episode_0032

“I’ve been curious from the beginning, why are you going to that ruin?”

When I started asking questions about the thing I was most curious about, Galvein blurted out his answers as if he was annoyed.

“There’s something to find.”

The answer that really cut out everything else and only left the main points made a vein appear on my forehead for a moment, but I simply accepted Galvein’s words since I would know if I went and saw it for myself anyway.

Rather, I was trying to stir up a conversation, but it got cut off like this, so I have to find another topic-

“They don’t do that these days, I guess.”

“Huh? That?”

What is that? I paused for a moment, unable to think of anything that could be called that.

“ts You’re telling me to shoot the magic again. Did you forget that when you first came in, you barged into the lab?”

“Oh, that’s right…”

When an uncomfortable topic comes up, I automatically start to smile awkwardly, even though I never really used facial muscles.

What should I say, um?

My eyes rolled around and I looked anxiously at the ceiling, the seat, and my hands.

I overcame the anxiety of being abandoned. Rather, it was probably anxiety about identity.

“It’s okay now. I don’t really feel the need to go back to being a man… It’s more comfortable this way. It’s also because of the memories of Noah’s time. Well, there are many reasons…”

“Hmm, is that so?”

“Yeah. And… Oh, no. Let’s pretend I didn’t hear that.”

I didn’t want to bring up the Abel story here and have people find out that I had feelings for him.

“Since you’ve adapted well to a woman’s body, there’s no need to watch your progress any longer. If the Demon King keeps wanting to turn back into a man, I’ll kindly give in, so do whatever you want.”

“…What? That idiot…”

Why am I still staying because of a woman?

As I opened my eyes wide, Galvein let out a snicker, then a kekekekekekeke!, his signature evil laugh that I’d heard too often.

“Well, I guess even the Demon King’s love wasn’t unrequited.”

Galvein muttered quietly, but loud enough for Leah to barely miss.

Of course, I didn’t deny it.

“He must be secretly loyal. Judging from the way he worries about Abel.”

“It’s not secretly, it’s just loyalty. Sometimes, you and the Demon King look like children left on the water’s edge. But on the water’s edge, there’s a school of devilfish that bite people, and it looks like there’s a child that’s already been bitten several times.”

“Oh…”

I secretly felt a little respect for Galvein, who spoke with a serious face.

“Although I took some money from the storage to study magic, secretly moved to a permanent location, filled it with gambling, and sometimes even forgot to fill it with that, I am the most loyal of loyal subjects.”

“…I just told you directly why I don’t consider you Abel’s loyalist.”

He died standing up with all his respect completely uprooted. How much money did he make?

Before I could properly question Galvein, the train stopped with a squeak.

“Huh?!!”

“…If I were to go on an inspection tour of the human world with you, I would never take a train, no matter what.”

Galvein saw me startled and cling to the wall of the train, and he rebuked me.

How do you know this when you’ve never had a chance to ride it…

“We’re arriving soon. Get ready to get off.”

Even though I was grumbling, my body started to pack my things steadily. No, it would be more accurate to say that I was carrying them since they were all already packed.

Soon the train stopped with a loud noise.

“…Is this a cave?”

And what Leah saw when she got off the train was a huge cave so deep that the inside looked pitch black, and it was made of white, bumpy stones.

*****

“My legs hurt… How much longer do I have?”

After walking in a straight line inside the cave for two hours, Leah’s legs began to feel numb.

“No matter what, can the cave be this deep? And I only went in a straight line…”

“…”

It was a complaint, but when Galvein did not respond, Leah tilted her head, wondering if Galvein was tired too.

“You’re absolutely right.”

“Huh?”

“The mountain where this tunnel was is not that big. A tunnel of this length cannot come out in a straight line.”

“Then… a magic trap? Something that you, Galvein, wouldn’t notice? ”

I muttered in vain as I put down my bag. There was no point in moving since I knew the trap was set anyway.

“Yeah, it’s so elaborate that I didn’t even notice it until now. It’s creepy.”

“Then it’s fucked up?”

– Even as I said that, to be honest, I didn’t feel that nervous. I guess it was because my faith in Abel was strong.

“Fucked.”

“Right?”

“I don’t think you can feel it, but this is really fucked up. If the owner of this ruins wants to, we could disappear from the world without a sound right now, and it would be impossible to ask the Demon King for rescue.”

“…!”

