The Greatest Demon Lord Is Reborn as a Typical Nobody - Volume 1 - Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

The Ex–Demon Lord on Top of the World with His New Friend

For a long time, I’d been troubled by my lack of friends, when an opportunity came knocking on my door.

Yeah, I’m talking about Ireena… Though if I’m being completely honest, everything happened so fast that it still hasn’t really sunk in yet. But, eh, I guess new friendships can be that way sometimes. Not that I know from personal experience. In any case, I had a little pep to my step ever since our first encounter, and my days were filled with exploring the mountains together and splashing water on each other and sharing a bed and on and on and on… I was seriously blessed.

Before our chance encounter, I’d been slinking around beset by a lingering sense of loneliness, which had trailed after me from my previous life into this one. But now, it’d completely dissipated, leaving my heart with nothing but boundless joy.

On this day, I continued to act out the part of a healthy child, thinking about my plans to chase Ireena through some fields as I waited for her to arrive at my house, just past noon…

“Hi-ho, Ard! Lookie what I got! Yahoo!”

It wasn’t Ireena who’d entered my room but my gratingly hyperactive father, brandishing a long sword with an exquisite blade winking under the light.

“My old sword was lookin’ pretty shabby, so I splurged on a new one!” My father continued to squeal and squirm around in excitement. Looking at him made me sick, if I was being honest.

“Look here, Ardy-Ard! Supercool, ain’t it? Top-quality stuff!” He thrust it in my direction, keeping up his irritatingly cheery act.

I gripped the hilt and stared at the blade. “Father. It pains me to inform you that you’ve been scammed. This sword is worthless.”

He tilted his head and let out a pathetic “Whaaaaaat?” It seemed he didn’t have a very discerning eye.

“I mean, this blade has a Sharpness level of ten. A half-hearted attempt at best. Given the quality of the sword, it should be able to hold three attributes if the proper compression techniques are used.”

“…Wha—? No, wait, that’s… Huh?” My father stared blankly at me.

I bet he was shocked to find out that he’d been bamboozled into buying a piece of junk.

“But there’s no need to worry. It’s possible to refine it into a normal sword, though I can’t say it’ll be top quality.” I invested my power into the sword before handing it back to him.

“Right… Just curious. What attributes did ya give it?”

“A Sharpness level of one hundred. Fire Support. Self-Sharpening Blade. And that’s about it.”

As soon as I answered, he swung the sword at a desk nearby and sliced off a corner, engulfing it in flames and turning it to ash before it had a chance to hit the floor, thanks to Fire Support. Oh yikes. He must be pissed off that he’d been deceived, and I guess I couldn’t blame him for taking it out on an inanimate object. I mean, you should have seen the blade before.

“…You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he mumbled to himself as he gazed at it.

Yeesh, I bet he’s seething. At this rate, he’ll beat the shit out of the old man running the smithy—

“Arrrrd! I’m heeere!”

Welp, that’s not any of my business. Best to let him do as he pleases. Plus, my day was all booked, since I’d be busy frolicking with Ireena. All other plans could get to the back of the line.

I rushed over to the door, abandoning my hot-tempered father in the room.

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“Not at all! C’mon, let’s go!” Ireena grabbed my hand and yanked me outside, energetically trotting along next to me and looking as cute as always.

That lovely silver hair. Her doll-like face. That milky, almost porcelain skin. And her chest peeking through her sheer white dress.

Plus, cleavage.

Also, side boobs.

I’d never felt luckier to be her friend.

We managed to make it to the mountains.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Daddy says he wants to make a new sword and asked me to gather materials for it… Could you help me?”

“Why, of course. What might you be searching for?”

“Hmm… I think we need two fangs from an Ultima Tiger, some body fluid from a Meteo Slime, and a magic stone from an Ancient Boa.”

I hate to inform you that there’s no way we’ll find any of those on this mountain. I mean, every single item on that list would be found only in destinations for the most daring of adventurers. I bet this was her dad’s idea of a joke, but it was easy enough to figure out which monsters were close enough to what he was actually looking for—give or take a few qualities—and then hunt those down.

After we’d managed to wrap that up in record time, we mixed work and play by “grinding,” which involved hunting every beast we could find in a nearby dungeon for experience points. I could feel my magical energy increase in fractional increments as I took them down one by one. This was the fastest way to become a master mage.

We holed up and farmed monsters for five hours before ducking out of the dungeon. I was still pumped and raring to go, but Ireena was completely exhausted. We took a short break outside, and she’d just started to recover from her fatigue when she suddenly looked up at me.

“H-hey, Ard. I’ve been, you know… I wanna learn how to cast a spell without an incantation!” she demanded.

“Well, that’s surprising. Weren’t you the one who told me you’d mastered it when you were three?”

“Th-that… So what? That was then! And this is now!” she yelped, her face burning red and eyes growing dewy with tears.

Judging by her reaction, it was clear she had been lying.

Huh, so she really can’t do it.

