Demon King Daimaou: Volume 6

by Shoutarou Mizuki

  Junko could hear the townspeople whispering amongst themselves.

  “This is awful...” she whispered as she looked around.

  The knights seemed intent on blaming everything on the Demon King to cover up their own misdeeds. Some of them weren’t joining the battle. Instead, they were going around among the townspeople and trying their best to make things worse.

  “How shameless...” Junko’s hand went for her blade, but Korone stopped her again.

  “No, for now, we need to get them out of here. If we can do something to distract everyone, I can get them out of here and back to the Academy.”

  “Distract them? Can’t I do that by going on the attack?” Junko frowned. But then it was Fujiko’s turn to interrupt. And in a strangely calm voice, too.

  “If you need a distraction, I’ve got one.”

  “What?” When Junko turned around, Fujiko almost seemed to be blushing.

  “The necklace has overloaded. It’s about to go out of control and explode. How embarrassing... Hahaha...”

  “You gave him something dangerous without thinking about the consequences, didn’t you...?” Junko sighed.

  “No, I believed that Akuto would be just fine. Hahaha...”

  As soon as her voice trailed off, smoke began to rise from where Akuto had been sitting .

  “Now!” Korone raised a hand high, showing off a transparent sheet in her hand.

  “The invisible cover! Anyone under it will become invisible.”

  “You don’t need to explain how it works.”

  “Get out of here. We’re running away.”

  And then, Akuto and Keina vanished.

  After they’d left, the chaos remained. There were no deaths, but the price tag of the damage repairs had a lot of zeros.

  The café became famous as the spot where the Demon King had made an appearance, and ended up as a haven for Demon King worshipers. Unable to attract paying customers, it went out of business and the owner vanished.

  Afterwards, it became a concert hall for black metal bands.

  ○

  “I thought I was just going on a date,” Akuto sighed to himself.

  Three people were kneeling on the floor in front of him: Junko, Fujiko, and Korone. Junko had felt guilty and decided to explain what had happened.

  “I’m sorry, I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t.” Junko bowed her head, but Fujiko looked upset.

  “You did NOT try to stop it! Don’t pretend you’re the only good girl here.”

  “This is mostly your fault, though!” Junko yelled, but Fujiko looked up at Akuto with pleading eyes.

  “I only wanted to help you... you understand that, right?”

  “No one is at fault here. Except Akuto, for not picking someplace sexier,” Korone whispered.

  “Don’t be stupid! If you’re an observer, you should’ve done something...”

  “An observer’s job isn’t to get involved.”

  “Well, you should have anyway! You were clearly having a good time! I could tell!”

  “All three of you, shut up!” Akuto yelled, which was very rare for him.

  And yet, the apologies continued late into the night.

  2 - I Want to Eat Rice Pudding

  “Would you please teach me how to have sex?”

  Keina suddenly stuck her face in front of Akuto.

  They were in his room, on a weekend. And Akuto had just woken up.

  He’d heard the sound of his door opening and sat up in bed, just in time for Keina to jump on top of him.

  “Huh?”

  “I said, will you please teach me how to have sex?” Keina said again.

  —Um...

  Akuto tried to calm himself down.

  She didn’t seem to be offering him anything. He knew from Fujiko that when a girl wanted that from you, she made it a little more obvious. Keina’s face was a little too innocent.

  “I read about it in this article, ‘How to Get Prettier By Having Sex.’ And since I want to be prettier, I think we should have sex, don’t you?” Keina used her handbook to call up a mana screen with the article on it, and showed it to Akuto.

  It was a girl’s fashion magazine. The article she’d been talking about was displayed on the screen.

  “If you read it... I think you know what it involves...” Akuto said hesitantly. Keina nodded to indicate that she did.

  “I know the theory. But there’s a big difference between theory and practice.”

  —Theory? What theory?

  “H-How much do you know about it?” Akuto had no idea what to say, so he just put his fingers up against the mana screen to page through the article.

