But when she let go of Korone’s hand and went to get started working on her trap, she realized she had no idea what to actually do.
“...Um? How do I set a trap like that, exactly?”
“I see. You’ll need advice, which I’ll be happy to provide. Complicated traps like yours aren’t what you want. The more simple a trap is, the more effective. There are two basic rules you need to follow. First, don’t use mana. Second, achieve your goal with one single process,” Korone explained calmly.
“The reason you don’t use mana is to make it more difficult for magically-adept students to discover your trap. And the reason for the second rule is that by quickly humiliating your target, you can harm the powers of concentration required to use magic, increasing the amount of time for which they’re humiliated.”
“I see. Good to know.” Nozomi began to take notes.
“This limits the amount of effective types of traps. I’ll show you a diagram,” Korone said as she opened a mana screen that showed the details of a number of traps.”
“Why did you have something like this saved...?”
Korone ignored her and pointed to the screen.
“The key here is this rope. You want something that activates when the rope is pulled.”
“Hmm...” Nozomi nodded, deep in thought.
“Catching both legs with a rope and dangling the target in the air is effective, but it’s dangerous and should be avoided. I suggest something that douses the target from above with a special chemical.”
“A chemical?”
“Yes. This.” Korone took out a small vial from the bag she always carried and held it above her head.
“ClothesMeltrin!”
“C-Clothesmel...what?”
“ClothesMeltrin. A terrifying chemical that only melts clothes.”
“They didn’t put a lot of thought into that name, did they?”
“Take it up with the person who named it. It uses bacteria to dissolve chemical fibers.”
“Which means you can quickly strip someone to their underwear... No, if their underwear’s made of chemical fibers they’ll lose it too...!”
“Correct.” Korone nodded.
Then she offered the vial to Nozomi. “It needs to be watered down 30 times before you use it. This one vial will give you enough to fill three buckets.”
“N-No, but...” Nozomi hesitated. “This is kind of scary, isn’t it?”
“Do you think so? All you’re doing is negotiating with someone when they’re naked. Is there a problem with that?” Korone tried to force the vial into Nozomi’s hands.
“There isn’t, but... A-Aaah....”
Nozomi started to quietly scream. She was never a strong girl, and the plan was scaring her. In Nozomi’s eyes, Korone seemed to have transformed into Mephistopheles. Though a demon with a much more limited range of facial expressions. Her shaking hands stretched out towards the vial. And then...
“Korone, who’s this?”
Suddenly she heard a man’s voice from nearby.
“HYAAAAH!” Nozomi screamed loudly and started to run.
“Wai-”
The man — Akuto — shouted after her, but she didn’t hear him.
She ran without thinking for a while, before finally stopping to rest behind some bushes. Only after she caught her breath did she realize that the vial was tightly held in her hands.
“T-This is...”
Nozomi gulped. And what was more...
“For some reason, there’s a copy of that trap schematic on my terminal!”
○
“Korone, who was that?” Akuto asked as he watched Nozomi run off into the distance.
“The janitor,” Korone said flatly.
“Why was the janitor wearing a maid outfit...? No, that’s not what’s important here. What was that about?”
“She was a poor, delusional girl, and so I decided to talk to her a little.”
“Huh?” Akuto said, confused.
“She was trying to use some kind of strange trap to capture the Empress. She put a banana peel here...” Korone returned the banana peel from the garbage can to its original position.
“I’m not following.”
“I see. I suppose that’s just a sign of how strange the situation was. Since the Empress cut class, we had nothing to fear, but I was in the process of learning more about her, and possibly arresting her, when you interrupted.” Korone said.
Akuto didn’t know what to say to that.
“...Does that mean I’m at fault here?”
“No, I didn’t say that.”
“But you said you were trying to arrest her...”
“No, she didn’t do anything that violated the law. I was trying to see if I could get her to do it.”
“...I really don’t follow. You’re not just trying to make things as complicated as possible so you can enjoy it, are you?”
“A little.”
“Come on, you can’t do that...”
“Don’t worry. I’m only 80% serious.”
“Listen...” Akuto put an end to the strange conversation and decided to follow after the maid-slash-janitor.
He left Korone behind as he jogged off in the direction she’d gone.
—Um, I think it was this way...
Akuto headed off to the side of the school building. He found Nozomi on a narrow route between two of the classrooms. She was a tiny girl in a maid uniform, setting up a primitive trap. She crouched in the nearby bushes, fiddling with a rope.
“Um...”
Akuto approached. He was met with a scream in response.
“Hyaaah!”
Before he knew it she was already running.
“Wait...”
He tried to stop her, but in an instant she’d disappeared beyond the corner of the school building. He went to follow her, but stopped himself just before he fell into the trap she’d set.
—That was close. So this is the trap Korone was talking about...
He’d only seen it because he’d watched her set it, but it was a thin string of fishing wire that would be almost impossible to see if you weren’t watching. And if you tripped the wire, it was set to drop a bucket of liquid down on your head from above. The bucket was well-hidden too, something you’d never find if someone didn’t tell you it was there.
