Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume SS - Chapter 6

Short Story:

The Demon World’s Great Emperor’s Super Adult Love Story

IN A BACKSTREET OF A CERTAIN TOWN somewhere on the Demon Continent, a girl lay sprawled on the ground. She was wearing what looked like bondage gear, and two horns ­protruded from her purple hair. One of her hands reached up into the air…only to drop listlessly back to the ground. 

“Ugh… So this is it…” The last of her strength was almost gone. “Lo, the Demon World’s Great Emperor spurneth not the earth even as she strives for the heavens… Heh, that sounds pretty cool. Maybe I’ll pull it out the next time a champion beats me.”

Her name was Kishirika Kishirisu, the Demon World’s Great Emperor, the evil despot who, in an age long past, had dominated the demons and led the Demon Kings in a war against the humans. Of course, now she was just a wanderer without any followers or even a place to live. She didn’t even have anything to eat.

“Mrm… I’m starving…”

That’s right, she had collapsed from hunger. She was the Demon World’s Great Emperor, which meant she could go a year without food and keep functioning just fine. But she was also an airhead, which meant she was dumb enough to forget that she needed to eat something at least once a year. By the time she noticed she was hungry, it was too late. Gone were her power to soar through the sky and energy to cackle. She had joined the ranks of the pitiful homeless.

“The sky’s blue… I like it better when it’s more purple-y, but for some reason, now I’m about to die, blue seems to fit better…” 

Just because she’d collapsed from hunger didn’t mean she’d die straight away. She could still appreciate the color of the sky. After all, she found herself on death’s door like this every other day. On the other hand, she no longer had the strength to do anything but appreciate the color of the sky…

“Eh?” A shadow fell over her face. Someone was peering down at her as she lay on the ground. It was a boy with a single horn on his forehead. His age was probably in the single digits, and on the low end at that. He was at that age where you couldn’t really tell how aware he was of the world around him. Kishirika looked around, wondering where he’d come from, and saw the back door to a house facing onto the alley. He must have come out of it.

“What do you want, boy? If you’ve come to rob me blind, I must disappoint you, for I am penniless. Or are you some species of death god, come for me at last?”

“Um, what’s wrong? Are you okay? Does your tummy hurt?” Instead of answering Kishirika’s question, the boy just looked at her with worry in his eyes. His eyes were pure, and there was no ill will in his voice, so Kishirika answered him honestly.

“The truth is, I am very hungry,” she said. “I can’t even move.”

“Ohhh!” the boy exclaimed happily. Then he ran back into the house.

“So he was only taunting me… Ooh!” Kishirika cried out as she saw that the boy had come back already, and what was more, he held a bowl of soup.

“Are…are you going to give me that? Or perhaps you mean to sit in front of me and eat it slowly—if so, you are truly a cruel—”

“It’s for you!”

Kishirika jumped up. They say that even when people are at their limits, hope can lend them new reserves of strength. But Kishirika wasn’t just ‘people.’ She was the Demon World’s Great Emperor. When things went her way, it gave her the strength of a hundred men.

“Nomnomnomnom, slurrp, shwrp shwrp, GULP.” After taking the bowl from the boy, Kishirika put away its contents with terrific speed. It was a meager soup thickened with flour or something, with a few wilted leaves floating in it. But Kishirika was so starved that it seemed like the best thing she’d ever tasted.

”Fwoar… The way simple flavors fill you up…the only word for it is delicious!” With energy in her stomach, Kishirika stood up. Her hair went from dry to shiny, her skin from shriveled to its original youthful firmness. She used the marvelous absorption powers of the Great Demon World’s Emperor to instantly convert the calories into energy. 

“Fwaaahahahahaha! The Demon World’s Great Emperor Kishirika Kishirisu RISES AGAIN!” After this ringing proclamation, Kishirika looked down at the boy to ask for another helping. 

“You did me a great service in bringing me sustenance! But that portion was just a tiny bit…” Kishirika trailed off. The boy beside her with his mouth hanging open was a small child, and it was obvious from the rags he was wearing that he was poor. He looked as though he had gone days without food.

Kishirika was not clever. Still, she managed to work out that the boy had given her some of his own precious lunch. Kishirika hungered after power, but she was also just plain hungry. She knew what an empty belly felt like. She still wasn’t full, but she didn’t ask the boy for any more. If she wasn’t getting a refill, there was only one thing to say next.