“Well, okay. Fine. But before we begin…tell me: What is magic?”

“Heh-heh-heh! Easy peasy! Magic comes from the language of runes created by the Demon Lord! And by reciting the chants recorded in these symbols, we can unleash spells! The whole reaction is powered by consuming our own magical energy! That’s what magic is!”

She eagerly glanced in my direction, her face an open book: I’m right, aren’t I? You know you can praise me, right? C’mon, please! Woof, woof!

I obliged, stroking her head.

“Hee-hee-hee…! W-well, I’m the best, after all! Nothin’ to it!” she tooted, puffing out her chest all triumphantly. Geez, she’s so friggin’ cute.

“Well then, Ireena. What’s an incantion? Why must we use runes? What’s the connection between runes and spells?”

These questions caught her off guard—but I’d expected that, since our textbooks didn’t cover them. Well, it’d be more accurate to say that our books only contained information about lower-level spells, which were super weak compared to equivalent techniques in my past life.

I bet someone put these preventative measures in place to keep the masses from gaining too much power. I’d heard our policy makers weren’t too keen on sharing. My best guess was that they were terrified of the commoners. Especially considering how the most accessible spells were weak as shit, I could only assume the nobility had siphoned off all the best techniques for themselves and passed them down among themselves from generation to generation.

“Listen carefully, Ireena. Magic depends on the composition of a magic circle.”

“Composition of a…magic circle?”

“That’s correct. When we recite a chant, we’re creating a magic circle by reading aloud its contents, which we call the magical formula. That causes the circle to fill with magical energy. This is one part of how we cast magic.”

Holding up my index finger, I continued on. “It’s perfectly possible to form a magic circle without a chant by projecting a clear image of it in your mind.”

To drive my explanation home, I summoned one at my fingertips to invoke Flare in front of Ireena. “Try to call forth magic while you visualize it in your mind.”

“G-got it!” Ireena nodded as she thrust her palm toward the heavens, and a small burst of fire sputtered out of her magic circle.

“Wowie! Wow, wow, wow! I did it! Bye-bye, chanting!”

Oh god, her innocent delight made her extra cute and warmed my heart just by looking at her.

“I did it! I did it! Hooray!” she squealed, casting magic over and over in absolute joy.

As I watched this tender moment, I couldn’t help but feel slightly blue. You see, the power and effectiveness of a magic circle widely varied, depending on how much magical energy was consumed. To make things simple, if a normal Flare spell takes one hundred units to execute…then Ireena’s was at twenty, which made her magic dismally weak. I would’ve bet that her magical energy was much lower than average.

In other words, she had zero talent. It would probably break her heart when she found that out in the future.

“I did it! Look at me go! We’re on the same level now, Ard!”

…But I’d already decided I would always support this silly girl, no questions asked. I’d take on her burdens as my own—her sorrows, her pain, everything—and pull her to her feet every time she failed.

Because that’s the true meaning of friendship.

Time flew by with Ireena (my sweet baby angel) by my side. With a sprinkling of this and a smattering of that, I’d managed to turn fifteen years old.

As in my past life, this was the age of full-fledged adulthood. Around this time, people started to map out the rest of their lives and seriously contemplated their future occupations. It went without saying that both of our parents were well aware of that fact.

On this evening, Ireena and her father were to join my family for a roundtable about our futures. It was around nine in the evening when the sky was cloaked in an inky darkness, and a flaxen moon lit my surroundings. A concert of chirping insects serenaded those who passed.

There was a knock at the door, and I went to greet our guests in my parents’ place.

“Gooooood evening, Ard!” It was Ireena, whose abounding cheerfulness never set with the sun.

“Hello there, Ard. Good evening,” greeted her white-haired elven father, Weiss.

I ushered them inside to get everyone seated at the dining table, where we first offered a prayer before digging in.

“We thank our Father—the Demon Lord Varvatos—and Her Majesty the Queen for this bounty.”

In this time period, it seemed that a religion with me as the chief deity had taken root. The entire world worshipped me, but I had…very mixed feelings, as you can imagine. Leaving the whole “Queen” part aside, why did they have to offer me thanks in the first place?

“Okay, now that we got this dumb prayer out of the way, go ahead and chow down! Ard’s curry is just as delicious today as any other day!”

“Yaaaay! Thanks for the food!” Ireena started to gulp it down in a hurry.

Geez, even her gluttony’s starting to look all cutesy.

“Tee-hee. As adorable as ever, Ireena. A striking image of your mother… Ahhh, I want to have so much fun with you…,” my mother moaned, spouting out some seriously criminal comments with a lewd expression on her face.

Paying no attention to this predator, Ireena continued to dig in.

…Incidentally, I didn’t know the details about her mother, but considering she’d never joined us for dinner, I could probably venture a guess.

Well, thanks to Ireena, I enjoyed my dinner very much.

