“The memories of that other entity have merged with mine. But they were so alien to me that it was hard for me to understand very much of it.” Mia spoke slowly, as if deliberately choosing each word. As she looked up at me, her gaze looked normal, but her tone lacked its usual confidence.
“What I did understand is that they came from a different world, not here. And a part of them was separated and came to be known as the Demon Lord.”
“The Demon Lord… Wait, what do you mean by them?”
“Beings, intelligent life forms, but their existence is very different from ours… Alien’s the only way to describe it.”
“Is it something like… a SAN value decreasing?”
“Kazu…” Mia gave a wry smile. “This isn’t a game.”
“That line definitely gets the ‘you shouldn’t be the one to say that’ award of the year!”
Mia chuckled, which made my heart skip a beat.
Wait… what’s this feeling? Mia’s being somehow… straightforwardly cute?
That’s absurd.
“They’re not evil,” Mia continued. “They don’t have malice. They’re living beings, just like us. Encountering them might cause friction, but for them, it’s not as fatal as it is for us. So, the Demon Lord continues on. They don’t fully understand their essence. They’re just going off instinct.”
“Mia…”
“They had a safeguard—or rather, they used to. Originally, they had a transformative function, a feature meant to facilitate mutual understanding. However, the Demon Lord was separated from that, or more accurately, left it behind. The Demon Lord’s original intention can’t change anymore, so they waited. They couldn’t do anything else. After a long, long time, we showed up. They wanted information. I accepted them, and that’s why… I’m like this now.”
Mia smiled, a bashful, simple smile.
Wait… what’s happening here?
“The part of them inside me says the Demon Lord isn’t in this world anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
“Gone. No, more like moved on. As proof, a sixth wedge, which shouldn’t exist, was driven into this continent.”
I gasped. The sixth wedge… I remembered it from what one of the Four Heavenly Kings, the Black-winged Mad Wolf, Algrafth, had mentioned yesterday.
“Moved on? To where?”
“Somewhere else. Not this world.”
According to Algrafth, the sixth wedge was in our school’s mountain.
“When?”
“Five days ago.”
“So, the Demon Lord left this world, and that’s why our school appeared here?”
“Based on the circumstantial evidence, yeah. And that means Azagralith’s reason for coming here is also…”
“Possibly…”
I swallowed hard. A thought crossed my mind.
“So, Algrafth, the contract holder of the Demon Lord, came to our school mountain chasing the Demon Lord? And because we were in the place where the Demon Lord was supposed to be, it tried to eliminate us?”
“That’s the logical conclusion. The Four Heavenly Kings were beings in an exclusive contract with the Demon Lord. If they knew the Demon Lord left on its own, it makes sense they’d follow, and that explains our situation.”
“So, the world the Demon Lord went to…”
A cold sweat broke out on my skin. I had reached a conclusion, but I didn’t like it one bit. If our school mountain had appeared in this world as a sort of exchange…
“Okay, it’s reasonable to think the Demon Lord went to our world if there was a swap, but there’s no definitive proof.”
“Can our world… handle the Demon Lord? Is it something we can deal with?”
Mia shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“I see. Yeah, that makes sense. Either way, we can make a few educated guesses. Like, the Flying Jellyfish we fought, it really was immune to physical attacks. It was like a guardian of theirs. The Demon Lord might have similar characteristics.”
Immunity to physical attacks.
Weakness to magic.
If a being like that went to our world, a world with no magic…
“Ah, but wait,” I remembered. “If what Keiko-san said is true, our world might actually have magic after all.”
Mia nodded slowly. “That’s why we can’t be sure. There’s nothing we can be certain about. Whether I’ve fully understood what they wanted to convey…”
“So, we can imagine the worst-case scenario, but it might not necessarily be the truth.” Every possible anxiety-inducing possibility was, in fact, flooding my mind just then.
“So, Kazu…” Mia reached out to me, and before I knew it, I was pushed back onto the futon.
“What—” Mia, what are you doing? I asked her silently, blinking in surprise.
Mia floated into the air. It was like she was using wind magic, but I hadn’t seen her cast any spells.
Mia sat on top of me, light and graceful, as I lay on my back. For some reason, I couldn’t seem to move my limbs. She gently kissed my lips.
“Let’s do it.”
“Wait, Mia, this is… out of nowhere…”
“Just… trust me.”
Mia looked straight at me, and her expression was nothing like what her face normally held. As I looked into her obsidian eyes, I found myself overwhelmed by a sudden dizziness. What’s happened to her? Is this person straddling me actually Mia?
Suddenly, I could move again. I grasped Mia’s hand.
“You haven’t been… taken over by something, are you?”
“Not at all.”
“Are you… okay with this?”
Mia nodded. “This is what I want.”
Our lips met again, this time more intensely. As her tongue intertwined with mine, a sweet, tingling sensation coursed through my body, sending shivers down my spine. And yet, my heart was in turmoil.
“Kazu…” Mia smiled, a hint of sadness in her expression. “Don’t cry.”
“I’m not… the type to cry.”
Her fingers gently stroked my cheek. Only then did I realize my cheeks were wet.
Why am I crying? I don’t understand. We shared a third kiss. Mia made a request, and I accepted. We became one, melding together repeatedly, seamlessly.