How a Realist Hero Rebuilt The Kingdom

Chapter 9: The Demon Lord’s True Identity

Meanwhile, in Fuuga’s camp, an intense battle was unfolding between his forces and the massive mushroom. It was enormous, hard, and possessed overwhelming firepower. Faced with this unprecedented opponent, which shook the ground as it advanced, Fuuga’s men surrounded it on foot and pressed the attack.

“It would seem to be less a creature and more something akin to a moving castle,” Hashim said after carefully observing their opponent. “We can assume, as was stated in the investigative reports we received from King Souma, that it is a weapon used by the demons. Therefore, we should see this not as slaying a monster or a skirmish, but as a siege battle.”

“Makes sense to me. Then we lead it around on foot, and hit it with firepower.”

Fuuga was riding on Durga’s back, Zanganto held ready as he gave orders to his troops.

“Cavalry and infantry spread out around it, and don’t give it time to focus on a target! Think of it like a mountain fortress, and climb up if you see an opening! Mages and ranged units, stay at a distance! Focus your attacks on a single point! The rhinosaurus units’ cannons are powerful, so just keep on hammering it!”

Fuuga barked orders one after another, and his commanders went to work.

Having absorbed officers of the former Gran Chaos Empire into their ranks and learned their techniques, the cannon-equipped rhinosauruses moved up and began bombarding the massive mushroom weapon. They were using shells that didn’t explode and relied on kinetic energy, but with enough hits, they were able to put dents in the mushroom-type weapon and damage it.

The Flag of the Tiger, Gaten Bahr—the dandy of Fuuga’s forces—brought his horse up alongside that of the Crossbow of the Tiger, Kasen Shuri, who was leading the archers.

“Kasen. Our whips and bows can’t land effective blows on that thing. All we can do is draw its attention, I suppose.”

“Disrupting the enemy! Got it! Archers, follow me!”

Kasen and Gaten ran around with the mounted archers, plinking arrows off the mushroom-type weapon even though they knew it was futile. After unleashing that light, the mushroom-type weapon had begun spinning the three cannon-like things on its body, blowing away the soldiers who were swarming it. They needed to keep it busy so those explosions wouldn’t target the cannon rhinosauruses.

Meanwhile, the battle maniac, Nata Chima—the Battle-ax of the Tiger—was getting frustrated.

“Damn it! Where do I need to climb up to plant my ax in that thing...? Whoa!”

As he muttered that, Nata suddenly found himself swept off the ground. Looking up, he saw that he was in the mouth of a griffon belonging to Krahe Laval, the Wings of the Tiger, who commanded their air force.

“Screw you, Krahe! What’re you doing?!”

“You appeared eager to go wild, so I thought I might take you to a good place for it, Sir Nata.”

Having said that, Krahe flew his griffon up the side of the mushroom-type monster to drop Nata off on the top. It was an empty space with a streamlined shape, like the top of a dune.

“I’m sure you will be able to swing your ax to your heart’s content up here.”

“O-Oh, yeah? Well, aren’t you considerate.”

“Now, I wish you the best of luck.”

With that, Krahe left. Looking around, Nata could see other brawny members of Fuuga’s forces being dropped off there one after another.

Nata smirked and wound up to swing his ax hard.

“Aw, yeah! Let’s do this!”

He slammed it down with spirit. This was how the members of Fuuga’s forces fought the mushroom-type weapon in their own way, but the weapons’ attacks were rapidly increasing the number of casualties.

“Hahhhh!”

Crackle! Flying around on Durga and unleashing bolts of lightning powerful enough to smite a rhinosaurus, Fuuga succeeded in destroying one of the big cannons, but he was getting exhausted and impatient.

His men were putting up a good fight, but he couldn’t ignore the mounting losses. The only enemy they had encountered so far was this mushroom weapon, and they hadn’t seen any demons yet. If he exhausted too much of his manpower, it would become impossible to continue the war. He could recover by joining up with the detached columns led by Shuukin and Lombard, but he wanted to still hold the advantage when he met up with Souma’s forces in the depths of the Demon Lord’s Domain.

There are limits to the number of land forces Souma could bring with his fleet, so Fuuga had expected to have numerical superiority...

Here’s hoping Souma’s run into similar troubles... Fuuga thought.

