CHAPTER 22
The Ex–Demon Lord Reunited with More Trouble
The southernmost tip of the Laville Empire of Sorcery was known as the Last Code and housed a few remote regions. The public knew about these areas, using them as tourist attractions…well, all except for one place.
The Phantom Forest.
Step too close and you’ll get swallowed whole by the forest. Feared by all, it was the most isolated of places. According to legend, its center housed the ancient ruins of an expansive dungeon, eagerly awaiting adventurers to explore its caves. And yet, this purpose had gone unserved for thousands of years. In fact, everyone had already forgotten about the dungeon in the Phantom Forest.
“Whew! Yummers! The fresh air of the outdoors! As refreshing as ever!”
A young girl stepping out of the long-forgotten dungeon? More like a walking enigma.
She was from the human species—age fifteen. Well, with her baby face and body type, she could easily appear three years younger. Her resolute expression hinted at her unruly spirit… She was as stubborn as a mule, to the point that even he had trouble handling her.
“Ah. Can’t wait to get to town and take a nice, warm bath. I spent way too much time holed up down there,” she reflected, taking her red hair into her hands and gazing down at its long strands before inspecting her whole body.
It wasn’t just her hair. Her crimson leather armor was covered in as much grime as one might expect in her situation.
“I knew spending three years down there was overkill. But now…,” she trailed off. With a look of extreme confidence, she thrust her right palm high toward the heavens. “Demise-Argis!”
The space around her began to rumble…and thunder clapped as a large sword materialized in her hand.
“I’m getting good at handling this guy!” She gazed at it lovingly.
It wasn’t any ordinary sword. From the giant golden blade emanated a ghastly aura that overwhelmed all who dared look upon it.
Its name was Demise-Argis, one of the three great Holy Swords in the world.
Though it appeared too large and hefty for her small frame, she swung it once through the air and then rested it on her shoulder with an ease unbefitting of her stature.
“This should be enough to win against that Varvatos—who got all cocky after getting called the Demon Lord! A big idiot that I can now beat into a pulp!” Her face was overflowing with excitement and delight. “Thanks to this, he’ll never hurt anyone again. I’m here to protect everybody.”
She scrunched her face for a moment, but optimism quickly washed away this tragic expression. Her stomach growled with the fervor of a grand chorus.
“Plus, I’m starving. I’m going full throttle!” she boomed in good spirits, setting off at top speed.
The Phantom Forest bared its fangs toward her every step of the way, but it was all for naught.
“Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah!” She plowed through pouncing monsters and illusionary tricks of the forest—charging head-on like the poster child for meatheads.
The one mowing down this precious forest of antiquity, destroying all in her path, was Sylphy Marheaven. Her other moniker was the Raging Champion, as a principal soldier in the force once led by Lydia the Champion.
In a mad dash, she made a beeline through the forest, blasting through plains at a fearsome speed that left passing caravans stupefied in the dust. And with this gale, she managed to sweep two wigs right off the heads of other travelers.
“Wh-what in the world…?!” she exclaimed, bewildered, upon her arrival. Her destination had been a small village, but…what she found in its place was a large metropolis.
The sun streamed down on the main avenue where all sorts of species hustled down to create a lively scene. But this was worlds apart from the place that she had bid farewell to many years ago .
“Is it normal to make this much progress over the span of a few years? Man, the villagers got to work,” Sylphy concluded, letting sweat trickle down her pale skin.
“Ha-ha-ha. You jump to the wildest conclusions. It’s a relief to see you haven’t changed,” chirped a cheerful voice next to Sylphy. Its sonorous tone could have belonged to either a man or a woman.
She turned her attention to the side to find someone strange: shorter than average for a man, taller than average for a woman, a slim build concealed by a tailcoat of sorts. Their silky hair was a glossy black, tumbling all the way down to their knees.
Well, there was nothing strange about these details—other than the unique mask that cemented her first impression of them.
In other words, they were an eccentric with a few screws loose.
And yet, no passersby seemed to give this person a second glance—which was a feeling that Sylphy shared, too, inexplicably. It was as if her consciousness was being controlled…
“Anyway. Allow me to applaud you for years of dedicated training. I mean, even I would not have expected you to spend thousands of years working on your craft.”
“Huh?”
She’d been curious about this masked figure, but this had her full attention. “Th-thousands of years? Wh-what do you mean?”
“Well, well, well. I’d assumed you went to the Phantom Forest aware of this. The dungeon has a high concentration of mana, yielding high-level monsters and establishing it as an ideal location to train for combat… Except the flow of time is different from the outside world. Are you telling me you locked yourself away without this knowledge?”
