episode_0010

Episode 10

“……..”

“……..”

What is this meat girl? Is she really a human?

Ah, I am by no means a narrow-minded being who judges the existence of humans based on their eating habits.

I just couldn’t shake off the feeling that this woman in front of me, no matter how human she looked, didn’t feel human at all.

“I asked if you had any business.”

“Hmm?”

Even when asked again, she only made strange noises and tilted her head, showing no signs of answering or leaving quietly.

Other people either couldn’t sense the strangeness of the woman in front of me or were simply curious about the situation itself.

I couldn’t quite explain it well. I couldn’t, but it felt like facing a giant and powerful monster.

Remembering a similar sensation a few days ago, I casually glanced at the woman’s head. Naturally, there were no horns sticking out.

But would a demon appear out of nowhere in broad daylight?

As I puzzled over my own imagination, the woman finally spoke up.

“Excuse me.”

“Yes?”

Without permission, she casually sat across from me at the table where I was sitting.

This doesn’t feel right. It seemed like a mistake no matter how you looked at it. I didn’t want to engage with her for long, and I wasn’t particularly interested, but as I was about to move due to hunger, something swirled right in front of my eyes.

“Oh.”

With a sound, a bone sliced off by the knife fell below. It was part of the bone the meat girl had been chewing on just moments ago.

And the knife that had swirled was my poor utensil that just wanted a late breakfast.

“What are you suddenly doing?”

“Don’t worry. No one has noticed what happened.”

I understood without her saying so. The people in the restaurant are ordinary folks. Not condescendingly, but in the truest sense, they wouldn’t even know what had happened.

The important thing was why the meat girl tried to kill me. There was no intent to kill in the attack, but if she hadn’t cut with the knife, her bone would have surely cracked my skull.

I don’t understand. Why does she want to kill me?

“Before you misunderstand, let me tell you that I don’t specifically intend to kill. I might think about it if you die, though.”

“It’s our first meeting today, isn’t it?”

She was a strange woman in many ways. Even her way of speaking was odd. She seemed to be around the same age as Layla judging by her face, but her speech was like that of a queen.

I was thinking she might be a high-ranking foreign guest when she said that.

“If anything happens again, I will kill everyone around here.”

“What?”

This time, the meat girl swiftly grabbed the fork in front of her and thrust it towards me. There was no intention to kill this time either, but if I hadn’t dodged or blocked, I would have definitely died.

I’m not a compassionate person, but the threat of killing unrelated people made me hesitate for a moment.

As a result, I found myself in a ridiculous situation of facing a knife with a fork.

The power was no joke, even if it was a joke.

– Huh? Can you hear strange sounds from somewhere?

– Yeah.

– Isn’t it the sound of cooking in the kitchen?

While I was desperately blocking the meat girl’s fork, people around me were calmly chatting.

This is insane. This clearly went beyond what could be called an incident. Despite being just a fork, the power it unleashed on my body was enough to leave gaping holes.

Even my ability to block with the knife was gradually reaching its limit. I had to step back, much to the dismay of the people around me.

“It’s a shame, but let’s call it quits here.”

Just before giving up the lives of the people in the restaurant and standing up, the meat girl picked up the fork. The fork that had been in combat was unscathed.

On the other hand, the knife I was using was in a mess. Unlike me, who was sweating profusely, the woman was incredibly calm.

In every aspect, she was clearly superior to me. I didn’t know her identity, but she seemed like someone who should have a mother-in-law for an opponent.

I observed the woman’s actions nervously. I planned to flee based on her next move, but if necessary, I was prepared to fight.

“Well then, I’ll take my leave now. Enjoy your meal.”

“Huh?”

The woman stood up from her seat with a surprisingly fresh attitude. Perhaps because of this, I ended up speaking to her, someone I should have just let go quietly.

“Are you teasing me right now?”

“No, I’m not. I’ve confirmed what I wanted to. I’ll come back later, so wait for me.”

“What?”

There was no response. Just like when she arrived, the woman said what she wanted to say unilaterally and left the restaurant, heading out of the hotel.

As there was an important meeting at the royal court soon, I considered following her to investigate, but I decided against it. If I followed her, I would probably die. I couldn’t turn my wife, who had only been married for a short time, into a widow so soon.

Informing Leila, who was in charge of the queen’s guard, about the woman’s presence was the best I could do.

“By the way, what are you coming for?”

Although I hadn’t entrusted anything to her. For some reason, it felt very important that she took something with her. In my eyes, the fork she had wielded came into view.

“Oh, don’t tell me.”

…No way?