Boom! Suddenly, out of nowhere, a massive fireball flew into the mushroom-type weapon and burst. Fuuga turned, trying to figure out what happened, and saw more dragons than he could count floating in the air. There were knights riding on their backs.

Fuuga furrowed his brow. “Dragon knights... The guys from Nothung, huh?”

The Nothung Dragon Knight Kingdom was an exclusively defensive nation, so they generally did not involve themselves in other countries’ wars. Fuuga was questioning what they were doing here when Queen Sill Munto flew over to him on the back of her partner, Pai the White Dragon.

“Sir Fuuga. We’re here to help you neutralize that thing at the request of the Star Dragon Mountain Range,” Sill declared.

Fuuga glared at her. “What’re you playing at? You never cared about the Demon Lord’s Domain before.”

“Didn’t I just tell you? Our ally, Mother Dragon Tiamat, asked us to do this. But we’ll only help you until that thing goes down. Once it’s destroyed, we’re pulling out.”

From the tone of Sill’s voice, she would have never helped Fuuga and his men after they’d destroyed the Kingdom of Lastania and killed some of her dragon knights. Still, this was a request from the Star Dragon Mountain Range, so she’d had no choice but to join him.

Well, that’s fine then, Fuuga thought. If she was going to help him here and not get deeply involved in the invasion of the Demon Lord’s Domain itself, that was incredibly convenient for him.

“Oh, yeah...? Well, do what you like.”

“Yes. We’re going to do just that.”

Sill returned to her knights and raised her spear aloft.

“Everyone, have at it!”

With that short command, the dragon knights began attacking the mushroom-type weapon. One blast of a dragon’s breath melted the surface of the mushroom-type weapon, leaving it charred. After that, whenever the air force dropped powder kegs on it or it was hit by rhinosaurus cannon fire, it left visible damage. The insides were exposed in some places, while sparks flew in others.

Seeing the tide of battle turn, Sill was quietly relieved. Oh, good... It looks like we can manage this.

She had been surprised when the request came to support Fuuga’s forces and fight the giant weapon they expected would appear, but the dragon knights had agreed to a pact that didn’t allow them to refuse. Despite her misgivings, Sill had brought her troops, and now she was relieved to see things were going to work out.

“This was an anomaly even in the history of our country. Madam Tiamat has never requested we send dragon knights outside the country before now.”

“Yeah. She must have been in quite the hurry,” Sill’s partner Pai replied telepathically. “Her real goal is probably over where Souma and Naden are. She sent us here so she could go there herself. That way it wouldn’t look like she was favoring one side.”

“Hmm... What a roundabout way of doing things.”

“She has a lot of restrictions on her, so she had little choice. If she had to go this far, then that means...”

“This war is just that important, is it?” Sill clenched the hand she was holding her spear with. “Then, as her allies, we must fight to our utmost. Onward, Pai!”

“Okay!”

The silver dragon knight charged towards the mushroom-type weapon and joined the battle.

After some time, the combined forces of the Great Tiger Empire and the Dragon Knight Kingdom succeeded in neutralizing the massive mushroom-type weapon.

◇ ◇ ◇

On the seas...

The black cube emerged from the clouds and descended in front of us. However, Jangar didn’t stop moving, and was still trying to fire its beam weapon. The black cube teleported, interposing itself between Jangar and us. The cube shuddered as it took a direct hit from the beam.

Huh?! It protected us?!

While I was still surprised, I heard the same voice that I’d heard in the Star Dragon Mountain Range.

“Familiar one... Souma Kazuya... I have been waiting,” the familiar voice said. It was a loud, hard-to-make-out voice, but I was managing to pick out the words better than last time.

Then the black cube summoned clouds to itself, generating a whirlwind with rain and lightning, and it slammed into Jangar. The mech was sent flying, and its moves became jerky, like a puppet with multiple strings cut.

“Stop this, Guardian 01. He is not an enemy for you to repel,” the cube said in a strangely feminine voice. “Souma Kazuya. I will execute the control protocol for Guardian 01.”

“Huh?”

“Please transfer control permissions to me,” the black cube said.

Control protocol? Transfer permissions? Come again? As I looked at the cube in confusion, it continued, its tone more urgent.

“Your voice is required. Please.”

Asking me nicely doesn’t explain anything... I turned to look at Madam Tiamat, and she nodded.

