“What the hell!? Walking around with this thing on my finger would be torture!”
“I hope that your wish... May be granted...”
“You stupid, false god... Hold on a second!”
“Even I was pure in the beginning... Ages of evil wishes changed what I am.”
Those were the last words of the statue before it crumbled. Turning into sand, it spilled off of its pedestal. The Demon Lord couldn’t do anything but watch. He sighed.
“What am I supposed to do with this ring?”
Looking at the ring on his right middle finger, the Demon Lord sulked. It seemed impossible to take off, no matter how much his powers grew, and no matter what tricks he tried. Everything about it seemed like a cursed item, right down to its design.
“Administrator... Analyze Item.”
The analysis would make the Demon Lord sulk even further. If it was an item with a curse on it, he was planning to take it off with a curse-breaker.
“How is this treated like a normal item...? And it took SP to analyze, too...”
The woes of the Demon Lord continued. This was turning into the Shrine of Sighs.
Once he exited the cave, Aku asked ‘How was it?’ with a smile on their face, but the Demon Lord remained stern-faced.
“Did you wish to conquer the world? Ooh, or maybe for a paradise of women and liquor?”
Hearing this, the Demon Lord wrapped his arm around Aku’s neck in a headlock. Then, he started throwing some light punches at the child’s head, mimicking a certain character from a certain fighting game.
“Yoga! Yoga!”
“Ow! Ow! Please stop, Master Demon Lord!”
† † †
(What to do... Maybe I should find a town or something and gather more information?)
Flipping his long hair back, the Demon Lord contemplated. There was just too much that he didn’t know and didn’t understand. Unless he remedied his lack of knowledge about this world, the Demon Lord feared, he might fall into some pitfalls that would be otherwise avoidable. It was time to leave the remote forest.
(Especially since I couldn’t find anything off of those bodies...)
Just remembering that bit made him queasy. The game was filled with bodies, but naturally, seeing them for real was a completely different experience. The Demon Lord figured that, if that King of Devils was the culprit, it was for the best that he eliminated the creature. If left alive, that monster might have left mountains of corpses in his wake just by existing.
“Aku, are there any big cities around here?”
“Yes... But could we stop by my village first? It’s not much, but I do have some things there.”
“Hm? You want to come with me?”
“C-Could I...? Um, since I was made a sacrifice, I can’t really... go back and live there... Um...”
The Demon Lord nearly banged his head at Aku’s plea, but it didn’t seem like such a bad idea on second thought. He knew nothing about this world, after all. Having a resident of it by his side could come in handy. Besides, from what he could discern so far, sending Aku back home would only cause the child harm. Traveling together would be a win-win.
“Sure. Let’s stop by your village first. Is it close?”
“Oh, thank you! You would get there in no time, Master Demon Lord!”
Once again, the Demon Lord carried the child on his back.
The Demon Lord was mumbling things like ‘What am I, a kangaroo?’ but Aku wore a smile, and seemed rather happy.
(While we’re at it, I should get some questions out of the way...)
Along the way, the Demon Lord tried asking all sorts of questions. They both spoke Japanese, and he confirmed that Aku could read the Japanese text, numbers, and alphabet letters on his notebook. He couldn’t tell if there was some sort of translation filter, or if the inhabitants of this world spoke Japanese to begin with.
“Well, if we can communicate, that’s fine with me. I’m too old to start learning a second language. Let alone a language of another world.”
“...? Your writing was so neat, sir, it was easy to read.”
True, the writing in the notebook was meticulous. In accordance with his backstory as a high-ranking government official, Kunai’s writing resembled that of a master calligrapher.
“But human sacrifice, huh...? That’s pretty medieval. Is that a common practice around these parts?”
“The King of Devils was resurrected a few years ago, and started wreaking havoc all around the area... They decided that each village would take turns offering a human sacrifice.”
“I don’t get it... You said these villages were part of a nation, right? Wouldn’t the national government do something about it? I bet they could have hunted it down.”
“We’re very far from the Holy City...”
In other words, these villages seemed to be in the countryside, far enough away where people in the big city didn’t care much about them. The Demon Lord recalled news stories from Japan that took place in remote islands or villages in the secluded countryside that were dying off from lack of offspring.
“Um, where did you... come from, Master Demon Lord?”
For a moment, he wasn’t sure how to answer this. ‘Japan’ surely wouldn’t suffice, and ‘the Empire’ would make even less sense. The Empire only existed in the world of a video game created by Akira Ono, and wasn’t real, after all.
“W-Well... Let’s just say I’ve come a long way.”
The Demon Lord deflected the question and quickened his step.
He was sure that no one would believe him if he told the truth. Best case scenario, they would call him a madman.
“Oh, Master Demon Lord. There’s my village. Over that fence.”
“That one, huh...?”
The Demon Lord was a little nervous of the fact that he was getting used to being addressed as such, but what he saw beyond the fence was even more nerve-wracking. Not quite a ghost town, but more of a decrepit village that would be well-suited as the setting for a horror story.