—

After going out with a cool demeanor and feeling embarrassed to come back in, the demon lord Lumaniel returned to her room through a window on the outer wall instead of the hotel entrance.

Inside the room, a professor’s familiar summoned creature, mimicking the form of a dog, greeted her.

“So, got lost in the hotel again, Lumi?”

“Shut up. That’s not it.”

Although it was a reasonable guess from the professor since she entered through the window instead of the perfectly fine door, Lumaniel denied it irritably.

No, she was pretending to be irritated.

Having known from long experience that Lumaniel’s anger was mostly a cover for embarrassment, the professor subtly spoke to her as if watching her.

“You seem in a good mood. Did you enjoy human cuisine that much?”

“Just… so-so.”

Lumaniel gave a vague reply and lay down on the bed. The professor’s curiosity was piqued by the behavior of a friend rarely seen since becoming a demon lord.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Ugh, can you be quiet!”

To an outsider, it looked like she was genuinely angry, but the professor sensed otherwise. All that was left was to provide a plausible reason. Worried, the professor spoke.

“It’s better to be careful. My potion isn’t perfect, so I might reactivate my horns due to intense emotions.”

“I-is that so?!”

“Yeah. So if you tell me what happened, I can prepare in advance…”

“Ugh, fine! It’s nothing special!”

Deceiving her only friend with plausible words, the professor thought about how lucky it was that other demons didn’t know about this innocent side of the demon lord, focusing on her hearing.

“Sigh. It’s just about confirming reproductive functions and finding suitable subjects for species preservation purposes.”

“……………………”

With exceptional intelligence and rationality, the professor first considered the possibility of abnormalities in the summoned creature’s hearing.

Unfortunately, the summoned creature was in perfect condition without any issues. Therefore, it was regrettable, but it was more likely that there were problems with the professor’s own hearing, mind, or common sense—

“You found a husband candidate?!”

“W-who said that?!”

“You just blurted it out with your own mouth!”

It was an impossible thing. As always, Lumaniel, who only complained about delicate matters, disliked it even more.

[Why? Before me? You? How dare you?]

“Disrespectful!?”

[Shut up and answer, LumiLumi!]

“Don’t call me LumiLumi!”

Despite appearances, the professor was currently in a state of panic.

He had never experienced first love, was too busy for relationships, and had no interest in the opposite sex, so it was natural that the possibility of a friend who had never shown any interest in romance getting married first came as a shock.

Of course, that was one thing, but what was interesting was interesting.

[Who is it? What kind of person is it? Where and how did you meet?]

“Why do you assume he’s human?”

“Think about where you are before speaking, Your Majesty. Your speech has become strange since being poked in the sore spot.”

Except for humans, all other species historically maintained a serious gender imbalance, with men always being the lacking side.

Therefore, it didn’t matter to bring in companions from other species, and depending on the species, they even encouraged raid marriages, which the demon race was also part of.

“At first, it was because Peronica said he was a man she wanted to fight that I became interested…”

“Goodness. Did your subordinate snatch a man marked by power? Disgusting, LumiLumi!”

“Shut up!”

While their love story was far from conventional, the two succubi enjoyed a pleasant conversation after a long time.

—

“Good grief. In the end, we couldn’t find him.”

Leila sharpened her words with a fierce expression.

Her husband, who faithfully obeyed her instructions not to leave the hotel, called the steward to inform the Royal Guard about the suspicious figure who had approached him.

Upon hearing the news, Leila, enraged by the fact that Edward had been attacked and a woman had approached him when she wasn’t around, vowed to find and kill her.

However, they couldn’t find her. Despite Edward describing in detail the appearance of the mysterious woman he had seen, the accounts of witnesses were all different.

“It’s a plausible guess that she was using magic to change her appearance.”

It was a guess close to the truth. To be precise, except for Edward, everyone else saw a different person due to a spell cast on themselves by the demon king.

Leila, who had spent the day mediating fights among representatives of various countries gathered for a conference in the royal capital, and who had dealt with unnecessary skirmishes from the existing guards, returned to the hotel feeling like she might collapse at any moment due to the immense mental stress. She immediately took off her armor and jumped towards her own oasis.

“Welcome back, Leila. You’ve been through a lot.”

“Yeah. Today was really tough, Edward.”

As she nestled into her husband’s embrace, Leila felt all the fatigue of the day melt away, enjoying a sweet happiness.

Thinking that if she could have this for a lifetime, she could do anything, she suddenly turned her head and noticed something strange on the table next to the bed.

“Edward? What’s this fork for?”

“Um… Should I call it a precautionary measure for once in a while?”

A few days later…

The curtain rose on a meeting for the alliance of human nations.