“I, uh, authorize the transfer of control!”

“Transfer confirmed. Executing control protocol for Guardian 01.”

With that, Jangar stopped its jerky motions. It fired the verniers on its back, hovering in place, but its arms hung limply at its sides rather than pointing a weapon at us.

“Guardian 01 has now been placed under my control.” The cube’s voice resounded through the suddenly quiet sky. “Terminating self-defense functions.”

“Uh, what? What’s going on?”

“None of this makes any sense to us...”

Naden and Aisha were both confused.

I looked up at the floating cube, no more clued-in than they were.

“What...are you?”

“I have been waiting. Familiar one—ancient one—Souma Kazuya.” Then the cube slowly approached us. “I beseech you... Go to Mao, for the sake of my children. The fate of not only my own children, the northern test subjects—but the children of Tiamat, the southern test subjects—rests in your hands.”

Her children? Test subjects? This still wasn’t making any sense. But there were more important things than getting an explanation right now.

“Madam Tiamat! Jangar’s not going to keep moving now, right?!” I asked.

“Yes.” Madam Tiamat nodded. “The humanoid weapon is now under her control. It will not attack again without her orders.”

“Well, good. We need to hurry and rescue the guys who’ve fallen into the sea.”

I looked at the ocean. The island carrier Souryuu, which had taken a direct hit from the beam weapon, was tilted. Also, though I couldn’t see her from here, Carla was lying on the bridge after taking a bullet for me. With how much blood she’d lost, her internal organs must have been shredded. If so, then light magic couldn’t...

“Damn it!”

Smack!

“Sire?!”

“Souma?!”

Aisha and Naden were both surprised when I punched myself in the head.

That didn’t stop me from doing it again and again. This was my fault. We’d gotten into this kind of encounter with the enemy because I’d let someone else decide things for me. As a result, Carla and many soldiers from the Kingdom of Friedonia and the Nine-Headed Dragon Kingdom were dead or injured.

I should have known better! Never let anyone make your decisions for you. How many times did I tell myself I needed virtù to tame fortuna?! Yet I let Fuuga make my decisions because I was afraid to confront him! And this is the result!

“Please, stop, sire!” Aisha pleaded with me as she grabbed my fist to stop me from hitting myself. “That isn’t going to change anything!”

“Yeah!” Naden agreed. “You need to stop beating yourself up and start getting this chaos under control.”

“Urgh...”

Their words had helped me cool my head a bit. The fleet was still in disarray. I didn’t have time for regrets.

The cube started talking again. “Adapting to language. Tuning. Test. Test.” After a pause, it continued in a much easier-to-hear voice than before. “Adaptation complete. Can you understand me?”

“I hear you, but can this wait?” I shouted in response.

“I have detected casualties as a result of the fighting.” The cube’s voice was calm, in contrast to our own hasty reactions. “I cannot revive those whose bodies were completely annihilated, but it will be possible to treat those with heavy wounds or who are in critical condition. Our medicinal solution may be able to repair even those who would be beyond the help of light magic.”

“Come again?!” I exclaimed. Repair... Does it mean heal? Can it help Carla and the others?

“Tiamat. Transfer the relevant individuals to me,” the cube said.

Madam Tiamat nodded before I had time to consider the cube’s proposal.

“Okay. I will send all of the injured to her,” Madam Tiamat said using thought speech, not waiting for us to respond before roaring. The dragon’s soft voice slowly spread throughout the sky.

As we stared at her, not sure what to make of this, Madam Tiamat said in an austere voice, “I have transferred the wounded here and the wounded on land to her.”

Transferred... Oh, right, Madam Tiamat had instantly teleported me to the Star Dragon Mountain Range before. Her existence really was out of scale with everything else in this world. And the wounded on land? Were those Fuuga’s people? Had they been attacked by a similar weapon too? There was no way to tell from here, but I was more concerned with what was happening down below.

“Naden. Take us to the deck of the Souryuu.”

“Roger that!”

I climbed onto Naden, and she descended. As we neared the Souryuu, Ruby was supporting the tilting ship on one side while many ships were pulling on it with ropes from the other to support the evacuation of the crew. Excel had likely seen Jangar stop attacking and shifted gears from combat to rescue operations. We spotted her on the deck and landed in front of her.