“Why don’t we get started?” Weiss placed his spoon on the table and cut to the heart of the matter. His androgynous beauty was highlighted by a soft smile, but his eyes shone with solemn determination. “First up: Ard. What would you like to do?”

“Yes, well… There are a number of things, but at the moment…I’d like to make a hundred friends.”

“Ha-ha-ha. I have to admit, I’ve never been able to tell what you’re thinking,” he said, inexplicably chuckling before turning to Ireena. “And what about you? The crux of your future has already been decided, but there’s still some time before then. What do you think you’ll do?”

“Hmm… Well, for now… I—I think I want to be with Ard. Yeah,” she whispered as she shyly scratched at her blushing cheeks and cast her eyes down.

Gah! She was honestly just too precious.

“Right. I understand both your feelings. I have the perfect solution.”

“I reckon it’d be best for you both to attend the Academy of Magic.”

“It’s perfect for your goal, Ard, and I’m sure it’ll help your dreams come true, too, Ireena!”

Hearing the word academy sent a wave of pain rippling through my stomach. I mean, sure, it’d be the fastest way to make friends. In fact, I’d had that exact same idea in my former life when I’d transformed myself into your average Joe, lying about my past to enter an academy. It was the best solution I could think up: hide my true form and live as someone else to make some friends but…I’d managed to remain alone and in isolation despite my foolproof plan. Amazing.

And, well, if I’m being perfectly honest here, I was bullied—hard.

Imagine this: the Demon Lord suffering at the hands of the lowly commoners.

Like, for example, there was this one time when I left class to take care of some business in the bathroom, as you do, and they nicknamed me the “poop man” and made me into a laughingstock! And they even went so far as to scribble on my desk and dirty my textbooks… I ended up quitting school after a year. I’m sure you can see how I’ve associated academies with a boatload of trauma.

“The Academy of Magic?! Wowie! That sounds super fun!” Ireena’s eyes sparkled.

I couldn’t possibly say I didn’t want to go with her, god forbid. I mean, come on. That smile. I needed to protect it.

“I have no objections. I’ll join Ireena and enter the academy.”

“Great. For the best, I’m sure. And I bet you’ll be able to make plenty of friends… Oh, and, Ard, I think it’ll be a good chance to readjust your common-sense compass.”

Common sense? I had more common sense than anyone. I mean, I was once the great Demon Lord. I wouldn’t have been able to navigate diplomatic solutions and conduct other official business if I hadn’t excelled in every conceivable aspect of common knowledge and etiquette.

Well, Weiss was probably just trying to say I was still a child. Made sense. I nodded obediently…and promptly changed the subject.

“I’m fine and well with enrolling in the academy, but do we meet their qualifications?”

“Hmm? Qualifications?”

“I realize I know very little about the academy, but…do they accept commoners? I was under the impression that it’s an institution designed to serve the nobility.”

“No need to worry. Sure, the nobles used to discriminate against the commoners way back when, and we couldn’t afford the tuition, much less attend the school. But in recent years, its doors are open to everyone… But that’s beside the point. There’s no place that’s closed off to either of you.”

“—? What do you mean by that?” I tilted my head in a gesture of confusion, which Weiss returned in kind.

“…Hey, you guys. Haven’t you told this kid anything?” he asked, giving my parents a look.

“Ah, well, y’know. I like hearing tales of derring-do, too, but…”

“We don’t like talking about ourselves much. It’s so embarrassing.”

My parents gave a nervous chuckle, and Weiss sighed, turning his gaze back to me.

“Listen up, Ard. What I’m about to tell you is the full and honest truth.”

And then…he hit me with a surprising revelation.

“Your parents are the renowned Great Mages, and I’m the Heroic Baron, though it feels kind of cheesy to call myself that. In short, all three of us are off the charts in terms of strength.”

“What?” I spilled out pathetically before I had a chance to stop it from leaving my lips. This was way too much to take in, but I could tell Weiss was dead serious. There was no question that what he was saying was the truth.

…To be honest, I had a few hang-ups about this entire situation.

I refused to be set apart. I despised it to the extent that it made me recoil in disgust to see myself get so worked up. In my past life, I’d lost so much for being the Demon Lord, for being “special.” You see, uniqueness and loneliness were merely two sides of the same coin, and I knew that all too well, which was why I hated standing out and avoided it to the best of my ability.

But what’s done is done. I’d begrudgingly accept that I was the son of the Great Mages. Plus, it seemed they were mutants, fortunately, according to the texts. In general terms, it meant they were born with exceptional abilities that went beyond the limits of their species. But these qualities weren’t hereditary, which meant they came and went with their birth and death. This was my saving grace: My parents might be special, but I wasn’t any different from others. I’d never be known as the Demon Lord again.

The meeting carried on and ended without dispute. When the meal was almost done, Weiss looked at me with a serious expression.

“…I’m trusting you to look after Ireena at the academy, Ard.”

Just your typical parental speech. But there was something that caught my attention.

Why did Weiss’s face harbor so much fear and anxiety?