Two-Dimensional Heroic Girls

The heavy rain continued to pour.

"Is that so? Got it. You take care too, Lucoa."

In one unit of an apartment complex, a rather unique maid—a dragon maid—was on a phone call with someone.

"What is it, Tohru?"

"It's nothing. Don't worry, Kobayashi. No matter what happens, I'll protect you."

Tohru, the dragon girl, flashed a dazzling smile and made a cute pose, pretending to be in high spirits.

"If Miss Lucoa really is in trouble, Tohru, you should probably go help her out."

Even though she didn't know the details, Kobayashi could faintly sense that something was bothering Tohru, something she was worried about deep down.

Looking out the window at the pouring rain, it really was heavy. The weather forecast was way off. Could this be related to what's worrying Tohru?

"Mhm mhm. So, for now, let's just enjoy our time together—chu chu!"

"Wah—!"

Caught off guard, she nearly got stuck to the octopus creature by accident.

"Stop being so gross!!!"

"Uuu~"

"Oh right, Tohru, what kind of Demon King did you run into? Was it... like this?"

Kobayashi tried to imagine a stereotypical scary Demon King based on her own mental image.

"There's no point in talking about that guy. But... are Demon Kings destined to be evil?"

Tohru stared out the window, eyes suddenly clouded with doubt.

In her world, the faction she belonged to was the Chaos Faction, which opposed the Harmony Faction.

In her world, the faction she belonged to was the Chaos Faction, which opposed the Holy Faction.

Humans typically sided with the Harmony Faction, and the leader of the Chaos Faction was often referred to among humans as the "Demon King." The more well-known name was "End Emperor".

She had only a brief interaction with that dragon (as she was still a child), but she could clearly sense it—he was truly tired of endless fighting.

It seemed like he never liked fighting to begin with, yet he was somehow forced into becoming the so-called Demon King. It was as if he had no choice, as if no one could understand him.

If that dragon came from a time long before Tohru's birth, it'd be hard to imagine dragon people even existed back then.

Dragons rarely took on human forms in those days. Humans were even more fragile than they are now—how could a fusion of dragon and human even occur?

Then another, much darker possibility came to mind.

Back when Tohru's father allowed her to wander the world and gain experience, she once stumbled into an ancient ruin of unknown origin.

Within it were inscriptions in the divine language of the gods. It took her a great deal of effort just to roughly translate them.

That ruin... was a facility used to modify lifeforms.

It was where the gods captured magical beasts, demons, demi-humans, monkeys (humans), and even dragons to forcibly merge them across species.

So that ancient dragon... might have originated from there.

Tohru eventually destroyed the ruin.

She discovered it housed forbidden technologies—technologies that, if leaked into the world, would cause catastrophic upheaval. So she unleashed multiple blasts of dragon breath and completely annihilated the place.

When she was little, her father once told her that there had been a time even more dreadful than the present... but, laughably, there had also been a time more peaceful than now.

Both periods were said to be linked to that dragon named Rostal Ignatius.

(T/N: I'm changing the name to that, 'Woods' was lame.)

Currently, one of the ancient weapons related to him had reawakened due to an unknown party destroying its seal. Things weren't looking good.

Come to think of it... how did she even return here?

She couldn't quite remember. Just vaguely recalled being used as a weapon by that jerk, helping him fight off those so-called brave heroes. She eventually lost consciousness, and when she woke up, she was back in the surface world... and then she ran into that chicken-wing angel.

Later on, Lucoa told her that the Demon King's remaining soul had apparently been destroyed by an S-rank hero.

Destroyed, huh?

Then why did she still feel a strange melancholy?

Was it some sort of resonance?

Was it because, like her, he was someone no one could ever understand?

Sigh. Why was she overthinking all this? Right now, the only thing that mattered was protecting Kobayashi.

...

"Ugh, with this rain, I bet classes will be canceled tomorrow."

The loud tapping of raindrops against the glass echoed clearly.

Outside, the night sky was pitch black, and the room's lighting made the window look like a mirror. Reflected in that glass was a girl with bob-cut hair—Megumi Kato.

She closed the curtains and returned to the comfort of her bed, picking up her phone. From her small contact list, she selected a number labeled Kiryu Yazuki.

"Hm... Should I tell him? Geez, this is such a headache. Sawamura's true nature already surprised me enough... and now that other talented girl, Kasumigaoka-senpai, seems kind of awful too."

Kato kicked her legs in the air as she spoke like she was troubled, but her face didn't show even a hint of distress. She looked completely indifferent.

So what was she talking about?

Earlier today at school, Sawamura had returned the gym shorts Megumi had lent Yazuki the day before. But while doing so, she fiercely threatened Megumi—not to spill the truth about Sawamura's real, nasty personality hiding behind her perfect facade.

In other words, Megumi had just experienced her first-ever case of girl-on-girl schoolyard intimidation. Pretty scary, huh?

Then during lunchtime, Megumi went up to the rooftop to catch some breeze, sitting in an inconspicuous spot.

Given her naturally low presence, no one noticed her. Two other girls came up to eat lunch and chat, and Megumi happened to overhear their conversation.

In that moment, Megumi was shaken again.

She never expected Utaha Kasumigaoka, another beauty of Toyonozaki Academy, to be so different from how she was perceived.

Everyone thought of her as a graceful, quiet literary genius admired by all. But in her conversation with Sawamura, she was sharp-tongued, brutally honest, and even threw out some pretty risqué jokes.

Even more shocking, like Sawamura, she had a hidden identity—under the pen name Kasumi Utako, she was a rising star in the world of light novels. Even worse, the two of them were plotting how to mess with Yazuki.

"Yikes—!"

Kato let out a small yelp. She had accidentally hit the call button—but all she got was a message saying the line couldn't be reached.

Right, right. She quickly turned on her computer, logged into Twitter, and found Kasumigaoka-senpai's account. After checking her recent tweets, Kato eventually came across another account named @DemonKing—that had to be Yazuki's, right?

She then found Yazuki's blog.

The blog page was plastered with images of scantily clad anime girls, enough to give Kato quite a shock.

She quickly scrolled to the comments section, which was... well, quite the mess.

As she kept reading, her eyelids grew heavy. Eventually, she slumped forward on her desk and dozed off.

It felt like only an instant passed before she found herself in a strange space—floating in what looked like the cosmos.

"Here we go again."

Kato let out a soft sigh of resignation. This must've been the third time, right?

"Uuuu~ Please, Miss Kato, I'm begging you! Sign this contract already."