  —Yeah, I guess it doesn’t go into much detail...

  It was a magazine for everyday consumers, so it didn’t go into a lot of explicit detail. The most it had were manga-style drawings of a man and women naked from the waist up.

  “There’s a lot of technical vocabulary, it looks like. There’s all these words I don’t know. I want you to teach me those too, for example. V—”

  “Vermeer,” Akuto cut her off quickly before she could finish. “He’s famous for his painting of the milkmaid.”

  “That’s right. Vermeer. And it did say something about milk, too. I guess it’s good for your skin? And the opposite of it is P—”

  “Picasso. He was an abstract painter. Very famous.”

  “I see. You know a lot about it, huh? I can see why everybody said you’re an expert when it comes to sex.”

  —Is that what everybody says?

  Akuto almost got depressed, but it was more important to figure out a way to get Keina out of his room.

  “Um... Anyway, it’s not something you do early in the morning.”

  “It’s not? The article says that you should do it all day if you want to be really pretty.”

  —What kind of magazine is this?

  “N-N-No. You need to get married before you can do that.”

  “That’s strange. It didn’t say anything about being married. Actually, it said that if you do it with somebody who’s married to someone else, it’s more dangerous and thrilling, and will make you even prettier...”

  —This is just getting worse by the minute...

  “Both people need to consent, or you can’t do it.”

  “Then just tell me how it’s done, okay?” Keina brought her face even closer to his.

  “Listen, um...” Akuto had completely run out of ideas when he heard a voice from above.

  “I heard what you were discussing,” Korone said as she popped her head out from the cabinet up near the ceiling. That was where she slept in Akuto’s room at night.

  —And now it’s going to get even worse...

  Akuto thought, but before he could stop her, Korone landed on the bed and took a canola flower out from her bag.

  “Listen carefully. A flower has two reproductive organs, a pistil and a stamen...”

  Korone began her sex ed class with a perfectly serious look on her face, and Keina nodded back, serious as well.

  “Oh... And then what?”

  “This stamen contains pollen, which is received by the pistil...”

  “Gah! Enough already!” Akuto finally got up and began to push Keina and Korone out of the room.

  “Oh, darling. How rude of you.”

  “I’m not done explaining...”

  “Please, just stop. I need to think today, by myself,” Akuto said. It wasn’t just an excuse to get rid of them, it was really how he felt.

  “Think by yourself?” Korone asked. Akuto nodded.

  “I’m sorry. Can you leave me alone, just for this morning?”

  “I’m afraid that, as your observer, I’d like to at least know what you’re thinking about,” Korone said. Akuto thought for a minute before answering.

  “About my future. You could say it has to do with whether or not I’ll be able to graduate from the Academy.”

  “That’s very serious. I’ll make sure no on
e enters your room this morning, then,” Korone said.

  “While you’re doing that, I’ll talk to Korone about how to have sex, okay? I’ll come back this afternoon and we can do it!” Keina said cheerfully.

  “No, you don’t have to do that,” Akuto said, looking exasperated. He turned to Korone and added, “And... please don’t explain to her, if you can avoid it.”

  Korone must have heard him, but she didn’t react at all.

  ○

  “If you use things like this, you can become healthier,” Korone said. When she hit the button, the stick-like object she was showing to Keina began to vibrate.

  Keina took the vibrating object and began to spin it around.

  “Ooh! It certainly feels like it could make you healthy, yes!”

  Akuto’s room was on the first floor, and there was a grassy lawn outside. That’s where Korone and Keina were sitting. Of course, they were doing their own sex education class.

  “Excuse me... What are you doing with that thing? It’s making me uncomfortable,” Fujiko interrupted them.

  “There’s no reason to be uncomfortable. It’s simply a massage device.”

  “...Yes, I think that’s what the packaging says for most of those things.”

