WALPURGIS
So he’s saying I tried to kill him to claw my way
into a demon lord’s seat? And it was Carillon who engineered it all? I have to
say, that’s a pretty impressive story to make up. If you actually knew Carillon and how relentlessly
in your face and warlike he was, it’d be enough to make you blurt out laughing.
Clayman’s tales continued, meandering here and
there, but basically, he was accusing Carillon of betraying the Council. This
enraged Milim enough to destroy the Beast Kingdom of Eurazania, and Carillon
was now dead. Hmm. Dead? Not missing? That seemed
unnatural enough to worry me, but I kept on listening.
Milim had taken action out of concern for
Clayman, but he had rebuked her, since wrecking nations without any evidence
was generally frowned upon. Ever since, she had fostered an affinity for
Clayman, relying on and trusting in him—and with his adviser Mjurran dead,
Clayman decided to send out a force to secure evidence linking me to Carillon.
In addition, he wished to use this Council to discuss how to handle me, after I
tried to kill him and declare my rights as demon lord.
The tale he wove couldn’t have possibly
painted him in a better light. I was impressed.
But, man, he just kept
on talking forever. I wanted to counter his excuses with a little logic of my
own. My intention was to show my innocence, prove that my actions were
justifiable, and then crush Clayman, after all. That was why I was sitting here
politely and hearing him out, but my patience was reaching its limits.
Could we maybe get started soon?
Listening to his tale, I had noticed a pretty
decisive hole in his logic—his evidence. His entire dossier of evidence was
made up of testimony, all from a single witness—Mjurran, the ring finger, who
had sworn absolute loyalty to Clayman. It made me laugh. Not only was she
alive, but the Mjurran-related evidence he presented was as flimsy as a plastic
bag. I suppose he ran out of time to fabricate anything more substantial than
that.
All in all, it seemed like I could build a
pretty credible case for myself. I already had all the evidence I needed.
“…That concludes my case,” Clayman bellowed,
looking all self-important. “Hopefully, everybody in the room now fully
understands that Rimuru, that trifling magic-born over there, is nothing more
than a charlatan posing as a demon lord. I believe that a purge is in order
here…”
The other demon lords must have been pretty
darn patient if they were willing to put up with all this prattling. Some of
them had already nodded off, it seemed. I guess it was okay, as long as you
didn’t bother anyone. The only rule, I surmised, was that you had to shut up
and listen to the guy who convened the Council to start with.
Now we were all free to state our own
opinions—and I was ready for it. Raine, who must’ve been taking the emcee post,
turned her eyes to me.
“We will now listen to testimony from our
visitor.”
Ugh, finally. I had been patient long enough.
No more of this clowning around.
“So, um, Clayman, right? You’re a liar.”
“What?”
“I mean, honestly speaking, I don’t give a
crap about demon lords. That story about Carillon luring me into this is a load
of BS, and Farmus attacked us out of their own greed. Those two things aren’t
related to each other at all.”
Clayman gave me an irritated sneer. “Ha! Who
would ever believe trite excuses like that? One of my most senior advisers has
been killed!”
Here we go. Just what I’ve been waiting for.
“Yeah, Mjurran, right? Well, I didn’t kill
her. In fact, she’s alive.”
“Pah! Of all the ludicrous—”
“Whoa, whoa, hear me out. Pretty much all of
that speech was based off verbal testimony and your own conjecturing. And maybe
that’d be enough to deal with some rank and filer, but it won’t work on me.
Mjurran, your supposed tipster, is under my protection. That’s why I’m not
letting you mess with me, and that’s why your testimony has absolutely no
credibility whatsoever.”
Going into that much detail made even Clayman
go a bit pale. But he had no intention of ceding his point.
“Heh-heh. You’re willing to stoop to such
lows, then? Did you meddle with her corpse and install some evil spirit
inside?”
It was a spur-of-the-moment accusation but not
an insane one. In a world as rich with magic as this one, you could even make
the dead seem alive if you wanted. Talk about freaky—and another reason why you
couldn’t trust oral testimony like that.