“Excel! Where’s Carla?!” I shouted at Excel, who seemed to be in a bit of a daze, as I jumped down from Naden’s back. Excel quickly regained her senses when she saw me and crossed her arms.

“Your Majesty?! Carla, she...her heart had stopped, and then all of a sudden she vanished... We’re receiving constant reports of other injured soldiers who’ve disappeared too,” she reported, sounding bewildered.

I thought so... Was Carla still just on the verge of death then? I bit my lip, but then shook my head in an attempt to change gears. Hadn’t I just decided that regrets would have to wait?

“Madam Tiamat transported the people who disappeared,” I told Excel, “I believe they were sent somewhere they can be treated.”

“Treated...?! Will Carla survive?!” Excel’s eyes widened.

I silently shook my head. “I don’t know. We just have to believe she will for now.”

“Oh, I see...”

“Excel. Our first order of business has to be getting this chaos under control. Jangar’s not going to attack anymore. Prioritize evacuating the Souryuu and rescuing those who fell overboard.”

“Right... Understood.” Excel nodded, but then seemed hesitant. “Um, what should I say to Castor about Carla?”

“Sorry, but...just tell him she’s being treated.”

If the worst happened to Carla, he might resent me for it. But that wasn’t limited to Carla; you could say the same of all the bereaved families of all those who died as a result of my decision. As king, I had to bear the burden of their resentment. But right now, when it wasn’t clear if she would survive or not, it would just be cruel to put Castor on the emotional roller coaster that telling him everything exactly as it had occurred would.

As Excel and I were exchanging words, there was another voice from behind us.

“I’m sorry to interrupt.”

“Huh?! Who’s there?!”

Excel turned, a harsh look on her face. Behind us was an elderly woman wrapped in a white robe. The woman appeared ancient, yet her back was perfectly straight, and there was something solemn—and recognizable—about her.

Aisha fell into a combat stance with her greatsword, and Excel held her fan up like she did before unleashing her magic. Meanwhile, Naden dropped to one knee before the woman, bowing her head.

Seeing Naden’s reaction, I finally remembered.

“Aisha! Excel! Stand down!”

“Huh? Sire?”

“This is Madam Tiamat!”

At my words, Aisha and Excel hurriedly let go of their weapons and fell groveling before her. The woman before us was Madam Tiamat’s human form, which I’d met in the Star Dragon Mountain Range.

Mother Dragon was an object of worship, a living god, after all. For the people of this world, meeting her was like coming face-to-face with the Buddha or Christ, so their reaction was to be expected. Madam Tiamat called me a “familiar one,” and tried to place me even above herself. The ramifications of that were scary to think about.

Madam Tiamat extended her hand to me. “I will take you to her now.”

I panicked at this sudden declaration.

“Whoa, wait a minute. Who is ‘her’? The cube? That thing’s a woman?”

“I answer your second question in the affirmative. Your third, the negative. That object has no sex, but for sake of convenience, I address it as female.”

No sex? Is it neither male nor female? Or is it a machine, like it appeared to be? This wasn’t the time to dwell on that—there were more important things to get to right now.

“I can’t leave now...” I said. “I have to evacuate my people from this sinking ship.”

“In that case, allow me to transport them, and this entire carrier, to the coast. That will make the rescue operation easier, I’m sure.”

“Huh? You can do that?”

“Yes. I can send a number of ships. I’d like you to hurry, for her sake, after all,” Madam Tiamat said, looking up to the cube that was still hanging in the sky.

I could feel a sense of pity for the cube in her tone. Madam Tiamat’s eyes looked like Liscia’s as she saw us off on our way to the Demon Lord’s Domain. It seemed she really wanted me to go to the Demon Lord’s place, or wherever she planned to send me.

After sorting out my thoughts a little, I said, “In that case, would you be able to transport this carrier, the Souryuu; the Albert II, to where Juna is? And transport the battleship in the fleet to our rear to where Tomoe, Ichiha, and Yuriga are?”

“That is possible,” Tiamat replied, nodding.

I turned to Excel. “Have people stop getting off the ships for now. Go to the Hiryuu, where Castor is, and take command of the entire fleet from there. Once all of the people thrown overboard are rescued, take the fleet and come to the northernmost point in the Demon Lord’s Domain, following our planned course. They won’t be intercepted by any more mechanical weapons like Jangar, right?”

