Chapter 106: The Hope of Monsters, the Demon King! Resurrected to Defeat the Hero’s Party!

It seemed I had to say it.

Those words.

“Did I get him?”

I uttered the cliché phrase, practically a magic spell for invincible resurrection, and narrowed my eyes. My own breath had obliterated the enemy’s barracks, and while I worried an enemy might pop out, all I saw through the smoke scattered by the blast were mangled corpses and shattered cores, unable to withstand the fireball.

“…Is he really dead?”

Reverting to my human form, I landed in the barracks and scanned my surroundings for any potential traps, checking again.

He was definitely dead.

“…What’s with this anticlimactic feeling? Hey, Sloth! Don’t you have any last words?! You were an enemy, sure, but it’s too lonely for you to go out like this!”

“Ugh, uh… ghh…!”

“Ooh?!”

When I picked up the core presumed to be Sloth’s, the sphere was almost completely shattered, but it glowed faintly. It seemed he had just enough strength to squeeze out a final message. A short groan was followed by a voice, uncharacteristically serious.

“Reina… is that you… You ridiculously… ignorant… bitch…”

“This isn’t the end for you, is it!? Knowing your nasty personality, you’ve definitely prepared a trap! Tell me what it is as a parting gift!”

“I see… so you’re not… completely… ignorant… The trap… has already… been sprung…”

“Wha-?!”

With those words, a magic circle activated.

“Ha… hahaha… HAHAHAHAHAHA-!!!”

“Sloth… I knew you’d come through…!”

“Of course… I am… Sloth the Strategist… the Demon King’s… second-in-command!!”

Crimson lines of light shot out from the chair where Sloth had been sitting, spreading outwards and rising to the sky like a curtain, enveloping the world. The voice from the core, squeezing out its last bit of strength, laughed as it always did. Just as the Hero had told him, his bad habit of revealing his hand at the most exciting moment persisted even in a situation like this.

“Ugh… the smell of blood…! The blood from the corpses we cut down is rising into the air…?!”

“Yes, all of this is a sacrifice for one person… It was all… a ritual of sacrifice… Just how many lives… have you all taken…?! A rough estimate puts it at 300,000… For monsters like you it might be nothing… but in the brief skirmishes mixed with ordinary soldiers… there must have been thousands… no, tens of thousands of casualties…!!”

“A ritual… of sacrifice… Are you trying to resurrect the Demon King or something?”

“You truly are a dragon who’s only sharp when it comes to things like this…! Not that it changes anything! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

Sluuuuuurp!!!

『AAAAAAGH!!!!!』

『My, my, my blood!』

『Don’t take it!!!』

『Someone, anyone, save meeeee!!』

Pandemonium erupted from outside the barracks. Pillars of light shooting into the sky were likely from the Hero and Tei, but the magic circle didn’t vanish. Instead, the blood began to gather in one place. As if the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of corpses strewn across the battlefield wasn’t enough, any of the still-living Demon King’s forces with so much as a scratch on their bodies were also swept up in the ritual, their blood stolen away and drawn toward a sphere forming in the air.

‘The Kingdom’s soldiers are having their blood drained too… Are the ones without injuries safe…?’

It was a serious assessment, completely devoid of her usual masochism. I checked myself to see if any blood was being drawn from a wound somewhere, but there was nothing. The core, its light flickering as if about to go out at any moment, laughed again.

“A good assessment… but the objective has already been achieved…”

“We purified the Demon King’s soul. With a bam! just like that, thanks to the power of both Tei and the Hero. We even used purification magic over and over just in case he might be resurrected, and we sealed the entire Demon King’s castle. Do you really think you can bring him back with just this?”

“What’s needed… is not the soul…”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Demon King… is power… He is the one who will… offer humanity to us… like livestock… Therefore… if we have his personality from that time, his power, and a body to contain it…! A replica will do just fine…!!”

Hehehehehehe!

With those final words, Sloth’s core vanished, as if it had never been there at all. The Hero’s party continued to attack the suspicious sphere floating in the air, but the soldiers’ blood kept gathering, and the one growing anxious was none other than the Hero herself.

‘That bastard Sloth, I knew he was plotting something! Ugh?!’