“Well,” I said, “I wasn’t planning to believe
anything you said anyway. That’s why I figured I’d come over there and beat you
up myself, but I wound up changing my mind. Before this Council began, my
forces gathered some evidence of their own.”
I flashed a smile as I attempted to show him
up. This enraged him, I could tell. He was easier to toy with than I thought.
“What are you trying to say? If you want to
die that badly, just come out and say it—”
“Calm down a sec,” I said, cutting him off. “I
told you, I have evidence.”
I then produced several crystal balls from my
pocket, teleporting them to the center of the round table and magically
triggering them one after the other. Each one contained its own video image,
including one featuring me fighting the orc general and another shot from
Gelmud’s point of view. Shuna had found them all in the ancient castle Clayman
called home.
One of them, meanwhile, contained footage from
the battle fought just today. It was taken by Benimaru, from his vantage point
overseeing the entire landscape, and it contained some really juicy stuff.
“S-stop! Stop that! Please, Sir Clayman, stop
this at once!”
Right there, in the ball, Clayman’s field
general was screaming and being transformed into an incomplete Charybdis. And
that wasn’t all.
“…This is quite a surprise. I was expecting Yamza
to turn tail and flee. But imagine…”
“Clayman’s forces are destroyed. The mission’s a
failure—the losses immense…”
“…Well, Laplace warned him. Clayman can’t blame
anyone for it but himself. We’ll need to brief him about this…”
That conversation between the two weird
jesters Geld and Phobio had witnessed was all on video. Probably Footman and
Teare from the Moderate Jesters, I assumed. With Laplace’s name popping up, it
had to be them. That and “him”—I thought Clayman was behind all this, but it
seemed like there was someone else. Maybe…
Understood. It is
estimated that all of this is connected.
…I thought so. Whoever
it was that tried to make me fight Hinata was also controlling Clayman. That
explains the timing—while I was busy fighting the Western Holy Church, this
figure had Clayman spur Farmus into combat, and then that whole tragedy
unfolded.
Maybe I could understand all this, even if I
didn’t appreciate it much. But you went too far, Clayman. So I’m taking you
down. Don’t resent me for it. In this world, it’s survival of the fittest.
I proudly beamed at him. “This
is what real evidence looks like, Clayman.”
Having this stuff with me definitely made
things proceed more quickly, but even if I didn’t have it, it would’ve turned
out the same way. I was gonna crush him with my own force anyway, so all I
really needed was something to shoot down his lame excuses with. It wasn’t a
matter of good or evil—it was all about keeping up appearances. Besides, I had real evidence here, and I saw no reason for anyone to
complain about that.
“You, you couldn’t!
All of this was fabricated! Fake images, built with magic, to prop up your lies!
How could you be so base, you slime?!”
“Lies? They aren’t lies, you dummy. Your
army’s all done. And you’re joining them next.”
Clayman turned toward me, face scrunched up in
anger.
“Ev… Everyone, you can’t listen to this
trickster! This slime, Rimuru, is a notorious bluffer. He undoes the seal on
Veldora to destroy the Farmus force, and then he parades around pretending he
did the act himself. He’s just a little slime, all bark and no bite! And it is
simply outrageous that he dares to deceive us all in the proud demon lord
family!”
It was an impassioned speech. As if he wasn’t the one relying on others to save his ass. As if he wasn’t the little one. If he was acting right now, like I
said, he was a pretty good actor.
“Look, Clayman…”
This was Daggrull, his voice just as grounded
and dignified as his appearance. Wasn’t expecting him
to speak up.
“Didn’t you say just now that Rimuru goaded
the kingdom of Farmus into attacking? If the news of Veldora’s resurrection is
true, why would he execute it in such a roundabout fashion?”
“…All right. Allow me to explain.”
Clayman looked lost for a moment but then
opened his mouth again, ready to commit to this tale—the story of the attempt
to collect people’s souls to awaken into a true demon lord. I suppose he wanted
to keep that under his hat so that the other demon lords wouldn’t get the jump
on him, but Daggrull had forced him to fess up.
