, the enemy’s fists overpowered her.
“Gah!” she yelped as her body went flying.
The impact left some of her clothes in shreds as Jessica soared, tracing a parabola through the air before crashing down on the ground. But there was enough kinetic energy left in her body that she continued to roll and roll and roll…until it expended itself at last. Jessica didn’t even move a muscle, lying completely still in her tattered clothes as if a corpse.
“Haaah… Haaah… Haaah…”
Ireena was dripping with sweat out of extreme fear and anxiety. Across from her, Ginny was in the same condition, and neither of them could move as the demon ambled closer to them and caught sight of Ireena.
“…My highest priority on this mission is to capture you. If you cooperate, I’ll cease my attack. What say you?” he asked, continuing before she could answer. “But if you choose to flail around, all roads lead to death.”
Clunk. Clunk. His heavy footsteps echoed closer.
As for Ginny, she was still stuck in place, even as Ireena was facing imminent danger right in front of her eyes. And yet, she was immobilized by fear, and her eyes pooled with tears, seemingly ashamed of her ineptitude.
On the other hand, Ireena herself was surprisingly calm.
It’s hopeless.
I’m already done for.
For a moment, she felt almost composed, resigning herself to her fate, as the enemy stood directly in front of her.
“You’re the cornerstone to fulfilling our dearest wish. Rejoice, young girl. For you are—,” uttered the demon, delivering something akin to a death sentence.
“Don’t touch my daughter,” warned a voice with icy frigidity before the demon was blown away, breaking into crystalized fragments that shot through the air as if he’d received a devastating blow.
But Ireena had zero interest in the demon’s condition, zeroing in on the person who’d called out to her instead.
“D-Daaaaaaaaaaaddy!”
Standing there was an androgynous elf with silver hair that fluttered in the wind. It was the Heroic Baron, Weiss, whose piercing gaze locked onto the crumbling demon.
“Gu…wah…?!” mumbled the demon, face on the ground as if he’d been pinned down.
His entire body was crumbling to dust by the second, even though the power responsible for his destruction was unseen. Well, that’d be the case for anyone who didn’t know any better. I imagine they’d guess that his body was blasted away and broke apart of its own accord.
The truth behind this phenomenon (i.e., Weiss) was a system of attack spells that generated a wind projectile, which he’d managed to develop for his exclusive use from the most recent scientific advancements.
To start, he’d manipulate the wind pressure, then crush his opponents by putting his full weight on them. It was like being stepped on by an invisible giant, which was why Weiss had named this spell Skeleton Giant.
“Think of this pressure as the weight of your sins for laying a hand on my daughter.” His icy gaze bored into the crystallized monster. “Let your sins crush you and embrace death. That’s what you deserve,” he started before raising the capacity of his spell.
“A-aaaaaaaaaaaargh!” roared the demon, unleashing his death throes as every last crystal turned to dust and scattered in the wind.
This was more than enough to be certain of victory.
“I—I can’t believe he defeated that demon so easily…! The Heroic Baron is amazing…!”
“Heh-heh-heh! Well, duh! He’s my daddy, after all!” Ireena puffed her chest out proudly, dashing over to her father, about to leap into his arms.
“That was as I’d expected, more or less.”
No sooner had a familiar, lovely voice rang out than a hand burst through Weiss’s chest.
No, not a new appendage. Someone had attacked him from behind.
“What?” Ireena said at the sight of her father vomiting blood, collapsing to the ground with his eyes frozen open.
Her brain shut down. Over his crumpled body, his attacker came into full view.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don’t tell me he’s on the verge of death after one measly surprise attack. Kids these days are pathetic,” mumbled a girl, sounding totally bored as she licked her right hand, which was soaked in fresh blood.
It was Jessica, the instructor at the academy.
Ginny stared in shock at her sudden act of violence.
It was as if everything about their teacher had completely changed—from her behavior to her tone of voice—into a different person altogether. But that wasn’t what came as the greatest surprise: It was Jessica’s right hand.
The bloody hand was covered in bright-white scales with enormous nails stretching from the tips of her fingers. They were much larger than a normal human’s nails, with a peculiar resemblance to the claws of predators.
“Miss Jessica…?!” Ginny whimpered.
Jessica smiled sweetly. “I ain’t your ‘Miss Jessica.’ Well, I have been the one dealing with you guys, so technically I am your ‘Jessica’…but the real lady died a long time ago. At the hands of the demons.”
“What…?!” Ginny blurted, absolutely unsettled.
Jessica cackled mockingly. “I’m working with Lars al Ghoul. To help out with their plan, I entered the academy as Lady Jessica. That’s right… It was all so we could abduct you, Ireena.”
Ireena was tossed back into the conversation, but her brain was still completely shut down, totally incapable of processing a single thought. All she could do was tremble as she stared at the body of her fallen father.
She spoke almost unconsciously. “Why?! Why did you…?! You—you inhuman…!”