She stopped summoning the pillars of light and turned around. The magic circle was complete, and the blood floating in the air continued to condense, forming a single gem. Her intuition screamed that if she didn’t destroy it right now, something dangerous would happen, yet her gaze was fixed on the child and Tanjelo in the barracks, where she realized another anomaly was occurring.

“AAAAAAGH!! No!”

“Young Master! Sir Brave, too-!”

At that, the blood drained from her face, leaving her pale.

‘……Eh.’

The child, whom she had hidden deep inside the barracks just in case, was floating in the air. Tanjelo was clinging to the child, and Noah was attached to his feet. Yet the Hero’s child did not descend, instead rising higher and higher. The sight of the child moving steadily toward the red gem Sloth had created by sacrificing the soldiers was a quiet warning of what was about to happen.

“No… my child… Why…!! Why my child of all people…!!”

“Hero, the child—!!”

“──Touch him and I’ll kill you, even if it’s you, Gara!!!”

THUD!

“Guh-hock…! Ah… ugh!!”

Everyone in the Hero’s party was quick to assess a situation. Gara, who had tried to grab his greatsword on behalf of the despairing Hero, was immediately kneed in the solar plexus and sent rolling far into the distance. The Hero knew she had to kill the child now, before there was time to attack her comrades, but as a mother, she was incapable of rational judgment.

‘Something is happening with this ritual… It must be Sloth’s last desperate struggle to turn the tide of this war… It will surely cause immense damage… But kill my child? Impossible! Tanjelo is with him too! Then how do I…?!’

“I don’t know what that is, but we have to stop it! Archers! Take aim!”

“…Keh?!”

At the Second Prince’s clear command, most of the soldiers aimed and fired, only for the Hero’s sword aura to bat away the volley of arrows filling the air.

“Hero!”

“Stop it! My husband is up there too!”

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?! That is clearly dark magic! It’s a plan to summon something powerful using your child, your blood!!”

“Anyone who touches my child will die!”

“Herooo!!”

The Second Prince was furious, but he couldn’t press her any further. The Hero’s party had been instrumental in achieving such a complete victory in this war. Besides, given the circumstances, the chilling thought that pushing her too hard here could make an enemy of the Hero made him back down. Instead, Reina, having grasped the situation, flew toward the Hero.

“Ugh, you-?! Reinaaaaaa!!!”

“Grrrraaaah!!! Hero, stop it! We have to destroy that thing right now!”

“Shut up! I’ve already prepared myself! That’s the Demon King, right?! We’ve already beaten him once, we can just kill him again along with it!!!”

“It’s your child’s body! He’ll definitely use it to blackmail you! If we’re going to kill him, it has to be now!”

“Shut up! It’ll work out somehow! It always has!!”

“You think it will?! Do you have any idea how many people that thing has absorbed?! And your bloodline on top of that…! We won’t be able to win as easily as last time!”

“We won’t know until we try!!!”

“Hero!”

Reina’s fist smashed into the Hero’s face, driving her into the ground so hard she left a human-shaped crater. But the Hero stood up, completely unfazed, and her counterattack sent Reina’s face caving in as she skipped across the ground like a stone on water.

“Gya-haaa… ack…!! You, you stupid bitch, dammit!”

“Absolutely… not…!”

While all this was happening, the ritual was nearing completion. It was obvious that if her child touched that gem, the Demon King would be fully resurrected. As the child continued to advance toward the red gem that had absorbed the blood of hundreds of thousands, Tanjelo, clinging to him, tried desperately to do something, his face a mask of tears.

‘I expected this, but to think it would actually happen… Ugh, what am I supposed to do? Can I do nothing again? Just like when the Hero was being tortured?’

He looked up at his child, flying blankly. For some reason, the child had a black tail and wings and was glowing with a red light, but he was still Tanjelo’s own child. A strange child who rejected his father’s love, but Tanjelo was not so ill-natured a father as to give up for such a reason.

“That toy is too much for a child like you…!! I won’t let you touch that gem…!”

“Waaah!!”

“U-gigi-giiiih~?! AAAAAAGH!!!”

