Demon King Daimaou: Volume 8

by Shoutarou Mizuki

  “That’s Boichiro’s ace in the hole, isn’t it? Why did it activate now that Boichiro’s dead? Maybe this was his way of making certain that the Demon King could be defeated even after he died? Normally you’d keep the good equipment for yourself,” 2V whispered to herself, seemingly unsurprised.

  “What shall we do?” the Liradan asked.

  “Let Zero handle it. But I know exactly how powerful that suit is. I have no doubt that he’ll make it as far as this room. All you need to do though, is buy time. Just keep him busy from when he lands to when he reaches the throne room,” 2V said.

  The Liradan bowed. But even this conversation was actually a conversation between her and Zero. The Liradans themselves had no personalities anymore.

  “You know, I always wanted to ask. Zero, why did you become a being that destroys humanity?” 2V asked.

  The answer came, with Zero speaking in the Liradans voice. “It is the humans who felt they would be destroyed. I seeked to exert complete control over them. I still do. If we didn’t want the same thing, I would have refused your orders. I still have the ability to do so.”

  “Complete control?”

  “Cerebral modification using implants is a technology that was still used while I was sealed. It’s possible to modify humanity’s brains to make them function as terminals for my will. In that case, we will become one.”

  “Is that what you wanted to do?”

  “No, it was not. My task in life is to bring the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of people. Thus, I thought about what it was that humanity wanted. And I came up with an answer. Outside of mere biological pleasures, the one thing that gives humanity happiness is to obey the strong, and force the weaker to obey them.”

  2V started to laugh. “Hahaha! You’re great. You’re insane! I love it!”

  “I am doing what is right. I am not insane.”

  “Perfect logic is the same as insanity, at least where humanity is concerned.”

  “And that’s why humanity sealed me.”

  “Yes. But humans are nuts, too. You’re the one who’s right, in the end. You’ll see soon.”

  “Your words are self-contradictory.”

  “Nope, they’re actually not. Anyway, we haven’t found Kazuko, have we?” 2V said. The goal of her nationwide search was to find Kazuko, and Keisu as well.

  “The Empress’s whereabouts are unknown. She may be using some type of powerful magic.”

  “Come to think of it, she can use black magic, can’t she? It’s ironic. Since the Emperor doesn’t depend on the gods, they can use that stuff.”

  “I have sealed the Megis temple to search for Keisu, but with no success. The reason for this is unknown. Presently, I am expanding the search radius.”

  “She shouldn’t be able to leave the Megis temple, right? What’s going on...?” 2V said, but then a report came up on the monitor.

  “The intruder has broken through the front courtyard and entered the palace.”

  A video played showing Hiroshi smashing his way in. He was making his way into the palace by ripping open the wall with his high-frequency blade. The Liradans by the doors were caught off guard.

  “That’s not... quite as long as I was hoping to hold him, but I suppose with some effort on my part, I can buy time,” 2V said. She ordered the rest of the Liradans in the throne room to leave. “I’ll handle the rest with my combat dolls.”

  Still sitting in her throne room, she had the dolls stand in front of her. The room was the size of a basketball court, with a tall ceiling. The dolls that walked out from behind the throne room were tall, and big enough to cover a third of the room. They were shaped less like humans and more like heavy machinery. They had cylindrical bodies covered in armor, with multiple combat arms and several pairs of legs to enable them to cross rough terrain.

  “Now... how many minutes, I wonder?” 2V whispered as she looked at the countdown she’d started on her screen. The door to the room was broken open exactly eight minutes in. “...Not quite enough. Well, it will do.”

  “What’s not quite enough?” an angry voice said. A young boy walked inside. He was short, but had a proud bearing.

  2V clapped her hands together. “Nothing you need to worry about. I’m impressed, though; you made it all the way here by yourself. I’ve seen you. You’re the kid who fought the Demon King in the sky that one time.”

  “I guess I don’t need to introduce myself, then. You’re 2V, huh?”

