Chapter 257

[13th Round] The Demon King's Arrangement

They often said that history was made at night.

The student council president, who was supposed to be asleep and unaware that she was fired, disappeared from our hotel bed.

At first, I just thought she had grown tired of the flush toilet and decided to relieve herself on the street instead, but after waiting until morning, she still didn't return.

"The One-day Hero has taken her sorrowful departure!"

"You didn't have to say that, my cowardly hubby..."

Sword King Alex decided to stay with me despite the disappearance of the student council president, his employer, which bothered me a little.

Telling him that doing so would be very dangerous proved useless. I asked for the reason behind his actions instead.

"Who the Hero is or how perilous our path becomes doesn't matter to me. I just want to see the end of this journey with my own eyes."

That philosophical statement didn't at all fit into Alex's savage image.

I told him to do as he desired, then skipped the intermediate stage of the adventure. Using the Snow Woman's feather, I went straight to the Demon Lord's castle.

I had grown tired of helping the residents of Fantasy during my time as the student council president's companion. They shifted responsibilities to other people way too much for my liking.

"Don't twist the story, my cowardly hubby. The president sorted everything out herself. All you did was stand on the sidelines and watch."

"This is all a misunderstanding. I had to comfort her every time she felt troubled, you know."

"You only ever did that at night."

"Did you want me to do it in the afternoon as well, you minx?"

"Don't try to change the subject!"

FSHUH!

I, the MAX-Class Righteous Hero, along with my companions, used spatial transference, swiftly moving to the southern part of the Central Continent, where the Demon Lord lived.

***

"How annoying."

Magic circles were installed all over the Demon Lord's castle to prevent spatial movement, disabling us from landing right within his abode.

Hence, we were forced to use the normal entrance, upon which the demons patrolling the castle entrance immediately found us.

"Invaders!"

"Kill them!"

"Better take them alive!"

Did they really care for the Demon Lord Ssosia's daughter so little? Did my father-in-law not feel sorry for me at all after giving her to me?

"They're not giving me a cold welcome, my dear hubby. This is just the first time they've seen me. Ordinary employees of any large corporation don't often meet or know their boss's family members.

"You should show them your business card, then."

"I will. I don't want them to die in vain because of you."

Ssosia used her GG-rank Dark Energy.

Demons' hierarchy was based on Dark Energy, which was why they immediately dropped to their knees and bowed upon experiencing her prowess firsthand.

Servants, knights, barons, dukes, marquises, princes, archdukes... Before her overwhelming power, everyone was equal. No demon dared block our path as we made our way to her father.

It didn't take long for us to arrive at the castle's maze-like interior, which couldn't delay us even for a second despite our lack of a guide. After all, its structure remained the same as it had always been.

"No developments, I see."

"It's not that this place hasn't improved. There's just been no need to do it, considering it's been decided that this area's difficulty is already sufficient as it is. The Hero might die if there were too many traps around, and the Demon Lord's image would've been damaged if the route leading to him was too simple."

"Are you the one who designed this place?"

"What makes you say that?"

"You're in a hurry to protect its reputation, and you're defending it too much."

Objectively speaking, the Demon Lord's castle was just horrible.

Everything about this place was arranged to ensure that three or four of the Hero's companions wouldn't reach the final goal, but I never experienced that throughout any of my thirteen rounds.

And it wasn't because I was powerful.

It was all because its terrible floor plan couldn't stop invaders at all.

Traps were scattered like mines all over the castle, with some even sending any unfortunate individuals to a freefall if they so much as stepped on the wrong spot on the floor.

However, even if they did fall into such a trap, all they would need to do was climb up from where they landed back to the upper levels. At best, all they caused were mild inconveniences.

It would've been a different story if spikes were waiting at the bottom to instantly kill the companions.

In general, they were just time-consuming.

The Ssosia I knew wasn't that generous. She was a cowardly demoness who distracted her opponent with her mean chest and exploited that opportunity to launch an offensive.