I glanced at Madam Tiamat for affirmation, and she nodded. Excel nodded too.

“Understood, sire.”

“I’m counting on you. Now, Naden.”

“Huh? Me?”

“Go and call Hal and Ruby over at once. Tell Ruby she doesn’t need to support the carrier anymore, so they’re to come here and serve as our bodyguards. If explaining is too much effort, just tell them to get inside the carrier.”

“R-Roger that!”

Excel and Naden both left to do their things. Some time later, all of the ships had been contacted, and with all our preparations complete, I turned to Madam Tiamat.

“All right, Madam Tiamat. If you would.”

“Okay.”

Madam Tiamat instantly transformed from the guise of an old woman into a mountainous white dragon, then let her whale-song cry resound.

My vision wibbled, and the world before me immediately changed. Up until a moment ago, it had been water all the way to the horizon, but now it was a beach that continued into a desert. And beyond the sands, we could see...

“““Huh...?”””

We were all speechless.

There was a city at the edge of the sand. Was that city where the demons were? But, no, that wasn’t the surprising part. Because of the height of our now-beached carrier, we had a good vantage point to look at the walls of the city before us. We were able to realize something we otherwise might not have.

It’s...the same as Parnam...

The walls of that city were in the same round shape as our royal capital’s.

“Parnam?! No, is that a different city?” Halbert questioned.

“But it looks just like the royal capital...” Ruby said.

The two had just joined us and were looking upon the same scene. It wasn’t just them here—we’d had the wyvern cavalry remaining on the Souryuu fetch Juna, Tomoe, Ichiha, and Yuriga from the other ships too.

The walls, reminiscent of Parnam’s, surprised me, but I already had an idea. Genia and the researchers had told me that the city of Parnam itself was possibly a product of overscience—a massive transportation device. If it existed to bring things from my old world, then it wouldn’t be very convenient if there was just the one, would it? It wasn’t that strange that they would have built multiple cities like it, or that the demons were using one of them too.

“And those are...forces of the demons, Souma?”

“Looks like it...”

Peering down from the Souryuu, there was a force of about ten thousand, all of them well-armed. Because they operated a weapon like Jangar, I was expecting them to have heavy firearms or laser guns, beam swords, and other futuristic weapons.

Instead, these troops were armed with swords, spears, and armor, and they had archers and mages quite similar to our own. In fact, given I didn’t see any cannons, the demons’ technological level appeared to be even lower than our own. They had a weapon like Jangar, yet individual soldiers were outfitted in medieval kit. That discrepancy caught my attention.

“They have a lot of heavy equipment. Is their enchantment magic not very advanced?” Juna said, analyzing the enemy formations.

Enchantments enhanced the base qualities of weapons and armor, which was why people in uniforms could fight against those in full armor in this world. Our own forces were divided into Liscia-type fighters, who focused on speed and wore an officer’s uniform (plus additional armor in select areas), and Carla-types who focused on defense and power and wore heavy armor. However, if the demons were all using heavy armor, maybe they couldn’t imbue their clothing with defensive enchantments. It really was looking like they had inferior technology.

“We can’t let our guards down. We have a lot fewer soldiers than they do, after all,” I said just to keep anyone from getting ideas.

“Of course,” Juna said with a nod.

We probably only had a few thousand people on our side who could fight. Currently, we were deployed with the beached Souryuu as a fort, the two battleships that were transported as gun batteries, and the Marines defending them. With our numbers and equipment quality, we could probably repel the demons. Although, that was reliant on the mobile weapon Jangar not getting involved.

Jangar was currently towering above the demons like a massive statue.

“Aisha. Can you tell what races are on the demon side?”

“The horned ones are ogres, I suppose. But not warped, like the ones we saw in the Republic. More humanlike with a horn on their forehead. I also see armored lizardmen, but they’re like humans with tails, plus scales on their limbs,” Aisha said, one hand shading her eyes as she looked at them. “That leaves the ones with bat wings... They resemble monsters called vampires. Then there are orcs and kobolds. They look as you’d expect, but wearing armor.”

“Mr. Kobold...” Tomoe reacted.

