Extra: Upon the Dragon’s Demise
Some time had passed since the dragon had awakened. The Demon Lord and I spoke of minor matters to kill the time. Then I noticed a change in him. He had sensed something, somewhere. His expression was one of consternation and confusion. I was surprised to see that he was even capable of such emotions. But as his personal servant, I inquired into the source of his bewilderment.
“Is something the matter?” I asked.
“The dragon is dead.”
“Excuse me?”
“‘Dead’ is not quite right,” he said. “That which is dead cannot die again. To say as much shows a lack of intelligence. It would be more accurate to say that the dragon has returned to what it always was.”
“What it always was, my Lord?”
“Like all monsters, it has dissolved into magical essence.”
It seemed that the terrifying dragon was no more. The Demon Lord had said that in time the dragon would rot away, so I could not understand why he was so surprised. He sank back into his throne, put a hand to his mouth, and chuckled when I asked him about it.
“The dragon did not simply dissolve,” he explained. “It was powered by enough magic to rampage for at least a month, yet it did not last even a day. There is only one explanation: someone felled the dragon.”
“Are you talking of the heroes? I have heard that they wield tremendous power.”
The two heroes of Llinger Kingdom had dealt a serious blow to the Demon Lord’s army. Judging by the rumors, they were capable of defeating the weakened dragon. But in response to my question, the Demon Lord shook his head.
“The heroes are relatively close to the dragon’s location, but it was not them, no. The heroes emit a very particular magical energy, you see.”
I could not help but feel a certain disbelief. Since he had awakened, the Demon Lord had never once left the castle. How could he possibly have sensed the magical energy of the two heroes?
The Demon King seemed to read my thoughts, and with the hint of a grin, he answered my silent question.
“It is not a difficult thing,” he said. “It can be a little exhausting, but when I concentrate, I can sense magical energy across long distances.”
“Such power,” I remarked. “You are able to discern the very whereabouts of the heroes.”
“No. While I can sense magical energy, it is not unlike trying to find a very particular star in a star-filled sky. Whatever special traits they may have, such stars are nonetheless difficult to locate. What I am doing merely amounts to searching for them by force. This is only because I picked up the unique feel of their magical energies when we launched our attack on Llinger.”
From my point of view, however, it was astounding to me that the Demon Lord had such magic abilities, difficult or otherwise.
“There are exceptions, however,” continued the Demon Lord, “such as dragons—a magical energy as unique as they are frighteningly powerful.”
That explained why the Demon Lord understood how many dragons there were in existence. It made sense to me; the blood of humans had been mixed over many generations, while dragons had survived, as they were, over vast lengths of time. They had an undeniable presence, and their magic energy was pure.
“In any case, the dragon was defeated and by a human, I’d say.”
“By a human?”
The Demon Lord had thought quite highly of the dragon. Just what kind of a monster was this human who defeated it?
“I saw five magical presences in the company of the dragon,” he said. “There was a hybrid necromancer-vampire, a blue grizzly, a beastkin with precognitive vision, a human who wields fire magic, and a healer.”
“You couldn’t put together a more unorthodox group if you tried,” I exclaimed.
The only ordinary one among them was the fire caster.
A hybrid monster, a beastkin that can see the future, and a healer.
It gave me a headache just trying to think about what brought them all to the dragon.
“Did a traveling circus defeat the dragon?” I asked. “Like, did it maybe . . . die of laughter?”
“Your jokes amuse me, Ciel,” said the Demon Lord. “I feel my stomach about to burst. I eagerly await your next humorous barb.”
The compliment, if you could call it that, didn’t make me very happy. The Demon Lord’s expression didn’t change a bit. Not even a twitch. I felt my face flush with embarrassment.
“Exactly how the dragon was felled is a trivial matter,” he continued. “What is of interest is that the group that defeated it was of mixed races.”
“And why is that interesting?”
“Before I was sealed away, humans were foolish creatures who saw themselves as the ultimate race. I had thought they were as stupid now as they were then, but perhaps this is not true of all of them and some oddities exist among their race.”
The Demon Lord then stood up from his throne and looked up. There was nothing but a black ceiling above us, and yet the Demon Lord perhaps saw something different.
“The awakening of the dragon was just the beginning,” he said.
I watched him and I saw his fighting spirit carved into his features. It was almost naively childlike in its purity. But his bold smile was enough to send cold shivers down anybody’s spine.
“The roar of that dragon will echo and bring about much change,” said the Demon Lord. “Forbidden curses, the divine dragon and its descendants, and us demons too. Things are going to get very interesting, Ciel. It’s war. The ceaseless wars of the long past are coming to this world.”
I could say nothing in reply. I had no words. The Demon Lord’s voice echoed through the room as he smiled.