“…This low-class, unwitting slime must have
had the incredible good fortune to acquire the traits of a demon lord. But he
must have let it go to his head, for he then traveled to the human realms to
investigate the truth behind what he obtained. That drove him to set off a war
with the humans on a whim, using the banished Veldora to stage a brutal
genocide.”
He was doing his best to convince the table,
complete with overblown, theatrical hand motions.
“Leaving someone like this free to maraud
again would damage our very reputations as demon lords. I believe he must be
purged, but what is your opinion?”
“So cough up some evidence,” I retorted. “Not
that you have any, do you? Everything you said was just a bunch of ‘wouldn’t it
be nice if…’ junk, and you still think they’re all gonna swallow it?”
Clayman gave me another unamused glare. It
didn’t bother me. I was already sick of putting up with his pathetic
accusations.
“Ngh… Why does some slime claiming the might
of a dragon for himself think he has the right to defy us?! There is no way you
could ever become a demon lord!”
“Whether I’m a slime or not doesn’t matter,
and besides, Veldora’s my friend. I’m not here to listen to you go on with your
bullshit, all right? Can we get to the point, please? Just admit it. Phobio,
the magic-born in that video, just showed us how Charybdis was resurrected at
your demand, right? As those jesters guided him to. And now one of your own men
transformed into Charybdis and went insane. That’s what I’m talking about when
I say solid evidence. If you think I’m bluffing, go right ahead, ’cause you’ll
be thinking that all the way to the grave.”
I shot to my feet, kicking up the adjacent
seat as I did, and tried to look as threatening as possible. Casually, I placed
my hand on part of the round table in front of me—and in an instant, the large
table disappeared. Nothing to be surprised about. I just stored it in my
Belzebuth. Now we had a decent-size space to work with.
The chair I kicked up sailed in the direction
of Clayman, smashing against the wall behind him with a loud crash. This didn’t
faze the demon lords, either. Only Clayman was unnerved by it.
“All of you are willing to put up with this
reckless violence?! He is making light of us all. Should we not be exacting our
judgment upon him at once?!”
What, all of them? I always knew he was a
wimp. I walked to the middle of where the table used to be.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right. Like I said, I
don’t care about you demon lords at all. All I want is to build a nation that I
can enjoy living in. I need the humans’ cooperation for that, so I decided to
offer my protection to them. Anyone who gets in the way of that, whether a
person or a demon lord or the Holy Church, is my enemy. Just like you are, Clayman.”
I explained my ideals to the group with far
more passion than Clayman could ever manage.
“What?!”
“And if you call that
reckless violence,” I said as I sized him up, “what would you call taking over
someone’s mind while we’re all chatting at Walpurgis?”
Did he think I wouldn’t notice? In the midst
of that whole speech, that little sneak was launching mind-control attacks at
me. If I had to guess, he was trying to dominate my consciousness. Too bad it
didn’t work; Raphael was guarding me the whole time, so I had it fully taken
care of.
At least I had a justifiable cause on the
table, so to speak. That was now in the ears of all the demon lords, and
Clayman had already started trying to strike me. If any of them wanted to
oppose me, it was now or never.
Time to switch over to real
action.
I had asked the
question to Clayman, but it was answered by someone else—Guy, the red-haired
demon lord seated on the far side of the chamber.
“Indeed,” he said with a charmingly attractive
smile. “In order to keep things fair, we are only allowed to appeal to others
through our own voices.”
“But, Guy, he is insulting us all—”
“Shut up,” I interrupted. “If you don’t like
it, then it’s between you and me, isn’t it?”
“He is correct, Clayman. If you call yourself
a demon lord, then use your powers to defeat that magic-born. And you—” Guy
looked straight at me. “Do you intend to declare yourself a demon lord?”
“Yep. I’m already leader of the Great Forest
of Jura, and as far as anyone on the ground’s concerned, I am
one.”