“I have received thy sacrifice! A boon I shall grant thee!” It was Kishirika’s time-honored custom to reward people who gave her food.

“What’s a boon?”

“A boon, boy. Is there something you want?”

“Can it be anything?”

“Anything at all,” she replied, but Kishirika didn’t actually have much. She didn’t have any money, as far as reputation went she was as good as homeless, and whatever her rank might be, she didn’t even have anywhere to live. But she did have something she’d been born with—the demon eyes. She had the power to grant demon eyes. It was a power so great that it had once brought her within inches of bringing the whole world under her dominion. The demon eyes were synonymous with the Demon World’s Great Emperor. 

“Don’t be modest, say what you want, c’mooon,” Kishirika urged, grinning as the boy hesitated, pink with shyness.

”Okay…” The boy plucked up his courage. “Please be my bride!”

“Your bride?! Boy, what do you want a bride for at your age?! Ay yi yi, kids are so precocious these days…”

Seeing Kishirika’s exasperation, the boy’s face fell. “No bride?”

He was so sweet that you wanted to blurt out that of course it was okay, but Kishirika was the type to clearly say what she thought.

“No, I’m afraid I have a fiancé. I cannot marry you, boy.”

“Oh…”

“Is there nothing else you want? Here, what about a beautiful item that’s oh-so-handy and starts with D? Know the one? Hmm?”

“No! I want a bride.”

Perhaps he would have wanted a demon eye if he had been about ten years older. Demon eyes were tricky to master but worth the effort. But right now this boy didn’t even know what a “demon eye” was. And he couldn’t ask for something he didn’t know.

”Hmmm. A tricky one, that. Not that I object to being asked, it’s just…” Kishirika looked down at the boy, frowning. Then, an idea struck her. “I’ve got it. Why don’t I tell you the story of how I met my fiancé? Once you’ve heard it, you’ll give up on me.”

“A story?”

“That’s right! A spectacular epic, full of thrills and excitement, guaranteed to get the audience cheering!”

“Tell me the story!”

“Very well then.”

And so Kishirika began her tale.

***

It happened one, or two, or three…maybe four thousand years ago. I was on fire back then, kicking around with my entourage of Demon Kings. I used the riches I’d stolen when I attacked the humans to throw parades every other day. I gathered up all the handsome guys in the land and had them wait on me hand and foot. I doodled on the faces of sleeping Demon Kings. I sent so many letters to the human king that he went bald from stress… Whatever took my fancy, I did it. Not only that, but back when I ruled as the Demon World’s Great Emperor, I wasn’t a half-baked pipsqueak like now, oh no. I was the embodiment of perfect beauty. The tributes poured in every day from adoring Demon Kings and other famous demons all over the land. Thanks to that, my belly was always full. Truly, I was invincible.

But while I was reveling in being emperor, there were those who came to spoil it. Humans. ’Course, given I was invading them, that wasn’t a surprise. Now, apart from a very select few, all humans are weak. Small fries, the lot of them. Occaaaasionally you get a real tough one, but only once in a thousand years, so I didn’t lose any sleep over it.

Problem is, once in a thousand years means that you’ll get one of them popping up eventually. I call them “champions.” They always showed up sooner or later. Back in the first war I got done in by a crazy guy with all these weird hangups, kept saying the sky had to be blue. But that’s beside the point…

Anyway, this champion was called Golden Knight Aldebaran. You’ve heard of him, right, boy? That’s right, the great champion who single-handedly rebuilt the humans’ battle lines and crushed the demon armies. Back then, I couldn’t have cared less about a chump like him. I mean, you’d be crazy to worry all the time about someone who might or might not show up once in a thousand years. Most of the time, when everyone gets worked up over some “once-in-a-thousand-years warrior” another demon king takes care of them. 

To tell you the truth, my followers came to me a few times with reports like, “That champion’s major trouble. Needs to be dealt with right now,” but I thought I’d be all right, that it was no big deal.