Are these ones from the same group as the kobold that spared Tomoe and the mystic wolves? From what I was hearing, the demons didn’t have warped forms like monsters did. It was like someone took the beings we called monsters and made them more human. It felt like this further reinforced Genia’s theory that life originated in the dungeons, which we had expanded to postulate that monsters were failed products created by a bug in the process.

“Hmm...?” As Aisha surveyed the other side, she suddenly furrowed her brow.

“What is it?”

“There are what appear to be humans among the demon army.”

“What?!”

I looked at the demons too, but they were all just dots in my eyes. I really should have brought a telescope.

“So there are humans among the demon races too?”

“No, their numbers seem a little low to conclude that... Humans and beastmen tend to outnumber the long-lived races, so it’s strange to see so few of them.” Aisha crossed her arms under her breasts and groaned. “And their expressions concern me as well.”

“Their expressions?”

“Yes. Many of them appear frightened. They look almost like the defenders of a small castle, told a great army is coming to attack them. It’s as if they’ve worked up the courage to fight should they have to, even though it may be in vain.”

“Well, to these demons, we probably look like invaders.”

It seemed the demons were a lot different from how rumors painted them. I had this image of them as war-loving barbarians, pillaging towns and villages, then burning what was left. But maybe they weren’t so different from mankind. The last war must have been a case of escalating reprisals that got out of hand. If so, I wanted to do something to defuse this powder keg of a situation.

I turned to look at Madam Tiamat, who was standing nearby in human form.

“How long do we need to sit here like this?”

“I am sure she will contact you shortly... See?”

As if beckoned by her words, the black cube slowly descended from the sky. It caused a great deal of chatter and excitement on the demon side. Some were shouting, while others sang and danced. I noticed them using the word “maou,” demon lord, frequently.

“They’re saying ‘It’s Lady Maou,’ ‘Lady Maou’s here,’ and, ‘It’s our di...something or other.’”

“You really do understand the demons’ language, huh?”

Tomoe had her ears perked up, and was interpreting what she heard, which impressed Yuriga.

It looked like Tomoe’s translation ability was working well. However, I, who could understand the common language of this continent when I was summoned, couldn’t make out any of it. I could understand the cube, but not the demons. That was another discrepancy.

Then a wavering in the air, like a heat haze, rose from the top of the cube once it landed on the ground.

“It is similar to the jewel broadcast...” Juna murmured.

She was right—it resembled when we used the fountain plaza receivers or Excel’s water magic to project a broadcast. If so...what’s going to be projected? As I watched, eventually an image appeared...

“Huh...?” I gulped without meaning to. All it was showing was a single girl.

But...could I really call her a person?

Here, in this place with over ten thousand soldiers, ourselves included, she was just so out of place that my mind went blank. I’d thought what I was seeing couldn’t be real several times before, but this one took the cake. The others had a different reaction though.

“A girl?” Aisha said questioningly.

“It’s cute, but isn’t it just a puppet?” Juna suggested.

“No, not a puppet. A picture? Though, calling her a picture seems weird too,” Naden chimed in.

“That’s the Demon Lord? She’s not quite what we were expecting, huh?” Yuriga commented.

“But the demons keep calling her Lady Maou, or something like that?” Tomoe replied.

“Her traits are those of a cute girl, but she’s not human... Is she perhaps a mannequin?” Ichiha wondered aloud.

Oh, right! None of them recognized what it was, so they didn’t know whether it was alive or not. Fair enough. Without prior knowledge, it would look like a moving picture, a doll...or maybe even a figure or a mannequin.

That’s the true form of Demon Lord Divalroi? Maou... Divalroi... Ah—

“Ahhhhh!!!”

“Whoa?!”

My sudden exclamation startled Naden. I didn’t let the dubious looks everyone was shooting in my direction bother me as I leaned in to get a closer look.

No wonder it sounded familiar! It was just a program that read out the text you typed into it. But when they put a cute girl on the package and anthropomorphized the software, many people came to love her. She was a denizen of the digital realm, but eventually came to be called a digital idol, able to hold concerts in the real world.

She was a DIVAloid.

There were many DIVAloids created. One of the most popular of them had been a girl with green hair, pointy cat ears, bat wings, and an arrow-like tail. Her name was...

“DIVAloid MAO...”

Hold on. The Demon Lord Divalroi is a text-to-speech software from my old world? I was still working through my confusion when the 3D projection of Mao stretched her hand out towards me.