“I need to get rid of this first.”
Akuto followed the fishing wire to the base of a tree, where he found a device hidden on the other side of a trunk. He started to think about how he could get the device undone without dropping the bucket.
—If I untie the rope, the bucket will fall... Maybe I should just drop the bucket when nobody’s around? he said, and began to fiddle with the device, which consisted of branches and stone weights.
“What are you doing back there? It seems like you’re hiding something.”
He heard a voice.
“Uwah! Don’t move from that spot!” Akuto cried.
It was Junko Hattori. She was the class rep, and she had a long history with Akuto. Junko was a girl with a gallant flair, looked up to by her classmates, upstanding and always telling the truth. But Akuto knew that she was actually pretty clumsy sometimes. And if she was standing in that spot, then...
“What do you mean ‘don’t move’? What are you doing there?”
Junko began to walk towards him in broad strides.
“I said don’t move!” he yelled again, but her strides only grew longer.
“You’re acting suspicious! What are you hid...!” She tripped on the fishing line.
“Aah...!”
Akuto tried his hardest to hang on to the rope supporting the bucket. But when Junko tripped the wire, it made the weights descend with more force than he’d expected. The rope slipped out of his hands.
“Uwah!” Junko almost tripped, but managed to keep her balance and stay where she was. Unfortunately, that was the wrong move. The contents of the bucket were splattered all over her.
“Bwah... What did you just dump on me?!”
She looked up, shaking her head and sending water droplets scattering from her wet hair as she stormed over to him.
“Listen, it’s not...” Akuto started to flail his hands.
Junko didn’t understand what he meant, and kept walking forward, her eyes locked straight onto his.
“Don’t try and talk your way out of this! You’re not a little child anymore, so don’t...”
She raised a hand to point at Akuto. When she did, the sleeve of her uniform began to turn to dust and fall to the ground.
“What’s... going on...? H-Huh...? AAAH!” Junko’s eyes went wide as she realized all her clothes were starting to crumble from her body.
“Aaah!” She covered her body with her arms and dropped.
Fortunately, the cloth she’d wrapped around her breasts and crotch to serve as underwear hadn’t melted.
“A-Are you okay?” Akuto ran over to her, took off his jacket, and placed it on top of her. She gripped it tightly to her body, tears in her eyes, and looked up at him angrily.
“I-I thought this was just a childish trick, but it’s far worse. Don’t tell me you went through all this just to get my clothes off...”
“No, this wasn’t an attempt to get your clothes off...”
“Oh... So you weren’t setting the trap for me, you were setting it for someone else who came along this path... I-If you did this because you wanted to see me naked, I could’ve forgiven you, but...” Junko bit her lip and stood up.
She ran her arms through the sleeves of Akuto’s jacket, and then summoned mana light into her hands.
“Wait, you’ve got it all wrong...”
“I understand everything. Now that your power has been sealed, you’ve been reduced to playing pranks like an ordinary student!”
“No... that’s really not it.”
“Fortunately, I’m now capable of punishing you. And I know that most of what I can do won’t kill you, too...” She approached him with a violent look on her face.
The rest of the student body didn’t know this, but Akuto no longer had the incredible power he’d had after he awakened. He retained his toughness, it seemed, but his mana control was incomplete. In other words, if he was hit, it would hurt.
“You need to listen to me...” Akuto started to back off.
“If you’re running, it’s proof that you don’t feel like you need to atone! Prepare yourself!”
She threw a mana ball at him. Akuto dodged it and ran.
“Uwaah!”
“Stop right there”!
“If I stop, you’re going to hit me!”
“Of course I am!” Junko screamed as she ran after him.
The first person to hear them was Fujiko, the girl who’d caused the fuss at the cafeteria and then fled the minute things got complicated. She was sitting in the quiet area behind the school building, eating a pasta lunch she’d bought at a restaurant outside the school.
“Oh? What’s all this fuss?” She looked up from the bench and saw Junko chasing after Akuto. Then she quickly stood up.
“Hey, what are you doing?” she yelled, and started to run after Junko.
“I won’t let anybody stop me from punishing him, even you!” Junko turned back a moment to yell at her.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but absolute subservience to Akuto is our job!” Fujiko yelled back.
“Who’s this ‘we’? Since when were you and I in the same group?”
“No! I mean obeying Akuto is all of humanity’s job!”
“That’s crazy!”
Junko and Fujiko kept yelling as they ran.
“I don’t care! Just leave me alone!” Akuto looked back for a moment to scream.
But then he turned to look ahead again, and stopped in surprise at what he saw.
“Uwah! Wait! Watch out!” He’d seen Nozomi running from behind a nearby building. That meant that there was another trap nearby.
“‘Watch out’? Couldn’t you think of something more clever?” Junko jumped up, ready to attack Akuto.
“Hold it!” Fujiko leapt in front of her to stop her.
And then...
Fujiko tripped on something and fell.
“Ah..!”
“Huh...?”
Akuto and Junko froze as they saw Fujiko trip. Something splashed on her from above.