“What? N-no, uh… O-of course not! I totally knew all along. Ah! Wow! Nothing beats the taste of fresh air after thousands of yeeeeeeeeeeeears!”
It was complete nonsense, but the masked figure stifled their laughter and pressed no further. Sylphy had a few questions of her own. I swear we’ve met somewhere before…like we were close in the past…
There was something off about them that she just couldn’t put her finger on. But she also wasn’t in a mood to dig further. For some reason. She wasn’t sure why.
In any case, there was something more important.
“If thousands of years have passed…the world has changed a bunch, right?”
“Aye. It has become dull.”
“…Is Varvatos the Stupid Idiot alive?”
It felt as if the face behind the mask had twisted into a smile. “No. He already passed away,” they announced, delivering a verbal blow.
“D-dead?! The Demon Lord?!”
“I can understand your surprise. It was an unpredictable series of events. Backed into a corner, His Majesty took his own life with a strike of his sword… Though he is no more, his legacy lives on. Oh, it’s wonderful…,” they purred in adoration.
Sylphy tried to get more details. “Wh-what happened while I was gone…?!”
With grandiose gestures, the masked figure began to spin their tale. “A rampage by the man with unfathomable strength, who earned his name as the Demon Lord. One day, he went off the deep end. I mean, one of my personal creeds is that nothing is more temporary than the human heart. I guess I was right. His Majesty went wild, imposing a reign of terror, following the footsteps of those Outer Ones once eliminated by your kind…known in this era as the Evil Gods.”
They spun around as if dancing, continuing on like a song. “Why did it happen? No one can say. Only he knows. That said, three things are evident: that he attempted to become one of the Evil Gods; that he’d been driven to take his own life when the rebellion ensued; and that the Demon Lord was reborn in this modern era, now attempting to throw the world back into madness.”
All this time, Sylphy stood frozen in place with her eyes peeled wide.
The masked figure blabbed on and on and on. “I’ve already assessed potential bodies for his reincarnation. My best lead is Ard Meteor. My basis for this is simple—there was an incident two weeks ago concerning demons attacking the royal capital and a girl abducted by the legendary White Dragon. Ard Meteor was able to solve both in one go, cleaning up the hordes of demons and overthrowing the White Dragon, Elzard, who’d stooped down to aiding them. He saved the capital and the beautiful girl, and he rose up as a hero.” They laughed through their nose.
“It’s like a boring performance chock-full of clichés. Pretend to be virtuous, build up a heroic ballad, try to make the world his own. Just as he tried to do in his last life.” The figure stared long and hard at Sylphy before questioning her in a grave tone. “Raging Champion. Will you allow this to pass? The tyrannical Demon Lord, reborn; the shrill screams of innocent townspeople—all to culminate in a hellish fight. At this rate, the world will be led into chaos once again! By that man! By the Demon Lord Varvatos, now known as Ard Meteor!”
“Th-that’s…!”
“In all honesty, you’re our only hope! Only you can stop this walking nightmare! Please! Raging Champion! It’s time for you to unleash your power! Exert to your heart’s content the strength you have gained from all your training! Crush the ambitions of the repulsive Demon Lord!”
“I—!” Sylphy shouted, facing the masked silhouette. Her flaming hair bristled. She couldn’t believe everything she was hearing. “I—!” she started again. “Of course I’ll do it! That’s a given! I’m gonna take down the Demon Lord!”
She was honest to a fault. She believed every last word.
“Damn him! I knew he was off his rocker! I’ve always thought he was trouble, but no one listened to me…! Even my sister Lydie sided with him! There’s no doubt it happened because he brainwashed her!” With her fists clenched and rage unchecked, Sylphy gave the masked person a piercing look. “Where?! Where’s that numbskull now?! Where’d he go?!”
“The royal capital, Dycaeus. He’s enrolled in the Laville National Academy of Magic at the heart of the city. If you continue south from here, you should reach it. At your speed, it shouldn’t take more than two days.”
“The Academy of Magic in Dycaeus! All riiiiiiiiiiiiiight! Just you wait, Demon Lord!” Sylphy bellowed before kicking off from the ground with full power, cracking the paved road under her feet—a natural disaster in human form.
The masked figure watched her silhouette become smaller and smaller in the distance. “And the curtain rises on his story with the jester at center stage. Heh-heh… Dance, Sylphy Marheaven, dance. Accomplish your goal and keep me entertained,” they spoke with delight, with joy, with nostalgia.
Their entire body trembled before dissolving—as if a shadow melting into the light.
I’ve felt as though I’ve been repeating the same line over and over again as of late. I’ve become an eternal metronome, ticking to a melody I cannot stop, even if I wanted it to end. It’s been enmeshed in my identity as Ard Meteor, something I cannot shake. And it goes without saying that I would be fated to say this line again.