  It wasn’t unusual for Korone to be waving around some kind of strange object, so Fujiko simply changed the subject rather than ask any more questions.

  “Is Akuto inside?”

  “He is, but he asked me not to let anyone in until the afternoon.”

  “...Is he still mad?”

  “No, he said he had an important decision to make about his future, and he wanted to think. It seems to have something to do with whether or not he’s going to quit school.”

  “What?!” Fujiko shouted, before blurting out exactly what came to mind, “Then he’s finally ready to become the Demon King and join forces with me, isn’t he?”

  “I don’t know if that’s really the case,” Korone said coldly, but Fujiko wasn’t listening.

  “Hahahaha! Victory is mine! Now, it’s time for me to start planning the future!”

  “The future?” Keina asked. She seemed confused.

  “That’s right. My future with Akuto, of course!”

  “I don’t know how far in the future you’re talking about, but darling’s having sex with me this afternoon,” Keina said innocently.

  Fujiko froze. Her cheeks were twitching, like she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard.

  “Wh-What?”

  “I said, he’s going to have sex with me! He’s going to put his seed inside me and fertilize me!” Keina was smiling. “He’s going to use lots of toys, too! And then I’m going to milk him and drink it, and my skin will get silky smooth!”

  “Wh... Wh... What did you say?!” Fujiko screamed, shaking her head frantically. Then she stuck her finger out at Keina and said, “You’re lying! You have to be lying! If you keep on lying like that, I’ll roll you up in a mat and throw you in the Tamazon river, you... you... hussy!”

  Keina just gazed at her densely.

  “Oh! What’s gotten into you? I’m just telling you my plans for the afternoon!”

  “Well, you’re lying about them! If I just go and ask Akuto...”

  “You can’t. He said not to let anyone in this morning,” Keina said.

  Fujiko looked at her with bloodshot eyes, then she slapped her hands as if she was realizing something. She got a look in her eyes like a murderer who’d found a new target, and whispered to herself.

  “That’s right. Which means if I get rid of you during the morning, I don’t need to know what Akuto is thinking, do I?”

  “Wh-What?!” Keina realized she was in danger, and stood up and began to back away.

  “Be a good girl and let me kill you! For the sake of my future with Akuto!” Fujiko raised up her right hand.

  But, a moment before she could do anything, Keina screamed and fired a ball of light. Fujiko hadn’t been expecting an attack, and was blown backwards by the explosion before she could react.

  “Kyah!” Fujiko screamed as she flew across the lawn.

  But she hadn’t taken much damage; only a part of her clothing had been burnt.

  “N-Now you’ve done it!” Fujiko stood up and instantly attacked Keina back in the same way.

  Keina just barely managed to dodge the attack, and quickly ran away.

  “Nooooo! What’s going on?!”

  ○

  “I heard some noise on the lawn in front of the boys dorm so I came to check it out but... what happened here?”

  Junko arrived shortly after Fujiko began chasing Keina around. The only person left on the lawn was Korone.

  “Fujiko Eto and Keina Doronz are battling over Akuto Sai,” Korone said.

  “I wish I could say that’s surprising, but it isn’t. Why didn’t you just have him stop them?” Junko pointed to Akuto’s room.

  “No, he instructed me to let no one bother him this morning.”

  “... He can be such a pain sometimes. What’s the problem here?”

  “The two of them fought over a simple misunderstanding, but the reason Akuto is staying in his room seems to be that he’s considering a decision that may lead to him quitting school.”

  “Is that true?!” Junko asked. Korone nodded.

  “Yes.”

  “W-Wait a second. What’s he worried about?”

  “I don’t know the details. He didn’t tell me,” Korone said.

  —I see... Maybe I did put too much pressure on him. But he could’ve at least talked to me... When I think about it, he’s been treated in a way that would cause a lot of people to never want to leave their rooms. Should I try to help him?

  “What are you mumbling to yourself?” Korone asked. Junko gasped.

