“After that, well, I looked into the humans’ culture, enjoying what I could. May as well make the best of my resurrection, ya know?”
The Lord of Beasts picked up a plate of food and shoveled its contents entirely into his mouth. It was terrible table manners, but he somehow made it look appropriate and natural.
“Sadly, though, I didn’t run into anyone that roused my warrior spirit. Humans use this power called Holy Swords now, but no one’s a match for me. Those monsters, Voids, I just don’t like ’em. Got no souls in ’em.”
“What about rebuilding the Dark Lords’ Armies…?”
“Don’t care for it.” The Lord of Beasts growled, baring his fangs. “Well, to be honest, I considered it at first. Thought maybe I’d lead the beastmen to take over the humans’ cities. But that doesn’t really matter anymore. I don’t know what the other Dark Lords are plannin’, but I’m not exactly itching to take revenge for losing or anything. And to begin with, I only sided with the Goddess of Rebellion because the Luminous Powers ticked me off. They thought the world was their show to run. But…”
Rambling, the Lord of Beasts stabbed the fork into the table.
“…?!”
“Then I heard someone assuming a Dark Lord’s name, and putting my minions to work like they’re his to use. And that’s a different person. I can’t let that slide. He needs to pay.”
Gazoth growled, his metal-gray fur standing on end. His one eye glared right at Shary, making her freeze up with instinctive fear.
“So what’s the truth about him?”
“M-my master really is the Dark Lord Zol Vadis.”
Even as the air trembled with the intense aura Dark Lords give off, Shary spoke stoutly. Her loyalty won out over the Lord of Beasts’ aura of terror.
“Hah. That right? Well, fine by me. Now I’m all the more looking forward to seeing him.” Gazoth threw away a bone he was holding and got to his feet.
“Hm, what about the food…?” Shary asked.
“I’m full.”
The Lord of Beasts walked away and toward the banquet hall’s doors.
“P-please, wait here a while longer, Great One…!” Shary hurried after him.
“Waiting here won’t make Zol Vadis show up anyway, will it?”
“I, uh…,” Shary stammered and grabbed the hems of her skirt. “P-please just…wait a few more days!”
“Aye, I’ll wait, all right,” the Lord of Beasts said, smirking savagely. “I’ll wait as long as it takes until he shows up. But just sitting here and waitin’ is boring. I’ll be taking back the beastman tribes under this Dark Lord.”
“Huh?! No, please wait, you can’t do that! It’s…a problem for us!”
“Then hurry up and bring him before me!”
Bang!
Gazoth shook off Shary’s attempts to stop him and smashed the large doors to the banquet hall, shattering them.
“Aah…”
The Demon Wolf Pack formed the core of the Dark Lords’ Armies at present, but they only swore fealty to Zol Vadis because they were cowed by his power. But if met with their original master, the Lord of Beasts Gazoth, they would yield in the face of his charisma.
…My lord, please hurry back!
Shary gripped her head, left all alone in a banquet hall full of empty plates.
A small campfire illuminated the darkness, lit by Leonis’s spell.
“Mmhmhmm. ”
Regina hummed to herself as she prepared a meal, using the battle vehicle’s cargo space as a cooking surface. The ingredients and utensils were all given to her by Leonis, who had pulled them out of his Realm of Shadows. The sound of the bubbling pot could be heard, and the slightly piquant aroma of spices hung in the air.
She couldn’t cook anything too complicated in these conditions, of course, but her efforts did make the rather bland rations into something one could mistake for food from a restaurant.
Sakuya, seated atop the vehicle’s roof, was whetting Raikirimaru’s blade. A Holy Sword’s blade didn’t require that kind of maintenance, but she was doing it out of habit, it seemed.
A sword…
Whispering this to himself, Leonis looked down at his palm. The Demon Sword that should have been there was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t as if he carried it on him at all times, but the fact he couldn’t beckon it to him at all made him anxious.
…My word. I’m not a child, frightened without his safety blanket.