“Why did things turn out this way?”
I was faced with an unexpected situation, not one I wished for in the slightest.
“W-wow…! I’d expect no less from Ard Meteor the Dragon Slayer…!”
“T-taking out Mr. Halkein in one hit!”
My classmates sang my praises as a bald man was passed out and foaming at the mouth in front of us.
“Heh-heh-heh! We’re talking about my Ard, so it’s no biggie, obviously!” Ireena puffed out her chest proudly with a triumphant expression—which was so cute.
“He’s not your Ard, Miss Ireena!” Ginny snapped with an annoyed look. The wings on her head twitched.
“Wow, wow, wow. Just incredible. Halkein was one of my best pupils, but to see him knocked out in one go? Reminds me of my idiotic brother. Right, Aaaaard?” cooed Olivia, my honorary sister in my past life, with a full-blown, too bright, most awful smile.
Why did things turn out this way? Let’s rewind a few minutes.
In this life, I’m attending the Laville National Academy of Magic, and it has periodic exams, just like any other school. Each season brought on a whole new slew of written and practical tests. We’d taken the written portion the day before, and we were supposed to have the practical today.
Me? I was planning on passing with—and I cannot emphasize this enough—normal grades. Nothing that might make me stick out…but with my involvement in solving the recent case with the demons and Elzard the White Dragon, well, I’ve been the center of unwanted attention.
The students who were commoners had good intentions. But the aristocrats? Not so much. As for the instructors, they were a mixed bag—treating me with either respect or hostility. Among them, the bald instructor Halkein seemed to think of me as the impertinent student who’d won Olivia’s favor.
“Ard Meteor. For your practical exam…for this mock battle, I will be your opponent.”
This man may not have had a single hair on his head, but he was a tough fighter rumored to have a fighting prowess that was first-rate even in the academy. They said he’d even served among the sorcerers under the queen’s direct command. The showdown between this beast of a teacher and me would draw a large crowd… Well, this situation was all fine and well up until this point.
Halkein was strong. It wouldn’t have been strange at all if I’d lost.
Which is why I decided to put on a bit of an act.
To keep Olivia from finding me out, I’d make it a close contest and lose at the end by a margin. Then, her standards for me would lower, like, “Huh. I guess that’s all Ard’s got.”
I’d re-lower the bar for me after it’d been shot up way too high following the recent incident and go back to looking like your average villager. I was ready to try my best to make it a close call, making the first move and allowing him to cancel out my magic. And I’d toss in a few pretend moves to give credence to my defeat.
…That had been the plan anyway.
“Here I come, Ard Mete—”
I had cast Flare at 20 percent power, a low-level fire magic, easy enough for Halkein to defend.
As the dust enveloped us, he’d say Pretty cocky. And as he started to feel all good about himself, I’d answer him with a Tch and pretend to feel the pressure.
…Well, that was the series of events I’d been hoping for.
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah ?!” Halkein was unable to shield himself against my fireball and was flung into the distance with extra dramatic flair.
…What the hell are you doing? To be unable to defend himself? Give me a break. I could have never predicted that.
“Y-you’re kidding, right…?! Even Mr. Halkein…?!”
“What a super-strength Mega Flare …!”
So that’s how things turned out.
Besides, it wasn’t a Mega Flare . It was a regular Flare .
…Anyway.
“Well, I guess I’ve gotta try harder, too! I’ll be just like my Ard and knock everyone’s socks off!”
“Enough already! You know what you’re trying to do! Are you trying to pick a fight with me, Miss Ireena?!”
“By the way, Ard, why don’t you stop by my place tonight? I promise to show you a great time,” added Olivia.
I’ll say it again: Why did things turn out this way?
After surviving a nerve-racking morning and a chaotic afternoon, I’d managed to make it through the school day—to peace. Under the orange sky, I made my way back to the dorm.
“Wow, Ard! I’m amazed you scored one hundred and twenty out of one hundred percent in every subject!” Ginny slipped her arm into mine, pushing her big boobs against me as she flashed me a captivating smile, and if that wasn’t enough, her large breasts pressed up against me. She was the only one around.
Ireena would have normally accompanied us, too, which meant I would have a beautiful girl hanging on each arm as I headed back for the day. But at the practical exams, my Ireena had gone all out—and destroyed half the school. This had earned her a good scolding from Olivia, and she was still at school cleaning up the mess.
As her friend and low-key guardian…this was a big concern for me. Should I really allow myself to do nothing and head home without her? I could still head back…
“Ard. Thinking of Miss Ireena, I take it?” Ginny pouted, mood soured.