However, since she kept defending this place's useless security system instead of criticizing it, I thought there was something I was missing behind all of this.

I pondered about it for a moment.

Her father, the Demon Lord, owned this castle. That meant she had to have her own personal room here that she used whenever she came to visit for a few days.

She would never allow anyone to reach it, considering that was where she hid her underwear. Failing to defend it properly could have her prized belongings looted and plundered.

That only made me confused even more as to why she set up the traps so foolishly.

Everything about this felt suspicious.

"Tsk! I don't like this. You're gradually learning more and more about me. You're also starting to sound like my actual husband."

"I already know everything about you. I even know the shape of your buttocks better than you do."

"That just means you're a pervert!"

The structure of the Demon Lord's castle was already forever imprinted in my head. Unless the demons interfered, there was no way I'd step on the traps.

"Ah! Sir Herooo!!"

However, just because I'd never fall for such cowardly tactics didn't mean the dummies with me wouldn't as well.

Even though I already warned them that there were traps all over the place, the Snow Woman stepped on one of them anyway, causing her to fall.

It could've been avoided if only she took flight like an actual harpy, but she seemed to have forgotten about her racial features.

"Don't blame her. It's not that she forgot."

"What is it, then?"

How else could that be explained?

"You didn't notice the signs saying flying is prohibited here, did you?"

"I did see them, but we're supposed to be invaders! Why do we have to follow this place's rules?!"

"That's no different from smoking in a non-smoking area while nobody's looking. You should stop living like that, husband."

"I can't believe a cowardly demon's teaching me about morals."

Just where did this life of mine bring me?

"Go ahead, Hero. I'll save the Snow Woman and catch up with you together. She's armless, which worries me." Alex insisted like the true gentleman that he was. He stepped on the same trap the harpy did and quietly fell down.

Watching him go, I sighed.

"Jerk. I know he's not one of my original companions, but he should at least ask for permission first and wait for my instructions before doing something so nonsensical."

This castle's traps weren't fatal, but they weren't that simple either.

Even if they fell for the same trap, they wouldn't necessarily end up in the same place.

In other words, Sword King Alex and the Snow Woman were unlikely to meet downstairs.

His decision to rescue her was in vain!

These tricks weren't meant to kill us. They were meant to split up the Hero's Party and attack the members once they had detached from the group.

Still, if only they installed spikes at the bottom, those two would've been dead already, and the demons would've avoided a lot of hassle and casualties.

"Why do you insist so much for the traps to be improved, dear husband?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm just curious if you actually want to see your companions, with whom you share your grief and joy, again, or if you just want them to die inside the trap as a consequence of their own recklessness."

"Isn't the answer to that obvious?"

"I know how you feel. I've been that idiot's companion for too long, standing by him from his days as a rookie until the moment he defeated my father. I even watched my dad kill all of his companions instantly with my own two eyes. Words cannot describe what I felt at that moment... What? What's with that look on your face?"

She wasn't making any sense, so I didn't really know how to react.

"Make no mistake, Ssosia. It's all about simple logic. To us, they're allies, but to our enemies, they're just invaders. The demons could've saved a lot of their families if they just used more efficient traps against the Hero and their companions."

"..."

"If I stepped on a trap and died here, I wouldn't blame the demons. They did what they had to do to protect themselves and their race, and my demise would've been the fault of none but my own weakness and inattentiveness. For anyone who has come to destroy others' happiness, an honorable death is an impermissible luxury."

After a few seconds of silence, Ssosia finally replied.

"I'm becoming even more afraid of you."

"Well, that's only natural. Due to the First hero, I've grown stronger than you."

I felt bottomless gratitude towards my senior for giving me so many souls of heroes for free.

"I'm not talking about combat power. Your way of thinking has become a little too rational. For an invader, an honorable death is, of course, a luxury. But that's only ever true if you don't treat your enemies with mercy."