No matter the path we had to take to get
there, I imagined they would all accept that I’d teamed with the Storm Dragon
to rule the forest. There was no point denying that Tempestians were already
calling me demon lord.
“Very well. And we have an array of witnesses
here as well. If you can win against Clayman before us, I will allow you to
adopt the title.”
So beating Clayman ties up all these little
strings, huh? This was exactly the development I hoped
for.
Clayman began to laugh,
just as suddenly as he regained his composure a moment ago.
“Heh-heh-heh… How exasperating. I simply
attempted a little trick because I didn’t want to dirty my own hands, and now
look at the storm I’ve unleashed. What a mistake.”
He was smiling the whole time. Did he have a
screw loose? His thin, almost inhuman smile was still clinging to life as he
looked at me. And then, quietly:
“You’re up, Milim.”
Tension raced across the chamber. Even the
demon lords were nervous, although some were maintaining perfect calm as
always.
My eyes turned to Milim. There was the source
of Clayman’s confidence—the belief that he had her under his control. Control
that he exercised right at that moment.
So she was…?
“Wow. What a bigmouth. After everything you
said, you’re relying on someone else? And bringing in Milim after you punched
her out to make her do your bidding?”
I tried provoking him a little, but not even
Clayman was stupid enough to bite.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I will be fighting, too,
of course. Is there any issue with that, Guy?”
“Not at all, Clayman. If Milim is aiding you
on her own free will, I will not stop her.”
This…wasn’t good. Clayman I had a handle on,
but Milim was deadly. With Guy so readily granting
permission, there was no way I could dodge having to fight her. Even with what
I could do by now, I didn’t like my prospects against her—and besides, I wanted
to help her out. No, I will help her
out!
Just then, the unmoving, doll-like Milim made
two fists and struck an overwrought, triumphant pose…or so it looked like to
me. Maybe not. It was just for an instant; I dunno.
Man.
Poor lady. Don’t worry, Milim, I swore in my heart. I’ll get you out of there.
“Well, all right. I was planning to rescue
Milim anyway, so I think I’ll just undo that brainwashing trick you pulled on
her—by force, if I need to.”
“Enough of your prattle! You will die in
despair.”
“The only one dyin’ here is you, Clayman. I
think one of my officers would make a better match against the likes of you.
Fighting you myself would just make me a bully.”
Clayman’s face stiffened. A thick, black aura
began to float out of him, perhaps generated by his anger. You can’t be a demon
lord unless you know how to intimidate your foe, I guess. Not that it was that impressive—but between his rage and panic, that should
open up some weak points to exploit. Shion would be fighting him in my place,
and I was sure she’d be able to take advantage of that.
I motioned with my eyes to Shion. She immediately
sprang into action. In a moment, she was upon Clayman, launching an attack.
Concentrating her aura around her fist, she used that single instant to land a
good thirty or so blows on him. Then she turned back at me with a look of
relief and asked, “Is this all right?”
…Um, aren’t you supposed to ask before you start
clobbering? All I did was give you a sidelong glance. That was supposed to be a
“You get it, right? Clayman’s all pissed off, so get ’im while he’s off guard”
kind of glance. I wasn’t expecting you to beat the crap out of him before I
blinked again. Does the expression off guard mean anything to you?
Well…so be it. What’s done is done. The force
of the strikes propelled Clayman right in front of me, in the middle of the
circle. “You, you, you bastard!” he shouted as he
stood up. He was tougher than I thought.
That black aura around him thickened,
instantly healing his injuries. It was far faster than what the orc lord could
do, but that was pretty much normal for a demon lord. Either way, it made
Clayman accept Shion as an enemy, so we were still more or less sticking to the
script.
“If that’s what you want,” he said, “then I’ll
kill both of you.” Then the fox that had jumped down to his feet swelled up in
size.
Report. This is
believed to be the Nine-Head mentioned by Mjurran.
Oh yeah, she did say that, huh? So it was another servant of his, not
some pet. Then another figure emerged from Clayman’s shadow, wrapped in a black
robe. He had two servants, and I had Shion in battle mode. Ranga was similarly
enlarged now, ready to pounce.