The moment they reached the red gem, Tanjelo grabbed it first. The enraged child tried to rip his father’s right hand off with sheer force. Though still young, the child was terrifyingly strong, having inherited the Hero’s bloodline. A sickening, creaking sound came from Tanjelo’s fingers.

“UWAAAAAAH!!!!!!”

“Baby, ack, ah, aaaagh, ugh!! EEYAAAAAAGH!!! AAAAAAGH!!!”

“WAAAAAAH!!!!!!”

“A-guuuuuuh?! Gak, ah, aaack!!”

“Sir Tanjelo! Let go! Your fingers are going to be ripped off!”

“Are you crazy?! Absolutely not! If I hand this over?!──GAHAAAAAAK!!!!”

CRACK! SNAP!!

Finally, Tanjelo’s fingers were bent into a grotesque shape.

At the same time, he fell.

“Tanjelo!”

“It’s alright! I’ve got him!”

As Noah caught Tanjelo, who had finally been torn from the child’s grasp and was falling to the ground, the now-free child pushed the red gem into his own forehead.

“Uwaaaaaah───ae, ae, ae, eh, ha, aha, ah? Aaaaaah? Ack!! Ah, ah!!”

The baby’s cry, the toddler’s voice, transformed into a deep, adult male’s.

The forcibly matured body was engulfed in a black shadow, and soon it changed into a form familiar to the entire Hero’s party. Gara, who had just managed to get back on his feet, lamented.

“He’s really done it…! To think he’d actually be resurrected… Ugh…”

Clutching the spot where the Hero had struck him, he stood up and, while she was preoccupied with Reina, swung his sword at the not-yet-fully-resurrected Demon King. This special weapon, borrowed from the royal family, had the power to extend its blade, just as it had during the war. It reached from the ground into the air, and then…

Stab.

…it pierced him with ease.

“Garaaaaaa!!!”

“Surprisingly, he’s soft…─Mwo-uuuuugh?! Aaaaaaagh!!!”

Along with the Hero’s scream, Gara was hit by a shockwave and sent rolling again. He’d dropped his greatsword, and its extended blade remained impaled in its target. In a situation like this, it would have been a cool scene if the Demon King had casually blocked it, but the figure that emerged from the black sphere was bleeding from the mouth with a troubled look on his face.

“Demon King…!”

“Is it really him…”

Long black hair, yellow eyes, and generally dark skin. He healed the wound in his stomach using the power of the gem on his forehead, but he winced, as it had clearly hurt. He heard the murmurs from his surroundings but showed no sign of flaunting his resurrection, instead stroking his chin with a perplexed expression.

“What is this situation… I’m sure I was preparing for battle yesterday, went to sleep… and conducted an experiment with Sloth in the morning… But I have no memory of what happened after that…”

……

……

……

“…I have almost no memories left. This inexplicable body, too… Hey, by any chance… is my original body dead?”

“What, you were just resurrected and you don’t remember everything?”

“Reina… To think I’d see your face in a place like this. And you’re fighting the Hero, no less. I can’t make any sense of this situation.”

“We’re the ones who should be saying that…!! Stealing my child’s body and pretending you know nothing…!!!”

“…A child’s body?”

Just then, a pillar of light descended upon the Demon King as he was about to land on the ground.

“──UUUUUUGH!?!! Kgh, ah, aaaaaah!!!”

“This is…”

“Tei’s holy magic! Ugh, dammit, I told them not to touch him! Why won’t anyone listen to me?!”

“Grrr, I see, I don’t understand the situation… But…!! An attack like this, which I normally couldn’t withstand…! Right now-!!”

CRACK!

The Demon King deflected the mass-destruction magic Tei had fired, suffering only enough damage to tear up the back of his hand. He wasn’t completely invincible, it seemed; he took damage and used the power of the gem on his forehead to heal it again. With this new power, different from before, he finally laughed triumphantly.

“I see. The personality I entrusted to Sloth back then… in other words, the personality extracted at that time, has been resurrected through your child’s body. The Demon King’s army has been annihilated, and my body is overflowing with life. I never imagined my original self would die. I don’t know what process led to this, but I’d say it’s a feat worthy of Sloth.”

“Finished sizing up the situation?”