Jessica roared with laughter. “Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Thanks for asking a question worth answering! First question! You’re wondering why I’d do something like this?! That’s an easy one! I want to end the world! This repulsive planet is better off being completely annihilated! Ever since my rampage thousands of years ago, that’s been my only guiding principle!” Her delicate and dollish features twisted with malice.
“Second, you said I was inhuman, right? You got that right. After all, I’m not actually human—I’m a white dragon.”
As if to prove her point, Jessica’s body began to transform, covering her left hand in scales to match her right. The unmistakable claws of a beast protruded from her fingertips, and the right corner of her adorable little mouth ripped up all the way to her ear as its round teeth tapered off into sharp points. By all accounts, she was inhuman—a complete monster.
Ginny and Ireena felt an icy chill, though it wasn’t from the horror of her grotesque appearance alone: It was because Jessica was emanating an immense force from her body, draining every last ounce of energy from the pair and forcing them to submit. It immobilized the girls.
Weiss might have managed to defeat a monster…but he had the power of an ant compared to Jessica. She was on a different level altogether.
“M-monster…!” Ginny murmured.
Jessica’s cracked mouth twisted into a smile. “Yep, that’s right. I’m the real deal…the one from your legends. Have you heard of me? You treat me as the go-to villain in your little plays.”
As she cackled, she revealed the truth.
“My true name is Elzard, the Frenzied King of Dragons.”
Ireena’s and Ginny’s eyes practically popped out of their heads. Elzard. The Frenzied King of Dragons. The legendary white dragon…and the monster who’d nearly destroyed the world after the passing of the Demon Lord thousands of years ago. For generations, stories of this dragon had been passed down, treated with the same trepidation as the demons and the Evil Gods.
And now, this legendary creature was right here before them, and they were terrified beyond belief.
“Ah…ah…,” Ginny whimpered as she fell to her knees.
Jessica—no, Elzard cast a sidelong glance at her before approaching Ireena and fanning her arms out wide.
“It sucks to repeat the lines of a bottom-tier monster, but here it goes… If you come willingly, I promise not to hurt anyone, okay? Well, for the time being, at least,” she corrected, the corners of her gaping maw twitching as she edged closer and closer.
It’s over for me for real this time. Ireena resigned herself to her fate.
“Argh… Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” erupted a scream, at the same time as a fireball came crashing into the side of Elzard’s face, detonating upon impact.
But any damage to the dragon was nonexistent, though she cocked her eyebrow at this surprise development.
“…What exactly do you plan on doing, Ginny?” she asked, glaring down at the succubus for unleashing her magic.
One look was enough to make Ginny falter and send her onto one knee, but she continued to launch more fireballs at her target even as she heaved out labored breaths. Her eyes were dewy with absolute horror.
“R-run, Miss Ireena!” she demanded in a trembling voice between attacks.
All of them collided into her target, but she was in such a tortured mental state that her spells were no threat to Elzard.
“Well, well, well. The one too scared to go against that dinky demon is coming after me. Why? Do I look that pathetic? …I really don’t like you,” Elzard spat as she continued to be pummeled by fireballs, glaring at Ginny like she was a particularly annoying fly.
When Elzard lifted the tip of the claw on her right index finger at Ginny, images of the succubus’s impending death flashed through Ireena’s mind. Her brain was no longer blank but colored by red-hot rage.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!”
Ireena had let out a scream unconsciously, charging at her former instructor and trying to tackle her down at her waist. But it wasn’t enough to even budge Elzard’s body.
“…What do you think you’re doing?”
In all honesty, Ireena herself had no idea why she was protecting Ginny. It wasn’t as if she could say that it was in alignment with her personality, because Ireena found Ginny deplorable for coming in between her and Ard. And yet, at this moment, Ireena felt compelled to save Ginny from the very bottom of her heart.
Why? Ireena asked herself, completely at a loss, but there was something in her heart that answered back on impulse.
“Don’t you dare! Touch my friend!” she shouted, going bug-eyed at the words that came instinctively rushing out of her mouth.
Friend? Did I just say that Ginny and I are friends?
…Yeah, I guess we might be.
After all, Ginny had taken a special place in Ireena’s life, out of everyone she’d met so far. When they were together, Ireena never needed to hold back any spitefulness or fears or worries, since Ginny was the most detestable woman in her mind—nothing more, nothing less.
This might be another form of friendship, Ireena considered and broke out into a small smile.
“Take me with you, Elzard! But in return, promise you won’t lay a finger on Ginny! If you do, I’ll bite my tongue off and kill myself!” Ireena declared, pelting Elzard with newfound determination.
Elzard could sense that it was no bluff, heaving out a huge sigh. “…Damn, what a pain. I really do hate you after all,” she mumbled to herself.
With that, Elzard busted through the remainder of the tattered clothes that had been clinging to her back as a pair of wings ruptured out of the surface of her smooth, exposed skin.
“Looks like your life’s been spared. Isn’t that great, Ginny?” she said sarcastically as her final words before taking off into the sky with Ireena clutched in one hand.
Ginny stood alone and dazed for some time.
“Miss Ireena…!” she finally sobbed out.
A cascade of emotions welled up inside her before she noticed she was weeping uncontrollably.
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