Wait. Hang on. We’re outnumbered if Milim is
joining in… Nah. No need to panic yet. That’s what Beretta is for— Huuhh?!
The moment we all stepped into the circle
where the table used to be, it was shut away from the audience by a barrier.
The area within it exploded in size, the surrounding chairs seemingly far away
and distant. They must have installed some kind of enclosing barrier to protect
the other demon lords.
I kind of expected this, given that they
created that whole fancy event space and everything…but Beretta, one of my
supports, didn’t make it in.
Oh, crap, I didn’t see that
pitfall coming— But just as I thought it, Clayman
started screaming.
“Milim, kill him!!”
And she was ready to do just that.
There was no doubting the fist coming my way.
The force behind it was deadly. But after expanding my senses a million times
over with Mind Accelerate, there was a chance I could avoid it. It wasn’t
impossible, but I didn’t have much leeway to mess up.
A white-hot ball of energy scraped past my
cheek. The speed amazed me. Even with Raphael running at full speed, I still
couldn’t fully avoid it. If I even thought about a counter, it’d leave me open
enough for a lethal strike.
The only thing I could do, then, was try my hardest
to keep up with Milim while I concentrated on breaking her mind control. Even
so, my Detect Magic was telling me about events in the circle. It was almost
scary, the way I could juggle all of that. Too bad I couldn’t bask in it right
now.
Shion was fighting Clayman, but it was two on
one with that black-robed figure in the mix, so I couldn’t say she had the
advantage. Ranga, meanwhile, was pitted against Nine-Head, and I thought he was
winning, but then those three tails on the fox spirit transformed into two
magical beasts. All of a sudden, it was three on one.
I, meanwhile, had Milim to deal with. There
really was nothing I could do. Nothing, besides pray that everyone stayed alive
until I could finish running Analyze and Assess on her.
So, uh, you guys take care of yourselves! Got it?
Beretta quickly set to
action, asking Ramiris if it could join the battle. Ramiris, for her part,
wasn’t about to turn her toy down.
“Whoa, Guy! I’m with Rimuru, all right? So I
want my Beretta to be part of that, too.”
“No,” he coldly replied, paying her as little
attention as possible.
“Why not?!”
“Mm? Mere attendants aren’t allowed to join a
battle between demon lords. This is a dispute between that slime and Clayman,
is it not? You have no reason to join in.”
“What’re you talking
about?! Milim’s in there, ain’t she?”
“Oh, she’s fine.”
“So what’s with that? Why’s she fine, and I’m
not?!”
Guy rolled his eyes, tiring of this. Ramiris
was always something of a loudmouth. Once she got started, it was hard to make
her stop.
She had never brought attendants to a Council
before, so Guy realized she must’ve had some reason to do it this time.
Considering Milim’s involvement, letting Ramiris join in would just add to the
chaos. He had isolated the battle zone in part to prevent this.
“Because Milim likely has her own motivations
for this. Now will you shut up?”
“Oh, so you think there’s not a thought in my mind about it at all?”
“Is there? Besides…” Guy gave Beretta a look.
“Who has your attendant sworn its loyalties to? Your other companion seems
ready to devote her all to protecting you, but I’m not so sure about this
Beretta. It’s faithful to you, but not completely so. You want me to trust
someone so suspicious?”
He had spotted the truth. Beretta’s loyalties
weren’t only to Ramiris. And as one of Ramiris’s closest friends, he wasn’t
willing to allow an attendant who was weighing its master on the scales against
someone else.
“My master is on the balance, yes,” Beretta
freely admitted.
There was Rimuru, its master. Rimuru, its
creator, but also Ramiris, its current leader. She was a ridiculously
optimistic, rash, curious, even cowardly demon lord, but Beretta had grown to
love her. It didn’t even mind all that abusive manipulation. Rimuru had wished
for Ramiris to be protected and for Beretta to serve her as well. There was no
contradiction at all in its mind.