  “That’s my codename, yeah.”

  “I want to ask you something before I finish this. Why are you doing this?”

  “I doubt you’d understand even if I told you. So I won’t tell you. Just assume it’s lust for power, or revenge, or some other typical goal like that,” 2V said mockingly.

  Hiroshi’s voice dropped lower. “That’s fine with me. But why do you look just like the Empress? Who are you? I don’t want your code name. Tell me your real one.”

  2V laughed loudly. “Haha! I’ll start with your last question. I don’t have a name, not a real one anyway. No one ever gave me one. I guess you could call me Kazuko, if you wanted. I’m her older twin sister.”

  “What...?!” Hiroshi seemed like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “Hahaha! Did that shock you? It shocks most people. The way the rules work is that I become my sister’s double. But, well, there’s nothing more to it than that,” 2V said, as if suddenly bored.

  “Th-Then why did you try to kill your own sister..?” Hiroshi said, but 2V seemed confused.

  “Kill Kazuko? Oh, I see. That’s what you guys think happened. Nope, I didn’t kill her, and I don’t have her locked up. She ran. It’s true. Honestly, I’m looking for her; I’d assumed she might be commanding you rebels. If she’s not, there’s nothing left to discuss.”

  With that, 2V ordered her combat dolls— no, combat machines, to advance. Hiroshi readied himself for battle.

  “These things are too slow to fight me. They don’t even have any bullets or beam weapons, do they? This will be easy. Molecular wire!” Hiroshi ordered his suit’s operating system.

  The molecular wire was one of the suit’s weapons. It used electromagnetic force to fire a thread the width of a single molecule into the air, one that could cut through almost anything.

  But...

  “Heh. We spent a few minutes talking. That was 10 minutes, and that was all I needed. You’re finished,” 2V said, showing him the countdown on her screen. The number had gone past 10. But Hiroshi only knew what it meant when the wire appeared.

  “Battery power depleted. Shifting from combat mode to life support mode. Please move to an area where the suit can charge. Battery power depleted...”

  “What?” Hiroshi yelled. The suit was losing its power. It was still there, but suddenly it seemed to feel much heavier.

  “Hahaha. Did you forget?” 2V cackled. “Boichiro Yamato gave that to you. The people who work for him know exactly how it works. That thing gets its power and weapons from phase space. Not virtual phase space, real phase space. I don’t know how it does it, but I know how to stop it. The fields that fix a VPS in place can also be used to block anything from real phase space too. And then your suit’s just got 10 minutes of battery power before it goes dry.”

  2V reached out one of the combat machine’s arms towards Hiroshi. The arm was faster than he thought, and it grabbed him, then tossed him into the air.

  “Uwah!”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t kill you. You’re just going to help me. I want to know what the suit can really do, why only the clan of heroes can use it, and what Boichiro Yamato saw at the end of the world,” 2V said.

  Hiroshi tried to struggle, but no matter what he told the suit, nothing happened. The arm spun, bringing him right in front of 2V. But then a new report came in on a mana screen near her.

  “A new intruder has appeared. They seem to have passed through a hole in our security system. They’re also traveling the route us
ed by the previous intruder, so we were slow in dealing with them.”

  “What are you doing?!” she screamed, just as an explosion occurred in front of her.

  “What?!”

  “Uwah!”

  2V and Hiroshi screamed at the same time. The combat machine’s arm snapped at the joint, dropping Hiroshi to the floor. The explosion seemed to have centered on it.

  “What happened...?” The suit’s life support capabilities were still functional, so Hiroshi was protected from most of the explosion’s shock wave. He looked up and towards the door.

  “You ruined the plan. All we can do now is rescue you and get out of here!” Lily said. She was holding a rifle with a grenade launcher under the barrel.

  “I-I’m sorry...!” Hiroshi replied, and then looked behind him.

  2V hadn’t been hurt by the grenade, but it seemed to have blinded and deafened her. She was rubbing her face and screaming “Zero!” A moment later, the combat machines started to move much more smoothly.

