I continued to serve as a support for Yuuki after that—advising him from the rear, never appearing in the forefront. The Free Guild continued to grow and became an outfit used by nearly everyone. It embraced a philosophy of rescuing the weak, accessible to everyone equally.
Then Yuuki, my very own student, became the guild’s grand master, its highest position, the one who organized and oversaw the guild masters of each branch. Given everything he had done for them, I should have expected it. His efforts were the catalyst that allowed people to live at peace for a change. He had done everything he needed to. I felt the satisfaction of a job well done.
So I decided, then, to go on a journey. A journey to take care of some regrets.
I kept having dreams of the past, back when I was still a magic-born. It was getting hard to contain Ifrit’s will. Perhaps I was approaching the end of my natural life. I knew my Mask of Magic Resistance was still working as well as ever, so the reason seemed obvious.
Once I realized that, I concluded that I had best leave town as soon as possible. I couldn’t know when Ifrit would finally fall out of control, and I had no idea how my death would affect Ifrit himself.
Plus, I wanted to retaliate against my demon lord. Just once, I wanted to have my say with him.
So I decided to set off on my journey.
When I told Yuuki about my plans, he silently nodded, saying nothing about them. Hopefully he was willing to forgive this one final act of selfishness. Maybe, I thought to myself, this is how the hero felt, too.
✦ ✦ ✦
I made my way to Blumund. Heinz was retired by now, since his son Fuze had taken over the guild master’s role in his place. We got to meet up and chat a little about old times. He had a lot to say, which I was glad for.
Remarkably, he reported that Veldora had disappeared. The guild was conducting a frantic investigation to find the cause. “I don’t know too many details,” Heinz told me with a snicker. “They don’t tell an old pensioner like me too much. I can tell it’s troubling my son, though.”
He must have trusted Fuze well to speak of him like that, I thought. I had gone on several monster-hunting operations together with the boy, and I remembered him doing a fine job supporting me. Now he was out of the front lines and following in his father’s managerial footsteps. He must have inherited all of Heinz’s natural talent.
“Thank you,” I said. “You’ve been very kind to me.”
I shouldn’t get in their way. After my polite response, I stood up.
Was Veldora’s disappearance meant to be some divine message to us? Either way, I was headed for the forest.
“You stay safe, too, Shizu! I think there’s an expedition leaving here tomorrow, actually,” he muttered, almost to himself. “If you’re hitting the forest, you might as well join them for a while.”
He didn’t try to stop me. He was always an awkward fellow, and this was how he preferred to show kindness.
“Ah, Heinz, I should have expected nothing less. I suppose I’ll owe you to the very end, then.”
“You owe me nothing, Shizu. And no talking about the ‘very end’ yet! I’d like another look at you sometime.”
I could feel the warmth behind his words. “True. I’ll be back.”
I bowed low and left.
✦ ✦ ✦
The next day, I managed to run into the expedition Heinz mentioned to me. It consisted of three adventurers, and as he’d told me, they were a bright, inviting group. I genuinely appreciated joining such kind people for my last journey, though their excessive carelessness did baffle me.
There was, to say the least, a lot of trouble along our way through the Forest of Jura. I was impressed, in a way, that they had attained a ranking of B at all. They had the battle technique such a rank implied, but if I had to sum up everything about their team in a word, it would be “nonsensical.”
Our journey continued on nonetheless, right up until they jammed a sword into a giant ant nest. I was horrified. This happened not a moment after I told them it was a bad idea, too. Never in my life did I imagine they would try something like that.
My flames could’ve torched those giant ants instantly, I imagine. But by the time I realized how hard it was to control my power, I had already started to feel my body deteriorate. It remained physically young thanks to Ifrit’s presence, but as my power over him dwindled, it rapidly began aging. Or, I suppose I should say it went back to the age it should always have been.
Would Ifrit be released once my body gave in? Or would he crumble and fall apart with me? I would have no idea what would happen until it did. That was why I had set off.
And why I hesitated to pull out my fire.
We were lucky enough to be rescued by a passing patrol, saving us from any further trouble. But this patrol was one of the fishiest things I had ever seen.
Being saved by monsters? Nothing like that had ever happened to me before.
These were hobgoblins riding upon magical wolves. It would have been one thing if they understood a few broken words of human speech, but these were intelligent creatures, and they had tamed what was clearly a high-level monster species. This was absolutely the kind of “suspicious event” this adventuring trio had been sent out to investigate, I thought.
My destination, meanwhile, was the castle of the demon lord Leon. His domain occupied the lands just beyond the forest. I should have chosen that moment to take my leave of their party. But…I don’t know. I suppose I just wanted to see, along with these adventurers, what kind of home these monsters had made for themselves.
✦ ✦ ✦
It was a strange place indeed, this town our rescuers lived in. It was no dank lair or stinking, filthy den. A “town” was the only way to describe it.
The shock I felt was beyond comprehension. This wasn’t some rude shelter, some glorified hole in a mountain. It was a proper town, one they had built for themselves from scratch.
It was under construction, I should probably add. It had been surveyed and laid out, and building materials had been placed in each section, ready to be converted into houses. There were no buildings yet; the monsters were still living out of neat rows of tents. But they had even started their work by focusing on the underground infrastructure. I had never heard of anything like it on this planet.
It was a bizarre settlement.
But it was bursting with energy. The residents, despite being monsters, truly seemed to enjoy working on it. Most of them were hobgoblins, but they seemed to share their lands with the black direwolves. A tad different from the ones I was familiar with, and I didn’t think it was my imagination.
The leader of the hobgoblins spoke very fluently to me. I imagine he was the most intelligent among them. He even prepared food for us. Remarkably, though, he turned out not to be the leader at all. Instead, he was joined by a slime—one who lay back in his lofty throne, acting as if he were king of the world. It might be odd to say a slime could “lie back” on anything, perhaps, but that really was the sense he exuded.
This slime was the strangest thing of all—for he, in fact, was the leader of all these monsters.