He had earlier summoned shadow demons to search the ruins, but he doubted they’d find the sword.
That Undead King must have taken it away…
He clenched his fist, when—
“…eo. Leo?”
He jolted, feeling a tap on his shoulder. Riselia was peering at his face, concerned.
“Oh, pardon. I was just thinking about something…”
“Are you okay? You’re making a scary face…” Riselia smiled softly and sat next to Leonis. “Here, some hot cocoa.”
“Thank you.”
He wrapped his palms around the mug, lapping at the hot cocoa with the tip of his tongue. The sweetness permeated through his fatigued body.
“Leo, you saved me back there. Thank you.”
“You escaped on your own, though, Miss Selia,” Leonis said, his eyes narrowed peevishly.
When Riselia was teleported away, he went to save her, only for them to reunite at the ruins’ underground area. When he found her, she had already escaped the Machina Soldiers on her own and learned how to use the Dragon Blood.
“W-well, yes, but if you didn’t show up when you did—” Riselia bit her lips as she gazed into the flames of the campfire. “Leo, what was that…?”
She whispered those last few words. It was clear what she was referring to—the Undead King. Leonis paused for thought before shaking his head.
“…I don’t know.”
Leonis had a few ideas as to what its identity might have been, but it was only speculation, and he also couldn’t tell her that monster was what he was supposed to look like.
“…I see. Erm, Leo, listen,” Riselia said and then went silent for a moment, gathering her courage. “I think I saw something just like it once.”
“…Eh?” Leonis frowned. “You…have?”
…She did blurt out something to that effect at one point.
“…Yeah. When the orb of light took me to the bottom of the ruins…” Riselia looked straight at Leonis’s eyes. “And when I was there, I had a dream about you…”
“About me?”
Riselia nodded. “And in that dream, you were that thing.”
The glow of the campfire cast over the minion girl’s beautiful features. In the distance, the sounds of Regina’s cooking could be heard. Riselia traced back her memories, making head gestures as she told of what she saw.
When Schwertleite abducted Riselia, she took her to a mausoleum at the bottom of the ruins. Schwertleite called it a Dark Lord’s resting place and claimed she was its guardian.
“She guarded the mausoleum?”
“Yes. That’s what she said.”
“And what did you see in the ruins?”
“A black crystal.” Riselia said. “She called it the casket of a slumbering Dark Lord.”
“…”
When Riselia faced the casket, it let out a blinding glow, and a surge of images began flooding her mind. An orphaned boy picked up by a knight before eventually becoming a hero who saved the world.
The boy who defeated the Dark Lord was celebrated by the people of the kingdom, only to then be betrayed by the same people who praised him. He was left for dead, bleeding in the muck…
But then she saw a beautiful girl resurrect the boy, followed by armies of undead overrunning the land, led by a terrifying monster. And that terrifying monster…
“…Looked exactly like that dead monster we saw,” said Leonis.
“Y-yeah…” Riselia nodded.
“I see.”
Leonis’s mind churned with thoughts. Riselia’s dream was almost certainly a depiction of his past memories. And if the Undead King they saw was sealed in that crystal…
It must mean he really is another me.
If nothing else, it clearly wasn’t just someone impersonating his appearance.
It’s becoming quite clear this Void world is some sort of mirror image of our original world.
The fact the Rognas Kingdom ruins, the Spirit Forest, and the altar to the Spirit King were all in the same spots they’d have occupied in the old world served as clear evidence of that. So if these two worlds had matching ruins…did Leonis also have a mirror image that matched him?
Leonis was lost in thought, then…
“Leo…” A pair of ice blue eyes looked at him fixedly.
It was his turn to answer her questions. Was what she saw really his memories?
…I don’t think I can lie my way out of this.
He could refuse to answer, of course, and Riselia would relent if he did, but this would damage his minion’s trust in him.
Leonis cleared his throat and spoke up. “I was once called a hero that saved a kingdom.”