There was just one thing: Beretta wanted to
repay the favor to Rimuru. It was once a demon, and Rimuru had granted it both
a new life and a new mission. It felt a need to make up for that.
“And if Lady Ramiris wishes to save that
figure as much as I do…” It spoke to Guy without any fear.
“Hoh? Audacious enough to address me, are you?
Interesting. May I trust this golem at its word, Ramiris?”
The fairy gave him a look that indicated no
answer was needed, but she gave one anyway. “Oooh yeah, yeah, of course! So you
go help out Rimuru in my place, all right, Beretta?!”
“Hmm. So it will take action if you wish it
to, then? You’ve obtained quite a good attendant for yourself, Ramiris.”
“Nah, nah, not obtained. We’re friends! Me,
and Beretta, and Treyni, and Rimuru, too!” She smiled contentedly. “Like,
everyone, a whole, whole lot!”
Guy wasn’t quite sure what Ramiris was trying
to say, but if she was fine with that, so was he.
“Well, all right…” He reluctantly extended a
hand to open a hole in the barrier.
“…I thank you, Rouge,” Beretta said.
“Sure. Don’t call me that. I’ll allow you to
call me Guy. But I refuse to allow you to recognize
another master apart from Ramiris from now on. Is that all right?”
Granting this honor meant Guy saw Beretta as
strong enough to live up to his own standards. Now, he was asking it to pick a
master. If it attempted to weasel out of the question, he intended to smash it
up on the spot. But it immediately agreed.
“In that case, Guy, I will swear my loyalty to
Lady Ramiris exclusively from now on. So please allow me to be of service to
Sir Rimuru at least once.”
Guy was a tad surprised. Demons, as a rule,
wanted to be recognized by their masters for their strength. Beretta,
meanwhile, didn’t seem to see strength as too important. Its standards had gone
all haywire. It was a nonconformist.
“You are fine with that?”
“Yes. Sir Rimuru has servants stronger than
myself.”
That made sense to Guy. But it also confused
him, someone this powerful admitting to not being the strongest out there.
“I also enjoy conducting research,” Beretta
continued. “The research I do with Lady Ramiris on a daily basis is truly like
a dream… Oh, pardon me. My serving Lady Ramiris is part of Sir Rimuru’s
request. There is no need to worry about that.”
The words reminded Guy of a demon he knew, the
very definition of strange, one who pursued only what personally interested
him. If they were part of the same lineage, perhaps demons with dispositions
like Beretta’s shouldn’t be so unexpected—but the demon in Guy’s mind rarely
birthed other family members. Only an elite few were aware of him at all.
“Let me ask—what is your lineage like?”
Beretta winced underneath its mask and
laughed.
“…I was one of the least of the greater
demons. However, I think you will find very few demons in the same family tree
as I.”
A small lineage. That has to be it, then.
Beretta’s hair was gray, the color gone from it, but once upon a time…
“I see. No wonder you didn’t fear me. That
family always was self-centered, curious. So someone like you admits there are
stronger creatures than yourself?”
Guy shot a passing glance at Shion and Ranga
fighting away, then turned back toward Beretta. Yes, Shion and Ranga were powerful—but
he didn’t think Beretta was at all behind them.
“I thank you for the honor, but I still have
far to go. As long as the two of them serve Sir Rimuru, if I miss this
opportunity, I may never have another one.”
“Yes, true. I understand how you feel. You may
go.”
The barrier already had a hole large enough to
wriggle through.
“Excuse me, then.”
With an elegant salute, Beretta plunged in.
Guy cracked a smile as he watched it go. He had an idea who this would be.
…So that’s it. You’re on the move as well, Noir?!
This was an old friend, one who went away from
him ages ago. If this was the type of people he was
serving now, the slime fighting Milim in front of him must be quite the
fascinating figure. A nonconformist serving a nonconformist.
He basked in joy as he watched the battle,
even as he thought he could see its conclusion already.
Rimuru was his name? I will have to remember it.
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