Chapter 77

Clean Up When the War’s All Over In the small village of Brassica, which was nestled in the mining country of Tigris, the residents continued to laze around, refusing even after sunrise to roll out of bed. It was already winter, which meant this northern region was buried in a thick blanket of snow. The potatoes planted in autumn had already been harvested, and the livestock had been slaughtered and turned into sausages and dried meats. They were ready for the coming of winter, which meant they had no reason to get up early to finish their tasks. In fact, parents would bark at their children to sleep inside instead of playing in the snow, since it meant stretching their food and kindling. The silence of daybreak in Brassica was ruptured by a beastly howl. “Grroaaaaaar!” The walls of their houses started to shake violently, dropping snow from the eaves. The village chief jumped out of sleep, lurching himself from bed. He flung open the wooden shutters to observe his surroundings. What he saw chilled him to the core; his heart almost stopped beating in his chest. In a field, a gray bear was charging toward the village, crunching snow underfoot. A normal bear would have been a welcome visitor—the men would have rushed to prepare for the hunt, eager for the opportunity to bolster their winter stores. Unlike the dense forest, the field would have offered the men enough confidence to surround it and work together to take it down. However, this creature had razor-sharp fur that stood on end like spears and long claws that curved like scythes. It was many times bigger than the average bear. “I-is that…a monster?!” The village chief’s wrinkled face dropped in fear. Across the Matteral Mountains was the restricted zone—an area packed with mutated monsters. This one had found its way to civilization in search of food. This was the third monster attack that the village chief had experienced in his sixty years. The first was in the summer in his childhood. The second, autumn marking the birth of his son, when he had turned twenty-five. He remembered trembling in fear, tucked away in the small root cellar of his home, as the creature devastated the unharvested fields. He remembered the second attack like it had happened yesterday, even though it had been more than thirty years. “This is bad…” The blood drained from his face, making it whiter than the snow. Ravaging the fields had satisfied the monsters in the past two incidents; the villagers had been spared. Sure, they had almost starved to death, but they had persisted. However, it was wintertime now. The fields were barren. The gray bear would surely devour the potatoes packed away in the cellars and wolf through the piglets kept in the hutches, before hunting down the villagers hiding in their basements and slaughtering them until not a single human was left. “W-we’re dead… That thing is gonna kill us!” shrieked the chief, knees giving out from under him. “Keep it together, Pops!” His adult son sprinted out of his bedroom. He’d been a wee baby when the last monster attacked, which left him with no memory of the event. He wasn’t overrun by fear. He reprimanded his father with composure. “Remember what the Goddess gave us for times like these?” “Oh! That’s right!” The chief scrambled over to the dresser, and rummaged through the top drawer until he produced a pretty wooden box. Inside was a fist-sized crystal—perfectly translucent. A magic conductor. They’d received it from the Goddess about a month ago. No one would have predicted they’d need it this soon. “Um… How do we use this…?” “If my memory serves me, I think it activates a Telepathy spell as soon as we charge it with magic. I think all we need to do is get people to touch it and call for help,” the son recited; his father seemed to barely remember. “Let’s go!” The chief herded up his son, his daughter-in-law, and their children, ordering them to touch the magic conductor together. At that moment, the magic was juiced out of their bodies, making them shiver and feel weak in the knees. The magic conductor activated the Telepathy spell it was imprinted with. “Please help us!” “There’s a monster in our village. Please, save us!” The family desperately shrieked into the crystal, as they could hear the bear’s feet crunching in the snow, slowly closing in on them. It turned toward the hut with their livestock, raised scythe-like claws, and— “A bear, huh?” noted a deep voice. The ground started to rumble. “Groooaaa—?!” roared the bear. The chief jerked his hand from the magic conductor out of surprise and dragged his fatigued body back to the window. When he peeked out in fear, he witnessed a blue-skinned giant standing against a field of stark white snow. It