“I have been waiting for you, Lord Souma Kazuya.”

She spoke in a language I understood.

“I have waited so long for this moment. It has been ages since I was entrusted with the northern test subjects. So long that I am no longer able to carry out my duties. But now, at last, the familiar one I have awaited has come. Please, come to my main body. To close the door as soon as possible.”

With the appearance of Demon Lord Divalroi, aka DIVAloid MAO (henceforth “Mao”), war with the demons in front of us seemed to have been averted for now.

I took Aisha, Juna, Naden, Hal, Ruby, Tomoe, Ichiha, and Yuriga with me as we descended from the Souryuu.

Then, once we proceeded halfway to the demon’s camp, the black cube—Mao—sent a number of demons forward too. Is that large man with a doglike face a kobold? There was a woman who looked like a vampire in armor, and a heavily armored lizardman too.

Behind them was a human with dark skin like Jirukoma or Komain’s.

“They’re rather diverse...” I said to myself.

“Our side isn’t any less so,” Juna noted, and I had to agree, now that I thought about it. We had humans, a beastman, dragons, a dark elf, and a celestial.

We ended up facing one another looking like a melting pot of different races. And Mao, whose projection was now human-sized, bowed her head to me.

“It is good of you to come, Lord Souma Kazuya. I have waited so long for this day to come. I would love to shake your hand, but...” With that, Mao extended her hand towards me. “As you can see, this form is only a projection. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh, that’s no problem, but...I’ve got a mountain of other questions.”

“What might those be?”

“First up, that form is the DIVAloid MAO, right? The anthropomorphization of a text-to-speech software?”

Mao nodded in response.

“Yes. This form is from that text-to-speech software that was popular on Earth in the 21st century. Even by the standards of the DIVAloid series, MAO, was extremely successful.”

“Okay... The demon lord being MAO and also a two-dimensional being...is already throwing my head for a loop. But you, the one speaking to us through that form—you’re a separate entity, in a different place? Like the actor behind her?”

I asked that, thinking maybe someone was making Mao say all these things—like a person behind a moving avatar—but Mao just cocked her head to the side.

“That’s sort of true, but also not. I’m like an AI that manages the northern test subjects, and I have no body. But when I’m communicating with organic lifeforms, it helps to have hands to express myself with, right? That’s why I’m borrowing this appearance. This form is far from the uncanny valley and doesn’t provoke feelings of unease in unknowing humanoids.”

Erm... So Mao is an AI without a physical body, and she borrowed MAO’s form in order to make contact with people like us... Is that it? The uncanny valley is an effect that happens when something seems too similar to a human and provokes unpleasant feelings, right? It’s that thing where people get scared of wax dolls or mannequins because they look too realistic. So she was deliberately using a blocky 3D character to avoid that?

“Um...sire? I’m struggling to understand what this person is saying.”

Aisha, who wasn’t much of a thinker, looked at me with eyes like someone had just plopped a big book of problems down in front of her. Don’t worry, Aisha. I don’t really get it either. Wait... So, everyone can understand Mao, huh? Was this my mysterious hero translation at work?

“Come to think of it, you called me Souma Kazuya, didn’t you?” I asked.

“Yes. That is your name, is it not?”

“Ahh. It changed after I got married. I go by Souma E. Friedonia now.”

“Oh, I see. You were registered with me under your name at the time of summoning.”

“Registered...?”

How machine-like. I could see why she called herself an AI.

At this point, the big kobold who had been waiting behind Mao stepped forward.

“○○○○, ○○○○.”

He was saying something, but I couldn’t make it out.

I looked at the rest of my companions, but the blank looks on their faces told me it must be the same for them. That’s when the dark-skinned woman behind the kobold who appeared to be in her twenties started to speak.

“Garogaro is saying: ‘South people. Welcome. I am Garogaro. Representative of the north people.’”

Oh, she’s going to interpret for us? At this point, Tomoe stepped forward.

“Big Brother. It’s true, that kobold said, ‘Greetings, people of the south. I am Garogaro, the representative of the northern people.”

“Oh?! You can understand Mr. Garogaro?” the woman said, her eyes widening.

Tomoe grinned. “I can understand because of my translation magic. You look human, so why are you with the demons?”