“…A hero?” Riselia’s eyes widened. “Like the ones you hear about in fairy tales?”
“Yes. A hero of justice that defeated a Dark Lord.” Leonis nodded.
Riselia smiled. “So you really are a good boy, then.”
“N-no.” Leonis shook his head, discouraged. “That’s just what people called me. Although, I did defeat a Dark Lord a long time ago… And that dead monster was the Dark Lord I defeated.”
“…That was a Dark Lord?!”
“Yes, an evil Dark Lord called Zol Vadis. I defeated him once, but apparently, he was resurrected in this world.”
Once again, Leonis pinned all the blame on the ancient Dark Lord.
“So that was the Dark Lord Father spoke of…,” Riselia whispered, a mixed expression on her face.
—Someday, a Dark Lord will come and save the world from the Voids.
This was a story her father, Duke Crystalia, told his daughter for some reason.
“B-but why was that crystal in your memories, Leo?”
“…I don’t know.” Leonis shook his head.
…And he wasn’t lying about that. He really didn’t know. If the one sealed in that crystal was the other Leonis from the other world, why did it react to Riselia? Would it have reacted just the same if someone other than her was there?
“Maybe that crystal was some kind of recording device that projected the events of this kingdom.”
“A recording device. Hmm… I think I understand.” Riselia nodded, but still looked like she wasn’t fully convinced.
Leonis told her he didn’t know for sure, and peered into the crackling fire.
…What in the world is happening?
Why did the Deus Machina abduct Riselia and hand her over to the Undead King? Why was Schwertleite protecting the Undead King to begin with?
He could mull over questions as much as he wished, but Schwertleite had already blown herself to bits and couldn’t answer even if she had been inclined to talk.
…Either way, I’ll need to inspect the mausoleum the crystal was in later, Leonis thought to himself, looking at the flickering flames.
“Hm, Leo…” Riselia’s fingers touched on his hand.
“Miss Selia?”
Looking up, he spotted his minion’s face peering right into his. Her ice-blue eyes wavered, a red aura lingering over her irises. “I, erm…” Her fingertips gently scratched on the back of his hand.
Her vampiric impulses… She can’t help it.
No matter how firm her will was, racial instincts weren’t within her control. She used the True Ancestor’s Dress, which rapidly consumed mana, for a prolonged period of time and used blood manipulation to control the Dragon Blood, too. The recoil from everything she did naturally resulted in a thirst for blood.
“Can’t you, hm, hold it in for a bit…?”
“No…” Riselia gripped his hand and whispered into his ear. “C-can’t we…?”
“I-it’s a bad idea. What if Miss Regina sees us…?”
“Th-then how about we…hide behind that rock over there…?”
“Huh? Whoa—”
She pulled on Leonis’s sleeve, pulling him behind a rock.
“She won’t see us here.”
“A-are you sure…?”
“Yeah, we’ll be fine.”
He felt her lips brush against his neck.
“M-Miss Selia?!”
“Be quiet. Regina might find us.” Riselia smiled impishly, placing an index finger on her lips.
“Listen, we can’t just—nn. ”
Bite!
She started nibbling on his neck, which made him squeal like a girl.
“Mm, kid, is something wrong?” He heard Regina call out.
“N-nothing’s…aaah, wrong…!”
Bite, nibble!
Leonis couldn’t help but moan between his words as Riselia continued gently chewing on his earlobe.
“Heh-heh. Good on you for staying quiet. ”
“…!”
She was clearly enjoying cutting it close and almost getting caught.
“Y-you’re being improper. Where’s your usual, responsible self, Miss Selia—” Leonis whispered at her scoldingly.
Riselia blushed a little and frowned. “You made me like this, you know?”
“Well, yes, but still…”
It was him who had turned her into a vampire, making him responsible.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be done before anyone finds us. ”
She pushed him against the rock, still nibbling on his ear. Leonis had no choice but to let her suck on him as she desired…
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