“Yes, thanks to you. But it’s a strange feeling. To have almost no old memories, no sense of my own death, with only the memories and personality purely extracted from that time remaining… It’s like… all the malice has been drained out of me. I feel like I have amnesia.”

As he landed on the ground and shrugged leisurely, the Hero’s eyes lit up as if she’d found a ray of hope.

“Th-then there’s no reason for you to fight us! You guys lost once! And if you barely have any memories-!”

“Don’t be ridiculous… I am the Demon King. Forcing humanity to submit is my greatest pleasure and purest desire. That much is an immutable truth, no matter what. Sloth knew that, which is why he sacrificed himself to bring me back.”

“Your original body is already dead! You’re nothing but a clone, so surrender quietly! You’re weak!”

“Hmm… Indeed… I realized from that last attack. Even after absorbing all the Demon King’s forces on this battlefield, I’m no match for you all. Sloth must not have anticipated this. But then again, you all are just too far outside the norm, so I can’t blame him.”

“─In that case!”

The Demon King spat on the Hero’s smile with a vile grin of his own.

“However, this body, this soul, they belong to your child, do they not? It occurs to me that if I leverage that advantage, I can certainly win. And what do you know, you’re already fighting Reina… Hehehe…”

“You demonic son of a biiiiiitch!!!!”

Unable to contain her anger, the Hero charged. Faster than Reina, heavier than Gara, she raised the blade of her holy sword and aimed for the Demon King, who simply offered his neck, inviting the slash.

“Grrrrrrgh?!”

And so, she stopped.

“Just as I thought.”

The sword stopped precisely at his throat, but its extreme sharpness drew a line of blood, and he sneered at it.

“Humans are such foolish creatures. To hesitate for a mere lump of flesh, not even a few years old, in a situation where the fate of your country and comrades hangs in the balance.”

“Get out of my child’s body!!”

“─I refuse. This is the perfect body to restrain a monster like you. Indeed… hehe, I could never abandon it.”

“Demon King!! Get out of my child’s body, you damn bastaaaaaard!!!!”

SMACK!!!

“HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!”

Since the sword was no good, she threw down her holy sword and sent the Demon King flying with her fists.

His head was struck, his face contorted, his body skipped across the ground, yet he laughed loudly.

“I’ll beat you until you come out of that body!!!”

“By all means… try if you can… Then I shall allow myself to be beaten until you are exhausted. My current body contains the souls of 300,000 people. I have no intention of dying from an attack of that level, so feel free to hit me as you please.”

“Then die mentallyyyyyy!!!”

“FUHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!”

SMACK!

Again.

The Hero chased after the Demon King, who would be sent flying, his body twisting grotesquely, only to get back up again, and swung her fists.

“This is no time… to be doing this… ugh…”

“What are you dawdling for?! We’re going too!”

“Mmm…!!”

Gara and Reina, finally coming to their senses, joined the fray, while Tei, having exhausted his stamina, entered a depleted state and was out of the fight. The remaining soldiers and the prince debated whether to participate, but then they noticed the remnants of the Demon King’s army that had survived Sloth’s scheme and advanced toward them instead.

‘Regardless of the Hero’s attitude, we may have to redraw the maps by the time this fight is over…’

The Second Prince, Rius, followed the laser beam fired by the Demon King with his eyes. The moment the vast mass of energy disappeared over the horizon, he could see the Royal Capital burning. The sound of the Demon King’s joyous laughter as he was repeatedly and one-sidedly beaten by the Hero, despite possessing such power, only to get back up again, dominated the battlefield.

“Your Highness… after this is over, the Hero’s disposition…”

“To hell with punishment or anything else. Don’t even think about touching her…”

“But! If she hadn’t interfered, we could have protected the Royal Capital!!”

“Go on… say that to the Hero’s face… I know I can’t…!”

“……Ugh!”

When he violently ordered his aide to shut up and deal with the remnants, the man saluted sharply and headed onto the battlefield, which now lacked any sense of crisis. The Demon King’s army had already lost its will to fight and was merely a fleeing force. Rius lamented his own situation, reduced to stabbing fleeing men in the back despite having gathered such a large army, and cursed his soon-to-be-retired father.