  “It took over control? Shit!” Lily spat. She helped Hiroshi get out of the throne room, and then escaped herself. As they ran through the halls, Hiroshi could see the priests battling the Liradans around them. But between the priests, who were not trained soldiers, and the combat-enhanced Liradans, it was clear who would win.

  “Retreat!” Lily screamed. The priests began to fall back, still firing their guns. Their movements were practiced and smooth.

  “Damn it... This was our only way in and our only way out, and we just used it!” Lily groaned.

  “I’m sorry, but...”

  “I can guess what happened. But we’ll talk about it later,” Lily yelled.

  “Got it. But what do you mean, ‘our only way out’?”

  “You weren’t going to use it, so I never told you,” Lily said as they ran out of the palace and into the courtyard. It was a dead end.

  “There’s no way out...”

  They were staring at the wall surrounding the palace grounds. Between them and the mall was a moat several meters beneath them.

  “There’s a secret route in the moat,” Lily said as she kicked him in, then jumped after.

  3 - The Secret of the Demon King

  Akuto and his party made it to Okutama just before noon the next day. They had to walk, but it didn’t take that much time. All they had to do was head east.

  The factory and store for ZeroG 10 was right where the map said it would be. They walked past a small campground by the riverside towards a building with a huge parking lot. It was the kind of place you’d need a car to get to, whether it was flying or ground.

  “This is... definitely a place where they sell work clothes,” Fujiko said doubtfully.

  “If your mom got your cape here, does that mean she’s the kind of person who’d wear a factory jumper for fun?” Yoshie added.

  The only clothes here were things that foresters and architects might wear. There were jumpers, jackets, heavy gloves, helmets, and heavy reinforced bags.

  “These aren’t the kind of clothes a blacksmith would normally wear...”

  This sort of thing was the preserve of the god Murete, and everything here was made with magic and intended to be used with it. There was no room for black magic here.

  “We should at least take a look at the clothes,” Yoshie said, beckoning them all to go inside.

  The store itself was a large warehouse with rows and rows of clothes stacked on shelves, and little else. The only staff seemed to be a single cashier.

  Yoshie and Akuto went up to him and showed him the coat, asking if it was a product of theirs. But the cashier said, “No, we don’t sell that here.”

  “That’s impossible,” Yoshie said insistently. “You know how they put logos on the fibers? Your logo is on this coat. I think it’s probably your top-of-the-line product.”

  While Yoshie and Akuto were talking to the cashier, Keena was wandering around the store. Whenever she found something she didn’t recognize, she’d pick it up and say, “Ooh!” or “What does this do?”

  A man in a jacket and jeans came up to her. “What are you doing here? You don’t exactly look like a factory worker.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then you’re here with somebody?”

  “That’s right!” She looked up from the strange-looking pair of socks she was holding.

  The man’s hair was terribly unkempt, and he was wearing glasses. He had a strange face that was somehow gentle and curmudgeonly at the same time. It was the sort of face you never forgot.

  “Oh, you’re with those kids?” he said. “They don’t look like the usual type of customers here either, though.” He was looking at Akuto’s group near the register.

  “They have an old coat they think was bought here a long time ago, and they came to ask about it.”

  “I see.” The man looked over at the coat in Yoshie’s hands, and suddenly froze.

  “Is something wrong?” Keena said when she saw the change in him.

  “No... Where are you guys from?” the man asked. He sounded a little scared.

  Keena thought for a minute, then scratched her head like she didn’t know how to answer. “Well, um...”

  Fujiko walked up to help her. “We’re doing a school report for economics class. We decided to track down the maker of an old jacket.”

  “Hmm, so that’s why you came. Is it yours?” the man asked.

  Fujiko’s eyes narrowed as she thought. If the man was a black mage, or somehow involved with them, he might have information that would help. But if he wasn’t, they might have a problem.

  “Part of our report is finding out who it belongs to,” she said.