But it was not all right. Before I knew it, my army was in ruins, and Aldebaran had invaded my castle. That’s when I first got a look at him, and I could tell just by looking at him that this guy was super-duper bad news. He had streaky silver hair and eyes with no emotion in them, like an insect’s, and his whole body radiated a sinister aura. He didn’t look murderous, but I could tell he’d kill me anyway. And he was strong. Now, this guy had invaded my castle, so obviously, the warriors protecting me attacked him. This was my personal guard, so they were some of the fiercest demons around. He tore them up and tossed them aside like cotton candy. Seeing that, a mighty demon king stepped up. He was always boasting about his strength, but Aldebaran obliterated him with one hit. Obliterated, you hear? Total insanity. Not only that, but for all that they called him the golden knight, there wasn’t a scrap of gold on him. No wonder my servants had come to me wailing about him all those times.

As I faced that monster I was shaking so badly I couldn’t do anything. Do you understand, boy? When you realize you’re going to die no matter what you do, your body freezes up. That’s what real fear tastes like. 

He didn’t look like the listening type, so I couldn’t even beg for my life. All I could do was pray. I didn’t have one god in particular in mind. I just sent off prayers to a power that was higher up than this guy. Nothing would hear me, of course. I knew I was going to die.

Then, KABANG! Something dropped down from the ceiling. It was a giant man all dressed in armor. Yegads, more enemies?! I thought. But then I realized the back of that suit of armor looked a lot like someone I knew well.

That’s right, my prayers had been answered! Not by a god, but by a person I knew! There in front of me was Immortal Demon King Badigadi, last of the Eight Great Demon Kings, wearing armor like none I’d ever seen before. He challenged the champion to a fight.

“Don’t do it, he’s too powerful for you!” I cried. You see, this guy was a rarity among demons—an intellectual. He looked like a big lunk, but every word out of his mouth was carefully considered and clever. Needless to say, he’d hardly ever been in a fight before… But people can change before you know it. Since the last time I’d seen him, Badi had gotten stronger. A close fight broke out, with Badi holding his own against the monster.

KALANG, BALANG!

Even after they’d reduced the castle to rubble, the fight kept going.

BA-BLANG, KALOONG!

Next, they destroyed the town, but the fight still wasn’t done. It seemed as though it could go on for all eternity, wiping out every other living soul…but no battle lasts forever. At the end of a long and deadly struggle, a victor emerged. Badi had defeated the champion. Ah, but this champion was no common man. At the very end, he left behind something big for us to remember him by. He blew himself up. He tried to trade his own life for killing Badi and me. 

I have to stop him! I thought. But I was helpless. I didn’t have anywhere near enough power to stop him. Badi had power—he’d beaten the champion in battle. But in the course of that long struggle, he’d used up all his strength and was on the verge of ­collapse… All we could do was accept our fate.

Badi’s helmet came off, and he turned to me, looking half-dead already.

“If I am born again, I will be your husband…” he said.

I laughed, then said, “If you come back to life, then by all means, I’ll marry you.”

Then, we both got blown sky high…but we shared a tender smile as we went.

***

“Ahhh, no matter how many times I tell that story it never gets old. Especially the bit where he comes to rescue me. My heart skips a beat just thinking about it. Anyway, you get it now, right, boy? The bond between Badi and me is unbreakable. So I can’t be your bride…”

As she finished her story, Kishirika turned back to look at the boy again. “Eh? What’s this?”

“Zzz…zzz…”

“Are you sleeping?”

The boy sat leaning against a wall, sound asleep. Maybe it was his naptime.

“Hmm. Perhaps he was a bit young for an adult love story like mine,” Kishirika mused, cocking her head as she got to her feet. If he’d fallen asleep then that was just too bad.

“Still,” she added brightly, “I must thank him for the food! Hah!” She jabbed her finger into the boy’s eye.

There was a pause, then—“Oww!” The pain made the boy wake up, but by then, it was too late. One of his eyes had been transformed into a demon eye, and Kishirika was on standby for liftoff to a whole new world.

“Farewell, boy!”

“Huh? Wait, wait up!”

“Fwaaahahaha! Think of that demon eye I’ve given you as a piece of me—take good care of it! Marriage isn’t going to work out between us, but if you master that eye, you never know, I might take you on as one of my personal guard! Fwaaahaha, hahahahaha, fwah, gak, gak.” 

The boy was disoriented by the change in his vision, but he looked up at Kishirika and reached out toward her. Alas, she was beyond his reach. All he could do was stretch his hand up toward the heavens…

A few decades later, a warrior joined Kishirika’s followers. They say his loyalty was fiercer and his mastery of his demon eye more complete than any other…but that’s a story for another time.