  “N-No, I wasn’t thinking of trying to get on his good side by cheering him up...” When she realized what she was saying, Junko’s face went red.

  “I see. You’re free to do what you like, but you’re not getting inside until afternoon,” Korone said.

  Junko waved her hands.

  “No, no, no! I’m not planning anything like that. It’s true. W-Well, I can wait till afternoon... No, I need to stop the fight, first. Haha... hahaha...”

  With that, Junko left.

  —I need to stop thinking aloud... No, that doesn’t matter. I need to stop that fight... I-I know. If I can find out why they’re fighting, I can stop it easily. Yes. That’s a great idea. But how... I know. I hate to say it, but if I can get that human stealth bomber to help me... I’ll be able to sneak past Korone and get into his room easily.

  Junko nodded to herself.

  ○

  The “human stealth bomber” in question was alone in her room, with a nervous look on her face.

  “Hehehehe... This precious meal is mine... and nobody else can have it!”

  She was nervous, but grinning. Her red hair was bouncing about happily.

  Of course, it was Keena Soga. She was alone in her room, staring at a white gelatin-like meal in an earthenware cup.

  “This is the legendary Uonuma Koshihikari rice pudding! There’s so little of it made that it’s almost impossible to get, and I finally got myself some!”

  Rice pudding. There were a lot of recipes, but the simplest was to mix sugar and milk with boiled rice, and then cool it. If you make it that way, it tastes exactly how you’d think it would. It was a fairly popular dish overseas, but here in the Empire, where rice was the staple food, it wasn’t very popular.

  What Keena was holding was melted rice mixed with coconut milk, which was something similar to an actual dessert, but it still wasn’t a very popular dish. She said it was “rare,” but that only meant that it was so unpopular that only a few were made.

  But no matter how unimportant something is, there’s always somebody who loves it. On the rice mailing lists, and rice BBSes, and rice social networks that Keena always frequented, this rice pudding was a legend. The only reason Keena hadn�
�t been at the café from earlier was that she’d been running around trying to find it.

  “Rice pudding is all about the mix between the sweetness of the rice and the sweetness of the sugar, you know? But here you’ve got the sweetness of the coconut milk and the sweetness of the fruit, mixing together in perfect harmony! Hehehe... Heheheh... I haven’t even started eating and already I’m drooling!”

  Keena picked up her spoon.

  “Alright, it’s time...”

  Just then, the door to her room swung open.

  “Keena! I need something! Can you give me your help with it?” Junko came inside.

  “Huh?”

  Keena was so focused on her rice pudding that she didn’t hear what Junko had said properly. Or rather, she only heard the last part.

  “Keena! I need something! Can you give me... it?”

  “...Give me it?”

  “Can you give me your rice pudding?”

  “Aaah! Noooo!”

  She wasn’t handing over that rice pudding. Keena quickly grabbed her cup and bolted for the door where Junko was standing.

  “Hey, what are you doing?”

  Junko tried to grab her, but Keena stepped forward with her right leg and dropped down low. When her right foot landed on the ground, she spun around in a half turn while keeping low, and slid right past Junko and out the door.

  “What...?!” Junko couldn’t believe it.

  Junko was proud of how good she was at melee combat, and someone had just gotten right past her.

  “Th-That’s the ancient art of shukuchi!”

  Shukuchi. A skill that allowed you to step forward and move your body’s center of gravity past the point where your foot landed, moving you forward several steps in a single moment.

  There was no way that Keena could have learned that skill. Her obsession with the rice pudding had caused her body to instinctively select the most suitable way to protect it.

  At least, that’s what Junko would say later. In any event, she’d gotten past Junko, and was running down the hall.

  “Tch!” Junko chased after her. Of course, Junko was faster. But she knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

  “I knew it...!”

  Once Keena could get around a corner, she’d disappear before Junko could find her. Keena’s clothes were already scattered down the hallway. If she disappeared there was no way Junko could find her.