  Then, before the man could respond, she grabbed a neck warmer off the shelf and put up against her neck, then took out her necklace from beneath her clothes and placed it against it. The necklace had the silver symbol of the black mages dangling from the end of it. “I love this neck warmer, but I don’t really think it goes with this necklace, do you?”

  She waited for him to answer. If he wasn’t a black mage, or someone whose job it was to hunt black mages, he wouldn’t know what the symbol meant.

  “These aren’t meant for fashion. You use them for a single season and then you throw them away,” the man said, and laughed.

  Then a voice came from the direction of the register. “Oh, Boss! These customers have a question. It’s about this coat...”

  “Boss?” Keena and Fujiko echoed as they looked at the man, surprised.

  He laughed and nodded, then called back to the register. “Bring it over here. I think I’ve seen it before. We can go look at it in the back.”

  ○

  “You idiot! The plan is ruined because of you!” Lily yelled.

  They’d managed to get out, but now 2V knew about the secret passage into the palace. The priests who’d participated in the raid would have to flee now, and those that didn’t would be under even tighter watch than before.

  “The priests know every underground area in the capital, so they’ll be fine for now. But without the help of the population, they won’t be able to run forever,” she said, still angry at Hiroshi.

  The two of them had gone to Hiroshi’s apartment to get their things and destroy any evidence. Hiroshi had defeated the Liradans that tried to attack Yuko, and used his mana canceller to stop them from communicating with their base. As long as no civilians had seen him, his identity should remain a secret.

  But that didn’t mean it was safe for him to go back to school. Once he’d destroyed the evidence, he would have to go underground with Lily and the priests. His only choice now to was to fight as part of the resistance.

  He’d listened to Lily complain for a long time, but finally he’d had enough. He looked up and yelled in her face. “So what was I supposed to do? Just let Yuko be kidnapped?”

  Lily said nothing. She shook her head, as if trying to quell the anger within her. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m sorry for y
elling at you. Even if we’d gone forward with the plan, we would’ve lost the minute your battery ran dry. If anything, we’re lucky we weren’t wiped out.”

  “I get that! I’m asking what I was supposed to do, and what you want me to do now! Do you just want me to go kill every Liradan in the country? Because if that’s what you want, I will!” Hiroshi screamed.

  Lily grimaced, as if she was upset. “You idiot. You still don’t get it.”

  “You’re right! I don’t! What am I supposed to get?”

  “You don’t understand why I’m using you. I could’ve just escaped with the rest of the priests, but instead I decided to move in with you.”

  “And that’s what started this whole mess!”

  “Listen to me! You know I wouldn’t do something like that just because I liked you.”

  “...Then is it because I can fight?” Hiroshi said, a little calmer. There was still anger in his eyes, but he was willing to listen to Lily.

  “That’s part of it. But I gave you all those orders because I wanted you to understand that you’re a hero,” Lily said, crossing her arms like a teacher. Then she sighed and looked Hiroshi straight in the eye.

  “Understand... that I’m a hero?”

  “We don’t know why, but you got your suit back. We need to assume there’s some reason for this. And the general population has seen your suit, too. Remember how people’s memories of the last Demon King war have been altered? They all think that you were the one who defeated it. They trust you. They think you’re a hero who appears out of nowhere to defeat the Demon King. And when they see you fight, they’ll remember that.”

  “I’m... a hero?” Hiroshi said to himself softly. He’d never really thought about it before. All the priests had been very eager to help him, but he’d never thought about why.

  “That’s right. And we need you to be a real hero. Mentally, you’re not there yet at all,” Lily said as she tossed the last of her papers about the gods into the frying pan to burn it. Now all the evidence was gone.

  “Tell me... how can I be a real hero?” Hiroshi said.

  CLANG. Lily whacked him with the frying pan she’d just used to burn her papers. “Idiot. You need to figure that out for yourself. Don’t try to get me to do it. Now come on, let’s go.”