“You’re not even listening, are you? With a stupid smirk on your face...” Manami pointed.
“I’m listening, I promise. Every single word...” Tahara finally laced his hands behind his head and lay down, closing his eyes—he couldn’t hold back the tears anymore.
Manami gave him a sour glare, which was a crucial part of the tableau that had taken these two far too long to recreate.
Meanwhile, in the forest where it all began, the Demon Lord was standing beside a pond, having somehow unsaddled Ren from himself. A good portion of the woods had been wrecked by Maria’s spell, but the pond had remained unscathed.
“It feels like ages ago,” the Demon Lord said.
“This is the place you’ve mentioned before,” Ren said.
“I-Indeed...” The Demon Lord’s left hand and Ren’s right hand were bound by a scarf—a precaution to prevent the Demon Lord from escaping via Quick Travel. “Ren, I’ll need to move quickly if something were to happen. Did you have to tie it so—”
“That person vanished, changing into a being on another level,” Ren cut in.
“Mm-hmm...”
“I request a detailed explanation, Master.”
Staring at the crystal clear pond, the Demon Lord scratched his head—he wasn’t sure how to explain. In short, Maria was the final boss of an MMO he’d once created...but he was struggling to phrase that in a way that would convey that information to Ren.
On the other hand, Ren finally saw the dark cloud lift from Akira Ono, making him shine almost unbearably bright. Just standing close to him made her heart slam against her chest.
“They held the same position as Kunai in another world,” the Demon Lord finally said.
“I see...”
Kunai and Maria were very similar characters in many ways. They were both cruel and unbelievably powerful; they were each masters of a castle fortress staffed with trusty advisors. Maria was truly Kunai’s predecessor—his prototype. When it came to the City of Chaos title, Akira Ono’s youth and recklessness had created a world of absolute mayhem.
“Well, I’ll settle the score with Maria,” the Demon Lord said.
“It will be too dangerous on your own.”
“It’s fine. In a way, it’s my punishment.” The Demon Lord felt a faint prick in his heart.
What sort of twisted tale of comeuppance was this, that the world he had long discarded—against the pleas of countless users—now posed a threat to him?
“You’re not thinking about the ones you’re cutting out.” Those words the Demon Lord once read flashed back in his mind.
“That’s a little dramatic, isn’t it?” he’d replied with a chuckle. Ironically, the Demon Lord was in quite the dramatic incident. “If I made a better world...” the Demon Lord said to himself, helpless to do anything else. “I thought everyone would be all smiles... That even the ones who’d been sad or mad about it would come crawling back. I thought it was that simple.”
Ren couldn’t comprehend his monologue—their concepts of reality were incongruent, and the Demon Lord certainly had no intention of explaining that these worlds were online video games on modern-day Earth. Even if he did, it would only make this more confusing.
This isn’t the Matrix, the Demon Lord thought. Who’s going to accept that the world of the Empire was all virtual—a game made up of 1s and 0s? To prove that, he’d have to return to modern-day Japan somehow and show them by playing the game. The Demon Lord had no clue how to return to Japan, and even if he could, the game was gone.
“And they...didn’t?” Ren asked.
The Demon Lord’s mind was brought back. Returning to Japan? The whole idea seemed like an outrageous fantasy. “Things did turn out like I’d planned. The population—no, the number of players—exploded. Eventually, that circle grew and enraptured the entire world.”
With the knowledge and experience he’d gained from the prototype, Akira Ono had created the world of the Empire. Naturally, it had become a more fun and advanced experience.
“But there was one...who never came back.” The Demon Lord’s face twisted in pain. That person had been terribly polite, eloquent, and knowledgeable. They had come to Akira’s aid countless times. Perhaps Akira Ono had even held strong fondness for that person. “I thought my new world would knock their socks off... I was going to tell them...”
“Tell them what, Master?”
“‘I told you so.’ I never got the chance, though.” The Demon Lord pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He blew out a puff of smoke, his usual profile looking forlorn, somehow.
“You have me, Master.”
“Mm...”
“Forever.”
“Forever. By your side. Always.” Aku had once told him something like that. In this world, where he never knew what tomorrow would bring, he’d never given a real answer. He smiled softly, realizing that he’d been with his advisors for fifteen years—a time long enough for him to call them his family.
“You’ve always—”
“Master?”
A bizarre, distorted message had played in the Demon Lord’s head: “Message for the Administrator.” He quickly brought up the admin screen and found a familiar string of words.
Let’s play, Demon Lord.
Do you remember square one?
Turning off the admin screen, the Demon Lord untied the scarf around their wrists and held Ren close, readying to Quick Travel. “Apparently, our enemy is growing bored...”
“Y-Yes, Master...” Ren’s cheeks blushed at her master’s embrace, more powerful than ever before. The Demon Lord, too, felt elated to sense his enemy within striking range. “I don’t sense him in you anymore, Master,” Ren said.
“Hmm...? I guess you wouldn’t.”
“I finally see you again, truly... My Akira.”
“Wh-Why...” the Demon Lord nearly tumbled as she used his real name out of the blue, but managed to put some force behind his voice. “We’re returning to the village, Ren. We’re going to run those facilities full steam.”
“Understood. From this day on, this place is mine,” Ren said.
Whoa, whoa, whoa... Why did that sound so ominous?! the Demon Lord thought.
After all that, the unbalanced power structure of Holylight had finally settled. Now that he had made a spectacle out of the Grand Angel’s summoning, no one in the country would dare defy the Demon Lord. And that was to say nothing of his remaining SP and the incoming hoard of Holy Coins—it wouldn’t be long until he’d have his entire roster of Advisors with him.
Once the dust settles, I’ll have to look into Tartarus, or whatever it’s called...
With so many factions and players making their moves, the continent was plunging into an era of great change, finally about to settle ancient scores.