“Hey, what is this?!” She stood up. Her clothes were melting on her body.
Fujiko didn’t realize this, though. She stood up tall and straight, exposing her underwear-clad body to the world.
“Oh no...” Akuto covered his face with one hand.
“Fujiko!” Junko quickly waved her hands at her.
“What... just... happened...? Huh? Hyaaah!” Fujiko wrapped her arms around her body, blushed, and looked at Akuto.
“If you wanted to see me naked, you could’ve just said so... Wait, now’s not the right mood for that sort of thing!” She seemed to change her mind halfway through her sentence, because she suddenly yanked Akuto’s jacket off of Junko.
“Uwah! Aah! W-What are you doing...?” Junko dropped to her knees and covered herself.
“Hahahaha! So that’s why you’re wearing Akuto’s jacket, huh? But his jacket is too good for you!” She put the jacket on and began to rub her cheek lovingly against the collar.
“E-Even if you’re an upperclassman, you can’t do this to me...” Junko grit her teeth and glared at Fujiko, but she couldn’t do anything while crouching on the ground.
“I’m not sure what I should say here, but...” Akuto took off his shirt and laid it on Junko.
“Oh! I think she got a better deal that I did...” Fujiko whispered as she watched Junko put on and button the shirt.
Junko blushed.
“D-Don’t be stupid... This shirt’s all sweaty...”
“That just makes it better!” Fujiko said with shining eyes.
“No... Well, never mind that. This should be enough to get you to understand that I wasn’t the one who did this..” Akuto interrupted.
“I did see someone strange-looking running away...” Junko said, averting her eyes from him.
“In other words, someone else came up with this ridiculous idea.” Fujiko said. She looked around, and then raised an eyebrow.
“Oh?”
“What is it?” Akuto said, but there was no need to wait for a response. He realized that a good number of students were watching them from a distance.
“What is that? Exhibitionism play?”
“The Demon King is toying with Fujiko again...”
“No, Fujiko is one thing, but he’s got the class rep naked except for her underwear and a t-shirt...”
“I can’t believe they’re doing that on school grounds...”
He could hear the students talking.
“People are starting to notice. Not that I mind being watched.” Fujiko said casually, but Junko went pale.
“Y-You’re crazy! You can’t just humiliate me like this...”
“I told you, it wasn’t me.” Akuto said, but Junko was so embarrassed that she couldn’t even think straight.
“Shut up! It has to be your fault somehow! Gaaah! Forget it! I’ll just punish you first and think later!” She took out a sword from somewhere, drew it, and began to charge at Akuto.
“Come on, think about this!” Akuto started to run as she chased after him.
“Stop attacking Akuto!” Fujiko started to run, too.
“Man, I really need to find that girl now...”
Akuto sighed. As he ran, he looked around to try and find Nozomi. What he saw terrified him.
“How dare he humiliate girls like that?”
“But what if the Demon King gets mad?”
“He can’t use his powers in this situation. Let’s surround him and say so many mean things he never recovers!”
“Oh, this is getting fun.”
“We might be able to see some tits!”
“I wan
t to see more of the class rep wearing just a shirt.”
“Knock it off, boys!”
The students were on the move, chatting and arguing among themselves. And of course, they were all following after Akuto. By now, most of the crowd didn’t even know what was going on, and was simply following the group.
“Uwah! What’s going on here?”
Akuto searched even more frantically for Nozomi.
○
—Aah! I did it again! Nozomi screamed to herself.
She’d been running from Akuto, Junko, and Fujiko, when she’d unconsciously set a second trap, the one that had gotten Fujiko.
“Why am I doing something so scary...?” she said to herself regretfully as she ran.
After a moment of running, though, she noticed something was wrong. She began to hear a sound like the rumbling of the Earth.
“W-What’s going on?” She looked around. She could see a cloud of dust in the distance.
—W-What’s that? She didn’t say anything about all this stuff happening!
The cloud of dust was getting closer and closer. When she saw that the dust was being thrown up by a rioting crowd of over 100 students, she was so scared that she completely went nuts.
“KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
Her head spinning, she came to an (of course) incorrect, and also absurd, conclusion.
—I’m gonna have to do that other thing! Nobody can stop me now!
○
“Why do I have to be humiliated like this?”
“A true lady turns that humiliation into pleasure!”
Junko and Fujiko were both screaming.
“I don’t care, but I’d appreciate it if you could stop chasing me... You can’t, can you?” Akuto sighed.
The students were swarming after him. If they stopped they’d be swallowed up.
—I just need to find that little maid... Oh!
He saw Nozomi out of the corner of his eye, and turned towards her. She seemed to be running towards the gym.
—I need to catch her and make her tell me what’s going on...
Nozomi seemed to have gone into the gym. The gym had a lot of exits, but they were in places that weren’t easy to spot. If he was lucky he might be able to catch her.
“I might be able to do this...”
Akuto jumped into the gym. Just as he did, he saw Nozomi climbing onto the stage in the back.
Demon King Daimaou: Volume 10 Page 3