“Yes. She is being targeted, after all. Which makes me worried.”
“…As her friend?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Hmm…” Her face didn’t seem too convinced. Ginny continued, expression unchanging. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Lady Olivia is with her.”
“Well, yes, that’s true.”
“…I won’t ask you to stop thinking of other girls when you are with me, but Miss Ireena is another matter,” she murmured in a somewhat quiet voice.
I didn’t really get it, but I had a feeling continuing this discussion would not end well. Her mood would only worsen. I decided to nip it in the bud by switching topics.
“Oh, that’s right, Ginny. Your homemade lunch was a smashing success today.”
“What?! R-really?”
“Yes. Everything was delicious. In fact, it was so tasty that it almost made me want to ask to eat it every day.”
“Please leave it to me! It’s no trouble at all! I’ll make you one! Every! Day!” Her cheeks softened as she broke into a smile, abandoning her previous mood. The wings on her head flitted.
I knew it. She was the cutest when she smiled. Maybe I’d cook with her later today now that school was over. I’d mastered the art of ancient cuisine, but there was still so much more to learn in other areas. And if Ireena joins in… Now I’m kind of looking forward to it.
I wished time would continue forever like this. Nuisance-free. I could spend time together with my friends Ireena and Ginny in peace and tranquility—
“Ard Meeeeeeeteor! Ard Meteor, where are youuuuuuu?!”
Peace. And. Tranquility.
“Come ooooout! You cooooooward! Stop sneaking around, you wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimp! ” someone blared from the school gate, which instantly spiraled me into a depression.
I could have sworn I’d heard that voice somewhere before. It sounded like someone I had no desire to meet for…reasons.
I glanced toward the gate. Sure enough, I saw one of the fools who’d given me a headache in my past life standing right there with a demonic expression.
Sylphy Marheaven.
What was she doing here? Not to mention, where had she been wandering around this entire time?
Last I saw her, she’d announced something totally bonkers: “I’m gonna quit the military until I can take you down! ” then up and disappeared, never to return. I’d figured she died somewhere on the side of the road, but apparently, she was alive and well.
Make no mistake, this girl was annoyance personified. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with her and intended to quickly head home—
That had been the plan.
“You! Over there! Where’s Ard Meteor?!”
I’d made eye contact, and now she was heading right for me.
Ginny must have thought Sylphy was irritating as hell. “Who are you? And what kind of business do you have with Ard?”
“Duh! I obviously came here to beat the living crap out of him!”
“I’m sorry, what? That’s impossible. Right, Ar—?”
As Ginny turned and called my name, I hurriedly clasped my hand over her mouth.
Thank goodness. Sylphy hadn’t seemed to notice that I’m Ard Meteor. That was Sylphy for you. Imperceptive as always. Just like back in the old days, the lights were on, but no one was home.
“I-if you’re looking for Ard, I think he’s at school. He’s famous around these parts, and he’s always kept late by his peers. My guess is that he’s chatting with his friends.”
“Inside the school? Got it! Okaaaaay! Just you wait, Ard Meteor!” she shrieked, stupidly dashing away at stupid hyper-speed like a dumb boar.
Most importantly, it looked like she’d bought the story.
“Well, then. Shall we go, Ginny?”
“C-can we really just leave her be?”
“…Ginny. We all have things we’d prefer not to do.” I set off once again.
“Ard Meteoooooooooor! Time for baaaaaattle!”
“Eeeeeek?! Th-that’s not meee!”
“No use aaaaaaarguiing!”
“S-Sylphy?! Is that you?! W-wait! stop! If you release a huge spell here—”
BOOOOOOOM!
A terrible thundering noise erupted from behind me, but I ignored it.
Sorry, Olivia. I’m leaving the numbskull to you—like in our last lives. I’m begging you to handle her in a way that’s convenient for me… Take that lost cause someplace else. Seriously. Please.
…The next day, I was gently roused awake by the warm sunshine washing over me, as always. I prayed this day would restore a state of stability and headed off to school.
…But as I’d expected, the greater outside forces seemed to have a series of trials and tribulations in store for me. I entered the classroom and sat at my desk for some time before Olivia entered. Exhaustion and irritation marked her stunning face.
“Unfortunately…absolutely unfortunately, I regret to inform you that we have a transfer student. Come in.” She jerked her hand, commanding the new student to enter.
The door burst open.
And who could it be?
“Aaaaaard! Meeeteeoooooor! Wheeeeeeeeere aaaaare you?!”
The unmistakable idiot. Sylphy Marheaven.
Okay.
We’re early in the day, but let’s go ahead and say it. All together now.
Ready?
WHYYYYYYY IS THIIIIIIIIIIS HAPPENIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING?!
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