“The only connection is the spell I put on you, but if it’s not an Elder Lich, and just a Lich’s spell, it can be destroyed at any time. And since there’s no exit, it seems like the owner of this ruins has no intention of letting the intruders out for some reason.”

“Then…”

“Didn’t you say that earlier? It’s fucked up. That’s exactly what I meant.”

Isolation, or in other words, distress.

It was a word quite familiar to Leah.

*****

Leah first took out her backpack and checked what she had in it.

“…notebook, quill, ink. And some snacks and magic stones…”

The backpack was somehow small, so there wasn’t much inside. Still, it wasn’t as screwed up as I said before, and Galvein said that he would try to communicate with the owner of the ruins since he wasn’t hostile, so I just had to hold out until then.

“You’re pretty calm?”

“I’ve been shipwrecked a lot. Mostly because of Belle’s trolling.”

“Oh… How on earth did those guys become members of the warrior party? I’m really curious.”

They should have heard this fact when I was fighting. It’s so regrettable that I wish I had recorded it.

Oh, I found a water bottle. I was in desperate need of drinking water, so I got lucky.

“Can I drink this? The water is a bit white…”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh.”

“Of course, if you never want to get up again. It’s acid poison.”

“Tell me that first, that damn skeleton says he doesn’t drink because he’s a bone…”

I quietly put the water bottle back in my bag.

“I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“I brought it.”

“Rather, I should be the one apologizing. I was the one who insisted on going.”

“Fact-”

“Oh, okay. Is there anything else to talk about? Who did something wrong? Let’s go out and discuss this.”

Knock, knock. Leah answered, touching the wall where Galvein was drawing some kind of magic circle. The wall, which looked white from a distance, was extremely rough, and when she put her finger into the shallow groove and scratched it, black stone dust came out between her fingernails.

Even Leah herself thought it was a fearless action, but strangely, she didn’t feel nervous. She had some kind of confidence that the owner of this ruin wouldn’t harm us? Maybe she lost to boredom.

“You’re crazy. Look at the wall.”

“You’re bored anyway, right? It’s not like Richie doesn’t have emotions, do you just want to stare at a white wall? You should at least have a conversation.”

“Ha. So what do you want to talk about?”

Galvein responded annoyedly, but his words contained a message of acceptance.

In the first place, the magic circle for communication wouldn’t be that difficult, so it would be possible to do it while talking sufficiently. The need to be on guard would also be reduced to some extent.

“I’ve been wondering this for a long time, why don’t you and Hira get along so well? One side calls you a fucking succubus queen, and the other side calls you a fucking lich or a skeleton. But you and Mino both seem to get along pretty well.”

“…You mean that damn succubus queen?”

“Look, even now.”

When I slyly pointed out his tone, Galvein continued speaking as if he was being wronged.

“That’s what really got me wrong. I didn’t do ‘anything’ and we were on good terms, but then he started twitching all of a sudden and started getting annoyed first.”

Galvein refuted my words without even looking at the magic circle, as if the magic circle for communication had been completed.

“Nothing really happened? Hira wouldn’t be the type to do that.”

The sound of a snack being unwrapped was heard. I forgot that I was in a disaster situation and started listening while eating gingerbread as if I was watching a drama.

“Huh, no, ha.”

Oh, that must be really unfair. That tone couldn’t come out without being really unfair.

“But you must remember something, right?”

“I didn’t do anything but burn spam emails.”

“…Spam?”

“Starting with Count Spam distributing letters indiscriminately throughout the empire to promote his product, cheap meat-”

“No, Speedwagon won’t stop…”

I forgot, but this guy was a serious speedwagon.

“Anyway, what did that letter say?”

“Hmm, it’ll take a while to recall the memory.”

“It doesn’t matter, what’s left is time.”

“That’s right… Oh, I remembered. I was definitely told to come somewhere, but since it was a place with few people, I thought the humans were up to something, so I burned the letter right away. There’s no way I’d be fooled by something like that, right? ”

…Oh, you didn’t call me out to confess to me, did you?

“Oh, was the letter paper pink? Since it was spam anyway, why did they use such bright colors?”

I think it’s almost certain.

“And another thing that’s strange… Oh, the next day, there were a lot of candles in the trash can.”

“That was just a confession, you stupid skeleton-headed bastard!!”

Almost or whatever, it was just a confession.

Leah just hit me on the head.

Of course, there can’t be a normal person among these crazy Four Heavenly Kings.