"Naturally."

I didn't plan on forgiving those who wanted to harm me.

Enemies, regardless of strength, would always be opponents.

"What about my father?"

"I don't feel any sympathy for my father-in-law. There's no other way around this, after all. I'm a hero, and it is my duty to kill him."

I was still mad at him for giving me his daughter, too.

"You're an insolent bastard. You should be thanking my father and bowing to his feet for allowing you to marry the world's second most beautiful woman.

"You should bow to me too, Drug Hero!"

"No, aunt. You should be ashamed. You sold your niece to satiate your drug addiction."

"Heeheehee!"

My group didn't lose much combat power despite the disappearance of two of our members.

Without any further incidents, we arrived at the place where the Demon Lord was waiting for us.

I had always loved this moment.

Bam!

Kicking the door with all my might, the Righteous Hero entered!

The Demon Lord greeted me with joy.

"You've finally reached my domain, chosen hero! I am Pedonar, the incarnation of evil itself! I don't even know how to thank you for seducing my daughter. I thought she would be alone forever. Oh! How about we have a business meeting after a short meal?"

The room that once had only been his throne now contained a long table with chairs around it.

And on the table, as befitted a banquet, were many delicious-looking dishes.

There wasn't a single nasty delicacy among it. I couldn't even see any fried Lucifers.

"Well... One can't just keep work nonstop, I guess. I'll take you up on that offer, dear father-in-law."

"That's true! You and I understand each other well, son-in-law. Haha!"

I was pleased with the food the Demon Lord prepared for me. They all tasted better than the dishes I had eaten throughout the continents of Fantasy.

Even when I was the sweet emperor of the Northern Continent and the ruler of the Holy Mollan Empire, I had never had such rich flavors.

But that was because the food before us wasn't native to the Fantasy World.

There was a lot of food here that couldn't be found anywhere on the continents, such as cola and pizzas. After wiping his mouth with a napkin, the Demon Lord spoke to us.

"Did you like the food?"

"Very much so."

"That's good to know. I brought a lot of different food back with me throughout my travel across the entire universe. This place is called my castle, but in fact, I use it as a country villa. I love the landscape of the El Mollando Mountains, which can be viewed from the terrace while eating cheese and drinking wine. That's why I'm often here."

It was also in this place that the Demon Lord Pedonar lost to the First Hero, resulting in his imprisonment, which continued to this day.

For a long time, he had been playing the role of a clown, all for the sake of training heroes.

"Thank you so much for your warm welcome, father-in-law. That meal removed all of the accumulated stress that your cowardly daughter has brought me. However, I would now like to set this aside and get down to business."

I was the Hero, and my father-in-law was the Demon Lord.

Our objectives were clear.

"I understand what you're trying to say."

"Even if you are my father-in-law, I cannot calmly close my eyes to everything you've done. Sorry, but I must kill you."

"If you were a hero, then that really would be our fate. However, you haven't officially become a hero yet, have you?"

"I am a hero."

"They've told you that you are, but the documents state otherwise. Am I wrong?"

BOOM!

Striking the table with both hands, Ssosia got up. She looked at her father in surprise.

"How do you know that?!"

"Did you really think I made him my son-in-law without any preparations, my beloved daughter? Since we first met, I had already decided that he would become the Demon Lord's vessel. I doubted my decision at first, but as soon as you first fell in love with him, I started thanking my fate."

"Fate? No! Run!" Ssosia shouted, but it was already too late.

I intuitively took a step back. However, Demon Lord Pedonar's words were faster.

"Be freed from your shackles as the Hero and let the Second Demon's curse devour you! You shall become the Second Demon Lord as I, the First Demon, gladly accept the fate the universe itself has prepared for me!"

The final clash between the Demon Lord and the Hero, which everyone had been waiting for, didn't occur.

Instead, a new Demon Lord was born.

{End of Part 1}