was the new Goddess’s father, the Demon King, who had defeated Elazonia. “Blue Demon King!” The chief’s family cried out in joy that someone had come to save them. Paying them no mind, the Blue Demon King Ludabite waited patiently for the gray bear he’d punched to get back up. “Grrrrrr!” “Hmm? Do you want to throw down? Love that you have fight in you.” Instead of turning tail and running, the gray bear stood its ground, letting out a low growl, earning praise from the Demon King. The Blue Demon King charged his fist with more power. “The least I can do is give you a painless death.” “Grooooaaar—!” growled the gray bear incomprehensibly before launching its body at the Demon King. However, his blue skin blocked claws sharp enough to cut through tree trunks. His diamond-crushing fist smashed into the bear’s sharp fur, cracking its skull into pieces. “—?!” The headless beast didn’t seem to realize it was dead, flailing its limbs for the last few times in its life before collapsing in the snow, never to move again. “That’s the Blue Demon King…” The family had stiffened like they were made of ice, intimidated by his power. Suddenly, the space above his head warped out of shape, producing a young girl with black hair—Rino. “Waaaah?!” Gravity started to yank her down. “Whoa there. Are you all right?” Her father gently caught her in his muscular arms. “Tee-hee. My Teleport spells never go as well as yours, Daddy.” She stepped softly onto the snow, grinning sheepishly. The Demon King looked at her, concerned. “I can handle everything on my own, so you should get some rest.” “But you might have your hands full sometimes, Daddy. I want to help out. And…” Rino paused, looking up at her father with an indomitable expression. “I’m tired of being protected by you and Shinichi.” Her feebleness had cost her the life of a friend. She couldn’t rescue the one person who needed saving. To prevent a repeat of that tragedy, she needed to be stronger in body and mind. Tears streamed from her father’s eyes as he witnessed such doggedness from his beloved daughter. “Watching you grow up like this makes me the happiest man alive!” “Oh, Daddy. You’re so dramatic.” As he pulled her into a bear hug, weeping tears of joy, he shed the intimidating aura of one who had killed a monster in one blow. On witnessing this, the chief’s family let out a huge sigh of relief and pushed open the door to greet them. “Blue Demon King, Goddess Rino, allow me to express our gratitude for your assistance,” said the village chief on behalf of everyone. The villagers knelt behind him. Rino smiled awkwardly. “Just lending a helping hand. Um, and I’m not a goddess or anything so magnificent. Please be less formal with me.” “How humble…” “Any wounds or casualties? Oh, I’m not trying to charge you money. Nothing is more valuable to me than a smile.” Rino wasn’t being facetious. Nothing gave her more joy than helping others with no strings attached. Well, the Dirty Advisor who encouraged her to take on this position had nothing but ulterior motives in mind. As the Dirty Advisor once said: “There’s nothing more expensive than something free. If you pay someone for saving your life, you see their deeds as just another job. But if there’s no way to repay your savior, you’re indebted to them for life. Well, excluding thankless scum.” No one—not Rino nor the villagers—had heard him say that under his breath. Plus, as ordinary upstanding citizens, the people of Brassica had a propensity to feel indebted toward acts of kindness. “The Saint was right… Love is free…” “Hmm?” “Lady Rino is the one true Goddess!” “““Long live the Goddess! Love is everything!””” “Whaaaa—?!” The villagers started to chant the holy words spread by one perverse Saint. Rino clung to her father’s arm, alarmed, and appealed to him. “Daddy, tell them I’m not a goddess!” However, the Demon King was smiling smugly, happy to see them worshipping his beloved daughter. “Humans, I urge you to spread word of my daughter to all corners of the world. In exchange, I promise to protect your lives!” “…Daddy?!” “““Raaah! Goddess Rino is the best! Cuteness is justice!””” No one heard Rino’s desperate pleas for them to stop as their chanting reverberated across the stark white fields of snow. The demons had managed to rebuild the castle in Dog Valley, which Elazonia had obliterated two months prior and now stood under a dusting of snow. The dining hall welcomed the return of the Demon King and Rino, who had finished hunting the monster in Brassica Village. “Bwa-ha-ha. That was easy!” “We’re home…” When Shinichi Sotoyama saw the Demon King grinning from ear to ear at his fatigued daughter, the Dirty Advisor picked up that something must have happened on their trip.