Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume SS - Chapter 26

Short Story:

Birdbrain Atofe

“GYAAAAAH!”

In the castle of black iron that stood at the center of the town of Rikarisu in the Biegoya region of the Demon Continent, a demon king was raging.

Blue-black skin, white hair, red eyes, bat-like wings, and horns—you guessed it, it was Atoferatofe Rybak.

“Perugiuuuuuuus! Damn yoooooou! You dare to break your alliance with Karl...”

Bang, crash. Atofe rampaged about, destroying everything in her vicinity. Her personal guard stood by in that same vicinity, ducking their heads whenever something came flying their way. Just incoming projectiles would have been all right, but if they got in the way of Atofe’s swinging fists, there’d be no avoiding a fatal wound. It wasn’t that they were afraid to die. Atofe’s personal guard did not fear death. All the same, Atofe was scary.

“Strictly speaking, he did not break the alliance.” Only one person was unfazed: Moore, Atofe’s advisor and the captain of her personal guard. The reason for this was partly that he was also of immortal demon stock, so a punch wouldn’t kill him, but primarily it was his long acquaintance with Atofe that allowed him to stay calm. 

“The alliance only forbade you from killing each other, and you are still alive, Lady Atofe. If Perugius had wished it, as soon as—”

“Shut UP!”

Moore went flying into a wall. With a loud clang, his helmet fell to the floor. It bore a horrible dent. Atofe had punched him.

“I know that!”

“My apologies, my lady.” Moore got back to his feet straight away, then bowed. This was business as usual for him.

“Grarrr…” Atofe paced about the room, growling like a wild animal. Her anger wouldn’t subside. If it had been a defeat in a head-to-head battle... That wouldn’t have made her rage like this. She’d have readily bowed to her opponent, handed over her treasure, and become their servant. But here, she had been defeated thanks to unexpected interference by the despicable Perugius. Reinforcements, as far as Atofe was concerned, were permissible. But not from Perugius. She couldn’t allow reinforcements from him. This was because she really didn’t like him.

Atofe circled the room three times, then stopped short.

“I haven’t made an alliance with them.”

Atofe, in her own stupid way, sometimes had brainwaves. For example, the fact that there was no rule saying she couldn’t kill Rudeus and the others, or vice versa.

“Lady Atofe, surely you don’t need to trouble yourself with riff-raff like that?”

“No, I won’t. I won’t let them get away with this! Not after they teamed up with Perugius to catch me in a trap!” Atofe pointed a finger at Moore, then screeched, “A duel!”

“Very good, my lady.”

“Hunt them down!”

“I will put together a search party,” Moore said, agreeing promptly.

As for the rest of the guards, they looked none too happy. For their part, they were against the search. Rudeus and the others had used a teleportation circle to disappear off to who knew where. Searching high and low for someone when you had no idea where in the world they were or how to find them would be nothing more than a wild goose chase. On top of that, almost all of Atofe’s personal guards were swordsmen with no connections. They didn’t know a thing about searching for people. They might spend a lifetime searching and never find their target. They weren’t immortal demons; they had expiration dates.

“Right then, get going! While you’re gone, I shall train special techniques to use against the spells he cast!”

“Yes, Lady Atofe!”

Despite all that, none of them raised any objections. That was because Atofe’s personal guard followed her orders without question... Well, that was part of it. But there was actually one more reason.

***

Three days passed.

“Lady Atofe.” Moore had come to the mountain where Atofe was. 

“What?” In front of her lay sprawled an enormous dragon. Its hide was mottled in green and yellow, but blood trickled from its mouth, and it wasn’t breathing. To train herself, Atofe was hunting Thunder Dragons, which could control lightning. Thanks to this, she now had a surefire counter to lightning magic.

“I have put together the search party. They are ready to depart at any time.”

At this, Atofe turned around slowly. Then, she looked directly into Moore’s eyes, cocked her blood-splattered head to one side, and said, “What are you talking about?”

This happened a lot. Atofe would get angry, order them to go search for something, then totally forget about it. Of course, it had only slipped her mind, so the moment someone said the name or she saw the person’s face, she’d remember straight away. So she could remember, but...

“Nothing, my lady,” Moore said nonchalantly.

It would have been one thing if they were at war, but wasting Atofe’s personal guard on something like this didn’t align with her goal of building up her forces in preparation for the great battle to come.

“Hehehe. Forget that, Moore, and listen to this. I have at last ­devised a way to deal with the lightning wielded by Thunder Dragons. With this special technique, lightning shall hold no fear for me!”

“Remarkable as ever, Lady Atofe!”

“Only, why was I trying to learn a special technique to use against lightning...?”

“As I recall it, my lady, being a demon king, wished to be prepared for the coming of a champion.”

“Was that it? Of course it was! Mwaaahahaha!”

Listening to Atofe cackle, Moore looked up at the sky and murmured, “Another quiet day.”