“Ah! Um...my name is Poco. After the monsters attacked from the north, I was wandering around, lost, when these demons took me in and brought me to their city. I was brought here because they needed an interpreter.”

Ohh... There are demons like that too, huh? Demons were intelligent life, just like mankind, so of course there were good and bad people among them too. Some were hostile to mankind because of the war, but some of them were happy to help a person in need. That was rather humanlike behavior.

“△△△△, △△△△!”

The vampire woman in armor said something to Poco with a harsh expression on her face.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Ms. Lavin,” Poco apologized to the vampire knight.

She was probably telling her off for talking in our language so much. Poco didn’t seem scared, so she couldn’t have been too harsh about it.

Poco gestured to the vampire knight and the lizardman. “Erm... This is Lavin Gore the vampire, and this is Kukudora the lizardman. They’re both important members of their respective races, so you can think of them as something like tribal elders.”

The lizardman extended a scaly hand.

“××××, ××××.”

“He says ‘Nice to meet you,’ Big Brother,” Tomoe said.

“Oh, uhh. Nice to meet you too,” I replied, shaking Kukudora’s hand.

It felt less like a lizard’s skin and more like a vinyl kaiju doll where the material had softened with age.

The vampire knight, Lavin Gore, said something to Mao.

“‘If this is the person we’ve heard of who can close the door, I believe it would be best to have him do so quickly,’ is what she’s saying to Mao,” Tomoe told me.

The door... Oh, yeah, she did say something about that.

Mao looked in our direction, extending a hand towards me. “Lord Souma. Please, come to my castle at once. To close the door.”

“What’s this door you keep talking about?”

“The gate we used to come to the world of the south. We used it to evacuate here, but had no way to close it behind us. That’s why the gate’s still wide open, and it’s calling northern monsters.”

“Northern monsters...” Ichiha murmured to himself. “I’ve heard that when the Demon Lord’s Domain appeared, ‘the door to another world opened, releasing vast amounts of monsters that would attack towns and villages.’ Is this that door to another world?”

“Ohh. I think I heard about something like that too, now that you mention it,” I said.

“Yes. In order to save my children, who were being pushed to the brink in the lands of the north, I had to let them escape into Tiamat’s jurisdiction in the south. However, while I was able to use unorthodox methods to connect the gate, I didn’t have the authorization to close it. You are the one with the right to do that, Sir Souma. You, a familiar one from the mother planet, and no one else,” Mao said, bowing her head deeply.

Seeing this, Garogaro, Kukudora, Lavin Gore, and Poco all bowed their heads too.

While I was still feeling confused, a soft voice spoke from behind me.

“Please, go,” said Madam Tiamat, who had apparently been standing there for some time without me noticing.

“Madam Tiamat?”

“She cannot stop it of her own will. Even if her children suffer, she also gave birth to their tormentors, so she cannot involve herself. If you can release her from her limitations, that will remove a source of suffering for people on this continent.”

“You always explain things in such a roundabout way...” I said, earning me a faint smile from Madam Tiamat.

“There are many limitations. Both on me and on her.”

Well...sitting around here wasn’t going to help. I’d wanted to get in touch with the demons and communicate with them as peacefully as possible. If they were inviting me to come, I was getting exactly what I’d wanted.

I looked at Halbert. “Hal...can I count on you to manage the troops here for a while?”

“I don’t mind, but...you’re planning to go?”

“Yeah. First, I need to learn. Nothing can start until I know what’s going on.”

Hal snorted. “Gotcha. Leave this place to me and Ruby.”

“You’re a lifesaver... Mao...uh, Madam Mao? Can I take everyone who’s here with me except for Hal and Ruby?”

Mao nodded. “Thank you, Lord Souma... Now, if I may.”

In the next moment, the scenery around us changed. The sun-scorched desert vanished, replaced by a dim, metallic room.

This room... It’s got the same vibe as Genia’s dungeon lab, huh?

Then Mao spread her arms and began to speak.

“Welcome, Lord Souma, to my heart.”

As she said that, a massive image appeared above our heads. It was a midair projection, like the ones used in the jewel broadcast. It showed a single planet, floating in space.

It was an all-too-familiar image of Earth.

As I stared, surprised and in awe, Mao quietly spoke.

“You will now learn how this world came to be, Lord Souma.”

Mao began to tell the tale in her cute DIVAloid voice.